Google Seeking Not To Cross The Creepy Line

Rich Ord — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:26:05 -0500

Google CEO Eric Schmidt while appearing on Fox Business made some interesting comments about Google's emergence as a huge Microsoft-like business power. I thought most interesting was Schmidt's statement about Google becoming like Microsoft, "Hopefully, we won't repeat the mistakes that Microsot made ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them".

Schmidt elaborated:

"In our case we see ourselves as a disruptor, and a disruptor because we are using new technology to solve real consumer problems, that in some cases people didn't even realize could be solved. We are also a company that operates at scale using computers globally. And of course, we are in the information business and people have a lot of opinions on how information should be organized."

Fox Business' Neil Cavuto asked Schmidt in reference to Google's new Dashboard product how we really knew if Google deleted our personal data when we pressed delete via Dashboard. Schmidt's response:

"Because we say so and we would be sued (if we didn't)."

Cavuto joked: "It's like ... come in peace to serve man."

Watch the whole interview below:

20 Goals for Business Social Media Use

Chris Crum — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:30:18 -0500

I probably don't have to tell you that many businesses are still struggling with the concept of using social media. Many simply can't find a good reason to use it at all, and many more find themselves using it but struggling to validate that use. They can't find the ROI. They feel that too much time is being wasted. Basically, they're just using social networks because they feel like they're supposed to. They just want to keep up.

Many businesses are even banning social media from the workplace entirely. In fact, a great deal of our readers have expressed that they feel that social media doesn't belong in the workplace because employees are there to "work," not "goof off."

Well, that may be the case, and perhaps social media doesn't fit into your business at all, but considering your general business goals can help you decide whether or not there is a place for social media, and whether or not your employees can fit into that puzzle.

As social media enthusiast Chris Brogan told WebProNews in a recent interview, it's time to get over the touristy part of social media and start getting down to business.

He says it's not "Gee whiz, it's cool" anymore. It's "What are we gonna do with it?"

"Great you can type. Now what?" he says.

Here are some sample goals a business owner or manager might set for social media use. Once the goal is considered, then you can look at the tools that are out there and evaluate which ones will give you the best shot of achieving those goals.

20 Possible Goals

1. I'm a content provider, and I want to expand my reach.

2. I want my customers to be able to stay updated with news about my company.

3. I want to get to know my customers.

4. I want to promote my product.

5. I want to stay abreast of current news and trends.

6. I want to share my ideas with likeminded individuals.

7. I want to increase brand awareness.

8. I want to provide customer service and support easily.

9. I want to find a job.

10. I want to recruit.

11. I want people to like my brand.

12. I want to collaborate on business projects.

13. I want to directly sell a product.

14. I want to earn respect within my industry.

15. I am getting information overload, and I want to get organized.

16. I want to drive traffic to my site.

17. I want to attract advertisers and make money.

18. I want to get more involved with local prospects.

19. I want to get more involved with people on an international and global level.

20. I want to keep up with my competitors.

There are certainly more possible goals for business social media use out there. I've probably not even scratched the surface. What goals do you set for your social media efforts? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

Google Maps Adds NYC Subway Layer

Doug Caverly — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:26:39 -0500

Last night on "30 Rock," Alec Baldwin's character got lost within New York's subway system, and due to being covered in bedbugs, received no help from his fellow passengers. But if the same thing happened to him (or a non-fictional person) today, Google Maps could have come to the rescue.

A post on the LatLong Blog announced this afternoon, "[Y]ou can now see New York's subway lines drawn out directly on Google Maps as part of the transit layer. To turn it on, just point Google Maps to somewhere in New York, click on the 'More...' button at top-right, and select 'Transit.'"

Then, "When you click on any station name, a bubble pops up with the names of the line that service the station, and all the other lines on the screen fade out."

And the transit layer is accessible through Google Maps for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian S60, by the way, so people should be able to take advantage of it while they're on the go.

Lots of New York tourists - and/or GE execs who have been barred from using company cars - are likely to wind up being quite grateful for this offering.

Related Articles:

> Google Maps Takes Another Crack At Real Estate

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Google Search By Voice Learns Chinese (In Limited Fashion)

8 Reasons You Need to Stop Ignoring Twitter

Chris Crum — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:15:18 -0500

There have been many articles written about why to use Twitter, and we've certainly published our fair share of them. However, the landscape is constantly changing. New trends, ideas, applications, and features come out, and they further emphasize Twitter's place in said landscape. Following are some reasons why it is becoming increasingly important to marketers.

Still not convinced Twitter is useful? Tell us why not.

1. Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists are changing the game. We recently looked at several reasons why, but also consider that with the Lists gadget, your tweets may appear all over the web if you can get onto lists. They will appear on sites and blogs, which are more than likely going to be related to the niche you are in anyway if you have the right audience on Twitter.

2. The Openness of Twitter

The openness of Twitter, social media and the web in general, pretty much means that your messages on Twitter won't be limited to your Twitter audience. Facebook and other social networks will bring tweets in. People will share them, screenshot them, link to them on blogs, etc. Twitter is a means of getting your message out to more people, but it's not necessarily only the people on Twitter that will see those messages.

3. Building Valuable Relationships

Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, chalks up success on Twitter to four basic concepts: listen, learn, care, and serve. Basically, if you listen to the community, you will learn, and if you show that you care, you are more likely to get more out of your efforts. Serving means providing something of use to the community. If you what you're not doing that, you may be setting yourself up to fail, as Fitton talked about in this interview with WebProNews.

4. Traffic That Cares

Twitter can bring you not only random traffic, but traffic from people who are actually passionate about the niche that you are a part of. Retweets are huge in this regard. Guy Kawasaki calls retweeting the sincerest form of flattery. He has a point. He notes that people are willing to risk their reputations by retweeting your content.

5. Staying Current

Being found in Twitter searches (not to mention real time search in general, which is starting to become a main area of focus for all of the big search engines, not to mention all of the standalone real-time search sites) provides a lot of opportunity for exposure. We discussed this here and gave tips for getting found in real-time searches.

6. Connecting with Local Customers

There are a variety of ways you can connect with local consumers and customers using Twitter and Twitter-related tools. There are tools like our own TwellowHood, which let you find Twitterers in your area, for example. Another thing to keep an eye on is Google's new Social Search. It's currently just a lab experiment, but could become more. It certainly has potential.

A recent Search Engine Land article made some good points about the potential of local marketing with this tool, which delivers Google search results based on the communities you are a part of. It draws from Google profiles, which include the networks that people are connected to (based on what any person includes in that profile). If you're not familiar with this feature, watch the following clip, and you'll understand.

7. Going International and Multi-lingual

Twitter is expanding into more languages. If you thought Twitter was important to marketing already, consider that for most of its existence, it has only been available in a couple of languages. Now it's in Spanish, and many more languages will follow. That's not only going to be huge for international and multi-lingual marketing efforts, it's going to be huge for Twitter's growth, and the more Twitter grows, the more potential customers are out there.

8. It's Still Young

Consider that Twitter is just getting started in the grand scheme of things. It's still young. There are no doubt going to be a lot more features added in the future. And don't forget about the thousands of Twitter apps that are already out there that can make Twitter useful in different ways to different people and businesses. Take some time and explore them. Fitton's site OneForty.com, which is like Yelp for Twitter apps, is pretty good for that. It has reviews, and people tell why certain helps have helped their businesses.

Did we leave some reasons out? Please share with the rest of us.

Related Articles:

> 6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing the Game

> By Tweeting, You Could Appear All Over the Web

> Twitter Expands the "Lists" Feature

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

Google Highlights Searches For Black Friday Deals

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:10:22 -0500

With Thanksgiving just a few weeks' away consumers are already starting to search for deals online.

Over the last seven days fifty percent of the top "Black Friday" related search terms include ads, sales and deals, according to Google Insights for Search.

The Google Retail Advertising Blog provides more details. "Interestingly, when we look at Black Friday rising searches over the last 7 days, we see that 'Early Black Friday' is the second rising search term, meaning it has grown over 2,000% during this time period with respect to the previous time period."

"It also may indicate that consumers are not only leveraging 'Black Friday' and searches to locate promotions on these days, but may be seeking out similar types of promotions and offerings even before Thanksgiving weekend."

Google also offers advice on what types of ads will appeal the most to bargain shoppers. "Text ads should highlight specific price points, discounts, coupon codes, and special promotions. Also, remember to keep an eye on search trends in your own category by leveraging Google Insights for Search."

Related Articles:

>Cyber Monday Tips From The Google AdWords Crew

>Consumer Online Spending To Grow 24%

>Black Friday Online Sales Better Than Anticipated

Facebook User Count Now 325 Million (Or More)

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:00:25 -0500

On September 15th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook "now serves 300 million people across the world." It seems the site's growth hadn't exactly come to a stop, either, as about a month and a half later, stats indicate the number of users has risen to at least 325 million.

This isn't a case of comScore versus Hitwise or Compete versus Nielsen discrepancies. Nick O'Neill reported today, "According to Facebook's own advertising statistics . . . the company is now beyond 325 million users and continuing to grow." So everyone should be on the same page.

What we appear to have here is a social network simply gaining 25 million users in the space of seven weeks.

