“”I had tonnes of people saying ‘this could be so incredible for our business’. It takes a very long time to do a focus group, and businesses often don’t have the luxury of time. I think they liked the instant responses..“”
Read the full article here.
“According to the latest research, social networking is not only changing the face of traditional media, it is changing the very nature of Christmas – and may ultimately spell the end for the monarchy.
Figures from Hitwise show that one in every 22 website visits made on Christmas Day went to Facebook – making the site second only to Google in terms of overall traffic….”
Read the rest here.
 “New offerings include search suggestions for querying contacts, streamlined search results, modified search, customized view — which puts in-network contacts at the top of the search results — and the ability to save searches. What’s more, users no longer have to switch tabs when reviewing results for those beyond their own networks. Search now incorporates all relevant profiles…“
Click here to read the full article.
In a bid to monetise YouTube, Google have announced they are to test its Adwords Sponsored Search sytsem on the site it bought for 1.65bn in October 2006.
Brand Republic said ths:
“The YouTube Sponsored Video will allow people posting videos on YouTube to promote them in a sponsored videos section. The poster can then bid on keywords, just as in the Google AdWord system, paying on a cost-per-click basis.
 The system is open to anyone who wants to promote their videos, and will be an “easy, effective, democratic and affordable way” of doing so, YouTube wrote on its blog.
There will be no minimum spending requirement and a daily budget can be set.”
For more click here
 “MySpace’s self service display ad product, called MyAds, officially launched on October 12, less than a month ago. Advertisers can bypass the normal sales routine, use a Flash tool to create their own display ads, and run them on a cost-per-click basis. The minimum CPC rate is $0.25.
Demand for the product was immediate and significant, we’ve heard from multiple sources close to the company. Average daily revenue, say our sources, is $140,000 – $180,000, which means MyAds is at least a $50 million/year business for MySpace already….”
Read the rest here.
Google have launched their new Blog Search Homepage, this is an excellent tool for browsing the 1000’s of blogs on the Internet. With this new Homepage users can now search within categories for topics and find every blog with that topic (these are called Clusters.) Below is what Google had to say about their new Homepage:
“Today, we’re pleased to launch a new homepage for Google Blog Search so that you too can browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere. Adapting some of the technology pioneered by Google News, we’re now showing categories on the left side of the website and organizing the blog posts within those categories into clusters, which are groupings of posts about the same story or event. Grouping them in clusters lets you see the best posts on a story or get a variety of perspectives. When you look within a cluster, you’ll find a collection of the most interesting and recent posts on the topic, along with a timeline graph that shows you how the story is gaining momentum in the blogosphere.”
Heres a quote from Microsoft’s PR:
“Microsoft’s yearly financial analyst meeting, Microsoft SVP, Satya Nadella announced the extension of Microsoft’s U.S. relationship with Facebook to encompass search.
As part of the deal, Microsoft will work with Facebook to bring its customers Live Search-powered web search and search ads by the end of the calendar year. Facebook will work with Microsoft to design the best search experience for Facebook’s customers and advertisers.”
Read more here.
“One of our key goals of this project has always been to make the site simpler and cleaner. The new tabbed profile should help a lot in this respect, breaking your information into tabs by type. The Wall tab displays most recent and relevant information both about you and by you. The Info tab shows information about you that doesn’t change frequently. The Photos tab shows photos of you as well as your albums. The Boxes tab features all of your existing application boxes. You’re also able to add tabs for your favorite applications.“
Take a look at the new Facebook by clicking here.
Twitter have announced that they have acquired Summize, which is a search tool that looks through Twitters database of users and brings back relevant search results. This means that they have moved the service to their own website at Search.Twitter.com. See below for the official press release:
“We’re excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Summize—an extraordinary search tool and an amazing group of engineers. All five Summize engineers will move to San Francisco, CA and take jobs at Twitter, Inc. This is an important step forward in the evolution of Twitter as a service and as a company.” Read more here.
“Text messaging, blogging and social networking have reached critical mass, with more than half of adults now relying on at least one of these so-called Web 2.0 platforms for communicating with friends, family, or colleagues on a regular basis, finds the latest installment of an ongoing tracking study from Interpublic’s Universal McCann unit. The research, which….”
Read the full article here.
