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

From Search Engine Land:

• Deconstrucing Google’s Billboard Experiment
  Last week’s coverage of Google’s Goog-411 billboard in Olean brought forth a number of other sightings of the billboards in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, Ca. & Tonawanda , Buffalo and Limestone (even smaller than Olean) NY. While there may be others yet to appear and more billboards coming…
• Sphinn: Our Internet Marketing News Site & Discussion Forums Leave Beta
  It’s official. Sphinn (we pronounce it like "spin"), our social news and discussion site for internet marketing, is now out of beta. OK — so the logo still says beta at the moment, but that will change in a matter of hours. Since we launched back in July, we’ve been…
• Searcharazzi: Bubble About to Burst?
  As fall settles in, another chill is in the air. Rumor has it that a top tier search and interactive services shop is about to have a management shake-up. M&A in the space appears to have slowed down as shops that should have taken their first offer decided to…
• Google Buys Mobile-Social Site Zingku
  Google Operating System reports (and confirms) that Google has acquired a mobile service called Zingku, which had been in private beta. Around since 2005, the service uses text messaging and picture messaging to provide a platform for (what appears to be) entertainment and events-related communication but also has commercial potential….
• MarketingSherpa Report: Challenges To Bringing Search In-House
  MarketingSherpa has just released the fourth annual edition of its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. The Guide is a comprehensive benchmark for all things related to search marketing, including things such as expected search spending for 2008, how search ROI stacks up against other tactics, difficulty in SEM staffing, new ways…
• Senate Hearing On Google-DoubleClick & Post Office Metaphors
  After all the buildup to yesterday’s hearing in the US Senate on the Google-DoubleClick deal, the actual hearing itself sounded to be a bit anti-climatic. Below, a look at what was said and how it doesn’t seem like it will influence the ultimate decision by the US Federal Trade Commission…
• Coupons Coming To AskCity
  Ask has partnered with IAC sister company EPI, publisher of "The Entertainment Book," which offers coupons and discounts to local businesses. Entertainment, which has had several false starts with online distribution, is planning to pump 75 percent of its coupons into AskCity. They may also eventually make their way to…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Kosmix releases Google GFS workalike ‘KFS’ as open source, Skrentablog

Conferences

• Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Meetup Scheduled for October 15, Search Engine Roundtable
• SES Chicago Speaker Updates, Search Engine Strategies
• Facebook Conference Calendar: 3 More Coming Soon, Inside Facebook

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Middle Earth, ClickZ
• Has Google Street View Hit London?, Search Engine Journal
• Where’s the new Live Search Maps?, Windows Live Blog

Searching

• 10 Steps AOL Should Take to Reinvent the Open Directory Project (DMOZ), Search Engine Journal
• A Yahoo Approach to Avoid Crawling Advertisement and Session Tracking Links, SEO By The Sea
• Google Tests Search By Time, Week, Month, Search Engine Journal
• Shopzilla Realizes Its a Search Company, ComparisonEngines.com
• Whois Directory, a Tool for Brand Defenders, May Be Veiled, ClickZ
• Talking with Satya Nadella at Searchification, LiveSide

SEM Industry

• Google Punished My Site For Selling Links – NOT!, Jim Boykin
• Webmasterradio adds premium SEO podcast membership, Pandia

SEO & SEM

• Content Creation: About Journey, Not Destination?, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Clever Hippo: A Better Search Tool for Facebook Apps, Mashable

Video, Music & Image Search

• A Great Primer on Using Images to Drive Traffic, Search Engine Guide
• Making Podcasting Easier for the Listener to Access, Enjoy, and Utilize, ResourceShelf

Other Items

• Googopoly [Humor/Pic], SEO Refugee

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Everything I Know About Online Marketing, on One Page
• Stop Abusing Social Media to Boost Your Own Ego, You Jerk!
• Using StumbleUpon All Day Won’t Bring More Traffic
• All I Needed to Know About Social Media I Learned In Kindergarten
• Avoiding Clueless-Is As Clueless-Does SEO
• Linking Abuse Or Linking Awareness
• Marketing Isn’t Bullcrap
• Google Gods. I Need Your help…..
• 100 (Legal) Sources for Free Stock Images
• Google Doesn’t Penalize your Rankings if you Sell Links! – by Jim Boykin
• Should a Small Business Blog?
• How To Get to The Top of Sphinn on Your First Try
• Sphinn Wishlist
• Master Sphinnbaiter Lyndoman on Psycho-Social Persuasion
• Why You Better Learn the PR Side of Search Engines
• SEO QUIZ – Just the essentials
• Discovery Channel Selling Hidden links?

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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