SPAM e-mails cost US $22 billion annually. (Saturday, February 05, 12:28 AM EST)

Findings from the 2004 NTRS, an annual survey that tracks U.S. consumers’ technology opinions and behaviors, indicate that online users in the United States spend an average of three minutes deleting spam each day they check e-mail. Aggregating their usage across the 169.4 million online adults in the United States, this equals 22.9 million hours a week, or $21.58 billion annually when based on the average working wage.

My main email box gets so much spam it isn't even worth checking anymore. Literally 500+ spams a day.

And yet, I still like the fact there isn't a lot of government legislation on 'the internet' as a whole.

Could Verisign Effectively Knobble ActiveX Spyware Installs? (Saturday, February 05, 12:05 AM EST)

There's an interesting proposition threadlinked above that says, in short, that if versign were to excercise its right to revoke the digital certificates issued to spyware vendors pushing dodgy "drive by" installs.

Even though Microsoft can't (or won't) fully fix this problem, VeriSign can. Before an ActiveX popup can install software onto a user's computer, the installer's "CAB file" must be validated by its digital signature. If the signature is valid, the user's web browser shows the ActiveX popup, inviting a user to install the specified software. But if the signature is invalid, missing, or revoked, the user doesn't get the popup and doesn't risk software installation.

There's a lot of info in the post above but it would take someone with a far greater knowledge of this stuff than I to work out if Benjamin Edelman's solution would hold water.

From reading it though, it certainly seems it might...

From Google to specific video point - Very Cool Tech (Friday, February 04, 11:49 PM EST)

This is actually very impressive.

Try this:

Do a search on Google for the phrase "innovation-based cultures"

Now, click on the first result. The listing should be "NICK VALERY Our next session is on the innovators themselves. Who ..."

That should take you to a page, which opens a window. In that window, you'll see a video of a presentation (along with synched-slides and a rolling transcript). The spot in the video to which you are taken is not the beginning of the video, but rather (and this is the cool part), the spot in the video in which the phrase "innovation-based cultures" is said. This trick would work with any phrase in the text. It's just that this result scores #1 for that unique phrase.

his is the handiwork of a company called Vodium and it definitely points to a compelling future. This is not the result of Google's video search. It's the result of Vodium's ability to make the transcript of a speech indexable and linked to the video itself.

I am not sure, however, if Vodium is partnered with Google to do this. Does anyone know?

Is Google Responsible for Ruining the Internet? (Friday, February 04, 10:49 PM EST)

I was just sitting here drinking my coffee and I had a thought. Far from making sense of the web as they purport to do, Google is single handedly turning it into a bloated disaster zone.

First they spouted the content mantra. Webmasters diligenlty pumed out millions of pages to satisfy the hungry cralwers.

Then they started the anchor text numbers game. People then went out and built millions of sites especially to promote their other pages.

Now we have adsense. Pages are now being made from crap especially to make as many adsense impressions as possible.

Add to that buying pagerank, blog and guestbook spamming (all due to Google's algorythms) and the rest and I wonder if it's a master plan to take down the net :)

Rackspace bans Yahoo! (Friday, February 04, 09:53 PM EST)

How funny is THAT? - Well, not very funny at all for anyone hosted on Rackspace i guess..

Yahoo's Tim Mayer said:

A customer of a hosting company like rackspace may have a customer that is being hit by our crawler and not realize who it is so they report the IP to rackspace or another provider and they block the IP at the router level. This would cause other SE to have access and for us not to have access.

Muppets...

via barry

Gates + Windows = Interoperability? (Friday, February 04, 09:46 PM EST)

Bill Gates has issued a letter to Microsoft customers that outlines an intention to design it's software with interoperability in mind, primarily in the form of XML

Simply put, interoperability is a proven approach for dealing with the diversity and heterogeneity of the marketplace. Today I want to focus on two major thrusts of Microsoft’s product interoperability strategy: First, we continue to support customers’ needs for software that works well with what they have today. Second, we are working with the industry to define a new generation of software and Web services based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which enables software to efficiently share information and opens the door to a greater degree of "interoperability by design" across many different kinds of software. Our goal is to harness all the power inherent in modern (and not so modern) business software, and enable them to work together so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We want to further eliminate friction among heterogeneous architectures and applications without compromising their distinctive underlying capabilities.

and from beta news

"I think Microsoft is premature trumpeting the open-format messaging. And to be clear, by any definition typically applied to file formats, Office isn't open," Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox told BetaNews.

But Gates made clear in his letter that interoperability does not equate to open source. He said that interoperability is about how different software systems work together, regardless of licensing and development. Gates claimed that open source could actually have a detrimental effect on making software interoperable.

The comments in the Beta news piece are not kind - much talk of FUD heh...

Time Warner - 5 Million Shares in Google (Friday, February 04, 03:32 PM EST)

Bearing in mind all of the talk about Yahoo being a media company and Google being a tech firm and how that relates to predicted market share and growth for both companies it's interesting to note that Time Warner own 5 Million shares in Google.

Find the SEC filing here and see this Cnet report also

Making the Perfect Geek Curry (Friday, February 04, 04:33 PM EST)

Ok, so a little Friday FOO is in order :-)

Im going shopping for Curry tomorrow, and wanted to pick the collective brains of the Threadwatch boys and girls over general curry making. For my contribution, i give you... Follow the title link for the full post...

