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…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Dan and Dan from the Google Gadget Team Release Videos, SEOish
• Spamming with Google Docs, Andrew R H Girdwood
• China Yahoo Releases Global Channel, Pacific Epoch
• UK Google Gadget Directory Has New Look, SEOish

Business Issues

• Thing is, Yahoo!, you harvested and used my Visa number without my permission, ZDNet
• Google appoints former SK Tel exec China sales VP, Reuters
• Google considers data center in Lithuania: report, Reuters
• Google Draws Regulators’ Attention, New Yorker Says, Bloomberg
• hakia.com Raises Total Funding to $21 Million, Business Wire
• LinkedIn: Hands off our user data, News.com
• Topix Hires Former Yahoo! Vet for Biz Dev, Screenwerk

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Car Accidents Captured on Street View, Googlified
• Google Maps: Good News Bad News Announcement, Mike Blumenthal
• Local Search Pure Plays Hurting?, Traffick
• Magellan partners with Google for local listings on connected GPS device, Mercury News
• Google Map’s Business Location Bulk Upload Still Not Working, Mike Blumenthal
• Microsoft Takes Another Page From Apple With Windows Mobile 7, TechCrunch
• Yahoo! Co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang Outlines Vision To Become The Internet’s Indispensable Starting Point, newsobserver.com

Link Building

• How To Tell if a Link is NoFollowed, Search Engine Guide
• Google No Follow & Business Model, ShoeMoney
• Separating the Linkbait Wheat from the Chaff, SEOmoz
• How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound links, Old School SEO

Paid Search & Contextual

• 2008 Wishlist: Universal Adwords Editor for Yahoo Search and MSN AdCenter, SEM Geek
• 8 AdSense resolutions for 2008, Inside AdSense
• Where Are The Holes in Our Leaky Bucket?, PPC Hero
• Yahoo To Dominate Growing Graphic Ad Market in 2008, Search Engine Journal
• Yahoo’s Key To Kill AdSense, WebProNews
• Will We Ever See Google Personal Ads?, SEO By The Sea
• Google AdWords Tries "Show Product Results For" Again, Search Engine Roundtable
• Microsoft Refers German Advertisers to Yahoo Search Marketing, Search Engine Roundtable
• Skype’s Browser Extension Converting Phone Numbers in Google AdSense Ads, Search Engine Roundtable
• Increase ROI: Google Performance Placement Reports, Search Engine Watch
• Microsoft AdCenter’s Confusing Commercials, ShoeMoney
• PredictAd: Monetize Your Search Suggestion, Read/Write Web

Searching

• Technorati Makes Changes To Blog Rankings. Big Hit For No. 1 Engadget, TechCrunch
• Mobile browsing of Leaderboards, via Mowser, Techmeme
• 7 Things I Want Google To Fix In 2008, Performancing.com
• A Search Engine from Every Collection of Links, Google Operating System
• ABC News: Booking Online: Who Writes the Reviews?, abcnews.go.com
• Google tool could search out hospital superbugs, New Scientist

SEM Industry

• Looking back on 2007, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Eurekster’s Steven Marder Interviewed about Social Search, Stone Temple
• Michael Martinez of SEO-Theory: An Interview, msdanielle
• Search Blogs Award Voting : Quality vs. Quantity, Search Engine Journal
• The Best of the SEOmoz Blog 2004-2007, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• 5 Simple Ways To Get More Blog Traffic In 2008, ShoeMoney
• Competitor Analysis Discussion with WebProNews in Las Vegas, Stepforth
• Hardcore SEO Fundamentals: Markov Chaining Points and Term Vector Modeling, Search Engine Journal
• Modern SEO: It’s All About Knowing Matt Cutts, John Andrews
• Searching for Better On-Site Search Usability, Search Engine Guide
• SEO implications of moving to Wordpress, BlogStorm
• Growing the Webmaster Help Groups Team, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Is Organic Search Still Number One For Google?, Smart Keywords
• Testing Google’s Quick Ranking of New Content, All Things SEM

Social Media

• How to Make A Blog Post Go Viral with Social Media, Marketing Pilgrim
• 10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile, Read/Write Web
• Email and Blog Marketing on No Budget, Marketing Pilgrim
• Never mind what are Twitter costs, whats the cost of Twitter?, Roam4free
• Twitter: It’s Like You’re All Hanging Out In My Living Room, Vanessa Fox
• 15 Questions for an Early Facebook User, Read/Write Web
• A Quick Introduction to Twitter for Bloggers, Performancing.com
• Social Bookmarking Submission Tools, Online Marketing Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Photo Albums on orkut, Orkut Blog
• Accessing Hulu, Pandora And Other Sites From Outside Of the United States, TechCrunch
• YouTube Feeds, Google Operating System
• Matsushita’s Panasonic, Google To Work On Internet-Ready TVs, SmartMoney
• The Many Faces of Hulu, Read/Write Web
• Yahoo Is Clearly Up To Something Big Around Music, TechCrunch

Web Analytics

• No time like the present!, Google Analytics Blog
• Why We Need Many Metrics to Answer the Same Two Questions, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog

Other Items

• Baby steps to a new job, Official Google Blog
• Yahoo! Grabs PETA Award For Helping Employees Eat Healthy, PETA Media Center
• Google Ron Paul : Connecting with Searchers, Search Engine Journal
• Keenzo.com Rolls Out a ‘Pay For Product Reviews’ Program for their Customers, www.prweb.com

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

• Want Schwag? Win a Google Fridge!
• Small Business SEM : Best Local Search Blog of 2007
• The Difference Between Selling Something and Giving it Away
• Dosh Dosh : Best Social Media Optimization Blog of 2007
• Best Link Building Blogs of 2007 : Jim Boykin’s Blog & The Link Spiel
• Excessive Length URL’s Are Terrible for Search & Social Media
• New Social Bookmarking Tool: 60+ sites, missing nofollows, title and description randomizer
• Search Engine Roundtable is the Best SEO Blog of 2007
• The Internet Is Not A Toilet
• Search Engine Land : Best Search Industry News Blog of 2007
• Is Socializing Ruining Social News?
• The One Word That Help My Blog Grow To 800+ Subscribers in 17 Weeks
• Spam for the Search Engines and a Smile for Matt Cutts
• Google Docs Releases New Presentation Features
• 5 Reasons my StumbleUpon Profile Stands Out
• Essential Specialized PPC Blogs, The Serious Expert’s List
• Who is Your SEO Blog For?
• Industry Flashback: Overture Gets Greedy
• The SEO’s Guide to Effective Link Building
• How Smart are Reddit Users? See Experiment Results …
• Do Small Bloggers Have A Chance With Digg?
• Top 11 Ecommerce Un-Predictions for 2008
• Google’s Continuing Paid Links BLOOD War
• Performancing Awards 2007 Reader’s Choice Poll