StumbleUpon has been around a while, and if you’re like 5 million others, you understand what an addictive, stimulus-response type network it really is. But like with other social networks such as Digg, Twitter, or Facebook, many marketers are still at a loss for how to make the most of it.
Google Headed Back Towards Average?
I don’t usually follow sponsored links when doing research (intentional ad blindness), but people are getting better at getting my attention. Mark Hines at Vestopia targeted GOOG and bragged via AdWords that he sold out at $741. Click and he’ll tell you why.
Google Earth Turns Unwelcome Eye Towards Israel
We’ve seen this sort of thing before: people complaining that Google Earth has exposed military secrets or put certain structures at risk. Yet of all the nations in the world, Israel may have the most right to worry, and it’s this country that the latest update affected.
Search World Turns Towards Burma
Top search terms aren’t always of vital significance – Google Trends currently places “when was the first bottle of coca cola sold” at number six, for example. But search terms can also relate to very important matters, and a focus on Burma reflects this reality.
Google Puts $10M Towards Sustainable Transport
If these products come to your local car dealerships, they’ll need to have a better name than “sustainable transportation solutions.” But by issuing a $10 million request for proposals (RFP), Google intends to give the products an improved chance of making it that far.
YouTube Steps Towards Widescreen
All the latest televisions have embraced this format, and now YouTube (sort of) has, as well: video search results are being displayed in a widescreen ratio. It’s not clear when this feature might make the jump to the videos themselves, however.
Progress Made Towards Netflix Prize
A number of people were suspicious when the Netflix Prize was announced. $1 million isn’t much of a reward, some complained, and others believed that it would be difficult to improve upon the site’s movie recommendation algorithm. Now, a little over one week into the contest, three teams have already beaten the existing system.
Scalability Testing: 7 Steps Towards Success
Systems that work well during development, deployed on a small scale, can fail to meet performance goals when the deployment is scaled up to support real levels of use.
Towards Next Generation URLs
For many years we have heard about the impending death of URLs that are difficult to type, remember and preserve.
Should You Steer Clients Towards Local Search?
When providing SEO/SEM services for clients (or doing it for yourself), do you target, or at least pay attention to the growing number of local search presences? If so, is this something you consider worthwhile and if not, would you ever consider doing so…?