Search Engine Watch Blog

Google News Updates Mobile Site for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre

Nathania Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:39:10 -0500

Google has made some enhancements to its mobile news site. The updates are just for the iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre.

The look and feel is pretty much the same. What's new is more stories, sources, and images.

A new "Jump to" link brings a pop up box offering quick access to a specific news category.

Any personalizations you make on your desktop will be accessible via your mobile now, as well (as long as you're signed into the same account on both).

Screenshots:

News.Google.com on an iPhone

Jump to

Yahoo! Adds Tweets, Breaking News to News Shortcut

Nathania Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:50:35 -0500

After announcements from Google and Bing about incorporating Twitter into their search results, Yahoo! is throwing hopping on the real-time results news bandwagon. Yahoo!'s Twitter integration is part of a new update when the News Shortcut is implemented in the search results.

Yahoo! is also recognizing when there's breaking news and indicating as such on the News Shortcut. Here's a screenshot of a search for the space shuttle Atlantis shortly after launch earlier this week (per the Yahoo! Search blog):

What do you think of these updates to the Yahoo! News shortcut? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Twitter Consults the Ghost of Fred Berry for New Status Prompt

Nathania Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:23:37 -0500

Twitter has announced that the question that appears in the status update box will no longer be "What are you doing?" Now, it will be "What's happening?"

My immediate reaction was this (and I wasn't the only one):

Google Tests Permanent Sidebar for Results, Blue Submit Buttons for Homepage

Nathania Johnson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:07:39 -0500

Lately, Google is experimenting more than Sheldon Cooper on their homepage - and now, also on their search results.

They're testing a permanent left sidebar in their search results, which would turn the results into three columns: new sidebar, organic results, search ads. Hmm, this reminds us of Bing. And Bing reminded us of Ask's 3D design (which they've since abandoned).

Additionally, after experimenting with removing the submit buttons on the homepage, now Google is bringing back the buttons and testing them with a new color: bright, primary blue.

In the Google help forums, two screenshots of these experiments were posted:

New Sidebar

Blue Buttons on Homepage

via Google Blogoscoped

YouTube Launches Automatic Captions; Great for Accessibility and Search

Nathania Johnson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:47:08 -0500

YouTube is introducing machine-generated automatic captioning to YouTube. The captions can also be translated. This obviously has incredible implications for the hearing-impaired and language translation. But it also has great implications for search.

Automatic captions will be generated using Google's automated speech recognition (ASR) technology and the same voice recognition algorithms used in Google Voice.

Additionally, auto-timing is being introduced. If you provide all the words in the video, Google will automatically time the captioning for you.

Of course, having what essentially amounts to transcripts for online video means that the text can be crawled and indexed and then yes - SEARCHED. Bring on the keyword research and seo scriptwriting for online videos!

Google put together a video on how to access the automatic captioning and auto-timing features:

Hunch Unveils New Design for Homepage

Nathania Johnson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:31:50 -0500

Hunch, the "decision engine" launched shortly after Bing (another "decision engine") has updated the design on their homepage. Check out the new digs:

When Hunch launched, there was a single task presented on the homepage - to begin answering a series of questions to "teach" Hunch about you. The idea is that the more Hunch knows about you, the better decisions they can offer up.

This new design seems more engaging, giving users a few more options on how they would like to participate on the site.

What do you think of Hunch's redesign? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

AdWords Creates Easier Access to Advanced Performance Data

Nathania Johnson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:15:39 -0500

When using AdWords, in order to access some advanced performance data, you had to create reports, which can be time consuming. AdWords is making access to certain data points easier by integrating them into the campaign management.

For example, instead of running a placement performance report to manage automatic placements, you can use the "Networks tab." Instead of running a search query report, you can select the "See search terms" option under the Keywords tab.

AdWords also recently introduced time-based segmentation. Use this to break down your data by day, week, month, or year to understand changes in your campaign's performance.

Segmenting by day of the week is also available, which can be advantageous for ad scheduling.

What do you think of these AdWords updates? Let us know by leaving a comment.

AOL to Nix 2,500 Jobs; Asks for Volunteers

Nathania Johnson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:04:25 -0500

AOL is looking to cut 2,500 jobs. Before they go through the tough choice of choosing who to let go, they're asking if anyone wants to volunteer to get the axe.

