Entertainment Weekly and TVGuide Go with the Meebo Bar

Meebo announced today that it has added EW.com and TVGuide.com to its list of publishers implementing the Meebo Bar. The Meebo bar is designed to let readers easily connect with the people they're friends with on social networks. 

"Social connections are an increasingly important traffic source; it’s crucial for websites to take advantage of that," says Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. "The Meebo Bar makes it easy for publishers to add social functionality to their sites, and provide a persistent, open experience on multiple networks that makes sharing and chat simple, fun and engaging for users."

"The introduction of the Meebo Bar has added value for both our audience and advertisers," says Tom Kirwan, EW's National Director of Digital Sales. "The functionality increases users' engagement and interactivity with our content, while simultaneously allowing advertisers a unique opportunity to be front and center."

In the fall, Meebo plans to introduce new advertising and branding products, including an interactive ad placement with customized skins and sponsored buttons.

Meebo claims to reach a quarter of the U.S. Internet population with 52 million unique monthly visitors and 110 million worldwide. Monthly visitors have increased nearly 300% over the last 10 months, the company says.source: webpronews.com

Google launched a new version of its image search today (as well as a new ad format) and in the announcement, Google dropped a few interesting stats about its image search growth.

Google Image Search first came out in 2001. Back then, Google says it indexed around 250 million images. By 2005, the company says it indexed over a billion. As of today, it's over 10 billion.

 

"When you think about 'information,' what probably comes to mind are streams of words and numbers," says Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "Google’s pretty good at organizing these types of information, but consider all the things you can’t express with words: what does it look like in the middle of a sandstorm? What are some great examples of Art Nouveau architecture? Should I consider wedding cupcakes instead of a traditional cake?"

"This is why we built Google Images in 2001," adds Smith. "We realized that for many searches, the best answer wasn’t text—it was an image or a set of images. The service has grown quite a bit since then."

Google has released numerous features to Image Search over the years, and is always experimenting with design tweaks. This will likely continue.

The new version of Google's Image Search is in the process of rolling out.

Hulu Plus Makes It To PS3

Although a fair number of people have hooked computers up to televisions, and a few folks might be willing to stare at their monitors for hours on end, a new development should help Hulu reach a much larger crowd.  Hulu's now available through the PS3.

A couple of quick notes regarding the current state of things: only PS3 Plus subscribers are allowed access to Hulu Plus (meaning there are two fees involved), and this is still considered a "limited preview," so even among PS3 Plus subscribers, not everyone will allowed to participate.

 Hold your boos, though.  Susan Panico, Senior Director of the PlayStation Network, promised on the PlayStation Blog that a more inclusive experience is in the works.

Panico wrote, "As Hulu Plus becomes generally available in the coming months, all PlayStation 3 users in the United States will be able to download and subscribe to the full Hulu Plus service and it will also be available on wide range of Sony Electronics Internet-connected entertainment devices, including select BRAVIA TVs and Blu-ray Disc players."

So lots and lots of people should soon be able to enjoy Hulu Plus on a big screen from the comfort of their couch, which should result in a lot of new interest in the service.  After all, however you feel about the commercials, the content selection, and the price of Hulu Plus, at least a folks who have already paid for those entertainment devices will probably opt for a pay service, as well.

Now we just have to wait and see whether their numbers are large enough to make Hulu Plus a genuine success.

RIM Unveils BlackBerry Protect Security App

Research in Motion (RIM) has unveiled a new security application for BlackBerry called BlackBerry Protect. The product allows users to wirelessly backup, restore, and locate their BlackBerry smartphones.

BlackBerry Protect comes equipped with remote device wipe, remote device lock, a "lost and found" screen, the ability to locate the device on a map, remote activation of the loud ringer.



BlackBerry Protect is currently in beta status, and will be launched in limited beta later this week through the BlackBerry Beta Zone and invite codes.

RIM has more screenshots, as well as a walkthrough of how to use the product here. You can sign up for Beta Zone here.

