Articles of the Day
Wikipedia’s Game Changer - Information Week’s Stephen Wellman poses the question, “Will Google Be Destroyed By Open Source Search Engines?” Jimmy Wales’s Wikia stands a chance. It depends in part, he says, on whether a mishmash of random crawls from the Web will be an adequate substitute to a centralized effort. If nothing else, he sees Wikia as the catalyst both vertical search and local search advocates have been seeking. The threat to Google, he says, will come from thousands of specialty engines and Web apps.
Microsoft Closes aQuantive Deal; Puts McAndrews In Top New Ad Role - Just in case paying an 85% premium were not enough, Microsoft showed it is serious about becoming a dominant force in advertising by creating a new Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group and naming aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews to lead it.
SEMs Offer Feedback on Google’s Latest AdWords Placement Tweak - Google’s announcement that it will tweak how “high quality ads are selected for top positions above organic search results” has caused a flurry of comments in the blogosphere and reactions from search marketing specialists.
OPA: Online Time Spent Shifts From Communication To Content - The explosion in online content, coupled with consumers’ growing preference for instant messaging rather than email, has led to a major shift in Web usage over the past four years. As a result, content has overtaken communication as the Web’s primary role, according to the Online Publishers Association’s Internet Activity Index, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings.
Heavy’s Husky Targets Young Men With Skins - Video entertainment site Heavy.com has launched an ad network named Husky, which will target young men and specialize initially in “skins”–a branded ad format that wraps around a site’s video player, and interferes less with a consumer’s viewing experience than pre-roll advertising.
Yahoo, Ask, MSN Up In Customer Satisfaction As Google, AOL Slip - Yahoo led the University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction Index–nabbing 79 satisfaction points out of 100, one point higher than rival Google. Yahoo’s score rose three points from last year, Google was down three points, Ask.com rose four points to 75, and MSN.com one point, also to 75–while AOL’s customer satisfaction slipped 10% to an industry low score of 67, down seven points from 2006.
Glam Launches Women-Focused Search - Glam Search is a proprietary tool that will crawl Glam Media’s Publisher Network of more than 350 lifestyle, celebrity and fashion sites and blogs, including content from magazines such as Nylon and Dwell. In addition to classic search and indexing technologies, Glam Search uses a “curated rank” algorithm, which assigns a weighting to a page based on relevance, timeliness and an editorial analysis of the content source. Network publishers can add a customizable Glam Search Widget to their site or channel and configure results accordingly. With Glam Search, users can also filter searches according to three categories–fashion, beauty, and celebrity. And, since the sites on Glam Media’s Publisher Network integrate into an ad platform, relevant ads and sponsored content will also appear in the search results.
PRIMEDIA Auto Intros Social Networking - Primedia Automotive Digital, serving more than 60 automotive Web sites, has launched a free social networking feature, “Readers’ Rides,” on 14 of its properties, including Hot Rod, Lowrider, Truck Trend and Import Tuner. The feature allows car, truck and motorcycle enthusiasts to show off their vehicles and interact with other like-minded enthusiasts. Additional sites in the PRIMEDIA Automotive Digital network are expected to add the feature at a later date.
Clogged Web Is Looming Problem - Stories about the Web’s clogging infrastructure have always been around, but network operators have been able to avoid the problem by adding routers and other hardware, keeping the Web’s backend running in line with demand. But once again, rumors of a clogging Internet are mounting. The latest concern stems from the proliferation of Web 2.0 sites and services. One minute of video, for example, can require 10 times the bandwidth of audio, or more.
Study: Facebook Users Too Willing to Give Up Info - Remember that cute someone you became fast Facebook friends with? Well, a new study says you should never underestimate a crook’s capacity to upload fake photos and a fake profile to get a hold of your personal information. Sophos PLC says an astonishing 41% of Facebook users said they were willing to divulge phone numbers, email and home addresses to Facebook friends who were otherwise total strangers to them.
Google Wants To Depose Stewart, Colbert - Publicity stunt or legal strategy? Google wants comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to give a deposition in the search giant’s fight against their employer Viacom, which is suing Google video provider YouTube for $1 billion in copyright damages. Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” and Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report,” are two of Viacom unit Comedy Central’s most high-profile personalities; their shows have been illegally uploaded to YouTube thousands if not millions of times.
