YouTube Solicits Ideas For Partner Program
- Posted by Doug Caverly in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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YouTube Partners are, pretty much by definition, some of YouTube’s most important users.  They create original content, don’t violate copyright laws, and have huge audiences.  It makes sense, then, that YouTube is now looking hard for ways to improve its Partner Program.
The hunt has taken the form of a crowdsourced project.  Just as the Ideas Page for YouTube was created not too long ago for the sake of the whole site, the new Product Ideas Page for the YouTube Partner Program covers this single subject.  People can submit ideas and vote on which ones they think are best.
It’s an effective process.  On the YouTube Biz Blog, Filipe Lima noted with respect to the first effort, "It was a success, receiving almost 3,000 ideas and more than 300,000 votes.  We even launched a few features that directly addressed some of the requests - namely, an HTML5 Beta (there were many HTML5 advocates who participated) and a sneak peek of our new cleaner video page (some desired a ‘less cluttered’ YouTube)."
So now we’ll see where round two takes us.
The deadline for both new submissions and votes is April 12th.  If you have any suggestions, get them in earlier, though, for the sake of giving them more time to become popular.
Google Product Search for Mobile Showing When Items are in Stock
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Users of the mobile version of Google Product Search can now see if items are in stock at a local store from select retailers. These retailers include: Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm.
Product listings from these retailers will have blue dots that can be tapped to see an "in stock nearby" link, which takes you to a seller’s page where it will either say "in stock" or "limited availability". In addition, these pages will show you how far away the store is from your location (assuming you have My Location enabled or have manually specified your location).
The feature is available for iPhone, Palm WebOS, and Android users in the U.S. Users can hit the "more" link, and select "Shopping" or find the "Shopping results" section in Google’s Universal Search results when searching from Google.com.
Google offers a form for retailers who are interested in participating in this program. Google says to make sure you have your Local Business Center data up to date and to ensure your Product Search data is in "great shape."
Gowalla 2.0 Launches for iPhone
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Gowalla is a service that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a location-based social networksing service that comes in the form of mobile apps. Gowalla announced today, the availability of Gowalla 2.0 for the iPhone 3G and 3GS platforms.
Gowalla highlights the following new features with this version:
- Design – Gowalla developers have created a fresh new experience that is more flexible, readable and usable.
- Photos – Gowalla 2.0 gives users the ability to not only check in and create new spots; they can also upload a photo after checking in, browse photos from friends and see photos taken at that spot.
- Checkin Commenting – Now when a friend checks in someplace, other users in the community are able to tell that friend what they think.
- Multiple checkin messages – Users now have more opportunities to add messages even after they’ve left a checkin spot. Skipped typing a message? Come back and add one.
- Hot spots – The most popular spots nearby will be highlighted for users in a particular area to discover.
- Browse friends – and friends of friends. Browsing friends’ bookmarked spots and creating trips are two new features put in place by Gowalla’s developers by popular demand.
- Facebook, Twitter and web links – Building your Gowalla network is easier than ever with more ways to stay connected with friends through Facebook, Twitter and web links.
- Spot details – Address, phone numbers, Twitter names, Facebook pages and website will now be available in several checkin spots.
Gowalla will be heavily involved in SXSW (of which WebProNews will be covering the Interactive portion). Gowalla has updated its SXSW mini-site that details all of the SXSW initiatives the company will be rolling out, including: real world rewards, competitions, challenges and events.
 
Critical: Improve Your Mobile Search and Advertising Strategy
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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A Google exec recently said, "In three years’ time, desktops will be irrelevant." That’s debatable, but there’s no question that mobile use will have grown much more than it already has. Based on comments in a recent keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer doesn’t seem to think PC use is going to drop too much, but he did say, "Mobile queries are just going to keep going up and up and up."
Do you think desktops will be irrelevant in 3 years? Share your thoughts here.
A study released last month found that the number of mobile phone subscribers is on track to increase from 4.6 billion to 5 billion globally by the end of 2010. Another study found that consumers are getting more comfortable with mobile shopping.
Mobile Search
Google has dominated the search market for a long time, and while this still continues to be the case, it’s important to note that search in general changes with mobile. People are searching in different ways than just using their favorite search engines. They’re using different apps. They’re using their voices. They’re scanning barcodes for instant access to product information. The number of ways people are finding information with their phones is only going to keep increasing. On mobile, it’s not just about Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
That’s not to say these three aren’t still incredibly important to mobile. In fact, the search share among these top search engines may even become more greatly divided as time goes on. We’re seeing different mobile carriers and manufacturers making deals with these companies, which affect the default search options for various devices. As we discussed before, mobile search engine use may be largely dictated by device popularity, which is (in my opinion) one of the biggest things Bing will have going in its favor in terms of market share - Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 phones will come with Bing hardware keys, meaning the most convenient way to search on these devices will likely be to hit a single button taking the user to Bing. If these devices become popular, it could be huge for Microsoft in search.
