Google Web Alerts appears to now be reporting Twitter posts via its Google Alerts product.
Twitter Google Web Alert
I received the Google Alert above today for data gathered yesterday May 21, 2009.
This is the first Google Alert I have seen which included Twitter posts within Google Web Alerts.
What implications will this have on Search Engine Results Pages for search engine marketers and search engine optimizers – if any?
I signed up for Amazon Kindle for Blog Publishers yesterday.
Amazon Kindle Publishing for Blogs
The entire process took just a few minutes.
Publish Blog To Amazon Kindle
Several hundred periodicals and a similar number of blogs appear to be available on Kindle.
The Search Marketing Communications blog as it appears on Kindle
Amazon Kindle Blog Publishing
and the Search Marketing Communications blog as it appears on Amazon.com.
Amazon Kindle
If you are a blogger, publish your blog on Amazon Kindle.
comScore has released their list of the top 25 Online Advertising Networks based on their reach among U.S. Internet users in April 2009.
The top five online ad networks are AOL’s Platform-A , Yahoo! Network , Google Ad Network, ValueClick Networks and Specific Media.
The sixth largest network is the new Fox Ad Network.
Top 25 Online Advertising Networks
Jack Flanagan comments in the comScore Top 25 Online Advertising Networks press release “…that new ad networks are emerging every day, each aimed at helping advertisers achieve their campaign objectives, whether it’s to deliver reach and frequency or to target a specific audience segment.”
With the exception of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Yahoo Ad Network’s joint venture with publishers. it appears the newspaper industry as a whole has missed possibly the only opportunity left remaining to extend its reach and audience targeting potential through ownership in or control of an online advertising network.
I guess that’s why Rupert Murdoch is Rupert Murdoch.
I noticed today while logging into my Adwords account, Google has begun offering and promoting a new Adwords consulting service: “Get started with expert advice on Adwords.”
Google Adwords Expert Advice
From the Adwords home page:
This service is only available for new AdWords advertisers in the US and Canada. Only businesses with an advertising budget of more than $250/month will be considered for this service.
I guess it was inevitable Google would eventually publicly offer advertisers help. However, further down the page Adwords asks a loaded question:
Is your company an advertising agency/SEM/SEO? Yes / No. If yes, indicate the company name of your client: ______________________
In the early days of paid search I believe there were concerns by Pay Per Click Agencies about Google circumventing the agency client relationship to distntermediate the paid search agency.
Could this expert advice service for new Adwords advertisers be Google’s first step toward disintermediation of pay per click agencies?
Or is Google Adwords actually trying to help new advertisers get the most bang for the advertising buck?
The following are excerpts from Eric Schmidt’s commencement address at Carnegie Mellon’s 112th commencement ceremony, held May 17, 2009.
You cannot plan innovation. You cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be at the right place and be ready.
How should you behave? Well, do things in a group. Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.
I wonder what Thomas Edison would think about Mr. Schmidt’s comments above?
Hitwise has an interesting post on year over year search referrals for 15 industry categories.
From Hitwise:
For the majority of categories measured at Hitwise, search is the top source of traffic referrals and the share has increased year-over-year. Overall, search is increasing as a traffic driver. Among the parent categories that received less than 25% of traffic from search in April 2008, all except News & Media received a higher share of search referrals last month.
2008 Search Referred Traffic vs. 2009 by Industry
Share of Search Referred Traffic by Industry
Hitwise Search Analyst Heather Dougherty suggests the data indicates growth opportunities remain in industries were search hasn’t yet been exploited fully as a referral tool.
According to Dougherty, laggard categories who have yet to capitalize on search referrals are the Automotive, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Gambling, News & Media, Business & Finance and Sports industries.
Could it be the businesses who haven’t yet capitalized on search as a referral mechanism haven’t clearly identified how an increased search engine presence will translate directly into increased revenues for their respective industries?
comScore’s Chairman Gian Fulgoni recently presented the “State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy through Q1 2009”.
Fulgoni’s presentation provided excellent insight into the online channel’s influence on both online and offline consumer behavior.
Because comScore gathers their data from a global panel of 2 Million Internet users, comScore research is required reading for every search behaviorist.
Of the material in comScore’s “State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy through Q1 2009”, I found the following slide one of the most provocative.
Research Onlne Buy Offline
The message is clear: whether a brand marketer or a one person shop – having an online presence is essential for reaching and connecting with buyers both online and off.
For several years I have been experimenting with domains and search engine results pages.
This particular domain SearchMarketingCommunications.com has been in both passive and active trials for several years.
Recently, I purchased the domain redirection option from WordPress for the blog address this domain publishes from cohn:wordpress.com.
Although it hasn’t yet been re-indexed by Google, the new domain is getting published by and distributed within both Yahoo and MSN search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search Marketing Communications
From the Official Google Blog about the outage many Google users experienced today:
Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected. That’s basically what happened to some of our users today for about an hour, starting at 7:48 am Pacific time.
An error in one of our systems caused us to direct some of our web traffic through Asia, which created a traffic jam. As a result, about 14% of our users experienced slow services or even interruptions. We’ve been working hard to make our services ultrafast and “always on,” so it’s especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens. We’re very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we’ll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won’t happen again. All planes are back on schedule now.
Luckily for the free world, Google is consistently more reliable than both the American Airlines trip I am now on or the AT&T Wifi service I am trying to upload this blog post from while stranded here in the Raleigh Durham, NC Airport.
Timothy Cohn
WordPress has announced a new feature whereby bloggers can post to their blogs via email.
From the WordPress blog:
You can send email from any email client, whether in a browser, on your desktop, or from your cell phone, and as much formatting will be retained as possible.
Attachments are not left out, and your images will be included and automatically converted into thumbnails. If you include multiple images they’ll be converted into an attractive gallery. Now you can take photos anywhere and have them appear on your blog in moments.
I am not sure how to add tags or links to the post or how easily photos are embedded either.
More about the Post by Email feature from WordPress:
Tim Cohn
Google Adwords Professional
http://www.SearchMarketingCommunications.com
(866) TimWCohn office
Follow me on Twitter, http://Twitter.com/timcohn
Search Marketing Communications 
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