SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 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:

• Live Search? Kumo? Bing? Put Your Questions To Microsoft’s Dr. Qi Lu At SMX Advanced
  

  Dr. Qi Lu, the leader of Microsoft’s search efforts, will be keynoting on day two of our upcoming SMX Advanced conference in Seattle. And both he and we want to hear what questions you have about Microsoft and search. Dr. Lu’s keynote will include a presentation — possibly to announce Microsoft’s new search engine — as [...]

• An Insider’s Look At SMX Advanced: Chris Elwell
  

  Many people don’t realize that Search Marketing Expo is just one part of Third Door Media, the company that’s also parent of Search Engine Land, Search Marketing Now and Sphinn. Chris Elwell, today’s featured SMX insider, is president of Third Door Media, and provides the business expertise and acumen to keep our different businesses thriving. Who [...]

• Ask.com Gets Desperate, Full Home Page Skin Ads
  

  If you visit Ask.com today, you will see what looks like a huge ad, in form of what is called (I believe) a skin ad, engulfing the home page. The ad, at least to me, shows a sign of desperation for Ask.com to raise ad dollars. While Google would rarely ever show an [...]

• Google CEO: We Considered Buying A Newspaper
  

  This had been reported before, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged that Google had looked at investing in or buying a newspaper in an interview in London with the Financial Times: FT: Would you ever consider buying a newspaper; they’re cheap right now? ES: We’ve actually looked at this and we’re trying to avoid crossing the line [...]

• Yahoo Adds Voice Search To iPhone App
  

  MobileCrunch noticed Yahoo has added voice search capabilities to their Yahoo One Search iPhone App. I spent a few minutes testing it out and I have to say, that is does an okay job. I didn’t conduct enough tests to really compare it against Google’s iPhone voice search feature. They are both [...]

• Google Image Search Testing Result Based Search Refinements
  

  Google Operating System reports Google Images is testing a new type of image search refinement technique, on a result by result basis. The example and screen capture provided in the blog post shows how Google is showing results for flowers. Under some of the flower images, Google is showing refinements for other searches [...]

• Optimize Your Videos For Prime Time
  

  Many savvy advertisers are making strides in attracting their target audience with online videos. They are utilizing popular video sites such as YouTube and Hulu to engage and connect with consumers. This is an extremely smart strategy since 78 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience views online videos, according to March’s comScore Video Metrix. The [...]

• 85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business
  

  A few months ago, I was quoted by Google’s Matt Cutts as saying that “website developers keep SEOs in business.” I honestly do believe that and have for a long time. While I don’t mean to say that ALL website designers/developers believe or do all of these things, you’ll likely encounter many who have done [...]

• All Aboard The Twitter Train, SMB’s!
  

  Twitter has reached critical mass. Oprah’s recent announcement that she’d joined Twitter, and her near-instantaneous recruitment of over 1,000,000 followers, has signaled a tipping point—tweeting is no longer a pastime exclusively for the technorati and uber-geeks. In fact, it seems like elitist spinsters are the only demographic not to embrace it yet at some level [...]

• Ads & Links & More Coming To Google Suggest
  

  Google has announced several changes that are coming soon to Google Suggest, the feature that suggests search queries as you type. The two most interesting to me are the inclusion of ads and direct links in the search suggestions. Let’s take a look, starting with the suggested links. Navigation Links If Google is confident about what you’re looking [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Book on Using the Google App Engine, Google Blogoscoped
• Gmail Magic Inbox, Google Operating System
• Updates and Yahoo! Groups, www.yprofileblog.com
• Yahoo! Music Gets Boost In Traffic, paidContent.org

Business Issues

• Google Opts to Reshuffle its Sales Structure, Wall Street Journal
• As Google opens Iowa facility, no search for optimism needed, www.desmoinesregister.com
• Google’s Beta Love May Die In Fight For Enterprise Customers, TechCrunch
• U.S Government Launches Data.gov Open Government Initiative, Cloud Computing Magazine

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Virtual Earth on the Edge (Caching Network), Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Why Location Awareness Will Make the Web More Useful, gigaom.com
• A Framework for Thinking About Local Search Campaigns, www.davidmihm.com
• Google Maps, Small Business & Society – who’s crazy?, Mike Blumenthal
• New iPhone could go on sale July 17, News.com
• Google’s Rubin: Android ‘a revolution’, News.com
• Man Uses Google Earth to Pick Suicide Location, Fox News
• Saving America $329,000, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog

Link Building

• Want Your Listing to be Approved in DMOZ? Use Real Titles, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Three questions from DoubleClick, AdWords Agency Blog
• Insight, now downloadable, AdWords Agency Blog
• pubCenter Publishers: Good news – Advertisers can now bid on your placements, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Website Exclusion and Site Performance Reporting Now Available for Content Ads (U.S. only), adCenter Blog for Advertisers

Searching

• I.B.M. Unveils Software to Find Trends in Vast Data Sets, New York Times

SEM Industry

• Funny SEM Thread: Google’s Fault I Got Scammed, Search Engine Roundtable
• Web Analytics World Turns 3, www.webanalyticsworld.net
• What Should Google do with the Black Hats?, SEOptimise

SEO & SEM

• 4 ways to make long-tail search deliver, www.imediaconnection.com
• How Do I Optimize for the Long Tail of Search?, www.yourseoplan.com
• How many search keywords can I target per page?, Search Engine Guide
• Opening a Can of Worms To Find Search Spam, Search Engine Roundtable
• Top 10 search engine optimization tips for online news start-ups, www.ojr.org

Social Media

• Socializr integrates Twitter as alternative to Facebook events, VentureBeat
• Getting the world buzzing, ycorpblog.com
• Twitter Surges Past Digg, LinkedIn, And NYTimes.com With 32 Million Global Visitors, TechCrunch
• Two More Small Businesses Making Twitter Work, Small Business SEM

Video, Music & Image Search

• 4chan, eBaum’s World carpet bombing YouTube with porn videos, Ars Technica
• Hulu set for September UK launch, Telegraph

Other Items

• Google Book-Scanning Pact to Give Libraries a Say in Price, New York Times

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

• 85 Reasons Why Website Designers/Developers Keep SEOs in Business
• Definitive Guide to Link Identify Nofollow & Juiceless Links
• Steal This Idea: Google Reader & Twitter Hashtags
• URL Rewrites and 301 Redirects – How does it all work?
• SEO Blogging Best Practices
• Tamar’s Baby Gift Drive
• How to Write PPC Ad Copy: Four Ad Templates that Cause Clicks and Conversions
• Why does Digg.com Hate SEO's?
• Giving Your WordPress Blog An Elegant Face
• SES London Video – What Should Google do with the Black Hats?
• Leveraging Social News – IM Spring Break (Video)
• 41 Ultimate Tips from SMX London 2009
• Google: The Internet's Organized Crime Family
• 5 Useful Uses for Wolfram Alpha