Provides constant updates of the latest search engine marketing and other search news from Search Engine Watch and across the web.
- blinkx launches contextual online video search ad platform - 2007-06-25 10:05:24-04
The video search engine blinkx today announced its new advertising platform, AdHoc, billed as "the first contextually relevant video advertising platform." The program is designed to offer all media companies and advertisers a more flexible solution for customizing the timing and appearance of video ads to run alongside their published content online.
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- Human Input and Algorithmic Search - 2007-06-25 11:25:15-04
The subject of human edited search is hot again. Many factors are driving this, but I believe that the basic reason for this resurgence is that we are all getting a bit more sophisticated about the challenges faced by search. Some of the recent articles about this include a New York Times article by Randall Stross called The Human Touch That May Loosen Google's Grip, The role of humans in Google search by Matt Cutts, and a series of posts by Michael Gray about Jason Calcanis' Mahalo, with the most recent of them being this one.
It's a really important topic, because all of the existing search engines remain susceptible to spam sites. Many people believe that human input can play a big role in cleaning up the remaining spam problems the search engines have. Certainly, you can imagine ways in which this would be quite effective. But the most scalable technique is to implement social search algorithms, where search engine users vote on content quality, and this then affects site rankings.
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- Yahoo! Names Hastings, Nebraska Greenest City - 2007-06-25 11:34:13-04
Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) today announced that Hastings, Nebraska, has won its "Be a Better Planet" Greenest City in America challenge. The birthplace of Kool-Aid, Hastings will receive a grand prize of $250,000 to be dedicated toward city greening projects, developed in conjunction with Global Green USA. More than 350 cities participated in the "Be a Better Planet" ( http://better.yahoo.com/planet) program, which challenged Americans to take action against climate change and use tools such as Yahoo! Green, Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! oneSearch to become better planetarians.
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- Local.com Gets Location-based Search Patent - 2007-06-25 11:52:30-04
The local search space is becoming a patent battleground. in the third local search patent to surface in the last month, Local.com today announced that it's been awarded a patent for "indexing and retrieving web-related information by geographical location."
Last month, Jingle Networks won a patent for elements of its 1-800-FREE-411 service, which serves targeted voice ads from related businesses and competitors when a user looks up a local business on its service.
Earlier this month, London-based Geomas sued Verizon and its Idearc spin-off, claiming that Idearc's Superpages.com infringes on a patent it owns for location-based search.
It's not likely that all of these seemingly overlapping patents, and other emerging patents, can all be enforced. The local search is certainly overcrowded with start-ups, so a little bit of patent-enforcement might help with consolidation in the market. On the other hand, it can also stifle the growth of the industry, if the major players get involved in an all-out patent war. It would be best for the industry if these issues could get sorted out swiftly and decisively, but that's rarely the case in situations like these.
- Interview with blinkx on new video search distribution partnerships with Lycos, InfoSpace, and Real - 2007-06-25 20:08:26-04
Grant Crowell, video search columnist for SearchEngineWatch.com, conducts an audio interview with the founder and CEO of blinkx, Suranga Chandratillake, on their new contextual advertising model (AdHoc) and new distribution partners – Lycos MIX, InfoSpace, and Real Networks' RealPlayer. (Recorded on Monday, June 25, 2007.)
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- Search Headlines & Links: June 25, 2007 - 2007-06-25 23:05:42-04
Want a snapshot of the day's search engine news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
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- SEW Experts: Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1 - 2007-06-26 01:01:11-04
In today's Little Biz column, " Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1," Carrie Hill tells you how easy it can be to use WordPress to build or maintain your Web site or blog.
- SEW Experts: Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research - 2007-06-26 01:01:22-04
In today's au Natural column, " Five Fundamental Questions of Keyword Research," Mark Jackson reviews five fundamental questions to ask of your site when performing keyword research.
- Google Aps Adds Mail Migration - 2007-06-26 10:13:51-04
The Google Apps group is continuing to put out interesting updates. Just yesterday they announced the addition of mail migration capabilities. What does this mean you ask? Google now offers a way that users can migrate existing email data from an IMAP server into their Gmail accounts on Google Aps. Gmail will then organize the messages into conversation threads, and will be able to display the original sender, recipient, and date of messages; and convert existing mail folders into labels.
One of the big benefits of all this is that old messages become instantly searchable, using the Google powered search capabilities built into Gmail. This could be a big feature for companies that have large reams of archived email data that is generally hard to access.
Companies that could benefit might include those that are subject to governmental regulation in all their communications with their customers, such as stock brokerages. Fast easy access to all of that information could dramatically reduce costs in showing their compliance.
- ThreadWatch Closing on Friday - 2007-06-26 12:10:18-04
ThreadWatch, one of the first major industry blogs, is ceasing operations on Friday, Aaron Wall announced today .
The site, originally started by industry luminary Nick Wilson, had grown into a major source of industry news. With no alliances, the blog had a biting style that many people appreciated. It became the spot where most of the news in our industry was aggregated, an essential read for anyone trying to keep up with our industry.
