Photo from: bing cherry on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
It’s a “Bing” cherry. Get it

Hey all,

Here are the latest headlines that had some interest to me from a Web marketing perspective.

Blind Search Test: You Might Be Surprised at Which Results You Prefer – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Last night, I began playing around on BlindSearch, which returns results from Google, Yahoo! and Bing, but doesn’t tell you which one is which.

Confirmed: Facebook Expanding Gift Shop to Include Virtual and Physical Goods from Developers Tonight

for the first time, Facebook users will be able to purchase physical merchandise in the Gift Shop with Facebook Credits.

Microsoft adCenter Placement Reports

This report is very similar to the Placement Performance report that is available in Google AdWords. This report allows you to see on what sites within their network your ads are showing.

Site Profile for wolframalpha.com (rank #7,551) | Compete

Wolfram|Alpha’s Traffic Drops 82% Since Launch

Twitter Blog: Location, Location, Location

A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.

Smaller Ads Work Better Online

The Dynamic Logic researchers said the reason is that the smaller format display ads are far more integrated into the content of Web pages, and consequently are more effective at “driving online ad awareness and purchase intent.”

Must …. Watch …. More …. YouTube …. Videos….

According to a Wall Street Journal Digits article and comScore there over 100 million YouTube users in the US that average watching 68 videos per month.

Google Chief Economist Says Conversion Rate Doesn’t Vary Much by Ad Position – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Their research showed that for search results pages with 11 sponsored ads, conversion rates “only” varied 5% from first place to last. So, if an ad gets a 1% conversion rate in the first place, the worst it would get is 0.95%.

Bing Only Search Engine in Top 5 to Gain in July 2009 (And For Two Months Straight) – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Google and Yahoo! are the losers, both losing 0.3% in share last month. Ask and AOL held steady with no gains or losses.

Landmark Ruling: Judge Orders Google to Hand Over Identity of Anonymous Blogger

Now Google has to hand over the identity of the blogger so that Cohen can identify and sue that person for defamation.

If you go on the attack, you have to be sure the claims you are making are legitimate. You can’t just say “in my opinion” then reel off a laundry list of damaging statements.

Also, anonymity is coming to an end on the web.

What is “Page Score” in Bing Webmaster Tools?

If you verify your site with Bing Webmaster Tools at bing.com/webmaster, you should be able to see your Page Score value, X out of 5 green bars.

Netmining’s New Ad Network Brings Optimization to Behavioral Ads – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

It gives each visitor a “score” based on the pages viewed and how long they viewed them.

Then, it takes that score to serve up ads relating to the product they showed the most interest in, when that visitor is browsing other sites displaying the behavioral ads.

Picture from: SES San Jose Photo on Flickr – Photo Sharing! (This is a picture of me and Steve Espinosa at Search Engine Strategies San Jose… where we both were last week. I love this guy. He’s a local search master. He’s the real deal.)

Here are the latest Web marketing news.

Please do yourself a favor and read/watch this: Social Media: Fad or Revolution?. It’s astounding.

Here are all the other headlines:

Gmail Now Third Largest Email Service in US

Hotmail grew only 8 percent during the same period, while Yahoo Mail increased unique visitors by a healthy 16 percent

Google AdWords Releases New Search Ads Quality Guide, Display Ad Builder Templates – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Display Ad Builder currently has over 90 templates available in more than 40 countries, including rich media and video ads. Display Ad Builder was launched last October.

The Online Video Advertising Picture Clears Up – eMarketer

eMarketer projects that US online video spending will account for only 4.3% of total online ad spending, and a mere 1.6% of television ad spending.

Google AdWords Pros Get Labeled In Google Forums

Clearly this makes these profiles stand out and look more authoritative than others.

Viral Video & Social Media Marketing Up

Two-thirds of marketers surveyed said they were using SMM, up from only 20% of marketers in the 2007 survey. The most popular social sites for marketers were Facebook (74%), YouTube (65%), Twitter (63%), and LinkedIn (60%). Only a quarter of marketers were using viral video in 2007; now half are using this tactic.

Efficient Frontier Insights: Is Bing on a Roll?