That's an impressive fact all by itself. Another way of looking at it is that, if Facebook users created their own country, the Land of Zuckerberg would have a larger population than the good old U.S. of A. (even if the users somehow didn't leave America at the same time).

What's next, then? Well, that's hard to say. Facebook's almost sure to need additional hardware and employees. Marketers are liable to worship it more, improving the results of monetization efforts. Otherwise, this is pretty much uncharted territory.

Related Articles:

> Nearly Half Of Consumers Would Recommend A Product On Facebook

> Social Networking Donation Cause Leaves MySpace For Facebook

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Nearly Half Of Consumers Would Recommend A Product On Facebook

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:57:34 -0500

Consumers are more willing to engage with and buy from brands on social networking sites, according to a new study by Performics and ROI Research.

The study found thirty-four percent of respondents who have used a search engine to find information on a product/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site. In addition, thirty percent have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site.

"Social networks are creating a monumental shift in how people communicate with each other and with brands," said Michael Kahn, SVP of Marketing at Performics.

"The results of this study can help marketers better understand where and how consumers interact with social media sites and what types of offers and communications engage them and motivate them to act."

The study also found the opportunity for engaging with consumers on specific social networking sites:

Forty-six percent of respondents say they would talk about or recommend a product on Facebook
Forty-four percent of Twitter users have recommended a product
Thirty-six percent of YouTube users say that they have gone to an online retailer or ecommerce site after learning about a brand on a social networking site

"The numbers are staggering. One in four respondents have four or more active social network accounts and more than one quarter access their Facebook or Twitter accounts at least once a day via their mobile phone," said Scott Haiges, President of ROI Research.

"We knew that these sites are extremely popular for socializing, but the level of interest for branding and promotional marketing content is surprisingly large."

Related Articles:

>Facebook Reminds Users How To Handle Death

>6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing The Game

>Facebook Connects Users With iPhone Apps

"Time Spent Online" Report Puts Microsoft Way Ahead

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:02:22 -0500

Despite all the gains other companies (Google, Facebook) have made, it's still Microsoft's world, according to new statistics from comScore. comScore found that, in terms of time spent on sites, the Redmond-based corporation continues to maintain a huge lead over its competitors.

People spent about 3.920 billion hours on Microsoft's sites in September, which equates to about 14.5 percent of the total time spent online. Meanwhile, people only spent about 2.512 hours on Google-owned sites, which works out to 9.3 percent of the total. And Google barely logged more growth than Microsoft (48 percent versus 44 percent).

Things looked even more depressing for Yahoo, as the chart below shows. The real surprise, though, relates to Facebook, the social network that doesn't "do" much of anything compared to three companies that offer search engines, email, maps, and all other sorts of stuff.

comScore determined that individuals spent about 5.1 percent of their online time on Facebook in September, and that represents an impressive 2.9 percent year-over-year increase. If Facebook can sustain this rate of growth, it might not be long before Yahoo's forced to eat its dust.

Oddly, Lycos sites experienced a lot of growth in the last year, too, so they may bear watching.

Related Articles:

> Google Top Search Engine In The Asia-Pacific Region

> U.K. Social Networking Accounts For 25% Of Display Ads

> Bing Gains Ground In August

Google Launches Commerce Search to Boost Your Conversion Rates

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:20:52 -0500

Google has launched a new product that online retailers may find incredibly useful for improving the product search on their site, and potentially increasing sales and reducing bounce rates. It's called simply Google Commerce Search. Think Google Site Search, specifically tailored to e-commerce and product sites. Google couldn't have timed such a release any better with the holiday shopping season arriving.

Do you think your sales could be improved with a better search feature? Discuss here.

"Search quality is a big factor in changing visitors to buyers online, and in making customers happy too," Google says. "Visitors spend an average of just eight seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website, so having a good search tool is important for turning visitors into buyers. Google Commerce Search is hosted by and uses Google search technology to make online retail searching both fast and customizable — visitors to your online store can sort by category, price, brand or any other attribute."

"E-store administrators can highlight special products or connect related ones so searching is easier for their customers," the company continues. "Google Commerce Search includes a built-in spellchecker and synonyms so if visitors can't remember exactly how to spell the particular toy or perfume or anything else they're hunting for, Google Commerce Search will make some suggestions. Choosing the right one is up to them, though."

This clip will give you a good idea of how it works:

Customization Features

When a user searches for a product, results can be returned in a user-friendly e-commerce-style product page, where they can simply click the item they want and add it to their cart. The site owner has control over how it looks. You can filter results through parameters like category, brand, or price, and you can sort search results by any attribute.

Results can be viewed in either a list view, which is more like a classic search results page, or grid view, which is more like the product page-style. You can control which product categories are promoted at the top or sent to the bottom of results.

Promoting Specific Items

The product also comes with a promotions feature, which lets you easily promote certain items, and cross-sell related products if you choose. It also comes with automatic spellcheck, stemming, and synonyms, so that if a user doesn't get their query exactly right, it will help guide them to what they're looking for. I probably don't have to tell you that any minutia that you can control in guiding customers through the checkout process can be huge for improving sales and decreasing bounce rate. Speaking of that, you can link Google Commerce Search to Google Analytics, making it easy to track various metrics.

Getting it and Keeping it Running

Google says the product can be deployed in days, and that because it is hosted on the Google platform, retailers can scale to meet their higher-demand periods, like holidays, without having to worry about slowdowns or traffic spikes.

"The hosted factor is a key feature in making GSC easy for administrators to use," Google says. "Because there's no hardware (or software, servers, operating systems, cables, or any other equipment), admins can upload product information to Google Merchant Center and provide a few extra customization parameters – and Google Commerce Search utilizes that product feed to power their website store search."

The same feed you use for Google Product Search can be used for Google Commerce Search. This can cut down on time and tech costs, as the company points out.

Do you think Google Commerce Search boost your web sales? Tell us what you think.

Related Articles:

> Google Answers Bounce Rate Questions

> Is Bounce Rate a Google Ranking Factor?

> Google Talking Bounce Rate Again

eBay And Skype Settle Litigation

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:21:01 -0500

eBay said Friday that the investor group led by Silver Lake has reached a settlement agreement with Joltid Limited and Joost N.V. that gives Skype ownership over all software licensed from Joltid and ends all litigation against the investor group and eBay at the closing of the acquisition.

As part of the settlement agreement, Joltid and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis will join the investor group, contributing Joltid software and making a significant capital investment in exchange for a 14 percent stake in Skype. As a result, Silver Lake and other investors including Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), will together hold 56 percent of Skype and eBay will retain 30 percent.

eBay will receive $1.9 billion in cash when the sale is complete and a note from the buyer worth $125 million. The deal, which values Skype at $2.75 billion, is set to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.

"Skype will be well positioned to move forward under new owners with ownership and control over its core technology," said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe.

"At the same time, eBay continues to retain a significant stake in Skype and will benefit from its continued growth. We look forward to closing the deal and focusing on growing our core ecommerce and payments businesses."

The investor group will no longer include Index Ventures. The Skype founders had filed a lawsuit charging Index and its partner Michelangelo Volpi of using confidential information in their bid to purchase a 65 percent stake in Skype.

Related Articles:

>Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

>eBay's Q4 Earnings Not Apocalyptic

>eBay Sells Skype, Which Is Worth $2.75 Billion

Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:18:47 -0500

Webinars and podcasts are the most popular social media resources for business people, used by 69 percent of those who turn to such channels for business information, according to a new study by Business.com.

Facebook is the primary social network on which consumer-focused companies maintain one or more profiles, cited by 83 percent of respondents compared with 45 percent for Twitter. Business-to-business companies maintain a presence on both social sites with 77 percent maintaining a profile on Facebook and 73 percent on Twitter.

Among those using social media for business purposes in their jobs, 62 percent visit company or brand profiles on social networking sites and 55 percent search for business information on these sites.

Consultants and marketers are the most active users of social media as a resource for business information, particularly in micro (less than 10 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees). IT professionals have the lowest participation rate.

The average company in this study was planning, developing or running seven different social media initiatives; 65 percent of respondents staffing those initiatives, and 71 percent of companies themselves, have less than two years of experience with social media for business.

Building brand awareness and brand reputation are two of the top social media success metrics, but nearly two-thirds of companies focused on these metrics have little insight into performance via standard or easily accessible reports.

"We are constantly analyzing trends to determine exactly what tools business professionals leverage most for purchasing," said Ben Hanna, Ph.D., vice president, marketing, Business.com

"This survey was a way for us to benchmark where businesses, and business people, are finding value in social media."

Related Articles:

> Thinking Beyond Facebook And Twitter For Social Relevance

> Facebook,Foo Fighters To Pair Up Tonight

>Twitter Expands Into More Than Just 2 Languages

A Suggested Users List for Twitter That You Can Actually Use

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:08:56 -0500

Twellow has launched a new "Suggested Users" feature aimed at connecting Twitterers with similar interests. It should be much more useful to the common Twitter user than Twitter's own suggested list, which is one static list for everybody, and includes mostly celebrities and other well-known people. In fact, Twitter may be getting rid of that list soon anyway.

Twellow's feature is tailored to the interests of the specific user, so your list will be completely different than the next person's.

Twellow is a WebPronews service, which provides Twitter users with a directory of people to follow by category or location.

