SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

September 4, 2009

Google Domestic Trends Tracks Search Volume Across Economic Sectors

Google Finance has a new feature that uses Google Trends to show search volume as it relates to economic sectors. The feature is called Google Domestic Trends and it consists of 23 indexes.

Ultimately, Google's goal is to predict economic indicators via search volume data. You can download Google Domestic Trends and use it with your own models.

The 23 indexes are:

Advertising & marketing Air travel Auto buyers Auto financing Automotive Banking & personal finance Business Computers & electronics Construction Credit & lending Durable goods Finance & insurance Furniture Industries Investing Jobs Luxury goods Mortgage Real estate Rental Retail trade Travel Unemployment

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 10, 2009

Google May Be Added To Dow Industrials

In the wake of some major blue chip companies falling in price, Google has been mentioned as a possible addition to the Dow Jones Industrial average, Reuters noted.

Cisco has also been named as a possible new entry. "Other candidates include high-profile household names such as the world's largest credit card network, Visa (V.N), or iPod maker, Apple."

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 9, 2009

Google Stockpiling Cash: Storing Nuts For Economic Winter Or Just Plain Nuts?

Seems every time Google's CEO Eric Schmidt mentions the harsh economic times we are experiencing the company's stock price drops. Now, following his comments last week about the company stockpiling cash with no immediate plans of acquiring any new companies - Twitter seems to be everyone else's popular choice - the stock has fallen again (nearly 5% at the time of writing this).

The possibility of Google acquiring Twitter has been discussed by many recently, as has the idea of Twitter challenging Google in the future.

Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal suggests that Schmidt's denial of plans to buy Twitter could be double talk to allow the price to drop.

"Don't believe Google's slight-of-hand talk about the timing not being right. The timing is perfect! While other companies pull back on spending-causing Twitter's valuation to drop due to lack of interest-Google can fly in under the radar and pick up perhaps the most important internet start-up since Facebook," Beal stated.

Google recently has talked about long term plays to help the economy such as going green, which Schmidt has stated will improve Google's bottom line.

Google is in a tough place themselves - stock prices have drop more than 50% over the past 12 months and over 60% from its high of nearly $750, just over 12 months ago.

Recent layoffs and closing of products once thought of as Google's move to aggregate the world's information may be eroding investor confidence. Storing nuts for a harsh economic winter shows investors that Google has no faith in its own industry. This approach is not what got Google to the forefront in the first place. They were innovators who took a stand and maintained its search core while building other ancillary products and buying complimentary companies.

Buying other companies and investing in others helps stimulate the economy at a time when there is a need for more jobs and security for the ones that exist. Even if Google does intend to hold on to its cash, making such a public statement about it may not have been the wisest move.

Obviously, Schmidt's public statements is not the only contributing factor to Google stock price drop and being a squirrel right now could be a smart long term play, but is not a leader's play. Has Google joined the status quo? It may be a safe play, but not one indicative of an industry leader.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 30, 2007

Google Finance Canada Launching Tomorrow

Despite a glitch in naming the date of launch on their blog, Google Finance will start in Canada tomorrow.

The finance vertical seems to be the start of Google adding content portals to their approach.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:51 PM | Permalink

May 23, 2007

Google Invests In Sergey's Wife's Company

Guess Google likes to keep the money in the family. Sergey Brin's new wife, Anne Wojcicki, cofounded the bitech start-up that just received $3.9 million in funding from the search giant, according to EcommerceTimes.

"Formerly a biotech investor herself, Wojcicki cofounded 23andMe last year with biopharmaceutical industry veteran Linda Avey. The startup, located near Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, is trying to "allow individuals to gain deeper insights into their ancestry, genealogy and inherited traits," Wojcicki said, according to ECommerceTimes.

23andMe plans to officially launch by the end of the year. The company name refers to the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans.

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:21 PM | Permalink

April 30, 2007

Google News adds button to Google Finance

If you search for a publicly traded company on Google News, you'll find a small button on the lower right of each cluster of results to Google Finance. Last fall, a new link in Google News started significantly increased traffic to Google Blog Search. It appears that this new button is designed to boost traffic to Google Finance, which lags Yahoo Finance by a wide margin according to Hitwise.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:33 PM | Permalink

March 19, 2007

Yahoo! Finance Market Share 52 times Bigger than Google Finance

Last month, I asked: "Is Google News the Tail Wagging the News Search Dog?" Today, I'd like to follow up by asking: "Is Google Finance the dog that didn't bark?"

