Good morning! Welcome to day two of our SMX East Conference in New York City. We’re beginning today with a keynote conversation with Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, a book in which Pariser argues that search personalization leads to users being unaware of viewpoints and opinions that are different than their own. We […]
Google is buying the venerable Zagat survey, which is the original local reviews provider and has been in business for more than 30 years. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Rumor had it that Zagat has been “on the block” for some time, as the company increasingly struggles to compete in a world that has […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: This Week On Google+: Suggested Users, API Delays & Measuring Google+ Influence! Over two months in, Google+ has continued to make many changes to the fledgling social site. Here is what’s […]
Further consolidating the products (or at least their names) in the local and mobile space, Google has re-named Boost as AdWords Express, also stepping up marketing efforts and consolidating sign-up for Express and Google Places. “We’ve seen great success with the product, but we want to change the product name to better emphasize the ties […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Tests Ads Within Organic Search Results? The RKGBlog blog posted a screen shot of Bing testing search ads directly in the organic results. Honestly, I almost cannot believe it – […]
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
I suspect someone is going to successfully build Google’s “contextual discovery engine” before Google does. The newest company to make a run at what Marissa Mayer was talking about is Clever Sense with its new app “Alfred” (formerly called Seymour). Intended to be a demonstration of Clever Sense’s underlying data extraction and machine learning technologies, […]
The irony of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg being the most followed person on Google+ is over. He’s disappeared from the top rankings, along with Google CEO Larry Page who was the second most followed and other Google execs. It’s down to a glitch, Google says. Google+ allows you to show the number of people you […]
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 Realtime Search & The Aftermath Of The Google-Twitter Split Last Friday, Twitter quietly shutdown its “firehose” of tweet data that was being piped to Google. Like a gas station no […]
Google is planning to rename two of its popular services soon: Blogger will become Google Blogs and Picasa will become Google Photos. That’s according to Mashable, which says the changes are due in the next six weeks. Google’s YouTube property will not be included in the company’s rebranding efforts, but other products beyond Picasa and […]
Today, Google has launched the first of many design changes that will impact all of their products, including search. Their blog post says the updates will roll over over the next few months, but that they have a philosophy of “constant revision and improvement”, and notes three primary principles driving the change: Focus They say they’re […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Is It Time For A New Compensation Model For Search And Digital Marketers? Pay for performance is certainly not a new concept. But a number of digital marketing industry pundits have […]
A fascinating study published last year compares the reviews and reviewers at three local business websites: Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo Local. And, in explaining how Yelp overtook the other two, it also hints — in my opinion — at how Google is trying to beat Yelp by using Yelp’s own playbook. Citysearch and Yahoo Local […]
As a long-time Android user I can tell you two specific areas where Android beats the iPhone’s otherwise superior user experience hands down: speech and navigation. All text fields on Android devices are speech-enabled, including email, SMS and the search box on any site. The iPhone offers “voice control commands” that allow users to initiate […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New: Google Showing Recent Stories From News Sites With News Snippet Search for [news] or [new york times] or [fox news] or other queries that would bring up a popular news […]
Today at the Social-Loco conference in San Francisco Google’s Doyenne of Local Marissa Mayer formally announced Google Business Photos. This is not a new product but the formalization of an offering that has been available in a more limited way since last year. Google is inviting local businesses in a few cities in the US, […]
You won’t hear us (or Google) talking about Google Hotpot anymore. The company has announced that the Hotpot name is a thing of the past, and the ratings and review experience is being formally added into Google Places. While you can still access Hotpot right now at www.google.com/hotpot, that URL will eventually redirect to Google […]
As we and others reported yesterday, Google CEO Larry Page is shuffling the deck with his executive team, with a reassertion of engineering across the board it appears. Here’s the Google roster of top executives as it still reads on the site: Larry Page, CEO Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman Sergey Brin, Co-Founder Nikesh Arora, Senior […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing’s Streetside Already Facing Objections In Germany Well, that didn’t take long. Just days after announcing plans to operate its Streetside map/photo service in Germany, Microsoft is already dealing with its […]
Business Insider is reporting, based on unnamed sources, that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is on track to be nominated for the post of Commerce Secretary by President Obama: Mr. Schmidt picked up an important vote of confidence earlier this week when former Reagan Administration Commerce Department counsel Clyde Prestowitz essentially endorsed Schmidt for the job. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Twitter Says Activity Levels Are Soaring With the five-year anniversary of the first tweet approaching, Twitter says user activity is soaring. In a blog post that details tweet and account activity, […]
