SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 22, 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:

• The Worst Way to Ask for a Link
  Let’s take a quick trip back to Link Building 101. Have a look at the below email that hit my inbox over the weekend. It may look friendly, unassuming, even polite. I bet you have one just like it. I receive several of these every day, and while they…
• Getting on Top of Techmeme
  Robert Scoble has posted about two interesting videos he did about reverse engineering Techmeme. The two videos are Part I and Part II, with the first being about 6 minutes long and the second being about 25 minutes long. Robert explains how he feels Techmeme works and how you can…
• Google Grouplets: Shared Groups of 20% Time
  The Google Way: Give Engineers Room from the New York Times gives us some more insight into how engineers work at Google. We all know about Google’s “20% time,” where Googlers are given 20% of their time to work on ideas that interest them. But there is also the concept…
• SMX Santiago & Buenos Aires This Week
  Just a brief reminder that Search Marketing Expo – SMX Buenos Aires and SMX Santiago are taking place this week. These are Spanish-language events and are among the first in Argentina and Chile to dive deep into the topic of search marketing. These events are being programmed by Tomy Lorsch…
• Microsoft Says Search Ads Will Shift Elsewhere
  Microsoft Ad Chief Says Market to Shift From Search from Bloomberg reports Microsoft’s Senior Vice President, Brian McAndrews, as saying that the search ad business will shift towards display ads in the next several years. He said: Search has been a significant driver of growth. In the next several years,…
• Yahoo’s Flickr to Add Online Photo Editing from Picnik
  Flickr To Add Online Photo Editing Tools Via Picnik from TechCrunch reports that Flickr, Yahoo’s popular photo sharing solution, has reached a deal with Picnik to allow users to easily edit their photos online. The new photo editing features are expected to be launched in the “next few months,” reports…
• The Politics of Book Search: Some Research Libraries Decline to Offer Books to Microsoft, Google
  An article in the New York Times today explores the “book search” initiatives at Google and Microsoft and the resistance of some research libraries to participating. The reason cited is that both search providers are asking for exclusivity: “Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set…
• Another ‘Google is Big Brother’ Story
  Here comes another story from The Guardian: “Google as friend or Big Brother.” It really doesn’t lead anywhere except to raise all the familiar questions and speculation: “Google acts as its own policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, and you have no right of appeal. The best you can do…
• How Sputnik Changed Local Search
  Fifty years ago the Soviets launched Sputnik, and local search was forever changed. In 1957, telephones had dials. Televisions had dials. The Edsel was introduced. And gasoline was 31 cents per gallon. Searching for information meant going to the library. Dressed in suits or skirts, people literally had to…
• Google’s Alumni Reveal Reasons for Departure
  At the Web 2.0 conference John Battelle interviewed several prominent former Google employees about their reasons for the leaving the company, the culture there, and its challenges as the company continues to grow. InformationWeek captures some of that discussion….
• Facebook Opens Application Pages to Indexing By Search Engines
  Last month Facebook made user profiles available to everyone — including anyone not logged in to Facebook and search engines. Today it announced it was opening up the application directory and application “about” pages. In terms of privacy, this means that if you comment on an application anyone can see…
• Flickr Wants To Show You The World Through Pictures
  At Web 2.0 Summit this week, Flickr previewed a feature that will provide a new way to browse photos based on geographic location. They are making over their map explorer and introducing new Places Pages that will make it easier to see what’s going on around the world through pictures….
• Google News Launches Facebook Application
  Google News has announced a Facebook application that allows users to specify custom topics to receive news about from within Facebook. When you add the application, you can choose from a predefined set up topics (that Google News calls “news sections”) or you can enter keywords. This seems to work…
• Larry Page & Sergey Brin Video Interview
  Each year, Google hosts a private conference for its “partners” called Zeitgeist. Very little from these events is ever made public, but this year, James Fallows’ closing interview with the Google co-founders made its way onto YouTube. Jim, best known as a columnist for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, asks a…
• Yahoo’s Chief Marketing Officer To Leave Yahoo
  Marketing Chief Leaving Yahoo from BoomTown reports that Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo’s Chief Marketing Officer, has decided to leave Yahoo in pursuit of new opportunities. Dunaway was appointed the Chief Marketing Officer on June 4, 2003. Her responsibilities over at Yahoo included global branding and marketing efforts, consumer insights, user experience…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Blog.gears: An offline Blogger client, Google Gears API Blog

Business Issues

• Yahoo finally confirms plan: It’s going big in Bellevue, The Seattle Times
• Google Execs Really Do Hate Evil, PC World
• Google’s Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues, New York Times
• EU extends Google/DoubleClick inquiry to November 13, Reuters
• Online Video: NBC pulls YouTube channel, Valleywag
• ‘Hoy’ Joins Google Print Program, Editor & Publisher