After my earlier article appeared, I asked LeeAnn Prescott, the Research Director at Hitwise, if she would run a custom report on the relative rankings of selected news search engines, financial sites, and social media.

Now, why would anyone what to compare apples, oranges and bananas?

Well, when you conduct a search in Yahoo! News, Google News, or AOL News, you will often find press releases in the results. And, if you use Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance, you'll also find press releases mixed in with news articles. And, advocates of the social media press release are urging PR people to included del.icio.us bookmarks, Technorati tags, and Digg widgets on their press releases.

So, if you check out this mixed bowl of fruit, which sites reach the largest audiences in the US? Here is the custom chart that Prescott sent me, showing Hitwise market share data for January 2007:

How do I interpret this data?

First, the market share of Yahoo! Finance is 52 times larger than the market share of Google Finance. The market share of Yahoo! Finance is even 2.7 times larger than the market share of Google News.

And, you don't need to “optimize” a press release for Yahoo! Finance. You just need to include the company name or stock ticker symbol – which is generally standard operating procedure at most publicly traded companies – and your press release will get indexed.

Second, the two leading blog search engines, Google Blog Search and Technorati, both have a fraction of the market share of the major news search engines. This doesn't mean you should ignore them. But, it does mean that blog search isn't close to leapfrogging news search anytime soon.

Third, while it makes sense to include del.icio.us bookmarks and Technorati tags on your press releases, it makes 57.6 times more sense to optimize your press releases for Yahoo! News, Google News, and AOL News first.

While del.icio.us bookmarks and Technorati tags do not pass PageRank, neither do anchor text links in press releases. But hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content can still generate web traffic, so they are well worth including when applicable.

As for including Digg widgets, Lee Odden, the CEO and founder of TopRank Online Marketing CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and co-founder of Misukanis & Odden Public Relations, says, "Do not submit press releases directly to Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Stumble Upon, etc." Most users of social search sites feel all press releases are spam and will bury them without even putting them on "double-secret probation" first.

Ironically, users of Yahoo! Finance and Google Finance don't seem to share this negative attitude about finding press releases mixed in with other results. Do you think the financial community knows something that the Digg community hasn't learned yet?

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:41 AM | Permalink

December 12, 2006

Google Finance gets makeover

Google Finance got a makeover today, just six months after being launched. According to the Official Google Blog, here's what's new:

* A new homepage design which lets you see currency information, sector performance for the U.S. market, and a listing of top market movers along with the relevant and important news of the day. * A Top Movers section highlighting most active companies by price, market cap, volume, and popularity as determined by our own Google Trends. * More comprehensive charts, which now display up to 40 years of data for U.S. stocks. * Richer portfolio capabilities that let you import other online portfolios to Google Finance, use different views and add transactions to make it easier to track your investments. * A quick and easy way to add and view your Google Finance portfolios on the Google Personalized Homepage.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:50 AM | Permalink

November 22, 2006

Google Finance's Untrusted Links & Spotting Nofollow

For several months, I've been using the Search Status plug-in for Firefox to highlight links that are flagged with the nofollow attribute, a way for site owners to say they don't vouch for or necessarily trust a link. You see the web in a entirely new light after discovering how often and where people are saying "I don't trust this." And today, I finally noticed it happening over on Google Finance.

The image above show how Google Finance looks when links with nofollow are highlighted in red, for the page on Google stock price. All the news stories -- which come from Google News -- are flagged as effectively untrustworthy. But if they are untrustworthy, why are they in Google News to begin with?

Down below (see the whole page here), Google Blog Search results are also flagged that way also. Google Blog Search is effectively open to anyone, so I can understand the use of nofollow there more. But it still feels kind of odd, for this entire swath of the page to be considered untrustworthy in some way -- even if that way is invisible to virtually all visitors to Google Finance.

