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Chance Card: Design a 3D Building for Monopoly City Streets Using Google Sketchup
Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly, have launched a contest where you can design a 3D building for their new interactive version of the popular board game: Monopoly City Streets.
But you’ll have to hurry. The deadline for the contest is next Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm EST.
You’ll need to use Google SketchUp to design your building and then upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse to enter. Learn more about the contest rules here.
Monopoly City Streets, which launched earlier this month, uses Google Maps for its interactive game.
Google Sidewiki Enables Comments for Every Web Site
A new Google Toolbar feature allows web users to read and comment on any and every web site. The feature is called Google Sidewiki and is available for the Firefox and IE versions of the Toolbar.
Unlike blogs, the most recent comments won’t appear first. Instead, Google has, of course, developed a ranking algorithm to place what they deem the most relevant comments first.
Right now, very few sites have comments on them. Hopefully, as time goes by, there will be more useful content.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. Remember how Google always releases something big right after a major announcement by a competitor? Well, this is probably their answer to Yahoo’s new search update from yesterday.
In the meantime, check out this introductory video, go try SearchWiki for yourself. Then come back and leave us a comment, letting us know what you think.
Go To SES Berlin Or SES Chicago For “Two Early Birds”
Last week, I told you to go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for “a ranking in the top three.” This week, I’ll continue with the search engine marketing industry version of “two turtle doves.”
Altogether now: “Two early birds, and a ranking in the top three.”
Search industry veterans know that the Early Bird Rate for SES Chicago 2009 ends this Friday, Sept. 25. If you register by then, you can save up to $600 on a Platinum Passport.
Now, the agenda overview of the SES Chicago conference has just been posted. So, you can look over the agenda and decide that this is a must-attend event. Or, you might notice that 11 of the 65 sessions are “Reserved For Late-Breaking Topic.”
Why is this a great reason to sign up now?
As I said last week, the search engine marketing industry changes so rapidly, that you need to attend more than one or two Search Engine Strategies conferences a year to stay up-to-date on the latest market trends.
And Mike Grehan, Senior Vice President of content for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, and Search Engine Strategies, Stewart Quealy, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair and VP of Content Development, as well as the other members of the SES Advisory Board understand this.
So, they’ve posted titles and descriptions of three keynotes and 50 sessions — so you know there will be plenty of new content to learn — and save enough slots to address the late-breaking topics that industry veterans know will pop up between now and then.
Hey, a number of us are budgeting the same way. I can tell you where 85 percent of my fourth quarter budget is going, but the last 15 percent may get shifted around to take advantage of new opportunities or to counter unexpected threats.
But you don’t need to be an industry veteran to take advantage of the Early Bird Rates. You just need to make your move more than two months before your more cautious competitors.
SES Berlin also offers “Early Bird” rates. At least, that’s what it says on the website before explaining the details in German.
To help us non-German speaking search engine marketers understand why we should attend, here is John Mulligan’s interview with Thomas Bindl, one of Europe’s leading authorities on search.
Thomas Bindl, Refined Labs, previews SES Berlin 2009
With the exception of the “Search around the World” session, which will be in English, all of the other sessions at SES Berlin will be in German. The session are also organized into a Fundamentals Track for those who are new to the field and an Advanced Track for search engine marketing industry veterans.
In the coming weeks, I’ll share more reasons why you should go to SES Berlin November 24-2w5 or SES Chicago December 7-11. If you come up with some lyrics like “12 bloggers blogging,” let me know. I could use some inspiration.
Google Says Apple Indeed Rejected Their Voice and Latitude Applications
In the ongoing saga that is why Google Voice doesn’t have an app in the iTunes app store, Google’s perspective has been published publicly on the FCC website (pdf). Originally, portions of the letter were to remain confidential, but after Freedom of Information Act filings, it has been made public.
With the publishing, we’re learning that Google told the FCC that Apple did indeed reject the Google Voice and Google Latitude applications. Apple has maintained that they did not reject the apps.
The reason for the Google Voice app rejection was that the app duplicated core dialer functionality of the iPhone.