"Being able to find people that really share common interests is what Twellow is all about," says Twellow's lead developer, Matthew Daines. "This new feature should really add value to our Twellow toolset in helping people meet this goal."

"While Twitter has offered a suggested users list for some time, it really hasn't been very useful for the average Twitter user," he says. "Our large database of categorized users really has allowed us to provide a much better matching system for suggesting users to follow. These are relevant people who actually share your personal interests."

Twellow's Suggested Users feature can:

- Display up to 500 profiles.

- Let you follow users right from the list.

- Let your ignore and hide profiles you don’t think are good matches.

- Let you click the More Info buttons on each profile to show the categories for that profile. Your matches are marked with a green star.

- Let you adjust your profile categories if suggestions are not accurate, then return and view the new results.

Check out the Suggested Users feature on Twellow, and let us know what you think about it. Our team is always open to feedback.

Do you think such a feature would make Twitter more useful? Comment here.

Related Articles:

> Easily Find Twitterers You're Interested In

> Twellow Adds New "View Non-Mutuals" Feature

> Location Adds Purpose and Context to Twitter

Duplicate Content on Google, Bing & Yahoo

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:21:13 -0500

Duplicate content is a common occurrence on the web and in many cases can hurt search engine rankings. While the search engines may not always technically penalize webmasters for duplicate content, there are still a lot of ways it can hurt.

WebProNews is covering the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East in New York, where representatives from the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) discussed how their respective web properties handle duplicate content issues. Following are some takeaways from each.

Duplicate Content in Google

The way Google handles duplicate content has been discussed a lot in recent memory. This is largely due to a video Google's Greg Grothaus uploaded, in which he discusses at length, the way Google handles a variety of different elements of the duplicate content conversation.

Joachim Kupke, Sr. Software Engineer of Google's Indexing Team reiterated much of what Grothaus said. He also said that Google has a ton of infrastructure for content duplication elimination:

- redirects
- detection of recurrent URL patterns (the ability to 'learn' recurrent url patterns to find duplicated content)
- actual contents
- most recently crawled version
- earlier content
- contents minus things that don’t change on a site

Kupke said to avoid dynamic URLs when possible (although Google is "rather good" at eliminating dupes). If all else fails, use the canonical link element. Kupke calls this a "Swiss Army Knife" for duplicate content issues.

Google says the canonical link element has been tremendously successful. It didn't even exist a year ago, and is has grown exponentially. It has had a huge impact on Google's canonicalization decisions, and 2 out of 3 times, the canonical tag actually alters the organic decision in Google.

Google says a common mistake is designating a 404 as canonical, and this is typically caused by unnecessary relative links. So, avoid changing rel="canonical" designations, and avoid designating permanent redirects as canonical.

Also, do not disallow directives in robots.txt to annotate duplicate content. It makes it harder to detect dupes, and disallowed 404s are a nuisance. There is an exception however, and that is that interstitial login pages may be a good candidate to "robot out," according to Kupke.

Kupke says that canonical works, but indexing takes time. "Be patient and we WILL use your designated canonicals." Cleaning up an existing part of the index takes even longer, and this may leave dupes serving for a while despite rel=canonical, Kupke adds.

At SMX, Google announced that cross domain rel=canonical is coming within this year. So for example, if the Chicago Tribune has an article on the New York Times, and the rel=canonical points to the Chicago Tribune then Google will only credit the Chicago Tribune with the content.

Duplicate Content in Bing

As far as how Bing views duplicate content, intention is key. If your intent is to manipulate the search engine, you will be penalized.

Sasi Parthasarathy, Program Manager of Bing says to consolidate all versions of a page under one URL. "Less is more, in terms of duplicate content." If possible, use only one URL per piece of content.

Bing isn't supporting the canonical link element (as a ranking factor) yet, but it is coming. They do say to use it, but it's just not really a ranking factor in Bing yet. Bing says that there has been an increase in the usage of canonical tags in the past 6 months, but adoption issues still exist. According to Parthasarathy, 30% of canonical tags point to the same domain (which is fine), and 9% use it to point to other domains. This could be a mistake or it could be manipulative. Bing says they will look for other factors to try and determine which it is.

Bing says canonical tags are hints and not directives. "Use it with caution," and not as an alternative to good web design.

With regards to www vs non-www, just pick one and stick with it consistently. Remove default filenames at the end of your URLs. Bing also says 301 redirects are your best friend for redirecting, use rel="nofollow" on useless pages, and use robots.txt to keep content you don't want crawled out.

Duplicate Content in Yahoo

If everything goes according to plan, you're going to need to worry about how Bing handles duplicate content if you're worried about how Yahoo handles it, but Yahoo's Cris Pierry, Sr. Director of Search, offered a few additional tips.

Pierry says descriptive URLs should be easily readable, and it's not a good idea to change URLs every year. In addition, use canonical, avoid case sensitivity, and avoid session IDs and parameters.

Pierry also says to use sitemaps, and submit them to Yahoo Site Explorer. Improve indexing by proper robots.txt usage, and use Site Explorer to delete URLs that you dont' want Yahoo to index. Finally, provide feeds to Yahoo Site Explorer, and report spam sites linking to you in Site Explorer.

Yahoo says metadata and SearchMonkey are enhancing presentation.

WebProNews reporter Mike McDonald contributed to this article from SMX East.

Facebook Blocks More Ad Networks

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:17:21 -0500

Back in July Facebook updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform. The company disabled two entire ad networks and over 100 more apps were suspended or brought into compliance over ad-related violations. Half of those had over a million monthly active users.

Facebook has now disabled two more offer and ad networks, which the company says have repeatedly violated its policies. This has all been part of Facebook's continued action against deceptive ads. The company has addressed its efforts in this area on the company's developer blog.

"First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively," says Facebook's Nick Gianos. "This battle is not new and it’s far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We’re doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers."

"We recognize that monitoring ads isn't the first area of focus for an entrepreneur just getting started with social applications," he says. "That's why ad networks that don’t play by the rules should expect to be our first point of contact in our line of enforcement. Our policies are clear. If you're an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease."

The company emphasizes that it is the responsibility not only of ad networks, but also of developers to make sure content running in third-party apps is appropriate.

Facebook's policies on offers and "inappropriate" ad content can be viewed here. If there are questions, which there no doubt will be, they can be sent to Facebook via the Platform Advertising Contact form.

Related Articles:

> Facebook App Developers Face New Obstacles

> Facebook Puts Privacy Policy in Users' Hands

> Facebook Most Widely Used Network Among Businesses

Google's Music Service In China Attracting Advertisers

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:09:53 -0500

Google's music service in China hasn't achieved much so far; no one should look for Google's next quarterly financial report to say it's brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue or toppled Baidu. But neither has it failed, and one person who's close to the service recently indicated that it's picking up steam.

Gary Chen is close by merit of being the founder and CEO of Orca Digital. Orca Digital owns Top100.cn, which is Google's partner in the venture.

As for what Chen to say, it turns out that some big companies have aligned themselves with the project, even if they're not yet spending a lot of money. According to Loretta Chao, "Chen . . . said in an interview that five advertisers have signed on for the service so far, including Nokia Corp., Apple Inc. and Volkswagen AG, with total commitments of 2.5 million yuan ($370,000)."

Then here's the really interesting part: Chao continued, "Orca Digital and Google expect to sign several more ad deals that could bring in $1 million each, and hope to have a total of 30 advertisers within a half year . . ."

If things continue to snowball at that rate, Google's music service in China could become quite important in a rather short period of time.

Related Articles:

> Google Search By Voice Learns Chinese (In Limited Fashion)

> Chinese Paper Accuses Google Of "Malicious Retaliation"

> Baidu Pummeled Following Low Forecast

Thinking Beyond Facebook and Twitter for Social Relevance

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:17:32 -0500

Update: Ford announced profits o nearly $1 billion between July and September. This is attributed to increased market share and a successful cost-cutting program. I wonder if the company's social media strategy played a significant role.

Original Article: When you think about social media marketing or building your social media presence, you probably think about Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps YouTube or MySpace. That's good. These are some of the top places on the Internet where people are spending their time online.

What online communities do you focus on? Comment here.

That said, there are probably plenty of places that you are either overlooking or just plain ignoring. They might not have the broad user-bases of the aforementioned services, but there are people there, and the more people you can reach and engage with, the better off you may be in some cases (depending on your goals for social network use).

According to Hitwise data, the top ten social networking websites and forums by US market share of visits looked like this:

To be clear, the Hitwise data from which MarketingCharts compiled the above graph is based on US market share of visits as defined by the IAB, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from Hitwise's sample of 10 million US internet users. It's unclear exactly what all kinds of sites fall into the social networks category.

But the point is that there are a lot of places out there where people are forming communities that you may not be thinking of, but may provide plenty of opportunities for driving more engagement, brand awareness, and/or even traffic.

Are you considering things like Tagged or Yahoo Profiles/Groups? Are you considering the forums out there that pertain to your niche? Forums are relevant in social media marketing. I've discussed this in the past. Forums are basically social networks. They're communities too. You have to think about where the people are, and not just where they are, but where they are talking. Where they're communicating with others.

