SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 3, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Yahoo Enhances Image Previews
  

  Yahoo announced they have enhanced their image previews. Virtually all search engines show you a preview of the image in a framed page set, when you click from the search results on a specific image. Yahoo has taken this one step forward by enhancing that preview page. The enhancements include a search box, additional [...]

• Microsoft Funds Opposition To Google Book Settlement
  

  Microsoft is contributing $50,000 to help challenge the Google Book Search lawsuit settlement that was announced last October. According to reports in MediaPost and Wired.com, the Microsoft money will help New York Law School with four projects — including a friend-of-the-court brief asking that the settlement be delayed until federal antitrust officials can give opinions [...]

• Search In Pictures: Google 3d Glasses, Yahoo Baseball & Broken Google Mugs
  

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Google Chrome 3D Glasses, Yahoo Gum Ball Machine, Googles for only $0.25?, Yahoo Korea Watching Baseball, Broken Google Mug, Yahoo’s Fantasy Baseball [...]

• “Heard” Mentality: Twitter In Acquisition Talks Or Not?
  

  TechCrunch reported late last night that Twitter was in late stage talks to be acquired by Google. That sent what used to be called the “blogosphere” into a frenzy. Kara Swisher, of AllThingsD, striking back against what she believes was sloppy journalism (and TechCrunch more generally), said no: In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been [...]

• Twitter Google AdSense Ad Units?
  

  AdvertisingAge reports that Google has teamed up with some advertisers to offer a stream of their “Tweets” onto Google’s content network. It appears that Google has designed special AdSense ad units that pull the five most recent Tweets from @turbotax and displays them on publisher sites. The purpose is to both promote the TurboTax product [...]

• The Wiring Of The Digital Native
  

  My daughters are different than I am. And not in just the obvious ways: like age and gender. They’re different in the way they use technology. The reason why lies in the way the brain is formed. In today’s Just Behave, I’d like to explore what might be happening to our children’s brains. Several months ago, [...]

• It Takes A UK Village To Thwart Google Street View
  

  Google’s Street View recently hit the UK streets, and an angry throng of Brits has hit back. It happened in the wealthy village of Broughton: Seeing the Street View car driving through town, residents formed a human chain to stop the car and hassled the driver until he turned around and left. The Times reports that [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Gmail turns 5, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Docs Fixes Unpublished Bug, Search Engine Roundtable

Business Issues

• Google CEO to keynote newspaper convention, Reuters
• Google Should Offer To Buy Twitter For $1 Billion (GOOG), Business Insider
• EU threatens new online privacy regulation, EurActiv.com
• Move Inc. CFO to depart, Inman News
• Second Circuit Says Google’s Keyword Ad Sales May Be Use in Commerce–Rescuecom v. Google, Eric Goldman

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Yelp Focuses On Mobile, New And Improved iPhone App Coming Soon, TechCrunch
• Tips & Tricks: Dude, where’s the store?, Google LatLong

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google Money Tree, Earn Google Cash, and Google Kits – Facebook Part Time Job Scams, The Electron Plumber
• Google AdWords API Suffering From 502 Server Errors, Search Engine Roundtable
• Your Broad Match Keywords Are Not Converting Higher than Your Exact Match Keywords, Brad Geddes
• The Anatomy of a Web Advertising Scam, The Big Money
• Yahoo We’re Innovating, Yahoo Publisher Network Blog

Searching

• Predicting the Present with Google Trends, Official Google Research Blog
• Thoughts on Some Recent New Search Features…, Ask.com Blog

SEM Industry

• Hot Searches on Twitter, AOL Search Blog
• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 3, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Is There a Keyword Phrase Specific Penalty?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Rank Your Business in Google – With or Without a Website, GetListed.org
• Those websites Google does not like, Econsultancy
• Yahoo Site Links: Quicklinks for Navigational Queries, SEO By The Sea
• Search marketing, especially optimization, is a buoy in the economic storm, InternetRetailer.com

Social Media

• Digg To Finally Fix Search – See The Screenshot, TechCrunch
• DiggBar Launches Today!, Digg the Blog
• How to Abuse the New DiggBar for Fun and Profit, Michael Gray
• Revenues this year, Twitter’s Biz Stone tells Stephen Colbert, The Guardian

Video, Music & Image Search

Web Analytics

• FeedBurner Subscriber Reports Bug: Major Drops In Counts, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Migrate your FeedBurner Feeds, FeedBlitz News

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• How to Abuse the New DiggBar for Fun and Profit
• Do we want what Google “Suggests”? -