SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 18, 2007

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  Send To TomTom: Google Maps Partners With Personal Nav Device Maker
  TomTom, the maker of personal and in-car navigation devices that just won a bidding war ($4.2 billion, 2.9 billion euros) with competitor Garmin for digital mapping provider TeleAtlas, has announced a partnership with Google. Google Maps will now give users the option to send maps or business listings to TomTom…
• 
  Google Toolbar Exploit Affects Version 4 & 5
  Google Toolbar Dialog Spoofing Vulnerability by Aviv Raff discloses an exploit with Google’s Toolbar versions four and five. The exploit comes into play when a user adds a button to their Google toolbar. When added, a hacker can spoof the information displayed in the dialog box and influence that user…
• 
  Yahoo Maps Adds Drag And Drop Routing
  Yahoo Maps added drag and drop customizable routing, among several other improvements to the site. There’s more discussion and explanation on the Yahoo Local & Maps blog. Google has a similar feature. Below are some screenshots of the new capability on Yahoo. Additional feature upgrades on Yahoo Maps include photos…
• 
  Privacy Emerges As Major US, EU Issue In DoubleClick Acquistion Review
  Despite the fact that regulators are supposed to scrutinize the potential anti-competitive dimensions of the pending acquistion of DoubleClick by Google, privacy has sneaked into the debate as a major issue on both sides of the Atlantic. It almost threatens to overshadow the antitrust considerations, which are the heart and…
• 
  Google News Improves News Source Feature
  The Google News Blog announced that Google News has improved how they handle finding news from specific sources….
• 
  Google Webmaster Tools Adds Video Sitemaps
  The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced Google has added a Sitemaps protocol for videos. If you have videos and want to give Google more metadata on those videos to make them more searchable via Google Video Search, you now can….
• 
  If You Know About Google Docs, You’re In The Minority
  According to a new survey of 600 “PC users” (and see here) by the NPD Group, 73 percent of Americans have “never heard of, never tried” web-based productivity software replacements for Microsoft Office. Roughly 21 percent have heard of but still never tried these alternatives, which include Google Docs and…
• 
  Bloglines Beta Adds Features: Save, Photo Widget & Blog View
  Bloglines announced a few new features you can find in the Bloglines Beta RSS reader. These include a new save feature, a photo widget enhancement and a blog view option for the 3-Pane view. Here is a more detailed look at all three….
• 
  Report: Digg Wants To Sell For $300 Million (Or More)
  It’s now basically public information that social news site Digg is shopping itself. VentureBeat cites a “reliable source” in saying the company has hired private investment firm Allen & Company to sell Digg. However the site has apparently been on the block for many months (or longer). TechCrunch has a…
• 
  Who’s Ranking For Knol? Hello, Wikipedia!
  Ah, sweet irony. Yesterday I spent some time raising concerns about knowledge aggregation sites like Wikipedia and the forthcoming Google Knol potentially ranking tops for every search conducted. Today, what’s in the top results for Knol? Yep — a new Wikipedia page on the topic! The page was created…
• 
  Search Illustrated: SEM Strategy Matrix
  With so many tactical options available to today’s search marketer, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which approaches are best for achieving specific goals. Should press releases be optimized for increased brand awareness? Or, will a PPC campaign achieve better results? This week’s infographic matches common marketing goals…
• 
  SEMPO Search Marketing Training Celebrates First Year & Recapping Various SEM Training Options
  The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization tells us that its SEMPO Institute has trained more than 350 search marketers in its first year of operation. Congrats! Below, a little love for one of the few places offering real search marketing coursework, some alternative training options and thoughts on what we’re…
• 
  PEW Survey Finds Most People Don’t Google Themselves That Often After All
  Marge Simpson Googling Herself "All this time I thought ‘googling’ yourself meant the other thing." A PEW/Internet Survey out this week found that 47% of internet users have done ego searches, up from 22% five years ago. That nearly half of internet users are searching for themselves seems excessive,…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google’s GMail product manager: "User data should never be held hostage", ZDNet
• ‘?’ answers your shortcut questions, Official Gmail Blog
• The business of instant messaging – How Tos, Sydney Morning Herald
• What’s your story? Part II, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Google Aims to Be the Platform For Businesses, eWeek
• Ask.com Is Said to Open an Office in China, Trading Markets
• Yahoo! unveils Avenches plans, 24 Heures
• Ex-Jane Editor Lands at Yahoo, MediaWeek
• Google’s Checkout perks paying off, FORTUNE
• Privacy groups ramp up Google-DoubleClick attacks, News.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• MediaShift . Digging Deeper::Your Guide to Hyper-Local News, PBS
• Where in the world is …, Google LatLong
• Antarctica: A Virtual Expedition, Google LatLong
• Android Hardware In The Wild: Google Android Prototype In the Wild, Gizmodo
• Fit for a king, Google LatLong
• Mapspam Update, Mike Blumenthal
• Astronaut Mode For Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Google Android Developers Battle Bugs, Frustration, SmartMoney
• Local Papers’ Web Scramble, Wall Street Journal