Bing Captures Bigger Share Of U.S. Search Market

Bing had the most search growth for the month of June, growing 7 percent month- over-month to capture 9.85 percent of the U.S. search market, according to the latest figures released by Hitwise.

Google accounted for 71.65 percent of the search market, but saw a one percent drop in growth month-over-month. Yahoo's search growth was flat, accounting for 14.37 percent of the market and Ask captured 2.19 percent of the search market, with 2 percent growth month-over-month.



Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing May 2010 with June 2010, automotive, business and finance, entertainment, news and media, shopping and social networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Yahoo Loses VP Of Engineering To Skype

Considering that laws prevent kids from working much, and that many people try to retire by age 65, it's a big deal when a person spends 10 years with a company. Unfortunately for Yahoo, that means it's also a big deal that Madhu Yarlagadda, a vice president of engineering, is leaving for Skype after more than 11 years.

Yarlagadda got his start at Yahoo when the company acquired MyQuest (which he founded) in 1999. Since then, he's worked on different global homepages, Yahoo Communities, Yahoo Messenger, and Yahoo Mobile, among other things. His latest duties covered "Integrated Customer Experiences."

Starting sometime this month, he'll begin to handle "global oversight of Skype's engineering and development initiatives," however.

Yarlagadda explained the move by saying in a statement, "I am excited to be joining Skype at this critical stage in the company's evolution. It will be a real privilege to build on the many core strengths of Skype's global portfolio as the company continues to deliver groundbreaking customer experiences on new platforms and devices." source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

5 Tips for Marketing Through Content

Content has always been "where it's at", and that holds true as much as ever these days. Gather CEO Tom Gerace, who is also founder of the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC), a non-profit organization working on the creation of standards for social media engagement campaigns, offered some tips on marketing through content to share with WebProNews readers. These tips are:

1. Start with Search. There are 15.9 billion searches run every month and a small percentage are customers looking for you and your competitors. Figure out your market opportunity by understanding how many searches, keywords and keyword phrases are related to what you do.

2. Think holistically about your budget. What do you spend today per customer? What is your average SEM spend? Content-based programs can help lower cost/customer acquisition because fewer people are doing it and competition, so far, is less intense. Plan to shift some budget dollars from SEM and other acquisition marketing efforts to content marketing - it delivers results with an improved cost structure.

3. Target your content creation. Content needs to be targeted to areas that align directly with your brand; where sufficient demand for your content will make content marketing worthwhile.

4. Make lots and lots and lots of content at a low cost. Search engines weigh recency heavily when organizing content. There is always fresh content at the top of search results pages, so 1,000 posts on a topic will capture more customers than a competitor with 5 – 10 posts.

5. Don't go it alone. Managing dozens of writers, achieving top search engine placement, and establishing content creation costs to make content marketing make sense requires specialized knowledge and training. Find a partner and make them put their money where their mouth is on the numbers they promise.

Those are Gerace's tips, but I'll add that quality makes a difference. Not only does Google continually try to put more emphasis on quality with algorithm updates, but it also goes a long way when you're talking about reputation, and obviously you don't want to do something that will hurt your brand. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Google Founders To Sell 10 Million Shares Over Five Years

According to an SEC filing late this afternoon, Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares” — over a period of five years. This is not a reaction to any particular development in the market or perception of the outlook for Google; rather this is part of a plan to diversify their portfolios over time.

According to the filing:

These pre-arranged stock trading plans were adopted in order to allow Larry and Sergey to sell a portion of their Google stock over time as part of their respective long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity . . . Using these plans, they can gradually diversify their investment portfolios and can spread stock trades out over an extended period of time to reduce market impact . . .

Larry and Sergey currently hold approximately 57.7 million shares of Class B common stock, which represents approximately 18% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 59% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock. Under the terms of these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a five year diversification plan, Larry and Sergey each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares. If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 47.7 million shares, which would represent approximately 15% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 48% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock (assuming no other sales and conversions of Google capital stock occur).

Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.

At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.

There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.

One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”

If sold today, the 10 million shares would be worth a little over $5.5 billion at Google’s current share price. source: http://searchengineland.com/

Twitter Exec: No IPO in 2010

In a video interview with Bloomberg, Twitter COO Dick Costolo said his company will not try to make an initial public offering this year, but instead focus on expanding and making more money.

That’s further affirmation of Twitter’s () apparent strategy; co-founder Biz Stone said a month ago that he and his colleagues “are definitely not interested in selling the company.”

Costolo said he expects revenue growth from a new advertising platform that’s coming “very soon,” commercial accounts with analytics features for tracking tweets and traffic, and at least 10 more distribution deals in the future. Twitter has drawn some criticism because the company’s revenues are low for its $1 billion valuation. That is clearly a concern within the company, and something that needs to be addressed before an IPO. “Now we have to go build the business the business that lives up to that valuation,” Costolo said.

Expansion into new areas and features is part of the plan despite slowing growth (or maybe in response to it), but Costolo didn’t go into specifics in the Bloomberg video. He did say that the company will be aggressive in making acquisitions of companies that have something to offer in the areas into which Twitter wants to expand. source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/20/twitter-coo-ipo/

Bing Updates Autosuggest With News & Trending Queries

Bing’s autosuggest feature now provides more current suggestions as you type a query. Bing says that it’s added “breaking news and hot trending queries” into autosuggest, with updates being pushed out every 15 minutes.

So, for example, start typing “orange county” into Bing and the autosuggest feature will show a couple terms related to today’s extreme weather.

Bing hopes to improve some of the 45% of queries that it says “result in either a user conducting an immediate re-query, or abandoning the page altogether.”

But this is somewhat of a catch-up move, at least where Google is concerned. Do the same search on Google.com, and you’ll also get suggestions related to today’s weather.

Yahoo’s suggestions don’t take today’s news into account, however — even when you fully type “orange county.”

Social Media’s True Impact on Haiti, China, and the World

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space.

We’ve seen some major world events unfold on the social media stage this week, the biggest being Google’s threat to pull out of China and the Haiti earthquake.

Google’s actions have brought attention back to the long-standing Internet censorship that blankets China, while the destruction in Haiti has mobilized hundreds of thousands to open their wallets and their hearts.

Just like the Iran Election crisis, people are again assessing the impact of social media on the world. It’s clear that social media has the power to impact world politics and the lives of billions, but some have overstated what social media can actually do. We need to understand what social media really is in order to utilize it effectively for social good.

Let me explain by highlighting a few examples of social media’s impact on the world stage, and then concluding with how I view social media’s impact in the larger context of mobilization and world discussion.

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The Iran Election Crisis

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During summer 2009, the world’s eyes were fixated on Iran. Questions were raised after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner over rival Mousavi in Iran’s Presidential elections. The abnormalities and potential tampering of the vote resulted in massive protests that engulfed the Islamic nation.

Social media’s role in the Iran Election Crisis started with #CNNFail, but that was only the beginning of social media’s role. With the Iranian government clamping down on information and enforcing censorship, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube became the primary mediums for bringing information out of the conflicted nation and spreading notes between dissidents.

Take a look at the Iran Election social media timeline we built if you want to see its full impact. Key moments in the crisis, especially death of Neda, were recorded and spread like wildfire, creating an outpouring of support for the protesters. Twitter’s role was so important in fact that the U.S. government got involved in scheduling Twitter’s downtime.

In the end though, social media didn’t topple any governments, although it has helped shift the political climate in Iran. In some cases the use of Twitter in Iran was overstated, yet the result is that the tipping point for Iran is close, thanks to social media.

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The Haiti Earthquake

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After a magnitude 7.0 earthquake (and multiple aftershocks) devastated the nation of Haiti, social media became the medium in which everybody spread the word. Dramatic Haiti earthquake Twitter pictures swept across the web, while tech giants mobilized.

