IndustryHighlights from the SEW Blog: June 19, 2006

Highlights from the SEW Blog: June 19, 2006

Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary search headlines from around the web.

Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary search headlines from around the web. If you’re not familiar with our blog, click on any of the links below, or visit the blog’s home page at http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/.

From The SEW Blog…

  • Schmidt Talks On Staying In China, GBuy & More
    Conde Nast Portfolio, a new business magazine out next year, landed a nice coup of having Eric Schmidt speak yesterday at its launch party (Schmidt’s also apparently set to be one of the first profiles in the new magazine). The video of the interview is online here, covering mostly stuff you’ve already heard Schmidt say before in other interviews (the LA Times had one last week) over the past years. But here are some things worth highlighting to me….

 

  • Riya To Expand Into Web Image Search
    SiliconBeat reports that Riya will expand to a web image search service. Currently, Riya allows you to upload a photo, define the photo as matching a particular person and then it tries to scan other photos to figure out if other photos in your collecton match that person, using face recognition. Riya is expanding that to match images of almost anything on the web. In other words, if I am looking to buy a big blue pineapple chair (love that chair) and I have an image of the one I like, Riya will scan the web for similar images of…

 

  • Bill Gates To Work Part Time at Microsoft in 2008
    Tons and tons of news coverage on Bill Gates’s announcement he has given up his “chief software architect” role now and will be stepping down to be a part time employee and chairman in July 2008. Gates would like to spend more time working on his charitable foundation the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The BBC has a nice Q&A on the changes here….

 

  • More Real Estate Search Engines & Sites
    There were many interesting responses to the Real Estate Roundups that appeared in Search Day earlier this week (part II) and last week (part I). Most of the feedback called attention to other sites or features that had not been mentioned in those two articles. Of course, there are far more real estate sites than can be discussed in 1,100 words, so I had to leave out many interesting sites. (Some were excluded because I simply was unaware of them.)…

 

  • The Dilbert Google Logo Story
    Remember the Google Dilbert logos? If you do, and you want to read the story behind it, check out Doug Edwards’ post at Xooglers. Doug also notes some controversy over Google selling coffee mugs (Danny’s posted pictures of one here) with the Dilbert logo. You can see the old story about Google on at InternetNews.com from May 20, 2002. Edwards begins the tale of Google logo changes here and talks at the end about how recently the Dilbert strip poked fun at Google. The story of Google and Dilbert continues to this second installment, ending with today’s post….

 

  • MSN’s Hand Crafted Results
    “MSN Hiring People to Hand Code SERPS” at SEO Blackhat is a nice catch from the MSN Search jobs page talking about needing people to help hand-craft results. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped reacts with “Oh my.” I react with “Hallelujah.”…

 

  • Yahoo Sued For Trademark Infringement Using Google AdWords
    DenverPost.com reports that Yahoo was sued by lovecity.com for bidding on the lovecity.com trademark in Google AdWords. Reportedly, Yahoo placed bids on “www.lovecity” and “lovecity.com,” so when someone searches on those phrases, Yahoo Personals would come up in the search ads on Google and Google’s search ad network. I tried a search on www.lovecity and saw two competing dating services but not Yahoo, come up in the sponsored listings section. I actually find it humorous that Yahoo would go this far, only because the left hand does not talk to the right hand….

 

  • Netscape Aims To Be Digg 2.0, Slashdot 3.0 With Community News Model
    I was never a big Slashdot fan, given that I found the conversations about search often had comments from people who didn’t know what they were talking about. Digg came along and hardly won me over. Having one of my stories Dugg over there reinforced the idea that Digg was Slashdot 2.0 in all the wrong ways. Now AOL is trying to revive its flagging Netscape brand by turning it into a Digg-clone or Slashdot 3.0, if you will. You’ll find the new version here….

 

  • New Yahoo Publisher Network Changes Focus on New Publishers
    Yahoo Publisher Network released a new version of the control panel today which focuses on helping a new user get the most out of Yahoo, both within and outside the Publisher Network realm. For new publishers many how-tos, help guides and demos were added. But also included is a new Publisher Services tab which promotes other areas of Yahoo….

 

  • A New Local Search Marketing Guide
    I’ve often been amazed that there isn’t a more organized effort by search engines and others targeting small business advertisers to “educate” them about online marketing. There are independent efforts here and there, but all players would benefit from a concerted initiative. Until then, small businesses have to rely on more informed colleagues and the serendipity of discovering resources online. One such resource, put together by Matt McGee, is the relatively concise Local Search Marketing Guide….

 

  • A Look At Google’s Oregon Operation & Yahoo Leaves Pasadena
    Niall Kennedy summarizes a NY Times article about Google’s Oregon center and Yahoo and Microsoft’s exploration in areas like that. The Google Oregon center would be one of the largest data centers, taking up about two football fields. The NY Times article also estimated Google having “450,000 servers spread over at least 25 locations around the world.” Microsoft with an estimated 200,000 servers is expected to grow to 800,000 by 2011. Yahoo is on the move as well, moving to Burbank by end of June. There is no doubt that energy costs will be on the mind of these search…

 

  • Clickbot.A Click Fraud Network Dismantled
    ClickZ reports that the Clickbot.A virus that infected 34,000 machines (last report more than 50,000 PCs) and auto clicked on an unknown amount of PPC ads, has been shut down. Panda Software and RSA Security worked together to dismantle the virus. Read the full details over at Panda Software….