Our data now shows that as of the first week in August, Bing has lifted their click share 44% since the beginning of June.

Facebook to Ban All Commercial Activity on Personal Profiles?

You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).

Breaking: Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

It’s interesting that Facebook has intentions to become an aggregator of the social web.

Social Media: Fad or Revolution? – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Social media isn’t a fad. It’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

Here are the latest headlines I’ve found in the Web marketing world. I hope you find them interesting…

Coming to a YouTube Near You: Local News

The NYT reports that “nearly 200 news outlets have signed up with YouTube to post news packages and split the revenue from the advertisements that appear with them.”

New Feature on Google’s Website Optimizer – Auto-Disable Bad Experiments – Search Engine Guide Blog

Google has added a new feature that potentially makes this tool even more special by allowing you to automatically disable your under-performing experiments.

First Domain Thief Prosecuted

The Angels had actually bought the domain in 2005 for $160,000. Goncalves stole the domain in 2006 and resold it in 2007 for $111,000. In late 2007, the Angels sued Goncalves and his unwitting buyer. The civil suit has been amended recently and is still ongoing.

Twitter Reaches 44.5 Million People Worldwide In June (comScore)

it did gain about 7 million new visitors in the month of June. Twitter’s website attracted a total of 44.5 million unique visitors worldwide in June, 2009, according to comScore.

Yahoo! Search Blog » Blog Archive » New and Delicious: Search, Tweet, and Discover the Freshest Bookmarks

New Delicious Search Tools
Fresh Bookmarks on Delicious.com
Email and Tweet Bookmarks

Some tweets now out of bounds at ESPN | Digital Media – CNET News

For ESPN, the social-networking revolution will not be televised–or tweeted, blogged, or Facebooked. Not for now, at least, and not without ESPN’s approval.

WSJ Embargoes Embargoes

the Wall Street Journal has a new anti-embargo policy for its editorial staff. Rather, like TechCrunch, they’ll accept exclusives, and honor embargoes when the story is big enough.

Teens Don’t Tweet; Twitter’s Growth Not Fueled By Youth | Nielsen Wire

In June 2009, only 16 percent of Twitter.com website users were under the age of 25. Bear in mind persons under 25 make up nearly one quarter of the active US Internet universe, which means that Twitter.com effectively under-indexes on the youth market by 36 percent.

People Watch Boatloads of Online Video

# The number of people using video sharing sites has gone from 33% in 2006 to 62% in 2009
# 89 percent of internet users ages 18-29 now say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36 percent do so on a typical day

Digg Begins Rolling Out Beta Version of New Ad Platform – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

The ads will appear along with submitted content, except they will clearly be marked as sponsored advertising. The more an ad is voted up, the lower cost-per-click (CPC) the ad will enjoy. The more the ad is buried, the higher CPC.

Financial Times Looks to MicroPayments

Like the WSJ, a competitor, FT specializes in niche news, so it’s possible that more people would be willing to pay for their specialized reporting.

Photo from: Obama Wins – The Birmingham News on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Here are all of the search marketing headlines from the past week that jumped out at me.

Hopefully you will find them of interest.
Yahoo Search To Mine Twitter Data Even Thought Bing Does Twitter

I find this very interesting, specifically because of the Yahoo & Microsoft deal that happened last week and the fact that Microsoft’s Bing does a lot with Twitter on several fronts.

AP May Now Stand for ‘Always Pay’

the Associated Press (AP) is now putting together a program that will cost anyone who uses anything that they publish a minimum of $12.50. While that may seem a bit much it gets even worse when you discover that that price is for using just 5 words or less of their material!

BrightRoll Unveils Performance Pricing for Online Video Advertising – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

BrightRoll is launching Performance Pricing models for online video advertisements. They are:

* Cost Per Engagement (CPE): cost per each user-initiated video engagement or start
* Cost Per Completed Video (CPV): cost based on successful user-initiated video completion
* Cost Per Click (CPC): cost per click on video advertisement

BrightRoll is the leading video advertising network and helps major brands execute smart video ad campaigns across the industry’s leading publishers.