Effective Offline Marketing (Friday, February 04, 02:29 PM EST)

I'm interested to hear what methods of offline marketing people have found effective in promoting their websites. A lot of people who have become successful through SEM and have a bit of cash in their pocket are now realising that 'branding' and building real sites and real businesses is the way to go (as well as doing a little bit of blackhat on the side to keep the funds coming in obviously!)

It would be interesting to hear about the more unusual and non-mainstream methods of marketing that people might not be aware of. For instance, I read a book recently that discussed 'Undercover Marketing'. This medium involves using actors to stage situations whereby people overhear another group of people praising a particular company or product. For instance, a group of hikers are out walking, another group of hikers approach from the opposite direction. They are talking animatedly about this great new brand of walking shoes that are the best they've ever had. Obviously, things we overhear like that are more likely to sway our decision making process than obvious advertising directed at us. Another example of this is the story that Amazon paid lots of concierges in apartment complexes to leave Amazon boxes in the hallway in the morning. The supposition of the tenants passing these every morning is that this company must be good because lots of people in my apartment block are buying from them.

I quite liked these two examples and I thought they could work well to promote websites. Interested to hear from other people what forms of offline marketing they find effective.

How to Handle Mistakes (Friday, February 04, 02:19 PM EST)

When a company makes a mistake, there is almost always one option that is taken: The wrong option.

Defending the mistake, despite everybody knowing a mistake was made is bad news. It breeds mistrust, and creates a serious "them and us" feeling amongst those that have to live with the consequences of the mistake.

The worst part of the defending the error problem is everyone knows that a mistake was made. Well, everyone but the decision maker, who refuses to acknowledge the problem at all.

Since the decision maker is often the business owner, there is little the other people affected by the bad choice can do, to help with the problem. They can try to offer suggestions, advice, and cost effective alternatives, but those ideas are often flatly rejected in many cases.

Personally i've nothing but respect for any company i deal with when, inevitably they make a mistake but, deal with it swiftly, professionally and apologise for it. It just goes to prove that not only are they human, but also that in a crisis, i can depend on them to sort it out.

Dealing with Mistakes Publically

Why not turn a mistake into an opportunity? There really is no need for a mistake (barring loss of life etc..) to be a total disaster - especially online. If you're seen to act upon the problem quickly, professionally and to the injured parties satisfaction publically then IMO it can only do your business good. Some thoughts on ways to do this:

• Enable comments on product sections - and monitor them!
• Intall a forum for customer support - and man it!
• Issue a public notice on the website about the mistake, and again, enable comments and answer them..

Why don't people get this? To err is human, to admit error and handle it correctly and publically is a marketing & PR opportunity

original post found via Seth

WebmasterWorld Register Threadwatch.net - Is this a Wind Up? (Friday, February 04, 03:35 PM EST)

I mention in the title that this could be a wind up of course, it's ever so easy to give false whois information...

Threadwatch.net

To contact the owner of the domain threadwatch.net, please email webmaster@searchengineworld.com

Interesting eh?

January Search Patents for Google Yahoo M$ and More (Friday, February 04, 12:27 PM EST)

This months most interesting Search related patents compiled by JasonD for Threadwatch - Google, Yahoo, MSN, IBM and Apple all make an appearance and it makes for interesting reading for sure - Thanks Jason... Follow the title link for the full post.

Jeeves to Increase Public Presense in Search Community (Friday, February 04, 10:43 AM EST)

Kaushal Kurapati has posted on the Jeeves blog the companies intention to increase their presense in the Search forums - and better yet, to drop the stupid nicknames - Yaay!

I know we have at least one or two of the ASK people registered here so you better come out now and damn well post something useful! heh...

Google and Latent Semantic Indexing (Friday, February 04, 10:28 AM EST)

Aaron Wall takes a look at Googles Latent Semantic Indexing technology in light of recent shake ups in the main index. He says that Google have increased the weight of the LSI part of the overall algorithm and that does seem likely as many around the web concur.

A brief definition:

Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to the document indexing process. In addition to recording which keywords a document contains, the method examines the document collection as a whole, to see which other documents contain some of those same words. LSI considers documents that have many words in common to be semantically close, and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method correlates surprisingly well with how a human being, looking at content, might classify a document collection. Although the LSI algorithm doesn't understand anything about what the words mean, the patterns it notices can make it seem astonishingly intelligent.

I've also been told that Using Semantic Analysis to Classify Search Engine Spam - an older stanford document is well worth considering when looking at recent changes...

So, questions for the technically inclined as my eyes start to glass over with this stuff :-)

• Is this what is going on at Google?
• What's the best way of handling it?

Go ahead and thrash out your theories, it's all speculation but it certainly seems likely so getting to grips with it is a must...

Getting MSN Results in RSS (Friday, February 04, 09:56 AM EST)

As Danny has just pointed out, you can now get your MSN results in RSS in a much simpler manner - just key in whatever it is you want to monitor and check for the orange RSS button at the bottom of the page.

Here's a really dull feed to plug in and try :)

Unfortunately you can't jig the RSS to show results from out of the country you're in like you can with the normal SERPS - they say they're working on that.