The Google Latitude app was rejected for three reasons
1. It could replace the preloaded Maps application on the iPhone
2. It would create confusion since Maps was a native app on the iPhone (isn’t this like #1?)
3. It would offer new features not present on the Maps application (oh, the horror!)
Google said there was no communication with AT&T on the matter. There were a series of phone calls, in-person meetings and emails between Google Senior VP of Engineering and Research Alan Eustace and Apple Senior VP of World Product Marketing Phil Schiller.
Bing Launches Visual Search Into Beta
Today, Bing is introducing a new beta feature: Visual Search. This will not replace text-based results. Instead, you can choose to use it or not from the Bing home page or from results. It’s rolling out to US users initially.
Visual Search is only being launched for select categories at first. Additional categories are expected to be expanded in the future.
When I met with Bing director Stefan Weitz in August, he previewed Visual Search for me. He compared Visual Search to walking into a store and visually browsing products.
I agree with Weitz. Search needs to encompass all sorts of browsing, memory and learning types. Some are great with text. Others are visual. Still others are a mixture.
Take a look at the screenshots of visual search below. Then go try it out for yourself at bing.com/visualsearch. Be sure to return to this post and leave a comment letting us know what you think of Bing’s Visual Search.
Trade Show Exhibtors at SES San Jose 2009 Have Good Stories to Tell
A month has passed since SES San Jose 2009 — and you might think that all the good stories to tell have already been told.
But most of the press and blog coverage focused on the conference side of the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo. And the trade show exhibitors also had a lot of news to share over on the Expo side of the event.
Now, instead of uploading all the videos from SES San Jose to YouTube in the same week, we’ve learned that it’s better to upload a few each week to SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on YouTube. This enables viewers to digest the major stories at a reasonable rate, while also giving them a reason to subscribe to the YouTube channel to get ongoing updates more than five times a year.
Among the trade show exhibitors with good stories to tell was Jennifer Whaley of Century Interactive. John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed her on the exhibitor floor at SES San Jose 2009.
Century Interactive links website sessions to phone calls and tracks those phone calls, chats and clicks that result from print and web campaigns. Whaley described the types of clients that Century Interactive caters and, in particular, those clients who don’t sufficiently understand clickthroughs and bounce-rates but understand phone calls and helps them understand what key influences are driving their business such as keyword terms, referring websites, etc.
Whaley went on to describe the analytics that Century Interactive uses when servicing their clients; this includes a java script loaded on a website which captures each website session. To learn more about Century Interactive’s innovative Web technology, watch the video interview below.
Jennifer Whaley, Century Interactive, on driving phone calls to your website at SES San Jose 2009
Another trade show exhibitor with a good story to tell was Steve Wiideman, owner of Local Splash. We gave him a mic at SES San Jose 2009 and asked him to talk about SEO Expert and Local Splash.
He discussed his local search engine marketing solution for businesses that are regional or local. Local Splash has a proprietary application that helps businesses get higher ranking in the map section of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Local Splash also helps businesses by verifying their information, lock down the account and optimize it so it gets better ranking.
For example, by syndicating a client’s business information across the Web to business directories and search sites, Local Splash in turns adds new destinations to their list such as superpages and over time, ranking improves. Local Splash also looks at categories for all of your competitors to understand the best possible sequence of categories that a business can be placed in.
Steve Wiideman on Local Splash, search engine marketing solution at SES San Jose 2009
Another trade show exhibitor with a good story to tell was Tim Musgrove of Digger. We also gave him the mic at SES San Jose 2009 to tell it.
Musgrove discussed the free trial accounts that Digger gave away at the conference. He also talked about Digger’s auto-generated topic pages which auto-creates landing pages for content-rich websites.
Tim Musgrove, Digger, at SES San Jose 2009 on semantic technology and free trial software
Wendy Roe of Pixelsilk also talked about exhibiting for the first time at SES San Jose 2009. She discussed the company’s content management system.
Pixelsilk debuted Bruce Clay’s SEO toolset inside the company’s Search Advice so you can get advice and recommendations for your SEO next to the content editor.
Wendy Roe, Pixelsilk, on exhibiting for the first time at SES San Jose 2009
And last but not least, Mulligan interviewed Frank Rocco of Adfare Video Solutions in front of the exhibitor’s booth at SES San Jose 2009.
Adfare produces video ads in a short time frame and deliver them in less than $150 per video. Adfare can produce cheap video ads because it can take existing content, anything the customer or advertiser has online, and download those images or footage and build a script and produce a high powered, effective video within 48 hours.
