Lead Writer
RDY Writing
As online videos and media-based monetization of that content become more mainstream, ad views have skyrocketed. This year has seen 97 percent video view growth, but video ads have grown even more, with 7.2 billion ad views – a 128 percent increase.
Mozilla's search partnership with Google expired at the end of November, but neither company has indicated a renewal. The Firefox search deal historically accounted for more than 80 percent of Mozilla's revenue and was worth $121 million last year.
The online rush for holiday gifts has broken multiple records. Three days during Cyber Week exceeded $1 billion in U.S. spend, and the week on the whole saw $5.959 billion in spending – a 15 perent increase from 2010's Cyber Week spending.
Yahoo is rebranding Associated Content – the article creation and distribution site – as Yahoo Voice. The transition to a new name also updates the design, standards for publication, and the content base. 75,000 pieces of content are being retired.
Google is set to appeal the conviction of three Google execs. The conviction, which includes jail time, is for privacy violations involved in allowing Google Video content to be posted. Google will appeal the ruling as soon as January.
Bing and Google are both participating in holiday-oriented activities: Google is helping to track Santa yet again with the help of NORAD, while Bing is counting down to the holidays with a "Magical Holiday Calendar" featuring deals and prizes.
Google has announced 10 search changes – a mix of algorithmic, crawling, and user interface updates. Better long-tail indexing and parked domain detection are among the announced changes. Google now plans to give similar updates monthly.
Senator Joe Lieberman has contacted Google to demand a content pull-down from Blogger, additional content guidelines, and a flagging system. Lieberman's request may be redundant, though, as his requested features already exist.
Geo-location social network Foursquare has announced a "Save" button for webmasters. This button allows users to store a location with a single click, then receive a notification when they're close to the location itself.
YaCy, a German search company brought into being by the Free Software Foundation of Europe (FSFE) has released a peer-to-peer search that uses networked systems to index the web and deliver search results. But don't call it a Google killer.
A Nevada District Court case has ruled in favor of Chanel, allowing the company to take down over 800 domain names that sell counterfeit products. The ruling also mandated that Google, Facebook, Bing and more must de-index the suspect properties.
Google's buyout of Motorola Mobility is already under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, but the deal will also require clearance in Europe. The European Commission evaluation is scheduled to determine a ruling by January 10.
What began as a pure search engine has evolved to include AdWords, Gmail, Google News, image search, universal search, Chrome, Instant search, Google+ and the +1 button, voice search, and more. See it all in a six minute video from Google.
In addition to Google AdWords, mortgage scams that claim to provide assistance from the U.S. government have been located in Microsoft adCenter. Microsoft has cooperated in banning the associated advertisers from Bing and Yahoo search results.
Google News visitors who are logged into their Google account will now sometimes see socially promoted data on their news spotlight. The data will be promoted if a Gmail contact or a user connected on Google+ has +1'd the content.
The amount of data being hidden due to Google's SSL search decision has been climbing steadily but is now leveling out. Recent research indicates that about 9 percent of referrer data is being blocked, though results will vary by site and industry.
Google's cloud-based computers are getting a holiday-season push. Chromebooks get a price drop, the Chrome OS gets some in-demand tweaks, and those taking plane trips for the holidays may get access to a free Chromebook during their flight.
Google is pushing to get more celebrities, politicians, non-profits, and other organizations onto Plus by providing "community guides." These free guides showcase successful profiles, give free advice, and link to additional community resources.
Volunia, an Italy-based search engine, is preparing for its early beta stages. It promises to be a "radical new view" of search, and is being spearheaded by famed technology thinker Massimo Marchiori, who helped inspire Google's PageRank algorithm.
Google recently added bubble ads to select Google Maps locations. The choice to create new ad space has caused controversy, with some business owners concerned about the potential for reputation warfare and poorly targeted ads.
