Marketing Pilgrim

By Peter Young

Given the recent improvements announced by Google it should come as no surprise that another search engine has recently announced a raft of improvements to their search experience. This time it’s Ask.com who have announced a number of advances to their semantic search technology.

With semantic search one of the key search battlegrounds over the next couple of years, Ask introduced a couple of new semantic technologies namely DADS(SM) (Direct Answers from Databases), DAFS(SM) (Direct Answers from Search), and AnswerFarm(SM) aimed at breaking new ground in the areas of semantic, web text and answer farm search back in October 2008.

According to Erik Collier, vice president of product management at Ask, the Ask technology is unique because it enables web surfers to type real questions, instead of a series of keywords. When interviewed by TechNewsWorld back in June 2008, he went on to say

By: Carrie Hill

Google Maps for Mobile just made it easier than ever to get directions to that business you’re headed for on the fly.

With the server side change, you can get directions to your business destination by entering the name into the start OR end point.  Until the change today – Google Maps for Mobile would look for an address with the word “Starbucks” in it – instead of looking for the business named Starbucks.

I use my phone a lot when I travel to find restaurants – subway stations – coffee shops – things I need but wouldn’t feel comfortable wandering around searching the city for.  I also love to have directions when I give a cabbie an address so I can at least know we’re going in the right general direction.  I’m a mountain girl – I’m directionally challenged without the mountains to the east and the plains to the west.

As internet marketers we tend to concentrate on Google and its product set. Makes perfect sense considering Google is the undisputed King of the Online World.

What’s interesting to see is what Google does as a business. The Yahoo! news site ran an Associated Press story that says the AP ‘obtained’ a copy of the regulatory filing that Google filed December 15, 2008 and it revealed some interesting things about the company and what is going on there.

First, it’s  interesting that it was filed in paper form only. This practice avoids the online aggregators of these public records from being able to post the filing through their normal channels. I suspect these folks will have it sooner than later but the intentionality of Google providing the filing this way is curious. Trying to fly under the radar? Who knows.

By Rene LeMerle

For the best part of 2008, we heard the common tale of marketing budgets being shifted online, as companies sought affordable and measurable results. It seems the retail sector was no exception.

A report out by search management firm SearchIgnite suggests retail paid search grew 12% in Q4 2008, compared to 2007′s fourth quarter results. The growth trend was consistent across all the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN).

Of the three months in Q4, Nov 2008 was the stand out, experiencing a phenomenal increase of 43%, which suggests retailers we going on the offensive to leverage Black Friday/Cyber Monday activity. Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite said:

It’s been a year of rumors and intrigue for Verizon. Okay, maybe it’s not quite that dramatic, but there has been a little sturm-und-drang surrounding the soon-to-be-largest-in-the-US mobile carrier’s next mobile search deal. MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer is going to be announcing this tonight during his CES keynote, according to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg—Verizon has chosen Microsoft to provide its mobile search.

Over the last few months, there have been rumors that Google or Microsoft would be the pick, but not so much for Yahoo. As one analyst told Reuters:

“It’s certainly a feather in Microsoft’s cap. Tough news for Google and tougher news for Yahoo,” CCS Insight analyst John Jackson said of the agreement.

Just a few weeks ago Facebook reached 140 million users. We reported that Facebook was growing at a jaw-dropping 600,000 users a day, and thanks to that growth they have hit the 150 million user milestone.

My first instinct was to question how active users were. After all, I get 10+ Twitter friend requests a day almost none of which are legit. According to Search Engine Watch, half of Facebook’s users use the site every day. Amazing!

Mark Zuckerberg wrote on the Facebook blog stating that Facebook has users in every continent in the world, including Antarctica. With over 35 languages spoken on Facebook and a users from over 170 countries and territories.