Category: Archive

Italian prosecutors have – sort of – tried to put several Google executives (and the company’s former CFO) in jail.  The prosecutors requested sentences ranging from six months to one year in connection with a case that involved a YouTube video and a disabled boy.

Update: Google says its new ad formats are "the next chapter in search advertising", and its "AdWords New Ad Formats Initiative" will focus on two themes:

After all is said and done Rupert Murdoch may still be seen as the sly old fox that really knew best. Many bloggers and journalists have pounded the insanity of Murdoch’s suggestion that News Corp publications might strike an exclusive indexing deal with Bing and delist itself from Google’s search engine.

Bing has managed to turn retailers’ heads in a big way.  After looking at statistics from part of 2008, SearchIgnite reported that retailers spent almost 50 percent more with Microsoft’s search engine this time around, which puts Google and Yahoo partly to shame.

Wikipedia is a very useful site for anyone looking to find information on any given topic. Chances are that you have used it for research at one time or another. Even if you don’t start by going directly to Wikipedia, results from the site are often at the top of search results in Google, and you’ll get there anyway.

Shhh, can you hear that? What you’re hearing is the collective shrieks from Twihards everywhere as The Twilight Saga: New Moon is upon us. For those of you asking yourself, what is a Twihard? I’ve included the definition below.

twi-hard noun
A serious/obsessive reader of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, one leap above Twilighters.

If you use Twitter or create content, you have probably figured out by now that it can be a great tool for driving traffic to your site. There are measures you can take to expand this if your content is not bringing in the Twitter traffic on its own.

Is Twitter a significant traffic source for your site? Comment here.

Another sign of the importance a certain search giant places on Google Wave came today as the acquisition of a company called AppJet was announced.  AppJet offers a product that mirrors certain aspects of Google Wave, only since it’s been around for a little longer, may have one or more legs up.

Amazon.com has introduced a "Textbooks Trade-In" program, which allows people to exchange used textbooks in return for an Amazon gift card.

Users can search for the book on Amazon they want to trade and view how much credit they will receive in the form of a gift card.  If the offer seems reasonable, users can print a pre-paid shipping label and put the book in the mail.

We’re well into the holiday season now, in terms of having sites ready for holiday sales. That said, it’s never too late to improve your site. Your sales may depend on it. There are lot of key ingredients that go into the recipe of a successful e-commerce site: marketing, analytics, customer service, prices, competition, and the list goes on. Somewhere in there is design, and more importantly, usability.