Google’s “Near me Now”
Google No Local Yokel (But It’s Getting There)
Putting the kibosh on any remnant possibility of a Google tie-up, Yelp is reportedly close to closing a fifth round of financing in the neigborhood of $50 million. Led by Elevation Partners, the round would include both a primary investment component, along with a secondary offering for long time employees, according to TechCrunch.
“These deals are now being referred to as ‘DST deals,’ since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation,” TechCrunch explains.
The valuation is also reportedly lower than the $550+ million that Yelp turned down from Google.
Upon news of the failed acquisition in late December, TechCrunch speculated that some powerful force — “Apple, Microsoft, etc. — came to Yelp with an offer for a strategic deal [sic] gave (Yelp CEO Jeremy) Stoppleman the confidence to say no to Google.”
Citing a source briefed on the negotiations, The Times’ Bits blog later challenged the notion that it was Stoppleman who called off the deal at the eleventh hour. Rather, Google reportedly balked at Yelp’s counter-offer, which included mention of a higher offer from another party in the vicinity of $750 million.
Google, meanwhile, appears to be moving full speed ahead with its grand designs for time-sensitive, location-based consumer guides. Earlier this month, it made its related “Near Me Now” service live on iPhones and Android smartphones, which helps users retrieve timely information on nearby services and establishments.
Itself continuing to up the anti, Yelp just last week added the ability for users to check in to venues they visit — pitting it directly against popular location-based community site likes Foursquare and Gowalla.
While failing to factor Google into the equation, Mashable nonetheless declares the whole location-based community space to be “so on.” - Read the whole story…
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Tags: android, google, google near me now, mobile advertising, near me now
Should Page Segmentation Become A Basic SEO Strategy?
SEO by the ponders this question after reviewing several white papers and patents during the past five years. In a recent post, he analyzes the way Yahoo segments Web pages to distinguish noise from information.
Okay, page segmentation is one thing, but can it influence query rankings and the type of information crawled and indexed by search engines Google, Microsoft and Yahoo? Slawski explains it’s possible “a link from a main content area probably carries more weight than a link from a sidebar or a footer section of a page,” and that “search engines are attempting to ignore boilerplate segments of pages when they try to determine if pages contain duplicate or near duplicate content.” – Read the whole story…
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Tags: Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, page segmentation, pay per click, ppc, search engine optimization, SEO
Google’s View-Through Conversion Reporting
Google has added a feature on the Google Content Network called View-through conversion reporting. The tool lets people better measure the impact of display ad campaigns where ads are seen, but not immediately clicked on, according to Amanda Kelly. She provides examples of how to use the tool, as well as the benefits. Some of those benefits include how to determine the best ways and places to advertise, how best to optimize display ad campaigns, and how to spend advertising dollars more effectively. - Read the whole story…
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Tags: adwords blog, adwords professional, Google Adwords, google view through, impression conversion rate, impression tracking, view thru tracking, view-through conversion, view-through conversion rate
Blimey! Online Spending Surpasses TV
OMFG! Overnight, Internet ad spending has surpassed TV adverting! Ok, it’s in the UK, but this still marks a major moment for the “World” Wide Web, and has clear implications for the U.S. market.
“What this switch indicates is that a corner has been turned in consumer and advertising habits, and there’s probably no turning back, given the relentless rise of the Web as an entertainment medium,” writes Fast Company. “When the same corner is turned in the U.S. advertising business — which equated to roughly $60 billion in the first six months of 2009 — it’ll have enormous after-effects for the future of TV and even other media like newspapers and magazines.”
In the UK, the Web now accounts for 23.5% of all ad money, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. TV advertising, meanwhile, fell about 17% year-on-year in the first half, to just over $2.5 billion, according to the report.
UK advertisers spent about $2.8 billion on Internet advertising in the six months to the end of June, a 4.6% year-on-year increase, according to the report. To put this in perspective, in 1998, when the IAB first measured Internet advertising, just over $31 million was spent online.
All told, it took the Internet little more than a decade to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK.
Guy Phillipson, the chief executive of the IAB, reckoned that there is still significant growth potential left in the internet ad market, saying: “We could absolutely see it grow to being a 30% medium [of share of ad spend], to go past ($6.4 billion) to even ($8 billion) annually … Online display advertising has plenty of room for growth.” - Read the whole story…
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Tags: effective marketing, Internet Marketing, Online Advertising, online media spends, online vs tv, tv advertising, UK media spends
Yahoo Reveals Search Partnership Details in SEC Filing
Marketwatch
Yahoo on Wednesday revealed further details about its search partnership with Microsoft in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the filing, Microsoft has agreed to hire no fewer than 400 Yahoo employees once the search advertising partnership begins. It will also pay Yahoo $150 million over three years to help cover Yahoo’s costs for getting the partnership started.
The Web giant also revealed the terms under which the deal could be terminated. Microsoft and Yahoo may end the arrangement by July 2010 for reasons including “mutual consent”, although Yahoo has a right to extend the termination date by six months if antitrust approval hasn’t yet been granted. It also has the right to end the partnership with Microsoft if their combined search market share in the U.S. falls below a certain percentage of Google’s-although that percentage was not specified. In addition, Yahoo could terminate the deal if the amount advertisers are paying per click on sponsored search links falls below a certain percentage of Google’s, but that percentage was not specified, either.