Oh, how I've been there and oh, how this sucks for AOL-ers. Goodbye, productivity. Hello, everyone trying to figure out if they're safe.

At least the process seems to have a defined endpoint. AOL says they expect to incur $200 million in costs from "re-structuring" and that those costs will incur before the December 9 spinoff date.

AdGooroo Unveils Academic Program Featuring Free Tools for Educators

Nathania Johnson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:04:04 -0500

AdGooroo is launching a new academic program that provides free resources to educators wishing to teach their students about search marketing. The program provides free academic licenses to AdGooroo's SEM Insight.

"Supporting the academic community is a top priority for AdGooroo, and we're offering them free access to SEM Insight, our flagship research tool. Commercial users are paying at least $399 a month to use this tool," said AdGooroo Founder and CEO, Rich Stokes. "It's important to AdGooroo and me personally to cultivate the understanding of accountable online advertising and particularly search advertising at the student level. We'd like to serve as a helpful resource to academic departments and professors around the globe."

The University of Chicago is one of the first educational institutions to sign up for the program.

"Search engines and the Web in general have had a huge impact on the world around us, and this partnership program not only helps the University of Chicago expose students to the world of Internet advertising. It allows us to submerge them into actual marketer campaigns and let them see for themselves what a competitive channel online advertising has become," said Linda Darragh, Clinical Associate professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago's Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship. "Having access to resources like these from AdGooroo enables us to provide this experience for students and take the lesson from figurative to real world."

The program is open to faculty and staff, both part and full-time, that work at a qualifying educational institution, such as public and private vocational schools, correspondence schools, colleges and universities. The institution must have been accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Boost eLearning Provides Course on New Google Search Features

Nathania Johnson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:47:59 -0500

Boost eLearning provides search training for organizations, so that employees can conduct efficient searches for their business research. Now, Boost eLearning has unveiled a new course featuring Google's new search features.

The new course explores the new "show options" feature which allows searchers to filter their searches by time and type.

"A large percentage of enterprise employees use Google for business research," said Victor D. Alhadeff, CEO of Boost eLearning. "Enterprises therefore gain significant benefits when they help employees learn a greater portion of Google's powerful search features. With a few minutes of easy online training dramatically improving both search speed and accuracy, employees and employers both come out winners."

With knowledge workers spending an average of 30 minutes searching, courses like this can help employees streamline their search activity and increase productivity. 40% of searches do not return a desired result, and learning these new features could help reduce that number.

iPerceptions Launches New Interactive Dashboard Compatible with Web Analytics Programs

Nathania Johnson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:29:00 -0500

iPerceptions has launched a new integrated web analytics solution called A&B Interactive Dashboard. The tool is designed to draw out behavioral and attitudinal data to provide marketers a clearer idea of what's drawing conversions and why. It's compatible with web analytics programs such as Google Analytics, Omniture, Coremetrics, and Web Trends.

Stephanie Hamel, Director and Treasurer of the Web Analytics Association is calling the tool a "game changer."

"Today, there is no simple way for companies to combine behavioral and attitudinal data without a tremendous amount of effort and cost," said Hamel. "Now, iPerceptions is offering a simple and easy-to-use dashboard that gives website operators the ability to flexibly interact with a fully integrated dataset that delivers real insight."

The A&B Interactive Dashboard provides:

KPI Tracker to monitor user-selected KPIs over time (time on site, satisfaction, POV, task completion, etc.)
Data Miner to empower users to crosstab, slice and dice clickstream and survey data together (referrals versus POV)
Text Miner to enable users to browse and visualize associated open-ended text data and behavioral data (for example, reasons for abandoning your funnel)
Benchmarks to track the evolution of the comprehensive website KPIs against the KPI of a self-selected combination of more than 30 industries and millions of consumer self-initiated surveys served by iPerceptions 4Q and webValidator Continuous Listening Solutions
Outcome Predictor to enable the user to run priority grids and model out "what-if?" scenarios

iPerceptions is attempting to fill what they view as gaps in current web analytics tools.