Rackspace Hosting Blocks Yahoo! Spiders (Friday, February 04, 08:38 PM EST)
Tim Mayer from Yahoo! at a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Rackspace hates Yahoo? Or Vice Versa? said: We did some further testing and our crawler IPs are in fact blocked from Rackspace. Tim said this happens quote...

Google Backlink Update Underway (Friday, February 04, 04:43 PM EST)
During all this fun at Google, there is a backlink update underway. Forum Threads: DigitalPoint SEO Chat V7...

Yahoo! Express URL Removal (Friday, February 04, 04:01 PM EST)
A member at WebmasterWorld asked how he can remove a URL from the Yahoo! index. Tim, from Yahoo!, posted a URL to the answer. create a "robots.txt" file on your web site to prevent our crawler from indexing your site...

WebmasterWorld Goes After ThreadWatch (Friday, February 04, 03:51 PM EST)
Nick, the creator of a new great forum/blog named ThreadWatch posted an entry named WebmasterWorld Register Threadwatch.net - Is this a Wind Up?. Basically, it looks like someone over at WebmasterWorld, affiliated with searchengineworld.com, Brett Tabke, owner of WebmasterWorld -...

More On Latent Semantic Indexing (Friday, February 04, 01:57 PM EST)
Yesterday I wrote an entry named Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) - Crawl into the Google Algorithm?, where I discussed how the current theories behind the Google SERP changes have to do with a new algorithm shift for Google. Now many...

AdWords Relevancy & AdSense Revenue Take a Hit (Friday, February 04, 01:35 PM EST)
Last night, I received an email from Peter Da Vanzo, you know the guy who started that new cool directory named Rubber Stamped. Well in a blog entry he named First Rule of Adsense he mentions a thread over at...

Time Warner reports $1 billion-plus stake in Google (Friday, February 04, 10:53 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: SiliconValley.com - The New York media conglomerate, whose America Online unit acquired a stake in Google through a pre-IPO business partnership, sold a small chunk of that stake last year and still holds more than $1 billion worth of...

Little by Little or All at Once? (Friday, February 04, 10:41 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Small Business Ideas Forum - "I know I've got to update my web site. And, that the update will be extensive. So, do I make small changes over a period of many weeks or do I do one massive...

Ask Jeeves Reports Strong Results (Friday, February 04, 09:57 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: ClickZ - Ask Jeeves more than doubled its profits in 2004, posting net income from continuing operations of $52.4 million, or $0.80 per share, on revenues of $261.3 million. This compares with $24.8 million net income on revenues of...

Search Engine APIs: Right for You? (Friday, February 04, 09:40 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: ClickZ - It's great the engines recognize that when billions of dollars a year flow through an auction marketplace, automated control APIs are a necessity, as they are on Wall Street. But like Wall Street, technology alone won't make...

Is Answers.com the Next Google? (Friday, February 04, 08:34 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Fool.com - Why is GuruNet soaring? Investors may be looking at Google's $55.6 billion market capitalization and thinking that GuruNet's Lilliputian $93 million capitalization leaves a lot of room for growth. Maybe, but Answers.com has just been released, and...

Clicks add up to big ad dollars for search sites (Friday, February 04, 08:25 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: News.com - The fact that Eli Lilly, Napster, Novartis and Staples are among Super Bowl advertisers that are also regulars on Google is not the only evidence that Web advertising has come of age....

Interview: Thunderstone VP Doran Howitt (Friday, February 04, 08:11 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: Search Engine Guide - Jason Dowdell interviews Doran Howitt, the VP of Marketing at Thunderstone about the Thunderstone Search Appliance SBE his company has recently launched....

Meta Search For The Desktop (Friday, February 04, 02:57 PM EST)
(Direct Link) Source: InternetNews.com - Watson, released this week by Intellext, is a sort of meta desktop search engine that also incorporates contextual analysis to automatically suggest related items as the user works....

Martha Stewart Hosts the Next Apprentice (Saturday, February 05, 03:44 AM EST)
Martha Stewart Hosts the Next Apprentice When I first heard about Martha Stewarts taking over Donald Trump's Apprentice spot for next season, I have to admit that the thought of the Camp Cupcake Mistress firing Popstick CEO Danny the Hippie just wouldn't be as cool as Donald Trump's little "YOU'RE FIRED" ...

MP3Tunes DRM Free Music Download Store To Launch (Saturday, February 05, 03:12 AM EST)
MP3Tunes DRM Free Music Download Store To Launch Michael Robertson, founder and former CEO of the original MP3.com, has announced plans to launch a new online music store next week - MP3Tunes. Robertson intends to launch a service that offers music which is free of any rights management, or DRM. He ...

Google Latent Semantic Indexing (Friday, February 04, 08:10 PM EST)
Google Latent Semantic Indexing Many people have been noticing a wide shuffle in search relevancy scores recently. Some of those well in the know attribute this to latent semantic indexing, which Google has been using for a while, but recently increased its weighting. How Does Latent Semantic Indexing Work? Latent semantic indexing ...

Yahoo Launches Yahoo! Q - Contextual Search Tool (Friday, February 04, 02:20 PM EST)
Yahoo Launches Yahoo! Q - Contextual Search Tool Yahoo launches Yahoo! Q, which shows contextually relevant news and links in a small pop up box next to content. "The thinking is that if you can read an article, you can be inspired to search," said Ken Norton, senior director of product management ...

