Bing Maps Adds 1 Million Sq KM of New Imagery in Feb 2010 Release
February 18, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Bing Maps Adds 1 Million Sq KM of New Imagery in Feb 2010 Release
Improved imagery for Haiti and Vancouver included.
Click to read the rest of this post…
Bing Expands Partnership with Localeze
January 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Bing Expands Partnership with Localeze
Since 2005, Microsoft has partnered with Localeze to provide local business information in search results. Now, that relationship is being expanded with the renewal of the pair’s partnership. Localeze will provide Bing Local and Bing 411 with its Enhanced Business Registry which includes more than 14 million listings.
“Helping consumers make better buying decisions locally, our renewed relationship with Bing brings two leading search companies together to offer the best of the best in premium business listings,” said Jeff Beard, president, Localeze.
Localeze already provides with basic contact info for local businesses such as name, address and phone number. Now, Localeze will also provide additional data including operating hours, products/services offered, and whether/which credit cards are accepted. Results pulling from the data in Bing will now be attributed to Localeze, as well.
“Localeze’s rich, business-verified and enhanced local content will help Bing’s business profiles deliver more relevant and accurate results, which online shoppers need to make local purchasing decisions,” concluded Beard.
Pass the popcorn; YouTube is launching movie rentals
January 27, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Pass the popcorn; YouTube is launching movie rentals
Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr
A couple of days ago, YouTube announced that it was going to begin testing movie rentals starting today with movies from the Sundance Film Festival. Well, Heather Dougherty, the Director of Research at Experian Hitwise has taken a look at how 10 million US Internet users interact with more than 1 million websites and shared these findings with Search Engine Watch readers: * Last week, YouTube ranked 6th among all websites in the US and visitors spent an average of 25 minutes and 25 seconds with the website. * YouTube ranked second behind Momo Mesh for websites that receive traffic from the search term ‘movies online’ for the 12 weeks ending January 16, 2010. * Last week, among all of the search terms that drove traffic to YouTube, 2179 included the word ‘movie’ or ‘movies’, although 291 also included the word ‘free’. * There are many competitors to the new service offering from YouTube including NetFlix, Apple and Amazon. However, in general, NetFlix has become synonymous with movie rentals online and appeared three times in the top ten search term variations of ‘movie rentals’ for the 12 weeks ending January 16, 2010.
So, pass the popcorn. Tonight, I’m going to watch “Old fangs,” one of the short films debuting at the Sundance Festival that you can watch for free in the YouTube Screening Room. Then, I’m going to check out one of the feature films. Maybe “Nowhere boy,” which chronicles John Lennon’s difficult teenage years in Liverpool during the 1950s, before the world changed John, and before John changed the world.
Nowhere Boy Official Movie Trailer 2009
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Retail Boosts Search Spend in Efficient Frontier’s Q4 2009 Report
January 19, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Retail Boosts Search Spend in Efficient Frontier’s Q4 2009 Report
Tomorrow, Efficient Frontier releases their quarterly search report and we’ve got a sneak peek at the numbers.
Let’s dive in:
Search Spend
Google’s share rose to 74.5%, up from 73.9% in Q3 2009. Yahoo! lost 0.5% share, while Bing lost 0.2%.
Broken down by sector:
- Retail: Up 17% YOY
- Travel: Down 20% YOY, driven by weak CPC
- Finance: Up 2% YOY
- Auto: Up 2% YOY
Google dominates Retail with 82.7% spend, but is not as powerful in Finance, with *just* 60.1% spend. Yahoo! is stronger in Finance at 35.2%. Bing’s strengths are Travel and Autos at 6.8% and 6.5% share respectively. In fact, Bing’s growth in the Travel sector was a whopping 80% over last year.
Clicks
Overall, the click-through-rate (CTR) was down 40% since Q4 2008. This is likely due to comparison shopping features being added to most of the search engines.
With the decline of the CTR, share becomes even more important.
- Google’s share rose to 74.4%, reversing a downward trend since Bing’s launch.
- Yahoo! lost 3.4% share since Q3, coming in at 21%.
- Bing held steady, declining just 0.1% to 4.6% share.
However, click volume was a different story. Google’s click volume grew by 38% and Bing grew by 7%. Yahoo!’s click volume dropped.
Impressions
Impressions for retail queries increased by a whopping 90% over Q4 2008. Remember, more info is being included in the search results, so that explains the dichotomy between impressions and CTR.
Sales
Average transaction size was down 5% over last year, but up 5% over the last quarter. Ratio of orders per impression was down 30%, but keep in mind those in-SERP shopping features.
Projections
After analyzing the data, Efficient Frontiers offered the following predictions for the new year:
- SEM spend will grow 15-20% in 2010.
- Market competition should recover, spurring volume expansion with CPC.