Webtrends Acquires Multivariate Testing and Optimization Company, Widemile – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Webtrends has acquired Widemile, adding their multivariate testing and optimization services to their offering. Widemile’s platform provides advanced visitor segmentation, real-time reporting, intuitive wizards, and best practices training.

Microsoft and comScore Partner Up to Develop Online Branding Measurement Tool – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Microsoft and comScore are teaming up to create a new digital ad planning tool. Dubbed the Reach and Frequency Planner, the tool will enable advertisers to predict reach, frequency and audience composition at the ad placement level. Audience measurement will combine ad serving data from Microsoft with demographic information from comScore.

Bing’s Geo Targeting Algorithm Needs Some Work

Earlier, we noted how Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, relied heavily on the meta language tag. Google’s Matt Cutts even commented why using that method can lead to issues (don’t you love it when the search engines nitpick at each other). In any event, Bing’s geo targeting capabilities continue to plague some webmasters.

Trackur Adds the Most Accurate Sentiment Tagging in the World!

You can now mark the sentiment of any item discovered by Trackur, view results by said sentiment, and export those results to a spreadsheet and share them with your coworkers or clients!

Google AdWords Bid Simulator Live For More Advertisers

And it opens up a window with more bid options, a simulation of how the bids might impact cost, clicks and so on.

Consumer Behavior Online: A 2009 Deep Dive by Jackie Anderson – Forrester Research

Our 2009 data shows a stabilization of consumers’ overall time spent with online media. However, engagement with the online channel has deepened, as evidenced by the widespread adoption of such activities as social networking.

Photo from: news hub on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Have you see those commercials where the telecommuting guy is on some island with his family? He does a client conference call or something in between romps in the ocean and building a sand castle with his kid.

I want to be that guy. So today I’m trying it.

I’m at Soak City at Cedar Point.

The huge plus is that they have electric outlets at every light pole. The down side is that all the glorious sun is bleeding out my screen so I can barely make out anything I’m writing.

We have the season pass at Cedar Point. So this is kind of our home away from home. We love it here. If I can get some work done up here I probably would come even more.

Next time I’ll bring an umbrella.

At any rate, here is all the latest and greatest SEM news

Here are all the headlines that jumped out at me from the past week. Enjoy!

The Skylight Controversy – Murphy’s Law – Milwaukee Magazine

By far the hottest political controversy of the last four weeks in Milwaukee has involved the arts community and the Skylight Opera Theater. It’s a remarkable story. The storm that’s erupted may well be nationally unique and demonstrates, for better or worse, the extraordinary power of the Internet.

“That was something we never could have anticipated,” says Kristin Godfrey, the Skylight’s marketing director. “I’m not sure I know how to manage it.”

Google Gives Blessing To Image Replacement Techniques

If you are using image replacement techniques and replacing the text with an image that is equivalent (with the exact same text in approximately the same visibility) then that is generally fine. This provides a nice user experience and still lets those who cannot access the images (eg crawlers or vision-impaired users) use your website normally.

Bing Month One: Bit of a Bonus

In May, Microsoft garnered 8% of total Internet searches. In June, Bing got 8.4%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points. While that represents 5% growth, it’s probably not the kind of growth Microsoft was hoping for.

Google Recommends Not Looking at Site Command Results

Googler, JohnMu, said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

Focusing on the site:-query rough approximations will not lead to useful results.

Could Twitter Impact On “Bruno” Box Office Numbers Create More Work For Social Media Companies? – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Bruno opened Friday with good numbers – $14.4 million – and was predicted to break $50 million, but then came Twitter. Seems the 140 character reviews took a bigger toll on attendance numbers than anyone could have thought. The weekend number was just over $30 million – a $20 million dollar swing is huge. And now shows the type of money that can be lost and what can be saved by a good social media effort.

Branding, Online Reviews, and Word-of-Mouth Most Trusted Forms of Advertising, According to Nielsen – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Nielsen is releasing data showing that recommendations from friends and family top the list of most trusted forms of advertising, with online reviews and branding topping the list as well.

Don’t Be Social Media Shy. Facebook Won’t Bite.

And if you won’t listen to reason, at least listen to Nielson. The research firm recently disclosed data on what sites Web users spend the most amount of time.