Mamma.com Intros Click Auction Model (Monday, February 07, 05:56 AM EST)
Mamma.com announced it added a new auction function to the flat rate pay-per-click media sales offered by the meta-search engine, according to DM News. Also announced were interface improvements,...

[summary]

AOL Posts Nice Ad Gains but Hemorrhages Subscribers (Saturday, February 05, 01:53 AM EST)
The good news is that AOL reported it grew its non-search advertising business to $313 million, a 53 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago. It reported ad sales of greater than $1 billion...

[summary]

Hitwise Shows Evidence of Viral Effect (Friday, February 04, 03:56 PM EST)
Hitwise reports that its monitoring of a Tide an ad-supported viral campaign - where visitors to a special website can sign up for free samples and recommend the site to friends - increased...

[summary]

Analyst: Search Marketing Will Exceed $23 Billion in 2010 (Friday, February 04, 03:55 PM EST)
SearchEngineLowdown points to a breakdown of Piper Jaffray analyst figures showing the search engine marketing field growing to $10 billion in 2006, then growing 35 percent in 2007, 20 percent in...

[summary]

Ohio Toughens Spam Penalties (Friday, February 04, 03:55 PM EST)
Ohio enacted a new anti-spam law that makes illegal a wide variety of activities common among spammer, including falsifying routing information and using unauthorized access to computers to send...

[summary]

Amazon Growth Big, Slowing (Friday, February 04, 03:53 PM EST)
Amazon.com reported financial results showing 26 percent sales growth in 2004 when taking into account currency adjustments, a figure that disappointed some analysts. International sales grew...

[summary]

Spam Absent from DMA Ethics Referrals (Friday, February 04, 02:44 PM EST)
The Direct Marketing Association's ethics committee forwarded four internally-policed cases to government authorities, according to DM News. The four members referred to various authorities involved...

[summary]

Internet Ads to Eat More Marketing Share (Friday, February 04, 02:43 PM EST)
eMarketer collected a bevy of statistics showing the general picture of online adspend growth. It predicts 4.2 percent of adspend will go to the internet, just about where Merrill Lynch estimates had...

[summary]

Online Adspend Pegged to Hit 7.4 Percent in 2009 (Friday, February 04, 02:43 PM EST)
Merrill Lynch estimates that online ads will account for 4.6 percent of adspend in 2005, up from 3.7 percent in 2004, according to a MediaPost report. Due particularly to increased forecasts for...

[summary]

Ogilvy Staffs Digital Innovation Group (Friday, February 04, 02:23 PM EST)
OgilvyInteractive launched a small internal group called the Digital Innovation Group that will deal with emerging interactive technologies and media. Headed by Maria Mandel, a former director of...

[summary]

Everyone Now an Online Marketer, Even Superbowl Advertisers (Friday, February 04, 01:43 PM EST)
Taking one in every 25 marketing dollars might not have been enough to grant the internet "mainstream" status, but The New York Times reports that the medium may have come of age now that Superbowl...

[summary]

comScore Buys Still Another Survey Firm (Friday, February 04, 01:43 PM EST)
ClickZ reports that comScore acquired still another survey company, this one a large Canadian firm, SurveySite. The Toronto-based company employs 50, servicing very large U.S. consumer brands such as...

[summary]

DoubleClick: Executive Golden Parachutes Reflected in Q1's Forecasts (Friday, February 04, 01:43 PM EST)
In a very unusual note for an earnings outlook, DoubleClick - in the midst of reporting decent revenues and profits for the last quarter of 2004 - told investors that it had already baked into its Q1...

[summary]

Mamma.com Intros Click Auction Model (Monday, February 07, 05:56 AM EST)
Mamma.com announced it added a new auction function to the flat rate pay-per-click media sales offered by the meta-search engine, according to DM News. Also announced were interface improvements, a keyword suggestion tool and a bid estimator.

Hitwise Shows Evidence of Viral Effect (Friday, February 04, 03:56 PM EST)
Hitwise reports that its monitoring of a Tide an ad-supported viral campaign - where visitors to a special website can sign up for free samples and recommend the site to friends - increased Tide.com's share of visits by a factor of nine for the week ending January 22. The next week jumped up a further three times, presumably as the viral effect kicked in. Evidence for this showed up in the fact that more than half of those latter visited came from email service referral links.

Ohio Toughens Spam Penalties (Friday, February 04, 03:55 PM EST)
Ohio enacted a new anti-spam law that makes illegal a wide variety of activities common among spammer, including falsifying routing information and using unauthorized access to computers to send spam, according to DM News. The law gives prosecutors the ability to put spammers away in jail for six months, fine them $25,000 per violation or levy penalties of $2 to $8 per spam message. Internet service providers are also given grounds to sue in state civil court. The new law follows the form of the federal Can-Spam Act, but like legislation seen in Maryland and Virginia, it institutes tougher penalties.

Amazon Growth Big, Slowing (Friday, February 04, 03:53 PM EST)
Amazon.com reported financial results showing 26 percent sales growth in 2004 when taking into account currency adjustments, a figure that disappointed some analysts. International sales grew fastest (33 percent taking out the currency exchange effects). The company reported a profit of $588 million for the year, compared to last year's $35 million.

