•
I was reading up on Google acquisitions yesterday and although Google’s acquisition this year is not as many as previous years, particularly 2006 and 2007, Google’s acquisitions in 2009 certainly made sense with their landmark acquisition of AdMob as their most expensive buy. But looking at Google’s 2009 acquisitions from a quality, and not quantity perspective, we see that the company is focusing its takeover of other companies in two major directions : Mobile & Google Apps. The speeding up of the web is essential to growth of mobile computing, whether on the netbook or smartphone, and judging on where Google has put most of its research and development in 2009 : Google Chrome OS, Google powered netbooks, Google Droid Phone and Android Mobile OS … the ability to condense data into a stream which can make the most of our current 3G and mobile networks’ definition of mobile broadband … while also enhance the usefulness of cloud computing, both are essential to Google’s future. Here’s a look at the companies Google acquired in 2009 : On2 – Acquired on August 5, 2009 for $106,500,000 ; On2 is a video compression applications company. As of today, Google has not made any move yet on how it is going to make use of On2, but utilizing it as part of Google Wave and Google Video (which is being tested in GMail Chat) could make cloud conferencing more of a streamlined and less expensive possibility and assist with the adoption of Google Apps by businesses and governments (Washington DC and Los Angeles are currently saving millions using Google Apps). AdMob – Google’s most expensive acquisition of 2009 made it to spend $750,000,000 last month. This could very well fit into Google mobile advertising business and AdMob is the preferred monetization tool of mobile application developers who use AdMob to earn money with free iPhone apps and other downloadable mobile tools. Google will use AdMob to syphon part of Apple’s monetary market in 2010 and integrating AdMob into Google AdSense is an important part of Google’s long term strategy to corner the mobile development market. Gizmo5 – Acquired the same day when Admob was acquired, Gizmo5 is a VoIP company. Google had to spend $30,000,000 for this company, obviously to beef up its Google Voice service, which is again, an essential part of not only Google’s mobile aspirations, but also Google Apps. Teracent – An online display advertising company bought for an undisclosed amount. Google is definitely going to use this for its AdSense program and further expansion into the world of display advertising … or the DoubleClick side of AdSense. While Teracent may not be an obvious mobile oriented acquisition, it will assist Google in better monetizing display advertising by assisting Google’s advertisers with putting together display ads which bring results and sales. The more money Google and its advertisers bring in, the more profitable Google becomes. In my opinion Google beefing up its advertising is a direct target on the Yahoo & Microsoft partnership, as both companies, especially Yahoo, have strong display advertising networks and power display advertising on various online newspapers. Now that Google is bringing the news onto the mobiles and netbooks in an easy to read fashion with Google Fast Flip (the mobile connection), expect Google to make a strong push to work with these same publishing outlets. AppJet (Etherpad) – This online collaboration tool is obviously geared for Google Wave, an essential part of Google Apps and cloud communication. DocVerse – Although still in the planning stages, it looks like Google will soon be acquiring DocVerse, another collaboration tool which allows users to work together around Microsoft Office documents, much in the same manner that Google Docs allows contributors to work on Docs on Spreadsheets. Yet again, another jab at Microsoft and way to streamline applications and make Google Apps an even stronger service in 2010, especially as Microsoft upgrades Office Live. There has been talk of an acquisition of Yelp by Google over the weekend, which could be the largest Google acquisition since YouTube, if not the most important acquisition by Google ever. ( Update: It looks like the deal is off, as TechCrunch reports that Yelp walked away from the negotiation table ). Yelp would be the central offering of Google’s mobile services and would finally complete Google Local with a Google powered review service, instead of its aggregation of other services. With Yelp off the table however, and Google apparently sitting on over $500 million to spend before the end of the year, are there any other companies they should be acquiring? Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google’s 2009 Acquisitions : Focus on Mobile &
Tags:
adoption,
Business,
collaboration,
column,
companies,
google apps,
microsoft,
news,
office,
phone,
search engine news,
search-engine,
seo,
yahoo
•
With so much important private information we store at our computers and send to our co-workers, secure browsing is very important. For us, search marketers, there is another benefit of seeing online security flags while we browse: this works as an additional help for SEO diagnostics because security flags can easily be the reason of low rankings. So this post lists four tools that insert security report right within Google SERPs for you to see if there are any issues even before clicking through: Website link Notes Download link LinkExtend Aggregated results Download SiteAdvisor Desktop Download MyWot Registration required Download Browser Defender – Download LinkExtend FireFox
Tags:
browser,
computers,
credit-card,
Environment,
history,
seo,
supports-google,
tools,
wikipedia,
yahoo
•
