Let’s start with Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” count down to New Years. Remember when you hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google.com, it would show you how many minutes to 2010? Well, when 2010 hits, it then shows you a fireworks display. Here is a video I made of it.

Now for the logos, which is basically a repost of my listing from the Search Engine Roundtable:

Google:

Yahoo (Animated):

Bing:

AOL:

Ask.com:

DogPile:

Baidu:

Clicker:

Sogou:

Cre8asite Forums:

Search Engine Roundtable:

Happy New Years All!

AOL became an independent company earlier this month, as the “new” AOL. It is unfortunate that so many people are going to lose their jobs early next year. It is also very unfortunate AOL had to officially announce this a day before Christmas eve.

It’s not clear whether MapQuest could regain the lead; however, the company has introduced a number of features and upgrades recently in a bid to improve the look and functionality of the site:

• 360 View: street-level imagery
• Upgrades to the appearance of maps on the site
• Mobile maps improvements
• Expanded category based searching

Source: Hitwise

Now MapQuest is adding 700,000 more business listings, user ratings and other content from Citysearch:

Now you’ll find more than 700,000 new and informative business listings nationwide in popular search categories such as restaurants, hotels, shopping, spas, bars, clubs and more through our partnership with Citysearch. In addition to more listings, you’ll also find greater editorial content for each business including restaurant menus, coupons and special offers, business hours, and customer ratings and reviews, so you can search, research, and of course, get a map or directions to get there.

Part of this information has been there for some time, but this is a formal announcement of an expanded content relationship with Citysearch:

In addition, MapQuest Local remains an innovative and under-appreciated product. I fear AOL will do little to promote it, however, and that eventually it will be shuttered for lack of usage.

It was rumored that MapQuest might be for sale; however that appears to no longer be true. More recently I speculated that eventually MapQuest would outsource mapping to Bing, while retaining the MapQuest brand and traffic. However projects such as 360 argue against the notion that MapQuest will “sub-out” the back end to Microsoft.

Regardless MapQuest needs to reduce the number of “boxes” or search fields on the site to make it more competitive with Google.

Now, with former Googler Tim Armstrong at the helm, the company’s independent strategy is focused on “premium content,” local information, advertising and “communications” (IM, etc.). AOL will continue to manage the decline of its ISP business over time. The positioning of the company makes it quite analogous to Yahoo, which is fighting for the same types of consumer usage and display ad dollars.

The company’s new mission statement is “To inform, entertain, and connect the world.”

AOL now employs more than 2000 full or part-time writers creating content across scores of sites. The company has just hired high profile NY Times tech journalist Saul Hansell to run Seed.com, the company’s new content management (and acquisition) platform. He will also be managing all those writers indirectly as well.

The strategy has many risks. While AOL is one of the top 5 US consumer destinations and owns the largest online ad network in the world, very few of its brands or sites occupies a leadership position any longer. MapQuest was surpassed this year by Google and there are rumors it may even be sold. I’m not sure whether AIM still tops the US IM market, it may. But most of AOL’s marquee properties, save a few, are diminished from what they once were.

AOL doesn’t really have a social media asset (unless you’re talking about IM; Bebo is an also-ran). Its video sites are losing share. Its local assets are many and varied but in a way incoherent; and if the company sells MapQuest (or keeps it and neglects it) it won’t succeed there either. Its share of search is flat-to-declining and there’s very little being done in the mobile arena. It owns mobile ad network Third Screen, but there’s little going on in the way of innovation or competitive offerings on the consumer side.

Tim Armstrong and team have their work cut out for them.

Among other things, they have to decide how much to try and focus on rebuilding the AOL brand or focus on supporting and building individual, subsidiary brands. The latter approach had been the strategy given the “Internet with training wheels” association that had come to be attached to AOL. But it would be unwise to not try to update and reinvent the AOL brand itself, which the company seems to be trying to do.

Another decision that Tim A. & Co. will  need to make is who will support their search engine: Google or Microsoft?

