SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 24, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Topic: Social networking service
IM Broadcast: “YouTube For Internet Marketers”
Our friends, Loren Baker, David Snyder & Jordan Kasteler have launched a new video site named IM Broadcast. IM Broadcast, as Loren describes it, is “YouTube for Internet Marketers.” In short, it is a video sharing site focused around the Internet Marketing industry. The focus is not just to upload videos on Internet marketing topics, […]
How Social Media Is Invading Traditional Media
Over the last few years we have seen a real explosion of social media sites and services, influencing the way we network, read, and search the web. With sites like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious, social media is here and it is here to stay. The success of social media really shouldn’t a mystery […]
Google Acquisitions Real & Rumored: Korean Blogging Platform, PC Games Producer Valve
Last week Google confirmed that it had made its first Korean acquisition, a popular blogging platform called TNC, which has approximately 400,000 users, including a majority of Korea’s top bloggers (per VentureBeat). The site’s founder and CEO Chang-Won Kim said that he thought Google bought the company to boost its “minor” market share in Korea, […]
Social Media Is Always Changing… But Do You Change With It?
Social media marketing is one of the fastest changing forms of marketing online. Every time a new site, service, or community is launched, there comes both new opportunity for marketing and the possibility that the site you just spent months participating in will become obsolete. Social media is not something you can do in […]
Lively New Virtual World From Google
In a way, it’s very un-Google. The new Lively 3D “virtual world” that launched today is perhaps another run at social networking after the mixed experience of Orkut (popular in Brazil and India, among a few other places). Apparently aimed at teens and even tweens cutting their virtual teeth on sites like Webkinz and Club […]
Search Biz: Yahoo Morale OK, Musical Chairs At Google, Microsoft, Marc Andreessen Joins Facebook Board, & Tech Giants Fight “Patent Trolls”
Lots of action for SearchBiz today; let’s start with Yahoo. Fortune reprints a purported Yahoo employee email that is very upbeat and flies in the face of the gloom and doom analysis going on in the blogs. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports on another executive loss at the company, while Carl “proxy fight” Icahn uses his blog […]
New Windows Live Mobile Search Ads Beta, Homepage That Emphasizes Social Networking
Microsoft this week has done a number of things in the mobile space, in addition to its introduction of the Live Search Cashback program on the desktop (which presumably will extend to mobile search/shopping). Windows Live launched a new homepage for mobile and the company introduced graphical ads and paid search for mobile.
Google Friend Connect Introduces Social Widgets For Site Owners
Contrary to some earlier reports, Google’s new Friend Connect, launching today, is not focused on data portability or a direct answer to MySpace “Data Availability” or the new Facebook Connect. While there’s a data portability dimension, it’s focused on the flip side of the equation: site owners who want to make their sites more “social.” […]
Google’s CEO Discusses DoubleClick, MicroHoo, Don’t Be Evil, Googlephobia, And Mobile Search
CNBC news anchor Maria Bartiromo interviewed Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Tuesday and discussed a wide range of topics, from MicroHoo to advertising on YouTube, mobile, and Googlephobia. There are no real surprises and nothing especially new (other than the statement about new ad products for YouTube this year). However, it you have time it […]
Twitter Wrote This Column For Me
By now you have probably seen a bunch of talk about Twitter. And after all of this talk you might be still thinking: OK, so what the heck is Twitter really and why should I care? How is it going to help my business at the end of the day? Rather than writing this column […]
Google Opens Developer “Sandbox” For iGoogle
iGoogle is one of the most interesting products at the search engine. Reportedly the fastest growing of Google’s offerings, it’s a personal start page or dashboard, but with potential to evolve into something more. Today Google announced “a sandbox for developers that helps them build richer gadgets for iGoogle, which will offer users more powerful […]
Human Hardware: How Many Friends Can We Have Online?