Ogilvy Staffs Digital Innovation Group (Friday, February 04, 02:23 PM EST)
OgilvyInteractive launched a small internal group called the Digital Innovation Group that will deal with emerging interactive technologies and media. Headed by Maria Mandel, a former director of DraftDigital's interactive services, the group will consult with other Ogilvy units on matters such as game advertising, digital outdoor advertising, interactive TV and the like. Senior Ogilvy strategist Brandon Berger, expert on gaming and wireless advertising, will also join the group.

Yahoo Launches Local Search BETA (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)

Lycos Sells to Korean Internet Portal (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)

Google Launches Bidding Site (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)

Search Engine Marketing Organization Cops Criticism (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)

MSN Previews New Search Engine (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)

Mamma.com Adds Auction to Pay-Per-Click Offering (Friday, February 04, 06:37 PM EST)
DMNews reports meta-search engine Mamma.com has added an auction-based pricing tool to its Mamma Classifieds flat-rate pay-per-click search product. Via MarketingVOX.

Search Revenue to Reach $23 Billion by 2010 (Friday, February 04, 02:08 PM EST)
Gord Hotchkiss breaks down the recent predictions given by Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. Next year, he predicts search revenues to top $10 billion, and then hit $13.5 billion in 2007, $16.2 billion in 2008, $19.8 billion in 2009 and top $23 bill

Paid Search Rivals Super Bowl Commercials (Friday, February 04, 02:03 PM EST)
The New York Times provides a good comparison of paid search with other big advertising favorites, such as the Super Bowl. I've always said that search gets you an audience larger than the Super Bowl, for the cost of a Yellow Pages ad. Lot's of basic i

GuruNet Sees Stock Growth from Answers.com Publicity (Friday, February 04, 01:55 PM EST)
Haaretz reports on Jerusalem-based GuruNet's good fortunes, since going public in October. The company, once known for its enterprise search, is know creating a buzz with its Answers.com search engine (which I use and love). GuruNet now hopes to base a

A Gmail Rollout from Google? (Friday, February 04, 01:49 PM EST)
Neville Hobson speculates that Google may be getting ready to rollout a Gmail to a wider audience, i.e. everyone.

Yahoo YQ Contextual Search (Friday, February 04, 01:46 PM EST)
Jason Dowdell doesn't let a trivial thing, like a birthday, get in his way when it comes to search. He gives his thoughts on Y!Q the new contextual search service from Yahoo. I tried to add to a post on this site, but couldn't get the code to work, but

UK's Yell.com Understands Slang (Friday, February 04, 01:35 PM EST)
The UK's online yellow pages, Yell.com, is reported to now understand different slang words. ...the new website also recognises words like cludgie (toilet in Scotland), stotty (bread in Newcastle), laithe (barn in Yorkshire) and sough (drains in Lancas

Google Images ad (Friday, February 04, 10:30 PM EST)
Apparently if you search for certain terms, it displays some images and a link to the equivalent Google Images search. Here are the ones that have been found so far: for x in l: print "* "+x+"" print 'Let us know if you find any more.' --> pipes ahmad limes lemons caterpillars heads takashi murakami asia argento pepperoni mushroom green pepper olive anchovy bicycle mountains sunsets good nothing everything world argyria starling ostrich finch sparrow seagull albatross Ian Brown ps3 ps2 poodle puddle hey jesus aishwarya hello mount mount st. helens faces makeup leaves america sewer chocobo quake 3 emerica kilimanjaro dj funk architect mimes tornadoes potatoes munchkins rhino michal foamy celts brueghel escher goodbye olaf scissors matisse bach natalie portman sean connery eiffel strong bad mayan giraffe ganesha penguins baseballs chickens easel glasses giraffes goat paints pencil pens rings roosters ruler shrub zebra fox hunting moulin rouge peanut climb nature puck skeleton bsd hexagon octopus dove oyster alley picaso michelangelo freemason honda civic toyota camry mousse snowman igloo mustard seed hawk microphone mexican flag pakistan flag tuxedo HAL titanic tux hashish ak47 grenade pipe bomb bong oranges tables cans apples cherries a carrot gif grapes i jpg of raider butter moo pig meh ko d h k n q v ira glass Let us know if you find any more....

Superbowl Advertisers Also Big on Search Advertising (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
John Markoff's article in the NY Times is a nice backgrounder of the search advertising industry, starting with Bill Gross's PPC innovations with GoTo.com in the mid-1990s. Markoff notes that several big buyers of Superbowl ads are also regular presences on search results pages. The big brand-recognition efforts still cost a fortune, while the lead-conversion methods have never been cheaper or more direct.

The Google Atom Bomb (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Much blog buzz about Tom Foremski's doomsday scenario for Google AdWords. A billionnaire (presumably Bill Gates in disguise) offers $100-million dollars to the first person who clicks through an unidentified AdWords ad. I suppose the landing page would exist in isolation with no incoming links, and would contain a form to fill out. Millions of people would take up ad-clicking as their new hobby, tromping through legitimate landing pages and hoping to stumble upon the winner. TechDirt points

What is a Top-Ten Listing Worth (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Adam Penenberg decided to quantify the answer to this question and reported his findings in a Wired News article. He collaborated with Oneupweb to conduct a study of traffic and conversion results of clients, before and after they cracked the top 30 Google listings for their keywords, and also the top 10. Many multiples of improvement transpired as each milestone was reached, proving that SEO really does work.

