SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 17, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• SMX West Keynotes Focus On "Future of Search"
  It’s probably no shock that the keynotes at Search Marketing Expo – SMX West in Santa Clara in February are going to be about the future of search marketing and technologies. SearchEngineLand’s own Danny Sullivan will kick off SMX West with "Search 3.0, Search 4.0 and Beyond." He’ll discuss the…
• Google Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items
  Google’s made a significant move toward trying to have a Facebook-like news feed and beef up its social networking aspirations by integrating Google Talk / Gmail contacts with Google Reader. I’d seen the discussion earlier, but after now experiencing it first-hand, it’s kind of scary that it isn’t more opt-in…
• Google’s Eric Schmidt Explains Google’s Culture In An Era Of "Instant Information"
  Eric Schmidt does a short interview of sorts in the New York Times in which he discusses how Google and its culture are responding to the age of "instant information" and relentless technological change. It’s a short and interesting piece….
• Google, "The Cloud" And The Future Of Computing
  In this corner, with a $214 billion market cap, is Google and "The Cloud" (and partners like IBM). In the other, weighing in at $327 billion, is Microsoft and the PC desktop. This is the theme of a Sunday New York Times piece about the high-stakes future of computing. The…
• Google Knol: Competitors Respond & Time To Limit The Aggregators?
  Last week, our Google Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages article covered the Wikipedia-like Google Knol product that Google is testing and may release in a few months. In that article, I noted how Knol was aimed squarely at services like Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Mahalo and Squidoo. Since…
• Google Unifying And Putting More Emphasis On "Profiles"
  Google Operating System discusses the integration of Google Profiles into most Google services and products and the unification of disparate profiles into a single master profile. Whether and how this might ultimately be integrated with Google’s newly reinvigorated social network, Orkut, is unclear. Although they are much less extensive, Profiles…
• Will Google Have Trouble Finding A New CFO?
  In August Google CFO George Reyes announced that he was retiring. Reyes joined Google in 2002 and was the executive who helped the company through its IPO and subsequent growth. Forbes now estimates his stock is worth more than $200 million. The same article in Forbes also speculates that Google…
• Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile
  Many local companies depend upon their information’s presence in various directories in order to advertise themselves, and the basic instrument of these marketing efforts is the Business Profile. The majority of businesses out there pay little attention to these beyond wanting their name, address and phone numbers to be…
• Nominate Us For The 2007 Search Blog Awards (Please!)
  Loren Baker and Search Engine Journal are once again holding nominations for the annual Search Blog Awards. The categories are below, and we’ll happily accept your nomination for any you find relevant. In particular, if you’d especially liked a particular blog post on Search Engine Land, we’d encourage you to…
• Introduction To Trusted Source Link Streams
  Whenever I begin a link building and content publicity project, I start with research. One of the areas I research is trusted sources. The type of trusted sources I am referring to are those people that have already shown an interest in the topic of the site I’m building…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Features that Just Work, Google Operating System
• What To Do When Your Gmail or Google Account is Hacked, Digital Inspiration
• Go Go Open Source Gadgets!, Official Google Gadgets API Blog
• Google Gadget Syndication Directory – Live for New Google Toolbar, SEOish
• New version of the Google Talk client disables voicemail and more, Googling Google
• Google revs up security play, InfoWorld
• Higley schools mull Google partnership, Arizona Republic
• Welcome to our new blog, Official Google Notebook Blog

Business Issues

• Google gonna find out who’s been naughty or nice, Blogboing
• Google’s Vint Cerf Interviewed, Google Blogoscoped

Conferences

• Pubcon 2007 Nuggets, Scott Hendison
• SES in the New Year; New York, London and Everywhere Else, SES Blog
• Search Insider Summit: Capitalizing on Universal Search, Marketing Pilgrim
• Search Insider Summit: Search Ad Intelligence from Microsoft, Marketing Pilgrim
• SIS Session: Microsoft New Keyword Services Platform, Online Marketing Blog

Link Building

• Here’s Why I Won’t Quit My Link Building Job, Search Engine Guide
• Paid Reviews Examples by Matt Cutts and Paid Links, Search Engine Journal
• Before I deal the FUD, "I’m going to ask you to put on your regular user hat", Andy Beard

