Dallas Cowboys Beat Colts, Saints for Most Searched NFL Team on Bing

Dallas Cowboys Beat Colts, Saints for Most Searched NFL Team on Bing

Team Manning and Team Brees, eat your hearts out. It’s Team Romo that won the search bowl - at least on Bing.

That’s right, the Dallas Cowboys were the most searched NFL team on Bing this season. They beat out both teams that will play in the Superbowl this coming Sunday - the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. If you’re wondering why I keep writing Colts before Saints (I know you’re not but humor me) - it’s because this Sunday I’m a Colts fan. (Hey, the Panthers and the Giants didn’t make it, ok?)

But I’ll throw you a bone, Saints fans - New Orleans was the 5th most searched NFL team on Bing. The Colts came in a paltry 15th place. Ouch!

By the way, if you want to keep up with the Big Game’s stats and scores this Sunday, Bing’s Instant Answers will be fired up and ready to keep you informed. Type the key terms ‘Super Bowl XLIV’ or ‘Super Bowl 2010′ directly into the Bing search box.

In the meantime, query those terms and get links to pre-game analysis as well as recipes for your Superbowl party.

And be sure to head to Bing/Twitter to catch real-time reaction from the Twittersphere about the game and, of course, those all-important Superbowl ads.

Google Officially Selects Fade-In Look for Homepage

Google Officially Selects Fade-In Look for Homepage

Remember the tests Google has been running on their homepage lately? Well, now they’re officially rolling out the new version.

What they’ve decided to go with is the fade-in version. When you get access to the updated homepage (which is rolling out over a few days), you’ll just see the Google logo, the search box, and the submit buttons.

Then, when you move your mouse, the rest of the page will fade in.

So why the change? Google’s Marissa Mayer, who tightly controls the look of the Google homepage, took to the “>Official Google blog to explain:

…the variant of the homepage we are launching today was positive or neutral on all key metrics, except one: time to first action. At first, this worried us a bit: Google is all about getting you where you are going faster — how could we launch something that potentially slowed users down? Then, we realized: we want users to notice this change… and it does take time to notice something (though in this case, only milliseconds!). Our goal then became to understand whether or not over time the users began to use the homepage even more efficiently than the control group and, sure enough, that was the trend we observed.

Bing.com/Twitter: A Visual Tour

Bing.com/Twitter: A Visual Tour

Bing.com/Twitter is live. Here’s how it looks.

The “Hot Topics” tag cloud is at the top of the page, beneath the search box.

And here were the trending topics on Twitter at the time of the screenshot above. (No, Kanye West is not really dead.)

Below the tag cloud are tweets categorized by hot topic.

Now, let’s take a look at search results. There’s a Carolina Hurricanes game tonight, so let’s see who’s Tweeting about it. Notice the pause button at the top right of the results, which you can use to stop the real-time updating.

The sidebar on the left leads to Bing searches, not more Twitter searches.

Gmail Labs Keeps Search Inside Mail Interface

Gmail Labs Keeps Search Inside Mail Interface

Google has developed a search box that will appear on the left-hand navigation to save people having to tab out and opening another search box while using Gmail.

I have had similar situations as the one described in the Gmail blog:

“I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I’d have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I’d have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I’d get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I’d have to go through it all again when I remembered what I’d been doing.”

You can add it through the Gmail Labs settings and is very handy, as the picture shows below.

As the image shows you can then choose to drop the result you want into chat or an email.

Thanks Google this one will be very handy.

Google Updates AdSense Program Policies Page

Google Updates AdSense Program Policies Page

Google has made some clarifications to its AdSense Program Policies. Straight from the horses mouth (aka the Inside AdSense blog), here they are:

• Google brand violations: This policy has always existed in our Terms and Conditions, but we’ve now brought it directly to the ‘Ad Placement’ section of the program policies page so that it’s easier to find. According to this policy, we don’t allow ads or search boxes to be placed on pages which misuse Google logos, trademarks, or other brand features in the page content or URL, and which could mislead users into thinking the page is associated with Google.
• Deceptive implementations: We’ve clarified this policy a bit in the ‘Encouraging Clicks’ section of the program policies - ads may not be formatted in a way that makes them indistinguishable from other content on the page where they appear.
• Ad placement in emails and email programs: This updated policy clarifies that Google ads , search boxes, and search results may not be placed in emails, as well as alongside emails.
• Other Google products’ policies: With this new policy, publishers aren’t permitted to place ads, search boxes, or search results on, within, or alongside other Google products in a way that violates the policies of that other product or service. For instance, this would include placing ads on sites which allow users to download YouTube videos, which isn’t permitted by the YouTube Terms of Service.