The most impressive part of social media’s impact on Haiti has to be the charity text message campaign that has already raised more than $10 million for Haiti victim relief. Social media spread the word, technology made it possible.

It’s not all perfect, though: the money raised is small compared to the relief coming from world governments and donations face 90 day delays. Still, social media for social good is becoming more and more effective with each crisis.

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The China-Google Standoff

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While we are still far from the conclusion of this messy affair, Google’s threat to pull out of China has already had a dramatic effect in both social media and political circles.

Politically, China has been put under pressure. The U.S. government has thrown its support behind Google, though it’s doubtful that the Obama administration will get involved in the end.

More importantly though, social media is being used to lift China’s blanket of censorship. Social tools, while many are blocked by the Chinese, can get through China’s great firewall. We have the tools to undo censorship in China. Google’s efforts have re-ignited the debate over censorship, but they won’t break the barrier.

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Breaking Down Social Media’s Global Impact

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In all three cases (China, Haiti, and Iran), social media has had an impact, especially as the course of events evolved. Real-time communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook have spread the word about what’s happening within these nations, long before the mainstream media prints the story. These tools have also created a level awareness we’ve never seen before.

We have to be realistic, though: new media isn’t going to stop censorship, overthrow oppressive regimes, or heal the people of Haiti alone. Social media has transformed communication, media, and the transmission of information, but it still takes people on the ground to pull people out of the rubble or to fight for freedom.

Just as Paul Revere embarked on his midnight ride to warn that the British were coming, social media acts as both the first warning and the rallying cry for mobilization. In the end though, social media is just a collection of tools. It’s up to us, the people, to make the real impact on our world.

source: http://mashable.com/

Paid vs. Organic Search: Understanding the Dynamics

“Why are we buying our brand keyword when we already rank #1 in the organic results?” “Why are we paying for traffic if we’re already getting it for free?” It turns out that the question isn’t whether or not you should be buying your brand keywords. The question is how much should you be willing to pay for that ad, and what should it say.

For search marketers like me (and probably you), the question of how to balance the paid/organic dynamic has been around for years. So why is there such an amazing dearth of good information on this topic? Why isn’t there any kind of industry-accepted framework with which to address the age-old question?

I believe that the reason is that the conversation around the interaction between paid and organic search has historically been sorely lacking any good data. As a result, we get stuck talking about opinions and assumptions, and we typically don’t come to any meaningful conclusions. I am grateful that at this point in my career, I am surrounded by savvy marketers who understand how search results pages (SERPs) work. They understand that the SERP is a complex landscape, that each link has its own clickthrough rate (CTR), and that any link’s CTR is affected by the other links with which it shares the SERP. This is the path to meaningful dialogue on the subject, so I encourage everyone to get intimately familiar with the data around the paid/organic dynamic.

So how do we look at the data in a way that can help us understand this phenomenon? First let’s get a few ground rules straight:

• What keywords are we really talking about? Those that match exactly with your brand name or branded product name, where there is generally no competition. So if you are the Acme Widget Company we would be talking about keywords like “acme” and potentially “acme widget.”
• What are we actually trying to compare? Ultimately we want to compare two different conditions: a) a SERP where the organic link for brand keyword is ranked #1 with no PPC ad (and no competitors’ ads) present and b) a SERP where the organic link for a brand keyword is ranked #1 with a #1 rank PPC ad (and no competitors’ ads).
• What phenomena are we trying to measure? In the above cases there are two things that normally happen. I call them cannibalization and lift. “Lift” is the net amount of traffic that is added to the mix by virtue of the PPC ad. Cannibalization is the portion of PPC ad traffic that comes at the expense of the organic link. If you can quantify cannibalization and lift in any situation, you can then begin to think intelligently about what to do.

