Tending to a website can take a lot of time and energy, and the people who run them deserve nothing but applause. At the same time, though, blogs and RSS feeds can really benefit an SEO campaign, and so a session at SES San Jose focused on how and why to incorporate them.
Coverage of the SES San Jose conference continues at Murdok Videos. Stay with Murdok for more notes and videos from the event this week.
Google Wants Authors to Submit Creative Commons Books
Google is now offering a way for authors and publishers to offer content for free under the Creative Commons license on Google Books. Rightsholders who want to distribute their books can let users download, use, and share them.
Searches For Health Insurance Information See Gains
The number of visitors to major health insurance provider websites has declined during the past year due to the increase in U.S. unemployment, according to a new report from comScore.
There has been a corresponding increase in the number of searches related to obtaining health coverage during the past year.
Missouri Asks For $142M In Stimulus For Broadband Access
Missouri is applying for $142 million in federal stimulus money to help expand the reach of broadband Internet access to rural areas in the state.
The initiative would expand broadband accessibility to 91.5 percent of the total population, a significant increase from the current projected accessibility of 79.7 percent.
Opera Releases Beta 3 Version of Opera 10
Opera has announced the release of its Beta 3 release of the Opera 10 browser. The company says this version is ready for "heavy work" on the web.
Opera has run over 10 million tests on the beta and has received plenty of feedback. They say performance and stability were prioritized in this version.
Google Does Some AdWords Experimenting
Google has been messing around with AdWords ads on search results a bit this week. Earlier this week, you may have started noticing that the ads have been pushed into the left, making for results pages feeling a bit more compact.
Presumably, the move was to inspire more clicks. The sponsored results are now closer to the organic results, and may be noticed by searchers a little more. The growing adoption of wider screens may also play a role.
New Features Added for Seesmic Web
One of the more popular Twitter web apps, Seesmic Web, allows you to process your Twitter messages in an "email-like interface"… essentially it’s a desktop app for your browser, minus a few bells and whistles. Recently though, they’ve added a few extra bells, they are as follows:
On2 Shareholders File Lawsuits To Stop Google Deal
On2’s shareholders – or at least a vocal subgroup of them – are not at all happy about the planned Google acquisition. Two lawsuits have been filed to stop the deal, with both complaints alleging that On2 more or less served itself on a silver platter.
Google offered to acquire On2 for 60 cents per share (or $106.5 million in all), which represented a 57 percent premium over On2’s closing price the day before. However, the day after the acquisition was announced, On2 gave its best quarterly financial report in over a year, which made the deal look less sweet.
Smartphone Sales Up 27%
Global mobile phone sales reached 286.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 6.1 percent decrease from the second quarter of 2008, according to a new report from Gartner.
Smartphone sales were a bright spot for the industry, surpassing 40 million units, a 27 percent increase from the same period last year, representing the fastest growing segment of the mobile devices market.
Google Reader Gets Much Needed Social Features
Google has added a number of new features to Google Reader. The biggest one, which is long overdue, is the ability to share content on other social networks. This seems like it should have been available for ages, but it has been MIA until now.