SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 23, 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:

• Google & Dell’s
  Revenue-Generating URL Error Pages Drawing Fire
  Last year, Google signed a landmark deal to become the default search engine
  on new Dell computers, plus to bundle Google software. Now, people are noting
  anew that a consequence of the deal seems to be pushing Dell users to search
  results dominated by Google ads, rather than editorial…
• Direct
  Navigation And Domain Empires
  Business 2.0 has a fairly comprehensive (cover) story about domain portfolios
  and "direct navigation." It starts off with a profile of Vancouver
  entrepreneur Kevin Ham ("The Man Who Owns the Internet"), who operates a $300
  million domain "empire" but goes on to discuss others who have become wealthy
  from domain…
• Google’s
  Biotech Investment In Brin’s Wife’s Company, 23andMe
  Raising some eyebrows this morning is Google’s investment in a biotech firm
  called 23andMe, which states as its mission to: "help you make sense of your
  own genetic information . . . [and] put your genome into the larger context of
  human commonality and diversity." Anne Wojcicki, Google cofounder Sergey…
• TechCrunch:
  Google Is Buying FeedBurner
  $100 Million Payday For Feedburner – This Deal Is Confirmed from TechCrunch
  has Michael Arrington saying last week’s rumors of a Google purchase of
  FeedBurner are true: Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by
  Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly…
• Yahoo Closing
  Webjay
  Odd. Just a year and a half after buying music playlist sharing site Webjay,
  John Udell notes that Yahoo is closing the service. From the closure notice:
  We are sorry to announce that Webjay will be closing its doors at the end of
  June, 2007. Please take this time to…
• Google’s New
  AdSense For Video Pilot
  Today Google introduced a "closed beta" that allows for the in-stream
  insertion of ads in video content on its AdSense network. Here’s the Inside
  AdSense explanation: "[W]e’re extending AdSense to online video content.
  Publishers in this test will be able to define at what point in their videos
  that streaming…
• Technorati Blog
  Search Relaunches
  Technorati has relaunched today, and I’m on a short day, so I can’t dive in to
  play with it in depth. Below, I’ll recap what some others are saying. add a
  few off-the-cuff remarks on blog search in general, plus comment on how
  Technorati continues to be masterful in working…
• Q&A With Seth
  Godin, Founder & CEO Of Social Search Service Squidoo
  Seth Godin is widely known as one of the foremost advocates of "permission
  marketing," promotional campaigns that don’t rely on interrupting the
  attention of your customers, but rather engage them and even turn them into
  enthusiastic advocates that volunteer time and effort to help you promote your
  products or…
• Driving Online
  Registrations: Think Beyond the White Paper
  Successful B2B marketing efforts—particularly search advertising
  campaigns—often utilize landing pages designed to collect registrations.
  Website visitors must complete a (hopefully short and simple) registration
  form to receive something of value. Typically this registration data is then
  cultivated and, if warranted, entered in the company’s lead management and
  sales system….
• Search
  Illustrated: Blocking Search Engines With Robots.txt
  While most of the time we want search engine crawlers to grab and index as
  much content from our web sites as possible, there are situations where we
  want to prevent crawlers from accessing certain pages or parts of a web site.
  For example, you don’t want crawlers poking…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• 
  Getting it done with Google Apps, Google Blog

Business Issues

• 
  HotJobs Exec Departure from Yahoo Won’t Affect Newspaper Group, ClickZ
• 
  Microsoft’s Berkowitz: Consider aQuantive Deal a Merger, Search Engine
  Watch

• 
  Microsoft pours more cold water on Yahoo-merger speculation, All About
  Microsoft

• 
  What Should Ask.com Do?, Search Engine Watch
• Google
  is failing the Microsoft litmus test, All About Microsoft
• Google Can’t Google?,
  Jeff Barr
• 
  Google Urged to Share Code, PC World
• Newspapers want Google
  News’ quarter, News.com

• 
  IAB: Ad Spend up 35% in 2006, John Battelle

Local, Maps & Mobile

• 
  1-800-GOOG-411: Freedom With Speech, Google Lat Long Blog
• 
  Cingular BlackBerry 8800 has Google Maps and GPS, Google Blog
• Majority Would Purchase
  Google or Yahoo Mobile Phone, Cellular-News.com
• 
  GeoCommons, Share Your GeoData, O’Reilly Radar

Paid Search & Contextual

• 
  Google AdSense Preview Sandbox 1.0, Download Squad

Podcasts

• 
  The Marketing Pilgrim Podcast – Episode 7, Marketing Pilgrim
• 
  Universal Search, Microsoft Buys Chris, AdSense MFAs, Google Hot Trends, SEO,
  Link Bait, & More, Search Pulse
• AdSense
  Arbitrage Media Coverage, Shoemoney
• 
  Dell’s Google-Powered
  Bad URL Money Machine; Technorati Mark II & More!, Daily SearchCast

Searching

• 
  Google Base Learning, ComparisonEngines.com
• 
  Download US Patents in PDF, Google Operating System

SEO & SEM

• What
  Does Universal Search Mean for SEM?, Search Engine Watch
• 
  WebmasterCentral it’s just crap, Dave Naylor
• Digging
  Deeper Into the Latest Release of Google Analytics, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• 
  Google and FeedBurner – Strong Growth in the Blogosphere, Hitwise
• 
  Digg Bans Users Who Digg Too Often, Search Engine Journal
• 
  Report: Microsoft building apps to personally identify anyone online,
  Boing Boing
• WebJay
  closing in June

Video & Image Search

• Is the
  Google Video PlusBox Fair?, Google Blogoscoped
• MeeVee Adds
  Feeds from Several Major Networks, Mashable
• Pageflakes
  Users Create 100,000 Pagecasts, Mashable
• 
  Briefs: Image Recognition Software Used to Find Stolen/Looted Art and
  Valuables; Exalead Launches Video Search Beta, ResourceShelf

Other Items

• 
  Next Open Hack Day!, Bradley Horowitz