Google invested $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL in 2005 to block Microsoft from buying the company or using the portal to boost search market share. AOL was then Google’s largest partner and the investment made a great deal of sense. Today, arguably, Google doesn’t need AOL as much, even though Bing is better and much  more competitive than Live Search was then. Google wrote down the value of the AOL investment by roughly 70% not long ago, reflecting the diminished value of the AOL property overall. Prior to the spin off, TimeWarner bought it back for $283 million.

Next year Google’s search deal with AOL expires. Microsoft will want to capture that relationship and traffic. Tim Armstrong will want to play both off against each other and start a bidding war of sorts. But I suspect both Microsoft and Google will be reluctant to engage in one. My hunch is that Microsoft, which is the “hungrier” of the two parties, may emerge the victor. But it remains to be seen.

The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever-changing images.  It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

Unlike Yahoo, which is also seeking to reinvigorate its brand with a multi-million dollar media campaign, “Aol.” will not be spending big dollars on a media campaign. (The “.” is part of the name, like the “!” at the end of Yahoo.)

According to CEO Tim Armstrong the company will promote its new identity on its own pages mostly. He told PaidContent that the campaign will be “very, very, very inexpensive because we’re focused on just improving the products and services. I would say the marketing budget is the budget we’re using on product development and the changes we’re making.”

This is wise. Aol needs to focus on its content and user experiences across its vast online territories rather than spending loads of money on TV and online display advertising. Just the same, one could argue that brands online matter now more than ever. Aol does need to stand in consumers’ minds for something. The company needs to answer the question “why Aol?” given how many sources of content, tools and information are out there.

A decade ago it was the dominant internet “portal” and destination of the day. But over time and through some neglect the brand became stale and associated with unsophisticated users: “training wheels for the internet.” The company later developed an ambivalent attitude toward “AOL,” pushing independent brands such as Platform A, Moviefone, PopEater, Engadget, MapQuest, GameDaily, TMZ, Truveo, MediaGlow (among others) to minimize or avoid the “newbie” stigma.

Is Aol like Proctor & Gamble or a magazine publisher, which has a portfolio of consumer brands or is it more like Apple, which has a single brand identity with a number of products in the market? Some version of this question must be answered.

Aol has decided the company is going to emphasize “content.” That necessarily involves a balance between cultivating individual brands as destinations online and, if the Aol brand isn’t going to be totally subordinated, some positioning of the parent brand in relation to those content brands.

And then there’s AOL search and where that fits into the strategy, but we’ll leave that for later.

If you visit Google.com today, you will see a special logo for Veterans Day. The logo is less complex when compared to last years, where Google had to fix their Veterans Day logo. Last year, Google placed hats on top of each letter on the Google logo, the hats included Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. But they forgot one, the U.S. Coast Guard, which they added later.

Google also has a logo on Google.co.uk for Remembrance Day:

Bing has a Veterans Day Theme:

Yahoo typically skips adding a special logo for today, which is what they have done today. But you can see more logos, from Ask.com, AOL and others at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Matt Cutts of Google had a holy costume. Google Blogoscoped noticed Google added trick or treat to their robots.txt file. Bing has a special visual search edition for today. Bruce Clay’s team dressed up and PPC Heros added some funk. Finally, the logos you see below is reposted from the Search Engine Roundtable.

Google has four Doodles:

Yahoo (Flash):

AOL (Flash):

YouTube:

Bing:

Ask.com:

Dogpile:

BruceClay’s design:

Search Engine Roundtable:

For the past logos, see 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004 logos.

AOL’s addition of Seth is the latest in a series of hirings from the search industry — and Google in particular — going back to March when Tim Armstrong left Google to become AOL’s Chairman and CEO. Armstrong was one of Google’s longest serving executives, and AOL credited him for helping to “build one of the most successful media teams in the history of the Internet” at Google.

