When “social media” collectively has verifiably produced 1/100 the sales Search has, I will stop laughing at these types of Analysts and their proclamations.
Social Media Is The Next Search
Until then, No… Social Media isn’t the next Search.
No Sale.
I received the following email today from Microsoft regarding their “search alliance” with Yahoo.
Dear Tim ,
Microsoft® and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union. This milestone is an exciting step in our effort to give your business a time-saving and cost-efficient way to connect with a larger combined audience of potential customers.
How the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance benefits you After the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, you will:
Reach more potential customers: Search ad inventory from both the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks will be joined in a new, unified search marketplace powered by Bing™ , with a combined audience of over 150 million searchers in the U.S and nearly 577 million searchers worldwide.1
Save valuable time and effort: You’ll use a single platform Microsoft adCenter to manage your campaigns easier and faster. With just one buy, your search ads will reach users on Bing, Yahoo!, and other premium partner sites and networks, such as The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, msnbc.com, FoxSports.com, Facebook, and Buy.com.
What’s ahead For now, it’s business as usual; there is no change to your account or service. Your ads will continue to serve on Bing search results pages, and you will continue to receive the same great service from Microsoft.
Both companies are committed to making this transition a seamless experience. Our goal is to bring the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance to the U.S. by the end of 2010, prior to the crucial holiday season, with additional countries following on a staggered schedule beginning in 2011.
As our transition dates approach, we will contact you with information about what to do next. In order to ensure you continue to receive important service updates, please verify your contact information is current in Microsoft adCenter. View our help topic: Change contact information.
How to learn more In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance by visiting our new resource, searchalliance.com, where you’ll find plenty of additional details, including press releases, FAQs, and more!
We appreciate your business and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance.
Sincerely,
The Microsoft adCenter Team
Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance
Google, in partnership with BabyCenter, the leading global online parenting resource, has explored how marketers across industries can empower mothers through online channels.
BabyCenter’s insights can help businesses better utilize the Internet and search in their marketing programs targeting moms.
This webinar spotlights: BabyCenter’s 21st Century Mom and Googles The Four Truths About Moms & Search: How and Why Moms Search.
I downloaded the Google Chrome browser a couple months ago for testing purposes.
I have never logged into a Google account with the browser and disabled the search customization feature immediately upon installation.
To my surprise, I have had to disable search customization in Google Chrome at least three times since I began using the browser because the browser automatically resets to customized search settings.
Google Web History
I am pretty sure the vast majority of people – ie, excluding the search industry and perhaps lawyers, will not be aware that their initial disabling of Google search customization was in fact in vain.
Anybody else experience this?
Over what period of time or after what sequence of events?
I believe my particular search customization appeared after searching for the same terms approximately ten times.
Google Maps has added several new Labs features like Aerial Imagery.
Aerial Imagery
Although Aerial Imagery isn’t yet available for more than a handful of locations, Google implies more aerial imagery may be made available.
From the Google Maps team:
Add Aerial imagery to the map! Aerial imagery gives you rotatable, high-resolution overhead imagery presented in a new perspective. Currently imagery is only available in certain areas, but we’re adding more all the time.
If you have ever wanted to get a bird’s eye view of the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA, Google Maps aerial imagery now provides it.
Aerial View of the Googleplex
Zooming in provides the following view:
Aerial Zoom of Googleplex
Google’s aerial image quality now appears to be on par with Bing’s Bird’s eye view image quality.
Bird's Eye View
However, Google’s aerial image viewer appears to let map users zoom in twice as close to a location as Bing’s Bird’s eye view.
Anyone know where Google is getting these new images?
If they are getting these images by airplane, won’t it take untold man hours to flesh out their image database?
comScore has published an analysis of online retail shopping trends from the fourth quarter of 2009.
Larger Retailers Gaining Online Dollar Share
From comScore:
As you can see, while the largest 25 retailers (including the likes of Amazon, Sears, Best Buy and Walmart) grew their sales by 11%, the remaining retailers saw their sales drop by 7%. That’s not say that each of the retailers outside of the top 25 saw their sales decline but, taken as a group, it’s clear that many smaller retailers struggled this past year. In these economically difficult times, I suspect that many smaller retailers are simply not able to compete with the aggressive promotions and price discounting being implemented by their larger brethren. There’s an old marketing axiom which says that companies who are able to continue to invest in marketing during recessionary times actually emerge from the recession in a stronger competitive condition. That certainly seems to hold true today for the larger online retailers.
Aren’t small mom and pop and even well funded marginal internet retailers destined to experience the same fate as their offline counterparts did during the decades long ascent of retailing behemoths like Walmart – except only more quickly?
If the social graph ie., Facebook and its 400 million worldwide users – who’s size already dwarfs the entire U.S. internet audience – were a search killer then why does the group as a whole (120 million US users) run just three searches individually on Facebook per month?