Forums or other more narrow communities may even prove to be more valuable tools than Facebook or Twitter in some cases. They are more likely to be focused on specific niches, than on the general public. There are certainly plenty of times where the general public - the Facebook/Twitter crowds are who you are trying to reach, but there will be other times when you may want to reach a specific group of people, which may or may not be a part of Facebook or Twitter.

Look at Ford for example. Scott Monty, who runs the social media efforts for the Ford Motor Company recently told WebProNews that they use all sorts of forms of social media, because "Let's face it, people are using all sorts of forms."

"We try to be where the mainstream are and we do it in a way that humanizes the company at every turn, so we're on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Scribd, Delicious, and upcoming as our major platforms," he said. "And we're constantly monitoring to see what the trends are and where people are going, so that we're relevant."

The key word there is relevant. Go where you're relevant.

What are some less thought about communities that you use to engage with people? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> Forums Are Relevant in Social Media Marketing

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

> Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

LinkedIn Tests a New Design

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:14:04 -0500

LinkedIn is testing a new design. Only a select number of users will see it, however. New features include:

- A global navigation bar at the top of the page that provides convenient access to all LinkedIn services.

- Simplified local navigation within each of the LinkedIn areas (Profile, Contacts, Groups, etc.).

- More room available for page content. Less scrolling.

- A cleaner, less-cluttered look.

Here is what it looks like:

"We began the redesign effort several months ago by analyzing how people use LinkedIn," says LinkedIn's Kevin Bury. "We looked at what features people use the most and pored over several years of data from usability research on the site. Armed with this information we began doing design explorations of how to better organize LinkedIn features, and make them more convenient to find and use."

"We factored into this effort additional features we knew were coming," he adds. "We narrowed down the designs to a few candidates we felt were strong contenders. We then prototyped these designs and had users perform tasks with the prototypes in the usability lab. We went through numerous iterations until we arrived at a design we felt worked the best. One of the key features of the new design is that it allows much more space for page content – information about you and your professional network."

LinkedIn says it will be paying attention to user feedback, and there is no word on whether or not changes will be permanent. That's what testing is for though. The company also makes no mention of whether or not a greater number of users will be able to see the new design, and if so, when that would be.

Are you seeing the new design? If so, what do you think? Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> LinkedIn Announces 50 Million user Milestone

> LinkedIn Makes Profile Organization Easier

> LinkedIn Introduces Custom Profiles for Companies

R.I.P. GeoCities: A Community is Killed

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:53:53 -0500

Yahoo has officially shut down Geocities.The company has said that it did not count the property among its priorities, so it is simply getting rid of it. Yahoo has shut down about 20 services in less than a year.

We learned that Yahoo would be closing the door on GeoCities back in April, so users have had plenty of time to migrate to other services. Earlier this year, for example, MSN partnered with WetPaint to allow people to create "fansites". After Yahoo's announcement, Wetpaint took the opportunity to announce a "bailout plan for foreclosed GeoCities properties," which it called the "GeoCities Asset Recovery Plan (GARP)."As it shuts down GeoCities, Yahoo itself is now plugging its own $4.99-a-month Web hosting service.

Ok, so there are other options for GeoCities users, but is just shutting down a community that still attracts so much traffic the right thing to do? Yahoo's way of going about it has been widely questioned. According to Compete data, GeoCities has still been seeing over 10 million unique monthly visitors as recently as last month. Why would Yahoo want to just shut that down?

"Then there's the fact that Google, not Yahoo, appears to be responsible for the lion's share of GeoCities referrals, sending about 31.45 percent of the site's traffic its way," noted Doug Caverly upon Yahoo's original announcement. "Yahoo's only behind of 16.89 percent of all GeoCities visits. So by closing GeoCities, for which it paid $3.6 billion in 1999, Yahoo seems to be turning its back on a large amount of traffic. Moreover, it's turning down free traffic from its biggest competitor."

"Carol Bartz may be trying to get Yahoo's costs under control, but it looks like sticking a 'for sale' sign on GeoCities would be at least one preferable option compared to a closure," he added.

But alas, it looks like the sign reads "closed" rather than "for sale." So say goodbye, and in the words of Richard Marxx, "hold on to the memory."

It seems unwise from a business perspective, but what about the users? Does Yahoo have an obligation to its users who may have spent years using their GeoCities site only to have it pulled from the web? Should Yahoo provide a forwarding web address for GeoCities users? After all, it was the GeoCities users that built their sites, promoted them and put up with sometimes annoying ads. A simple forwarding of their GeoCities url to their new home would be appreciated! Do you agree?

MySpace isn't exactly at the peak of its popularity, but there are still tons of people who use it. What if they just pulled everything? What if Google bought Facebook and decided to kill it? What if your Tweets vanished? Sure these things seem unlikely now because these services are still fresh. Well, GeoCities was once the "it" thing too. Granted, most GeoCities sites I have seen are not much to look at now, but that doesn't mean people aren't getting use out of them. They're obviously getting page views.

Here's what Yahoo is telling GeoCities users to do if they want to keep their sites:

On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files. If you'd like to keep your web site, you'll need to move your site files to another web hosting provider.

We recommend moving to our award-winning Web Hosting service, which works a lot like GeoCities but includes a personalized domain name (such as widgetdesigns.com) and matching email, terrific new site building tools, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, premium customer support, and more.

Perhaps it's not worth it to users to go throgh the hassle of migration, but it has been nice to have their GeoCities site at least remain in tact. Well, tough luck. I hope you've gotten what you wanted away from it before Yahoo obliterates it. There are some sites out there that have not yet been shut down, but it appears that is only a matter of time.

What do you think of Yahoo's decision to simply shut down GeoCities? Discuss here.

Remembering GeoCities

GeoCities held a lot of web memories for a lot of people. There was a time where you could barely surf the web without running into one GeoCities site or another. Wikipedia provides a little history:

GeoCities began in mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for Beverly Hills Internet, a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California.

The company created its own Web directory, organized thematically in six "neighborhoods". The neighborhood included "Colosseum," "Hollywood," "RodeoDrive," "SunsetStrip," "WallStreet," and "WestHollywood". In mid-1995, the company decided to offer users (thereafter known as "Homesteaders") the ability to develop free home pages within those neighborhoods. Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon after, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995 Geocities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill," "Paris," "SiliconValley," and "Tokyo." By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was signing up thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting over six million monthly page views. The company decided to focus on building membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been called Geopages.

"It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet," writes Mark Milian with the LA Times.

In early 1999, Yahoo purchased Geocities for about $3.57 billion in stock. Now a decade later, Geocities is no more.

Do you have fond memories of the Geocities days? Should Yahoo be obligated to forward GeoCities pages to your new site? What if Facebook, MySpace or Twitter suddenly shut down? Should there be a web or social homesteading bill of rights?

>>> Share your thoughts below ...

Related Articles:

>GeoCities Users Get a Bailout From Wetpaint

>Yahoo Failing To Consider GeoCities Alternatives?

>Yahoo Turning Lights Out At GeoCities

>Ballmer Talks About Yahoo and GeoCities

>Should You Stop Blogging?

Windows 7 Sales Outperform Vista Launch

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:46:56 -0500

Initial sales of Microsoft's Windows 7 software outperformed those of Vista's first few days on the U.S. market, according to the latest analysis from The NPD Group.

Windows 7 software unit sales in the U.S. were 234 percent higher than Vista's first few days of sales. A combination of early discounts on pre-sales and a lack of promotional activity for the Ultimate version resulted in dollar sales that were 82 percent higher than Vista.

"Microsoft's program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

"In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles."

While boxed software sales were up compared to the Vista launch, PC hardware sales ran into more of a challenge. PC sales growth was higher than any week during the high volume back-to-school third quarter, but wasn't as strong as growth during the Vista launch.

PC sales growth during the Vista launch was stronger, increasing 68 percent over the prior year's sales and 170 percent over the week preceding the launch. Windows PC sales were down 6 percent compared to PC sales during the Vista launch week.

"A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season," said Baker.

"Vista had a slight advantage at launch, as January traditionally has a bigger sales footprint than October. The other hurdle Windows 7 faced was sales of PCs with older operating systems (XP and Vista) were high, making up 20 percent of sales during the Windows 7 launch, compared to just 6 percent of older operating sales during Vista's launch week."

Related Articles:

> What People Are Saying About Microsoft Windows 7

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>Microsoft Wants You To Bing Up Your Windows 7

Google Wave Simplified: How it Basically Works

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:46:53 -0500

As you may know, Google has been sending out Google Wave invitations for a little while now. Many people are still finding these hard to come by, but others have been lucky enough to be selected and get their hands dirty.

Those who have been granted access to Google Wave have the ability to nominate people for invitation, but not directly invite people themselves. So in other words, you're not getting in unless Google wants you to. They have to approve your nomination.

Unfortunately, that means those outside of the tech-savvy developer crowd and those who can actually access Google Wave, there is still a lot of mystery around the service. People want to know how it works.

The preview comes with a wave featuring a video from "Dr. Wave," or Product Manager Greg. The video is embedded below, but he points to different features within the interface, so imagine that it is placed as it is in the above screenshot.

Google Wave brings its own terminology to the table. For one, a wave itself is a collection of messages. Those messages within a wave are "blips." Blips can be edited and replied to. Anyone that is in the wave at the same time can see replies and blips being typed live in real time. That's live. You can see the characters appear as they are typed.