One thing we need to also acknowledge is the fact that the many variables affecting paid and organic search traffic—search volume, page layout, keyword bids and rankings—prevent us from doing any rigorous scientific testing around the paid/organic dynamic. It’s simply impossible to isolate all the variables necessary to completely understand what’s going on. However, there are some terrific ways that you can at least gather some meaningful data that can be interpreted and analyzed, and from which we can actually draw very useful and actionable conclusions.

Next, let’s agree on a few basic principles:

• Internet (and search) traffic patterns move in weekly cycles.
• Search volume is affected by seasonality, media and other factors.
• You’ll want to “test” in a period of minimum volatility (avoid holidays and seasonal peaks and dips if possible).

Now, consider the following approaches to gather the data required to quantify cannibalization and lift:

• On/off weekly: Pause your paid ads for one week and then resume. This is the simplest approach and takes the least amount of time. If you have more time, try alternating weeks as long as you need.
• On/off daily: For a two week period, alternate pausing and activating your paid ads on consecutive days. Why two weeks? This is the minimum duration required to get both “on” and “off” data for each day of the week.

These are just examples. Use your imagination to design something more elegant if you have more time or budget.

Now What?

Now, you need to gather your data and estimate your lift and cannibalization. The incredibly tricky (and potentially inaccurate) part of this is trying to establish a baseline for organic traffic. Naturally, you will want to use the organic traffic during “off” periods as a baseline, but what about the “on” periods? What would the organic traffic have been without the paid ads present? For this you will need a third data point. Either use averages of organic traffic during “off” periods that bookend an “on” period, or if you have access to data like search volume for a given keyword, you can use this trend to estimate what your organic baseline should be.

The key here is to come up with an approximation for cannibalization and lift. It doesn’t have to be perfect, because you’re going to use this data to determine, based on your business goals, what you should be willing to pay for a click on your PPC ad. Here’s an example:

Let’s use a day’s worth of data, and suppose we determine that our organic baseline traffic is 100 clicks. When we add a PPC ad, that ad provides us with 100 clicks, but when we do so, our total organic+paid total is only 180 clicks. That means that of the 100 PPC clicks we bought, 80 were “lift”, and the other 20 were “cannibalization.” Then, all other things being equal, you should discount your maximum allowable CPC on your brand keyword by 20% to account for the cannibalization, and adjust your bids accordingly. Make sense?

Finally let’s look at the extremes. If your PPC traffic is 100% lift, then you can confidently say that buying your brand terms is absolutely justified, and you have the data to prove it. What, then, if all your PPC traffic is cannibalized organic traffic? If that’s the case, then you had better have an incredibly good reason for paying for the PPC ads. One reason might be that you want to put a differentiated message in front of people, a message that’s not reflected in your organic link. Possible reasons for this might be a brand re-launch or a strategic event like an important product launch or corporate milestone.

This may sound complicated, but I can assure you it’s both do-able and worthwhile. I just completed a study for one of our keywords and I can tell you that I am ecstatic about the results. I can’t wait to share them around the company! Good luck!

source: http://searchengineland.com

Google Real Time Search – 6 Minute Reaction Time for Earthquake

Google is changing, and becoming far more effective than ever before. With personal and universal search we have seen results and information more relevant to our searches. Now with the relatively new real-time search, we are starting to see just how it can have a positive impact on results, and also give us more reason to trust in social media.

This morning 10:09 am a small earthquake measuring 4.1 struck San Francisco. According to Stephen Shankland at cnet, Within 6 minutes Google had reacted and was displaying real time search results in the form of twitter updates relating to the earthquake for searchers in and around the San Francisco area. In Detroit, it took about another 6 minutes for results to appear.

This kind of fast reaction on Googles part not only helps to improve the relevance of the search results, but also is a strong point in favor of pursuing social media as part of your web marketing campaign. If you put up a twitter post about a very current event, there is a chance that you will appear in the top results in a very short period of time.

Being active in Twitter is just one piece of the puzzle, but an active account can help drive traffic to your website and can also indirectly result in overall improved rankings for your site. Something every website owner should consider.

source: http://seomanatee.com/