Leadpile’s Blog

Google was not happy with dominating the internet search world, so now they are looking at getting a piece of the pie with computer operating systems. NPR is reporting, “The research and development for the browser will feed directly into Chrome OS, which will be a free, open-source project designed to get people onto the Web quickly. Open source means any programmer can make changes to it.” Initially this is going to be more of a focus on netbooks, but I am sure if there is any success with this new operating system they will be rolling it out on an even larger scale. The new operating system will be called Google Chrome OS. So, it looks like Windows and Mac OS are going to potentially see some competition, however Leadpile is still devoted to Apple!

Google has implemented a way for advertisers to sell on mobile phones. Google is partnering up with mobile applications to allow the Google AdSense to be incorporated into their applications. DMNews states that mobile app usage is starting to exceed mobile web usage, therefore there is a lot of potential here with this partnership. Ads will be presented to the mobile users that match up with geographically in a text or image format, just like on the traditional AdSense ads.
This is great news for the Leadpile publishers that are looking for additional ways to generate online revenue. These potential consumers that are downloading the mobile applications are a more targeted consumer, versus those just “surfing” the net. I am sure this is just the beginning of learning new ways to monetize the mobile applications.

Effective June 3rd, Microsoft’s Live Search will be replaced by Bing.

Microsoft describes Bing as the new “decision engine”. Being that Google dominates about 3/4 of the search engine world, Microsoft is hoping to get a bigger piece of the pie with Bing. Bing will emphasize categorization and depth in search results in an attempt to compete with Google for market share in addition to ad dollars. Looking at Bing it looks a lot like Google, but when searching it tends to bring up a little more in depth information. Will the Leadpile publishers and affiliate marketers utilize this new search engine to generate traffic/leads?

In recent news, Google announced some changes with it’s Adwords trademark policy. The new policy will now allow advertisers to utilize trademarked names in their text ads, even if the trademark does belong to someone else. Previously, advertisers could only use generic terms, however with this change advertisers can utilize brand names. There seems to still be some restrictions that Google outlines in their trademark policy. With these changes, Google is now in line with Yahoo and Microsoft, who had already made these changes. This loosened trademark policy is now more in line with standard practices in the offline world.
These new changes to Adwords certainly is something our Leadpile publishers will want to pay attention to.

It seems Google is trying to make life a little easier for those utilizing their search engine. According to BizReport.com, “New search technology was showcased by Google at the latest Searchology event. One of the products, Rich Snippets, aims to prevent searchers clicking through multiple sites before finding exactly what they want. Google has researched the product with consumers and concluded that it would be useful.” Website owns might think that this is going to affect their visitor count, however Google explains that this new technology will allow the website owners to provide a brief summary in their “snippet” listing that will be more informative at a quick glance. This will then potentially provide even a more targeted customer to their website, because they have already read the detailed listing while doing their search. A more targeted customer to the website will potentially = more conversions/sales.
Once again, Google managing to strive to do better AND better! Heck if you dominate the world like they do, there is nothing else to do but to continue to try and improve your current product(s).  I look forward to seeing this roll out, to then see how helpful it makes searching for my favorite topic.  Great work!

             Apple and Twitter marriage?

Who is next?

First it was Facebook, then it was Google, and now the latest rumor is Apple is interested in purchasing Twitter. Could this be true?  ”Twapple” news was all over the net yesterday and today that there could be a deal brewing for $700 million.  A lot of money for an “entity” that does not necessarily make any money.  The question you always hear is, How does Twitter make money? We all know Facebook used to have no advertising on it, and in recent months there are now advertisements.  However, Twitter has not yet ventured into any advertisements, yet everyone wants to buy the unprofitable site.    Appscout points out, “A deal could be done by June 8, the date of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference.”
Leadpile, once again will be keeping an eye on this potential marriage made in cyber heaven.

I am not sure if this is something new, or maybe just a White House position I have never really paid attention till now, however President Obama has named 2 high profile company executives to his tech council.  Tech Council?  Yes, there is such a thing and I think this is a sign of the times.  America has gone internet “crazy” and it is only right to have a President working closely with individuals from Google and Microsoft.  Google’s Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s Craig Mundie have joined a team (PCAST) of 20 advisers to the President.

