The Associated Press has revealed some new guidelines for its reporters with regards to credit and attribution. The guidelines come in the form of a letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes. Is the AP asking its reporters to do what it has frowned upon in the past? Share your thoughts. The guidelines apply to AP reports in print,...

I have some great news! On Wednesday, my sister gave birth to my third niece! Now with three nieces and one nephew I have the job of spoiling them cut out for me! But don’t worry I am up to the challenge. While visiting my new niece in the hospital on Wednesday, I couldn’t help but think of the amazing amount of potential that lay...

Kelvin Newman writes on Econsultancy that that the public relations firms could have done more to get into search engine optimisation but he continues by saying that despite this reticence to get going he thinks there’s a scary truth that the search firms need to wake up to: if and when the PR industry gets its act together a lot of the link...

ABC and CafePress have introduced a new ABC Online Store where of fans of the TV networks shows will be able to buy official merchandise along with merchandise designed by other fans. CafePress technology will allow visitors to the site to design their own t-shirts, posters, water bottles and other custom products. These fan-designed products...

In a recent survey about holiday shopping, 64% of the people said they’ll be spending less on everyone this holiday season, so that means marketers will have to work a little harder to make sure it’s their company that gets the cash and not their competitor. The trick is paying attention to how and why people are spending and customizing...

Part two of this three part series focuses on corporate links.  ..."These are links placed on pages because they provide some tangible business value to the linker: they cookie a user for an affiliate program, or boost a target page’s Google rank, or aim to increase a site’s “stickiness” by getting the reader to click through to another...

AllFacebook has discovered that Facebook is now testing showing all liked news articles in its search results. This would obviously be a significant move as the company competes with Google. Nick O'Neill writes: Additionally, the results for searches now shows the results from all around the web based on two things: the number of likes and the...

Inflection.com who operates Archives, a family history website, and PeopleSmart, its search engine for people, raised $30 million in its first round of venture capital financing this week. Inflection.com owns Archives.com, and PeopleSmart.com, which aggregate public records and data from past and present, and turns those results into useable, and...

Apple's Ping social network, which the company launched as part of the new iTunes 10, has drawn a big mix of excitement and criticism. While most seem to agree that the concept beind Ping is a pretty good idea (social network-meets-music-buying) it's not exactly the seamless experience one might hope for.   Let's take a look at some points...

Besides hinting at new features and talking about user stats, Twitter also made a couple announcements this week. One is that all Twitter apps use OAuth. The other is that it will start tracking every t.co link users click. This is Twitter's own default URL-shortener.  Twitter sent an email to users saying, "In the coming weeks, we will...

Consumer Watchdog has created a new anti-Google video portraying Google CEO Eric Schmidt has some kind of evil ice cream man. The video is a commentary on what the group perceives to be Google's lack of regard for consumer privacy.  Google and Facebook are two of the biggest companies on the web, whatever you think about the privacy...

Google announced that mobile advertisers can now use multiple addresses in local extensions This way, customers can get the right address for businesses with multiple locations.    The feature is available on Google Maps for Mobile versions 4.4 and above on Android devices.    "Featuring your business location alongside...

It's been nearly a month since Demand filed its S1, and I promised you all a longer look after my initial posting. Here are some thoughts now that I've had a chance to digest the document. A caveat: I know Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt well, and consider him a friend. And one of his investors, Oak, is an investor in my company, Federated Media....

Back in the day, it was news when Google used its massive home page distribution to push its new Chrome browser. Google putting ads on its home page?! A big deal, even if they were for Google's own products. It spoke to an ongoing creep inside the company of leveraging its position in search to help it win in other markets, and to some, it felt...

Google announced that it is updating its privacy policies to make them simpler. They don't appear to have any changes involving CEO Eric Schmidt driving around neighborhoods in an ice cream truck, luckily. Google isn't actually changing any of its privacy practices. It's just trying to make the language more understandable. Google Associate...

Location-based advertising is still in its early stages, but according to ABI Research, businesses will spend $1.8 billion on it in 2015 as part of their overall mobile marketing budgets. “It’s still early days and there’s no single ‘right’ approach to location-based advertising,” says practice director Neil...

Fred points out apps and services that are "Mobile First Web Second." I don't like the distinction. To me, it's all the web. It's this kind of thinking that leads to Wired's ill-considered proclamation that "the Web is dead." (I debate that in the second half of this thread here). What, after all, is the web, really? To me, it's a set of...

Google has given an update on its immediate plans for Google Wave. As you probably know, the company recently announced that it would be shutting down Google Wave as a standalone product, thought Google said it would preserve the technology behind Wave for future use and integration with other Google products. Google announced that it will...