As has been previously reported, Microsoft will provide its search technology to power Yahoo’s sites, handing over 88% of any resulting search advertising revenue during the first five years of the deal. Microsoft will also hand Yahoo all user data it collects through the agreement on Yahoo’s sites. - Read the whole story…
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Tags: bing, microsoft, microsoft deal, msn, yahoo, yahoo deal, yahoo microsoft, yahoo search
Twitter to Launch Revamped Homepage
In an interview Twitter cofounder Biz Stone reveals that the microblogging sensation is set to unveil a new homepage next week. Stone says the current page is confusing to those who’ve been made aware of Twitter by the massive media coverage the site has received over the last year. The new homepage will consist of a search box, information on Twitter trends, and specific information for newbies about how they can use Twitter.
“We need to do a better job of explaining ourselves to people who hear about us and then have no idea what do to,” Stone says. “We have to turn a lot of awareness into engagement. Our front page is not reflective of that right now.” He adds that the new homepage will emphasize that Twitter is “a place where people can discover what is going on in real-time and much more.”
Swisher notes that, currently, there is no central Twitter hub, and users mostly interact with their own pages. She says the site could eventually use a more programmed homepage that features popular subjects, tweets and more. - Read the whole story…
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Tags: biz stone, home page, kara swisher, microblogging, twitter, twitter homepage, twitter trends
Report: Microsoft Gains Just 0.4% Search Share in June
If Bing’s first month represented Microsoft’s best shot at taking search share from Google, then it’s been a huge disappointment, says Silicon Alley Insider’s Nicholas Carlson. According to the latest figures from comScore, Microsoft’s search market share was up just 0.4% in June, to 8.4% from 8.0% in May. Considering the many tens of millions of dollars Microsoft has spent promoting its new search engine, 0.4% growth simply isn’t going to cut it, especially when Google maintained its 65% share.
Yesterday, SAI cited a report from JP Morgan’s Imran Khan which claimed that 98% of searchers won’t switch to Bing as their primary search engine. So, if the software giant seriously wants to compete with Google in search, it might want to consider buying Yahoo’s search business again. Yahoo, meanwhile, continued to lose search share in June, accounting for 19.6% of the market, down from 20.1% in May. As Carlson says, continued downward momentum there makes a search deal with Microsoft more likely. - Read the whole story…
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Tags: bing, google, microsoft, msn search share, search leader, search share, sem, yahoo
Facebook’s Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users
Is Facebook losing its cool factor? According to estimates provided by Facebook to advertisers that were archived for trafficking by iStrategyLabs, college and high school users of the site have declined in absolute numbers by 20 and 15%, respectively, in just six months. At the same time, the number of Facebook users aged 55 and over has jumped from under 1 million to nearly 6 million in the same time period. As Read Write Web’s Marshall Kirkpatrick notes, this means there are more Facebook users over 55 today than there are high school students using the site. “Facebook cannot be excited about this,” he says.
How did iStrategy come up with these dramatic numbers? It’s pretty simple, actually-anyone can go to Facebook’s self-serve advertising program and see the company’s estimated user demographics numbers. IStrategy simply captured that data six months ago and saved it for comparison now.
According to the chart, which you can see if you click through to the story, young people by age are up a small amount, but young people by school enrollment are down. Meanwhile, users with undeclared education levels are way, way up, implying that many high school and college students may no longer be listing their schools on the site. That’s a big change for a company that started out as a networking site for college students, Kirkpatrick says. “We wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook stopped showing advertisers the number of high school and college students soon and relied only on the age distribution.” - Read the whole story…
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Tags: demographic, facebook, facebook demographic, social network marketing, social network targeting, social networking
Google is preparing a new service called Google Voice that provides users with a single phone number that seamlessly routes calls to their existing phones. The service also has built-in voicemail that can be accessed from any phone or through a Web browser. It features automatic message transcription (converting voicemails to text, which will be searchable) and free SMS delivery. Users can also forward their voicemail transcripts directly to their email accounts. Other cool features: recording incoming (but not outgoing) calls with the touch of a button, playing back recorded calls and voicemails directly through the browser, or even downloading them as MP3 files.
According to reports, Google recently obtained a million new phone numbers from Level 3, an Internet backbone operator, signaling that the search giant is preparing to open Google Voice to a broader audience. Reports also claim that Voice customers will be offered number portability, enabling them to move existing phone numbers to the Google infrastructure.
Ars Technica, which has participated in the service’s closed beta program, says Google Voice is “remarkably powerful and easy to use” and “has the potential to get a lot more interesting as Google integrates its capabilities into its Android smartphone platform.” - Read the whole story…
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Tags: google, google labs, google search, google voice, new google products
Recent Entries
- Google’s “Near me Now”
- Should Page Segmentation Become A Basic SEO Strategy?
- Google’s View-Through Conversion Reporting
- OMFG! Online Ad spending surpasses TV Ad spending
- Yahoo Reveals Search Partnership Details in SEC Filing
- Twitter to Launch Revamped Homepage
- Report: Microsoft Gains Just 0.4% Search Share in June
- Google Drops A Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome.
- Facebook’s Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users
- Google Prepares to Launch Google Voice
- 80% of Twitter Traffic Comes from Third Parties
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