Recently  Overstock.com, paid $350,000 for “O.co”name. The president of Overstock, justified the price by the possible opportunities that a one letter domain could represent. Currently, O.co redirects users to Overstock.com. Many companies have complained that it has been difficult to find a good .com address, and some are using the...

Every day I spend an hour or two curating a set of links that I find provocative, useful, or important, adding a few lines of commentary to boot. It's called Signal, and you can consume it in three ways - as an email newsletter (sign up on the Signal Home Page in the upper right hand corner), in your RSS reader, or on the web. For those of you who...

The FBI, the Slovenian Criminal Police and the Spanish Guardia Civil announced the arrest of the suspected creator of the Mariposa Botnet used by hackers worldwide. Last week, the Slovenian Criminal Police arrested the Mariposa Botnet's suspected creator, a 23-year-old Slovenian known as "Iserdo." The Mariposa Botnet was built with a...

Logitech has started a contest to promote Google TV, the upcoming service for which Logitech is a launch partner. The contest is called "Host with the Most", and asks if "you have what it takes to be a 'host with the most' for Logitech Revue with Google TV?" Logitech Revue is the company's set-top box that will help the Google...

Apple released the latest version of its Safari web browser today, version 5.0.1. The release comes with Safari Extensions and the Safari Extensions Gallery. While extensions became available in Safari 5 lat month for developers, the gallery makes them available to users. A few organizations that have already created extensions for the browser...

A majority of Americans are concerned about Google's Street View cars that collected private information from their Wi-Fi networks and want better privacy protections put in place, according to a new poll from Consumer Watchdog. Overall, 74 percent of Americans view Google favorably, but 65 percent say the Wi-Fi scandal is one of the things that...

The sheer volume of social media marketing and search engine optimization advice posted online can make it difficult for companies to make sense out what direction they should take. There are many models and approaches to leveraging  optimized content for discovery through search and how to develop social networks to engage customers and promote...

Adobe announced today that it has entered an agreement to acquire Day Software, a content management software company. Adobe has launched a public tender offer to acquire all of the publicly held registered shares of the company for about $240 million. Adobe says the purchase would strengthen its enterprise software solutions, and allow it to...

LinkedIn has been spotlighting some new apps that third-parties have been building for the professional social network. For one, they shared Creative Portfolio Display developed by Behance. They are also sharing Legal Updates. Legal Updates was launched last week, and provides LinkedIn users with legal news and commentary related to their...

There is a new LinkedIn app called Creative Portfolio Display. The app lets users in creative industries like advertising, fashion, design, architecture, film, photography, and digital media, access tools to manage and showcase their portfolios. "Personal websites don’t adequately broadcast your work for discovery by industry peers...

Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan points out how poorly Google handles those gaming Google News, using Google Trends as a starting point. Do you find Google News to be too heavily polluted? Share your thoughts. He found a blatant example when the term "chocomize" became listed as "volcanic" on...

Facebook's hit all sorts of growth records in the last month or so, with its private stock reaching an all-time high ($65 per share) and its user count topping the 500 million mark.  Now, it looks like the organization may expand in another way, as a rumor has it ready to acquire Hot Potato. Hot Potato is a check-in service that takes...

Social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women then men globally, with 75.8 percent of all women online visiting a social networking site in May compared to 69.7 percent of men, according to a new report from comScore. "Understanding gender-specific differences in Web usage is valuable to any digital stakeholder looking to...

Whenever research is brought forward that merits one of those “Is that right?!” responses it’s worth looking into. I guess it’s the Internet’s equivalent of riding by a car wreck, you know you shouldn’t look but you do anyway. Well, a study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism shows that...

Do you wear a tin foil hat whenever you browse the web? Are you worried that Google knows more about you than any fictional “big brother” ever could? Well, there’s a browser plugin that you will love–and will likely tip you from slightly paranoid to full-blown insane! Basically, once installed, Google Alarm...

Don’t think that just because Facebook has managed to not completely trample people’s privacy as of late that there is not more activity around the subject. In fact, forces in Washington, this time the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), are speaking at ‘hearings’ that are looking into this issue right now with talk of a...

Google has been expected to get into gaming for sometime, but now it looks like the wheels are really in motion. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is in talks with Playdom, EA's Playfish, and Zynga. Google was recently reported to have invested a significant amount of money into Zynga, and CEO Eric Schmidt told the WSJ to expect a...

We've known that Ask has been working on a new version of Ask.com for months, but now it's here. Ask is placing new emphasis on the Q&A side of search, and is injecting the Q&A experience directly into the main search experience, which is what SVP of Product Management Tony Gentile tells WebProNews, sets the new Ask apart from other...

Bing may have been launched as a "decision engine," but Microsoft's now trying to make sure it's a site where people will spend a fair amount of time.  And to that end, Microsoft added seven new games to what it called the "Bing entertainment browser" this afternoon. The seven games are of the casual variety.  Think...

Last week, rumors surfaced that Disney was in late stage acquisition talks with social game company Playdom. Today, Disney has announced that it has indeed agreed to acquire it. Playdom shareholders will receive total consideration of $563.2 million, subject to certain conditions, and a performance-linked earn-out of up to $200 million. "We...

I’m at the bank depositing money. That’s a real tweet I saw this week and it was followed by a Foursquare link showing the exact bank. According to new research by Forrester, that tweeter was probably a young adult male with a college degree and he’s one of only 1% of online users who actually do this kind of thing. From my...