GOOG Soars (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Did I say something about the value of Google's quarterly report already having been priced into the stock? Yes, I believe I did. That's why I'm not making the big bucks as a financial analyst. Today, GOOG gapped up hugely, and is leveling out around 211. The stock has closed above 200 twice before--on January 3 and January 18--but has responded to the 200 level as a resistance point. They say that the third attack on a resistance le4vel makes it a support level,

Google an ICANN Registrar (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google is now a domain registrar. Why not? The company has its hands in so many pots, it doesn't hurt to get a little registration action going. Signing up domain names connects to the Blogger business, and beyond that Google's intention here is anybody's guess. Here is Google's rather preposterous explanation: "Google became a domain name registrar to learn more about the internet's domain name system. We believe this information can help us increase the quality of

MSN Search Graduates from Beta (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Unlike Google, Microsoft doesn't leave its projects in beta for years at a time. MSN Search graduated to the main search engine spot today. That's about it--nothing more to add at this point. My review of the latest beta version is here. (I still love those sliders, and the built-in answer engine works well.)

Gigantic Google Bonuses (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google has initiated a bonus program that rewards employee projects with stock dumps that vest over several years. The first wave of bonuses included 12-million dollars worth of stock divided amont 12 employees whose projects were particularly valuable to the company. Treating employees well is always good. In this case, Google seems to be responding to much discussion of the difficulty in keeping rich employees from leaving the company to start their own enterprises. In that light, the bonuses

GOOG quarterly (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google beat projected revenue in its fourth quarter by 10 cents a share, it was announced today. That would normally be a blockbuster report, but glitter was expected and already priced into the stock. GOOG spiked above 200 in today's trading, then slithered down nearly two percent. GOOG's price-to-earning (past year) is 230. Gulp.

Is Yahoo! Eating Google's Lunch (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
This NY Times article profiling the leapfrogging competitveness of Yahoo! vs. Google assembles a number of quotes portraying Google as a lazy and capricious company that doesn't follow through on its beta projects. Granted, it is hard to fathom why Google keeps mature products in beta for so long--Froogle and Google News come to mind. But there is a PR advantasge to that tactic, as it conveys the impression that Google scientists are just not satisfied with services that we lowly consumers

Google Quarterly: Tuesday (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Watch for Google to post results of its fourth fiscal quarter Tuesday. Analysts expect whisper number to be exceeded, which implies a quieter level of whispering well, anyway, everyone expects GOOG to report a good quarter.

A9 Local Slideshows Become an Art Form (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
This is taking off even faster than I anticipated in my Blastoff post. A9's new Yellow Pages section, featuring many millions of street photos, has become the target of a certain type of virtual joy riding. There is an undeniable fascination in prowling around major cities through the A9 interface--the photos sequences do not approach movie-frame rates, but are closely enough spaced to present a visual tour of neighborhoods. People-watching is part of the appeal, as anyone walking along the

Apple Wins Top Global Brand Spot, Unseating Google (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
In the latest version of an annual brand-impact survey run by Interbrand, Apple won the top spot for global brand with the most impact. Apple toppled Google (which isn't easy to say); the search company slipped to second place. Idea and Starbucks took third and fourth place, and everyone is talking about AlJazeera taking the fifth spot. The survey questions 2,000 ad executives, brand managers, and academics.

AdWords API Sets the Stage for Interface Explosion (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Just as the Google Web-index API opened the door to a multitude of alternate search interfaces created by third-party developers (see Chapter 14 and 15 of Google For Dummies), so does the newly released AdWords API promise to do the same for the campaign reporting interface for advertisers. Good job releasing it. Search Engine Marketing firms with a knack for code will develope slick new reporting environments for their clients that are more directly tied to keyword effectiveness as opposed to

Google Switches to Answers.com (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Rumors and occasional sightings surfaced a couple of weeks ago of Answers.com supplying word definitions for Google searches instead of long-time supplier Dictionary.com. Now the switch seems to have been made for good. Perform any search, click on the definition link(s) in the upper-right of the screen, and get the definition from Answers.com. Answers.com is the new branding of Gurunet, which used to operate as a subscription-based reference engine.