What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments section below.

Related Reading:
Google AdSense Says Goodbye to YouTube Video Feature
Google AdSense Releases News Widget
AdSense Publisher Sues Google - And Wins
Google AdSense Allows Feed Ad Review

Twitter Tests a Search Box on the Root Domain

Twitter Tests a Search Box on the Root Domain

Twitter is testing a search box on the root URL of its site, meaning on the home page and user pages. Currently, search resides on a subdomain, http://search.twitter.com. There is a “Find People” search on the root, but searching tweets is on the root.

The test will include a search box in the navigation in the top right of the page. Only a small subset of users will see the search box during the test.

Twitter has had a hesitant approach to search. While this may seem surprising on the surface, it has probably been necessary in the progress of the social network. As the popularity of Twitter grew, many of the users became accustomed to downtime, symbolized by the infamous picture of a whale being lifted by tiny birds.

As Twitter resolved the majority of their downtime issues, search became a possibility again. Twitter acquired Summize, which was a third-party search developed via the Twitter API. That’s when search was placed on the subdomain.

It’s good to see that Twitter is finding itself in the place to test search on the root domain. My gut tells me they’ll find the search box very popular and roll it out to all users soon enough.

Google Unveils Adsense for Mobile Search

Google Unveils Adsense for Mobile Search

Google has launched AdSense for Mobile Search. This enables mobile website developers to place a Google search box on their sites. The search box can be co-branded with a site’s brand and logo. They can generate revenue through the text link ads included in the search results.

The program is available in a private beta-test only. If you’re interested in becoming a beta-tester, click here to apply.

Google launched Adsense for mobile content in September of 2007. Last December, Google began offering mobile AdWords offerings for the iPhone and G1.

hakia Updates Search Box

hakia Updates Search Box

hakia has updated their Search Box, which is a site search feature you can place on your website. The biggest change is the ability to search multiple domains. Here’s a mockup, via the hakia blog:

Another update is the highlighting of the semantic relevant words in the results:

Search box is available for free, up to 30,000 searches per day.

Related Reading:
hakia Launches Personalized Search Feature
Meet the New hakia
hakia Calls for Librarians to Contribute Credible Web Sources

Google Search Results Now (Visually) Optimized for the iPhone and G1

Google Search Results Now (Visually) Optimized for the iPhone and G1

Google has launched visually optimized search results that are designed to fit the screens of the iPhone and G1 mobile devices. With the new look, users shouldn’t have to zoom in or scroll side to side.

The update was previously released on the iPhone, but only when you manually went to Google.com in the Safari browser. Now, for the iPhone, the new results page will appear when you use the default Google search box in the Safari browser.

For the G1, you can access the new results page after searching via the search widget on the Android home page or also through Google.com in the browser.

Here’s what the new results page looks like:

Related Reading:
Google AdWords Launches iPhone and G1 Options (Plus Mobile Marketing Tips from SES!)
Google Adds Voice Search to iPhone Search Application

LinkedIn’s New Search Platform Goes Live

LinkedIn’s New Search Platform Goes Live

A month ago, LinkedIn unveiled its new search platform. Now they’re rolling it out to their 31 million users.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the new search platform:

Suggestive Search - When you type into the search box, a list of suggested names from your contacts pops up. You can select one of the names without having to type in the whole thing. I think this might come in handy when you’re having a hard time remembering a name. Maybe you remember the first letter or the first name, but the rest of it just isn’t coming to you - this can help.

Streamlined Search Results - LinkedIn changed the design to make it easier to scan the results. They also added photos. Results can be sorted by relevance, which includes the social graph, or by relationship, relationship + recommendations, and keyword.

Customizable Views Users can determine what info they want returned in their search results. Just click the “Views” drop down menu (next to the “Sort” drop down menu at the top of the results). You can decide whether you want to view headlines, photos, locations and more of the people returned in a search.

Take Action Straight from the Search Results When you mouse over a result, you’ll notice links that let you take action. You can send InMail, get introduced (through a common contact), or add that person to your network.

Modify Your Search On the right hand side of the results, you’ll notice a form where you can type in additional information to narrow your search down and pinpoint it to more exact specifications. You can search by name, job title, company location, and school.

Save Your Search If you want to return to the results, you can save your search. This is a good idea if you’ve modified your search or customized your view.

Check out this video to get a good visual for all of the above:

Of course, you’ll need to be signed in to LinkedIn to take advantage of all the features in the new platform. Not LinkedIn yet? Our own Carrie Hill explained why you need to be in her article, Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn.

Head over to LinkedIn and give the new search a test drive. Then come back and let us know what you think in the comments.

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