If you really want to see how Google Wave works, watch this series of videos that Google provides in the preview (they're all very short):

There are other videos that appear in the preview, but these are probably the most useful ones for showing how Wave works.

Now the version of Google Wave that people have access to is just a "preview." It doesn't even come with a beta tag. It's still quite early. Even parts within the preview version are clearly marked as under construction (things like key settings).

The videos provided do not begin to scratch the surface of the potential of Google Wave. With Google allowing developers to create apps or "gadgets" for it, the possibilities will likely be limitless. But as a general "getting to know you" for the common user, the videos provided pretty much explain the core of Google Wave.

Have you used Google Wave yet? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> Will Google Wave Shape the Future of Online Communication?

> Is Google Wave Getting An App Store?

> Google Wave Invitations Roll Out/span>

Yahoo Settles Mary Kay Trademark Infringement Suit

Doug Caverly — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:42:38 -0500

It looks like some lawyers representing cosmetics giant Mary Kay have removed their figurative war paint. In early July, Mary Kay sued Yahoo, alleging trademark infringement, but not long ago, Yahoo was able to settle the case.

Mary Kay originally objected to Yahoo's practice of adding links of its own choosing to certain emails. The links appeared in popups when people would position their cursors over the text, potentially creating confusion about the extra ads' origin.

"Emails that advertise Mary Kay products are hijacked and manipulated by Yahoo and provide an unfair advantage for the unauthorized re-sellers and other competitors," claimed Mary Kay's suit, which was filed in the Northern District of Dallas.

Now - although the terms of the settlement haven't been disclosed - Yahoo's presumably apologized, promised to never repeat the offending behavior, and provided at least a little in the way of cash compensation. Such is the way these things go.

Anyway, a big hat tip also goes to Erik Larson, who noted that this settlement may have some interesting ramifications. He wrote, "The dispute was similar to trademark lawsuits against Google Inc. in which the world's most popular search firm was accused of wrongfully selling ad rights to keyword searches."

Related Articles:

> Skype Founders Reportedly Close To Settlement With eBay

> Power.com Suit Against Facebook Tossed

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Twitter Begins Rolling Out its Own Retweet Feature

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:12:05 -0500

Back in the summer time, Twitter announced that it intended to add a retweet option to its service and the API. Twitter is now rolling out the feature to a small percentage of Twitter users.

"You may remember that we shared the mechanics of this feature with developers a while back so they could think about how to work it into Twitter apps," says Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone on the company blog. "Now we're ready to start trying it on Twitter. The plan is to see how it goes first with this small release. If it needs more work, then we'll know right away. If things look good, we'll proceed with releasing the feature in stages eventually arriving at 100%."

If you are a regular Twitter user, it's pretty much a given that you know what retweeting is, but Stone describes what the button does to those in the dark. "Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy," he says. "In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know."

The Impact of Retweets

Retweets have already been a great way for content and updates to go viral. Now as the actual feature rolls out, that should only increase. Read this article for a look at the pros and cons of retweets (there are more pros).

Now that retweeting is becoming an actual feature of Twitter, you're going to want to keep in mind the tweetability of your content. Shéa Bennett, who writes the blog Twittercism, came up with a helpful equation for maximizing retweet potential. We talked about that here, but basically what it boils down to is leaving enough room in a tweet to accommodate what others will add to it as they retweet it.

This means keep titles short (at least in the tweet). For example, if you use some form of "tweet this" button on an article that automatically fills out the Twitter form with the article info, make sure there are not too many characters taken up. As you're probably aware, Twitter only allows for 140, and that's not very many. Keep in mind the "RT," hashtags, usernames, etc.

Tweaking Twitter Trends

In another piece of Twitter-related news, the company also announced that it is experimenting with improvements to trends that will help users find more relevant tweets. They say they're working to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful.

"The improvement won't be very noticeable at first, but this is a small step toward unearthing more value in search and getting you more relevant results," says @JennaDawn.

This means you will probably see less spammy trending topics popping up, which should benefit anyone who follows the trends.

Related Articles:

> An Equation for Getting More Traffic from Twitter

> Wonder What Percentage of Tweets are Retweets?

> More to Retweeting Than Meets the Eye for Businesses?

Social Networks Don't Waste Time, People Do.

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:54:16 -0500

Social Media policies of well-known organizations often appear in the news with commentary throughout the Blogosphere, the Twitterverse, etc. There is an ongoing debate about just how restricted social networks should be when it comes to employee use.

Where do you stand on this debate? Share your thoughts.

Bloxx, based in the UK, has released some research finding that 90% of IT Managers surveyed believe access to social networking site should be banned or restricted. 90%. That's a lot. The managers surveyed came from across the UK public sector as well as private organizations.

The concerns addressed in this survey were the usual suspects: staff productivity, network security risks, and damage to the corporate reputation. Productivity was by far the top concern.

Is productivity your top concern with employee social network use? Discuss here.

The research found that not only are an increasing number of organizations completely banning staff access from social networking sites, but it is also quite common for staff to post disparaging remarks regarding other employees, their boss, or the company on social networks.

Over 22% of respondents don't have any controls in place for staff accessing social networks. 35% of IT managers believe staff are spending over 30 minutes each per day on average accessing social networks. The companies are potentially providing an additional 16 days paid vacation for each employee, Bloxx says. Still, the research also shows that social networking is increasingly being used as a valuable business tool. Obviously access is required to take advantage.

"UK businesses really can’t afford to underestimate some of the risks of Social Networking use in the workplace," says Bloxx CEO Eamonn Doyle. "However, our view is that a complete ban is unrealistic and adopting this approach means that companies can’t obtain the potential business benefits of Social Networking and can alienate staff." Among Doyle's suggestions are increased employee education, "well-thought-out" acceptable use policies, and the use of Web filtering.

There are plenty of reasons why social network access shouldn't be completely banned. We cover these reasons about every day. If your company completely ignores social networks, you're ignoring a tremendous amount of opportunities for marketing, customer service, traffic, sales, communication, etc.

Social networks are not going away. The popularity of specific ones may change in time, but the concept of social networking is going nowhere. It's not even a new concept. Forums and email are pretty much social media for all intents and purposes. Social networks have recently been blamed for $2.25 billion in lost productivity. I wonder how much money lost productivity from personal email and general web surfing accounts for. I wonder how much employees simply talking to each other at the workplace has cost companies. That's not necessarily online, but it's still socializing. How have you handled email and general web use in the past?

Reputation issues are one thing. Security is another (and I think employee education plays a big role there) but as far as productivity, I really don't see that the use of social networks is really that different than any other form of simply not working. People can spend their time using the phone for personal calls, but you probably haven't completely banned the telephone. You may need that to communicate with customers, drive sales, etc. I'm sure you see my point.

Are social networks really the time wasters or is it just the people finding new ways to waste time? Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> Social Networks Blamed For $2.25B In Lost Productivity

> How SHOULD Employees Use Social Media?

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

Apple Fans Respond To The "Droid Does" Advertising Campaign

Jeremy Muncy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:30:27 -0500

The Motorola Droid advertising campaign is in full swing, and I'm sure by now you've seen the commercials, if not you can see the commercial below. Basically, the campaign is all about taking digs at the iPhone while showing Motorola's support for the Android OS.

If you're un-familiar with the Droid, it's the first Android-based smartphone that will be sold exclusively by Verizon Wireless. Why is this fact important? Verizon currently has more than 86 million wireless subscribers, and will be the largest wireless carrier to date to support an Android-based device.

Is Motorola's Droid an iPhone killer? Let us know your thoughts

Some Apple fans aren't taking the "Droid Does" campaign very well, as they've created their own take/spoof of the commercial, you can see it below.

Can the Droid succeed, by knocking off the iPhone, where so many other smartphones have failed (I'm looking at you Blackberry Storm and Palm Pre)? Let us know what you think.

Related Articles:

> iPhone Vs. gPhone

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> Android Users Outspending iPhone Counterparts

> Google Product Search For Mobile Goes To More Devices

> Google's Panoramio Gets an iPhone App

Watch: Cookie Monster Sings About Google

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:27:31 -0500

Update: Cookie Monster himself is appearing in today's doodle at Google.com.

Original Article: If you are a regular visitor to the Google home page, you have probably noticed that Big Bird's legs have taken the place of the ls in Google's logo (in the US). Sesame Street's 40th anniversary is coming up on November 10th, and Google has announced that it will be featuring a different character for each day until then.

They haven't wasted anytime with the characters yet though, because depending on what region you are in, you may have seen different characters already (and not necessarily all from Sesame Street). For example, Google.co.uk has a doodle up for Wallace and Gromit, who are apparently also celebrating their 20th anniversary. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable has provided a list of all of the different Google properties that are showing children’s programming-related doodles and their corresponding images.

Google discussed the series of doodles in a post to the company blog today. The company says Sesame Street provided them with the following video as well, which features Cookie Monster singing a song, part of which is to the tune of "Old McDonald" and has the lyrics "with a Google Google here, and a Google Google there..."

The clip has nothing to do with the Google we know today. It is from 1982. It's an appropriate find for the week, however, and Google is no doubt proud to show it off.