- Ad exchange development will continue to align with search
- Bing is expected to grow 30% in 2010, giving them a 6-7% share of paid clicks.
Google Updates Haiti Imagery Layer for Maps and Earth, Shows Earthquake Damage [Screenshots]
January 17, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Google Updates Haiti Imagery Layer for Maps and Earth, Shows Earthquake Damage [Screenshots]
The Google Maps team has been working hard with partner GeoEye to push out an updated imagery of Haiti. The update includes imagery taken at 10:27 am EST on Wednesday, January 13 - approximately 15 hours after the earthquake hit.
You can download the KML file to view in Google Earth and the layer is available for viewing in Google Maps as well.
The imagery is primarily for Port-Au-Prince. Google says they’ll add more imagery, but you only need to download the file once.
Here’s what the imagery looks like in Google Earth:
Presidential Palace
Random damage imagery
Google News keeps spreading as rapidly as kudzu
January 15, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Google News keeps spreading as rapidly as kudzu
Image by SESConferenceSeries via Flickr
Google News is like kudzu, which is known as “the vine that ate the South” because of its out-of-control growth in the Southeastern United States. Although I’m from New England, friends like Stacy Williams of Prominent Placement, which is headquartered in Atlanta, tell me that kudzu is called the “mile-a-minute vine” in her neighborhood.
According to the Nielsen Company, there were 15,895,000 unique visitors to Google News U.S. in November 2009, and 4,817,000 to Google News France, 3,082,000 to Google News U.K., 2,727,000 to Google News Germany, 2,424,000 to Google News Spain, and 2,328,000 to Google News Italy that month.
According to comScore, there were 99,761,000 unique visitors to Google News worldwide in November 2009, and 21,216,000 to Google News U.S., 8,020,000 to Google News France, 5,567,000 to Google News U.K., 4,481,000 to Google News Canada, 4,461,000 to Google News Germany, 3,066,000 to Google News Spain, and 2,981,000 to Google News Italy.
Although they used different sample sizes and research methodologies, both market research firms report that the audience for Google News is huge.
According to Google News, “We have more than 40 regional editions of Google News in many different languages.” But when I count the full list of available editions, I find 71.
Well, 71 is “more than 40.” But you get the feeling that even the folks at Google News can’t keep up with its kudzu-like growth.
If you check Newsknife, you’ll see that the folks there are working overtime to keep up, as well. On January 2, 2010, Newsknife reported, “During 2009, we sighted 2501 sites there for the first time, bringing our total to 11,742 sites.” That’s a long, long way from the 4,000 news sources that Google News started with in September 2002.
We’ve reported on the advent of YouTube News, Google Fast Flip, and Living Stories at Google News.
Well, Fast Flip is now available on the Google News homepage. And five dozen publishers, including include Tribune Co. newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, McClatchy Company newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Kansas City Star, the Huffington Post, Popular Science, Reuters, Public Radio International, POLITICO and U.S. News & World Report are included.
So, what does all this mean to marketers?
Like any rapidly changing field, the spread of Google News and its recent mutations represent an opportunity or a threat to marketers. If you want to know just how big an opportunity or threat it is, then ask your PR people, “What are you doing differently today than you were in September 2002 when Google News was launched?”
If they have a good answer, then ask, “What are you doing differently today than you were in May 2007 when Google launched universal search?”
And if they have a good answer, then ask, “What are you doing differently today than you were in June 2009 when Google News and YouTube teamed up to help news publishers build a bigger audience for their video content?”
I had to face similar questions last week as the special guest of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey (SWMS). Whitmore knows all about press release optimization and universal search. He wanted to know if there was any “new news” to share with his subscribers, who are tech PR pros.
No I can’t share my entire presentation, because you need to be a SWMS subscriber to see and hear that. But Whitmore, who was a colleague of mine at Ziff-Davis back in the 1990s, did agree to provide the last eight minutes of our editorial teleconference for free to Search Engine Watch Blog readers.
So, check it out for yourself. And if you think your PR people should know about this stuff, then email them a link to this post. Or, write about it in your own CMO blog. Or check out the chicklets below and Stumble It, Add to del.icio.us, or Tweet it on Twitter.
But make sure your PR people get the message. The times they are a-changin’ — and public relations need to change at the same rapid pace as Google News.
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SES, an opportunity to meet and greet an international marketing community.
January 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
SES, an opportunity to meet and greet an international marketing community.
One of the best things I find about international SES conferences is just how much you can learn about the cultural and political differences in attitude to marketing. As a formal marketing student you learn very quickly about performing an environmental scan. This is not specifically about whether your viewed as a “green” marketer but more about variables within the marketing environment you can control and those you can’t.