As far as Google indexing and mobile sites goes, Google’s Matt Cutts says, "If you can find a way where your existing site will work well in mobile browsers, we’re not worrying about supporting two completely different sites."
To learn about this subject in more detail, read the Google Webmaster Central Blog posts: Help Google Index Your Mobile Site, and Running Desktop and Mobile Versions of Your Site.
Mobile Search Advertising
When it comes to AdWords, Google says to create separate, mobile-focused campaigns so you can optimize keywords, ad text, and landing pages for people using mobile devices. Google shared an interesting case study this week looking at Razorfish’s mobile AdWords approach. They shared the following details:
- The Razorfish team started by duplicating the existing desktop campaigns and switching the settings to target mobile devices with full internet browsers.
- Since their client had a well-known brand name, they focused on branded keyword terms with enough traffic to help them learn quickly about what was working best for their campaigns.
- To measure performance, they tracked several conversion metrics including whether a mobile user looked up the brick and mortar store location or downloaded a coupon from the website. Right away, they saw a 7.5% lower cost per conversion on mobile devices, encouraging them to test ways to optimize their mobile campaigns.
- Razorfish tested whether variations in the campaign’s landing page would affect conversion rates. The team hypothesized that mobile users might be looking to take a specific action, and by starting the user’s experience closer to that action, the client would see better results. As it turned out, for this client, they saw much higher conversion rates when the user was directed to a landing page that showed nearby store locations.
- Finally, they tested variations in the ad text. Four versions of ad text were tested, including the original copy used in desktop campaigns. Each of the three new versions provided over 9.3% lift in conversion rate over the strongest performing copy in their desktop campaigns.
When it comes to Yahoo and Microsoft search advertising, things are about to get more appealing here in general, and presumably, that includes mobile. Microsoft and Yahoo advertisers will have the audiences of both search engines to view ads once Yahoo and Bing get their integration done.
Wrapping Up
One of the most important things any search marketer can do with regards to a mobile strategy, is to simply keep up with the latest mobile trends and innovations. This space is rapidly evolving, and new apps are released frequently. Pay attention to hot apps, and how your target audience is engaging with them. What devices, operating systems, and browsers are hot? Monitor studies and surveys that delve into demographics. Try to stay ahead of the curve.
Do you have a mobile search strategy? What suggestions do you have for improving in this area? Comment.
Google’s Blogger Users Can Now Customize Their Designs
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Google has launched the Blogger Template Designer, a way to customize the look and feel of your Blogger blog.
"Over the past few years we’ve worked to scale Blogger and ensure that it is capable of handling hundreds of millions of pageviews per day," Google says. "But we also believe that blogging is about self expression and that an important part of expression is creating a custom design that expresses your unique voice. So last year we started working on a tool that would allow everyone to easily customize their blog’s look and feel, and today we’re proud to introduce the Blogger Template Designer."
Features of the template designer include:
- 15 new templates (with more on the way)
- Custom blog layouts with one, two and three columns
- Hundreds of background images courtesy of iStockphoto
- Customizable colors, fonts, and more.
"While alternative offerings force users to choose among a limited set of rigid template designs, Blogger provides an intuitive yet powerful interface so anyone to customize their blog’s design & layout - putting the user in complete control," the company says.
It’s interesting that this kind of customization has not been available from Blogger until 2010, as Blogger itself is over a decade old, and has been Google-owned since 2003.
The Blogger Template Designer is available through Blogger in Draft, Blogger’s testing ground/sandbox site.
Twitter Changes the Update Button to “Tweet”
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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When Twitter users go to post a new tweet, they have in the past used a button that says "update" (at least from Twitter.com…that varies when you get into all the different apps Twitter users use). Now, that button says "Tweet".
We’re not sure exactly when the change was made, but it appears to have been very recently, as there is quite an outpour of Tweets from users mentioning that they are now seeing the "tweet" button. Perhaps this is Twitter way of asserting some kind of ownership of the word and the brand that it carries.
Twitter made "retweeting" an official feature last year, after the community-born practice grew to mainstream use.
Interestingly, Retweet.com just sold for $250,000 this week.
The tweet button isn’t the only new thing going on with Twitter’s website this week. Twitter is currently in the process of rolling out geolocation features on the site, after having had such capabilities available via the API since November.
Twitter CEO Evan Williams will be speaking at SXSW early next week (WebProNews will be there covering it). We may get more interesting news from the company there (some expect an ad platform to be announced).
