Google Goes Live With “In-Stock, Nearby” Mobile Shopping
In the range of thigs discussed at Google’s Search Evolution event in December Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated mobile shopping with real-time inventory information. Now Google has announced that product is live.
Google is working with a limited number of retailers for the time being but is inviting others to apply to become part of the [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
Wired On Google’s Algorithm
Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web from Wired has an excellent and detailed look at the evolution Google’s search algorithm over the years. It is a pretty long write up, so I wanted to highlight those key points in bullet format for you all.
Key Advances:
Backrub in September 1997
New Algorithm in August 2001
Local Connectivity [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
Google Search Suggestions For Mobile Get Locally Relevant
At the recent Google Search Evolution event late last year, Google Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated search suggestions on mobile devices that varied by location. He showed that query suggestions could and would be different based on user location.
Today Google is rolling that improvement out for the iPhone and Android devices. The geographic point of [...]
….
SMX West: Techniques to Adapt & Thrive – Agenda Posted
Bob Dylan wrote “The times, they are a-changing.” Always…but evolution of search marketing has never been more dynamic. A few examples:
Google’s universal search, and blended search in general, continue to profoundly alter the seo landscape, offering new opportunities for visibility. Yet old-school seo tactics virtually ignore both universal and blended search.
Real-time search is [...]
….
Google Mobile Gets “What’s Nearby,” Voice Search Expands & “Goggles” Search By Snapping Pictures
The Google Search Evolution event today featured a fair amount of discussion of the impact of mobile on the future direction of search and the user experience. There was a flurry of announcements about mobile products and feature upgrades, summarized on the Google Mobile Blog. Danny live-blogged the event.
Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, discussed [...]
….
Liveblogging The Google’s Web Search “Evolution” Event
Live from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, I’ll be liveblogging what Google has dubbed “an inside look at the evolution of Google search.” As it turns out, it’s the unveiling of Google’s new Real Time Search, shown above, as well as search by voice and search by picture improvements for mobile.
Real time search [...]
….
The Unexpected Re-Evolution Of The Phone Call
Quick: Are you a digital marketing pro? If so, complete this sentence:
In the future, advertisers will combine online media with mobile ads to drive:____________.
What did you put in the blank? Let me guess.
Branding, combining rich online experiences with mobile mini-experiences?
E-commerce, as more people surf the Web using both devices?
Coupons and promotions, taking advantage [...]
….
The Evolution of Blogging
Oh, how I wish this was a cool YouTube video that could go viral. But it’s not. Instead, it’s some pretty interesting research by PostRank on how reader engagement in blogging has evolved over the last three years.
Not so surprisingly, trackbacks as a means of joining the conversation have dropped off in favor of taking the discussion to Twitter or other social sites. Over the last there years, trackbacks have dropped from 19% of total engagement to 3%, while social networks have soared from <1% to 29%.
This is indicative of the larger trend—the move to engagement off the site itself:
On-site engagement is down 50%, but total engagement engagement is still high—the conversation has just moved onto Facebook, Twitter and other social networks because of the “Share this” phenomenon.
Finally, the study also found that posts have a longer lifespan of engagement, due largely to the fact that engagement in the first hour has decreased:
Back in 2007, we observed that over 94% of all the engagement occurred within the first day of publishing the article. Even more interestingly, the 98% of the engagement on that first day occurred within the first hour. In other words, the half-life of a story was, and still is, less than an hour!
Fast forward to 2008 and 2009, and we’re seeing a steady increase in the lifespan of a story: down to 83% of total engagement for the first hour in 2008, and 64% in 2009.
While the majority of engagement still takes place in the first hour, the engagement is also more spread out today—because more and more people are discovering the post later, thanks to the social sharing options that have become so popular.
What do you think? Have you seen this phenomenon in your blogging and sharing?
Social Media and Content Discovery: A Growing Relationship
While the commercial Internet age is in its teens according to linear age it has some difficulty focusing. Just when users are getting used to a world that is search engine centric there comes along the social web or social media or social networking or social (insert your word here) to truly change how people make sense of the sheer volume of data on the Internet. This change or movement toward the social web is happening at an ever increasing rate and creates opportunities as well as difficulties for those who are trying to harness this power for business.
Nielsen reports at its blog in a post from Jon Gibbs, VP Media Analytics
In the beginning there were ISPs, which then gave way to portals ― aggregators of content and links ― which then led to the rise of “search” as the dominant form of Internet navigation or, how we get to where we we’re going on the web. However, as with most forms of evolution, change is constant, and over the past two years search navigation has appeared to shift to social media.
We continue to see that social media has not only changed the way consumers communicate and gather on the Web, but also impacted content discovery and navigation in a big way. But how? Is social media taking the place of portals and search as the hub of online navigation?
Nielsen goes on to categorize people as either ‘searchers’ who primarily get their data from search engines, ‘portalists’ who use a portal site to access data and ‘socializers’ who use, you guessed it, social media to get their information. As this last group grows there could be some significant implications moving forward for everyone who is using the Internet for business.
As a result the socializer group actually feels that there is too much information on the Internet. Much more so than those who simply use search engines. Think about it. A search engine user takes it on faith (the vast majority of the time) that the entire Internet for a keyword or key phrase is boiled down to just 10 best results. Of course, if they only take their online sophistication that far then the Internet does appear to be easy to manage. Socializers, on the other hand, spend a lot more time online and hear / see a lot more than regular Internet users. It can become very noisy very quickly.
So how do they manage this? Through their online social network of buddies, of course. At this point, now the real recommendations and buying decisions are happening based on what other people, not an impersonal engine says. Hopefully, they are giving actual experience to help their online connections make more informed purchasing decisions. That’s the theory at least. Take a look at the significant differences in how socializers and searchers use various formats for information. Why Wikipedia is even part of the discussion baffles me but what do I know?
So what are you? Searcher? Portalist? Socializer? A little of all of them. Will social media displace search engines as a primary source of information in the near future? What does it mean to you TODAY as an Internet marketer? Share your thoughts and let’s learn from each other.
Want Solid SEM Benchmarks? This Report Has Them By The Boatload
Each year, Marketing Sherpa compiles an exhaustive look at the state of search marketing. Each year, these reports grow more comprehensive, reflecting the continuous change and evolution of our industry as it grows up. This year’s report is no exception.
The Marketing Sherpa 2009-10 Search Marketing Benchmark Report is 213 pages, and is divided into five [...]
….
