SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 23, 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:

• Microsoft: We Can Be ‘Riskier’ With Search
  

  Talk about finding a silver lining in dark search clouds: In two recent interviews, Microsoft has talked up its third-place position in search engine market share as something that gives the company more freedom than Google to take risks. It started last week with a Bloomberg report quoting Steve Ballmer: “Google does have to be all [...]

• Yahoo Brings Back Chief Marketing Officer Position
  

  Yahoo has named Elisa Steele as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer, effective today. Steele comes to Yahoo from NetApp, where she was the senior vice president of corporate marketing. Yahoo hasn’t had a CMO since 2007 when Cammie Dunaway left the company. Yahoo tells us that new CEO Carol Bartz recently decided to re-establish the [...]

• One Week Until SMX Search Analytics – Sign Up Today and Secure Your Spot
  

  Our next Search Engine Land conference – SMX Search Analytics – will be held next week in Toronto. Join us and you’ll learn actionable tips, best practices and pitfalls to avoid from accomplished search marketers who have implemented search analytics in their organizations. This is a “must-attend” conferenence for search marketers looking to quantify [...]

• Google StreetView ‘Naked Child’ Incident Reveals Anxiety About Technology
  

  There were a couple of stories over the weekend and today about the capture on Google StreetView of images of a naked toddler. Here’s the original UK newspaper report: The Independent on Sunday alerted the internet search giant after finding the image of the toddler, playing at a family summer picnic in a [...]

• Savvy Advertisers Get Vertical For Local Results
  

  In a struggling economy, there is even greater competition among businesses for the almighty dollar. It is the epitome of the expression “survival of the fittest” when you see which businesses will close shop and which will find ways to succeed. What ultimately separates the two is the ability to see the opportunity in an [...]

• Big Brand Media Wants A Google Bailout
  

  It seems like almost everyone in Big Business is looking for a bailout these days. That’s certainly true of several big brand media companies who, according to an AdAge article today, have told Google they deserve higher rankings in Google’s search results. Not only that, but one executive has also labeled the rest of the [...]

• For Your Sunday Bullshit Reading: Search Ads Are “Misdirection” Advertising
  

  TechCrunch has a guest article today about internet advertising that sounded interesting until I got to the part about search ads as “misdirection.” At that point, I realized the author apparently knows little about search advertising — and since that’s the bulk of online advertising sold, it put into serious question [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Voice to Allow Number Porting, lifehacker.com
• iGoogle Signing You Out?, Search Engine Roundtable
• AOL, Yahoo Will Add Life Streams to Their Popular Web Services, gigaom.com

Business Issues

• Google Ventures Almost Ready To Launch, But It Is A Bad Idea, TechCrunch
• Google Watches Its Language, MediaPost
• The Next Target For Google: Corporate IT Budgets, blogs.barrons.com
• Activision Hires Yahoo Veteran for Guitar Hero, Wall Street Journal
• The Grill: Google’s Alfred Spector on the hot seat, mobile.computerworld.com
• Former MSN Exec Named RNC New Media Director, TechCrunch
• From Google to Gone: EMI Boots Digital Boss Douglas Merrill, mediamemo.allthingsd.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• So Google Wants More SMB Content?, gesterling.wordpress.com
• Citysearch Reviews Itself and Upgrades, Marketing Pilgrim
• Expanding Street View in Australia, google-au.blogspot.com
• Ustream Launches Mobile Version of Watershed, Streaming Service For Enterprises, www.techcrunchit.com

Other Items

• Search is more than a text box, blogs.msdn.com
• MonitorHackdFiles Tool Helps Fight Site Hackers, www.webchicklet.com
• Supporting students in open source software development, Official Google Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• How to Get adCenter Ad Groups Out of Draft Status, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Advertisers, Publishers & Affiliates Scared Over Proposed California Tax Law, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google AdWords API Usage Reporting Glitch, Search Engine Roundtable
• Answers to your interest-based advertising questions, Inside AdSense

Searching

• Google Tests Enhanced Suggestions for IE8, Google Operating System
• US: Craigslist Top Search Term Last Week, weblogs.hitwise.com
• Health Search Engine HealthEngine announces launch date, www.altsearchengines.com
• Automated Categorization of Search Results, a New Era?, Hakia Blog

SEM Industry

• Online Ad Firm Linkstorm Raises $2.8 Million Fourth Round, paidContent.org
• Poll: Integrating SEO & Social Media Marketing, Online Marketing Blog
• SES New York 2009 – Search, Social, Blogs and Reputation, Online Marketing Blog

SEO & SEM

• YouTube – Are Google SERPs moving to Ajax?, www.youtube.com
• SEO Quality Indicators & The Heap Paradox, Search Engine Journal
• "Cheap" SEO tricks and how to use them, www.imediaconnection.com
• ‘Professional’ Content vs Content Actually Worth Reading, SEO Book
• Big Brands Are What’s Wrong With America, outspokenmedia.com
• Google Starts Ranking Twitter Search Results Pages, BlogStorm
• Googles Disappearing Blog Post Phenomenon, www.ppcblog.co.uk
• John Chow (and Googles Dilemma), www.shoemoney.com
• Telegraph ‘Cloaking’ and BBC Geo-Delivery: Ways the Web is Broken, distilled
• Why we still need the meta element for SEO, BigMouthMedia
• The Guide to Efficient Link Building, www.seo.com

Social Media

• Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don’t listen to their customers, www.25hoursaday.com
• The Potential for Facebook Search Kicks Twitter’s Butt, staynalive.com
• Twitter Turns Three, TechCrunch
• Check Out ExecTweets, blog.twitter.com
• Salesforce Integrates Twitter, blog.twitter.com
• The business model begins: Twitter to promote FM and Microsoft-backed ExecTweets, VentureBeat
• The Growing Opportunity for Online Travel Sites to Target Social Networks, blog.compete.com
• The Stumble Effect: StumbleUpon Hits the Big Leagues, www.brentcsutoras.com
• Twimailer Makes Twitter Email Alerts More Friendly, Useful, webworkerdaily.com
• Twitter Worm Could Take Over Your Computer (in Theory), Read/Write Web
• Users criticise Facebook update, news.bbc.co.uk

Video, Music & Image Search

• Search Google Images By Color, Google Blogoscoped
• Hulu Gains 10 Million Viewers In February, Now No. 4 Video Site In U.S., TechCrunch
• Rights Clash on YouTube, and Videos Vanish, New York Times

Web Analytics

• 7 Simple Steps for Decoding Website Analytics, Search Engine Journal

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

• The Weakest Button – An Open Letter to Matt Cutts, Google
• Usability and SEO – Let’s Make an Exceptional Web Site, Shall We?
• How the Internet Community Saved Alf
• PPC Cannibalization : Are you paying for free traffic ?
• ToysRUs Throws Away Ranking on $5.1M Toys.com
• Google’s Matt Cutts On Keywords In The URL
• Can't Get That Golden Link? Go After a Link Off the Golden Link
• Escaping from “Permanent” link building Trap
• The Unreal Scoop on TweepMe.com 
• SEO Quality Indicators & The Heap Paradox
• Getting Links AND Content From Flickr
• Stumpedia Launches New Advertising Model – Pay Per Chat
• Dumbass of the Week – Google
• An Interview with the Distilled SEO Team
• Twitter, the Most Important Website Since Google?
• Befriending PPC for SEO benefits
• Google News No Longer Requires Numbers In The URL
• Link Building: Mislead to Believe