SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 17, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Topic: User-generated content
Is Yahoo’s Buzz A Buzz-Kill?
When Yahoo Buzz launched back in February of 2008, it was thought by many to be the next big player in the social news community space. This was largely due to the fact that if your content got the most “buzz” it had a chance to be featured on Yahoo.com, which can send millions of […]
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 […]
Travel Appears To Be Next Up For Google
BusinessWeek writes about Google’s potential plans to enter the travel arena with a specialized offering. That offering, assuming it appears, would likely include a heavy dose of video. There would also likely be a heavy helping of Maps. Interestingly, Google is pushing Maps and MyMaps today as a travel/trip planning tool.
New Microsoft Live Maps Roll Out With A Boatload Of Upgrades
A new version of Microsoft’s Live Search Maps has rolled out (after yesterday’s major traffic and routing upgrade). There’s an enormous range of feature and functionality upgrades, which are explained in some detail on the Virtual Earth blog. There’s also a discussion at CNET. At a crude level, what it means is that Live Maps […]
A New Scourge For Yahoo: Affiliate Mapspam
I’ve been writing about Mapspam appearing in both Google and Yahoo search results for some time now. Mapspam is where black hat SEOs spam local search and map listings, and like all black hat techniques, it seems to get more sophisticated as the search engines find ways to combat the spammers’ techniques. There’s a new […]
Google Maps Opens Up Editing To Everyone
Last year in November Google opened up Maps to community editing, allowing people to move the pushpin markers to correct or improve the accuracy of business locations. John Hanke, Director of Maps & Earth, told us at the time that Google would move beyond just place markers and allow registered users to edit Maps more […]
Yahoo Maps Adds More Data, Other Improvements
Yahoo Maps has announced a range of improvements. These include expanded global coverage, including better data and coverage of Eastern Europe; and, in the US, more “granular” neighborhood data for 300 cities and 12,000 neighborhoods. Functionality has been improved as well. Tiles are “lighter” for faster load times, colors and styles have been adjusted, and […]
Google Maps Categories: Will The Pain End Soon?
Over the past several weeks I have explored some of the issues involved with categorization of businesses in Google Maps on my blog, Understanding Google Maps. In Part 1, I detailed the more than year-long history of small business frustration. In Part 2, I provided some background on the early research and the difficulty with […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 21, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Searching For Southern Tornado Maps
Now that you can search for user-generated content more easily on Google Maps, I checked to see if people had been creating and sharing information about the tornadoes that tragically tore through the Southern US states of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much there in contrast to the mapping that went on […]
New “Show Search Options” Broadens Google Maps
As the Google LatLong Blog reports, Google has added a new “show search options” link beside the main search box in Google Maps. This is a very interesting development for several reasons. It’s a pull-down menu that allows you to narrow or expand results for the same query and more easily discover non-traditional content in […]
Why Local Businesses Should Be Like The Jerk
“The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!” Steve Martin’s character in the movie The Jerk is ecstatic. He rifles through the pages and finds his name. “I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday!” He knows the importance of being listed. “This is the kind of spontaneous publicity—your name […]
What Does 2008 Have In Store For Local?
Many people I speak to still ask the familiar question, “Is this going to be the breakout year for local?” while expressing frustration or disappointment that “local hasn’t yet lived up to expectations.” But local is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s also more complex than the general search market, which features an ecosystem built […]
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 Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages
Move over Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Mahalo, and Squidoo. Maybe. That’s because Google’s testing its own service to let people build a repository of knowledge. In fact, knowledge forms the core of the service’s name: Google Knol. Screenshot of Google Knol page (feel free to use this and those below, just link to this story, please) […]
Google Maps Goes Wikimapia, Lets The People Move The Map Points
Registered Google users are now permitted to adjust the place markers for businesses on Google Maps and soon will have the ability to more broadly edit local business information. Changes will initially go through a human editorial process to ensure the accuracy and propriety of information as the new capabilities are rolled out. Google told […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 9, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Flickr Wants To Show You The World Through Pictures
At Web 2.0 Summit this week, Flickr previewed a feature that will provide a new way to browse photos based on geographic location. They are making over their map explorer and introducing new Places Pages that will make it easier to see what’s going on around the world through pictures. The current map explorer lets […]
SES San Jose Coverage Roundup – August 23, 2007
Below is a roundup of all the coverage I was able to find throughout the day of the SES San Jose conference. This coverage is for the fourth day of SES, taking place on August 23, 2007. If I missed any, please add a comment below. Overall, the coverage has been outstanding throughout the SEM […]
The Good, The Bad, & The Incredible Usefulness Of User-Generated Content
Here’s a callout to the community! From all of us who operate locally focused sites, thanks are in order to the users who write reviews about local businesses such that others can make more informed decisions. User-generated reviews, as we have mentioned in past columns, are not a ‘silver bullet’ that can build or sustain […]
Q&A On The New Google News Comments