Facebook.  Number 6, with a delightful 25% boost in time by user over last month’s figure.  The Number 5 position is now held by News Corp Online, owner of MySpace, which also saw a jump from May to June.

Photo from: 366 • 25 • Coffee and news on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Here are the latest search marketing headlines that really jumped out at me over the last week.

There seemed to be a lot of stats out last week. As a general rule, they were really good for online marketing and really bad for offline marketing.

Enjoy!

Rosetta Stone Suing Google Over Advertisers’ Trademark Use – washingtonpost.com

Rosetta Stone, the Arlington language-learning software firm, said yesterday it has filed a lawsuit against Google for trademark infringement, alleging the Internet search giant allowed other companies to use Rosetta Stone’s trademark brand for online advertisements without permission.

“Google and its advertisers benefit financially from and trade off the goodwill and reputation of Rosetta Stone without incurring the substantial expense that Rosetta Stone has incurred in building up its popularity, name recognition and brand loyalty,” Michael Wu, general counsel of Rosetta Stone, said in a statement.

MediaPost Publications Facebook Sued For Click Fraud 07/10/2009

RootZoo said in its complaint that it asked Facebook for its log files and a refund, and that Facebook refused to comply with either request.

Google Adds Images Next to Maps in Location-Based Universal Search Results – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Now, next to the map included at the top of the search results are images.

YouTube – United Breaks Guitars

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago.

Bing Toolbox

The Toolbox is an organized set of tools for the entire Bing™ community. It’s a one-stop portal to all of the services you need to drive traffic and increase engagement with your site and applications.

Bing’s Search Engine Share on the Rise, Has a Long Way to Go – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Bing saw growth every week in the month of June.

StumbleUpon’s Su.pr is Now Available to All; Update SU, Twitter and Facebook Simultaneously – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Last month, StumbleUpon unveiled Su.pr, a tool that shortens URLs but also enables the submission of links to StumbleUpon while also offering the option to simultaneous update Twitter and Facebook.

Social Network Ad Spend to Dip in 2009, Pick Back Up in 2010 – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

They attribute the decline to difficulties over at MySpace, as they try to maintain a presence in a niche being taken over by Facebook and the yet-to-be monetized Twitter.

SEO Company Caught By Client Using Google Support Forums

A tip to you SEOs out there. If you are asking for advice in a public forum, please be more discrete. Use URL shortening services, to mask the URL and be upfront with those helping you that you don’t want the client to know you are asking for advice. But more importantly, do not say you think the site is doomed. But even more importantly, above that, if you think the site is doomed and you can’t fix it, don’t charge the client money when you think you can’t help – that just seems ethically wrong.

The Secret ‘Profits’ Of YouTube | Techdirt

McMahon also believes that by keeping quiet about YouTube’s hidden benefits and by allowing the misconception of it as a deeply unprofitable business to circulate, things work very nicely in Google’s favour when it comes to negotiating with copyright holders in the world of TV, movies and music.

Google LatLong: Help customers find their way with new Google Maps gadget

This simple gadget allows webmasters to add customized Google Maps directions to their business locations. With the directions gadget, you no longer need to type and update multiple sets of text directions. Let’s face it: customers are only looking for directions from their specific location.

Smaller Newspapers Have Fared Better Than The Big Boys

One major reason for the little guys still holding some ground is the classifieds.

Search Marketing Spend to Double & Take 59% Share of Online Marketing Budgets!

In fact, a whopping 60% of marketers plan to take money away from traditional marketing and spend it on interactive ads instead.

And, if you’re a search marketer, Forrester has great news for you! As much as 59% of that interactive spend will go towards SEO and PPC, with both niches likely to double in size over the next 5 years!

Christian Science Monitor Nominates Twitter For Nobel Peace Prize – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

“Without Twitter, the world might have known little more than a losing candidate accusing the powers that be of alleged fraud. Without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy. They did so because they knew the world was watching. With Twitter, they now shout hope with a passion and dedication that resonates not just with those on their street, but with millions across the globe.”

Of CMOs Cutting Ad Budgets: 67% Reduce Traditional, 47% Increase Social Media Spend

While 7% of CMOs plan to spend less on social media, 47% plan on increasing their spend in this area! The same goes for web site development, online advertising, and email marketing–all seeing more budget increases than decreases.