Google has announced the release of a licensing service for Android apps in the Android Market. Android's Eric Chu says this comes as the result of feedback from developers who want better protection against unauthorized use of their apps. "This simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid...

I have never been a big fan of horror movies. Getting scared on purpose was never something that I quite understood. One of the scariest movies I ever saw, though, was a film back in 1995 called Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman which showed the response that the world would likely have to a global pandemic if one were ever to occur. At the time I...

Waiting for iPhone 4? you may be in luck if you happen to be in one of the following countries… Beginning this Friday, customers can purchase iPhone 4 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. iPhone 4 will...

Amazon has launched a new feature in beta, which lets you tap into your Facebook network. The feature says it lets you, "Connect to Facebook to get Amazon recommendations for you and discover your friends' Favorites and Likes". TechCrunch's Leena Rao shows a screenshot which says connecting Amazon and Facebook lets you: - discover...

The Red Touch-Screen Entertainment Platform Upgrades Include an Open Tab Service, Next Gen Google Maps and the First-Ever Digital In-Flight Shopping Platform. With this latest upgrade, travelers access to a host of new amenities, including next generation, enhanced terrain view Google Maps, an open tab service for the airline’s...

When Amazon released its earnings last week, some were disappointed, but it was still clear that the Kindle has been doing pretty well. Amazon sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as it did in the first half of 2009, and it was recently revealed that Amazon is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover...

Google has announced some upcoming changes to the way its third party partners provide reports and information about AdWords to their clients. "In order to provide the best online marketing experience, we want to make sure that you understand how each dollar you invest in AdWords is performing," says Jason Shafton of Google's Inside...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched a Consumer Help Center website aimed at providing people with a variety of information. The Consumer Help Center allows people to learn about different issues in telecommunications, find out what's going on at the FCC, get tips for making choices for purchasing communication devices and...

Apple was expected to introduce its Multi-Touch Magic Trackpad when it announced its earnings last week. That didn't happen, but they have introduced it today along with updates to the iMac line. The iMac line has been updated with the latest Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors and new graphics. Apple says the line is the fastest ever...

Young people who have grown up with computers and are perhaps more educated than the average individual tend to just put their faith in whatever Google shows them when it comes to online research.  A study determined that college students often click on the top search result regardless of other factors. The study was backed by Northwestern...

As you have probably heard by now, the EFF has convinced the U.S. copyright office to grant exemptions to the DMCA, which mean that users of phones like the iPhone can jailbreak them. While it may be legal to do so, Apple still doesn't want you to. Leander Kahney at Cult of Mac received this statement from Apple on the matter: "Apple's...

Wolfram Alpha told WebProNews today it has released beta versions of Wolfram Alpha Widgets and Widget Builder to allow users to create and share widgets on their blog or website. "Widgets are the next step in our goal of making Wolfram Alpha ubiquitous--available to everyone, everywhere," said Barak Berkowitz, Managing Director,...

Despite the Chinese government's decision to renew Google's Internet Content Provider license, the company is continuing to run into trouble in that country.  The latest problem is that two of Google's authorized advertising agents have ended their relationships with the corporation. That's in no way a good sign for Google.  Wang Xing...

Ask has always been the red-headed stepchild of the search industry. It’s always lurking in the shadows as the #4 search engine and usually gets a mention in search share only if there was significant up or down movement. Accounting has the Big 4 but search only has the Big 3 which is soon to be the Big 2 ½ or something once...

Mayo Clinic said today it is launching a Center for Social Media to create broader and deeper engagement by hospitals, doctors and patients. "Mayo Clinic believes individuals have the right and responsibility to advocate for their own health, and that it is our responsibility to help them use social media tools to get the best information,...

Advertising suffers from a reputation problem. Here at Marketing Pilgrim we are very interested in online reputation management but even the best social media monitoring tools can’t help some industries. Of course, when you spend years simply ignoring how poorly you are viewed by the public in general, it doesn’t help. This is...

It's a rare person who would suggest that any online traffic report is completely accurate; most folks know stats from Hitwise, Nielsen, and the like are closer to educated guesses.  But it turns out that last month, comScore got Yahoo's June stats wrong by a significant margin, leading Yahoo to announce the problem in a press release...

PowerReviews, a provider of customer reviews for retailers and brands, has partnered with Google to share "premium user generated" product review content from client sites. Ratings and reviews will be displayed in Google search results, Google Product Search, and Google advertising programs. "Clearly, many consumers depend on...

There's a bit of good news for Google this morning in relation to the Street View data collection clash.  The UK's Information Commissioner's Office announced that it's had a look at some of the data, and the organization is inclined to believe that no harm will come of Google's mistake. It's important to note that the ICO, which is an...

Holy smack in the face Batman! Yahoo Japan just signed a 2-year deal with Google! Yes, with Google! Not, Bing! Before the word “mutiny” jumps to your prefrontal cortex–your “mind” for the rest of us–you need to know this: Yahoo holds only a 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, so the search engine...

No, really! Does anyone actually know what the unveiled Google Punch does? Apparently Google Operating System spotted Google Punch listed in a Google Documents drop-down–within the video below. Speculation has already started as to what Google Punch could be, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’ve been familiar with Brian Solis as many have, for several years. We’ve done a few video interviews with Brian and he’s contributed to popular posts here like this one on social media marketing and this one on content curation.I have to admit that based on his early writing, I thought Brian was overly confident about the...