I did a brief stint as a blogger there and was and am proud to mention the affiliation. Many of the best people in our industry have posted there, and at times many of the worst as well. It was what made it a good read - but also may have caused the site's demise.
Aaron I love you mate but.... girlfriend/ThreadWatch ThreadWatch/girlfriend - you can always find another girl friend.....
Just joking... thanks for keeping it going as long as you have. It will be sorely missed.
- Google Earth Outreach Non-Profit Initiative Launches - 2007-06-26 12:15:58-04
At the Googleplex East this afternoon, Google's introducing Google Earth Outreach, "a new program designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do." The room is packed with mostly representatives of non-profit organizations
The program allows non-profits to layer content and applets over Google Earth to tell stories about their work. Non-profit organizations are invited to apply for Google Earth Pro grants worth $400 to receive technical support from Google to kick-start their online programs using Google Earth.
Pilot partners here at the 'plex include Jane Goodall, Kathy Bushkin Calvin of the United Nations Foundation and Earthwatch President and CEO Edward Wilson.
- Yahoo Keeps Creating its Own Troubles - 2007-06-26 13:57:46-04
Yahoo is having a spin problem lately. It's going through some changes, as everyone is well aware. Finding a way to keep and build its search share and build out its display ads and other properties in the face of growing competition is enough of a challenge. But a bigger problem may be its propensity to shoot itself in the foot with recent media relations efforts.
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- Skrenta Steps Down at Topix - 2007-06-26 14:27:40-04
Rich Skrenta, CEO of news aggregator and local search site Topix since its launch five years ago, is stepping down from his position, but retain a seat on Topix's board. He'll be succeeded by Chris Tolles, who has been VP of marketing at Topix since 2004, and who worked with Skrenta to build the Open Directory Project before selling it to Netscape in 1998.
Earlier this year, Topix revised its news aggregation model to become more of a citizen journalism site.
- How Do You React to a Media Blitz? - 2007-06-26 17:53:25-04
Ups and downs in search activity and success metrics are often related to activity in other media channels, such as TV, radio, print, and online. One common finding is that as media activity increases, impressions and clicks go up as well. Does that mean that we should up our search budgets and add keywords during an external media blitz? Not always.
In today's SearchDay, "Coordinating Search with External Media: Can Less Be More? ," Impaqt's VP of analysis & decision support Pat Stroh explains that lowering your bids may actually be a better plan. Doing so could increase conversions and lower ROI.
- Ingenio Data Attempts to Crack the Code on Mobile Usage - 2007-06-26 18:02:00-04
Pay-per-call provider Ingenio and market research firm Harris Interactive released results of a survey today that shows interesting data around consumer preferences for mobile devices and advertising.
Like any up and coming area, knowledge or consumer preferences is important to lead product development; and nowhere is this more relevant than in mobile search, where there is a great deal of experimentation and speculation and no clear cut models for content or ad delivery.
Though mobile search and advertising are different than the PC environment, Ingenio chief marketing officer Marc Barach contends that there are similar opportunities to build ad models, although there is also a need to adapt content delivery methods and ad formats to the specific needs of mobile users.
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- Quigo To Serve Time Inc. Contextual Ads - 2007-06-26 18:09:37-04
Quigo has signed a multi-year with Time Inc. to provide contextual ads for the publisher of such sites as CNNMoney.com, Time.com, People.com and SI.com.
Time chose Quigo's AdSonar platform due to its flexibility and the fact that "many of our advertisers are very response-driven," Time Inc. Business and Finance Network's president of digital publishing, Vivek Shah stated.
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- Search Headlines & Links: June 26, 2007 - 2007-06-26 23:15:35-04
Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
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- SEW Experts: ZoomInfo – People Finder and Company Intelligence Tool - 2007-06-27 01:01:20-04
In today's By the Numbers column, " ZoomInfo – People Finder and Company Intelligence Tool," Eric Enge checks out Zoominfo, a tool you can use to find a long lost buddy or to get business intelligence when your company is small and data is hard to come by.
- Google Not Added to Microsoft AntiTrust Case - 2007-06-27 11:24:30-04
Google's attempt to be added to the list of plaintiffs in the Microsoft antitrust trial was ignored by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly yesterday.
"Google is not a plaintiff in this case," the judge stated.
The federal government, 17 states and the District of Columbia are involved in the case. As major portions of the landmark 2001 antitrust settlement are due to expire in November, Kollar-Kotelly suggested the judicial oversight of Microsoft be extended.
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- Marchex Launches Content-Rich Direct-Navigation Strategy - 2007-06-27 11:30:36-04
Marchex today launched 100,000 local and vertical Web sites, all with unique content. The sites include yellow pages listings, user-generated and expert ratings and reviews, and of course plenty of ads. The content is generated by Marchex using technology it acquired from Open List last May.
The portfolio contains sites like videocameras.com, chicagodoctors.com, newyorkdining.com, and hundreds of zip code sites, such as 90210.com. Traffic comes from users who type the URL directly into their browser, or from search engines that index these sites.
Marchex expects to expand the Open List content to more of its 200,000 direct navigation sites in coming months. It will also link all of these sites back to OpenList.com in the fall, creating a huge local search engine and ad network.
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