We're all guinea pigs in Google's search experiment | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

"SAN FRANCISCO--When it comes to search quality, Google has a split personality.
Google uses a method called split A/B testing to measure exactly what changes it should make to its main search Web site--both to its famously Spartan search box and to the results it produces. With the approach, Google shows different versions of the pages to users and measures how they respond, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, in a speech at the Google I/O conference here Thursday."
We're all guinea pigs in Google's search experiment

Mythbusting: Why Video Should Be A Core Search Marketing Too

Video has to be expensive. Video ads don’t have to be expensive productions. We’ve deployed hundreds upon hundreds of video ads, syndicated them to the major video search engines, deployed them on SMBs’ web sites, and run them in ad networks.

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Commentary: Slavery alive and well in US

Well I'm not a labor consultant, but I am a thinker. Maybe the problem isn't that the job they're offering is "too hard," maybe it's that the wages they're offering are "too low."

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Study Shows Blogging Now 'Mainstream' Among Women

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- According to a recent study by the online women's blogging community BlogHer and Compass Partners, more than one-third of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week. Of those women who are online any amount of time, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or upda

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Entering Virtual Worlds for Real-Life Pitches

Starting in June, people who play The Sims 2 will be able to buy a “stuff pack” that lets them decorate their simulated families’ homes with Ikea furniture.

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Dunkin' Donuts Kills Rachael Ray Ad

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online ad starring Rachael Ray after conservative bloggers suggested the scarf she wore in the ad looked like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men that some associate with jihad.

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LinkedIn and Business Profiles

LinkedIn has rolled out Business Profiles, which let companies create a page (in the same way that their individual employees can) and use it for recruiting and lead generation purposes.

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Jonathan Mendez's Blog: Macy’s Magical Online Disappearing Act

"Macy’s Magical Online Disappearing Act
In today’s Wall Street Journal Macy’s CMO and Chairman of the Online Division Peter Sachse talks about Search Marketing. It’s rare to hear a CMO of a major retailer discuss search marketing so it was with great interest that I read his comments."

Jonathan Mendez's Blog: Macy’s Magical Online Disappearing Act:

I think Peter should call or email me, we could have dinner and i could solve all his problems..

Behind Starbucks' Cup Cleanup

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Starbucks wasn't unaware its cup might runneth over with controversy when it brought back the old logo to introduce its Pike Place blend.

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Cheetos Ads That Promote 'Random Acts' Are Irresponsible

RAoC stands for "Random Acts of Cheetos," and the idea is to recruit users to perpetrate Cheetos-centric pranks against those who deserve comeuppance -- like tossing a handful in somebody's dryer load of whites at the Laundromat. Ha ha!

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Web 2.0 fails to produce cash

The shortage of revenue among social networks, blogs and other “social media” sites that put user-generated content and communications at their core has persisted despite more than four years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers.

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The Importance Of A Competitive Search Market

Are Microsoft’s attempts to compete in search and reinvent itself as an advertising company nothing more attempts to get back into the spotlight? Should Microsoft, Google and everyone else just give up on search and outsource to Google? That’s what Tim O’Reilly argues in a blog post today...

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How to Take on a Major SEO Client

A very informative article with great links for details.

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The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search

Last week I saw a commercial for Special K, the breakfast cereal from Kellogg, and rather than end with a plug for the product's web site it advised people to search Yahoo! for "Special K" instead. I wonder: is Yahoo! paying Special K for tack-on advertising? has searching really become so natural that it is better to tell people to search for you?

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Official Google Blog: Introduction to Google Search Quality

Official Google Blog: Introduction to Google Search Quality: "Search Quality is the name of the team responsible for the ranking of Google search results. Our job is clear: A few hundreds of millions of times a day people will ask Google questions, and within a fraction of a second Google needs to decide which among the billions of pages on the web to show them -- and in what order. Lately, we have been doing other things as well. But more on that later."

Online Pizza Gets Faster, Easier with Widgets

Online Pizza Gets Faster, Easier with Widgets: "Escalating the arms race in the online pizza category, both the Pizza Hut and Papa John’s chains this week rolled out desktop widgets that let users place their online orders without surfing to the companies’ Web sites."