It seems that bedbugs can be found everywhere these days, and the New York office of a certain search giant is no exception.  Late yesterday, a Googler reportedly tweeted that her workplace had been invaded. According to Nicholas Carlson, the pammy5 Twitter account belonging to "a Googler in marketing" just sent the message,...

As I noted in my other post today, Twitter is reporting some serious numbers. 145 million registered users and 300,000 registered apps for those users just to name a few. In the end though it’s just noise unless people are actually using the service. According to research from Royal Pingdom the increase in number of accounts is translating to...

I used to be a keyword research freak. Seriously! If you found me at one of the big conferences in the early 2000s you would have likely heard me discussing the importance of keyword research. “Keyword research is the most important aspect of SEO,” I would say. “Target the wrong keywords and it won’t matter if you are #1 on...

Google is planning to launch a mobile music download service that would allow users to access songs wherever they have access to an Internet connection. According to Reuters, Google has been in discussions with the major labels about reaching licensing agreements.  Google has not yet signed any licensing deals but the major labels are...

As SEO's we view links as a form of digital currency, that can be bought, sold, bartered, or gained through attention manipulation. However for the rest of internet this isn't always the case. Scott Rosenberg makes the argument that for many people links are the updated modern version of footnotes, where an author can provide reference or back up...

Twitter CEO Evan Williams revealed some numbers about Twitter usage on the company blog, while talking about how the Twitter ecosystem (of third-party developers and apps) continues to play an important role in the company's success. Twitter has over 145 million registered users, he says.   Not that this is a surprise by any means, but mobile...

After wisely letting the air clear following the big Apple TV announcement (and all the comparisons to Google TV), Yahoo's stepped forward to remind everyone that it also intends to compete in the connected TV space.  Yahoo announced a partnership with a major TV manufacturer this morning. Vestel, the TV manufacturer in question, is Europe's...

Twitter has made some strides to get the mobile experience working better as of late. They have been very successful in this area which is critical since the geo-location movement promises to make mobile even more important in the not so distant future. Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, gave some telling stats on the Twitter blog Mobile users...

Facebook is testing a feature that lets users "subscribe" to other users. Nick O'Neill at AllFacebook shares an official statement from Facebook: "This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they've subscribed to updates their...

Consumer Watchdog’s InsideGoogle.com has something to say about Google’s disrespect for people’s privacy and they’re saying it at one of the busiest intersections in the world. The group has purchased advertising space on a 540 sq ft Jumbotron in Times Square and they’re using it to blast Google’s CEO Eric...

PeopleBrowsr shared a rather interesting report with us this week, looking at privacy related tweets during the center of this year's Facebook "privacy storm." The firm studied the public's reaction to Facebook's open graph-related announcements that set off the majority of the Facebook privacy controversy back in April. Are you...

Skype released an update to Skype for Windows, which allows you to make group video calls with up to ten people. This is in beta.    There is also a new design. Skype's Peter Parkes writes, "You'll notice that the new-look Skype is sleeker, neater and crisper than before, and we're proud of the work our interface designers have done...

At least once a week, my husband laments the loss of a mom & pop record store we had near our home. They carried mostly used albums and rock and roll memorabilia and a visit there was like hunting for treasure on the beach. If we go to eBay, we can find all those same albums and more but it simply isn’t the same as flipping through...

You may have heard about Diaspora, a Kickstarter project that aims to be an open replacement for Facebook users that don't like Facebook's dealings with privacy. There is another interesting Kickstarter project called MusOpen, which aims to buy and release rights to a large amount of music, or in other words, open source it.    A...

Update 2: Swisher reports that Facebook blocked API access to Ping after failing to strike an agreement with Apple, so Apple removed the feature after launch. She credits "sources familiar with Facebook's platform" with this information.  Update: With regards to Facebook and Ping, Dan Frommer points out that the screenshots...

When it comes to Street View and the collection of sensitive WiFi data, Google is, at least to some degree, safe from serious penalties in New Zealand.  A police investigation has determined that the company didn't violate any laws. Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff referred the matter to police in June, which seemed to put Google in a...

If they aren't now, they certainly should be held accountable given the vast majority of the market they control. And the amount of damage this can do to individual and businesses.

NASA has introduced a new free mobile application for the iPad called NASA App HD. NASA App HD features live streaming video from NASA Television, an interactive map with links to all of its centers, quick links to feature stories and launch schedules, a scrolling “alerts banner,” and a NASA Featured” link. The app’s...

Earlier this week I mused out loud about retargeting, suggesting that perhaps it's time for marketers to not just chase folks around the web in hopes they might irritate us into submission, but rather offer us the chance to politely say "Not right now, thanks." One of Searchblog's readers turned out to be Josh McFarland, CEO of remarketing...

