Alert Blog Reviews

Reading Biz Stone’s op-ed in the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper almost had me snoozing. Not that Biz is boring–he’s actually quite fascinating–but the article was just a recap of stuff we already knew. Then I saw these closing statements: ..It can be these things but primarily Twitter serves as a real-time information network powered by people around the world discovering what’s happening and sharing the news… In the new year, Twitter will begin supporting a billion search queries a day. We will be delivering several billion tweets per hour to users around the world… (Emphasis added) Er, did he just say billion? With a "b"? Does Google know about this? You don’t need to answer that, I know it knows. But seriously, Twitter’s serving 1 billion search queries a day–and it’s not even a search engine? No wonder Google and Bing rushed to sign partnership deals with the micro-blogging site. No wonder neither of them could find the right price to acquire the company! According to recent estimates , Google is handling around 300,000 to 500,000 million searches a day–about half of what Biz boasts Twitter is seeing. And, let’s not forget, Google IS a search engine. I can’t make up my mind the exact reason Biz slipped that into the piece. I’ve narrowed it down to two reasons. One: Twitter just wanted to fire a warning shot across the bow of traditional search engines. Put them on notice, if you will. Two: We’ll see a Twitter IPO in the next 12-18 months . Twitter has far more users than Google had when it went public. If it can reveal revenues anywhere close to $100 million a year, then I think investors will be tripping over themselves to buy in. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Twitter’s New Year Resolutions: 1 Billion Searches a Day & an IPO?

Earlier this month, Google announced that its Personalized Search results would come to even computers that weren’t signed in to Google accounts . With the opt-out system in place, many users and public computers can’t help but use personalized search by default—and it may be AdSense publishers paying for it. The logic goes something like this: if Google is now storing information about what you’re searching for even if you’re not signed in, it may also serve ads based on your search and browsing history, which you’re less likely to click on than ads only relevant to the page’s content. I’m not 100% sure that theory holds true (need more data!), but at least some AdSense publishers are seeing definite drop-off since Google threw the switch. A thread on WMW documents some of publishers seeing this problem—and others who haven’t. Among those who’ve spoken up, seven of eleven have seen some sort of decrease in December (the original poster cited a significant slide in CTR and clicks from December 5 versus prior years, with CTR down 12.3% to 22.6% of normal average and clicks down 22.8% to 35.2% of normal average). Of course, the personalized search change isn’t the only explanation in the first 30 messages of the WMW thread, alternate explanations offered include: the “Caffeine” update in Google’s index annual holiday decline (though the OP and some others note that this is more significant than previous years) the wider rollout of interest-based ads short sample skewing the results sector-specific slowdowns Interestingly, the original poster returned the day after posting and noted that his CTR had jumped that day. He hadn’t seen a dropoff in his earnings per click (though the new high day carried much higher earnings). What do you think? What could be behind a decrease—and have you seen one? Is personalized search affecting your AdSense results?

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Is Personalized Search Killing AdSense Publishers?

I don’t quite ever remember a social network that I at first so loved, and then ultimately, so hated. Fortunately, the bad taste left in my mouth by MyBlogLog will likely go away at the beginning of the year–according to rumors that Yahoo will shutter the service. MyBlogLog had so much potential as a network that connected bloggers with their readers. So much, in fact, that Yahoo bought the company back in January 2007 . The ink was barely dry on the contract when the service simply started sucking: Removing MyBlogLog Widget – Too Slow Today MyBlogLog Reacts to Boycott, Reinstates Shoemoney MyBlogLog a Bunch of Schmoes? Forget Google, Now MyBlogLog Adds Friends without Your Consent That’s just a summary–and doesn’t include the now infamous event where a former Yahoo employee got egg on his face. You can argue that MyBlogLog suffered because of better solutions from Google and Facebook, but in the end, I believe the company’s former co-founder Eric Marcoulier hits the nail on the head: “So much of your company’s long term success when it’s acquired is based on the amount of executive juice it has. The only way it survives and flourishes is if you have an executive champion who promotes it internally. Shortly after we were acquired we were transferred away from our champion and under someone who didn’t feel the same way about MyBlogLog. In those circumstances, things simply slow down.” Or completely suck. I wonder how many other Yahoo products have suffered the same fate?