More recently, Google VP Jeff Levick left to become AOL’s President of Global Advertising and Strategy. PaidContent points out that AOL has also hired ex-Googlers Caroline Campbell and Erin Clift. (It’s worth mentioning that AOL also recently hired former Yahoo SVP Brad Garlinghouse, as well.)

There’s more discussion on Techmeme.

According to the press release out this morning Garlinghouse will also be “heading up AOL’s Silicon Valley operations from its Mountain View campus and serving as the West Coast lead for AOL Ventures, the company`s venture capital arm headed globally by Jon Brod.”

AOL’s email, once dominant, is now number four after Gmail, Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo Mail (in order). Garlinghouse oversaw Yahoo mail during his six-year tenure in Sunnyvale and was reportedly instrumental in the acquisitions of Oddpost (part of Yahoo Mail) and Flickr. However, his new position in Silicon Valley and with AOL Ventures indicates that Garlinghouse, who will report directly to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, will have a more strategic role in the company.

Quoted in the NY Times, Garlinghouse says that AOL doesn’t have the kinds of problems that Yahoo did when he penned his Peanut Butter memo:

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Garlinghouse acknowledged that AOL also faced significant challenges, but suggested that it did not have the kinds of systemic problems that Yahoo was confronting in 2006.

“There is a clarity of vision and strategy,” he said.

AOL is often dismissed explicitly or implicitly by tech writers and bloggers as a company whose time has passed. However AOL remains the number four US Internet company with some category leading properties, such as MapQuest. It also is the top ad network according to comScore.

The question is how to reinvigorate the brand (depending on the property). That’s the chief problem with AOL Mail; it feels a little like driving an old car to many people: it works but it’s a little embarrassing. Indeed it’s not about functionality as much as the “@aol” address itself– and that may be a metaphor for the problem the company as a whole faces. Beyond this, there have also been lots of attempts to do new and interesting things with AOL IM over the past few years, to use it as a kind of platform but none of those have really taken hold.

As West Coast lead for AOL Ventures Garlinghouse may be tempted to grab hot new companies as a way to add sizzle and buzz to AOL. Yahoo suffered from that problem, as Garlinghouse pointed out in his “manifesto.” And AOL has made some problem acquisitions in the past. The poster child for ill-conceived acquisitions at AOL is Bebo, for which the company paid roughly $850 million. At the time AOL said “Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position in the fast growing world of social media with a network of approximately 80 million unique users.” That didn’t exactly come to pass.

If there is in fact a “clarity of vision and strategy” at AOL any new acquisitions will need to clearly support that vision to be effective. There are opportunities for AOL in a range of categories but the company will need creative thinking and execution if it’s to capitalize on them. And while AOL has definitely assembled a strong team, that team has major work cut out for it.

The original Google investment was $1 billion, which valued the TimeWarner AOL unit at $20 billion. The current valuation of AOL, based on the share buy back, would be roughly $5.6 billion.

Here’s what Google said, before it wrote down most of the value of its AOL investment last year, in its 10-Q filing (9/08) with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

We review our investment in AOL for impairment in accordance with FSP SFAS 115-1, The Meaning of Other-Than-Temporary Impairment and Its Application to Certain Investments (“FSP 115-1”). Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL is impaired. After consideration of the duration of the impairment, as well as the reasons for any decline in value and the potential recovery period, we do not believe that such impairment is “other-than-temporary” at September 30, 2008 as defined under FSP 115-1. As a result, our investment in this non-marketable equity security is carried at cost on our Consolidated Balance Sheets. We will continue to review this investment for impairment on a quarterly basis. There can be no assurance that impairment charges will not be required in the future, and any such amounts could be material to our Consolidated Statements of Income.

These developments are quite far removed from the day when AOL acquired TimeWarner in an all-stock deal valued at $160 billion — then the largest merger/acquisition in US history. The combined company was supposed to marry the strengths of both businesses. That really never materialized and TimeWarner (and investors) soured on AOL to the point that it became perceived as a liability and is now being effectively unloaded by the media giant.