Google Advertises Chrome … On Bing!
It’s not unusual for other search engines like Yahoo, Bing or Ask to advertise on Google. But I’ve never seen Google run an ad on another search engine until now.
I did a search this evening on Bing for Google Chrome. To my surprise, there was an ad right at the top of the page advertising [...]
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Waiting Game Begins On Google Book Search Settlement
The dust has settled from last week’s Fairness Hearing on the proposed Google Book Search, and now all parties are playing a waiting game. Judge Denny Chin began the hearing by announcing — to no one’s surprise — that he wouldn’t be announcing a decision during or immediately after the hearing. According to the Wall [...]
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89% of Journalists Source Stories From Social Media, Yet Only 15% Admit Its Importance
Now this looks familiar.
A new survey by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University, suggests that 89% of journalists source their stories from blogs, 65% from social networks such as Facebook, and 52% from Twitter.
That’s no surprise.
Yet despite this admission, journalists continue to downplay the importance of social media to their reporting efforts, with just 15% citing it as “important.”
Hmm, does that seem to you like a profession not wanting to admit that citizen-journalists and content creators are making their job obsolete?
Breaking down the data, we see that those journalists writing for web publications are more likely (69%) to use social media for news sources, than those writing for magazines (48%).
While this demonstrates the importance of pimping your company via social media channels, the survey also highlights the importance of having a kick-ass media room on your corporate site–with 96% of journalists heading in that direction, when researching a story.
Want advice on building your corporate media room? There’s a book for that! 
Nielsen: Bing Regains December’s Losses In January
Search share numbers regularly go up and down a percent here and a percent there; that’s normal. So no surprise that Bing’s January share, as reported by Nielsen, wiped out its drop from December. Here’s the January chart:
And for comparison, here are the December and November charts, also from Nielsen:
Even Google’s small drop in January [...]
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Study Confirms: Women Talk a Lot!
…and that’s a good thing! At least for marketers. 
Forrester Research has updated its two year-old Social Technographics Ladder–adding a new rung for Conversationalists:
These Conversationalists are certainly on Twitter, but, perhaps no surprise, they’re spending even more time updating their Facebook status. Watching my wife, sister (in-law), cousins, etc, I can certainly see why Forrester is reporting that women make up 56% of the Conversationlist group–and it’s just like in real life. While men tend to have short updates, factual posts, and brief interactions, my observations suggest that women tend to be more engaged, have longer conversations, and prefer the (debatable) privacy of Facebook over Twitter.
With the Conversationlists being just one rung of the ladder below the Creators–those that publish blogs, upload videos, etc–marketers need to pay particular attention to this group. As Forrester suggests…
With conversationalists making up 53% of this group, it’s clear that generating and spreading conversations about [your company] could be effective. If your objective is to spread awareness, it would certainly be worthwhile to create a Twitter identity and reach out to others speaking about [you company] (you can find them through searches) or point them to a site where they can get rewards, encouragement, connections with other customers, or just interesting content worth talking about.
Surprise: Google’s Home Page Promoting Nexus One
If you visit Google.com today, you will see that they are showing a promotion for the Nexus One. The promotion is found under the search box and reads, “Experience Nexus One, the new Android phone from Google.”
As we saw in Danny’s live blogging of the event, yesterday – Google said they would use Google.com [...]
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Social Media: More Than Meets the Eye?
Social media is gaining greater acceptance across all levels of business from the SMB to the multi-national enterprise. No surprise there. What is beginning to play out though is the fact that the space is new and evolving. As a result, some of the techniques or tactics that seem to be the ‘norm’ are now being seen a bit differently. Why? Because there may be other things that just work better. That’s where the evolving part comes in.
eMarketer reports on a Marketing Profs survey (this link is for a synopsis of survey that is for sale and we are not in any way associated with that sale) from earlier in September 2009 that shows what is usually done on some social media outlets isn’t what is driving results.
The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers.
But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents.
The chart below tells the rest of the story:
Now that’s for Facebook. Apparently the same rules apply for Twitter.
Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different.
So what was Twitter most effective at for companies? Online reputation monitoring and management. Sure you can drive traffic to your site but there is always the question of the quality of the traffic you drive. As for responding to a negative comment or seeing your brand get trashed? That’s easy and obvious to spot and there is no real wiggle room. It is what it is. As a result companies need to respond and there is a ‘measurable’ result. Here is how the rest of the uses panned out.
So where are you on this one? Do you use social media in ways that may not be talked about in the mainstream but have yielded success for you? Remember, it’s OK to share because it’s about social media. No secrets here 
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Happy New Years 2010 Search Logos & Google’s Surprise
Happy New Years! The Search Engine Land team would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy and successful 2010. Just for fun, I wanted to share the various logos from the search engines and also Google’s surprise.
Let’s start with Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” count down to New Years. Remember when [...]
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Facebook Receives News of A Merry Christmas Indeed
While most of us in the Internet marketing “industry” were all aghast at the Facebook privacy problem of ’09, the rest of the world could have cared less. You know those people, right? The ones who don’t live and breathe this stuff to the point that all perspective is lost? These are the ‘everyday’ Facebook users who don’t give a rip about Mark Zuckerberg and the continued search for 7,000 people who care enough to impact any policy changes with the social media giant.
So those regular folks pushed Facebook to a point where it had never been before: the number one site during the Christmas holiday. ReadWriteWeb tells us
Christmas is a holiday that brings people together, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Facebook has become a part of millions of peoples’ Christmas experiences. For the first time in its history, Facebook was the #1 most visited website in the United States on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year, according to traffic analyst firm Hitwise today.
Makes sense doesn’t it? Personally I was more prone to using Skype rather than updating everyone but that is certainly a personal preference.
So while the site finished third for the year behind Google and Yahoo Mail it was certainly a milestone to be seen as the Christmas site of choice. Last year Facebook finished second in this contest to Google but was able to flip positions this year.
See what a year of gigantic growth can do for you? Wonder if Santa will be as nice to Facebook next year after the rest of the world catches on that their “goings on” at Facebook aren’t as private as they used to be?
Google Search Gets Personal With Everyone
Personalization of search results has long been a point of great interest and contention in the search world. The battle has raged on, particularly regarding Google’s personalization efforts, about privacy for the Google user and how it will affect the search engine optimization industry.
One of the ways that Google’s personalization efforts have been ‘limited’ is that the only people that have any personalization measures applied to them were those who were logged into their Google account. That was the case at least until last Friday when Google announced that their personalization efforts now apply to everyone regardless of whether you have a Google account or not.
Google keeps a history of your Web searches for up to 180 days, using what it says is an anonymous cookie in your browser to track your search queries and the results you most frequently click on. For several years it has allowed those with Google accounts to receive customized search results based on that history, but now even those without Google accounts will receive tailored results based on a history of their search activity, Google said in a blog post late Friday.
So what’s the big deal? Well, if you are an seo practitioner it means that your job gets a bit harder but this should be no surprise since this change has been happening for years now. What makes this one different is that it now applied to all searches. What is going to make privacy watchdogs antsy is the fact that is an opt-out program. Sure, Google made a nice video and explained this process in their blog but the overwhelming majority of Google users don’t even know Google has a blog and don’t care. Also, they don’t pay attention to this kind of stuff so opting out is a nice PR move but not likely to be widely adopted.
So as to limit the confusion here is Google’s chart on how this whole thing shakes out. Please excuse the quality of the image.
Hope Google finds exactly what you are looking for! Don’t forget to opt-out if you’re creeped out!