Google Maps. Google Places. Google Earth. Google Hotpot. Google Latitude. Google Street View. Different mobile and desktop versions of some of those. Different Android and iPhone versions of some. The list could go on. If you think Google has too many locally-oriented products, you’re not alone. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search who recently began […]
Google recently introduced check-ins for Google Latitude in an effort to reinvigorate the product, which had fallen behind other newer LBS competitors such as Foursquare. Today Google announced that those check-ins will bring offers from local businesses in Austin, Texas (for SXSW). I’m not going to SXSW, but it will be the battle of the […]
New research designed to analyze Google’s personalized search results and make the process the search engine uses more transparent has generated interesting and controversial findings. The study examined a number of commonly held notions about personalization, including the idea that personalization is subtle, that it can often surface more long-tail results, and that personalization is […]
Google is featuring their Valentine’s Day logo, designed by Robert Indiana. Robert Indiana designed the 8 cent love stamp back in 1973. Google decided to use that design towards the 2011 version of their Google Doodle for Valentine’s Day. The logo is not a typical standard “doodle”-like version of their logo. Typically, the letters of […]
Google has acquired fflick, according to TechCrunch. The price is reportedly $10 million. Is it a talent acquisition, a tool acquisition or both? It’s both. Using Twitter, the fflick service analyzes and organizes comments about movies: overall, most recent, positive, what your friends have said and so on. This is a very interesting service and […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Hot At Sphinn: Google Favoritism In Search Results, Eric Schmidt Steps Down & More The idea that Google might be favoring its own properties and content in search results was a […]
Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing […]
For the past year or so, there’s been a rising meme that Google is altering its search results in ways to favor itself over competitors. Now a new study is out showing the opposite. Google is far more likely not to show its own products in the first spot of its search results. The survey […]
Last week I wrote briefly about Google’s John Hanke’s move into a new role, based on a Forbes interview with him. Yesterday I got to speak directly with Hanke about his “new gig,” as they say. The former CEO of Keyhole came to lead the “geo team” (Maps, Earth) at Google after Keyhole was acquired […]
Last year at a conference in London I was told by someone that Google Maps’ John Hanke was changing roles and that Marissa Mayer had taken over Local. The latter was obviously proven out by very public announcements. An article in Forbes now confirms Hanke’s role as the head of a new Google “entrepreneurial lab” […]
MediaBistro interviewed Marissa Mayer about her new role at Google and several related issues. Mayer says she’s “no longer working on search.” She’s now got responsibility for a collection of things associated with Google Maps and local products and some of the company’s mobile products. Mayer again mentions development of “contextual discovery” as one of […]
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 Vows To Look At Deceptive Cloaking Techniques Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted that Google will be looking more at Cloaking in the first quarter of 2011. Cloaking, as defined by Google, […]
Google’s Marissa Mayer is profiled in a Q&A interview in Newsweek. It’s both about her past and about women in technology — why there are so few of them in Silicon Valley engineering roles. Mayer says she never really encountered any obstacles as a female computer science/math student at Stanford. She also discusses Google’s early […]
Google Woos Local Advertisers from the Wall Street Journal reports Google has added about a hundred sales representatives to focus solely on selling Google Local ads. The products these sales representatives are selling are primarily Google Place Tags and Google Boost. Tags are a $25 per month label or tag appended to your maps listing […]
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 Adds New Filtering & Refinement Options To Keyword Tool The Google AdWords Blog announced a few new features recently added to the new keyword tool released in September 2009. The […]
TechCrunch has live blog coverage of the interview by Michael Arrington and Google’s Marissa Mayer at the LeWeb ’10 in Paris, France. Mayer talked about Google’s next big thing, she coined it “contextual discover.” Contextual discovery, Mayer explained, encompasses “local Search, Maps, Earth, Latitude, and all the local products.” By “taking a users location as […]
In case you hadn’t noticed Google is focusing more and more of its energy and resources on local. Let me count the ways: Marissa Mayer’s move to local, Google Place Search, Google Places upgrades, Google Maps for Mobile and Navigation, Google local product search, Google expandable map ads, Click2Call ads, Call Tracking, Google AdWords location […]
Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be speaking today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I’m here and will be live blogging his remarks, when the session begins. Schmidt is set to speak at 2:35pm Pacific, and he’ll be interviewed on stage by John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly. Live blogging to start shortly. There’s […]
In a six-page letter to House Oversight Committee leaders, a watchdog group has called on the government to do a “thorough investigation” of both Google’s WiFi data collection and the FTC’s recent decision to end its investigation without penalizing Google. In a blog post announcing the letter (PDF download), Ken Boehm, chairman of the National […]