SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 12, 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:

• Levinson Leaves Google’s Board Of Directors, Stays On Apple’s

  Arthur Levinson, a member of Google’s board of directors since 2004, has resigned from that position effectively immediately.
  Google’s announcement doesn’t give a reason for Levinson’s departure, but he’s also been on Apple’s board of directors since 2000. The growing competition between Google and Apple led Google CEO Eric Schmidt to leave Apple’s board this […]

• No More TeleAtlas, Google Goes It Alone For Maps Data?

  Mike Blumenthal offers a provocative post this morning about Google’s apparent decision to end its relationship (at least in the US) with mapping data provider TeleAtlas. Recall that Google previously had a relationship with NAVTEQ, which ended some time after the acquisition of that company by Nokia. TeleAtlas was substituted and there was even an […]

• Google Makes Search More Functional On Android

  While search is the “front door to the internet” on the PC, the same cannot be said of mobile devices. Apps, bookmarks and other ways to access content have become at least as useful as the Google search box on a mobile device. While Google will laugh at anyone who publicly tries to suggest (as […]

• Yahoo Allows Search Ads In BOSS Via 3rd Party Partner

  The Yahoo Search Blog announced that BOSS developers can now add Yahoo Search ads in their search results. This will give developers a way to help monetize the BOSS applications they have built.
  How do you get ads in your BOSS results? You have to apply for approval by one of Yahoo’s 3rd party […]

• Google Custom Maps: A Goldmine For Local Businesses

  This past week at SMX East, I presented a longer-tail marketing tactic for Google Maps — creation and uploading of place marks data into the customizable “My Maps” section. For companies and individuals who have some rich local data to share, or local place expertise, My Maps may be for you!

• Five More Search Tools You Should Know: Twitter Edition

  It’s time for another in our occasional series of search tool roundups, but this one is more focused than previous articles: Rather than look at a variety of random search tools, I’ll introduce you to a handful of Twitter search tools that may have flown under your radar until now. You’ll learn how to search […]

• The 6/90 Rule Part 2: Best Uses For The AdWords Keyword Report

  Each report in your AdWords report helps you to extract data from your account so that you can make meaningful decisions to optimize your campaigns. In part one of this 6/90 series, I looked at six reports which will help you make ninety percent of the decisions you need to make on a day-to-day basis […]

• Why SEO Training Should Be An Organizational Imperative

  Today I will make a case that nearly every organization should offer SEO training to anyone who even remotely touches the company’s web site, and why every senior manager should also be encouraged to attend. Failure to train people can lead to serious problems, with a frightful waste of time, blown schedules, wasted expenditure […]

• Citibank Survey: Small Business Finds Social Media Ineffective

  A Citibank/GFK Roper survey of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees has found very few small businesses in the U.S. have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses. The findings include:

  Three-quarters of the small business owners surveyed say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and […]

• How Will Twitter Integration Into Google, Bing Affect The Tweecosystem?

  AllThingsD reported yesterday that Twitter was in independent discussions (which have happened before) with both Google and Microsoft “in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.” Reuters also picked up the story.
  Bing and Google have both indicated […]

• New StumbleUpon Adds Search, Social Elements

  StumbleUpon wants to be a search engine. Kind of. It also wants to be more like Twitter and Facebook. Kind of. Better search and better social elements are the two cornerstones of StumbleUpon’s new web site, which was announced this week and will roll out to all during the next month.

  There’s no doubt the site […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Innovation: The psychology of Google Wave, New Scientist
• Shared folders and multiple file upload in Google Docs, Official Google Blog
• The End of the Email Era, Wall Street Journal

Business Issues

• Google’s search/analytics head departs, TheDeal.com
• No Yahoo! meeting in Iran, Yodel Anecdotal
• Any Data You Give to Google Can and Will Be Used Against You, gawker.com
• FCC questions Google Voice’s expensive call blocker, The Register
• Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content. So Why Doesn’t He Stop Them?, Newsweek
• Yahoo pays its ‘technical debt’ with IT overhaul, ZDNet
• Arthur Levinson quits Google board, Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
• Trading on Good News at Google, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo Loses Connected TV Leader Patrick Barry. Is Bartz Paying Attention?, TechCrunch
• Yahoo’s GM of Ad Tech Leaves; Joins Glam As SVP, paidContent.org

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Android’s search gets a lot richer than the iPhone’s, VentureBeat
• Google Maps Implements New Semantic Search with a Brooklyn Accent, Mike Blumenthal
• Making mobile search complete, easy and local, Official Google Blog
• Online Maps Crowdsourcing: Just How Good is Your Cell Signal?, ResourceShelf

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google Releases New AdSense Webinar Schedule, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• New in Google Squared: quality improvements, sorting and exporting, Official Google Blog
• Searchtastic Throws Its Hat Into The Twitter Search Engine Ring, TechCrunch
• 5 Ways to Add a Search Sidebar to Google SERPs, Search Engine Journal
• Google on Search: Size Doesn’t Matter That Much, Ad Age

SEM Industry

• Wikipedia Co-Founder Jimmy Wales Interviewed by Yale Daily News, ResourceShelf
• Columbus Day Theme by Bing, Not Google, Yahoo, Ask.com or AOL, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Whacking on Bing, Michael Gray
• SMX Highlights from the Maine SEO Blog, flyte blog
• Top 10 Awards for Search Engine Marketing Campaigns, Online Marketing Blog

SEO & SEM

• Another Year: Two Years in ODP, DMOZ Blog
• Webmaster Center blog Q&A, Bing Webmaster Blog
• 4 Visual Charts on the Value of SEO Tactics, SEOmoz
• Badly-Managed AdWords Accounts — Worse for You Than for Google, Traffick
• Bing Webmaster Tools Unexpected Errors, Search Engine Roundtable
• Building great SEO Teams [Organisational SEO], seogadget.co.uk
• How To Promote Good Content, outspokenmedia.com
• How to Turn Your Glossary into a Long-Tail Search-Marketing Machine, Site Visibility
• Keyword Research For Beginners With Aaron Wall, Hobo
• New resource for agencies – Google AgencyLand, AdWords Agency Blog
• Will Google’s Penalties Hurt or Help Google Remain Relevant?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Web Page Segmentation: Distinguishing Noise from Information, SEO By The Sea

Social Media

• Study: 54 Percent of Companies Ban Facebook, Twitter at Work, Wired
• Twitter: Nope, We’re Not Doing Video Tweets, mashable.com
• Accountants add ‘tweet,’ ‘tag’ to vocab, San Francisco Business Times
• Virgin America targets ‘creative class’ with social media, San Francisco Business Times
• You Big Fat Lazy Liar! Social Civility Online & Off, AIM Clear Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube Shows Video Info, Google Operating System
• Direct Uploads Server Migration, YouTube Blog
• Hulu Launches Linux Version of Hulu Desktop, Tools to Facilitate Video Embedding, InteractiveTV Today

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.