As I wrote in my June 30 post on consolidation among marketing automation vendors, I expect the number of competitors to shrink fairly quickly as new buyers concentrate their purchases among a handful of leading vendors. This is a natural result of a maturing market, as technology-oriented pioneers are replaced by buyers less likely to research...

Yahoo Japan is turning to Google to power its paid and organic search engine listings. This comes as something of a surprise as Yahoo has a huge deal in place with Bing that is just getting started, but Yahoo doesn't actually own the majority of Yahoo Japan, so that version of Yahoo gets to do its own thing. According to Kara Swisher at Boomtown...

You may soon be able to post more than just 140 characters on Twitter. Twitter is testing a new feature that allows users to post videos and photos in their Twitter streams. Some have spotted the feature, while most probably never had it. Twitter gave Mashable the following statement: "We’re constantly exploring features and...

A few days ago, Glam Media, the number one vertical media company for women, announced that they were going to buy ad technology start-up AdPortal. The idea was that their tech would help bolster Glam Media’s GlamAdapt program which allows publishers to run their own self-service ad portals. The emphasis is on detailed...

Earlier today, Google made known that Google Apps for Government is available, and a representative of Berkeley Lab has now made clear that it should be popular, too.  Dr. Rosio Alvarez, Chief Information Officer at the institution, discussed the migration process in a special blog post this afternoon. On the Official Google Enterprise Blog,...

The 4th season opener of the AMC show Mad Men aired last night, and in it, the main character Don Draper had an interview with a reporter from Ad Age. While the show is clearly fictional and takes place in the 60s, it seems that Ad Age has taken some issue with how it was represented as a publication. Rance Crain has posted a spiel about what the...

We like to think of colleges and universities as places where learning trumps all else, but the truth of the matter is that institutions like these are still businesses, which means they need to make money. Says Rob Moore of Lipman Hearne, a marketing company specializing in non-profits: “Higher ed institutions today are...

Digg has launched an update to its iPhone app, which comes with better Twitter and Facebook integration and improved stability. Digg lists the following as key changes in the app: Logging in to, or changing accounts on, Facebook or Twitter Sharing stories through Facebook or Twitter without first logging in to that service Digging a...

This week Google released its new design for Image Search. The new design includes a tiled layout with instant scrolling between pages. This has already drawn some inevitable comparisons to Bing's image search, which is particularly interesting given Google's overall more Bing-like user interface launched earlier this year. Do you think Google...

Google has introduced a new Government Edition of Google Apps. It includes all of the features of other Google Apps editions, but adds policy and security features. Google says it was designed with guidance from the federal government, as well as the Cities of Los Angeles and Orlando. Google Apps for Government stores Gmail and Calendar data in a...

Google has released Google Maps for mobile version 4.4, and this comes with a new dedicated "Places" icon designed to make it easier to find nearby places with updated Place Pages. The icon appears on Android-powered devices in the app launcher along with all of the other apps. This way you can go right to Places from the homescreen if...

Booyah, one of the companies gaining buzz in the check-in service space, has announced a new product check-in feature for its MyTown game/service. With the feature, users can use their iPhone camera to scan barcodes of products to unlock points and earn virtual goods, as the company puts it, "creating a game out of real life...

Great tips from Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media on what it takes to be a blogger that people will add to their feedreaders.

Mobile is firmly establishing itself as a crucial advertising channel, and the companies who aren’t utilizing it look set to be left behind. More than two thirds of the population are in possession of a mobile phone, and it’s obvious to see why the direct nature of mobile advertising is so appealing to businesses. Mobile coupon usage looks...

Although it comes as no surprise to most, the integration of e-mail campaigns and social media outlets is becoming more popular. Leading the charge are Facebook and Twitter which is probably no surprise either. What is a little surprising is just how quickly the numbers dive with regard to other options for social media...

Aol. is still around folks. Back in June I heard CEO Tim Armstrong speak at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s content focused Innovation Days event. He was passionate about Aol. as a comeback story and was intent on focusing on how it would be generating a lot of custom content from real journalists. Honestly, I am not sure...

One of my biggest concerns was that what started as a phenomenal idea might get old quickly, becoming a joke rather than making them. So I think their timing in that sense is perfect — avoiding the issue of overexposure.

As the definition of a journalist gets stretched to the outer limits due to the proliferation of content farms and $10 per ‘article’ writers, it’s understandable that there is some concern in the ranks. It’s not there won’t be outlets for their work but it’s more about the state of the traditional outlets where most...

This weekend, the eyes and ears of the world are focused on San Diego as a crowd of over 120,000 descend on the city for Comic-Con! What started out in the 70’s as a small gathering of scifi and comic fans has grown into the media event of the year. And despite the name, it’s not all about comics. Actually, it’s tough...

A few days ago Google launched a new “image search” user interface to the public. If you haven’t tried it yet you should go ahead and give it whirl–after reading this post. My first impression was wow! I really like how the images are positioned in a way that maximizes all available screen real estate. As...

I'm proud of the team that put the CM Summit together, and this reel. Well done folks!

People who have way too much time on their hands, have done a study to chart the mood swings of the average Twitter user over the course of a week. Stick with me, it gets good-ish. The people running this test come from the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Program on Networked Governance, Harvard University....

For all 186K of you loverly RSS readers, here are the past five Signals: Friday Signal: Is Apple Evil? Is the Web Over? Is Privacy Dead? Is This Thing On?! Thursday Signal: Why I Love My Job, Again. Weds. Signal: The Numbers Tell The Story Tuesday Signal: I Got Yer Policy Right Here Monday Signal: Google Buys, Android Flys If you squint, it almost...