Microsoft Advertising Debuts

The Microsoft Advertising brand, which will be pushed by the company's advertiser and publisher solutions (APS) group, includes the ad serving tool Atlas, the ad exchange AdECN, the ad platform adCenter and the in-game ad firm Massive.

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Google Says It Will Defend Competitive Rationale of a Yahoo

How can Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, contend that teaming up with Yahoo in search ads would not invite an antitrust challenge?

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Microsoft Dangles Rebates for Web Shoppers

Attention shoppers: There may be bargains available at Microsoft's search engine.

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Google's 'Analytics Evangelist' Explains Why Websites 'Suck'

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Avinash Kaushik thinks one of the reasons why so many websites "suck" today is because of the hippo -- as in the "highest paid person's opinion."

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WSJ.com - More Digital Ads Are Produced Offshore

Big marketers are increasingly shipping off the creation of Web ads to little-known businesses in places like Costa Rica and Bulgaria. (NOTE: I know people that can do this.. in Texas)

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Which Came First, or Does It Even Matter?

McDonald’s has just introduced a Southern Style Chicken Sandwich — one that looks suspiciously like the signature sandwich of the Chick-fil-A chain.

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- ummm had one for lunch... chick-fil-a is still better..

News unfiltered: YouTube embraces citizen journalism

With an official new channel for reports from people around the world, YouTube hopes to make itself the online home for citizen journalism. Great power for the masses, however, brings great responsibility.

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'Microhoo' is an also-ran to Google

Microsoft is talking with Yahoo again. But so what? A merger will happen eventually and the longer this soap opera goes on, the stronger Google will get.

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Social Network Advertising Lessons

Social wunderkinds like MySpace and Facebook face a dilemma: advertising in these environments is a decidedly hit-and-miss affair. For all their potential, they're tough for advertisers to figure out.

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He Said, She Said In Google v. Facebook

More details on Facebook’s banning of Google Friend Connect from the Facebook API earlier today. Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Google’s Director of Engineering David Glazer talk about the banning to get a fuller picture of the conflict.

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Final Can-Spam Regs Define 'Sender,' Preserve 10-Day Opt-Outs - 05/13/2008

MediaPost Publications - Final Can-Spam Regs Define 'Sender,' Preserve 10-Day Opt-Outs - 05/13/2008: "Final Can-Spam Regs Define 'Sender,' Preserve 10-Day Opt-Outs
by Wendy Davis, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:00 AM ET
After mulling new rules for e-mail marketers for three years, the Federal Trade Commission Monday issued final Can-Spam regulations that spell out how to determine which marketer is the 'sender' when more than one advertises in the same message."

Record-Breaking 2 Hour House Event Triggers New National Business Performance Practices

DALLAS, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting a business in today's economy is challenging. Eighty percent of entrepreneurial efforts fail within the first five years, proof that building a business rather than starting one is the true test of a successful entrepreneur. Six Sigma and Malcolm Baldrige programs provided a peek into performance improvement processes adopted by Fortune 1000 type firms. However, 98% of the companies in America are smaller and have yet to embrace the effective but cumbersome (and often cost-prohibitive) services delivered by these two business performance improvement models.
Today, entrepreneurs have an alternative performance enhancement program they can afford, they can understand, and they can easily apply: the 2 Hour House Business Performance Blueprint (BPB), http://www.2hourhouse.com. It delivers a simple, tested approach for building a company by uniting meaning to mission, people to purpose and action to impact, to drive innovation, excellence and speed.

Dallas Business Journal: PRnewswire Releases

Leaving Las Yahoo: Microsoft's $5 Billion Mistake?

If Microsoft's walkaway from the Yahoo deal is indeed a ploy to save $5 billion, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may have proven himself pennywise and pound foolish. He was prepared to spend billions to finally make Microsoft a serious rival to Google. For a bit more, he may have destroyed Microsoft's chance to get there.

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The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master

A man can be expert in nothing, but he must be practiced in many things. Skills. You don't have to master them all at once. You simply have to collect and develop a certain number of skills as the years tick by. People count on you to come through. That's why you need these, to start.

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