Well, socially speaking, there being more interest in First Lady-Elect Michelle Obama than in Britney Spears or Paris Hilton is a positive change, one that bodes well for society. On the flip side, as Inauguration Day nears, spammers are rewarding that renewed interest in affairs of state with an onslaught of junk mail. Of the 1.4 million spam emails analyzed by SPAMfighter in December, Michelle Obama was the subject nearly five times as much as Britney Spears was, nearly six times as often as Paris Hilton, and ten times as much as Angelina Jolie.
Google Announces Winners Of Website Workout Contest
Google’s Website Optimizer works, and the company really, really wants you to know it. The winners of the Google Website Workout contest – which challenged businesses to use the tool and improve their conversion rates – have been announced in just about every place possible, giving both them and Website Optimizer all sorts of publicity.
When Stock Market Fails, Try The Lottery
Wealthier households are visiting lottery websites with more frequency than their lower income counterparts, Hitwise reports. Heather Hopkins’ investigation was prompted by AP report about rising sales of state scratch-off lottery tickets.
YouTube Mutes (Some) Copyrighted Music
If you happen to come across some silent YouTube videos today, there’s no need to start investigating your speaker settings and browser defaults. It seems that the "problem" is on YouTube’s end; the site’s owners have chosen to mute certain clips as a way of dealing with copyright violations.
Blockbuster To Offer Content On More Devices
Blockbuster has partnered with Sonic Solutions to offer Video on Demand on a wide variety of consumer electronic devices in an effort to stay competitive with Netflix.The two companies are working with a number of consumer electronic manufacturers, including Sonic’s CinemaNow, to expand the ecosystem of interoperable devices offering the Blockbuster service.The devices will include PCs, portable media players, Blu-ray Disc players, set-top boxes, mobile phones and Internet -connected television sets.
Google Starts Apps Reseller Program
Google has started a program in which resellers can begin selling Google Apps to businesses. Naturally, you would sell the apps to customers, and then kick up money to Google.
Google Introduces New Open Source Sitemap Generator
Google has introduced a new Sitemap Generator for webmasters to help them create better sitemap files. Google had previously introduced one back in 2005, and watched many other people make their own, but this one is different they say.
What SEOs Want from Google’s Webspam Team in ’09
UPDATE: Cutts has tallied the demands so far and shares them in a list here.
Google to be More Transparent in 2009
Matt Cutts of Google’s Search Quality Team made a post on the Google Webmaster Blog indicating that a goal of his this year is to make Google more transparent and to communicate more.
Times Online Source Denies Google Teakettle Comparison
Remember all that hype about a pair of Google searches being equivalent to heating a teakettle to boiling? Yeah, never mind. It seems the Times Online did a little fuzzy math and the Harvard source credited with providing that little tidbit says they didn’t hear that from him.