"Marketers need to have their finger on the pulse of their online visitors," said Claude Guay, CEO of iPerceptions. "The only way to do this is to put the 'what' and the 'why' together, so you finally have context for the behavior based on their spoken intention. A&B Interactive Dashboard breaks down the divides of web analytics to give every marketer a fast, easy and cost effective way to drill down into the full range of data that makes or breaks a website."

One of iPerceptions goals in the launch of the A&B Interactive Dashboard is to provide additional to Google Analytics, a free web analytics tool. The new dashboard is designed to help interpret the raw data that Google Analytics provides. The solution can provide additional analytics without the costs associated with some of the paid web analytics tools out there.

This could be a great mid-range solution during a time when marketing budgets are tightened or small businesses are wary of how they're resources are being spent.

Yahoo! Announces Yodel Studio Winners

Nathania Johnson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:31:28 -0500

The winners of the Yahoo! Yodel Studio contest have been announced.

Tiffany Jo Allen of Tucson, AZ
Katherine Skene of St. Andrews, UK
Ankitaa Bhattacharji of Mumbai, India

The winners were publicly voted on after Yahoo! selected three finalists each for the US, UK, and India from 21,000 submissions.

Tiffany Jo's Yodel can be heard on the Yahoo! homepage for the next week. Simply click on the exclamation point in Yahoo!'s logo to give it a listen.

Katherine and Ankitaa's Yodels will be featured on the respective UK and India Yahoo! homepages in coming weeks.

Google Scholar Adds Legal Search for U.S. Federal and State Courts

Nathania Johnson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:59:57 -0500

Google Scholar is adding legal search to its offerings. This enables anyone to search the full texts of legal opinions given in U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts.

Simply go to Google Scholar, select the radio button for "Legal Opinions and Journals" and then search your keyword.

Here's how the results will look:

Yahoo Among Profiters From Senate Investigated $1.4 Billion 'Web Scam'

Frank Watson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:03:19 -0500

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation are investigating loyalty programs from companies including Vertrue, Webloyalty, and Affinion that generated $1.4 billion with credit card information given to them by their marketing partners - which include Yahoo - without the knowledge of most of the customers, Cnet reported.

"The government says the investigation shows that Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue "trick" consumers into entering their e-mail address just before they complete purchases at sites such as Orbitz, Priceline.com, Buy.com, 1-800 Flowers, Continental Airlines, Fandango, and Classmates.com. A Web ad, which many consumers say appears to be from the retailer, offers them cash back or coupon if they key in their e-mail address," Cnet stated.

Since no credit card information is asked for by these promotions. customers took advantage of reduced prices from "trusted" vendors and had to read the small type - which virtually no one does - to discover they would be charged monthly by the program - between $9 and $12.

Yahoo is amongst the companies that received between $1-10 million through the arrangement, according to government figures.

FacteryLabs Launch FactRank Engine

Frank Watson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:09:44 -0500

The search industry has seen a lot of new engines developed moving towards a diversity of specific needs. Recently, "real time" search has been a hot topic with the use of social media in search.

This week a new engine was launched by FacteryLabs - an search technology company founded by Paul Pedersen and Sean Gaddis who have worked at Google, Powerset, eBay, and Skype.

The company has developed a FactFinder API that can be used to combine data from Twitter and Yahoo BOSS. The results I found for various searches may need some fine tuning but the product offers some interesting insights.

Doing a search from their onsite engine gives facts garnered from Twitter conversations and Yahoo search. Essentially you get current discussions and ranked facts about the search topic.

The results are geared towards adoption by mobile search where large amounts of information are generally not being searched for. As Cnet summarizes:

"In a nutshell it goes like this: FactRank goes through each Web page or source (in whatever index it's searching from) finding semantic tip-offs like declarative sentences. It then cross references each of those against one another, surfacing some of the most relevant ones to the top, as well as factoring in the order of how they appeared. What the user then gets is a tidy list of statements, each of which is sourced and given a level of relevancy based on their appearances in all of the indexed source pages combined."

The company offers developers the ability to tailor results, so iterations should be populating the web soon. As the site states, "FactEngine will cut through the noise, spam, and porn that convolutes the real-time web to bring you the most relevant facts fast."