"Many Googlers grew up on Sesame Street, watching the colorful, seamless blend of education and entertainment. We're delighted to have partnered with Sesame Street to create this special series of doodles, particularly since we share the same values of education, diversity and accessibility," says Marissa Mayer, Google's VP, Search Products & User Experience.

Keep your eyes peeled for a week's worth of more Sesame Street doodles at Google.com. Hopefully they will get Guy Smiley involved. He's the legendary Sesame Street game show host.

Related Articles:

> YouTube, Hulu, iTunes Welcome "Sesame Street"

> Top 5 Reasons YouTube is a Great Educational Tool

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Why British Singer Matt Goss Likes Twittering with Fans

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:52:32 -0500

Do you know who Matt Goss is? If you're an American, there's a good chance that you don't. Still, in some places, like his British homeland, he is a star. He's sold 16 million records with his group Bros, which also featured his twin brother Luke. He's been making records for about 20 years.

Are you familiar with Goss? Respond here.

Goss will probably be the first to tell you that he's not a superstar in the U.S. It says right on his official site that he comes to America an "unknown." But he is hoping to change that. He's already been headlining shows at Palms in Vegas.

Goss is using social media to help build his career in the United States. He uses Twitter specifically to reach out to fans. He says he likes the immediacy of it. He likes that you can say something and get 100 responses back in 15 minutes. He likes that he can connect with his fans and get so many different perspectives. He'll ask people about a song or a video, and what they would change about it. He clearly aims to be a crowd pleaser - the perfect type for Vegas.

He has even called upon fans to pick what song they wanted to see released as a single.

"People actually have a voice now," he says. "Propaganda is not as relevant as it was when all you had was propaganda and what you read, you had to believe almost. Now the individual and the common man can have a voice."

Goss believes there are times when "heavy" messages are appropriate with a tool like Twitter, but thinks it is also a way to escape and have some enjoyment. Either way, he likes that there is no middle man, and notes the importance of accountability. I guess Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson did not attend Matt's session at BlogWorld.

Time will tell if Matt's efforts in social media will transfer his stardom to the States, but either way, you can tell he's enjoying trying. What do you think of his approach to Twitter? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> Jermaine Dupri, Anthony Edwards on New Media for Celebs

> Twitter is for Old People?

> How Big Brands Use Social Media

6 Ways Twitter Lists Are Changing the Game

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:25:42 -0500

We knew Twitter lists were going to be big for Twitter. We knew they were going to greatly increase the usefulness of the service, and for many, even the enjoyment. What we didn't know, however, was that right out of the box, we would see so many different uses for them, providing a window to the potential that they really do hold not only for Twitter itself, but for any business or individual who uses it. Let's look at a few of those ways that Twitter lists are being used.

Tell us how you are using Twitter lists.
1. Organization and Noise Reduction

When Twitter first made the announcement that the Lists feature was coming, my first thoughts were about how great that would be to organize the Twitter stream. It has worked out as such. It's a great way to separate the people you follow into groups.

For example, if I want to keep marketers, news organizations, sports stars, musicians, and my actual real-life friends all separate from one another, I can do that. It's a great way to reduce the "noise" that has commonly been associated with Twitter. You can look at a custom-made list and simply get tweets related to a certain category. It's very much like organizing a feed reader into different folders.

2. Changing the News

Mashable's Pete Cashmore wrote a pretty interesting piece for CNN about how Twitter Lists are already transforming online journalism. Journalists are using friends to filter massive amounts of data through lists. Again, it's about noise reduction.

Vadim Lavrusik also discusses ways news organizations are using Twitter lists. He looks at how different publishers are creating staff directories, recommending "tweeps" and specific information, using lists for curated real-time steams, and to follow events.

3. Directories

Mike Butcher points out that Simplezesty is creating lists of Twitter users in entire countries. This is a concept that could be taken by anybody to run wild with, particularly with regards to niches. Lists are essentially an organization tool, so anything can be broken down into categories.

Let's say you are a restaurant critic. You could create separate lists for the best pizza places, the best burger joints, the best bars, the best Mexican restaurants, etc. This could be applied to virtually any industry.

Shameless plug: Of course our own Twellow.com has served a similar purpose and more for quite some time, and it's already pretty well-established, so you if you're looking for people to follow by industry, I suggest checking that out.

4. A New Way of Interaction

Look at what the NHL had done. Jennifer Van Grove points to a Tweet from the National Hockey league, which called upon fans to tweet @NHL their favorite team with a specific hashtag. The purpose was to create lists fans by team.

I can see a lot of potential for this type of thing too. I could see such a thing being turned into a game, or being used by businesses for promotions, contests, etc.

5. Popularity Contests and Paid List Spots?

I would have to imagine that people are going to covet spots on certain lists. It's potentially going to be a great way to get new followers, so people are going to want to appear on the lists of influential Twitterers.

Could this lead to paying for spots on Twitter lists? I'd actually be shocked if this isn't already going on to be honest. It's not much different than the old-fashioned paying for a link. Only in this case, Google isn't there to keep you out of search results, because here you're trying to be found on Twitter, not Google.

That actually raises some more questions, however, as Google (and Bing) has recently made a deal with Twitter, which will see Tweets make their way to the search engine. We don't know yet exactly how this will go, and whether or not lists will ever factor into the Google part of things. Could being on more lists be taken as a sign of authority? I'm only speculating.

6. Exploitation and Spam

Inevitably, Twitter Lists will also be exploited and used for spam purposes. It's on the Internet and it's a chance to gain exposure. It pretty much stands to reason than spam will follow. Why would this be any different than any other tool? Valleywag thinks Ellen DeGeneres is already engaging in such tactics. That's an interesting read.

Are Twitter lists going to change how we get our news? How we find information? How we market our businesses? What do you think? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> By Tweeting, You Could Appear All Over the Web

> Twitter Expands the "Lists" Feature

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

Will Google Wave Shape the Future of Online Communication?

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:52:12 -0500

To be clear, I don't consider myself an expert on Google Wave by any stretch of the imagination, but based on what I have learned about it, these are my responses to frequently asked Google Wave questions. These are just my opinions.

We'd love to hear your opinions about Google Wave. Share them here.

Will Google Wave replace email?

No. It may replace email in the same way that social networks already have. Social networks have not replaced email in general. They have, however replaced it in some cases for some people. For example, friends may send each other a quick note via Facebook message rather than email. However, chances are one of those friends was emailed by Facebook alerting them that they had a new message. For more reasons on why social media (and I include Wave in this) won't replace email, read this article.

Will Google Wave catch on with the general public?

Obviously, it's incredibly early to tell if Google Wave will catch on on a massive scale. For that matter, what does "catching on" really mean? Does it mean to the extent of email? To the extent of Facebook? Twitter? There are pretty wide gaps between these. Will it catch on to the extent of RSS? Who knows. If you want my honest opinion, I don't think it will achieve Facebook-like status. I'm not sure that it will achieve Twitter-like status either, which is just a fraction of what Facebook has.

If Compete's numbers for the US are any indication, Gmail doesn't even come close to attracting the unique users that Twitter does anymore. I have a hard time accepting that Google Wave will be bigger than Gmail (though it's certainly possible).

Will Google Wave catch on in the workplace?

If Google Wave catches on anywhere, I think it could catch on in the workplace. Lots of companies are using Google Apps, and now that Google is marketing that aggressively, that is likely going to increase big time. With the right promotion and integration, I could easily see Google Wave working its way into the mix there. The very collaborative nature of Google Wave caters to work-related use.

At this point, Google Wave is in its very early stages, and over the coming months and probably years, we are going to continue to see improvements and innovations made with it. Will that translate into widespread adoption? I'm not so sure.

I think people are going to have a hard time figuring out why they should be using it. I also think people are getting tired of having more accounts to keep up with (although this would be connected to your Google account).

If Wave brings all of their contacts and socializing into one central hub, it's going to have some competition. Mozilla is already working on Raindrop, which sounds like a pretty useful tool. There will be others.

On the other hand, it could go the Twitter route, where people will struggle to "get it" for a long time, and slowly start finding uses that suit them. That "ah-ha moment" hasn't come for everybody that's used Twitter yet either, but there's no denying that service has made its mark on popular culture.

I don't want to sound anti-Wave here. It seems cool and potentially useful. Worst case scenario, it is just another tool that you can use if you want, which may or may not make your life (and work) easier. Best case (for Google at least), it becomes like email (or to a lesser extent Facebook) in the sense that it is practically unavoidable to use because everyone you know uses it and if you don't you will be out of the loop. At this point, I'm just leaning toward the former.

Do you think Google Wave is going to change the world or do you think it's being over-hyped? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> Google Wave Simplified: How it Basically Works

> Mozilla Aims to Integrate Social Media and Email into One Inbox

> Google Gets Serious About Marketing Apps

Why Actor Kevin Pollak Prefers the Online Medium

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:48:38 -0500

Kevin Pollak, who even if his name doesn't ring a bell, you've likely seen before. He's a comedian, as well as an actor. He's played in movies alongside Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Jonn Candy, and others.

Not a moviegoer? He's also played on his fair share of television shows. You may have seen him on The Drew Carey Show, Shark, Ed, or Entourage. Or maybe you've seen him in a comedy club.

