Only 2 weeks till Christmas!  Snow is on the ground in the northeast, and the wind is keeping people indoors.  Here’s an update on the goings on in Search & Social this week to keep you warm.

Yahoo and Google add real-time search to SERPS

All this talk about real-time search and it’s taken till now before the two search giants incorporate their new projects into the main results.  This week Yahoo incorporated Twitter into the normal results in a very “Google OneBox” kind of way.  Google, on the other hand, took this one step further (as they tend to do) and incorporated a real time scrolling result which includes blogs, news outlets, and (of course) Tweets.  Concerns about the ability to game these new results (by SEOs) have begun to surface, but either way, it’s a more direct approach to the real-time search trend by the engines.

Google update personalizes ALL search results

A new (relatively quiet) update rolled out this week for Google which personalizes all search results for users.  Instead of opting in to a personalized search (as previously implemented), users can now only opt-out of these results.  The personalization changes results to a user’s general preference in websites in search results.  For example, if you tend to click on Wikipedia or Amazon when they appear in results, those websites may start to show up more often and higher in search results for a wider variety of keywords than normal.  Privacy issues aside (more on Google and privacy later) the update may not seem too remarkable, but as Danny Sullivan warns: It “deserves extraordinary attention”

Yahoo! and Microsoft close search deal

The deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft to integrate Bing results into Yahoo! has been finalized.  While the deal still must face regulatory approval, it is another milestone that puts it one step closer to being implemented.  These statements were issued about the deal:

“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”

Google sends scannable decals to local business listings “favorite places”

Google started sending out window decals this week to local businesses that have popular local business listings in Google Maps which includes a scannable QR barcode.  These “favorite places” (as the decal states) are chosen based on the popularity of the listing within Google Maps and includes a few statistics on how many users found their location.  For Google, it’s a nice way to get in the storefront of popular businesses and increase usage of the Google Maps service.  For store owners, it can be another way to encourage reviews and display a sign of trust in the front of their store.  BTW: Essential Internet Marketing, LLC is a favorite place on Google!  WOOT!

Facebook Goes Down for a day

Among issues with the facebook twitter app not posting all updates to twitter profiles, Facebook went down yesterday.  No details have surfaced yet as to what the issue was or if the two problems were related, but the popular social media service is back to it’s normal state as of today.

Google and Facebook come under fire for privacy concerns.

Google, having recently admitting to releasing data to law enforcement, is under fire about their privacy policies.  A shocking response by CEO Eric Schmidt essentially says too bad:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Facebook, this week, released an update that allows more personalized privacy features for its users.  Experts, however, argue that the changes (particularly how they were offered) encourage users to opt for less private settings.  Here’s what the Electronic Frontier Foundation had to say:

“The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently … Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.”

The Lighter side of Social Media

• As if you hadn’t learned your lesson yet, here are more reasons NOT to friend your parents on Facebook.
• If you think Google suggestions are inappropriate, check this out.
• Definitely the BEST Christmas decorations EVER!
• I like snow, enjoy the changing seasons, but the cold sucks and this is how I really feel about you, winter.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  (I know I did!!)  December is here, the Christmas season is upon us, and search marketing professionals certainly know it.  Here’s what you might have missed:

Google Updates this week: too many

At least I’m not the only one who was overwhelmed by the many changes Google made this week.  Search engine Watch counts 17 updates, and put them together in a nice single post.  No need for me to repeat them, just follow the link and see for yourself.

Google adds new ad format

Last week (since we missed the wrap-up due to the holidays) Google announced a new search ad format that will sometimes include graphics, videos and maps.  Previously, Adwords on Google limited advertisers to text, but now, certain advertisers will be given the opportunity to test the new format with images.

Bing goes Down…

For 30 minutes this week Microsoft search engine Bing.com was unavailable.  Apparently due to a configuration change error, the site was back live (no pun intended) in under a half hour.  Microsoft released this statement about the mishap:

“Bing .com was down between about 6:30 and 7:00 PM Pacific Time on Dec 3, 2009. During this time, users were either unable to get to the site, or their queries were returning incomplete results page.

The cause of the outage was a configuration change during some internal testing that had unfortunate and unintended consequences.

As soon as the issue was detected, the change was rolled back, which caused the site to return to normal behavior. Unfortunately the detection and rollback took about half an hour, and during that time users were unable to use bing.com.

