As Joseph Addison put it, “reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”.
And as such, Google Books has joined several other Google accounts already on Twitter to help Twitter users further exercise their minds.
Google Books on Twitter
According to the Inside Google Books blog, the Google Books team plans to post pithy and popular snippets each day from the Google books index.
Google Books tweets will include a link to the quotes referenced via its Popular Passages book search algorithm.
OK!
I have now officially had enough with the WordPress domain mapping and redirection service and its causing my WordPress blog to disappear from Google search results for going on six months now.
I asked for help again from WordPress several days ago and got the following response:
Wordpress Response
As you can see from the above, WordPress doesn’t think its part of the problem but instead suggests Google is the responsible party.
Having already verified my new mapped WordPress domain with Google Webmaster Tools some time ago, I can submit a reconsideration request from Google.
There aren’t any options for just asking Google – hey why isn’t my site in the Google index?
Google Webmaster Tools Reconsideration Request
The presupposition with this particular request is a site isn’t in Google’s index because of something the site owner did – not what Google may or may not have done.
Reluctantly – I submitted the Google reconsideration request.
I had previously written WordPress about my experience and frustration with their lack of documentation and the caveats of their domain mapping service.
A WordPress staff member “Tellyworth” did provide a general answer to my question about their service in the WordPress forums:
Timothy,
WordPress.com does a 302 redirect from all of your old URLs to the new domain, to notify Google and other search engines of the new location. We’ve determined that is the safest way to do it.
Using a 301 (permanent) redirect is faster, but it usually causes both the old and new URLs to completely vanish from Google results for several weeks or more.
302 redirects will mean that Google takes longer to use the new domain – sometimes months or more – but your old URLs will usually retain their position in the search results until then. And people who click on the old URLs are obviously redirected to the correct location.
Google Webmaster Tools has the following boiler plater response to Reconsideration requests:
Google Webmaster Site Review
Below I provided my description of how I followed both WordPress and Google instructions and yet nearly six months have passed without my site appearing in Google’s search results.
Google Webmaster Site Review Request
At this point I have concluded, WordPress’ domain mapping service is effectively a Google search traffic death sentence.
Today while thinking about posting content in several different places, I thought I would see if I could post to my Twitter, Bit.ly and WordPress accounts simultaneously.
While not exactly simultaneous or simple, the idea shows some promise.
Tim Cohn (tcohn@marketingprinciples.com)
Google Adwords Professional
Google Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/timcohn
Blog: http://www.SearchMarketingCommunications.com
Twitter: http://Twitter.com/timcohn
(866) TimWCohn office
(415) 935-3608 cell
The Pew Research Center has released a poll showing how Senior Citizens spend their time.
“Senior Citizen” may not be the correct term to describe people over the age of 65, but its the only phrase I am familiar with.
How Senior Citizens Spend Their Time
Not surprisingly, 83% took prescription medication within 24 hours of being contacted while 77% watched more than one hour of television.
Network television has become unappealing to me for this very reason: Free TV has effectively become the advertising channel of choice for institutional Pharma.
Try watching a network television program without being interrupted by at least one pharmmercial.
How else can Pharma effectively reach its Senior Citizen target audience?
Not through the internet…
According to the Pew Research Center Less than 28% of adults over the age of 65 use the internet daily.
What will happen to the Network Television and Pharma industries prospects when their mutual audience begins tuning and or checking out?
The Trending Topics feature on Twitter.com still has considerable room for improvement.
Users have gamed Twitter’s search “ranking” system to promote their businesses in Twitter Trending Topics as well as inundate searchers with all sorts of spam from porn to “Get Rich Tweeting” scams.
Now comes illegal movie downloads.
With the recent release of Bruno and the upcoming release of the latest Harry Potter installment, content pirates have taken to setting up Twitter accounts and pushing their pirated movie copies via Trending Topics tweets.
Twitter Trending Topics
A Twitter search for Bruno produces the following search results:
Pirates Pushing Illegal Movie Downloads via Twitter
Spam alone may be the prevailing reason why real time search hasn’t yet become ready for prime time.
I finally received an invitation to open a Google Voice account.
Google Voice Invitation
The following is a partial list of what was once Grand Central – and is now the Google Voice service- offers:
A personal phone number that rings all of your existing phones when people call
All of your voicemail in one inbox with unlimited online storage and free voicemail transcripts sent to your phone and email.
Low-priced international calling to over 200 countries and free SMS
Other powerful features like the first phone spam filter to protect you from unwanted callers, the ability to ListenInTM on your voicemail messages while they are being left, conference calling and more.
At the present time, Google Voice is only available for sign up in the US.