Facebook Users
According to comScore, Facebook.com originated 395 million searches from the U.S. during the month of January 2010 while Google users ran 14.1 billion searches in the U.S.
At their present 13% search growth rate per month, Facebook will catch Google’s 2% search audience growth rate at what point – sometime in the next century?
Not only does the math not add up but the reality is people are creatures of habit and as long Google continues to deliver noise free results while Facebook continues to be the place where it users go to get attention not answers the social graph will remain just that – a social graph not a search killer.
The following are my Tweets from Thursday February 11, 2010.
AdWords Agency Blog: Help clients spread a little love this Valentine’s Day http://bit.ly/bodHA7
@localseoguide Yep! I had to get some work done today so I didn’t get to do much reading / posting.
Google AdSense now uses hours of search history – Feb. 11, 2010 http://bit.ly/bolIGG
World Ad Conference Examines Cross-Media Audience Metrics
December 2009 U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services http://bit.ly/bOT53P
Facebook and Twitter Compete for Olympic Glory – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/9BD5bh
Meet The First Miners of the New Social Graph – http://nyti.ms/9FPSFE
Stanford Finds Computer Science Students Cheat More Than Others – http://nyti.ms/9V8xYo
Thursday, February 11, 2010 Gmail Buzz: Mixing Real Life And Your Preferred Discussion Group In All the Wrong Ways? http://bit.ly/ap7Byx
Efficient Frontier Insights: CPC – January 2010 http://bit.ly/bXilRr
Getting good behavior from your ad network http://bit.ly/bwzUXC
Chrome Passes Safari: A Closer Look Quantcast Blog http://bit.ly/aVrKcS
A Video Tour of the Google LBC Category Preview Tool | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search http://bit.ly/cKsY0P
Local Onliner » Associated Content: ‘Local is a Differentiator’ http://bit.ly/dzNf2Z
My Google Profile http://bit.ly/ggA6S http://www.google.com/profiles/timcohn
IPG Goes with Microsoft’s Atlas for Ad Management – ClickZ http://bit.ly/d8EhaD
RT @mattcutts: If you just got a Nexus One at #ted, you need to try Google Sky Map: http://goo.gl/HcLf It’s a planetarium in your pocket.
Google’s Display-Ad Sales Should Top $1 Billion – http://bit.ly/cMJgP7
Coremetrics:BusinessWeek – The Effect of Disconnect Online Marketing Measurement in a Time of Change http://bit.ly/bKMmZC
ShopNBC launches mobile e-commerce site, iPhone app update – http://bit.ly/d0KrnL
Can web traffic predict Grammy winners? http://bit.ly/aTtzkK
Five jobs for Internet enthusiasts – CNN.com http://bit.ly/al0DjU
Frank Magid Turned TV News Into Entertainment – WSJ.com http://bit.ly/bhF7es
What Works in Online Video – eMarketer http://bit.ly/9HiAam
AOL ‘Friends’ Facebook – A partnership means more ad revenue for both companies. http://bit.ly/bp5f2j
Agency News: Omnicom CEO Says Worst of Recession Behind Us – Agency News – Advertising Age http://bit.ly/cjsbel
How Much Are Domain Names For Advertising Campaigns Worth? 02/11/2010 http://bit.ly/cfKotA
Advertising: Apple Sets Out to Reinvent Mobile Ads http://bit.ly/aU2LZv
Needed: A New Science for Valuing Content – Advertising Age – DigitalNext http://bit.ly/deYQMN
Microsoft Marketing Group Names a Chief Creative Officer – Advertising Age – Digital http://bit.ly/b2ufoQ
Digital Coupon Growth Outpaces Inserts http://bit.ly/bwcZoN
Making the Most of Earned Media – eMarketer http://bit.ly/b2nQIK
Why You Need a Strategy for Social Media – eMarketer http://bit.ly/9NPSpb
The Most Efficient iPhone Developers – O’Reilly Radar http://bit.ly/b3tgWJ
Hitwise Intelligence – Traffic Lifts from Super Bowl Ads North America http://bit.ly/beU8DP
Google Validates SEO Consulting – John Andrews – johnon.com http://bit.ly/btelYC
PositionApp Helps Developers Track App Store Performance On The Go http://tcrn.ch/aBRfAW
Why Brands are Becoming Media http://bit.ly/ajA3Gq
YouTube Blog: Speed Matters: Introducing the YouTube Video Speed Dashboard http://bit.ly/9lFAwR
Google Conversion Room: Improve your web-forms and increase conversions http://bit.ly/b5HEls
Bing: “We Do Not Index 302 Redirected Pages” http://bit.ly/c6f6vs
Iran Tweets Engulf Twitter | Sarmad Ali | Voices | AllThingsD http://bit.ly/b0vRdH
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » Speaking of Search http://bit.ly/c688Jb