Update: Looks like some have noticed this for at least a couple days.
Twitter Location Features Rolling Out
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Last fall, Twitter started including geolocation information in its API, but it was not available through Twitter.com. That appears to be in the process of changing now.
This week, Twitter has been rolling out (it appears to still be in the process) geolocation info on tweets at Twitter.com. Various reports from users have been circulating, with those who have access to the feature pointing to a little blue icon by the tweet source on individual tweets, which when clicked, shows location information on a Map (powered by Google Maps).
The feature (as most new Twitter features do) is already receiving some criticism from users who have access to it. For example, Kim-Mai Cutler with VentureBeat says Twitter’s geotagging is "far from what Twitter needs to be a real player in location."
Cutler adds, "First, the new maps feature isn’t turned on for Twitter’s search results. The whole point of location-based search is to be able to find what’s actually happening around you right now. Instead, Twitter tosses a few such tweets into a wash of noise…"
Earlier this week, news of Facebook readying location features surfaced. The company is expected to launch something along these lines at its f8 conference in May. Location players getting the most buzz currently are Gowalla and Foursquare. They you have Google, of course. This may be the most interesting space to watch as the year progresses. It will be quite interesting to see how mainstream location sharing becomes when it comes to consumers.
Are you seeing the geolocation information showing up at Twitter.com? Do you intend to share your location when tweeting?
Street View Nears Omniscience In The UK
- Posted by Doug Caverly in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Pick a road, any road. So long as it’s in the UK, there’s a good chance Google will be able to provide you with pictures taken from it. Today, the search giant made much more Street View imagery available, meaning its photographs now cover about 238,000 miles - or 96 percent - of British roads.
The figure below tells most of the story if those numbers don’t do it for you. As you can see, just about every street in the UK has been navigated by camera-equipped cars (along with an assortment of trikes), leading to nearly total coverage.
Google did all of this rather quickly, too, considering that the first pictures of the UK were only released in March of last year.
Of course, Google’s face- and license-plate blurring technology is in full effect, so privacy advocates shouldn’t have too much to worry about. Many people in the UK are instead viewing this accomplishment as a positive thing, with tourism officials especially excited.
Meanwhile, there’s still a concern that the European Union will force Google to keep Street View images for just six months, as opposed to one year.
Motorola Goes Bing on Android-Based Devices
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Motorola has announced a "global" alliance with Microsoft, which will see Bing used as the default search engine on Motorola Android-based devices. The move begins in China, where obviously there is some turmoil between Google and that country, but again, this is being called a "global" alliance that is "launching" in China.
Motorola says that users will get a pre-loaded Bing bookmark on their mobile browser, and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration, though users will be able to customize their devices and select their own search provider.
"We believe that consumer choice is one of the most critical components to ensuring a rich and seamless client experience," said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobile Devices. "Motorola and Microsoft have enjoyed a longstanding collaboration and the addition of Bing services to our Android-based smartphones in China is another important step in empowering our end-users."
"Mobile devices continue to be a critical place for customers to access location-based services such as local search and mapping," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Services Division at Microsoft. "We are pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Motorola to bring powerful Bing location-based services to Motorola’s innovative new mobile devices, providing consumers with more choice and flexibility in mobile search."
This is the second time in about a week Motorola has made news by offering non-Google search options on its Android-based devices. The recently launched Motorola Backflip comes with Yahoo.
Bing search and maps will be available on Motorola Android-based devices in Q1 2010 in China. No other expansion of this has been announced, but the phrase "global alliance" certainly leaves room for speculation.
FTC Takes Closer Look At Google’s AdMob Deal
- Posted by Doug Caverly in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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The "Facts about Google’s acquisition of AdMob" page Google established in November of last year apparently hasn’t satisfied the Federal Trade Commission’s curiosity.  A fresh report indicates that the FTC has stepped up its investigation of the deal by seeking sworn declarations from third parties.
This isn’t a good sign for Google.  Todd Shields and Dina Bass heard about the FTC’s move from "people with direct knowledge of the matter," so the affair appears to have developed beyond rumor stage.
Also, after talking to Stephen Calkins, a professor of law who used to serve as General Counsel of the FTC, Shields and Bass reported that the FTC tends to seek declarations "’when they think there is some significant chance’ the agency will ask a court to block a merger, or seek to modify a deal."
Google’s been running into more and more antitrust trouble as of late. From the problems with its book digitization project to a European Commission probe, the search giant’s been held up on several fronts. It wouldn’t be surprising if something - such as this AdMob deal - becomes a breaking point.
Still, asking for sworn declarations isn’t the same thing as strongly objecting.  It remains possible the FTC will give Google’s acquisition of AdMob a green light.