Google News To Newsmakers: Send Us Your Comments from me earlier covers the new system that Google unveiled today allowing for comments on news stories. I’ve now had a chance to talk briefly with Google News business product manager Josh Cohen about the system, to better understand its goals and potential future. Below, some answers […]
Google News To Newsmakers: Send Us Your Comments
Weird. That’s the only way I can describe it. Google News is asking people who are in news stories to email them comments about the story, which will be associated with those articles. From the Google News Blog post:
NY Times Covers Mashups And User-Generated Content
The New York Times has a long article on mashups, the state of online mapping and user-generated content more generally. It’s an overview piece, but does a good job of capturing the fact that online mapping in particular is one of the important trends online: visualizing all sorts of data on a map, whether local […]
Digg Buries Google AdSense For Microsoft Ads
Digg has dropped Google as its ad provider in exchange for for a three-year exclusive ad deal with Microsoft. Microsoft will be providing the display and contextual advertising on Digg’s popular social news site, with traffic estimated at over 17 million unique monthly visitors. The switch over will take place in early August and will […]
Local Is Social By Definition
Several years ago I was having lunch in a restaurant in New York with a couple of Yahoo executives, discussing the challenge of motivating people to rate local businesses. Yahoo was way ahead of the online curve back then, although now ratings and reviews of local businesses are seemingly everywhere online. Indeed, that conversation seems […]
Local Lessons From A Massive Launch
As reported here and elsewhere, Marchex recently launched more than 100,000 local and vertical Web sites. This involved aggregating and organizing millions of pieces of data, crafting refinements to help users pinpoint businesses, designing sites to support the variety of use cases involved in look up and discovery of local businesses, and the other couple […]
Wired Mag Waxes Wordy About Maps & Local
First, for map and online mapping lovers, there is the Wired piece, Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World, an interesting survey of the history of the mapping at Google, mashups, mapping APIs, Google’s acquisition of Keyhole (now Google Earth) and user-generated content on maps (My Maps). Then there is the tiresome […]
Marchex Simultaneously Launches 100K Local Search Sites
If you can believe it, Marchex has simultaneously launched more than 100,000 local and vertical search sites representing over a billion pages. The move is probably unprecedented outside of a search index. In May 2006, Marchex acquired local search site OpenList and has used its technology assets and methodology to enable this launch. Before this […]
Google Maps Adds User Generated Reviews
The Google Lat Long Blog announced that Google Maps now allows for user-generated reviews. We covered in the past that Google had reviews from third-party sources, but now Google allows any logged-in user to add reviews for any business listing, similar to how it recently allowed maps to gain user data.
Google’s YouTube Signs Major Deal With EMI Group
YouTube signs broad licensing pact with EMI from Reuters reports that Google has struck a major deal with EMI Group. EMI Group, one of the world’s leading global music companies, will allow YouTube users to not only watch EMI’s videos and music but also create user generated content around the videos. “With this deal, all […]
Inform To Power Site Search, Content Aggregation For Major Publishers
According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), “Inform Technologies LLC, which is based in New York, said 16 online publications plan to include its new search function. Among them are WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive’s Newsweek.com and Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com.”
The Search-Friendly Appeal Of User-Generated Content
Content comes in all types, lengths, and mediums. From an SEO point of view, we simply know that it’s important—no, crucial—to add content on a regular basis to our web sites. The content we add must be of value to our potential buyers. But truthfully, “writing content” is the most difficult and time-consuming part of […]
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 its own pages to the […]
Yahoo Travel Adds Personalization, New Maps
Yahoo Travel has redesigned and added a range of features, including personalization and new mapping tools to the site. It’s also seeking to more deeply integrate travel properties FareChase (its fares and rates “meta search” engine) and Trip Planner (its user-generated content site) into Travel. Flickr is also well represented throughout the redesign. I’m not […]
YouTube To Share Revenues With Popular Users
YouTube Elevates Most Popular Users to Partners from the YouTube blog covers how YouTube is now starting a "user-partner" program on an invite-only basis, to allow those producing content on YouTube and growing a large audience to share in revenues that YouTube earns. From the post:
Yahoo Launches ‘Be A Better’ Ad Campaign
Yahoo is initiating an ambitious new — and expensive — brand advertising campaign titled “Be a Better . . .” The campaign will feature distribution across multiple ad media: TV, print, radio, online and cinema. It will focus especially on Yahoo mobile oneSearch and Yahoo Answers but also showcase other content (e.g., Travel and Sports), […]
EconSM Conference: Social Media Sans Search
Yesterday’s Economics of Social Media (EconSM) conference in LA, the first event from the team at PaidContent, was an impressive debut, both in terms of attendance and the range and “quality” of speakers on the stage. I’m not going to attempt to summarize all the individual sessions; rather, I have some general observations and interesting […]
Google Maps Introduce User-Generated Content
When Google launched its personalized mapping tool, My Maps, the company said it would soon be integrating user-generated content. It appears that is now happening on many Google Maps searches (hat tip to NLC Marketing Blog).
Q&A With Microsoft Live Search General Manager Derrick Connell
It’s hard to believe, but it’s already been more than a year since Microsoft Live Search launched. At the time, I remember being impressed with the functionality of the product, and thinking to myself, “this ought to heat up the game some—it’ll be interesting to see how the competition responds.” Well now that Live Search […]