I have set up my Google Voice account:
My Google Voice Phone Number
Here is my Google Voice dashboard:
Google Voice Menu
I have sent several SMS messages with Google Voice from my dashboard already and look forward to using Google Voice regularly.
David Pogue has written a piece in today’s New York Times comparing Microsoft’s new search engine with Google.
The article’s title: Bing, the Imitator, Often Goes Google One Better descsribes Microsoft’s long standing strategy of imitating successful products after other company’s have established and developed newer technologies and markets.
To find out whether Bing delivers better search results than Google, Pogue references a new website called Bing-vs-Google.com.
Bing vs Google
A search on Bing-vs-Google produces results pages that are hard to differentiate from one another.
Bing vs Google Search Results
Microsoft’s strategy of imitating innovators may have produced market footholds in other categories.
I will be surprised if imitating Google search results produces anything more than a few percentage points of search market share gain for Microsoft.
Today I received a tweet from Barry Judge Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy regarding Best Buy’s experience in their attempts to establish a new position called Sr. Manager, Emerging Media Marketing.
After the job was initially posted, Best Buy received community feedback about applicants’ educational and experience required for qualification.
Best Buy has since decided to crowdsource the job’s description and qualifications to the social media community via their BestBuy IdeaX site.
How the Best Buy Idea X site works:
How IdeaX Exchange Works
For those interested in participating in the process, Judge has posted directions and guidelines for participating in the crowdsourcing of the Emerging Media Marketing manager job on his blog.
Senior Manager Emerging Media Marketing Besty Buy
Judge also provides four reasons why Best Buy decided to take the route they have with this particular job opening:
Why on earth would we do this?
1. No, not because we’re lazy, we just recognize that a large group of people will come up with more ideas than a small group. We’d like help thinking through the important and relevant stuff for this job.
2. This role is a new one for us as it likely is for other companies. We have a lot of smart and social media savvy people here and amongst our partners and friends. However, there are a larger number of smart and social media savvy people “out there”. So instead of thinking we know it all, we’d like to increase our chances of getting it right by surveying the wisdom of the industry.
3. One of our recruiters Joshua Kahn announced this role via Twitter a couple weeks ago. Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang, Jason Falls, and others it spawned dozens of re-tweets and at least a couple of blog posts. Pretty incredible buzz considering it’s a job posting. Many people had alternative ideas for us; good ideas. We thought it would be an interesting experiment to be more deliberate about capturing and actually using those ideas.
4. Based on the buzz, we also thought, it would be a great way to spread the message that we’re hiring for this role.
Ultimately, Best Buy is looking for help with this project from the social media community in three areas: Description of responsibilities basic qualifications and required qualifications.
For more information about helping Best Buy decribe and recruit a Senior Manager, Emerging Media Marketing, visit Barry Judge’s blog.
Attention Authors and Publishers: Time to dust off those old book writing contracts or the digerati will soon be making more money off your content than either of you will.
Via Slashdot: Three Amazon employees have recently filed patent applications for On-Demand Generating E-Book Content with Advertising and Incorporating Advertising in On-Demand Generated Content.
Exhibit A.
On Demand Generating eBook Content with Advertising
Exhibit B.
Incorporating Advertising in on Demand Generated Content
Not if – but when – books become living documents like web pages capable of indefinitely displaying advertising and thus producing revenue, will book authors and publishers share in the advertising revenues generated by Amazon’s Kindle or not?
Matt McGee @Search Engine Land reports Google Maps has added searchable real estate listings.
To search Google Maps for real estate listings in your area, enter your location in the search box and click show search options. The drop down tool box will show Locations, Businesses, User-created content, Related Maps, Mapped web pages and lastly – Real Estate.
Google Maps Real Estate Listings
Clicking the “Real Estate” tab will then produce a search results map with all the real estate listings Google has available for that particular location.
Google Maps Real Estate Listings Search
This new Google Maps feature lets visitors search and parse real estate listing data by Non-Foreclosure / Foreclosure, the number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms and by square footage range.
Driving directions can be generated for a specific real estate listing by clicking its respective push pin.
Google Real Estate Listing Data
As McGee notes, listing data can then be sent to an email address, phone, GPS device or car.
Only two car manufacturers are supported – BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
As an owner of a S550 Mercedes-Benz, I decided to investigate whether or not I could send Google Real Estate listing data to my car or not…
Turns out I couldn’t.
Sending Google data to a Mercedes-Benz requires a Tele-Aid account which I elected not to renew after my first year subscription expired.
If I were a real estate agent, I would consider renewing my Tele-Aid account to show perpective home buyers the Google Maps Real Estate Listing data while driving through neighborhoods showing them the homes listed for sale.
Search Marketing Communications 
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