Adfare works across a variety of platforms, including mobile. In the interview below, Rocco discussed one example of local video being used in a mobile platform.
Frank Rocco, Adfare Video Solutions discusses cheap video advertising at SES San Jose 2009
There are more good stories to tell — but I save those for another day. Hey, it’s a long time between now and SES Chicago 2009. So, come back again for an update.
Yahoo Adds New Features To PPC Reports
Yahoo just announced some new additions to their PPC reports including the ability to see what partners are sending you traffic.
Their help section details some of it here:
With the Ad Delivery Report you can view information about the URLs where your ads are being displayed. You can then use this information to help inform your decisions regarding which domains to block using the “Blocked Domains” feature.
The Ad Delivery Report allows you to view:
* a list of domains and specific URLs where your ads were displayed
* performance metrics for your campaigns in terms of impressions, clicks, cost, conversions, etc by URL (Analytics must be installed to track conversion data. Learn more about installing Analytics)
* information about how certain URLs are performing, potentially enabling you to make better decisions when using the Block Domains feature
Court Dismisses Lawsuit By Woman Unhappy with Yahoo! Search Results
This past February, a woman who was none too pleased with the search results for her name sued Yahoo! Beverly Stayart argued that the results were a false endorsement under the Lanham Act.
The court has now dismissed her lawsuit, but since part of the dismissal was on procedural grounds, Stayart will be allowed to refile her suit.
Stayart would have been better off learning a little SEO instead of spending all of this time on a lawsuit. With an unpopular, unfamiliar name, it’s not that hard to rank and dominate results for your name.
Her task is now more difficult as a result of the suit. My post covering this story from February now ranks in the top 10, as do other sites covering the news. The good news is that the top 10 search results don’t contain those pesky adult and porn sites Stayart was seeing before. That was, after all, Stayart’s goal wasn’t it? No, probably not. A few sites list Stayart as a legal professional and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she’s after some moolah here.
But a word of advice for Ms. Stayart – start optimizing for Bing now. Because if/when/should the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal go through, you’ll be seeing some different results on Yahoo! Consider yourself warned.
Colleges and Universities Suck at SEO According to Wordstream Study
Whenever I get the whim to consider going back to school, I, of course, turn to search. I’m often completely appalled by the quality of websites associated with colleges and universities. There is little continuity of design and message and site search is generally terrible. Why go back to school when a university can’t even create a decent website?
That’s why I’m glad that Wordstream has released their list of top colleges and universities with regards to SEO. Optimization isn’t everything when it comes to web design and development, but it’s a start.
It should surprise no one that online-based higher education ranks high on Wordstream’s list. (Before you balk, consider that a recent study by the US Department of Education showed that online education beats classroom learning.)
Drexel University, a traditional university with a strong online offering, was the big winner with the most top 10 results. Two online schools, University of Phoenix and Capella University were the only other colleges to have strong top 10 showings.
Wordstream conducted the rankings by searching for popular higher-ed keywords such as “psychology degree,” “MBA,” and “nursing degree.”
Their conclusion that most schools aren’t conducting SEO or enough SEO didn’t surprise me. (It’s a bit ironic, since many link builders would love inbounds from a .edu.)
Of course, as I said above, this doesn’t even take into account design and most developmental issues. I’d argue that a nice chunk of incoming freshmen computer science geeks could team up with some design majors and probably code up a better website than most universities have.
Is it true that those who can’t do, teach? Sound off in the comments below.
Search Gives Back: Bazaarvoice Donates Backpacks Too!
The other day we learned about how Conductor donated backpacks to underprivileged schoolchildren in New York City. I asked for more stories of how the search community is giving back.
Well, I’m happy to report that I was promptly emailed by Bazaarvoice chiming in on how, they too, donated backpacks to kids!
Bazaarvoice donated 200 backpacks to Communities in Schools, a dropout prevention organization in Central Texas. The drive was organized by the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Central Texas. There’s a picture of the Bazaarvoice team on the EFCT’s Facebook page. Employees were allowed to take time off of work to give back to the community.
Great job, Bazaarvoice!
Keep ‘em coming folks! Got a story to share about how search is giving back to the community? Send me a message and let me know!
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