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MyBlogLog to Become NoBlogLog?

According to TechCrunch sources , Google is nearing the final stages of an agreement to acquire DocVerse , real-time Microsoft Office collaboration software company founded in 2007. Sources say the purchase price is $25M. The acquisition seems to make sense as Google and Microsoft square off for battle . The DocVerse website bears the title tag “Make Word, PowerPoint and Excel Work Like Google Docs.” Although Google Docs can already import Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, and already offers the real-time (or pretty close) collaboration, they could certainly improve, especially in the file conversion area. However, we can’t tell yet whether this will be enough as a competitor to Microsoft Office. Microsoft already has a stripped-down, cloud-based version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote in testing with some Windows Live SkyDrive users, with public rollout to come in the next six months. Although the initial version of Word didn’t have real time collaboration, Excel did, and they hope to add more collaborative features in 2010. (And the online apps integrate with their offline counterparts, updating off- and online versions simultaneously.) On the other hand, as TechCrunch points out, this purchase will give Google Docs a direct connection to Microsoft Office documents. This could also become a feature for Google Wave, although Google recent bought a company (Appjet) with similar software (EtherPad), which they may integrate with Wave. They’ve already opened up the software code. What do you think? If the deal goes through, how will Google use DocVerse? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Google to Acquire DocVerse

Admit it. How many of you read that title and thought that your SEO career was about to come tumbling down? Yeah, I’m mean like that! Anyway, while I have you hear, can you tell me what you think of this: The "Guru" product is not showing for everyone, and apparently if you click the link it takes you…no where actually. Any guesses what it may be? A return of Google Answers perhaps?

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Why Being a Google Guru is a Dead End

Has anyone seen the new Twitter retweet link? Quick go check under your bed and see if it is hiding there. Because I can’t find it in my Twitter stream: And there’s no news from Twitter about its disappearance. A victory for those that hated the new feature? Or just a glitch?

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Twitter’s Retweet Function Vanishes! Victory for Those that Hate It?

Have you noticed how most bloggers are at their meanest best early in the day? Come 4:20pm, they simply don’t have the same energy levels. You’ve not noticed? Well Google has! And the search giant has a growing tendency to announce potentially polarizing news late in the day. Exhibit A: Google’s launched its own URL shortener called Goo.gl . As the search giant describes it, Goo.gl offers: Stability: Google’s scalable, multi-datacenter infrastructure provides great uptime and a reliable service to our users. Security: As we do with web search, shortened URLs are automatically checked to detect sites that may be malicious and warn users when the short URL resolves to such sites. Speed: At Google we like fast products and we’ve worked hard to ensure this service is quick. We’ll continue to iterate and improve the speed of Google Url Shortener. Goo.gl is also being added as a new feature to Feedburner –letting you “tweet” your new blog post automagically ! So, that’s all sugar and spice, and all things nice. Right? Yes, right now, absolutely. But, so was “nofollow” when that was introduced to save us all from spammers. Fast forward and Google threatens to kick you from its index, if you don’t play by its nofollow rules. I’m not saying that Goo.gl is evil, just that it has the potential to be evil. For example: What if Google starts using this click-thru data as part of its algorithm? How does this effect SEO? What if Google insists that sites with long URLs slow down the web and insists you convert to Goo.gl? Not that far fetched! What if it was added to the Google Toolbar because PageRank is going away–and Google needs a new reason to get you all downloading the toolbar? What if Google starts adding AdSense to the destination URLs? Actually, that might be OK . There are a lot of unanswered questions. Go ahead and use Goo.gl, just don’t do so with that blindfold on!

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Google’s New URL Shortener Goo.gl: Is it Goo.d or Evi.l?