An important element (read: selling point) of Internet marketing is the ability to know more about consumers and their behaviors. Everything can be tracked on the Internet, for the most part, and there is obvious value to marketers and their efforts. The flip side of this ability to track people is the privacy issue and lately the US government has been raising it’s regulatory eyebrows at the online world.
Google Penalizes Itself
Go ahead and laugh, because it is funny. Google Japan’s probably too embarrassed to laugh, though, and someone somewhere is likely to resemble the spittle-drenched apologist from the movie Gung Ho.
Google Japan, according to its apology, was apparently unaware of the company’s own terms of service. Paying a Japanese pay-per-post promotion company to pimp its new Hot Keywords blog widget caused the website to be busted down from PR 9 to PR 5.
Google Looks At Itself Through Your Eyes
What captures a user’s attention on their screen can play a large part in whether or not they click through to a search engine result. Naturally, that makes finding out where eyeballs go on a SERP vital to their overall search experience, and hence, vital to Google’s strategy.
Google of course obtains this knowledge through extensive eye tracking research. The company has a post up today revealing some findings from their latest efforts in this area.
Is Google Second-Guessing Itself?
Times are tight. Heck, college professors are having to sell ad space on exam pages to make up for budget cuts. It would make sense that Google would increase the number of ads on its search pages, too, except it’s hard to forget certain executive speeches about fewer ads with better targeting.
Is Google Digging Itself?
Rumors had floated for weeks Google was negotiating to buy Digg.com for purposes of enhancing Google News. But it looks like Google is already integrating Digg-like features in a surprisingly open round of testing in the search results. With Google’s slate of engineers, one wonders why they would buy a site if they could replicate the same idea. Imagine results created by users voting them up or down, results users can comment on and rate the comments of others.
Google Becoming Too Big For Itself?
Fortune magazine has one of the most comprehensive "Google’s starting to fall apart" articles, I’ve seen in a long time.
AOL Attaches Itself To Goowy
You have to feel a bit bad for AOL and Goowy – here they are with a solid arrangement in place, and Microsoft’s mammoth offer to Yahoo is all anyone can talk about. Ah, well. We’ll try to toss a few paragraphs their way, and begin by pointing out that AOL acquired Goowy.
MoveOn Web 2.0-ifies Itself
More than just technology companies and marketers are taking advantage of the widget concept. Political activist group MoveOn.org has released several of them for use on blogs and open platform social networking sites like Facebook.
Plaxo Interested In Selling Itself
We’re in a quiet time of year – not much happens during the holiday season or for a short period afterwards. Plaxo is reportedly trying to sell itself, though, and discussions about the company’s reputation and its asking price have stirred things up a bit.
Google Claims More Market Share For Itself
You’d think that at some point, Google would have so much that it couldn’t possibly grow any further, but despite having a lock on the top spot, Google continues to claim a larger slice of the pie month after month.