SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 7, 2008

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Jan. 7, 2008 at 4:10pm Eastern by Barry Schwartz

SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 7, 2008

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Don't Blame Google For Your Own Linking Failures
Here's a pair of tough questions to kick Link Week for 2008 off with a bang. In 2007, many long-practiced link building tactics stopped being effective. Many link building companies and consultants sold the exact tactics/services that are now useless. Why didn't you see this coming, and if you...
Glimpse The Future Of Search At SMX West
We've just finalized the third keynote panel for SMX West, and it's going to be a fascinating session. Gord Hotchkiss and I will be talking about the future of search with Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone, Brad Goldberg, Microsoft's General Manager, Search Business Group and Google's Director of Research Peter Norvig....
Search Wikia: Not Even A Remote Threat To Google
Search Wikia, the open source search engine from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales' Wikia, Inc. organization, launched today in an alpha version. Widely hyped, typically portrayed as a heroic David vs. Goliath struggle, it's really just yet another crappy search service that may, potentially, if all goes well, eventually turn into...
Thank You For Voting Us "Best Search Industry News Blog of 2007"
Search Engine Journal has announced the winner of the Best Search Industry News Blog of 2007, and we are so delighted to inform you that we have secured first place! Thank you all so much for voting for us. It has been a wild year, and as you can see...
Google, AOL, Yahoo & Digg Sued For Playing Online Solitaire
Digg And Others Sued For Infringing Infamous Computer Solitaire Patent from Techdirt reports Google, Yahoo, AOL and even Digg were all sued by Sheldon F. Goldberg for patent infringement of US Patent 6,264,560. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls Sheldon a wanted person who has crimes against the public domain for...
Watch The Techmeme Home Page In Fast-Forward
I am a huge fan of Techmeme, and I always thought it was interesting to watch the Techmeme home page change throughout the day. Amit at Digital Inspiration has actually captured 50 hours of the Techmeme home page and then posted a video of it playing those 50 hours in...
Yahoo Makes Bid To Become A Mobile Development Platform
Last night at CES, Yahoo made several related mobile announcements tied to its application Go and a new bid to become a mobile platform for third party publishers and developers. There are essentially three pieces to what Yahoo announced: Yahoo Go 3.0 (not yet live), an open mobile widget development...
David Hirsch Leaving Google & Omid Kordestani Sells 6,000 Shares Of Stock
NY Google Vet Hirsch Leaving For Startups from Silicon Alley Insider reports David Hirsch, the Director, B2B Vertical Markets Group at Google, is leaving at the end of this month to help invest and advice start ups. He told Silicon Alley Insider, he is planning on "helping incubate and accelerate...
Googler's Bet Goobles On Predictive Markets During Their Free Lunch
Google's Lunchtime Betting Game from the New York Times describes a game Google employees are encouraged to play during their lunch break. The game is betting fake money, Goobles, on predictive markets. A predictive markets is an exchange that predicts events based on the amount of money wagered on a...
What Does 2008 Have In Store For Local?
Many people I speak to still ask the familiar question, "Is this going to be the breakout year for local?" while expressing frustration or disappointment that "local hasn't yet lived up to expectations." But local is a marathon, not a sprint. It's also more complex than the general search...
Announcing The 2007 "Columbo" Humorous Blog Post Winners
The fix is in, the votes have been counted and the winners determined in the 2007 Rubber Chicken Award for Humor (aka the Columbo) in the search industry. And the winners are:...
Wikia Search Launches Alpha Version
Wikia Search has launched their Alpha version at http://alpha.search.wikia.com/ and boy is it an Alpha launch. Chris Sherman is writing up our long review of Wikia Search and it should be live shortly. Even Wikia said the "quality of the search results is low." There is not much I can...
Mahalo Adds More Social Features
Mahalo has just launched several new features that entwine the human-powered search engine even further into social networking and online community building. The Mahalo Follow toolbar now enables you to post links to Delicious, Ma.gnolia, and Mahalo Social, and Twitter with the click of one button. The sidebar now displays...
Google Docs Releases New Presentation Features
The Google Docs blog has announced new features for the Google Docs suite of tools. You can now create subfolders to more easily organize your documents and can rename documents and folders from the toolbar (previously, you could only do this from the File menu). The toolbar has also been...