Natural search
Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube is a threat to online freedom, according to Google, which bought the video streaming site two years ago.
David Eun, vice-president of content partnerships with Google, expressed the firm’s intention to take the fight "all the way to the Supreme Court", reports the BBC.
Lawyers for Google claim that the lawsuit, which accuses YouTube of allowing the unauthorised distribution of film and TV clips, "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information".
Viacom filed a rewritten version of its lawsuit, which was originally launched last year, in April.
According to the media company, it has evidence of more than 150,000 cases in which YouTube enabled the broadcast of video content without the permission of the copyright owner.
Meanwhile, comScore reported last week that viewing of TV shows on the web in the US rose by four per cent last month, with Yahoo! leading the sector.
Natural search
Google’s Search Quality team is to reveal information about the search giant’s page rankings procedures in a series of blog posts.
Writing on the Official Google Blog, vice-president of engineering at Search Quality Udi Manber notes that the historic secrecy surrounding the company’s methods of organising results could benefit from being relaxed.
"Being completely secretive isn’t ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past," Mr Manber states.
A number of posts on the blog are to reveal details about PageRank and the other systems and processes governing the procedure, offering advice, tips and information.
However, the Google representative explained that the need to protect secrets from competitors and those who would "game the system" means that a degree of secrecy must be obeyed by employees of the firm.
Google was named the top internet property in April for the first ever time in digital world analyst comScore’s Media Metrix.
Natural search
Google topped the list of online properties last month, new figures indicate.
The latest Media Metrix from comScore show that the company made it to the top of the list for the first time in April, followed by Yahoo! and Microsoft.
Other revelations in the Media Metrix included a four per cent growth in video streaming activity during the month, attributed to the continuing effects of the end of the writers’ strike.
“The return of the network television programmes after the writers strike sent fans to a variety of sites to get information on their favourite shows, catch up on episodes they may have missed, get refreshed on plotlines and to stream new episodes,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president of comScore Media Metrix.
Some 93.2 users watched TV on the internet last month, with Yahoo! leading the sector, the report revealed.
The search company’s video streaming services drew 15.6 million users over the course of the month.
A new feature on Google Maps allows users to search for homes in specific neighbourhoods, the Times reported this week.
Natural search
Search engine optimisation strategies should incorporate customer web reviews, a new report suggests.
Small and medium-sized businesses in the US are noticing the benefits of reviews, both negative on positive, for increasing search engine rankings, reports USA Today.
Jeremy Stoppelman, chief executive officer of local listings site Yelp, told the news provider: "Some business owners will post their reviews on their door, or on the counter, to show them off and that’s a subtle way of asking customers to write about them."
According to the report, local listings portals such as Yelp and its peer Google Maps are drawing increasing numbers of visitors.
Traffic to new arrival Yelp has increased by 129 per cent in the past year, with the corresponding increase for Google Maps standing at 25 per cent.
In related news, the Times reported earlier this week that a new feature on Google Maps enables web users to search for properties for sale in particular neighbourhoods.
Natural search
Software giant Microsoft has started up talks with Yahoo! over a potential joint venture, new reports suggest.
The company revealed this weekend that it was considering alternatives to a full takeover, after the collapse of discussions between the firms two weeks ago.
However, Reuters reports that billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who was to lead a proxy takeover of Yahoo! in order to achieve a Microsoft acquisition, may not be happy with anything less than a total takeover.
A source familiar with Mr Icahn’s thinking told the news provider: "He does not want to see Yahoo pushed into some joint venture with Microsoft and is not going to be used to push Yahoo into it."
Microsoft walked away from Yahoo! several weeks ago after an acquisition price agreement could not be reached between the two companies.
Since takeover talks ceased, shareholders on both sides have criticised the way the deal was handled.
Natural search
A joined-up approach to web sales and search engine marketing (SEM) could be the key to e-commerce success, one expert has recommended.
Neil Jackson, search director at Tamar, commented that the battle between paid search and natural search is beginning to intensify as online retail grows more competitive.
"Many marketers are still neglecting the need to take a joined-up approach to treat their search engine strategy and web sales strategy as one integrated process, rather than two distinct entities," he said.
Mr Jackson was speaking after the 2008 Search Attitudes Report, commissioned by the company, revealed that 90 per cent of web users would respond to natural search.
Some 54 per cent of women begin their online shopping journey with search activity and 46 per cent of men would choose a search engine as their starting point, the report revealed.
Blue Collar SEO recently reminded marketers that high-quality content is crucial to search engine optimisation success.
Natural search
Google was reportedly the most popular web property for video streaming in the US in March, with most of the company’s share accounted for by YouTube.
New figures from comScore suggest that the search giant commanded a 38 per cent share of all videos watched over the course of the month in the US, with YouTube representing 98 per cent of this proportion.
Of the 11.5 billion videos watched on the internet during March, Google served 4.3 billion, the digital world analyst shows.
By contrast, Fox Interactive Media – the second most prominent property in the report – accounted for 477 million views during the month, with Yahoo coming up third with 328 million.
Google has recently emphasised its intention to concentrate on monetising its investment in YouTube, which it purchased for $1.65 billion (£848.29 million) in 2006.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, told a California conference earlier this month that a new approach to integrating video with advertising may be pursued.
Natural search
Wannabe astronauts can explore space without leaving their desks with a new software package from Microsoft.
A year after Google integrated a Sky feature into its Google Earth facility, the biggest software manufacturer in the world has decided to launch its own attempt at space exploration by proxy.
Launched on Monday, WorldWide Telescope draws on images from resources including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Centre and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Reuters likened the experience of using the package to a video game, commenting on the "breathtaking clarity" of its imagery and zoom-in, zoom-out features.
"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe," noted Bill Gates, company chairman.
Google signed the Space Agreement Act in December 2006 with US space agency Nasa, which facilitated image display initiatives such as Google Mars and Google Moon.
Natural search
The traditional, offline method of purchasing automobile cover may have a rival in the form of the internet.
According to new comScore figures, a three per cent rise in the number of car insurance policies purchased on the web has taken place over the past year.
This trend has been accompanied by a corresponding three per cent fall in the amount of deals sold by traditional agents, the analyst suggested.
Data from the third week of March 2008 found that 15 per cent of sales are accounted for by the web, while 53 per cent represent offline deals.
"While it still remains the primary method, these latest findings show us that the landscape is beginning to change, with more and more consumers turning from traditional, offline channels to the internet," commented Kevin Litt, vice-president of the company.
In January, the analyst revealed that General Motors was the heaviest online advertiser in the automobile sector during the month.
Natural search
Business-to-business (B2B) search marketers should target niche search engines as well as general sites like Google and Yahoo, new advice recommends.
Writing on Search Engine Land, Galen De Young notes that leads from specialised search engines can yield a higher percentage of conversions and qualified traffic, even if overall traffic volume is lower than that derived from general sites.
General B2B search sites such as Business.com, which receives six million unique visitors each month, enable marketers to reach a more concentrated audience, while smaller equivalents of this site are also said to be worth testing.
Meanwhile, industrial search engines and directories, such as GlobalSpec, may be useful for businesses in the fields of engineering, manufacturing or technology.
And sites like KnowledgeStorm provide links to white papers, webcasts and reports to the IT sector, while IT.com orders its search results with "dynamic peer ranking".
"Whether it’s organic listings and rankings, directory inclusion, content marketing, PPC, banner ads, or sponsorships, there’s plenty of opportunity for marketers to target their efforts more precisely through B2B general and vertical search," the blogger claims.
A recent article in E-Commerce News observed that user-generated platforms are growing increasingly important to B2B marketers.
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