Archive for September, 2007
Google Offers Shared Stuff
September 24th, 2007 | 
Author: In what seems to be Google’s entering of social network services, Google has introduced Shared Stuff, a service that let’s you share items you find on the Internet. You can also publish to other services such as Facebook, Delicious, Digg and more. Content is also accessible through RSS or iGoogle. Will Google use this data to help determine relevant content?
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Free Times
The New York Times premium content is now free. The Times used to charge for access to what it determined to be free content. People searching for news would hit the password roadblock and leave, moving on to another source. With all the content and traffic that the Times has, they can most likely make more money by taking advantage of all that traffic and sell advertising instead. The Times seems to have a good system for targeting ads to users making it attractive to advertisers.
Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site – New York Times
Yahoo! Aquires Zimbra
Zimbra offers an on/offline, opensource program for messaging, collaboration, calenderaing and more. Now Yahoo! owns them providing solid competition for Google’s online apps. Zimbra also encourages add ons and mash ups.
Google’s Market Share Still 2/3rds
Google’s market share is back to normal according to Compete. While these numbers show a broad market share, do keep in mind that for your specific industry and/or region served, these numbers may be irrelevant. For those that have time to research, dig into reports like this to see how it really impacts your specific site.
Time for a Laugh – A Break From SEO
Those who are embended into the SEO/SEM world, laugh your head off as you see yourself in this list. Good timing here….I’m on vacation next week and no, I’m not headed for Linkin’ Park.
Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2007 version) ยป Small Business SEM
Your Content is Not Your Own
Uploading your original content to Facebook makes it theirs. Ah yes, many a social network does this including your favorites, Google and Yahoo. Use free online services and your work is no longer your own. Yet another reason not to use these services for special content. Get your own server for original content that you want to retain rights to. This includes written content, photos, audio, artwork, …. yup…all of it.
Yahoo! Buys Blue Lithium Ad Network
Sporting a $300 million price tag, Blue Lithium is now owned by Yahoo! The fifth largest ad network in the US and second in the UK, this purchase will really pump up Yahoo’s ad network. Blue Lithium capabilities include behavioral targeting and data analytics. something helpful to any search engine/marketing firm.
Google Reader Search Is Here!
3 cheers for the Google adding search to the Google Reader! Google’s web based RSS reader hasn’t had the ability to search, something odd considering they are a search engine?! Now if they’d remove RSS feeds from their regular web searches….
Facebook’s Public Face
Facebook is now making user profile information searchable by Google, Yahoo! and others. Users can opt out if they decide to remain private. This first wave is a limited search listing but the service is bound to expand making your Facebook accessible to all….check your settings if that’s not what you want.
Will this make Facebook a sudden repository of scammers and spammers? Yup.
Google to Offer News Straight From the Wires
Google will be offering news direct from a number of news wire services including AP. These stories will be the original, unedited version you typically see in printed newspapers and their online versions. Google will additionally be enforcing their duplicate content controls eliminating any links to news sources carrying the same story. This means a big blow to newspapers purchasing the same content. Of course I personally would prefer the full version of the story as would many others. Regardless of duplicate removal, I’d go for the Google version anyway.
Newspapers can still purchase ads to news stories..of course. If newspapers want to stay on top, they’ll have to change what they are doing. Either edit the wire news more (if that’s even allowed) or buy more ads. Of course original content would be nice too.