The Search Engine Strategies conference from Incisive Media has really taken an amazing turn this year for the West Coast event. Not only have organizers moved the conference from San Jose to San Francisco, but SES is now a part of an event called Connected Marketing Week that involves a coordinated effort from a number of organizations...

If you’ve been involved with SEO or online marketing for any length of time, chances are you’ve escaped the confines of your office and ventured out into the real world to meet like minded marketers. Perhaps you’re a conference regular attending events like Pubcon, SES, or SMX. If you’re like me and tens of thousands of...

Remember when Google won the bid to migrate the City of Los Angeles over to Gmail and other Google Apps? Yeah, it’s not going so well. In fact, the migration is going sooooo slowly that Google is having to compensate L.A. around $135,000 for the delay. So, what’s the hold-up? Well, apart from the fact that this is a...

Google has a real buddy in the airline industry with Virgin America. During last year’s holiday travel season Google offered free WiFi on all Virgin America flights. Now, Google and Virgin have expanded the in-flight maps offered to travelers as they can now get topographic information about where they are and more. Google’s...

While we are all quick to open up on Google with both barrels for a variety for reasons including privacy, service speed and more privacy there are some things happening that are not all bad. Google has announced the that they have awarded about $4 million to about 75 projects “full time faculty pursuing research in a areas of...

Publishers can take the following steps to get a publisher account on New.digg.com as bans will be lifted on all domains.

Well-put: "I just have little tolerance for people with influence in the blogosphere who choose to use that influence irresponsibly. And I’d consider passing along half-assed info without asking legitimate questions to be precisely that".

I thought it meant to search! Apparently, in this context, it means "to drop Microsoft Office and use our software!" I almost feel like a relic pointing out the obvious, but when I got my latest paper-based Fortune magazine (yes, I do subscribe to a few still), I found the image at left on the back cover. Long ago, while writing the book, I...

First reason speaks volume to this article:  While you’re adjusting bids manually, your competitors are writing and testing creative ad copy.

If you promote it - and it's good - they will link. One way to find prospects for promoting linkbait is through cocitation analysis of similar linkbait. Here's a process for finding link prospects for a linkable asset using simple, targeted, hostname-only co-citation analysis.

Cause Marketing has been one of the fastest growing marketing segments over the last few years. Here is an introduction in to what cause marketing is and how it can help you and your business or non-profit.

I run into these things all the time with new clients, and frequently with people who claim to know SEO and best practices. Great post - you could even use it as an audit checklist.

Wordpress experts and WebmasterRadio hosts Frederick Townes and Joost de Valk interview Matt Cutts about Wordpress, blogging, SEO and much more.

Tomorrow I will be at the Geo Loco conference in SF, interviewing Fred Wilson, partner at Union Square Ventures, investor in Twitter, Zynga, Etsy, Tumblr, Foursquare, and many others, and general good guy. Fred is great on stage, and we have a lot to talk about, given our mutual interests. But as I was preparing for the discussion, I pinged Fred...

Here's a good look at what Old Spice did right with the recent social/video/viral campaign: "...while the campaign pretty much lasted only 11 hours, thanks to the urgency to participate, it still did remarkably better than some of the more organic campaigns that have become instant hits."

Here is some great visualization & information about link building from Vertical Measures where they included a fun graphic.  Love the graphic guys!!!

I would like to say that Facebook is in the news again, but if we are honest, we should probably say that it never left. This week the actual ownership of the Social Media giant was challenged in court by Paul D. Ceglia, who claims to have financed the original Facebook site for $1000. In the complaint filed in New York, Mr. Ceglia essentially...

My pal Terry (VanHorne) dropped a post on WordStream that looks at using Tumblr as a channel, not just as part of some crappy link wheel. Who knew? If you've any experience using it, please do leave a comment... Enjoy.

There are many tactics companies can implement as part of a smart Twitter Marketing strategy. Growing the initial following is important as is providing the budding community you’re building with something of value to keep coming back and to spread the good word to their networks. One such tactic that offers value and brings people together...

Welcome to the first installment of the ‘Increase Conversion‘ series. In the coming weeks we will bring you a host of different articles on how to increase your conversion rate throughout your marketing campaigns. This article will help to explain the key principles of improving conversion on your landing pages

A new and overlooked way to increase conversion rates and CTR (and by proxy improve your AdWords quality score). Fantastic, in depth article on AdWords Ad Sitelinks, how to set them up as well as use cases. An amazing first post from the latest member of the Redfly team. Go Sinead!

Who remembers the utter gold rush that was the Facebook Platform back in 2007, back when everyone, and honestly, really, EVERYONE, in the industry was busy answering the question "What's Your Facebook Platform strategy?" Well I sure do. At FM, we had meetings to address this question, meetings driven by me, by my staff and my senior executives,...

The media really, really, really loves to write about Apple and the iPhone these days. It reminds me of Google in 2004, when the media fell in love with the concept of search. Besides the antennae story, which I find hopelessly over reported, the latest iPhone rhapsody has been how many iPhone 4s Apple has sold - apparently, 3 million as of last...

In this overwraught essay, a novelist yearns for a time before addiction to technology slowly drained us of our humanity. I don't buy it. We can both be connected and be fulfilled. We can stop, disconnect, read a book, make love without checking our devices for updates. And we can also be connected, while still being human. In fact, being human is...