Google announced today that it is making public its help documentation for Local Shopping inventory for Google Merchant Center. This is a feature that allows retailers to let consumers know about what they have in stock right from the web.  "One weekday evening a few weeks before our son was born, my wife commissioned me to find a box of...

One of the best cards in AOL's difficult hand has been its search deal with Google, which was up for renewal this year. This morning the two companies announced (ahead of a December deadline) that they were staying together, though I can only imagine the folks at Bing didn't make it easy. At the moment, only three parties know what Google paid -...

Under the right circumstances, search engines can turn the names of a person's city and state into ugly words; users looking for local info may have to type them over and over until they wish the founders had stuck to just two or three letters.  New Yahoo search suggestions aim to eliminate that problem, though. Product Manager Vivian Lin...

Update: Congratulations! Rebecca Flansburg has won the free pass to the 1st Minnesota Bloggers Conference for her post: “Mama wants to go MN Blogger Bad” It was close, she won by just 2 votes over Josh Braaten and Patrick Garmoe. Congratulations again Rebecca and thank you for a clever and compelling post! TopRank Online Marketing is proud to...

Google announced today that it is releasing a new stable version of Chrome, which the company says is even faster and more streamlined. In fact, Google claims it is three times faster on JavaScript performance than it was two year ago, when Chrome was first launched (it's the two-year anniversary, by the way). "We've also been working on...

Texting by American adults has increased significantly over the past year, but still does not approach the level of text messages exchanged by young people, according to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project. Nearly three quarters (72%) of adult cell phone users send and receive text messages now, up from 65 percent in...

Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Tab tablet device, and Kobo announced that it is supplying the e-reader technology for it. "After much speculation, the new Samsung GALAXY Tab has just been announced by Samsung’s CEO in Berlin, and Kobo is THE eReading application powering the 'Readers Hub' on the new Android tablet," says Kobo....

Is anyone surprised that AOL renewed its search deal with Google? AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was one of the executives that negotiated the deal the first time around–albeit while “playing” for Google at the time. So, with AOL about as competitive as Yahoo in the search space, Google the incumbent provider, and Armstrong’s...

Facebook may be going through some of the growing pains that Google went through earlier in its life. Google has always had to deal with link farms and link buying, polluting its search results, and has gotten better and better at keeping this under control over the years. Now that Facebook "liking" is taking the place of linking in...

Twitter's link service, t.co, is designed to make shortened links easier to read and safer to follow.  Initial tests have gone well, too.  But an announcement that Twitter will start tracking every t.co link users click has caused a bit of a stir. Twitter sent an email to users last night that in part stated, "In the coming weeks,...

Because it is our nature to do such things, most of the world has moved on from the anger or whatever was experienced during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico. There are still pockets of activism but the mainstream has started to flush that story out of its faulty and extremely short-termed memory and is moving on to...

AOL said today it has signed a five-year search advertising deal with Google renewing its partnership with the search company that dates back to 2002. Under the terms of the deal Google will provide search services to AOL’s content network and properties, in exchange for a revenue-sharing arrangement between the two companies which will...

Twitter has launched its official iPad app. There's a bit more to this than the standard mobile Twitter app. "Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad's fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons," says Twitter's Leland...

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s foray into the world of social networks with the iTunes centric Ping service. Maybe I am experiencing some social network fatigue, but despite this probably being a good idea, I am not sure just how people will jump in even if the “water is fine”. The picture below hits the highlights of the service in...

Aaron Goldman is an accomplished digital marketer that I know through MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit conference. He reached out to me while writing his new book, “Everything I Know About Marketing I Learned from Google”, and asked if I’d like to contribute. Such a request is a great honor to me but unfortunately, I...

Texting may be the most popular mode of communication between men, but for men under forty, Facebook beats out phone, Twitter and even email. The result comes from “The Great Male Survey,” a study conducted by Ipsos OTX for AskMen.com. eMarketer boiled the responses down into a nice chart that shows Facebook gaining on texting as you...

...as far as I can tell, they in fact don't ever meet. You can't leverage your networks on Facebook and Twitter in Ping. It's another closed Apple system, another Apple universe in a gilded gift box. It's not that Apple hates the web, it's just that Apple is better than the web. Apple doesn't need it. It seems Apple has it all figured out. I am...

David Harry chimes in on the death of voting at Sphinn; his side is opposite of most of the outcry we've been hearing across social networks and forums.

If you search Google Maps right now, you’ll see little gray generic icons beside the names of businesses to denote their field. Dollar signs for banks, fork and spoon for an eatery, a tiny shopping bag for stores and something that looks like a snail shell for art galleries. (??) In the quest to make every single pixel count, Google is going...

Gowalla has launched a new feature called "highlights" which it describes as "little rewards you can give to places that are important to your life". MG Siegler talks about the potential significance of such a feature. "Where this gets really interesting is when you bring the social graph into it," he writes....