The Young Bail on Facebook, but Over 55s Soar 500% and Bring Their Checkbooks!

iStrategyLabs spent the last six months collecting user demographic data and discovered the number of users over the age of 55 soared from 1 million to nearly 6 million. During the same 6 month period, high school and college users dropped by as much as 22%!

Online Ad Spending Going Up; The Rest Not So Much

The agency estimates that Internet ad spending will expand 10.1% in 2009, an increase of more than 1.5 percentage points over its last forecast in April.

Photo from: The News on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Here are the latest Web marketing headlines that meant something to me. Hopefully you find them interesting too.

Search Ads Less Helpful than TV, Newspaper

# 37% said television ads were most helpful in purchase decisions
# 18% said newspaper ads
# 14% said search engine ads
# 3% said radio ads
# 1% said Internet banner ads

Inside AdWords: Google Ad Planner has a new look

we’ve given Google Ad Planner a facelift. Starting today, you can find sites and manage your media plans even faster with the redesigned Google Ad Planner interface.

FeedBurner Adds Custom Email Subject Lines

Real Estate Search Sites See Big Growth in the First Half of 2009 – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Zillow saw a 67% increase in unique visitors while Trulia saw a 40% increase in uniques.

YouTube Launches Call-to-Action Overlay – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

With the overlay, advertisers can drive traffic to their sites where they can make purchases, sign up for email newsletters or whichever action an advertiser wishes.

Example Of Google Penalty Email Over Hidden Text

The email specifically shows the webmaster which guidelines they are breaking, in this case, hiding text.

Hulu Commands as Much as TV, and 10% of Online Video Ads

“The reason people are paying such a high premium for these ads on the Internet is they do have a captive audience,” Poltrack said. “You know you have eyes on the screen.”

Photo from: Foggy news… on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Here are some of the top headlines in the SEM field for the last week:

Search Marketers: Time To Move Marketing Budgets To Bing / adCenter

If you have not done so already, go to your analytics package and see what search engine is driving you traffic. Note, in Google Analytics, the Bing traffic doesn’t really show until June 9th, so maybe adjust your date range to reflect that.

Ballmer Sees Traditional Media As Dead Men Walking – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won’t cut it in the future,

Google Launches AdSense for Mobile Applications into Beta – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

There are a handful of mobile app advertising providers (such as Admob), and now Google is getting into the game. They’ve launched AdSense for Mobile Applications into beta. Backgrounds, Sega, Shazam, and Urbanspoon were among those who tested the offering in the trial phase.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Tell us what you think!

If you’ve got ideas and suggestions for Webmaster Central – features you want, things we can do better – tell us. From now until Friday, July 24, 2009,

Top CEO’s Appear to be Anti Social (Media, that is)

Apparently the Top 100 companies of the Fortune 500 have CEO’s that are not getting in the game.

Cuil Goes from “Google Killer” to “Google Beggar”

According to IBD, the start-up is turning to the search engine that it vowed to topple–asking Google to provide ads on Cuil’s pages.

Link Building Worksheets – Organize Your Campaign

Photo from: TV News Clip Snaps From Various International & Pakistani Channels, Announcing Barack Obama As 44th President Of The United States ( BREAKING NEWS ) on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Here is two week’s worth of news on this bright and shiny Monday. I came down with some intense, undefined illness that still doesn’t want to let me go. So, blogging was out of my realm of capability last week. But here it all is in it’s glory:

AOL Goes for Local with the Acquisition of Patch and Going – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Patch is a local news and information provider while Going is centered more around events that locals can discover and share. Of course, AOL already owns one of the most popular online mapping resources in MapQuest.

Bing Adds Translation Instant Answer – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Type in the word or phrase you would like to have translated followed by the language. For example, I typed in “have a nice day in portuguese” and here’s what Bing returned:

Google AdWords Customers Mad About Paying For Courses on New Interface

Google organizes what are called Seminars for Success, which are actually mostly run by third-party agencies that specialize in training AdWords customers. The day long seminar costs $249 for AdWords classes.