Actually, there's a good chance you've seen him on the web, and if not, you will (I guess you have now either way). Pollak has his own online show (Charlie Rose-style) called simply Kevin Pollak's Chat Show in which he talks with some pretty big-name people. He's had guests like Kevin Smith, Levar Burton, Eddie Izzard, Lisa Loeb, Kevin Nealon, Seth Macfarlane, Hank Azaria, and others.

Are you familiar with Pollak's work? Comment here.

Here's a look at the intro from the first episode of Pollak's show.

Pollak likes the online format for a variety of reasons. He likes that you can get stuff out all over the world instantly. He likes the lack of limitations. You can do a show uncensored, and you can let it run as long as you want. His shows are normally at least an hour long, and sometimes 2 hours or more.

The online format is ideal for inspiring audience participation with the show itself as well. Pollak says he's had users contribute a theme song, questions for guests, and participate in a "Larry King game" (you'd have to watch the show to understand).

We're seeing this audience participation with content thing more and more in the online video world. Look at what Paramount's doing with Mountain Dew, Adobe Flash, and MySpace. They're marketing with an interactive web series/game.

In another article I talked about using more than just the obvious communities to spread your message. Kevin Pollak's Chat Show is a good example of how this can happen on its own, particularly with online video in the mix. His videos are not only on his site, but they're on YouTube, Beet.tv, Blip.tv, Ustream, and other Video sites.

The natural shareability of online video combined with the communication power of social media opens up the doors for a whole lot of opportunity. Pollak has presences on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. He's even got one on Mahalo. Pollak's show proves that you can find success online even if you don't know that much about the Internet. As Kevin says in our interview with him, he's learning as he goes. It certainly helps that he is already in show business, but if you can provide interesting enough content, people out there will watch it, and they will share it. Best of all, you can reach people all over the world.

How has being online expanded your opportunities? Discuss here.

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> Comedy and Alcohol at BlogWorld

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More People Relying On The Internet To Buy Vehicles

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:32:52 -0500

Searching online for used vehicles has become the primary way for consumers to locate used automobiles, according to new a report by J.D. Power and Associates.

The report found the percentage of used-vehicle buyers who rely on the Internet as a way for locating vehicles for sale has increased from 40 percent in 2008 to 46 percent in 2009, equal to the percentage of buyers who visit dealer lots as their main shopping method. In addition, 31 percent of buyers found the vehicle they eventually purchased on the Internet, compared with 28 percent of buyers who found their vehicle by visiting dealerships.

"Internet shopping provides prospective buyers with the opportunity to search through enormous amounts of specific vehicle information without ever leaving home, allowing for a more efficient medium of matching buyers with unique used vehicles in the market," said Arianne Walker, director of marketing and media research at J.D. Power and Associates.

"In light of this, dealers should expect the Internet to continue to increase in importance among used-vehicle shoppers and adjust their online presence accordingly."

The report also found that awareness of certified pre-owned (CPO vehicle programs is strong, with more than 60 percent of used-vehicle buyers indicating they intend to purchase certified pre-owned vehicles at the start of their shopping process.

One-half of all buyers of CPO vehicles say they used the Internet to locate used vehicles, while a slightly lower percentage (45%) shopped primarily by driving to dealer lots. The percentage of buyers who visited dealer Web sites specifically for CPO vehicle information has increased considerably to 29 percent in 2009, compared with 19 percent in 2008.

Among used vehicle buyers who use the Internet in their shopping process, third party sites are visited during the shopping process more frequently than other types of sites, including dealer websites. The majority (91%) of buyers say they visited at least one third-party websites during the shopping process.

"Not only has visitation increased for third-party sites, but they also continue to be viewed as the most useful sites during the shopping process," said Walker. "Overall, users rate sites such as AutoTrader, Cars.com, and Edmunds highly for overall usefulness. In addition, certain third-party sites are also well regarded for usefulness in specific areas.

"For example, sites like AutoTrader and eBay Motors are perceived as particularly useful for inventory information, while buyers report that ConsumerReports.org and Edmunds are useful for vehicle appraisals and reviews. Sites such as Kelley Blue Book are perceived as being particularly useful for pricing information."

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Using Facebook Traffic to Drive Brand Loyalty

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:37:53 -0500

WebProNews recently covered a study from Chitika, which found that Facebook was the most valuable social media tool for driving repeat readers to content sites. The study was based on 33 million unique users across Chitika's publisher network in September. It compared the number of visitors coming from major traffic sources Digg, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter, to the number of times those visitors came back to the referred site. Visitors that went to a site four or more times in one week were considered loyal users. By a wide margin, Facebook led the pack in providing loyal traffic. 20% of all visitors from Facebook visited the site four or more times per week.

Where does your most loyal traffic come from? Facebook or somewhere else? Comment here.

"We've received the most clients from Facebook than any other social media website," a reader commented on the article. "Although we've received slightly more visitors from Digg and Stumbleupon, the viewers have not converted into customers the same way they had through Facebook."

There has certainly been plenty of talk about how Facebook can drive traffic, but clearly there are still a lot of people struggling with just how to go about doing so.

"Why am I not getting this?" another reader asked. "Blogs I've done are boosting my Google, Yahoo, and Bing ratings and getting traffic to my web site, but I'm not getting how Facebok can do this."

Comments like these are not uncommon, and to be fair, this one was made prior to Microsoft's announcement of a deal with Facebook (Google has been rumored to be in talks with Facebook as well).

But not all traffic has to come from search, although Facebook exposure can certainly contribute to that as well, if nothing else, than simply through promotion leading to links.

When a Facebook user frequently checks for status updates, he/she is likely to see new posts made from Facebook Pages he/she is subscribed to. This means creating a Facebook page can have a great effect on page owners. Making readers aware of the page is key as well. Luckily Facebook has a widget called the Fan box, that you can put on your site, which can lead new visitors directly to your Facebook page.

Facebook has also just updated another important widget - the share button. Now it will provide a live count of shares, as well as analytical information. You can find out how people are sharing and engaging with your content, and gain further insight into how your stuff is doing with the Facebook community (and adjust your strategy accordingly).

Traffic is a common goal, but it is not the only one. Going back to the topic at the beginning of this article, brand loyalty is a big one.

A representative for Stuzo Group, one of Facebook's exclusive development partners, shared some interesting case studies with us, looking at how they created branded applications and fan pages for brands like Doritos, Budweiser, Smashbox, and Purina.

"When Stuzo works with these brands, the goals that they have most often in creating these promotions is to increase brand loyalty and recognition, boost traffic to their website, and drive sales," the representative said. "These goals all go hand in hand, and explain why Chitika's study was so valuable; hits to a website are great, but they don't mean much unless they contribute to brand loyalty and positive recognition of the brand." (emphasis added)

A common theme among the case studies provided by Stuzo is that they all present clear objectives for what they want to accomplish with Facebook. For example, Budweiser's were:

1. Create brand awareness through a strong fan base and social channel opt-ins

2. Incentivize users to engage with the brand on a regular basis

3. Convert new customers and drive increase in sales

Budweiser went the route of contests and competitions (which are viral by nature). According to the case study, this has resulted in:

- Hundreds of thousands of Unique Pageviews

- Sustained high level of brand engagement by all measurements

- Significant, continued growth in Budweiser’s Social CRM and social channel opt-ins

Budweiser is just one example of a big brand finding success through social media, and through the use of Facebook in particular. As I recently discussed, you can find new and interesting ways to integrate social media into your own plans by looking at some of the brands you use yourself and how they employ different tools. This helps you to put yourself in the customer's shoes and determine the things that work and the things that don't.

What brands have you seen using social media in interesting ways? Discuss here.

Related Articles:

> The Most Loyal Traffic Comes from Facebook

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Some Brands Have Good Ideas For Social Media. Do You?

Watch: Bing Goes the Bloodsucker Route

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:24:54 -0500

Microsoft is either taking the holiday marketing approach or the Twilight/Vampire trend approach with its latest commercial. The title is Bing: Vampire Decision Engine.

The company uploaded the new commercial to its (Google-owned) YouTube channel. Accompanying the video is a short description:

"When you're looking for a restaurant that is family friendly, romantic, or maybe something with an otherworldly atmosphere, use Bing's reviews to stop searching and start deciding."

You also may be seeing this ad on a television near you.

What do you think of the latest Bing commercial? Is it good or does it "suck"? Ah Ah. (That was supposed to be the Count). Share your thoughts here.

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How Does Bing Rank Tweets?

Chris Crum — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:40:29 -0500

As previously reported, Microsoft has made deals with both Facebook and Twitter, which will see Bing feature updates from both networks in real-time search efforts. To me, this says that social media just became an even bigger part of search engine marketing, particularly with Google also on board with Twitter and rumored to be talking to Facebook.

Bing has already made a beta version of its Twitter search available to users at bing.com/twitter. The most interesting aspect of Bing's Twitter search is that it offers something plain old Twitter Search (formerly Summize) doesn't. That is a relevancy factor (or at least an attempted relevancy factor).

Twitter Search only shows you results displayed chronologically, which has really always seemed to be the essence of real-time search to me anyway. But Bing has a "Best Match" option, which attempts to give certain tweets more weight than others.

