Marketing Pilgrim

Tell me if you spot any similarities between these two announcements:

We’re pleased to announce you that GazoPa enters open beta today. GazoPa is a next generation image search engine that uses image features such as color and shape to search for similar images.

And…

Today, we’re happy to announce that Similar Images is graduating from Google Labs and becoming a permanent feature in Google Images.

Yep, Google’s at it again!

No sooner had GazoPa dared to enter the search arena, Google comes along and says "oh no you di’n't" and takes its Similar Images tool out of Labs. I mean, really, there’s just no subtly when it comes to Google. Dare to enter it’s space, and within hours it’s wrestling the spotlight off any challenger.

Apparently Twitter is all search-dealt out. After deals to bring real-time info to Bing (now) and Google (later), Twitter was not the last of the big three’s choice for real-time search. (But does it matter if Yahoo’s deal with Bing goes through?)

Instead, Yahoo, almost a week behind the others, plans to go real time with OneRiot, according to TechCrunch’s sources.

I know what you’re thinking. Who? Good question. OneRiot tracks trends on the real-time web. You can search several social sites’ updates from OneRiot, or you can use their toolbar to add real-time content to any web search. A search on one of their listed trending topics brought up seven news articles, all of which were listed as first shared on Twitter. They have the ten most recent stories on their main page—and when I checked, 90% were from Twitter. Hooray for catching that other 10%, Yahoo.

You read that correctly. Despite an increase in profits of 42%, which is a pretty strong showing by anyone’s standards, the stock price fell over 13% on the NASDAQ. How does this kind of thing happen you ask? It appears that Baidu.com is going to suffer from the same issue that has plagued Google for most of its existence which is that no matter how well the engine performs the naysayers will win the day. Remember some of the outrageous numbers that Google used to put up and the following outcry that it wasn’t enough?

Yahoo Finance explains why the stock tumbled despite otherwise chipper news.

Whether you’re one of the 11,500+ that have registered a Trackur account, or one of the many that have helped spread the word about Trackur’s affordable social media monitoring plans, I want to thank you!

Actually, I want to do more than just thank you. I want to invite you to a special cocktail reception that Trackur’s hosting at PubCon this year. It’s a chance for you to learn about Trackur, network, and enjoy free drinks and snacks!

Here are the details:

Where: ENVY Lounge located at the Renaissance Hotel–next door to the convention center.

When: Wednesday November 11th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

What: Beer, wine and snacks.

Who: All PubCon attendees.

Why: Because you are awesome!

Google Wave, an instantaneous/asychronous communication app (Okay, it’s IM+email) has been in beta testing for nearly a month. In that time, we’ve seen a couple “apps” developed for it (although they were really just stripped down browsers that helped Wave to run a little faster).

But these pseudo apps were so well received, apparently, that Google is ready to talk about an app store for Google Wave at the Google Wave Google Technology User Group in London yesterday. What kind of apps would they add to email+IM? Says TheNextWeb:

Already, independent software developers have built and tested Wave applications that handle such tasks as teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and multiplayer gaming, but while the Apple App Store sells software only for the iPhone and Touch, a Wave marketplace could stock in-Wave applications, along with desktop applications, browser extensions and a world of devices, from laptops, phones, tablets and more with built in Wave support.

My favorite Google Voice feature is the ability to have all voicemails transcribed and emailed to me. I can then read the text–transcribed with about 80% accuracy–or listen to the actual audio. It saves a lot of time and comes in handy when I’m on the road.

That cool feature is now available on my cell phone, thanks to a new Google Voice feature.

In fact, if you don’t have a Google Voice number yet, you can go ahead and use your existing mobile phone number–which gives you the benefits of keeping your existing number and the use of Google Voice’s features. Except, you don’t get all of the great features, as the chart below explains: