SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 21, 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:

• Will The TVAnywhere Initiative Miss The Point?
  

  The cable industry’s “TV Anywhere” strategy is much in the news this month, as a response to the rapid adoption by consumers of sites and applications such as Hulu and Boxee. The cable industry is loath to make the mistake the record companies did, which was to misinterpret consumer downloading of music as a desire [...]

• Antonio Gulli Leaves Ask.com After 4 Years
  

  The next Ask.com personality to leave Ask.com is Antonio Gulli who was hired about four years ago to lead up the technology team in the European R&D center. Antonio announced he is leaving and explained what he worked while at Ask.com. He worked on: Image Search News and Blog search Video News Search DailyBeast Core Web Search Infrastructure RealTime Fresh [...]

• Search In Pictures: Bing Pong, Ask 3D Signatures & Yahoo Brands
  

  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. Bing Pong: Lost Ask 3D Team Signatures: Yahoo SUV: Yahoo Cap: Yahoo Gummy Bears:

• Microsoft Releases New MSN Toolbar, Now Powered By Bing
  

  The Bing team tweeted last night that a new MSN Toolbar is now available at toolbar.msn.com. The new toolbar is supposedly now powered by Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine. I am not exactly sure what all the new features are but as you can see, the MSN butterfly is now being placed inline [...]

• The Dark Side Of Usability: When Business Goals & User Goals Collide
  

  We’ve all experienced it at some point; the sneaking suspicion that those we’ve chosen to trust may not be entirely worthy. Take web sites, for example. We visit a web site, look around and like what it has to offer. We want to believe that the site—and the company behind it—has our best interests at heart. [...]

• Microsoft, Yahoo, & Amazon Will Fight Google Book Settlement
  

  There are several reports (see New York Times and Wall Street Journal) that Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon will join a coalition aimed at challenging the Google book settlement. Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, which is putting the coalition together, tells the Wall Street Journal that coalition members want the agreement revised, but aren’t necessarily [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Email a task list, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server now available, Official Google Enterprise Blog

Business Issues

• Facebook says no IPO in 2009, DailyFinance

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Afghanistan News Overview in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Yelp Launches Blackberry App with Bing Maps, Bing Maps Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• New Interface Thursdays: Your top questions from the webinar series, Inside AdWords
• AdSense launched in Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Latvian, Inside AdSense
• Microsoft adCenter Placement Reports, SageRock
• Should Google Place Advertiser’s Info In AdWords Mouse Over Effect, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• The Real Live Search – Bing API experiment, istartedsomething

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: August 21, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable
• Video: Ask.com to Improve Relations with SEOs, WebProNews

SEO & SEM

• Prevent a bot from getting “lost in space” (SEM 101), Bing
• Bing Search Results In Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• Can A/B Testing Cause An SEO Problem?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Buy SEO Services, SEO Book
• Keyword Research : Research Synonyms of Any Terms, Search Engine Journal
• Using Microformats to Improve Local SEO, Vertical Measures

Social Media

• Publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages, Facebook
• Social Media Marketing Basics: Facebook & Blog Promotion, Online Marketing Blog
• Twitter to roll out commercial accounts this year, VentureBeat

Video, Music & Image Search

• "Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens.", Official Google Mobile Blog