In the last column, I introduced British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar’s theory that we have cognitive limits to the number of social relationships we can maintain, and the importance of social grooming in all primates, including humans. Just as a quick recap, based on the relative size of our neocortex, Dunbar calculated that the upper […]
Will Social Networking Kill Search?
A provocative headline and somewhat less provocative article in Popular Mechanics argues that social networking will kill search “as we know it.”
“Previous Query” Refinement Coming To Hit Google Results
Yesterday (technically still today my time), I did a keynote interview with Google vice president of search products & user experience Marissa Mayer during our SMX Sydney show. We covered a wide range of topics, including how "Previous Query" refinement will soon come to natural listings on Google, plus how Australia is to get StreetView […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 7, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
OpenSocial Becomes More Open, Facebook Says No; AOL Flamed By Mag; Court Rules Against Clicking Minors
The big news today comes from a trio of major Internet brands. Google, Yahoo, and News Corp.’s MySpace joined forces to announce that OpenSocial, the social networking platform alternative to Facebook’s platform, is going to become a non-profit foundation. As such, it will have a completely separate management and identity from Google and the others […]
LinkedIn Adds New Company Directory
LinkedIn, with help from BusinessWeek’s CapitalIQ, has added a company directory and related factual information to its business network. It’s not easy to get to the company directory, which is only accessible to LinkedIn users at the moment. One can’t simply go to the LinkedIn search box and type a company name.
Rumor: Google To Acquire Plaxo
Wired says that Google is rumored to be buying Plaxo for roughly $200 million. The company was founded in 2001 as a tool to manage contacts and users’ email address books (“your address book for life”). Its aggressive customer acquisition strategy (read: spam) alienated many would-be users. Plaxo has been more restrained in the recent […]
Super Tuesday, Internet Style: How We’re Using The Web In The 2008 Elections
Today is Super Tuesday, which means that voters in 24 states are carefully reviewing their candidate research and doing last minute thoughtful analysis in preparation for voting in the primaries. Well, maybe that’s hopeful optimism, but in any case, the place these voters are turning to for information is increasingly the internet. Makes sense, as […]
Google Revenues Up 51 Percent, Social Networking Monetization “Disappointing”
Google posted Q4, 2007 revenues that represented 51 percent growth vs. 2006. Quarterly revenues were $4.83 billion, compared with $3.21 billion a year ago. However, earnings and revenue per share fell short of analyst consensus estimates. The headline that everyone is repeating is that social network monetization is not performing as well as hoped by […]
Center For The Digital Future: Perceptions Of Search Reliability And Accuracy Declining
The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication’s Center for the Digital Future is engaged in an ambitious longitudinal study on consumer behavior and media usage. Each year the center surveys the same 2,000 US adults to track attitudes toward media as well as any changes in actual media consumption. This year the center […]
Mahalo Adds More Social Features
Mahalo has just launched several new features that entwine the human-powered search engine even further into social networking and online community building. The Mahalo Follow toolbar now enables you to post links to Delicious, Ma.gnolia, Mahalo Social, and Twitter with the click of one button. The sidebar now displays quick tips when you’re on sites […]
Google The Stealth Social Network?
Google’s plan to socialize its various applications continues. Google Operating System has spotted code in Gmail that may lead to a Facebook-style news feed of status updates from your Gmail contacts. More about this and Google’s continued “stealth social network” moves below.
Keeping It Private On Google Reader
Almost two weeks ago, I wrote my Google Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items post detailing how disturbing it was that Google Reader was now sharing items with people it considered my friends, on an opt-out basis. Privacy concerns over this finally exploded this week, with Google Reader itself now reacting mainly to highlight […]
PEW Survey Finds Most People Don’t Google Themselves That Often, After All
Marge Simpson Googling Herself "All this time I thought ‘googling’ yourself meant the other thing." A PEW/Internet Survey out this week found that 47% of internet users have done ego searches, up from 22% five years ago. That nearly half of internet users are searching for themselves seems excessive, but only 3% say they check […]
Google Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items
Google’s made a significant move toward trying to have a Facebook-like news feed and beef up its social networking aspirations by integrating Google Talk / Gmail contacts with Google Reader. I’d seen the discussion earlier, but after now experiencing it first-hand, it’s kind of scary that it isn’t more opt-in rather than opt-out.