Hiring outside expertise to grow thought leadership, sales and market share is essential for companies that do not have the internal resources to do so. At TopRank Online Marketing, we have conversations with companies every day that have deep expertise in their fields, but when it comes to online marketing, they’ve realized the need for...

Sometimes we learn best about doing things in new and innovative ways by understanding them in terms of something we already know. Stories provide useful context and perspective and that’s exactly what David Meerman Scott has done with his latest book that’s just been announced: “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What...

eBay sellers who use Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis might soon receive a bit of recognition for their efforts.  Something called the eBay Ink Social Media Seller program has launched, and while it's still very much in the early stages, it's not looking like a terrible idea. Richard Brewer-Hay explained this afternoon on the eBay Ink...

I've written before about my relationship with Foursquare, and I'm sure I will again. I've tweeted my complaint that the "friend" mechanism is poorly instrumented (in various ways), and I should note that this is certainly not just a Foursquare problem (more on "Friendstrimentation" shortly). But today I wanted to build on my earlier post, "My...

AdSense publishers who live near Boston, Chicago, or New York - or can travel to one of those cities on short notice this summer - should consider filling out an application and maybe packing a bag.  Google's looking for people to participate in what it calls the AdSense in Your City program. A key note before we get much further: if you...

In an effort to turn Twitter’s captive audience into dollars, Twitter has launched @earlybird, a new account that give followers exclusive deals from a variety of sponsors. Up first is Disney Pictures and a Buy 1 Get 1 Free deal on tickets to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The account has only been live for a week and...

Google said today it is launching its broad match modifier tool for AdWords globally after a successful beta test in the UK and Canada. "The broad match modifier is a new AdWords targeting feature that lets you create keywords which have greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match," writes Dan Friedman, on the...

Last week, Twitter announced its new @earlybird account, designed to provide followers with exclusive deals from the comapny's advertising partners and other businesses. Now, the account is in full swing, as it has tweeted its first deal. The deal comes from The Walt Disney Studios, and allows followers in the U.S. to get a special deal on...

It's a very rare marketer who believes he (or she) can ignore Facebook, according to new data from SeeWhy.  SeeWhy found in a recent study that more than three-quarters of marketers have in fact already incorporated or decided to incorporate the social network into their strategy. Specifically, Charles Nicholls, the founder of SeeWhy, said...

The United States continues to be the top country for spam, accounting for 15.2 percent of all global spam, an increase from 13.1 percent in the first quarter of 2010, according to a new report by Sophos. India trails the U.S., accounting for 7.7 percent of worldwide spam, followed by Brazil (5.5%), the UK (4.6%) and South Korea (4.2%). ...

Symantec has released its annual MessageLabs Intelligence Special Report, ranking the most spammed U.S. states and territories. According to the report, Idaho receives the most spam (for the second year in a row), at a rate of 95.2%. The top spammed states are Idaho, Alabama, and South Carolina, with spam rates above 93%. The national average is...

Google has announced some new mobile device management options for Google Apps administrators. The options will be available to all Google Apps Premier and Education customers starting this week. New options include: - Requiring devices to use data encryption - Auto-wiping device after specified number of failed password attempts - Disabling...

The digital collection of public domain works Google Books maintains is in store for yet another major boost.  Google's struck a deal with the National Library of the Netherlands that will see the search giant gain access to more than 160,000 additional books. This should bring Google a fair step closer to achieving its goal of organizing...

Over a year ago, Google announced that it would start requiring all people signing up for YouTube usernames to have a Google account. Now they're going to start requiring all users of YouTube that signed up prior to that to connect their accounts to Google accounts as well. Here are the reasons Google gives for connecting YouTube accounts to...

This week, Google released a new Google Labs project - App Inventor for Android. The product is designed to let anybody (as in non-developers) create Android Apps. This could go one of several ways. It could fade away into the graveyard of Google Labs projects that never became full-fledged products, it could get a handful of users, or it could...

Google announced that it has extended its Google Maps Send-to-Car service to Ford and GM vehicles. This applies to Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles in the US that are enabled with Ford SYNC, as well as OnStar equipped GM vehicles, which include models from Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn. Users of the...

Facebook has plans to expand its mobile strategy and become a platform for developers to distribute apps, according to Erick Tseng, Facebook head of mobile products. "Where we're going from here is a platform strategy. We're going away from a one-off app strategy, said Tseng, at VentureBeat's MobileBeat conference. Part of its mobile...

Microsoft may have found a way to convince many more parents, grandparents, and teachers to use its search engine.  Starting today, individuals who make Bing their default search provider will get the chance to donate $3 of Microsoft's money to a school-related project of their choice. The process, which is possible thanks to a partnership...

We all want things to get better for business in general. Even with Internet marketing not suffering the same decimation that most advertising sectors did during our recent and ongoing economic slide, there was significant impact. If nothing else the economy cooled the fast growing industry and made it look more, gulp, real. There...

Opera announced today that Opera Mini 5.1 is now available for Android devices. The company claims this is the most popular browser for mobile phones, and places an emphasis on its speed. "Opera Mini is a favorite not just on feature phones, but also on smartphones, scoring an impressive 1 million downloads on the iPhone during the first 24...

Twitter is now showing "name results" for people in search results. The feature appears to still be in the process of rolling out, as not everyone is seeing the results, but I'd imagine that those who are not will soon. The feature was first spotted by MG Siegler, and has attracted the attention of others throughout the Blogosphere....