Google AdSense: Thanks for your feedback on the AdSense Product Ideas page http://bit.ly/aMoBB0
Google AdWords: Bid ideas now in the Opportunities tab http://bit.ly/929AjA
YouTube Biz Blog: It’s Almost #subsaturday! Join Us on Twitter http://bit.ly/9gmlBH
Google rebuts DOJ objections to digital book deal – Yahoo! News http://bit.ly/chEYgl
Google Code Blog: Announcing Google Chart Tools http://bit.ly/ckWBYY
Bing – Spatial Search: The Next Frontier – Search Blog – Bing Community http://bit.ly/99CV3J
Google tweaks Buzz privacy settings | Relevant Results – CNET News http://bit.ly/d8tXqB
Facebook, Twitter Grow More than 100% http://bit.ly/adpMJ1
Google LatLong: Imagery update http://bit.ly/cLgRoQ
Official Google Blog: Simple wedding planning with Google Docs http://bit.ly/auTGq5
RT @louisgray: New Blog Post: Twitter Hires Web Search Guru Krishna Gade from Bing /cc @krishnagade http://goo.gl/fb/zcwX
RT @msaleem: Apple counts down to 10 billion songs sold: http://bit.ly/cpQu6J
RT @michaelgass: Ad Agencies: 5 Ways to Find Prospects on Twitter http://bit.ly/6twxOB
RT @LinkedIn: NEWS! RT @pab5482 welcomes our 60 millionth LinkedIn member from the Groningen Area in the Netherlands.
@DanGordon will have to see what a day’s worth of Tweets does over there…
@DanGordon Got it… thx
RT @jordanayan: WOW – Google just gave us Nexus phones at #TED – I feel like I am on Oprah…Thanks Google. Great Marketing.
RT @ilamont: That’s strange. You can email other people’s Buzz items to non-Buzzers, and they’ll see everything. Like Twitter in that it …
@DanGordon I don’t see “connected sites”
How do I copy my tweets to buzz? I don’t like to do the same work twice.
Official Gmail Blog: Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback http://bit.ly/ddFcSc
U.S. Searches Per Capita Per Month (SPCPM)
From comScore: In the January analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the search market with more than 14 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.8 billion searches. Bing experienced large growth during the month with an 11-percent increase in query … Read more
Email as Identity: Google Turns on WebFinger http://bit.ly/cC49NH
AppleInsider | Google pays Apple $100M/year for search on iPhone – rumor http://bit.ly/cbSGJf
@graywolf because its the Noise Age.
RT @HelenWalters: nathan myhrvold shows high speed camera view of mosquito. “by understanding how they fly, we understand how to make th …
RT @pkafka: Veoh CEO Dmitry Shapiro confirms shutdown plans — but doesn’t blame Universal Music for his demise. http://bit.ly/aslVFl
RT @loic: Ping.fm already updates Google Buzz instantly from txt, apps, email http://ping.fm/Iw8jQ
@danpenasr Klaus Kleinfeld on NBR is the US.
Klaus Kleinfeld on NBR
U.S. Searches Per Capita Per Month (SPCPM): http://wp.me/p1EXD-1rF
RT @mediagrowthinc: Twitter Application Grader.com Hacked http://bit.ly/bm3yyV
RT @brainpicker: #TED David Byrne shows the cathedral Bach wrote most of his music for. Acoustics allowed to change keys without dissonance
RT @CIOsConnect: MSFT survey revealed Moscow is the biggest place to buy pirated copies of Windows 7 & more than 25% of the dealers in t …
RT @loic: kids spend 10,000 hours playing games before leaving school = same amount of hours as at… school! #ted
RT @PaulSloane: Don’t waste money on expensive ipods. Simply choose a song you like and hum it to yourself. To switch tracks hum a diffe …
RT @brainpicker: #TED Jane McGonigal: Gamers are virtuosos of weaving a tight social fabric. Research shows we like someone more if we p …
RT @danmartell: 5.9 million years has been spent playing the game World of Warcraft #TED #WoW
RT @TheCMOclub: 32 New CMOs joined the club in January – http://bit.ly/12g38g
MySpace Signal Strength: http://wp.me/p4KvI-pG
RT @sdmatt: @Google is all set to roll-out its Google Wave & Voice to its Google Apps web service customers: http://bit.ly/cfEoUY #finally
Taming Twitter’s Streams With Automated Web Sites – http://nyti.ms/bJ8G6Y
Social Web Blog: Who’s @ Google I/O: spotlight on Social Web (including Buzz) http://bit.ly/aAAcBO
RT @missrogue: “Networks have value. They are a kind of social capital.” Christakis #ted
RT @MRMWorldwide: Some people erasing their online selves and ditching social networks; cite privacy and time-consumption as reasons. ht …
RT @buzzblog: PayPal reversing India payments; here’s why… http://bit.ly/c2baw7 (via @richi ) #digg
RT @MediaweekDotCom: Break Media Acquires FileFront http://bit.ly/chmZiI
