• Search Innovation Spotlight
    The first-ever Video Search Engine Optimization contest? A number of recent events show how video search is maturing and becoming a real force on the Net.
  • 'Doing Search' Only Counts If You're Seen
    I'm not making any friends with Ontario Tourism. Two weeks ago I said in this column that they weren't using search. I was quickly corrected by the tourist bureau's Nick Pedota, who told me my claim was "wildly inaccurate" and that Ontario Tourism in fact has "an extensive search program." But based on the following searches I did while in Toronto, Ontario Tourism didn't show for: Ontario vacations, Ontario resorts, Toronto vacations, Ontario getaways and Ontario holidays. According to Google Trends' keyword research tool, these are the most common searches for Ontario, by a substantial margin.
  • Will Search Personalization Create Self-Fulfilling Prophecies?
    Fellow Search Insider Gord Hotchkiss has been writing about search personalization for quite some time. Gord has been preaching that the biggest (and most important) opportunity for innovation in the search space is around personalization. I agree that we'll see steady investment and advances in this area, but I'm less bullish than Gord on the prospects of personalized search to truly benefit the digital ecosystem.
  • Search In The Digital Media Ecosystem
    Among the akeaways from a company summit: As campaign budgets drop, the share that's digital rises; you can use search to create demand, not just capture it; it's important to plan a balance between targeting your core versus mass audience....
  • GoogleBay, Or EGoogle?
    As of today, eBay will be turning its search ads on within Google -- ending a spat between Google and one of its largest advertisers that's drawn comparisons to a lover's quarrel. But while the ad standoff may be over, the rivalry has really just begun. EBay and Google, after all, are starting to look more alike every day, and they're headed towards a very similar future. And as their turf continues to overlap, we'll see the eBay-Google spat as a lot more than a tiff -- we'll recognize it for the opening volley in the next great Internet war.
  • Multi-Language Search Strategies
    At more then 44.3 million, the Hispanic population is the largest of the minority groups (14.8 percent of the overall U.S. population) and the fastest growing -- at a rate of 3.4% between July 2005 and July 2006. Why is it, then, that U.S. marketers are still not catching onto the fact that they need to start paying attention to reaching foreign language searchers, particularly Spanish-speaking audiences?
  • Yahoo + Yang = Google + (Page + Brin)?
    So Jerry Yang is no longer just the chief Yahoo, whatever that means. Terry Semel has vacated Yahoo's CEO office and Jerry Yang has set up shop there. At the same time, Sue Decker has stepped into the president's role. While Terry Semel's departure didn't come as a great surprise to anyone in the search space, Jerry Yang's appointment as CEO did raise a few eyebrows. In retrospect, the move seems to make a lot of sense but in the numerous conversations I've had on this topic in the last few weeks, no one mentioned Yang's name as Yahoo's possible …
  • Public Data Gone Wild: The Google Public Sector Initiative
    With most of the talk these days about Universal, personalization and iGoogle, Google's other groundbreaking efforts seem to go somewhat unnoticed by search engine marketers, or at the very least show up as a minor blip in a sea of daily search blogs and news stories. Last month, the folks in Mountain View made an announcement that offered more insight into the Public Sector initiative, which focuses on working with various U.S. government agencies to make federal, state and local public data more accessible to its citizens, and is also likely to shake up the online reputation management world.
  • Buzz From Digital Hollywood
    Hollywood's talking a lot about Google. What else is on everybody's mind? To check the barometer, I sat on a panel at the Digital Hollywood conference last week.
  • Looking for Google's Future? You Can Find It On EBay
    The Google worldview is a thoroughly binary one. There are Google users, and then there's everyone else. Google users are treated like royalty. Everyone else is a potential resource for users -- nothing less, and nothing more. That view has made many enemies for the Frienemy over the years. It's also made it the unrivaled information resource on the Web.But times are changing....
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