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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Three Internet M & A stories ranked atop the Search news stack this week. First, Google has acquired Wiki software maker JotSpot, a company that gives users tools to build their own wikis. JotSpot already features collaborative calendars, spreadsheets, documents and photo galleries. JotSpot's integration into Google Office tools seems fairly obvious. Second, Conde Nast has picked up Reddit, a popular social bookmarking application. Reports thus far indicate that Reddit will be associated with Wired (Conde Nast's token tech-zine), but will retain its original branding and functionality. Finally, the Google/YouTube deal is still making headlines. The blogosphere erupted with flurries of gossip after Mark Cuban's blog, Blog Maverick, published details of the back-end media deals that led up to the purchase. Three of the four major music companies ’Äî Vivendi’Äôs Universal Music Group, Sony and Bertelsmann’Äôs jointly owned Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and the Warner Music Group ’Äî each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before the sale, according to people involved in the talks. The music companies collectively stand to receive as much as $50 million from these arrangements, these sources said. Behind the headlines, Yahoo! has reportedly approached Time Warner recently about buying AOL; meanwhile, some analysts are speculating that it would make just as much sense if Yahoo itself were acquired.
A Web politics poll conducted by the Associated Press suggests that more and more of the millions of dollars of campaign funding will go towards SEO, PPC & web content strategies. According to the report: 35 percent in this country say they look to the Internet for political news _ a number that rises to 43 percent among likely voters. Online political browsers are most likely to go to news sites such as those operated by the newspapers, networks and newsmagazine _ with almost nine in 10 saying they check such sites. More than one-third go to candidates' sites and almost half go to political sites. If you look at nearly any contested race in the US, you'll see AdWords campaigns, blogs, news articles and some results that could benefit from SEO "reputation management." <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900254.html>
The new ZotSpot search engine claims it is the first to let users and charities reap the riches of Internet Search. By using Zotspot as their primary search engine, users earn money and also have the option of allocating a portion or all of their earnings to one or more of their favorite charities or universities. Payments, disbursed monthly through PayPal, are calculated based upon personal usage. In addition, by referring their friends, Zotspot users can add greatly to their pocketbooks or increase their donation to charities. Creating an account is quick and easy. All personal information is secure, and the data collected by Zotspot will never be sold or shared. To set up an account, visit <http://www.zotspot.com>
Microsoft just made it easier for your visitors to search your web site and find what they are looking for. The Advanced Live Search Box searches multiple sites you specify or the entire Web and uses a floating DIV tag to display the search results right on your Web opage You can customize the query in the first tab to search your site, your macro or anything else, while the second tab will return general web search results. The floating <DIV> will position itself appropriately, whether you decide to place the box on the left, right, top, or bottom of your Web site. <http://search.live.com/siteowner?mkt=en-us>
Simple, relatively low-cost techniques related to search keywords, titles and descriptions can dramatically improve search performance for advertisers, according to a new study of keyword performance for paid search campaigns. The study by AOL's Advertising.com tested three creative optimization techniques, each with a different goal, and found that "keyword insertion" resulted in a 38 percent increase in click-through rates, on average; "keyword expansion" resulted in a 15 percent in click volume; and "targeted URLs" resulted in a 36 percent increase in conversions. Keyword insertion refers to the incorporation, into the sponsored link, of the exact keywords that the consumer is searching for. Keyword expansion refers to the expanding of an existing list of keywords by generating additional terms that contain more specific information; the intent is to increase the overall volume of consumers. With targeted URLs - an effort to increase conversion - consumers are directed to a specific, subject-relevant page on a website instead of the homepage or a more general page. <http://www.advertising.com/press_release.php?m=11&d=01&y=2006>
Quantcast is a team of web analytics experts building powerful statistical technology to understand internet audiences. Quantcast helps web publishers of all sizes understand the composition of their audiences and attract higher advertising rates. The research helps advertisers and agencies find elusive online audiences wherever they might be. This web site allows anyone to view audience reports on hundreds of thousands of websites. Like to analyze your own Website viewers and see how they compare to national averages? <http://www.quantcast.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>
Yahoo has announced that it, too, will implement support for the NOODP meta tag. If you don’Äôt want ODP (DMOZ) titles or snippets used by Yahoo for your Website's description, place one of the following meta tags on your pages. META NAME=’ÄùROBOTS’Äù CONTENT=’ÄùNOODP’Äù or META NAME=’ÄùSlurp’Äù CONTENT=’ÄùNOODP’Äù Google announced it would allow sites to "opt out" of using Open Directory project descriptions over a month ago.
The ability to save a URL has been around since Mosaic 0.2 but the practice of bookmarking is currently experiencing a transformation as we learn more about the pages and content behind the pointers and share our findings with others through social networks. Local Bookmarks are stored in our web browser profiles and are often used the same way we might dog-ear a book. Local bookmarks can list a frequently visited site, an article you want to be sure to revisit later, or a decision in progress such as choosing a vacation or shopping for a new couch. Live Bookmarks contain trackable updated content, expressed as a web feed, calendar data, or simply a file modification. It's possible to subscribe to a web page, displaying updated content within the bookmark listings or simply noting the page has changed in some way. A live bookmark lets users quickly glance over changing data, and track the updates of many sites at once. In this case a bookmark is more like a subscription, creating a shortcut for visiting a page, identifying new content, and then visiting the location of the new content. Synchronized Bookmarks distribute themselves across multiple computers for web access when you are on the go. Synchronization may occur through a browser toolbar or plugin, operating behind-the-scenes while connecting to a backend such as Yahoo! or Google. Public Bookmarks such as del.icio.us or Furl allow you to sync and share your bookmarks, exposing your web pages of interest to other site members or the entire Web. Affinity Group Bookmarks join together people interested in squared circles, social networking or web design. Submitting links to a group creates a shared resource with a defined audience interest. Your work is archived, allowing new members to discover the group's past activity. ********************** |
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