Blogosphere Round-up
With so much going on in the blogosphere right now, my Bloglines must be exhausted. Here are some highlights:
First things first, ad:tech San Francisco kicks off today (as does SES Milan). Bruce is there speaking at today’s Organic SEO Fireside Chat. Aw, doesn’t that sound cozy! If you find yourself in the Bay area, definitely try and check it out. Many of the same industry experts that were partying it up at PubCon Boston last week have now made the cross country journey to participate in ad:tech. Here’s your chance to pry top-secret information out jetlagged SEO specialist!
Blogs, blogs, blogs. ClickZ reports on a study that shows the blogosphere is attracting readers in four main categories: Politics, Gossip, Music, and Mom blogs. Mom blogs? My mother can’t even work a browser.
Search Engine Journal is reporting that Yahoo! TV seems to be ‘semi up and running’. The service lets users view photos, movie trailers, video clips, and record their favorite TV shows without ever opening a browser. It’s good to see Yahoo’s not letting its recent Meedio acquisition go to waste. Yahoo! TV is essentially a free version of Microsoft’s Media Center. It’ll be interesting to see if users opt for the free Yahoo download or use MSN Media Center which comes pre-installed (with a small usage cost) into most machines.
John Battelle reports that Google is promoting their first non Google product on their homepage. And it’s Firefox! John provides a screenshot to show Google’s Firefox link that appears prominently on the Google homepage. Sounds good to me, we’re all about Firefox around here. I’m just fearful of the new, almost cluttered look it creates. Not so pretty.
And in case you were wondering what a Google job interview feels like, Peter Abilla provides a very interesting account. Think 11 interviews over two days with one weird birthday-related brain teaser. Ouch. Noteworthy items: Google doesn’t (or didn’t at the time) pay to bring people in for interviews, or pay for their flight or lunch. Cheapskates. Kidding!
More Google-speak: Nathan Weinberg points us to an odd Chinese Flash movie promoting Google China. Nathan provides a translation of the movie, which includes lines like:
“Welcome to Guge. Let’s search for you. Let’s harvest for you. One piece of information is just like one piece of grass, alive and full of vitality, together they build up a big, endless, green lawn.”
Hear that, Google is like a big, endless, green lawn. Yeeeah.
Nathan also points to a blog illustrating MSN’s Windows Live testing a ‘search within a site’ feature that appears directly from the search results page. When users do a search they are greeted by a sub-search box listed under each result. By entering a keyword phrase into the box users can do a site command search and only show results from within that site. I personally can’t see it, but it’s an interesting test.
I’m starting to get concerned that something is seriously bugging Seth Godin. He followed up yesterday’s post about not being afraid of the process (or something) with a rant today about the dangers of clearing out your inbox. According to Seth, your main objective is to never be ‘done’ at work.
Careful Seth, all work and no play puts the computer-bound at serious risk for developing repetitive stress injuries (RSI). Google’s official staff doctor (yes, along with gourmet meals, they also get a doctor) offered up some advice on how to avoid carpal tunnel and severe work-related neck and back pain. According to the Google MD, RSIs account for 34% of all lost-workday injury and illnesses. Yowsa — so much for hard work never hurting anyone. Excuse me while I go crack my neck. Again.
UPDATE:
Matt Cutts announced Google will begin notifying webmasters of penalties. Matt says this is ‘both a Big Deal and a Good Thing.’ We couldn’t agree more. Users will be contacted via the webmaster console in Sitemaps so, in order to benefit, you must sign up for Sitemaps.
Jason Dowdell reexamines the Google click fraud case and gives users a list of Google Click Fraud Settlement Facts You Should Know. Most notable is that Dowdell breaks down the terms of the settlement to illustrate an advertiser who lost $10,000 will be entitled to a whopping $5 (though there seems to be some discrepancy about where to put the decimal. Andy Beal posts a press release that puts the number at $50). If you’re advertising with Google, you may want to familiarize yourself with this article.