Conferences

• Closing Thoughts on SMX Social Media 2007, SEOmoz
• 8 Things Conference Officials Don’t Advertise, Social Media Explorer
• Search Marketing Expo Launches SMX West, Search Marketing Expo Blog
• Google at the Widget Summit, SEOish

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Updated Documentation & Examples for Mapplets, Google Maps API Blog

Link Building

• 3 Steps to Solid Linkbait, Search Engine Journal
• How To Buy Blog Reviews for SEO , Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Are Google AdWords Editors Asleep at the Wheel?, Marketing Pilgrim
• Google AdSense Channel Strategies, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Upload an Adwords Bulksheet, Shimon Sandler
• See How Easily You Can Improve Your PPC Performance, PPC Hero

Searching

• Ask.com on Flagging Famous People, SEO By The Sea
• Measuring User Engagement, with Examples from Yahoo, SEO By The Sea
• Powerset Testing Search Results At Mechanical Turk, TechCrunch
• Social Voting Meets SERPs – User Improved Search Results, The SEO Scoop
• Google’s Blog Search Returning Spammy Results, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• The "Echo Boomers" Generation in Search Marketing, SEM Geek
• Internet Marketing Podcast with Mike Moran , Online Marketing Blog
• Kim Krause Berg Podcast Transcript, Stone Temple

SEO & SEM

• Introducing Open Keyword, eKstreme.com
• SEO Audits – What Are the First Things You Review?, SEM Portland
• Ask.com October 2007 Update?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Todd Mintz’s Top 10 SEO Factors, SEM Portland
• Microsoft Search on the Seasonality of Keywords, SEO By The Sea

Social Media

• Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Twitter, Vanessa Fox
• Facebook: Who needs Google? Facebook’s stealth ad system, Valleywag
• Has The MySpace To Facebook Switch Begun?, TechCrunch
• Meet Your Neighbors, but Just Not in Person, New York Times

Video, Music & Image Search

• Video Archives: More than 13,000 Video Clips from The Daily Show Now Available Online, ResourceShelf

Web Analytics

• How Many Web Site Hits? Depends Who’s Counting, New York Times
• Is Google Analytics Updating More Frequently?, Search Engine Roundtable

Other Items

• Recap of Google’s International Cleanup Weekend, Google LatLong
• Empty Google News, Google Blogoscoped
• Meebo Has Ads, TechCrunch
• Google and Microsoft Domain Name Week in Review, ResourceShelf
• Ask.com’s "Can Your Search Engine Do This?" Commercial A Knock On Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Oops Earthlink DNS hijacks Live.com search traffic, Kevin Lee
• Yes, some blogs are profitable – very profitable, San Francisco Chronicle
• Inside Google Zeitgeist: Google’s Annual Partner Summit, Search Engine Watch
• NY Times, Book Scanning, and Lots of Resources, ResourceShelf
• Wikimedia Foundation kicks off 2007 fund-raiser, News.com

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Top 6 Tips When Opting For Blog Reviews
• Flocking Behavior and the Digg Effect in Social Media
• Are Your Secrets Safe with Google?
• 3 Steps to Solid Linkbait
• How To Buy Blog Reviews for SEO & Link Building
• From Living in Isolation We Come » aimClear Search Marketing Blog
• Tamar Gets BANNED from BlogRush
• Micro-Communities: Utilizing Social Media to Market to Qualified Audiences
• Blogrush is a scam
• 10,000 Submissions to Sphinn!
• How to get 400 fans on StumbleUpon
• Misconceptions About Writing Linkbait
• 8 Things Conference Officials Don’t Advertise
• Hilarious… Google AdWords Editors Asleep at the Wheel!
• Seven Writing Tips from Stephen King
• SEO is like buying a house whilst PPC is like renting, or is it?
• Four Reasons Why the Entertainment Niche is Great for Making Money
• Search Marketing Expo Launches SMX West
• Congratulations to New #1 Sphinner On Network List: Dosh Dosh!
• Stealth Launch: Official Google News Facebook Application
• 7 Things I Didn’t Get at SMX Social Media and 2 Important Things That I Did
• Using Your Head to Succeed in Marketing
• Link bait (cartoon)
• What Microsoft can teach you about linkbait
• Viral Marketing is NOT the Same as Word of Mouth
• Link Building and Link Baiting: A Newbie’s Guide to What’s What
• Everything You Needed to Know About Leveraging All Search Marketing Channels
• The Smartest Sphinn It! FeedFlare — Now with comments counter
• How To Update Your Internet Yellow Pages Listings For Free
• [PIC] Oakland Cafe Tries to Ban Yelp Users
• What I Loved About (and Learned From) SMX Social Media
• Google 3Q Profit Soars 46 Percent – Will $700 a Share Be Next?
• Top 4 ways to piss me off with your blog.
• Top 10 Reasons Why ‘Top 10′ Lists are so Popular