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Yahoo! Shopping has launched a deal finding portal called Yahoo! Deals. You can access the portal at deals.yahoo.com.

It culls sales on various products across the web from sites such as Woot!, Amazon, and Deal News. It also finds coupons and storewide savings from a plethora of online retailers.

Yesterday, we talked about how women are looking to cut back on their holiday shopping. This is a great tool to help them maximize their shopping dollars.

Here’s a screenshot. Check out the site and come back and tell us about your first impressions in the comments.

Baidu is getting in the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) game (think eBay or indie sellers on Amazon.com) with a new site, Youa.com.

In the beginning, 10,000 sellers were chosen from over 100,000 applicants. 50,000 customers were chosen from Baidu’s online communities.

“Baidu Youa continues Baidu’s tradition of providing the best possible online experience for our users,” said Mr. Jun Yu, Baidu’s vice president of products. “This new C2C platform provides user-friendly shopping with emphasis on customer service.” Mr. Yu continued, “Our expansion into China’s early- stage e-commerce market is a natural move for Baidu as Chinese netizens are becoming more comfortable shopping online. With our vast user community, technological expertise, mature product offering and deep understanding of Chinese Internet landscape, we believe that we have a competitive edge in China’s C2C arena and look forward to taking full advantage of the growth potential of this sector of the Internet.”

Related Reading:
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1.8 Billion Internet Users by 2012, China to Overtake US Internet Use by 2011
Baidu Search Engine Launches IM in Beta - Baidu Hi

The G1, a new mobile device from HTC available and featuring Google’s brand spankin’ new mobile platform Android, is now officially available at T-mobile.

But should you ditch your Blackberry, Palm, iPhone, etc to get one?

The G1 has a touch screen, similar to the iPhone, but it doesn’t have multitouch. It has a mobile application version of the Amazon mp3 store, which I love and use all the time for DRM-free music.

Unfortunately, you’ll need an adapter for that headphone jack to listen to all that music. Plus, you’ll have to purchase a memory card to store your music, and you can only do so up to 8GB.

The G1 does have a slider keypad, which I would love. I’ve had my iPhone for months, but typing on it is still a pain. Prior to that, I had the Samsung Glyde for a couple of weeks and loved the slider keypad. (It was just everything else that was a pain.)

So, should you or shouldn’t you? Here’s what the reviewers who have are saying:

Gizmodo

The G1 phone and the Android operating system are not finished products. There are only three working Google Apps here—Gmail, Maps and Calendar—while Google Docs, Google News, Google Reader, Google Shopping, Google Images, Google Video, Blogger and Picasa are nowhere to be found. What’s the deal?

We have high hopes for third-party coders to fill in gaps Google intentionally or unintentionally left in this OS. There’s already a video player, and we’re sure VLC will try and port some kind of version over. But your question is not whether the phone will be great down the line, it’s whether or not it’s good enough for you to buy it now.

The answer depends most on who you are. Despite all the UI quirks and bad design decisions, it’s still better than other smartphone OSes out there. It’s not perfect, but for people who like tinkering, its cons are outweighed by its pros such as Gmail and the Marketplace. Hopefully Android updates and more ports of Google apps will augment not just future phones but this one too. This isn’t something you’re going to give your mom for Christmas, but if you’re an adventuresome gadget guy with some money to spend ($179) on a totally new, pretty exciting venture, then why not?

CrunchGear

If you’ve been waiting for Android then I suggest you keep waiting. The overall OS seems to be held together by duct tape and needs a lot of work. Apple focuses on the minute details to enrich the overall experience for iPhone users and Android could learn a lesson or ten from it. The hardware design is dated and while the touch-screen and keyboard are great you can’t just forget about the wretched battery life, horrible GPS and the overall ergonomics of it. I wish the G1 were better in every respect because I don’t think the iPhone is that great, but I find myself wishing it were more like it. It’s the best alternative to the iPhone, but it’s just not there yet.

CNET

While we’re not in love with the design and would have liked some additional features, the real beauty of the T-Mobile G1 is the Google Android platform, as it has the potential to make smartphones more personal and powerful. That said, it’s not quite there yet, so for now, the G1 is best suited for early adopters and gadget hounds, rather than consumers and business users.