In the micro environment you have full control over your marketing efforts. But the macro environment has the variables that you need to monitor in order to be able to adapt your marketing campaign to specifics. These include cultural, political, economical, legal and, of course, environmental in the green sense, to name a few.
If you’re monitoring these variables and flexible enough to adapt your campaign to incorporate these differences you’re much more likely to succeed in your international marketing campaigns and product launches.
At Search Engine Watch today, guest contributor Bas van den Beld shares his notes from SES, Berlin in November of last year.
It’s interesting to note his references to Germany’s “love hate” relationship with Google. As well as his notes on the difference between SEO tactics at times and also Germany’s approach to social media.
I was at the show and gained a huge insight into the German search marketing space. Incidentally, leading German search marketer, Thomas Bindl of Refined Labs, who fronted the Berlin conference, has recently published a mini case study in conjunction with Google.
Amongst other things, “Using Long Tail Keywords For Efficient Conversions” shows that:
• 31% of all conversions require more than one click-through
• The conversion rate is closely linked to the chosen match type
• The longer and more specific the search terms (keywords)
the higher the click-through and conversion rates
The SES international community is huge. And certainly the networking opportunities at all SES conferences provide fabulous opportunities to become totally aware of the unique marketing environments in specific geographic territories.
For those in the US who want to know more about the UK marketplace, SES, London is just around the corner. And if you’ve already registered, as so many have, be sure to sign up for the networking meet and greet on 15 Feb.
For those outside of the US wanting to break into it, it’s not too long to wait for SES, New York - meet up details coming soon.
And for those of you who prefer a little California sunshine with your digital marketing learning, there’s OMS, San Diego complete with a full day two track SES forum. This special forum brings some of the industry’s leading practitioners together for a unique day of search engine marketing wisdom.
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Consumer Groups Look To Block Google Admob Deal
January 1, 2010 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Consumer Groups Look To Block Google Admob Deal
Consumer Watchdog and the Center For Digital Democracy contacted the FTC to halt Google from buying AdMob on anti-trust and privacy grounds, according to Tech Crunch.
Tech Crunch includes a letter written to the FTC co-signed by representatives from Consumer Watchdog and the CDD. The highlights of the letter include:
The proposed deal would substantially lessen competition in the increasingly important mobile advertising market.
In addition to the anti-trust issues, the spectre of the combined Google/AdMob raises substantial privacy issues.
Google amasses a goldmine of data by tracking consumers’ behavior as they use it search engine and other online services. Combining this information with information collected by AdMob would would give Google a massive amount of consumer data to exploit for their benefit.
How this will impact the approval of the acquisition will make interesting reading in the new year.
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eBay Holiday Purchases via Mobile Triple Over Last Year
December 31, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
eBay Holiday Purchases via Mobile Triple Over Last Year
eBay is seeing a big payoff for getting into the mobile game early. Their iPhone app has been downloaded by 6 million users and they see 175,000 visits a day via mobile apps.
This year, half a billion dollars of transactions were made on eBay via mobile. And it’s not just “safe” inexpensive items as people are trying out the apps. Mobile eBay purchases included designer handbags and a $75,000 1966 Chevrolet Corvette.
“Mobile is changing the way people shop this holiday season,” said Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay marketplaces. “We see consumers taking advantage of that freedom to find great holiday gifts and deals without sitting at their computer or being stuck at the mall.”
This holiday, 1.5 million items were bought on eBay via mobile. That’s an item every 2 seconds. Users from 165 countries visited eBay through an app or the mobile web.
“eBay buyers and sellers have rapidly embraced mobile commerce this year, and this holiday season has been a mobile commerce tipping point. Shopping will never be the same again,” concluded Norrington.
Facebook Unveils Inaugural (And Rather Bland) Top Status Trends of 2009
December 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engines
Facebook Unveils Inaugural (And Rather Bland) Top Status Trends of 2009
Facebook has identified and compiled a list of the top status trends on its social network for 2009. They’re calling it “Facebook Memology” with the word memology referring to the study of memes.
The list includes 15 trends and the methodology is, um, interesting. For example, the first trend is Facebook Applications - but that includes updates about popular Facebook games such as Farmville, where users often are prompted to post updates about leveling up or other “achievements.”
Other topics were lumped together such as “sports” and “movies,” but Lady Gaga gets her own category instead of being lumped into “music,” which doesn’t appear. No Taylor Swift? No Kanye West? No Miley Cyrus or Jo Bros? (I’m not endorsing those trends. Except for the Jo Bros. They’re so dreamy.)
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson doesn’t get his own category, though Celebrity Deaths is a trend.
Lastly, the 15th trend is “I” - is that really a trend?
I’m not a statistician and only a spectator of memology mind you, but after seeing the lists from search engines, this one seems a bit, how should I put this… vanilla.