What could be a more fitting way for Bing to end the year on the right note but to release its very own native iPhone app. It’s free and available now at the iTunes Apps Store (iTunes Link). Key Features of the Bing iPhone app include: Daily image from Bing.com Easy to access voice search Tips and tricks on the home page “Locate Me” functionality Ability to add pushpins and save locations Show multiple locations on a single map The Bing iPhone app adds to previous Bing-related iPhone apps released by Microsoft which include – Bing for Windows phone, BlackBerry, Sidekick and select BREW-based devices on Verizon and Bing for Mobile . It also competes with rivals Yahoo Mobile and Google Mobile iPhone apps. Downloading Bing iPhone now and will see how it works and update this post. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Bing’s Last Hurrah for 2009, an iPhone
Tags:
available-now,
bing-related,
black,
google-mobile,
microsoft,
mobile,
search engine news,
search-engine,
seo,
tools,
tunes-apps,
tunes-link,
windows,
yahoo,
yahoo-mobile
•
Experian Hitwis e has just released two significant data of 2009 – top-search term and top-visited site with Facebook and Google earning the top spot respectively. Facebook beats dislodged last years top-searched term – MySpace. While Google obviously retained its last year’s position. Moving from last year’s 10th spot, Facebook accounted for 2.48% of the top 300 searches in 2009. Including other variations of searches related to Facebok such as facebook.com, facebook login and others will amount to 1.09% of the top 300 searches. Following Facebook are MySpace with 1.02% of the searches, Yahoo with 0.95%, Google with 0.63% and Craiglist with 0.62% of the top 300 searches. In the Top-Visited Site category Google is again on the top spot for the second straight year. Google accounts for 6.70% of all U.S. visits from January to November 2009. Following Google is Yahoo mail with 4.44% of visits, Facebook with 4.26%, Yahoo (the main portal) with 3.36% and MySpace with 3% of the U.S. visits for 2009. Interestingly, Yahoo Mail remains to be one of Yahoo’s stronghold, which remained as the no. 2 most visited site since 2008. This only goes to show that its mail service is still the most used product on Yahoo, even beating Gmail, and Windows Live Mail. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Facebook Top Search Term 2009, Google Top Visited
Tags:
beats-dislodged,
earning-the-top,
experian-hitwis,
facebook,
search-term,
seo,
shot-2009-12-16,
still-the-most,
tools,
top-search-term,
variations,
visited-site,
windows,
windows-live,
yahoo
•
Yahoo is officially joining Google and Bing in the race to provide the most relevant real-time search results a.k.a. Twitter-integrated search results. This was earlier hinted at when Yahoo started integrating relevant tweets to Yahoo News Shortcut . This time around relevant tweets will be integrated to search results using Yahoo’s algorithms for determining which tweets are relevant to the query. While this may seem similar to what Google and Bing may be currently doing, the difference is Yahoo’s integration is done using Twitter APIs. Yahoo’s algorithm monitors spikes in search queries and selects relevant tweets as so as the search query spikes become significant. So, tweets may not really be fresh and those included in the search results may be tweets posted for as early as minutes old or as old as few hours. Since Yahoo’s has no way of making its Twitter integration as fresh as possible by displaying the latest, by-the-minute tweets, it is focusing on the relevance of tweets to search query instead. And that perhaps could work to Yahoo’s advantage. Still maintaing search results’ integrity and relevancy instead of just giving the latest tweets with lesser relevancy to search query. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Yahoo Integrates Twitter in Search
Tags:
currently-doing,
difference,
latest,
relevance,
relevant-tweets,
search,
search-engine,
search-queries,
seo,
shot-2009-12-11,
since-yahoo,
time,
tools,
twitter,
yahoo
•
Continuing its Purple colored, You-centric branding campaign Yahoo is launching “You In?”, a year-end giving campaign that aims to encourage people to do some act of kindness around the world. To document this noble feat, Yahoo launched its Purple-themed Kindness site where anyone can post online status messages relating to good deeds done by people – to inspire other to do the same. Here are examples of how the site works: For example, someone could post “I just dropped off a coat from my closet at a homeless shelter, You In?” or “I paid the toll fee for the car behind me, You In?” The message will appear in that person’s Yahoo! status; can be shared via social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace; and will be displayed on an interactive global map on the Yahoo Kindness site. And here are random samples of acts of kindness already done by people worldwide: – “I traded in a $100 bill for 100 one-dollar bills and wrote a note on each that read: ‘Please take this dollar bill, add one dollar bill, and pass it on.’” – “I helped an 85-year-old neighbor bring her Xmas decorations down from the rafters — all 12 boxes!” – “I helped an elderly lady carry her groceries to her car.” – “I am baking Christmas cakes to share with friends in need of help.” – “I dropped off supplies at the local Humane Society and at the local women’s shelter. “ So, are you in for some spreading of kindness act? Go ahead and check Yahoo’s shindig. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Yahoo Launches “You In?” – Spread Kindness
Tags:
christmas,
groceries,
humane-society,
paid-the-toll,
search engine news,
search-engine,
seo,
social-networks,
spread-kindness,
status-messages,
tools,
yahoo,
yahoo-kindness,
yahoo-launches,
year-end-giving
•
Welcome ot another edition of ‘ 7 Days of Search and Social ‘ – I hope you are well and getting well into another week in the trenches. It was a somewhat quiet week out there as far as kick ass blog posts, (although ‘Dave baiting’ is in season) but we did make up for it with a bunch of tools and even some patents of interest. Of course the big news was from the fine folks at the Googleplex with the announcement that personalized search is now default for everyone; logged in or not. Anyway, let’s get on with it shall we? Lead
Tags:
analytics,
column,
desktop,
fire,
friends,
games,
interview,
marketing,
news,
patents,
search-engines,
seo,
training,
yahoo