RT @krishgm: the news channels reach new depths of awfulness…cutting to live coverage of Alexander McQueen’s body being carried into t …
RT @dnghub: “You are not entitled to your own facts” Michael Specter #Ted #tedactive
RT @lax13: The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. Roger Bannister
RT @newsycombinator: Every time an engineer joins Google, a startup dies http://bit.ly/dvq8cm
RT @adCenter: Google Buzz Is Off As Bing Bites http://bit.ly/cKskag – Fighting Words from @webcertain & @andyatkinskruge 😉
RT @ericgoldman: In North Face v. South Butt, the court denied a motion to dismiss and warned defense counsel about frivolity http://bit …
RT @guardianmusic: Google closes six music blogs without warning http://bit.ly/bracp5
The Newsonomics of social media optimization » Nieman Journalism Lab http://bit.ly/dof4fi
Mixpanel Raises Seed Funding From Metrics Gurus Max Levchin And Michael Birch http://tcrn.ch/bOCz0u
National Newspapers Ink Deals for Hyper-Local Neighborhood Pages – MediaBuyerPlanner http://bit.ly/90kLFn
Bing Gives Microsoft Renewed Search Traction http://bit.ly/cm9Xho
Slower Wages Equal Lower Spending http://bit.ly/9vnXYC
Rise of the Demand-Side Service Layer http://bit.ly/b7RM4H
Bing Updates Webmaster FAQs Into 82 Questions http://bit.ly/av3lRh
MySpace Now ly Worth Less Than Murdoch Paid For It (If It’s Worth Anything At All) http://bit.ly/9GSwtN
Most Popular Twitter Apps – oneforty http://bit.ly/aVB5BJ
Digital Shift in Marketing Budgets 02/10/2010 http://bit.ly/c2OIxm
Facebook Hit With More Privacy Lawsuits In The Wake Of Changing Users’ Settings 02/11/2010 http://bit.ly/c5FcJz
Zynga Buys Social Gaming Startup Serious Business http://tcrn.ch/d14EZW
300,000,000 Downloads Later, OpenOffice Ships Version 3.2 http://tcrn.ch/8XqIjA
How Biz Stone Promoted Twitter in 2006 [FUNNY] http://bit.ly/dnlbk1
Flickr Is Now 6 Years Old http://bit.ly/cB1QsJ
Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010) « Social Media, Web Marketing http://bit.ly/9ONvS7
20 Fantastic Usability & Conversion Analysis Tools | Spyre Studios http://bit.ly/9Zy9j0
Google Buzz Social Icons for Bloggers and Designers | chethStudios http://bit.ly/brVo6E
Fwix Launches API For Realtime Hyperlocal News http://tcrn.ch/aoZHbY
Google AdWords: Go Mobile! Series: Optimize for mobile with Google Analytics http://bit.ly/aOLRor
Google Chrome Releases: Beta Update: Mac and Linux http://bit.ly/9MeLN9
How Much Will Google’s Fiber Network Cost? – GigaOM http://bit.ly/a9XSJv
Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million http://tcrn.ch/9AH1Fn
RT @NiemanLab: 6 trends in newspaper earnings: ads down, online mixed, revenue down, expenses down, profits up, stocks up http://j.mp/aYpxkA
Google Buzz: The Good, Bad, & Ugly Reactions http://selnd.com/a4yDD1
From comScore:
In the January analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led the search market with more than 14 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.8 billion searches. Bing experienced large growth during the month with an 11-percent increase in query volume to reach more than 1.5 billion searches. Craigslist jumped one position to #6 with 636 million searches, while Facebook grew to 395 million searches, representing a 13-percent increase from the previous month.
Search Queries Share
23.2 billion search queries ran in the U.S. during the month of January 2010 equates to 75 searches per capita per month (SPCPM)
What if any factors will impact the present 2% growth rate in searches per capita per month going forward?
Which countries have the lowest searches per capita per month?
Which countries have the highest searches per capita per month?
Which countries are experiencing contracting searches per capita per month?
Which countries are experiencing compound annual growth in searches per capita per month?
Can comScore not provide its audience with this type of search data?
When I logged into my Gmail account this morning, I was greeted by the following full page ad for Google Buzz.
Gmail Buzz In Every Inbox
Google lets gmail accounts holders either check out Buzz now or later.
Fortunately, I have more than one Gmail account to trial Google Buzz from.
I am not so sure I want all of my contacts and other details surfaced from my primary email address now or even at some point in the future.
Search Marketing Communications 
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