Here we are just past the halfway mark in 2010 and we’ve tapped into the stream of future marketing planning with our readers for 2011 with a poll. Our question? What 3 online marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2011? The number one answer? Not social media, not email marketing. The top digital marketing tactic for OMB...

By Renée Revetta Facebook recently enabled a feature that instantly suggests a dynamically created Facebook ad based on a provided URL. I tested it out to uncover how Facebook set up this feature. As with most things, there are some pros and cons to the dynamic ad creation approach. Facebook creates the ad by searching the HTML...

Twitter dashboard HootSuite added a new layer of functionality this week that emphasizes the influencers in your social media crowd and further lays the ground work toward becoming a pay service. Like high school, social media users fall into cliques and everyone wants to hang with the popular kids because they’re the ones...

Amidst the very arid and nearly barren news landscape for the Internet marketing industry (unless you consider pure speculation and duct taping your iPhone news) is Google’s announcement of a new website. It seems very innocuous but when you think about what Google is facing these days maybe there is more to this. The site,...

This week Toyota lost an important intellectual property decision with regard to how trademarks are used, and in a way, we all lost some protection against the bad guys. Recently, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of an authorized Lexus dealer to use the word “Lexus” as part of its domain nameunder...

Sometime this year, Google's supposed to name several communities in which it'll install high-speed broadband networks, and for the sake of not getting anyone's hopes up, we'll say right here that "sometime" is not now.  But a site called Google Fiber for Communities did launch today so that everyone can stay informed and push for...

Facebook has found itself the subject of a lawsuit from a guy named Paul Ceglia who claims to own an 84% stake in the company. The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2009, New York's Attorney General accused him of defrauding customers of his wood-pellet fuel company. Of course this is not the first time Facebook has defended itself from claims...

Many news consumers are increasingly relying on human-edited news aggregation and content curation to sift through their news and establish trust. While not all mainstream media sources are thrilled about the concept, it's just how it is, and there is no doubt that plenty of people from that world are relying on these things themselves to one...

Google Chief Exec Eric Schmidt and his fellow media moguls talked to the Wall Street Journal last week about their plans to get creative with online advertising. After fifteen years as a part of the Internet landscape, the banner ad simply isn’t as effective as it used to be and though online ad spending is up again, it’s not...

Anyone who had hoped the French Supreme Court would be able settle the dispute between Google and LVMH over keywords, advertising, and trademark infringement is in for an unpleasant surprise.  The French Supreme Court did in fact rule on the case today, but now both sides are celebrating. A little background info: the clash centers on...

Google was granted an interesting patent today. The title is "System and method for modulating search relevancy using pointer activity monitoring". Here is how the abstract for the patent describes it: A method and system of modulating search result relevancy use various types of user browsing activities. In particular, a client...

Despite Apple passing a death sentence to rival mobile advertising firms, the company has yet to enforce the iPhone advertising ruling handed down in June. According to CNET, that’s something that Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO of Google’s AdMob division, is very grateful for… “They haven’t been...

Today, Google started integrating some features from Picnik (acquired earlier this year) into Picasa Web Albums. The features allow users to edit photos. Picasa Web Albums users using English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and...

Americans who use Twitter are more likely than the average adult to be highly active on the Internet and in their communities, according to new survey by Gfk MRI. The survey found people who use Twitter are highly active when it comes to blogging, video sharing and posting reviews. They are 506% more likely than the average U.S. adult to write a...

Mobile apps have captured much press and imagination this week, as Google has unveiled its App Inventor project, but Conduit is reminding everyone that web apps are big business. The company has announced that its network has grown to over 250,000 app publishers & 170 million users, with adoption of apps by end-users increasing 233% between...

eBay announced its upcoming seller updates for the fall. eBay's Dinesh Lathi says the updates will help sellers take advantage of increased holiday traffic, maximize sales, and streamline their operations. "As promised, we’re continuing to consolidate changes that impact your selling into two or three releases per year with lead time to...

  Think you've got a video idea cooler than OK Go, but don't have the cash to produce it?  If you've already had some success on the online channel, help may be on the way. YouTube has announced a plan to give out $5 million in grants to worth video creators. The YouTube Partner Grants program will invest in select emerging video...

Checking one's email and signing into a social network are similar acts, allowing a person to catch up with friends and colleagues.  Microsoft's latest move seems both smart and natural, then, as the company's given Outlook users the option to integrate their Facebook and Windows Live experiences. This opportunity is possible due to the...

Update: Reddit is already calling the effort a triumph and says, "We're getting a much-needed cash infusion." Original Article: Reddit has announced Reddit Gold - a paid version of its service. It costs what you are willing to pay for it. As Reddit describes, "It's a way of supporting reddit, boosting our bottom line and...

Nearly 40 percent of consumers visit Facebook and Twitter to supplement the news, information or deals they receive via email marketing, according to a new study by ExactTarget. "Consumers don't silo their engagement with brands to a single channel, instead they tend to 'layer' marketing channels on top of one another to meet their...

The Discovery Channel has partnered with social game company Hive Media, to develop a game based on the television show "Deadliest Catch." The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook.  The game will be available only in North America. "Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery...

Marketers are returning - or even rushing back - to the practice of employing search ads, according to the latest data from Efficient Frontier.  Efficient Frontier found that spending on search ads increased by 24 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2009. That's good news for the search industry, and...

Microsoft has added Mars imagery to Bing Maps and to its WorldWide Telescope project. The imagery comes straight from NASA itself. "Microsoft Research and NASA are providing an entirely new experience to users of the WorldWide Telescope, which will allow visitors to interact with and explore our solar system like never before," says...

