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To: jpwiggin@gso.nc.pub, twiggin@uncg.edu
From: hgraff%educadmin@ifcom.gov
Subj: When Andrew Returns Home
Dear John Paul and Theresa Wiggin,
You understand that during the recent attempt by th…
More: continued here
ender in exile chapter 1

Semantic search engine hakia is calling for librarians to contribute credible web sources. They’ve done this in the past in the health industry. One of the reasons behind the request is that popular websites aren’t always credible and vice versa.

It’s also clearly a strategic alternative to Google, which bases rankings largely on popularity via links.

“By having information experts suggest sites to hakia, we can guide searchers to relevant and credible information on the Web. As a search engine, we will rely on information professionals’ collective knowledge to add a dimension to search: credibility,” said Melek Pulatkonak, President and Chief Operating Officer of hakia, at the Web Search University event in Washington DC.

“The campaign that hakia is starting is a great way to leverage the never-ending knowledge and information analysis skills of the information professional in building a Web database full of the web resources that are most useful, and most importantly, have the most credibility,” said Gary Price, Editor, ResourceShelf.com. “This is a new chapter for library collection development. I hope this is only the beginning.”

Librarians can find out more or contribute here.

Related Reading:
hakia Comments on Leveraging Yahoo’s BOSS
Semantic Search Engine hakia Launches Syndication Web Services
Hakia Holds Concert To Launch Music Search

We’re not sure what the long-term implications of the Yahoo-Yang-Icahn settlement will be. In the short term, though, the agreement that ended the impending proxy fight appears to have inspired Jerry Yang to use capital letters in his memos to employees.

Here’s the full text of Jerry Yang’s take on the Icahn affair.

Today, Yahoo! moves past a distracting proxy contest. This morning we announced a settlement with Carl Icahn which will enable Yahoo! to put an end to this challenging chapter in our history, and allow us to get back to the business at hand – building our business and maximizing value for all stockholders.

Over the past few weeks we’ve made progress communicating with investors, helping them to better understand our roadmap for long-term growth, our valuable combination of assets, and our solid position in the converging search and display marketplaces. These discussions have been productive for everyone.

Under the terms of the settlement with Mr. Icahn, he has withdrawn his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting, and has agreed to vote his Yahoo! shares in support of the Board’s nominees. At our annual stockholder meeting on Aug. 1, we’ll ask stockholders to re-elect eight of our current directors. (In connection with the settlement of the proxy contest, Bobby Kotick has notified the Company that he will not stand for re-election to the Board.) After the annual meeting, Mr. Icahn will be appointed to our Board. We’ve also agreed to expand our Board to make room for two additional members to be chosen by the Board upon the recommendation of the Board’s Nominating and Governance Committee from a list that includes the rest of Mr. Icahn’s slate and Jon Miller, former Chairman and CEO of AOL.

We’re pleased that both parties were able to work together productively to accomplish this settlement, and we look forward to working with the new Board members and benefiting from their fresh perspective.

Yahoo! is now moving forward with one team and one voice, and we’re excited about what the future holds.

Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo

Bye-bye beta!

Google announced today that its Google Website Optimizer (GWO) landing page testing tool is finally out of beta. GWO is a free tool for running A-B split and multivariate landing page tests.

As a charter GWO Authorized Consultant, my company watched its development from the beginning. It started out in the shadow of AdWords, and was only available as a tab in your AdWords account. Even though you did not have to spend any money on AdWords to use it, it was still seen as an add-on to the PPC advertising platform and did not initially get the attention that it deserved.

With today’s announcement, GWO steps into the spotlight in recognition of its important role in Google’s future. The company is committed to investing significant resources behind this product. As an example, GWO is now available in 27 languages worldwide: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (Australia, UK & U.S.), Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil & Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai and Turkish).