How do you put relevancy on "real-time" results though? "Real-time" is based on time (obviously). The phrase even has the word "time" in it. A search for "WebProNews" on Bing's Twitter Search gives me different results for "most recent" and for "best match". I can't see that the "best match" results are any better than the "most recent" results, however.

The answer is: Bing weighs tweets by follower counts. "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher," says Bing. "If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

Sidenote: A commenter on this article made a point worth mentioning. What if a new Twitter user tweets about something highly relevant or important, but has not gotten many followers yet? That's something to think about.

This is of course the earliest stage for any kind of algorithm Bing may have in place for its Twitter search feature. The feature is still in beta after all. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft makes more details available for how it ranks tweets moving forward. This could be a whole new nut to crack for SEOs. Consider that Bing results will be taking over for Yahoo if the Microsoft-Yahoo deal goes through (plus there is still Google's Twitter results to worry about).

I'll go out on a limb here either way, and suggest that providing good content will be the way to go moving forward. That will bring in followers, and probably do better for your relevancy rankings in the future. That said, defining good content may be considered a little harder at 140 characters or less.

Related Articles:

> Facebook/Twitter Use May Now Mean More for Google/Bing Rankings

> Social Media Will Not Replace Search

> Microsoft and Google Score Deals with Twitter

> Don't Lose Yahoo Traffic By Not Optimizing for Bing

Is ranking in search engines for Twitter results going to be a priority for you? Discuss here.

New Hitwise Report Exposes Twitter Trouble

Doug Caverly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:15:49 -0500

Sorry, Twitter fans (and animal lovers), but you'd better brace yourselves for another round of (hopefully Photoshopped) pics featuring birds in cats' mouths and squashed against glass doors. New stats from Hitwise make it look like Twitter isn't doing so well.

First of all, it seems that there's almost no chance of Twitter catching up with Facebook. Bill Tancer found that, on October 24th, Facebook's market share of U.S. visits was about 6.10 percent. Twitter's, meanwhile, was 0.14 percent. That puts Facebook ahead by a factor of about 43.5, and it's increasing that lead every month.

Then, in a move that might silence anyone who's hoping that Twitter's just biding its time, building up speed, Tancer provided a zoomed-in view of the site's performance. And since early July, at least, the news hasn't been good.

Tancer also wrote, "At iMedia Breakthrough, Jeff Rosenblum from Questus referenced a Harvard Business School Study finding that the median number of tweets per twitter user over the life of their twitter account is 1!"

Still, any pictures that just portray a bunch of half-eaten bird feathers must be considered overkill, at least according to Twitter's CEO, Evan Williams. He recently told Adam Lashinsky, "It's grown a little bit slower lately, but we have some things in the works that we think will change that."

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Legalized Online Gambling Would Bring In Billions

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:38:35 -0500

A Joint Committee on Taxation report released today by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) found that regulating Internet gambling would generate roughly $42 billion over 10 years.

The report is based on the requirement of a federal license for operators that would allow them to offer online gambling throughout the United States, while keeping the federal prohibition on any form of sports betting.

"This analysis further reinforces the fact that a regulated environment will generate billions in new revenue to offset the costs of health care reform or other vital government programs," said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.

"With the completed analysis, and support for Internet gambling regulation growing daily, it's only a matter of time before Congress acts and begins allocating the billions in new revenue sitting on the table to one program or another."

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation that would legalize Internet gambling and McDermott has a companion bill that would collect tax revenues on online gambling.

"We believe this tax revenue analysis will encourage immediate discussions and consideration of pending legislation to regulate Internet gambling," said Waxman.

"With everyone acknowledging that attempts to prohibit the activity have failed, this provides even more incentive for Congress to act."

Currently the amount of revenue that remains uncollected while Americans gamble online is more than $100 billion annually.

Related Articles:

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Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:23:03 -0500

Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a thread featuring an explanation from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa.

"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," says Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."

Search marketers are wondering why Google tells people not to focus on PageRank and removes it from Webmaster Tools, but still keeps it in the Google Toolbar. "Back in 2007, Google wanted feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar," says Schwartz. "I felt it was a good idea but the idea died out. Google cannot remove PageRank from the Toolbar, it is too much of their branding. No matter how much Matt Cutts and the Google search quality and webmaster trends team want it removed, I cannot see Google's executives allowing it."

Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says the role of PageRank has been reduced to nothing more than a "comfort blanket for SEO Noobs." He adds, "I say this, with a high degree of confidence that most experienced SEOs pour over the data in Google Webmaster Tools, whereas those new to the industry likely let the toolbar be their only guiding light."

He also notes, however, that PageRank data can still be useful. For example, it can be a good indicator of a site's behavior in Google's index. "Any green means 'go.' No green, means there's something to investigate," says Beal.

Despite this usefulness though, Moskwa pretty much closes the case on Google's position on it. In fact, she even points to a FAQ page about crawling, indexing, and ranking, which says that webmasters shouldn't even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.

What are your thoughts on PageRank? Discuss below.

New Googleplex Established In Brussels

Doug Caverly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:27:20 -0500

Google has branched out (or more accurately, built up) yet again. Simon Hampton, Director of European Policy and Public Affairs, announced today that the search giant's established a Googleplex in Brussels, Belgium.

Hampton explained on the European Public Policy Blog, "Until now, our small policy team in Brussels worked from temporary abodes. From now on, you can find us at Chausse d'Etterbeek 180 1040 Bruxelles, right in the heart of the European quarter."

A satellite view of the address makes it look like a very nice, green spot - exactly the sort of place you might expect Google to set up camp. Unfortunately, Street View's not available in the area to allow for a closer inspection.

Details about price, square footage, and other relevant stuff are also lacking (although Hampton promised that bright, Google-y furniture is on hand, along with a number of game consoles).

Anyway, it would appear that this move signals a real intent on Google's part to become and stay involved in European politics. Hampton wrote, "We hope to make our new Brussels Googleplex a periscope for policymakers peering into the future of the Internet."

Related Articles:

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Best Buy Now Installing Google Mobile Apps On Smartphones

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:09:27 -0500

Best Buy Mobile said today it will install Google mobile applications in the smartphones it sells at its retail outlets.

Best Buy Mobile employees will install Google Mobile App on all compatible smartphones through its "Walk Out Working" program which is a free in-store smartphone setup.

Google will announce this additional method of getting Google Mobile App on its Mobile Blog and provide more information on a new Google and Best Buy Mobile website scheduled to launch on November 9.

Users can already download Google Mobile App from m.google.com but the partnership with Best Buy will likely lead to more adoption of the applications.

Key features of Google Mobile App include:

One-click access to Google - search Google without having to navigate to the internet
Search by voice - speak your query in plain English
My Location - search for local businesses without having to type your current location
Google Suggest - search for suggested queries and businesses that appear as you type
Links to other Google apps including Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube

"We know that consumers want smartphones and, increasingly, they want to use applications," said Scott Moore, VP of Marketing for Best Buy Mobile. "The challenge is that people still need help understanding what is available to them and how they can bring it to life on their device."

"This partnership between Best Buy and Google serves that role and will go a long way in bringing applications to more consumers regardless of what device, carrier or platform they use."

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

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Google Books Gets A Little More Organized

Doug Caverly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:12:35 -0500

Big libraries are neat - the idea of having so much information (and entertainment) available in one place is just inherently attractive. The trouble is, big libraries can also be overwhelming, and so Google Books has tried to make its own virtual library a little more accessible by creating a list of available magazines.

Jeffrey Peng, a software engineer, put together the list. It's available in either a "cover view" or a list view that provides more text and information. Users can sort the magazines according to how much of them can be seen by the non-paying public, too.

Admittedly, this doesn't sound huge. But stick with us a moment. Just shy of 100 magazines are available through Google Books, and although that number isn't overwhelming, it is unwieldy. Magazines are meant more for enjoyment than heavy research, so it makes sense to be able to browse a list rather than rely on a search function.

Furthermore, this development may signal that additional magazines will soon become available through Google Books.

Then here's the other significant thing about the list: Peng wrote on the Inside Google Books blog that it was created in response to user requests (specifically, perhaps, a Facebook group with 45 members). So this is a nice example of someone within a multibillion-dollar corporation listening to what "the little people" want.

Related Articles:

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Google Tests New AdSense Interface

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:48:56 -0500

Google announced the beta testing of a new AdSense interface today. It is being tested with a small group of publishers. Google says the new interface was designed based on the top three requests from users:

1. Provide insights to help you make more informed decisions about you sites.

2. Offer you more control over the ads that appear on your sites.

3. Help you manage you account more efficiently

With the new interface, AdSense publishers can get more detailed performance reports that let them view daily stats in graphical formats. In addition, it provides metrics like amount you've earned from various ad, targeting, and bid types.

The interface includes some improvements to the Ad Review Center that will give users more options to manage ads that appear on their sites, and offer what Google says is a cleaner interface that will make it easier to find and review them within the Ad Review Center.

"We've streamlined the AdSense interface to simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously," says Google. "Additionally, to help you get the most out of AdSense, we've added more relevant help on every page, a message inbox for tips from our team, and alerts with important account related notices."

The limited beta testing is taking place in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Japanese. The test will be rolled out to thousands of publishers over the coming weeks (they will be notified via email notification).

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