Link Building

• It’s Prime Time To Get A Video Link, The Link Spiel
• Double Redirects May Take Google More Time To Pick Up On, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Add taxes to your task list, Inside AdSense
• How Can Small Business Compete in a Highly Competitive Paid Search (PPC) Market?, Search Engine Guide
• New Click Fraud Filter from Click Forensics Helps Online Publishers and Ad Networks Improve Traffic Quality, Business Wire
• Show the right ad for each keyword, Inside AdWords
• Ads now in harmony with search results, Google Custom Search
• AdWords Local PlusBox A Great Addition, Search Engine Guide
• Increase Your Click-Through Rate with Tasty Promo Offers and Calls-to-Action, PPC Hero
• adCenter Budget Features Update, adCenter Blog
• Microsoft Affiliate Network Microsoft Adcenter Affiliate Program, 5 Star Affiliate Programs

Searching

• Banner Ads Coming Soon to Shopzilla, ComparisonEngines.com
• Live Search Launches Celebrity xRank & Video Search, Mel Carson

SEM Industry

• Announcing The 2007 Performancing Blog Awards – Call For Nominations, Performancing.com
• Happy Birthday DaveN !, David Naylor
• Tons of PubCon interviews on video and audio, Matt Cutts
• 10 Games for search marketers, News.com
• PubCon Las Vegas 2007: Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim, WebProNews

SEO & SEM

• Migrating URLs, Rimm Kaufman
• Interview with Google’s Matt Cutts at Pubcon , Stephan Spencer
• Podcast: Competitive Intelligence, SEO 101
• Results Oriented Thinking & Marketing Advice for SEOs, SEO Book
• 29 Ways to Use SEOmoz’s Premium Content for Search Marketing Success, SEOmoz
• No more RSS feeds in Google’s search results, Sebastian
• 50 Tips for Christmas Website Optimization, Search Engine Guide
• 9 Paths of SEO Enlightenment, Part III, Search Engine Guide
• Search Marketing on the Efficient Frontier, Search Engine Watch
• SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Match.com Comes to Facebook, New York Times
• Keeping Up With Your Blog Visitors: An Interview with MyBlogLog, Collective Thoughts
• What’s Coming Next at Digg?, Read/Write Web
• Sphinn toolbar, Groowe toolbars

Video, Music & Image Search

• Joost launches NBA channel, Reuters

Web Analytics

• Online training with EpikOne, Google Analytics Blog
• Google Analytics plugin updated! – Analytics WordPress, Joost de Valk

Other Items

• Can Search Usage Predict Election Outcomes?, Yahoo Search Blog
• Finding ways to give back during the holidays, Official Google Checkout Blog
• The 300 Most Popular Baby Names According to Google Search Results, BlogStorm
• Google spanks memory, disk and networking vendors, The Register

Last 20 Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Veni Vidi Vici: I Came, I Saw, I… Sphunn?
• A Review of the New Digg Images and Universal Taxonomy Implementation
• How To Check Your Global Google SERPs Efficiently
• Matt Cutts Comes Through! (Well, Mostly…)
• Google terminates indexing of Atom/RSS feeds
• Knol, Squidoo & the truth from the google blog
• Do You Use Google For Vanity Searching? You’re Not Alone
• A Career In SEO? Good Move.
• A Career in SEO? Bad Move.
• Knol – We Will Not Make Editorial Judgements, But We Desire to Rank Our Content #1
• Social Media By The Numbers: Mixx
• My Love / Hate Relationship with Social Media
• Seth Godin on Knol, Squidoo, and Platforms
• Interview with Google’s Matt Cutts at Pubcon
• Your Search Wish List Could Make You A Winner
• 2007 Search Blogs Awards : Nominations Now Open
• Study: More Americans Googling themselves
• Web 2.0 Can Be Dangerous
• 3 Ways To Keep Blogging From Killing Your Business
• Getting the Most out Of Your Anchor Text: It’s not as Simple as you Think!
• How Can Small Business Compete in a Highly Competitive Paid Search (PPC) Market?
• Beating Matt Cutts at the Black Hat game
• PPC Managers: Think Twice Before Using Your Client’s Credit Card

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.