OK, well I decided to drop a post over on WS on what is likely going to be a bit of a controverial topic. But as an avid search historian, from a tech perspective, it does seem we're on the cusp of a new frontier of signals beyond the reliance on links. I am certainly open to ALL input on it though. It is an interesting topic worth discussing IMO.

Yesterday Microsoft had plenty of news coming out of its Worldwide Partner Conference, and today the news continues. The company's new channel chief, Jon Roskill, addressed the Microsoft partner community for the first time, and unveiled business strategies and resources to help partners utilize the cloud (a major theme of Microsoft's during the...

The next time your company needs to raise funds for more people or servers, forget venture capital. That’s so, 2009. Instead, simply ask your users to chip-in with a donation of their choice. That’s exactly what Reddit did yesterday, much to our chagrin. But, you know what? It worked! More than 6,000 of Reddit’s...

Research in Motion (RIM) has unveiled a new security application for BlackBerry called BlackBerry Protect. The product allows users to wirelessly backup, restore, and locate their BlackBerry smartphones. BlackBerry Protect comes equipped with remote device wipe, remote device lock, a "lost and found" screen, the ability to locate the...

Connecting great content with it’s target audience, promoting it on the correct channels, and causing an emotional response is not easy, but can yield excellent results when executed correctly. Let’s take a look at three kinds of viral linkbait content that audiences love: Videos, Infographics and Widgets.

Marketing, advertising, service, communications, and business dynamics in general is undergoing incredible transformation. The innovation transpiring across the board however, wasn’t ushered out of vision as much as it was pressured through the democratization of content and the equalization of influence. After years of the socialized media...

There are few areas of any ‘traditional’ communications outlets anymore that are just that outlet alone these days. In fact, finding a standalone product that doesn’t integrate with your Facebook account, for instance, is becoming more rare. Now you can add Microsoft’s Outlook to that list as Facebook integration is...

Like many others, I recently purchased an iPad out of curiosity. While my intentions were of discovery, I quickly found some productivity gains with blogging. The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into an iPhone or other...

Boy it’s a good thing Yahoo picked up content chop shop Associated Content to make that ‘great’ content to keep visitors around its sites. Apparently there is less time being spent on Yahoo sites than ever. Here is a chart compiled by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney and shared with us from Business Insider SAI. One...

As everybody knows by now, the whole Google-China scuffle has not done the search giant's market share any favors in that country.  But it's been quite a while since we've checked in on Google's performance in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, and today, comScore was good enough to provide some relevant data. Google fans will be pleased to...

According to MediaFinder, which claims to be the largest online database of U.S. and Canadian publications, 90 magazines were launched in the first half of 2010. That is way down from 187 titles launched during the same period in 2009. However, despite the significant drop in new titles launched, there have also been a great deal less to die....

June did not go at all well for Yahoo, judging by new statistics from comScore.  In fact, at least in terms of time spent on the company's properties, June was terrible, with Yahoo managing to set a couple of records of the wrong sort. Jay Yarow noted earlier today, "Time spent on Google sites (38.9 billion minutes) was greater than...

Today, Consumer Reports called it "official". The iPhone 4 has reception problems. The organization says it reached the conclusion after testing three iPhone 4s purchased from separate retailers, in a controlled environment. Meanwhile, reports have surfaced that a class action lawsuit against  Apple & ATT from iPhone owners has...

Sometimes it makes sense to design link building campaigns around the most common link opportunities in a given market. This article provides a framework + worksheet for discovering your market's most abundant link opportunities.

Even though more companies are regulating social networking sites, employees are finding ways around security blocks, according to a new survey from Trend Micro. The survey included 1,600 users in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan, found globally social networking at work increased from 19 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010. The highest...

Microsoft demonstrated its next-generation CRM release at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference today. Previously known as CRM5, the product's official name is Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Along with the release (coming in beta in September), will be the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, described as an online catalog to provide an easy way for...

Anthony Verre posted part II of his series (on the Trail) looking into the differences between Google and Bing - this time it's link analysis. There is even a nice download at the end with all the data - some really good stuff here. Thanks Tony.

As a longtime customer of PRWeb, I’ve seen many changes over the years. The oldest optimized press release I could find of mine that’s still online dates back to mid 2001 and in the years since, it’s been an evolving relationship moving from customer to consultant. From the days of talking new features as a super user with...

I had to do a double take this morning when I read about the plight of reddit, one of the original social news websites. Apparently things aren’t so good over at the Internet property. It’sso bad that they have started to ask for donations to keep the site afloat. I bet you that their owner, Conde Nast, must be so...

In economics any time there is an abundance of supply the price for that particular good goes down. The easier to obtain, the less ‘valuable’ that resource is. In today’s online world there is no shortage of traditional Internet measures like ad impressions because of the huge amount of traffic being run through social...

Inspired by the Google AdWords customer in India who threatened to kill himself if Google didn’t respond to his Google AdWords Help thread, Ian Howie gives his top 5 AdWords grievances and offers some solutions.

For all 185K of you RSS readers out there, here are the past week or so of Signals: Monday Signal: Finally, a Slow Weekend. Sort Of. Friday Signal: Who Needs Basketball? We Have Signal. Thursday Signal: Mogul Mania Weds. Signal: More Noise, Same Signal Tuesday Signal: A Fourth of News Thanks for reading, all of you. I'm still stunned at the growth...