“PCAST is designed to give the White House a pipeline to some of the leading voices in science, engineering and technology as the administration crafts policies in those areas,” according to Internet News.  Leadpile Lead Exchange, and other internet companies, like the idea of the potential of more advacements and assistance for this growing internet world we are all a part of.  Maybe in the next presidential term there will be representatives from social networking sites and maybe affiliate marketing companies? Now that is a great idea!

If Google is not already big enough, it is now in talks to potentially purchase the mega microblogging service Twitter for an estimated $250 million. According to The San Jose Business Journal, “TechCrunch said it has been told by three unnamed sources that the companies are talking. The blog added that the purchase of Twitter — which allows users to post 140-character updates and see what others are posting as well — would give Google a leg up in real-time search.” Previous rumors had circulated about Facebook offering $500 million, however that “deal” never happened.
The brilliant thing is the founders of Twitter (Evan Williams and Biz Stone) had previously sold their blogging service Blogger, to Google earlier this decade. What is next for this internet gurus? Inquiring minds want to know…. and so does Leadpile Lead Exchange. Stay tuned folks.

Last week, Google said that it plans to cut 200 marketing and sales jobs from its international operations.

Google senior vice president of sales and business development Omid Kordestani said,  “When companies grow that quickly it’s almost impossible to get everything right and we certainly didn’t.”  

This is comment is marketing and PR brilliance.

Instead of blaming outside influences, Google blamed itself for making an error.

Research show that Companies that take responsibility for their own actions, challenges, a or problems fair much better over the long term than those companies that blame outside forces (like the economy and new regulation).

Google, once again, shows they are on top of their game, even through layoffs!

The longer the internet has been around, the more people become “internet savvy” with finding exactly what it is they are looking for.  According to DMNews, generally consumers would conduct searches with one, two or three words. However, queries with four to eight words are becoming more and more popular. Consumers are getting smarter on knowing they would want a more specific search result, therefore entering in more words is providing them more specific results to choose from. In previous years, consumers would enter in a brand they were looking for and then have to navigate through the site for the information they were looking for. Because of this, experts state that brands need to have some sort of way to extract that traffic by having things such as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and blogs. This would allow that brand’s site still to come up in the consumer’s search results. Leadpile Lead Exchange also understands this, therefore we are always looking for ways to optimize the traffic of those that are looking to purchase or sell internet leads. How is your site? Are you optimizing it effectively to get the most out of the search engines traffic?

  If Google didn’t already have their hands in everything related to the internet, now they have rolled out something even more!  Google has now rolled out Google Voice, which will help users better manage their voice communications. According to the Google Blog, “The new application improves the way you use your phone. You can get transcripts of your voicemail (see the video below) and archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance.” Sounds like a great new tool to look into to make business a little more simple.

I know it is tough going for many people and companies right now.  So, I am writing about the major search engines.  Let’s take roll call… Yahoo are you here?  Good.  How about you Ask.com?  Ok…maybe a little louder next time.  Google, I’m sure you are here… of course you are, you are everywhere.  Lastly, MSN are you out there?  Ok, everyone is accounted for. 

Now, let’s have everyone who increased their market share during this tough year take one step forward.  Ok, anybody else?   If anyone lost market share, please sit down.  Well, as you may have guessed there is only one search engine standing.  Times are tough, but there is only one company weathering the storm, and their dominance is growing.

In February, over 72% of all search queries were done on Google.  An 8% increase from a year ago.  The other three major players (can we call them major anymore?) accounted for over 26% of search activity.  Yahoo accounted for 17% of the search activity (down 17% from a year ago) and isn’t really trying anymore.  Ask.com is also shrinking (down 10%) with little effort to improve.  MSN (down 20%) is at least trying, and may still acquire Yahoo to a form a decent second option to Google.

When we assemble this same group a year from now, will Google have over 80% of the search market?  Don’t bet against it.