A9 Local: Blastoff! (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Now we're talking. A9 hasn't made a wrong move since it launched its search/answer engine. Now, A9 has shifted into a higher, Google-like gear and is hurtling straight toward the future. Trumping Google just three months after G acquired satellite imaging company Keyhole, A9 has assembled a system whereby it can collect millions of photos and incorporate them into its local search. Search for coffee in zip code 10010 (New York City), and you see the image shown here (along with the

Searching for Sundance video coverage on Google Video Search (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google's new video search is out, so I searched for Sundance and found all the inane coverage from Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, and other programs that make the public think that Paris Hilton was actually on the Jury this year. Seriously, the video search doesn't actually play the videos.. it just synchs the transcripts with still images, creating a pretty good research tool for finding out who's been on Letterman and Leno before, during, and in the coming months after

Google VOIP (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
The rampant buzz over Google getting into the VOIP free-call business must be kept in perspective: it is rumor, plain and simple, founded on the same basis as most rumors of the past eight months: a job posting. But daydreaming is irresistible in this case. Hardly a more perfect match could be imagined than Google and VOIP. As a service to consmers, Google could provide one-click phoning to numbers embedded in search results. As an advertiser service, Google could implement a slick version of

Google Video Goes Live in Beta; Suffers Next to Yahoo! Video (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
I never liked playing leapfrog as a child, but I do enjoy watching Yahoo! and Google play. After Yahoo!'s December release of Yahoo! Video, Google has come out with its unique perspective on searching TV content. The differences between the two are immense--so vast, in fact, is the gulf between Yahoo!'s aptly-named offering and Google's new entry that Google should probably rename the service. As of now, Google Video is all about TV, and would be better named Google TV. Anyway,

Google Faces Oddly Wimpy Fines in Euro Trademark Case (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Perhaps the strangest part of Google's lost trademark case in France, which Google astoundingly lost as decisively as it won the Geico case in the U.S., is the daily fine imposed by the court for failing to jprevent ads from displaying in response to keywords associated with the plaintiff's trademarks. We're talking about 194 dollars a day. Excuse me? That's $70,000 per year. Why not just pay the damn fine as a sort of tax for doing business in France. But Google will appeal,

Desktop Search: Necessity or Novelty? (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Greg Linden continues a blogosphere discussion on the necessity--or triviality--of desktop search. Touted as a primary new frontier for search, it's worth pondering whether it is truly usefulo, and if so, exactly where it can be useful. Greg wants better access to all of his computer's Web history. Point well taken. Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor thinks IM transcripts and e-mail are the important search fields. I have found Google Desktop useful for cutting through my own filenaming

Introducing the Yahoo Y!Q search tool (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Highlight any text paragraphs you find interesting and ask Y!Q to find out what the text is about.

Google switches to Answers.com (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google replaces Dictionary.com as its definition provider.

Microsoft starts using the MSN search engine (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
MSN abandons Yahoo and switches to its own search engine.

The Google Browser (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Pandia believes Google is developing a Gbrowser.

Google adds TV search (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
About the new Google Video beta test.

Google's new 32 words limit (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google now allows as many as 32 words in search queries.

New anti-spam tag (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
The search engine agrees on common HTML tag.

AOL Search gets a face lift (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
AOL adds some features.

Exalead gets a 1 billion document index (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
European Exalead is preparing an even larger index.

MSN Search tests RSS feeds (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
MSN is alphatesting the possibility of displaying search results through RSS feeds.

Yahoo's new desktop search software (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Yahoo! Desktop Search lets you search your own computer.

FexIT -- business oriented search service (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Iceland has given us a new online business portal and search service.

MSN's gradual transfer to new search engine (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
MSN is giving regular searchers some taste of its new search engine technology.

Answers.com -- new free reference search service (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
GuruNet launches free search engine

Gigablast now indexes 1 billion pages (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
The Gigablast search engine is growing

Google to establish charity foundation (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Google plans to establish a foundation this year based on 1 percent of its stock.

Everything I know about web marketing I learned from my gas station (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
How do you design a site and a search engine strategy that actually sells?

Blinkx desktop search for Mac (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Next week you may download Blinkx for the Mac.

Everything I know about web marketing I learned from my local gas station (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
How do you design a site and a search engine strategy that actually sells?

Alternative desktop search tools (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
There is more to desktop searching than Google and MSN.

Search Engine Trends 2004 (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Pandia takes a look at what happened in the world of search engine this year.

New version of the Santy worm (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Santy.e uses Yahoo! and AOL Search to spread.

Google Scholar advanced search interface (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
New menu based search form for Google Scholar.

Behind the scenes at MSN desktop search (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
On interviews with the teams developing the Microsoft Toolbar Suite.

Pandia launches search engine search engine (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
A new topic search tool that lets you search the best search engine oriented sites in one go.

Internet Explorer rapidly loosing ground (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
On the new browser war.

Worm uses Google to attack sites (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
A Web worm is using Google to identify sites using the vulnerable PHP Bulletin Board software.

Survey of desktop search tools (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Pandia presents various tools for searching your own computer.

Last chance for my seminar (Saturday, February 05, 02:37 AM EST)
My whiteboard seminar is 2/16/05. This is the only scheduled small seminar I've announced. There are just a few seats available. You can find all the details by clicking this link: Seminars. I hope you can make it. See you...

I don't get it (Friday, February 04, 09:42 PM EST)
Maybe I'm not supposed to. Do they make lubricant for eyeglasses? Link: Dove.com....

the Purple Hotel (Friday, February 04, 08:39 PM EST)
Steve points me Tom's blog--about a (pun intended) Purple Hotel.  tompeters! leadership training development project management....

What do you do after you make a mistake? (Friday, February 04, 12:13 PM EST)
Nice post by Wayne, thanks Red: Blog Business World - Marketing, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization....

