WhosTalkin.com has launched to the public after residing in private beta for 7 months. What’s WhosTalkin.com you ask? It’s a social media search engine that allows users to search across a number of social networking sites, blogs, news sites, forums, etc. And it’s pretty cool.
Ask Shows Off Its Advanced Semantic Search
Remember Ask? You know, the search engine with the Butler. While the company doesn’t get brought up in the discussion as much as it once did, it has not surrendered to Google and it’s other competitors just yet. Ask has now announced some advances in its semantic search technology. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Semantic Search, Wikipedia explains it:
LinkedIn Upgrades Search Interface
LinkedIn puts its current user base at about 33 million, and as such, it’s easy to believe that the odds of finding professionals with even remotely common names are beyond slim. The site’s trying to keep this from happening, though, with some interesting new search upgrades.
Verizon Taps Microsoft For Mobile Search
Verizon has tapped Microsoft to provide search services for its mobile phones.Verizon Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said on Wednesday that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would formally announce the deal later today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Reuters reported.
Retailers Increase Paid Search Spend
Multi-channel retailers increased their U.S. paid search spend in Q4 08 by 12 percent compared to Q4 07.Consumers continued to convert online at a steady rate, although they spent 10 percent less on average per transaction compared with the prior year, according to a report from SearchIgnite.
The Future Of Search Marketing In 2009
The countdown is on. Only a handful of sleeps until 2009 and of course the predictions are flowing thick and fast. The experts are gazing into their crystal balls and sharing their visions for 2009 in terms of search, social, online, mobile and marketing in general.I’ve pulled together a list of the best predictions I’ve uncovered so far and detailed them below. (if I’ve missed any – share them via our comments, and I’ll add them in).
Easing the Search for Twitterers
Twellow, our tool that has made finding fellow Twitterers with common interests easier for a number of users has just made searching for these people even more convenient. You can add special characters to your queries to enhance your search. If you are unfamiliar with Twellow, think about it as a yellow-pages service for finding people on Twitter. You can search for things or browse the directory to find people who tweet about the topics you are interested in.
A Search Engine Marketing Challenge
A few search engine marketers have come together to present the SEM Challenge, which is described as a project for the search engine marketing community to use their online skills to make a real difference in the offline world. The initiative is working with charity organization FORGE, which works with displaced communities in Africa. The challenge itself is to meet their budget gap of $100,000 through a pro-bono SEM campaign designed to increase awareness and donations.
Google Gives More Options for Narrowing Down Image Search
Much like with email, and obviously search in general (although the market share doesn’t dictate such obviousness), the competition between Google and Yahoo seems to be heated on the image search front as well. Maybe "heated" is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.
How Will Personalized Search Affect Niche Engines?
As I was writing a piece on RushmoreDrive, the search engine (and more) that was created as a way to provide relevant results from the black community, I started thinking about how the future of search could impact its use and the use of niche search engines in general. Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers on this topic, but it raises some interesting questions nonetheless.