If a landing page has a higher conversion rate it clearly had more relevance for the person who clicked on the PPC ad, so Google can properly trot this out under the banner of improved relevance and a better user experience. At the same time, increased adoption of landing page optimization and testing can only benefit Google since more efficient advertisers will be willing to spend more per click while still maintaining their CPA targets.

Several key enhancements will make GWO even more powerful and useful to the wider online marketing audience:

Easier sign-up outside of AdWords - Google is making it easier for anyone to sign up and use Website Optimizer. In addition to accessing the tool through AdWords, people can now access it with any Google Account, such as the one they may use for Google Analytics or Gmail. They will see only the stand-alone testing tool features, uncluttered by other applications. Existing AdWords and Google Analytics users can still continue to use it as before (as part of their AdWords interface).

Easier Multivariate test setup - Based on user feedback, Google has improved the setup flow for multivariate experiments, with more straightforward tagging instructions and a sample tagged page for users to examine.

New Website Optimizer website and resources - The Website Optimizer site will be globally revamped to include more educational information, including archived webinars, articles on optimization, testing strategies, and best practices. Google Website Optimizer main site.

New Blog - Google is launching a new Website Optimizer product blog that will discuss the latest product news, industry insights, and testing strategies.

After the jump: free Google Web Optimizer Tool chapter (pdf) from my book, Landing Page Optimization.

Click to read the rest of this post…

The Public Relations Society of America’s Los Angeles chapter holds an event in January of each year where they have a panel of the top PR experts look at what the state of PR is and where it is headed for the next year. All five panelists mentioned social media and how it has changed the practice of PR this year.

Search, however, is not part of the PR lexicon yet. In answer to a question from the floor Joe Kessler of SS & K said that search is an area every PR person should understand and use, but it is a gaping hole in the PR toolset.

When Greg Jarboe saw the importance of search for PR and started to optiimize press releases four or five years ago he called his agency SEO-PR. But it was not the PR industry that adopted the practice, it was SEO agencies. So we had the odd situation of non-PR folk writing press releases.

And here we are in 2008 and one of the top agency CEOs says search is something of value and should be an integral part of all PR campaigns.

What makes search so important to PR?

* Studies have shown conclusively that page one positioning in the search engines affects your brand value. In many cases the SERP is the first contact someone has with your company. How you appear on that page influences their perception of your business.
* If a searcher persistently sees your business on page one for the key phrases they’re searching it leads them to believe you are a major player in this field
* User-generated content has given the power of voice to consumers. Peer reviews and comments are the number one influencer prior to action or purchase today. Blogs and comments are showing up in search results pages.
* If there is negative content on the page it can damage your reputation.
* Journalists are using search engines to find information when they research a story. Being highly visible in the search engines could increase your media coverage.

These are all very traditional PR areas of expertise. And search is influencing every one of them. It is tool PR professionals have to master.

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Tom Curley said the news organization will come after anyone using its content without paying for that privilege.Currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Moreover, Curley’s interview at Paid Content had no details beyond the flood of cease and desist threats the Associated Press chief unsubtly suggested would become very plentiful from the news organization.
“If you [...]

“Any search for information no matter how ‘high’ or ‘low’ the purpose–whether it is baseball statistics or philosophy–is valid because it is a search for truth.”
The New York Times Guide To Reference Materials: Revised Edition– copyright 1971, 1985 by Mona McCormack
A lot has changed in the past 21 years since the NYT reference guide was [...]

The newly announced User Generated Content Principles, backed by several media companies, exhorts websites to filter content while paying lip service to fair use.CBS, Disney, Fox, NBC, and Viacom are among those boosting User Generated Content Principles, a set of guidelines for sharing content online without violating anyone’s copyrights. Sharing through a service like YouTube [...]

I’m not sure what constitutes a "coffee table" book in Mountain View, or wherever there might be another high concentration of Internet professionals, but an e-book on Google Analytics wouldn’t make the definition in my house. I prefer my etymological dictionary because I am an entirely different kind of geek.The word "abnormal," for instance, is [...]