Engadget

When you put the G1 up against, say, a Sidekick LX, it seems like a no-brainer for T-Mobile customers looking for a powerful QWERTY device — especially at $20 less. You don’t need to be a cutting-edge mobile geek or a pundit to do that math. When facing off with platforms like the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices, it holds its own, but has a lot of ground to cover before it’s really making the competition sweat. Still, if you’re just excited to be a part of a platform that’s likely going to be around for a very, very long time, the G1’s a totally reasonable day-to-day device to make it happen, and we expect some pretty great things from this corner of the market down the road.

Walt Mossberg at All Things Digital

Overall, the G1 is a very good first effort, and a godsend for people who prefer physical keyboards or T-Mobile but want to be part of the new world of powerful pocket computers.

Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, will be giving the opening keynote at Search Engine Strategies Chicago on Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. The title of his keynote is “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”

And, if you read the description of Professor Lessig’s keynote in the conference agenda, it says: “The content industry has convinced industry in general that extremism in copyright regulation is good for business and economic growth. That’s false. In this talk, Professor Lessig describes the creative and profitable future that culture and industry could realize, if only we gave up IP extremism.”

What is he getting at?

Well, “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” also happens to be the title of Professor Lessig’s new book, which just went on sale on Amazon.com.

And, according to the editorial reviews on Amazon.com, “The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children — and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form — with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable ‘hybrid economy’.”

It goes on to say that Professor Lessig, who is the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, “spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war — a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art.” It adds, “America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.”

How does it do that? Well, Professor Lessig argues that “biting” riffs from films, videos, or songs shouldn’t be crimes. Why? It makes felons out of some of today’s most talented artists.

Professor Lessig argues that the way to end this war is to embrace what he calls the “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it. And he can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such websites as Wikipedia and YouTube.

Wow. That’s strong stuff. And, if we play buzzword bingo at SES Chicago 2008, then there are a couple arcane business concepts that we can use on our bingo cards.

But, this short blurb may not do justice to Professor Lessig. So, I emailed him some questions about the topic of his opening keynote. And he emailed me his answers — quickly, I might add.

Here is our Q&A:

Q: Who benefits and who is harmed by extremism in copyright regulation?

A: Benefits: Lawyers (certainly). The record companies (maybe). Harmed: Artists, businesses, consumers — and a generation of (criminalized) kids.

Q: What are the “read-write culture” and the “hybrid economy”?

A: A RW culture is one where ordinary people are empowered to participate in the creation and recreation of their culture. Every culture in human history has been RW, save for a few dark years in the 20th century.

A hybrid is a commercial entity that tries to leverage value out of a sharing economy, or a sharing economy that tries to use a commercial entity to support it. Either way, two radically different cultures need to learn how to work together with each other.

Q: When will this war on our kids stop, the “read-write culture” be reborn, and the “hybrid economy” start to flourish?

A: When policy makers are woken up to the extraordinary cost this war is imposing.

Q: Where can we already see glimmers of a new “hybrid economy” that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy”?

A: I think everywhere around us. All of the interesting Internet businesses today are hybrid: Flickr, Second Life, Yelp!, even Amazon builds much of its business from the sharing activity of its customers.

Q: Why is IP extremism bad for business and economic growth?

A: Practice moderation. When the lawyers in the room start insisting that the licenses you create must impose perfect control over everything you have, ask them to prove it. Ask them to demonstrate that the business return from that relationship of antagonism is higher than its cost. Don’t give over your business’ future to those who don’t think like a business man or woman. Keep focused on the only undeniable truth: IP is an asset. Like any business asset, it should be deployed to maximize the value of the corporation.

Let me add that I’ve watched the 19-minute-long video of Professor Lessig speaking at last year’s TED Conference as well as the 4-minute 35 second video from OpenSourceCinema which is embedded below. So, I am confident that he will rock the house at Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Lessig Remix

Professor Lessig was also named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.” He’s on the board of the Creative Commons project has served on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

In other words, he’s a speaker worth coming to SES Chicago to hear. And, yes, I do think I’ll put some of his arcane business concepts on a buzzword bingo card.

Search Engine Strategies and Market Motive are teaming up for a new online workshop series. The next workshop will be an action-packed one on “Landing Page Testing for Higher Profits” hosted by SiteTuners.com CEO and author of Amazon’s e-commerce bestseller “Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions” Tim Ash (yes me). This will be an interactive session with audience participation. If you would like additional information, please visit the event page.

Short summary:

Are you turning away your website visitors? Instead of guessing at your website visitor’s needs, you can ask them what they prefer. Landing page testing allows your visitors to design a more satisfying experience for themselves, and put more money in your pocket. Know what works — no hand-waving or techie talk in this session.