We strive to maintain a high standard of operational excellence at Bing. We are running a post mortem to find out how our software and processes need to be improved to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

Twitter unveils new mobile service

Mashable reports that twitter made an update (or a preview of an update) to it’s mobile service.  Previously, m.twitter.com was the subdomain of choice for mobile twitter users, though as twitter themselves say “It doesn’t feel much like Twitter.com”.  Now you can preview a different version at mobile.twitter.com that features a more full twitter experience.  The preview is reportedly to eventually replace m.twitter.com in the near future.

CNN predicts the Future of the web

Mashable CEO and founder, Pete Cashmore, Wrote an article for CNN predicting web trends for 2010.  Among the predictions are: the future of real-time search, GEO location sharing, Internet TV and more…  An interesting and fun read.

Microsoft offers to pay News Corp to De-index in Google

Continuing with the recent debate on whether news sources (particularly News Corp’s Wall Street Journal) should restrict google from indexing their paid content, Microsoft reportedly fanned the flames by offering them money to do so.  You can see how Microsoft would use this to try and gain a competitive advantage over Google in search.  Google maintains that it wouldn’t hurt their business model as ““Economically [news content] is not a big part of how we generate revenue” says Google’s UK director Matt Brittin.

The Lighter side of Social Media

• True geek humor: Funny Network Names
• Google Suggest tells the REAL story of why India has such a large population.
• Here’s a great video of a grandma freaking out over her grandson’s facebook account.
• Here’s 8 people who’s lives have been ruined by Facebook.  Perhaps Grandma is right!

We’ve decided to skip the weekly wrap-up this week as too much turkey has put us in a food coma.  We’ll do a full 2 week wrap-up next week to catch up on the big news in search and social media.

Have a great holiday weekend!

- Essential Internet Marketing team

It’s Friday again!  (Wow that week went quick)  It’s also already November, the cold is setting in, and Search & Social is starting to blend into one mashup of an industry.  Here’s what happened this past week:

Google Updates this week (a small sample):

Let me take this time to apologize for featuring so much Google news on these wrap-ups…Its becoming a trend that can’t be helped.  Here’s just a few:

• Google updated its search options by adding expanded snippets and image previews.  You can activate these option by clicking on the “+Show Options” button at the top of your search and selecting either “images from the page” or “page previews” for the images and longer snippets, respectively.
• A new e-commerce search product for e-commerce sites is now available (just in time for the holidays).  The product isn’t free, but seems to be a decent option for larger e-commerce sites looking to integrate an intelligent product search feature.
• Google Dashboard, another new product from Google is simply a snapshot of your use of select Google products.  It shows current Gmail conversations, Google Alerts, Recent Google Docs, and more.

Twitter getting ready for Retweets

Twitter tested integration of Retweets this week.  Not a “new” concept on twitter, it’s a feature that simply makes sense to add to the site.  Retweets (quite simply copying another user’s tweet) have generally showed up as “RT” followed by @(the user) and their tweet.  In screenshots of the recent test, however, the retweet will (instead) show up as an exact replication of the original user’s tweet in your follower’s feeds, avatar and all.  The only difference will be an added “retweeted by @(username)”.

Digg experimenting with Digg Trends

Digg is experimenting with a new front page voting method they call Digg Trends.  The application involves showing a trending story to a user that’s about to hit the front page.  The user can see how long before the story hits and is given an opportunity to choose if it is front page “worthy”.  This takes the voting mechanism to a whole new level for Digg, and time will tell if this becomes a full time feature.

Yahoo playing catch-up with Music & Real Time Search

In response to additions by Google and Bing in the social search arena, Yahoo! has announced testing their own real time search feature.  With partner OneRiot (a real time search engine) Yahoo! hopes to be able to join in on the fun.  They will be testing with other partners as well, according to reports.

Yahoo! reportedly tweaked it’s video search feature to allow users to more easily find music videos.  The feature allows users to click on albums to find videos from a variety of sources for that specific album.  This report comes just after Google released it’s new music search feature, although Yahoo! claims this is nothing new.

Myspace Traffic drop costs Parent Company $100 Million

The recent drops in traffic for Myspace.com has failed to satisfy requirements of an exclusive advertising contract with Google wired.com reports.  The contract which depended upon a minimum traffic level, was done in 2006 for $900 Million which more than covered the $580 Million purchase price of Myspace.com by News Corp.  Failure to reach the minimum level of traffic will cost News Corp. in the area of $100 Million according to sources.

The Lighter Side of Social Media

• Woman sues employer for losing her facebook friends.
• Teens sue their school after being punished for “racy” photos on Myspace.
• If Myspace and Facebook were combined, it would look something like this.  TheOatmeal.com gives you: FaceSpace