Latent Semantic Indexing (Friday, February 04, 12:09 PM EST)
Very nice post by SEO Book, I mean Search Engine eBook, ah how about Search Marketing Guide? :) about Latent Semantic Indexing. The idea is related to what I've seen described as "contextual relavency" where a search engine (like Google) ranks a document in part based on the related concepts in the page as a whole and compares them to other related documents in the index. What this means for

ADV: OpenPal.net - new site 100% free! (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Online friends network with free searcheable profiles, forums and journals.

Sony to Sponsor Blog to the Tune of $75,000 (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Here's an interesting story that I picked up, via B.L. Ochman's website, about Sony's sponsorship of a new web log called Lifehacker.com. The article, entitled Sony Pays $25,000 a Month for Gawker Blog, says that the electronics firm is going to pay $75,000 over 3 months for the privilege. In...

Register, it's Free! (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
How often have you gone to a website, been invited to sign up and then found that you would have to pay subscription?  Having been directed to the AdAge website from a business blog, it was refreshing  to see straight away that subscription was free (though for premium articles you...

Bridging the Gap Between PR and Search Marketing (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
When speaking to clients about Web content, I always try to make a distinction between what comes out of a company brochure and the content that appears on a company's website. Very often the way that companies present information about themselves and their products in an offline context, is different...

Technology for Marketing Conference (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
Next week the Technology for Marketing Conference will be held in London's Olympia on the 8th and 9th (February). They bill themselves as:UK's premier event dedicated to helping marketing, customer service and sales professionals implement technology solutions to optimise their marketing strategies and campaigns.There looks like there will be quite...

E-Mail Marketing as a Relationship Strategy from Peppers and Rogers (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
I've just downloaded an interesting pdf from the Right Now website, entitled E-Mail Marketing as a Relationship Strategy (you need to sign up to receive it). Written by the Peppers and Rogers Group, the management consulting firm, it offers a guide to High Impact E-mail Marketing and according to the...

Keep Track of your To-Do Lists with Ta-da Lists (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
I just came across a neat new tool, called Ta-da Lists, which allows you to make lists of things you need to do, such as Bills to Pay, Things to do for the Holidays, Search Engines to Submit to, Blog Articles to Write, Directories to Link to, etc. To-Do lists...

Inland Revenue (UK Tax Office) Manages a PR of 6/10 (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
I've just been on the Inland Revenue's site and noticed that its Self Assessment page for tax returns had a Google PR (Page Rank) of 6/10, on  whilst its 2003-04 Tax Returns, Notes and Help Sheets managed a PR of 5/10. And no, I don't make a habit of frequenting...

A9 Launches Online Local Yellow Pages (with photos) (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
A9 has just launched a new search product, in partnership with Yellow Pages, which gives users the opportunity to get address details, view maps and even photographs of business addresses. Coupled with the ability to view books (through Amazon), a search engine (results enhanced by Google) and image search...

Does Your Website Lack Personality? (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
The other day I was reviewing a site that had been developed for one of my clients (previous to engaging me!). This B2B site had a few thousand products, was relatively easy to navigate around and offered clients the ability to pay through a variety of means – their terms...

Google Hires Firefox Programmer (Saturday, February 05, 08:55 AM EST)
In a move that is sure to fuel speculation that Google is planning to launch its own Internet browser, it was announced this week that Google has hired the lead programmer, Ben Goodger, of the Firefox browser. Here's what they had to say on Wired: Among other clues pointing to...

Y!Q Beta Launches ... with Mixed Results (Friday, February 04, 06:50 PM EST)

Yahoo! has launched Y!Q, its contextual search engine that refines search results according to related keywords that the searcher might not have thought of. the idea is to make searching more intuitive—or, more accurately, to make the search engine seem more intuitive of your needs. In a Y!Q search, Yahoo! returns standard Web results (without advertising, at this point), refined by considering additional, related keywords. All keywords (yours and Yahoo!’s additions) are listed above the results.

Y!Q may be tested in a number of ways, the quickest being to visit the Y!Q engine itself. I tried the engine there, and also followed instructions for adding Y!Q searching ability to Firefox. In this manner, you can launch a Y!Q search by adding a keyword (”yq” is suggested) before your search string, typing the whole shebang into the browser’s address bar. This method requires a minute of setup, and does not require any downloads. (Plug-ins for Firefox and IE are available.)

Y!Q’s usefulness is not compelling at present, but does attain satisfaction when applied to news items and news stories. Yahoo! encourages this application, suggesting a visit to a special Y!Q-flavored version of Yahoo! News, where each headline is enhanced with a Search Related Info link. Clicking that link pops up a window with related links—a quick and powerful way of delving deeper into a story. Of course, this gambit is most useful with headlines that aren’t already bundled into Yahoo!’s Full Coverage, which is already a contextual treasure-house.

Presently I do not see an important reason to use Y!Q searches consistently, and no important reason not to. The service is not distinguishing itself compellingly. Most troubling, it seems to lack imagination. No matter how many broad searches I tried (president bush for example, or mp3), Y!Q returned results refined by only the keywords I entered, and no others. How could even the stupidest contextual engine fail to relate mp3 to music, iPod, MP3 players, and dozens of other key phrases? Search results do differ between Y!Q searching and regular Yahoo! searching, but I’m at a loss to explain why, how, or which is better.

Y!Q is a dud, but an interesting dud. Stay tuned.