Minnesota State Fair’s officials asked Michele Bachmann and her running for Congress campaign to desist using its logo in a television ad that began running this week.  The media will often use corporate logos and/or trademarks in stories under the assumption that they are protected by “fair use”. The Minnesota State Fair logo...

Justin.tv has a new Android app for broadcasting live video. This competes with services like UStream and Qik. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you simply watch Justin.tv content like the iPhone app does. Perhaps that will come later. This is the first Android app Justin.tv has offered. "We've been focused on mobile applications since the...

In between the announcements about iPods, Apple TV, and a music-oriented social network, Apple and Google's mobile rivalry heated up a little more today.  Steve Jobs, while discussing the success of iOS, also tossed out what was likely a veiled insult at Eric Schmidt and Android. Remember how Schmidt said in early August that 200,000 Android...

Google has launched a new major version of its 3D modeling tool SketchUp: version 8. This comes ten years after the launch of version 1. Google says there are over a million people using SketchUp. "That's a pretty humbling number of 3D model makers," says SketchUp Product Manager John Bacus. The new version comes with new...

Real estate website Zillow.com said today it has partnered with Apartments.com to bring the rental website’s database of 90,000 apartment listings to Zillow. Apartments.com rental listings include home details, photos, floor plans, and property manager contact information. Listings from Apartments.com will be viewable to Zillow’s...

Google announced a new feature for businesses in Google Maps in the U.S. today. The feature lets businesses include sponsored map icons that appear on the maps themselves. The feature actually began in a pilot program earlier this year in Australia. "Now, when you zoom in to areas of interest on Google Maps, you'll more easily be able to...

Ruud Hein discusses why the removal of voting from Sphinn is a spectacularly bad idea

Apple held its big event today, and showed off several things.  At the event, Steve Jobs said that Apple now has 300 retail stores, and will soon open one in Spain making it 11 countries. He said that Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices, and that there are 230,000 new iOS activations per day. He also said they've had 6.5 billion app...

Another great post by Lisa Barone. If you've been in business for any length of time you'll know this post on saying no to the wrong clients is completely true. Whether you put it into practice may be another story!

Within a week or two, the voting model will end at Sphinn. Stories can still be submitted, but editors will consider those in addition to others they find. Why? Rather than build community, voting -- an activity which is also in decline -- seems to foster an anti-community "who's winning" atmosphere.

Electronic Arts has launched Madden NFL Superstars on Facebook that allows users to create their own fantasy team by collecting NFL players and competing in matchups with their friends. “Each day on consoles, fans are playing as many games online as the equivalent of 750 full NFL seasons,” said Peter Moore, president of EA...

There is a lot of talk about connected TV, particularly with Apple's announcement on the subject expected this afternoon. Retrevo reached out to WebProNews with some commentary on the subject. The following comes from Retrevo's Andrew Eisner, a computer journalist and the director of content for Retrevo. Everyone loves apps! A library of...

Google Webmaster Tools gets a bit of slack because you are “giving Google too much information” I say take off your tinfoil hats, there is method behind the madness and GWT can be an invaluable tool for crawling diagnostics – as this post proves.

ChannelAdvisors’ 2010 Consumer Shopping Habits Survey is out just in time for the holiday season. The free report provides valuable insights for anyone in the ecommerce, B2C space. So, what jumped out at me? Well, it wasn’t so much that 59% of those surveyed start their gift search at a search engine–with 28% heading straight to...

There is one thing about research and statistics. No matter how obvious the findings there is still that moment of relief that comes from some form of validation of even the most obvious conclusions. eMarketer has highlighted a study done by the Pew Research Center from May of this year that verifies what many would see as obvious. More...

Be careful how you read that headline. This is not an announcement of a Facebook credit card. This is about the new ‘credits’ card that Facebook will be selling in Target stores, starting this Sunday, for the upcoming holiday season. I guess the semi-confusing terminology makes sense though since Facebook is never clear about much of anything...

I was reading a copy of the Inc. 500 issue on my flight back from Dallas this weekend and came across an article about a seasonal online retailer that was “penalized” right before the Holidays for paid links. He estimated the revenue loss due to plummeting organic search visibility at $4 million in sales.  Now he’s...

blekko: how to slash the web from blekko on Vimeo. Blekko is a new search engine that fundamentally changes a few key assumptions about how search works. It's not for lazywebbers - you have to pretty much be a motivated search geek to really leverage blekko's power. But then again, there are literally hundreds of thousands of such folks - the...

”70% of consumers who “FANNED” a brand on Facebook didn’t feel they’d given this company permission to market to them.” This comes from a 2009 ExactTarget study that was revisited in their latest installment of Subscribers, Fans & Followers. The study says that most users saw “Liking” (as it’s now called) a brand on...