Learn how to quickly diagnose potential conversion problems, test, and uncover better performing versions of your landing page.

YouTube has begun placing click-to-buy links beneath videos. This is the beginning of a greater plan to offer YouTube as an e-commerce platform to interested companies.

Amazon, iTunes, EMI Music and Electronic Arts are among the first to get a crack at the new feature, which is currently only available in the United States.

Memo to Viacom: Instead of suing Google and YouTube, which is costing you undoubtedly large sums of money in legal fees, you might try advertising on the wildly popular online video network instead.

Run, don’t walk, to your favorite bookstore and pick up a copy of Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site (2nd Edition). Okay, okay, so most search engine marketers will simply order the paperback on Amazon.com. But, somehow 1-click ordering takes all the drama out of buying the latest book by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt.

And if you don’t believe me, check out what Lee Odden, the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and author of the Online Marketing Blog, has to say: “With Search Engine Marketing, Inc., Bill Hunt and Mike Moran have successfully updated what is already known in the industry as ‘The Search Marketing Bible.’ With new content, examples, and insight including social media and Web site search, this is a must read book for marketers at companies of all sizes from startups to the Fortune 100.”

I interviewed Bill about the new edition of the book back in August at Search Engine Strategies San Jose. And I’ve been keeping the video interview under wraps — until today. You can watch it below — before getting your hands on your very own copy. And, yes, this will be on the mid-term exam.

Greg Jarboe interviews Bill Hunt about his new book

Back on July 20, 2008, I asked: “Is YouTube about to pass Yahoo in expanded searches?” Well, I’ve just had a chance to digest the latest data from comScore for August 2008 and its appears that YouTube has passed Yahoo — if you look at “expanded” search queries instead of “core” search queries.

First, what’s the difference between an expanded and a core search query? According to comScore, a “core” search query is one that occurs on “the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.”

If you expand the definition of a search query to include searches on YouTube, MapQuest, MySpace eBay, Craigslist.org, Facebook.com, or Amazon, then you get a different picture.

Google had 7.4 billion core search queries and 7.6 billion expanded search queries in August to lead no matter how you define a “search query.” Yahoo! had 2.3 billion core search queries and 2.4 billion expanded search queries that month. But “YouTube/All other” Google sites had 2.6 billion expanded search queries that month. Microsoft sites had 977 million core search queries and MSN-Windows Live had 988 million expanded search queries.

So, depending on your definition, the top three search engines are either (1) Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, or (2) Google, YouTube, and Yahoo! That is a distinction with a big difference.

By the way, comScore Video Metrix reports that YouTube accounts for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at Google sites. (This means Google Video accounts for less than 2 percent of all vides viewed at Google sites.)

So, if you’ve optimized the pages on your website that contain videos, you’ve optimized them for Google Video and other video search engines. They won’t help them get discovered, watched or shared on YouTube.

YouTube doesn’t crawl the web trying to index videos posted on millions of websites. Instead, users are now uploading 13 hours of new video to YouTube every minute. So, getting your video found in about 2.6 billion expanded searches a month means uploading and optimizing video for YouTube, not Google Video.

Yahoo is planning an overhaul of their homepage design, and will open up to third party developers. The design will incorporate widgets, and Yahoo Music will open up to iTunes and Amazon.

This continues a pattern of Yahoo opening up various products and services to third party developers. Earlier this year, Yahoo launched SearchMonkey, which lets developers manipulate how search results are displayed within Yahoo and later BOSS (Build your Own Search Service), which allows people to use Yahoo technology to fuel custom search sites.

The news wasn’t enough to impress Wall Street analysts. Jeffries & Co. lowered their target stock price for Yahoo to $26 from $28. The stock was at $19.07 at the time of this post.

Electronics merchant Newegg.com has decided to not charge taxes in accordance with a new New York state law requiring e-commerce sites to collect sales taxes. The law, which went into effect June 1, is highly controversial. Amazon.com is suing the state of New York, saying the law is illegal and unconstitutional.

Opponents of the sales tax point to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that said a mail-order company only has to pay taxes in the states where it has operations. Newegg only charges sales taxes in California, where the merchant is headquartered as well as Tennessee and New Jersey, where it has operations.

What do you think of Newegg’s defiance? Is New York’s tax law illegal? Sound off in the comments.

via Internet News, hat tip to Al Scillitani