Local, Maps & Mobile

• <code>ExtInfoWindow</code> 1.0: Ajax powered, CSS customization, Google Maps API Blog
• Maps from another world, Google Maps API Blog
• Big December Imagery Update for Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Yahoo Search Marketing – "We Know We Suck", ShoeMoney
• Google’s Latest Search: More CPG Advertisers, BrandWeek
• Interview of Frank Schilling, the World Famous Domain Investor, SEO Book
• Ruin Your PPC Campaigns With Analytics*, Search Marketing Gurus
• The Benefits of Using Benefit-Driven Ad Texts: What’s in Your Tackle Box?, PPC Hero
• AdSense Reports Not Sorting Properly, Search Engine Roundtable
• B2B Marketing, Road Rules for Content Advertising – Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Watch

Searching

• Fears mount over internet privacy, Times Online
• Ivy League school joins Google project, Daily Herald
• Yahoo Launches Dashboard For 2008 Elections, TechCrunch
• hakia Search Traffic Profile in 2007, Hakia Blog
• Google Is All About Large Amounts of Data, Google Operating System
• Yahoo Search Removes Numbers on Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• Sep Kamvar and Eric Enge Talk About Personalization, Stone Temple

SEM Industry

• SEO 101: Obligatory 100th Episode Outtakes and Bloopers, Cshel
• We Will Not Make Editorial Judgements, But We Desire to Rank Our Content #1, SEO Book
• Why Are Companies Giving Up On SEO and Forcing SEM?, SEM Geek
• A Career in SEO? Bad Move., www.allthingssem.com
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SEO & SEM

• Team DMOZ, DMOZ Blog
• 11 Steps to Successful SEO for Your Business, Search Engine Journal
• International Keyword Research Tool : SEO Book.com, SEO Book
• Google Webmaster Tools Content Analysis shows Google breaks the rules, Joost de Valk
• Matt video: ALT attributes for images, Matt Cutts
• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide: Part 4 Continued – Keyword Usage , SEOmoz
• Google December ‘07 PageRank Update?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Changing What You Want to Get Out of Social Media, Search Engine Guide
• Promote Your OpenSocial Meetup on our Calendar, OpenSocial API Blog
• Social Media Rules are Meant to be Broken, Marketing Pilgrim
• T-Mobile Mix-Up Was Technical, Twitter Blog
• On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data, New York Times
• Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger, Wired
• A Review of the New Digg Images and Universal Taxonomy Implementation, Techipedia

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Video Homepage Redesign, Googlified
• YouTube Visualization for Discovering Related Videos, Google Operating System
• Site Update 12/12, YouTube Blog
• Why Lane Hartwell Popped the ‘Here Comes Another Bubble’ Video, Wired

Web Analytics

• Jonathan Mendez’s Blog: Top 10 Multivariate , Jonathan Mendez’s Blog

Other Items

• Google vs eBay Netball Rematch, Googlified
• Andrew R H Girdwood: Yahoo rolls out animated logos for Christmas, blog.arhg.net

Last 20 Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Cornwallseo.com Makes Time Magazine
• Google Playing Dumb
• 3 Types of Social Media Marketers, Guess Who’s Winning
• RSS Analytics: How To Analyze Your Feed’s Growth
• Twittle-Twattle
• ’twas The Web Before Christmas
• How to Develop the Habit of Writing Posts in Advance
• How Does Google Work?
• The "Digg-Effect" VS The "CNN-Effect"
• Don’t Get Jacked by Social Media “Lessers”
• Building an Online Empire: 16 Types of Websites You Can Create for Profit
• Blog Metrics for wordpress by Joost de Valk
• 15 Amazing Women in Blogging
• Link Value Factors And Why Eric Ward Needs Help
• Google sees own shadow, jumps overboard
• 21 Questions to Ask When Buying a Web Business
• Diggers Not Shouting So Loud?
• Google Trends Works For SEO
• Facebook IS no more…
• Throwing Out the Social Media Rulebook