It’s tough to keep things quiet these days, especially with all that Twittering. Unnamed engineers drowning their overhead redundancy woes over the weekend passed on the news—with documentation—to a Berkeley grad student Bay Area executive that Google was trying to keep engineer layoffs out of the press.
Getting Ranked In Google Maps
In the session "Up Close with Google Maps & Local" the panel focused on factors that influence what appears and how it is ranked.
Online Radio Grows 37 Percent
Online music radio and track play listening hours increased 37.6 percent to 6.67 billion in 2008, while in-stream audio sold against ad -supported cumulative hours rose by 46.1 percent to $74 million over the 12 month period, according to a report by AccuStream iMedia Research.
The report, "Online Music Spins and Media Spend: 2003 – 2012," found that AOL’s Shoutcast platform remains the most popular destination for online music, accounting for 52.5 percent of total time spent listening, followed by Clear Channel sites with 7.8 percent.
Is Yahoo Looking to Offer SEO Services?
A patent application filed by Yahoo is causing a bit of a stir within the SEO community. The patent is for an "Automated System to Improve Search Engine Optimization on Web Pages." The abstract for the patent reads as follows:
Twitter Hot in UK, Overshadowed by Plurk in Singapore
Twitter has entered the top 100 most visited websites in the UK according to Hitwise. It came in at number 91 beating out Expedia UK, Gumtree, easyJet, Digital Spy, and Money Supermarket, which Hitwise research director Robin Goad refers to as "online heavyweights."
Twitter traffic has multiplied by 27 over the last year, and this is only the main site. It doesn’t take into account access via third party applications or mobile phones.
Liquor Locator Helps You Find Your Favorite Booze
Some are very, very particular about their liquor, but maybe only a few are so selective they would employ interactive iPhone app magic to find out who carries a certain brand. Nonetheless, Proximo’s Liquor Locator both reinforces a brand image all liquor sellers push—that their customers are a selective, discerning, elite who never settle—and demonstrates how the era of the web app can be strikingly useful to marketers.
Do You Like What Your Facebook Friends Post?
Last night Facebook announced a new feature for users who share content on the social network. Now when you post content, your friends will be able to let you know if they like what you’re posting by simply clicking a button.
Social Network Users Prefer Opt-In Ads
The majority (71%) of social network users have two or more profiles on different sites and 26 percent have four or more profiles, according to new research from InsightExpress.
Among social network users who have created only one profile, 46 percent are on MySpace and 36 percent are on Facebook. Those who have two or three profiles can be found on MySpace (78%), Facebook (71%), Classmates (22%), and LinkedIn (11%).
How is Google Weighing Forum Results?
There is an interesting thread going on at the WebmasterWorld forum looking at whether or not Google favors forums in search results. Matt Cutts tells me that he can neither confirm nor deny this. The thread is started by someone with the handle "bouncybunny," who posts:
Once it was directories, then blogs, now forums… maybe.
I have no empirical evidence for this, but it seems to me that Google is increasingly returning results from forum posts…
Alleviating Google Latitude Privacy Concerns
Google’s recently announced Latitude service has sparked a bit of concern among privacy advocates and the generally paranoid. I spoke with a Google Spokesperson about this.
Google Latitude is a feature in Google Maps for mobile and iGoogle that allows you to share your location with your family and friends in real time.