First of all, you may be wondering what “Content Mission” is. It’s simple. These days everyone is on a mission to discover, develop, create, utilize and monetize online content. It’s easier said than done and the content marketing industry is evolving rapidly as the discipline does as well. Each Sunday I will take a look...

(image ) I just reviewed this presentation from Paul Adams, research lead for social at Google (embedded below). He works on Buzz and YouTube, and presumably, whatever is next from Google, including the rumored "Google Me." His presentation is good, and worthy of your time if you are interested in the impact of social media on culture and...

Taylor Mali reminds us that speaking from a place of authority is still cool. Speaking from authority is important but, it’s more important to not only speak like an authority but to be one. The other day I saw a link on Twitter to a blog post about about Google Caffeine. Being the uber search geek that I am, I clicked it....

from the article: "The question of why there aren’t more women in tech is a good one, as is the question of why The Daily Show can’t seem to hire funny women for their writing staff. But quit pretending few women in [X position] means NO women in any position."

Today let’s take a look at five things that probably shouldn’t be posted to your social networking profiles if there’s any chance at all you’ll be job hunting in the future.

While Google has made nice with China and had its ‘operating license’ renewed, their Street View efforts are getting mixed reactions around the globe. Recently, Google has come under serious pressure from the likes of the EU’s European Commission and countries directly (Germany) about its ‘accidental’ collection of data...

Well it looks like the “Will they renew or won’t they renew?” arc of “As Google-China Turns” is over and it has a happy ending for Google. In the past few weeks Google had backed off its hard line stance on China by not redirecting its in-country traffic to the Hong Kong site. Instead it started to offer the opportunity...

One of the reasons I waited for Google Chrome to add extension support was my use of a plugin that provides a different Gmail signature, depending on the email address I used. I use a lot of different email addresses. Well, Chrome added extensions months back and now Gmail has gone all native, with full support for graphical...

The answer is that they are all in the news this week around the recently beleaguered social media site; Facebook. The big news is that Lady Gaga passed President Barack Obama with the number of fans on Facebook. In reaction to hearing this news, Lady Gaga went to Twitter to thank her 4,796,663 Twitter fans for the honor.  However, she then...

Are you monitoring your reputation on the web? Not just your company name, but all of your reputations? What, you didn’t know you had multiple reputations to monitor? Over at Actively Listening (the Trackur blog) you’ll find 12 Critical Keywords Every Company Should Monitor in Social Media including: 6. Your...

My hat is off to Experian Hitwise. Their email got my attention with this subject line: Experian Hitwise reports Bing share of searches increases 7 percent for June 2010 7%! What the heck? How did Bing gain that much market share? Oh you mean, Bing increased its share from 9.23% to 9.85%–a 7% increase! Sneaky!

OK, you can take this with as many grains of salt as you wish, but one iPhone developer is claiming to have hit the jackpot with Apple’s new iAd format. Posting his earnings to Hacker News, the app developer claims to have earned almost $150 in eCPM on the first day! The question is, will iAd be able to sustain this kind of...

A simple, but effective overview of something that is overlooked far too often.

There’s a game of telephone going on about a hundred different theories of Search Engine Optimization and the influences or signals that affect search visibility. One that I continue to hear revolves around the notion that search engines like fresh content. I’m sure the genesis was something like:  Someone told someone else at a...

I'm sure you've noticed, but there's a major battle underway for the hearts and minds of what we, in this industry, broadly call "developers." Often the term is used quite strictly, to mean actual coders who build actual software-driven applications, services, or websites. Other times the term is more loosely applied, meaning "companies that build...

As markets become increasing saturated and margins become increasingly thin, it’s getting more and more important to sieze every possible business opportunity given to you – This is where real-time comes in. Acting instantaneously on each of your opportunities will often give you the upper hand, likewise it will allow you to practice...

Thank you to all who took our Sphinn Member Survey last month. We've just drawn the winner of a free pass to SMX East or West, and that winner is....

The link building interview is back. In prior years, I’ve gotten together some of the best minds in link building and asked them to answer some questions about link development.  It’s been more than two years since the most recent one, so I decided to bring it back – this time on Outspoken Media.

SEO and Excel are like chocolate and peanut butter – great together. Here are 18 Excel functions (and two formulas) that can make SEO just a little bit easier.

A VERY in-depth post about some experiments Google is running with local search results.

One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little reason for readers to return.  Blogs are fairly easy to start and if you’ve been a reader of this blog, chances are pretty good that...

The best way to achieve a consistent audience for your blog is to practice consistency yourself. To become a more dedicated blogger, set a blogging schedule and do your best to stick to it. A consistent schedule "trains" your readers about when to expect new posts.

I was going to write this article right after SMX Advanced, but instead of settling, the dust has actually kicked up big time but since this is a holiday weekend, I figured it’s time to write up the one on one conversation I had with Bruce Clay regarding TopSEOS, while up at SMX Advanced.

Porn sites will not be the only entities to register themselves under the new .xxx extension; the fortune 500 and some celebrities are looking at purchasing some of these adult themed extensions. The newly approved .xxx extension which will be managed by the ICM registry, who expects a significant portion of the new registrations to be defensive...

Companies today have a virtual smörgåsbord of options when it comes to marketing their products and services online. Lack of expertise, numerous tactical options, pressure for sales in a down economy and the tendency to chase shiny objects cause many online marketing efforts to be fragmented. I really doubt that a significant waste of effort...