 

  • Microsoft ‘Mix-ins’ vs. Google Mashups
    Steven Lawler of Microsoft didn’t directly mention Google by name, but many of his comments this morning at Where2.0 were directed toward differentiating Microsoft’s Virtual Earth platform and Windows Live Local’s consumer destination from the company’s chief online rival. As part of his very accelerated presentation (15 minutes) he said that Microsoft’s goal is to “leverage local information on a global basis” through a mapping interface. That’s very much like the message Google presented yesterday….

 

  • A Look At 20 Googlers Via Orkut
    Philipp Lenssen complied a list of 20 Googler Orkut profiles. Orkut is Google’s social networking software, and many Googlers have profiles and accounts with Orkut. Some of the 20 compiled by Philipp include; Sergey Brin, Adam Bosworth, Jeff Huber, David Krane, Marissa Mayer and more. Nice work!…

 

  • Yahoo Answers Launches “Ask the Planet 2006” Campaign
    Yahoo Answers has launched a new promotional campaign named Ask the Planet 2006. The Yahoo Answers blog describes how this feature will work; Each weekday a new category will be featured, and each one will be accompanied by a question asked by a notable celebrity, expert, or even a featured user. For each best answer you receive in the category of the day you will get one entry for a chance to win the prize for the day. The full press release can be found here and if you want to see the big brain in times square check out…

 

  • Google Earth: An Emerging ‘Geobrowser’
    I often hear people say about Google, “Other than search it’s just a bunch of ‘me-too’ products.” Whether or not you agree, you have to admit that in the case of Earth and Maps that’s clearly not true. Although maps have become an important “battleground” in the so-called “search wars,” it’s an area where Google has clearly innovated with its developer tools and user experience. There were a number of technical things about the new Google Earth rollout yesterday that went over my head; I’m not a developer and I was in a room of developers and engineers who were…

 

  • Search Companies Energetically Seeking Electricity
    The Wall Street Journal reports that the search companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Ask and possibly Google are looking to find cheap electricity to power all the computers and hardware that power the companies. The article says that one large data center can use as much energy as a city of 40,000 people! The search companies are looking for locations next to cheap energy sources such as former defense bunkers, near hydroelectric plants, and other locations where electricity is cheaper. Microsoft’s data center consumption of power doubled over the past four years, so this is a serious concern for Microsoft and…

 

  • Submitting Your News Site To Google News
    Google News can drive a nice amount of traffic to a site. A few months ago, I had the privilege of having my site included in Google News. Since then others have been asking the question, how can I get my news site included in Google News? This morning, I did my best to answer the question with a post named Getting Into Google News Revisited. I outlined the technical requirements, the editorial requirements and what you can do to encourage Google to accept you into Google News. If you are interested in Google News inclusion, check it out….

 

  • Tips On Across The Engines Ranking From SEO Book
    People are beginning to remember again that there are search engines beyond Google. This reawakening is one reason why I added the Can You Please Them All? session to our upcoming Search Engine Strategies San Jose show next August. Aaron Wall over at SEO Book has also clearly seen the renewed interest in pleasure more than Google. Out today is his excellent Google vs Yahoo vs MSN Search: Defining Search Engine Relevancy piece today….

 

  • ‘Search: Thy Name Is Google’
    Last week, MediaPost reported on an Outsell report, “How Information Providers Can Keep Pace With User Demands For Time-Saving Solutions,” which showed Google increasing its market share dominance but also reportedly increasing dissatisfaction with the quality of search results. To get a better look at these provocative findings, we obtained a copy of the report….

 

  • Reflecting On Direct Hit, The Google Rival
    Perspective: The man who would be Sergey from News.com talks with Gary Culliss, formerly of Direct Hit, on cashing out of search early on. Google and Direct Hit came along at the same time (see Counting Clicks and Looking at Links from me in 1998). Ask Jeeves bought Direct Hit, making the original group involved with it a good chunk of money. But Direct Hit effectively died as a brand and a technology while Google…. I disagree with News.com that in 1998, Google was somehow lumped in with “non-household name” sites while Direct Hit was the shining hope. They both…

 

  • How Google Is Killing The Internet
    Seth Jayson has written an interesting piece “How Google is killing the internet” over at The Motley Fool. It’s a lengthy analysis which takes in part its premise that web authors are so desperate to get visitors to click on their Adsense links that they’re creating pages of junk without any useful content. As a result the content that is returned as the result of a search (not just on Google but on its competitors websites as well) is valueless. I’m rather ambivalent about this but the implications for search are interesting to say the least….

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