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hiogi has been tapped to provide a Q&A search for Skype. This will allow Skype users to ask search questions and get answers directly through Skype. This can be done via mobile or desktop.

“hiogi for Skype mobile is the easiest way to receive quick answers while traveling,” says Bjoern Behrendt, CEO of hiogi. “It’s like chatting with a good friend, who is always willing to help and who knows everything.”

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Just in time for a weakening economy and the holiday retail season, Google will begin rolling out 7 new features to Analytics over the coming weeks.

The new updates are enterprise level features that Google will now be offering for free.

First up is an integration with AdSense. This one will be rolled out over several months, so if you don’t see it for a while, you’ll know why. You’ll be able to view AdSense performance based on page and referring site. Plus, you’ll be able to tell where you’re traffic is coming from geographically.

The rest of the updates will begin rolling out over the next few weeks. Don’t expect to see them all at once. You’ll more likely see them added one at a time. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Updated user interface. You may have seen this already today on your account. This is a cosmetic update with a cleaner look.
• Updated management interface. Soon, you’ll be given a summarized glimpse at your stats upon logging into analytics. Also included are added administrative abiliies to rename and delete accounts and profiles.
• Custom reporting. You can create reports based on the data that’s important to you and organized how you want to see it. Choose which stats you want on the x and y axis and what data you want to drill into.
• Advanced segmentation. Check out data on subsets of traffic. You can use this feature to compare traffic from paid search versus organic search, for example. You can integrate this with custom reporting, as well.
• Motion Charts This takes your data and visualizes it using colors and bubbles. Sound funky? Check out this video to learn more:

• New API - People have done some pretty creative things with Google Analytics from mobile and desktop applications to Grease Monkey scripts. Now, developers have it easier with the new Google Analytics API. Google is hoping that third party developers will dream up applications that aren’t currently floating around the offices in Mountain View.

Google has a YouTube channel dedicated to these updates. It’s a great way to learn more about how the new features work. Check it out and then let us know your impressions of these coming changes by leaving a comment.

Related Reading:
Google Analytics Now Available in Google Code
Google Analytics Now Shows When a Visitor Uses Chrome
Does Google Analytics Share Data with Google Trends and Ad Planner?
Google Analytics Adds Adwords TV Campaign Reporting

Microsoft is today launching a new incentive program for Live Search. The program is called SearchPerks, and it works very much like a credit card reward program.

Every time you search, you earn tickets. You can earn up to 25 tickets a day. Tickets can later be redeemed for all sorts of rewards including music downloads (5 for 525 points) and airline miles (1000 miles for 1800 tickets).

Here’s how it works. Sign up for the program, and download a simple piece of code. That will give you a Perk Counter for your desktop.

You can begin earning tickets today, October 1, all the way through April 15th of next year. You can begin claiming your rewards on April 16. However, you can only sign up for the program through December 31, 2008 and the program is capped at 250,000 people.

Microsoft will be evaluating the program and could possible expand it if all goes well.

Microsoft’s Frederick Savoye, senior director at Live Search, assured me that this is an incentive program that fits into their three overall pillars of search:

• Delivering the best search results
• Simplifying key tasks such as booking airline, travel, shopping, finding user opinions, etc.
• Innovating the business model

So while programs like SearchPerks and Cashback may seem like Microsoft is just trying to pay people off to use Live Search, the team remains strongly devoted to improving technology and the user experience.

What do you think of this program? Will you sign up? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Adobe released Creative Suite 4 this week and included with the update is a Google Site Search-powered help feature. Google Site Search is used with the new Adobe Community Help, which harnesses the power of social media and online communities to provide another source of support.

Adobe Senior Product Manager John Nack, writing on the Official Google blog, said, “We’ve plugged the whole community brain trust right into the Suite and used the power of Google Site Search to do it. Creative Suite 4 customers can find fast, relevant information from our online communities, without ever having to leave their desktop work environments, making design faster and more fun. And because we’ve built the Adobe Flash Platform into the whole Suite, other developers can take these concepts even farther. This is just the start of great online integration to come.”

Indeed, recently Adobe provided Flash technology to Google in order to assist with indexing of text within Flash.

Related Reading:
Google Partners With Adobe For Toolbar Distribution In Shockwave, Other Product To Be Named
Google Rebrands, Enhances Google Site Search

Microsoft’s adCenter is introducing Dynamic Text Insertion into its offering.

