It’s been a while… a pretty busy one. But I wanted to share a couple of upcoming events I’ll be at. First one will be PubCon in Las Vegas. Just booked my flights and Hotel today and am really looking forward to meet a lot of people and spend some “quality time” at the casino PubCon will be all networking for me – so nothing to organize and 100& free schedule till now. Please do let me know if ur attending and want to meet for a chat or a coffee or just say hi.

Next up will be SES Berlin just the week after… (dammed that’s pretty close) Stefan Weitz will be here in Germany again. First in Munich for a Münchner Kreis  appearance and a couple of surrounding events including an exclusive dinner event.  There will be a lecture of Stefan at the FH Würzburg as well as an DPE event here at the Microsoft offices in Munich. After the weekend we will be off to SES Berlin where Stefan will be speaking. I’m kind of still working on organizing a booth and some giveaways – any good idea drop me a line (am thinking Bing Shirts till now).

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

SES Berlin & PubCon in Las Vegas

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing TV ad – start ur engine …

Go check it out! Bing.com

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Bing is Live now – in the open…

Click on the questions to see the videos:

• Why shouldn’t people be happy with their search results?
• Which search engine changes are necessary to satisfy the needs of users?
• How will online search change in the future?

The full article is in German and can be found here.

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Video Interview: Stefan Weitz talks about the future of Search

The two facts that did stick in my head the most were that 65% to 80% of all people were happy with their search engine. Quite a difficult situation when you want to get into a market like that. And fact number two was that 53% of all the people that are so happy with their search engine expect to be disappointed when trying to complete certain tasks with a search engine.

Stefan asked the audience what they would do if their car would only start 1 out of two times – that nicely illustrates how almost bizarre the situation with search efficiency today is. Almost like what has been described as Stockholm syndrome – we the users/hostages would love the search engine although it continues to disappoint us – weird.

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Stockholm Syndrome – 53% of users expect to be disappointed but still love search

We did talk a little bit about what Microsoft is up to regarding Search in Europe and other hot topics in the search world. I didn’t come empty handed and brought a fab price package for the listeners to win. The one person that would proof to us that he or she is the biggest Microsoft Fan Boy ever will get a full conference pass to the SMX Munich 2009, a VIP ticket to the search bash party co-sponsored by the Webmasters on the Roof, a spot on the invitation list to the exclusive “Let’s face it” Live Search event @ the Microsoft offices here in Munich and last but not least a Xbox360 gaming console.

People can enter the contest by simply commenting to this blog post with anything that comes to mind be it photos, videos, audio or simply text. The winner will be chosen Tuesday next week – and we are eagerly awaiting the submissions

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Live Search Germany being a guest @ Webmasterradio.fm

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Facebook targeted ads

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Video: Guy Kawasaki SES New York Keynote – Twitter As A Tool

For some of the Answers users – the ones who have shown their expertise in certain topical areas – the UI includes a new section on the homepage labeled suggested questions.

The suggestions are based on your most recent activity on Answers. For example, if you recently answered many questions related to a specific make or model of mobile phone, it is most likely that you will get more Suggested Questions related to this subject matter.

But why is that so important? Well in the past when you asked a question on Yahoo! Answers you had to be lucky actually very very lucky to get an answer from an expert in a certain topic area. Just imagine that there are more than 140 Mio Unique Users on Answers in one moth. All living in different countries and time zones all over the world. So when you are located in San Francisco and ask a question about clubbing in London the best people to answer your question – London clubbers – will be asleep and won’t see your question on the Answers homepage. Your question would be long gone by the time they wake up.

But this is only one tiny example on how this new engine will change the way Yahoo! Answers works. Personalization is the big thing these days and what’s good for web search is a paradigm shift for social search.

And yes there are players out there in the Q&A market who have tried to do something similar. But for one this engine is much more versatile, precise and flexible than any of the competitors. Plus based on the unrivaled huge user and knowledge base Answers has already the impact of this change will be very significant.

Now Answers is this place where you “know” where to find an expert for the question you have.

KUDOS to the team at Yahoo! Answers – especially to Dan, Sebastien, Tomasz and Nalika!

There is some more info here in the Help section of Yahoo! Answers

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Yahoo! Answers launches “Suggested Questions” Engine

I’m really glad and happy about being able to announce that Stefan Weitz, Director of Life Search from Redmond will be speaking at the SMX Munich, Germany on the 22nd of April this year.

It will be a great opportunity for us at Microsoft to tell our story about search to the German search experts at this key industry event.

13:45 – 14:30 Keynote: Search isn’t “Search”: A look at how engines can better serve what people are actually doing on the web

Further to this we will be hosting an exclusive meet live search behind the scenes event on the evening of the 21st at the Microsoft offices here in Munich.

On the list of already confirmed attendees are people like Rand Fishkin, Isabell Wagner, Johannes Beus, Pascal Fantou, Stefan Fischerlaender, Tom Alby, Uwe Tippmann, Johannes Siemers, Kathrin Schwan, Dr. Jan Woratschek.

This should make for a great event. Stay tuned as we do have one place left on the guest list plus a ticket for the SMX in Munich and the Search Bash party to give away.

this is a blog post as originally posted on locallytype

Search isn’t “Search”, Stefan Weitz