LinkedIn Redesigns, Adds Features
LinkedIn has responded to the challenge of Facebook today by joining OpenSocial and launching its developer platform as well as a new look (still to come) and host of new features. They’re described in some detail on VentureBeat. The design changes include a new homepage, an emphasis on activity feeds, customized company news, and several […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 30, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 16, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Facebook’s Hot, At Least As A Top Search Term
Facebook might not be more popular than sex, but it’s getting there — at least as a rival to sex as something people search on. Below, a look at Facebook’s new entry into a top search terms list and related stats, along the way — including which country searches for Facebook the most (hint: how […]
Check Out My Yahoo Kickstart Profile & Get Yours
Today, Yahoo launched their new social networking site geared towards college students and alumni named Kickstart. We first wrote about it over here, where we described that this service will help college students looking for jobs connect with alumni who already have jobs and might be hiring. There is more coverage of the Kickstart launch […]
MySpace, Others Join Google-Led OpenSocial
First reported by Silicon Alley Insider and then confirmed with additional detail by TechCrunch, Google has added more high-profile partners to its OpenSocial initiative. They are MySpace, Bebo, and SixApart, which now join LinkedIn, Plaxo, and Friendster, among several others, in the alliance or coalition.
Rumors of Impending Facebook Music
Facebook already has taken on LinkedIn, as the past-college crowd has started using it for professional networking, and starting next week, Facebook may take on MySpace’s hold on the music scene. Rumors abound that Facebook Music will be announced at ad:tech in NY next week. Word is that Facebook is in discussions with major music […]
Google Analyst Day Roundup: Search, Ads, Apps, And The Big Dashboard
There are a number of stories this morning recapping aspects of the Google Analyst Day discussions, which were overshadowed to some degree by the Microsoft-Facebook announcement yesterday. While most of it appears to have been a basic overview intended to remind financial analysts and some press about the range of Google’s product offerings and their […]
Yahoo! 360 Quietly Slips Away
Yahoo! has decided that their blogging and social networking platform, Yahoo! 360, is a failed experiment, and they’re pulling the plug. The news comes via Techcrunch, which noted that Jerry Yang announced it in a blog post on October 16. The Yahoo 360 blog explained the shut down in more detail. As Techcrunch points out, […]
Live Blogging: SMX Social Media – Effectively Leveraging Social Networking
It’s day two of Search Marketing Expo Social Media and first up is levering social networking. On this panel are Dave McClure of 500Hats, Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works, and Helen M. Overland of Non-Linear Creations. We’re going to learn all about using Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn for customer engagement, branding, and driving traffic. […]
The New Drama: Google vs. Facebook
First it was Yahoo vs. Google, then it became Google vs. Microsoft, and now it’s Google vs. Facebook. People love drama and journalists in particular seek to tell dramatic stories with uncertain outcomes. Regarding this most recent drama (Google vs. Facebook), Fortune magazine’s Josh Quittner writes about “Why Google is spooked by Facebook and would […]
Microsoft Introduces Windows Live Events
Microsoft has introduced an Evite-like events service, Windows Live Events. Rather than an “Evite killer,” think of it more as a home page or website for events, with public events eventually to most likely be integrated into the broader local database and other services that Microsoft has. Currently it integrates pretty seamlessly into Windows Live […]
SMX Social Media Conference Preview: Categorizing Social Media Sites
Search Engine Land’s first Search Marketing Expo show focused on social media marketing, SMX Social Media, comes to New York on Oct. 16 & 17. I’m super-excited about the show, especially having the chance to stretch out with many sessions exploring how social media is, as I wrote earlier this year, an important "kissing cousin" […]