Similar to using {keyword} insertion, Dynamic Text Insertion works by using these placeholders: placeholders {param1}, {param2} and {param3}.

adCenter gave four tips on how it works:

• If submitting keywords via a spreadsheet – Dynamic Text should be placed in the ‘Dynamic Text {param2}’ column
• If submitting keywords via Microsoft adCenter click into the relevant ‘campaign’ and ‘ad group’ and then once you’ve reached the ‘keywords’ tab, click on the ‘edit keywords’ button./li>
• Alter {param1}, {param2} and {param3} as appropriate. The ‘Bulk Edit’ function can be used by ticking next to the keyword parameters you wish to edit and then clicking ‘Bulk Edit’.
• {param1} is typically used for destination URLs as it offers more characters with which to ensure the link is as detailed as possible. {param2} and {param3} can be used to include as much of the keyword and other engaging information (e.g. price points) as possible. The bulk editing function makes it really easy to update your dynamic text when required.

Related Reading:
Microsoft adCenter Updates Credit Card Options
Microsoft Unveils AdCenter Desktop Beta
adCenter Advertiser Blog Explains Keyword Match Types

AdCenter customers requested more clicks for their ads. Microsoft ran tests that found adding a fourth mainline ad (the ads that appear above the organic results) increased clicks. So, the Live Search team is implementing those changes, and advertisers should notice the change beginning today.

The top 2 mainline ads will continue to get an extra placement at the bottom of the page as well. This is something that also proved successful in the ad placement testing.

What do you think of these changes? Will they increase your clicks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading:
Microsoft adCenter Updates Credit Card Options
adCenter Advertiser Blog Explains Keyword Match Types
Microsoft Unveils AdCenter Desktop Beta

Rumors of a “Google Operating System” have been around for a few years now, fueled by Google’s expansion into e-mail, analytics, desktop search, Web applications, pizza delivery…well, maybe not that.

Today, Google has made a significant step toward becoming a Web-based operating system by launching a beta version of the open-source Google Chrome browser, which has been optimized to run Web applications rather than simply rendering HTML on a page.

“All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.”

Chrome’s main features include a beefed-up Javascript engine (aka V8), which will improve performance of AJAX apps like Gmail and Google Docs. It also offers better memory allocation, and an architecture that keeps apps running in separate windows as isolated processes — so a crashed app won’t bring down the browser, and security is markedly improved.

The browser includes its own URL box, which Google is calling the “Omnibox.” It incorporates features from Google Suggest, browser history and search history.

As with the Google Toolbar before it, Chrome will also present an opportunity for Google to collect more user behavioral data. On the plus side, that could help Google develop better Web analytics applications. More cynically, Google can also take this mountain of user data and use it to better monetize its ad platforms.

While this move can be seen as a challenge to Microsoft on the browser front, it’s more of a threat to Microsoft’s Windows operating system. By developing its own open-source browser, Google is able to establish de-facto standards for Web applications.

Combined with Google Gears coming at Web applications from the developer side, and there’s not much use for a desktop operating system any more.

Local search is showing up in your Web browser, at your desk, on your phone, and on your GPS devices — and these are just the easy examples. In today’s SEM agency issues column, “Universal Thoughts on Local Search,” William Flaiz explains that the number of devices and locations for local search will continue to grow as more things become connected to the Internet.

» Full story

The ’state-of-the art’ day care facilities at Google have increased their pricing to around what it costs to go to some community colleges, according to the New York Times. While the free food, refreshments and candy, once looked upon as a great perk by many outsiders considering a Google job, now seem to be considered pampering by co-founder Sergey Brin, NYT reports.

Though a Google spokesperson denied it, several people who attended a T.G.I.F. meeting in June claim Brin said “he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” NYT stated.

Hey Sergey, you keep these people at their desks longer - or is it productivity or new thoughts outside the box are not coming as rapidly as in the past? Maybe the $72 million a year spent on food is cutting into Sergey’s private income, and he does not want child care to take even more.

Given stock prices are a long way from the $700 highs of last year, it should now not fall on the non-millionaire employees to make up the short fall.

Seems to me this approach is a lot like the minimum bid increases that saw the regular advertiser pay for Google’s efforts to stop arbitragers - they were so profitable Google continued this with implementation of Quality Scores to keep minimum bids and have all new advertisers pay premiums starting out their accounts.

Working at Google was once almost an extension of living with your parents, but now it seems dad is starting to charge rent.