TNS , unlike other reports, is saying that online display advertising, which includes banners, was actually UP 8.2%PricewaterhouseCoopers just reported last week a 5.5% drop in online display advertising. So who’s right? Are either right?

adCenter Add-In for Excel Out of Beta, Rebranded to Microsoft Advertising Intelligence – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

adCenter has released its Add-In for Excel out of beta and has given it a brand new name: Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. The tool is available in the US, Canada, UK and France.

StumbleUpon’s New URL Shortening Service to Allow Simultaneous Posts to SU, Twitter, and Facebook – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

This is the soon-to-be-launched new URL shortening service launched by StumbleUpon, but you also get the option of updating Twitter and Facebook when you’re up to all your shortening ways.

Number of Mobile Users Seeking Local Info Grows 51%

“Given the explosion in application stores and associated marketing efforts, along with the growth in mobile phones using faster data networks, it would not be surprising within the next six months to see the number of people using downloadable applications surpass SMS for the accessing of local information via mobile devices.”

Report: Companies Spending Less on Web Analytics Technology, More on Staff

Avinash Kaushik once wrote:

Cancel the contract with your favorite expensive analytics vendor and take that $50k or $100k or $200k and: 1) Hire a smart analyst for between $50k to whatever maybe your areas great salary 2) Put the rest of the money in your pocket.

Twitter to Launch Verified Accounts to Help Prevent Impersonation – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

It will begin as an experimental offering this summer. The experiment will begin with individuals, though Twitter sees potential in extending verification to businesses in the future.

Internet Ad Revenues Drop 5%; A Road Bump or Road Kill?

The big question is, what’s next? Will spending continue its free fall, or will it, like last year, make a recovery over the course of the next 9 months?

Microsoft, NBC Universal to Sell Addressable TV Ads – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Admira aggregates viewer data from multiple satellite and cable TV systems, then overlays that with geographic and demographic data to determine which ads to serve. In addition, Admira continuously optimizes ad placements in response to near-real-time viewership data. As a result, advertisers and agencies can buy just the audiences they’re targeted, which may not have been reachable in the past without wading through piles of untargeted TV viewers.

Study Shows All Your Dreams Will Come True With Display Advertising

OMA says the money you spend on display advertising contributes towards your other marketing efforts.

To tweet or not to tweet? – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

The study also discovered that “the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.”

Facebook Overtakes MySpace in US Visits – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

This adds to a good week for Facebook – which recently launched its vanity URL program, hit 1 billion daily Facebook Chat messages and launched a Swahili-language version – and a bad week for Myspace – which shed 400 jobs (30% of its team) in order to cut costs and return to a “startup culture”.

Yahoo! Announces Common Tag: Like The Meta Keywords Tag, But Even Better

When I asked Yahoo about it this, they acknowledge that it may not be something that’s adopted web-wide. Rather, it’s a format of interest to a particular group of developers who have needs beyond that which is available through means such as the meta keywords tag and rel=”tag”.

Five More Newspapers Join Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium – Search Marketing News Blog – Search Engine Watch (SEW)

The consortium began in November 2006 with 176 newspapers and has grown to 814. It started out by connecting the newspapers with Yahoo!’s HotJobs job search engine. The partnership has grown to include products like search and content.

SEOmoz | Google Says: Yes, You Can Still Sculpt PageRank. No You Can’t Do It With Nofollow

p.s. Danny Sullivan’s comment on Matt’s blog post is also an essential read (and re-iterates many of the points above). A few valuable excerpts:

With this change, I can still get the $4 if I simply don’t allow comments. Or I show comments, but I use an iframe, so that the comment actually reside on a different page. In either case, I’m encouraged to reduce the number of links rather than let them be on the page period, nofollow regardless. If I’m worried my page won’t seem “natural” enough to Google without them, maybe I allow 5 comments through and lock them down after that.

Rather than clarify things, I feel like this is what your post is going to do — cause people to consciously reduce the number of links they allow on their pages. We’re going to see an increase in iframe usage or other techniques to reduce links and flow more PageRank to the remaining links, for those who really worry/believe in such things.

Photo from: NYC: Daily News Building on Flickr – Photo Sharing!