FYI, this isn't a new change. I did a search and found others talking about it earlier this year when Google Finance launched.

Go get Search Status and select the "Highlight Nofollow Links" option. Believe me, it's an eye-opening experience.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:51 PM | Permalink

November 15, 2006

Ask.com, Google, & Yahoo Fight Raising SEC Fees

The Washington Post reports that the SEC wants to charge new fees for accessing and displaying real-time stock quotes. IAC (Ask.com), Google, Yahoo and others in a coalition are fighting back. "The coalition in particular is looking for the SEC to reverse a staff decision allowing the New York Stock Exchange to increase the fees for displaying information from its Archipelago electronic market, some of which had been free. In authorizing the new charges last month, the commission ruled they were legitimate because they were not out of line with those already imposed by the Nasdaq for similar data."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:44 AM | Permalink

October 23, 2006

Google Finance Adds Compare, Timeline & More Features

Nathan Weinberg reports that Google Finance Gets New Features. Google has added personalized chart settings that include News Flags, Dividends, Splits, or Volume on your chart and Zoom levels. Google has also added dividends flags that are plotted on the charts. You can see some of the new features flagged at Google Finance FAQs as "new."

Google was not to be outdone by Yahoo Finances recent upgrade.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:34 AM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

Google Finance Leaks Version Two Information

Garett Rogers stumbled upon a link in Google Finance at the top right corner that said "v2 (test)" in red font. The link points to http://0.frontend-live.sfe.scrooge.hs.borg.google.com/finance, which seems to not be accessible from my location, or outside of Google's network. Notice the sign of the borg again? borg.google.com from before. So, now we have rumors that Google is going to be launching a version two of Google Finance soon. Maybe it includes stock indices from other worlds? :)

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:43 AM | Permalink

July 19, 2006

Google Finance Adds Suggest Auto Complete & Conference Call Transcripts

We have been tipped off that Google Finance has added two new features today. The first is auto-complete, like Google Suggest. If you go to Google Finance and begin typing something, it will offer suggestions tailored to stock symbols (pretty useful). Also, if you view a particular stock quote, you may notice an additional link added under the "Facts" section where it has "Site Links." The additional link is named "Transcripts" and links to SeekingAlpha.com. If you view GOOG and click on the transcript link, it takes you to Recent Transcripts for GOOG at SeekingAlpha.com.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:25 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

Google's Non Search Products A Flop

BusinessWeek reports that when Google launches a new non-search product, the competition "shivers," Google has yet to lead in market share for any of those non-search products. Google's Gtalk is currently ranked number ten with two percent market share, Google Finance is the "40th-most-visited finance site," and Gmail "is the system of choice for only about one-quarter the number of people who use MSN and Yahoo e-mail." So with all these product launches, is Google a threat? Read more at BusinessWeek.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:18 AM | Permalink

March 30, 2006

Optimize Your Blog For Google Finance

Danny mentioned in his write-up on Google Finance that it shows both Google News results and Google Blog Search results on the stock results landing page. Now Seth Finkelstein offers a few tips on perhaps enhancing your chances of showing up for a stock search in the blog posts section of Google Finance. The basics are to use the full company name in your blog title, and you have a pretty good shot of being included on the page.

For more information on Google Blog Search, see here. Plus look at Thoughts On & Poking At Google Blog Search to understand there's even a chance a blog might be in news search and blog search.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:29 AM | Permalink

March 21, 2006

Google Finance Unveiled

Finally, Google has launched its own Google Finance service. For years, those seeking financial information via Google have been sent to competitors such as Yahoo and MSN. Now Google's providing financial information directly to its own users. Today's SearchDay article, Google Launches Google Finance, provides more information about today's release.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Google Finance Coming Soon?

Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal reports evidence of a possible Google Finance coming soon to Google. Search Engine Journal noticed several referrals from http://google.com/finance?q=goog&btng=search+finance recently. As some now, Search Engine Journal is included in Google News, so a search for "GOOG" at a mysterious Google Finance, will most likely bring up search results that match GOOG at Google News. Should we expect to see www.google.com/finance or finance.google.com launched soon?

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Google Finance Launching or Testing.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:39 AM | Permalink

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