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Apple is releasing the next generation of its popular iPhone today, and users of the first gen phone (including yours truly) get a software upgrade that enables downloading of applications available for the iPhone 3G. Of course, search has made its way onto several applications, so let’s take a look at what’s available.

Straight Up Search

First up, Google is the only one of the major search engines to offer up an iPhone search app. Suggest and My Location are utilized and you can also use Google search to query your iPhone contacts. The app is free.

The generically named Web Search pulls queries from search engines and presents them in a iPhone friendly format. The idea behind the app, which costs $1.99, is that not all search sites are optimal for browsing via the iPhone’s Safari browser, so Web Search takes the results and formats them for better usability.

Going Local

A whole host of applications are making local search easier. Some are the iPhone versions of popular web sites. Others are designed just for the iPhone. They make use of a user’s location and several include reviews and ratings, which are popular among searchers. Here’s a list:

• YP Mobile - developed by Yellowpages.com
• Yellow Pages - developed by Avantar
• Local Picks by Trip Advisor
• Where to Go
• UrbanSpoon
• Places
• Yelp
• Vicinity
• Where

YP Mobile vs. Yellow Pages iPhone apps

Media: Images, Video, Music and Movies

Both Flickr and Photobucket are offering apps for their popular photo sharing site. You can also browse public photos on their sites. Meanwhile, Truveo developed a video search app for the iPhone. YouTube (complete with search) comes packaged with the original iPhone software.

Midomi allows users to hum a song and the app will search for the song that’s hummed. I plan to make great use of this service.

Box Office, OneTap Movies, and plainly named Movies help you search, you guessed it, movies!

Travel

So far, the travel search apps (or lack thereof) leave a lot to be desired. I mean, this is the iPhone! People use it while they’re out and about and, you know, traveling. But for now, here’s what users can download:

• Travelocity - find flight times and nearby hotels
• British Airways - find flights with the airline
• Transit Guides - mostly just for NYC, San Francisco, and DC right now

Etc. and So On

Here’s a couple more apps, in case you didn’t have enough.

• People - a white pages directory
• CareerBuilder - search for jobs on the go
• Pulawai Real Estate Search - maybe not prime time for this app with the housing crisis, but useful if you’re house hunting, especially if on a relocating trip

There are also several apps which deliver information, such as news and sports scores. They kind of take search out of the equation.

Make no mistake, the iPhone is in the process of re-defining search (whether it meant to or not), and mobile search advertising is a space you need to explore.

Google has announced their replacement of outgoing CFO George Reyes. Former Bell Canada CFO Patrick Pichette has been offered the position along with an employment package as good as many first round draft picks in sports.

As the San Jose Mercury News details, Pichette will get a $500,000 signing bonus and the rest of the package makes his first year’s pay in the millions.

Welcome to the team Patrick.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto wrapped up yesterday. I’ll be analyzing some of the new trends that I spotted in Canada over the next couple of weeks. But I wanted to share the top stories and blog posts for SES Toronto Day 2 this morning, so you can get a sense of the highlights from the SEM conference.

Fredrick Marckini, the Founder of iProspect and Chief Global Search Officer of Isobar, gave the opening keynote. Mona Elesseily, the Director of Marketing Strategy of Page Zero Media, interviewed Marckini for the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo Channel on YouTube right after his keynote.

Fredrick Marckini of Isobar on Tracking Offline Conversions

Accordion Guy Joey deVilla provides a full set of notes from the keynote in a post entitled, “Fredrick Marckini’s Keynote at Search Engine Strategies 2008 Toronto.”

Bryan Eisenberg, the Co-Founder of Future Now Inc., gave the keynote presentation on Day 2 of SES Toronto. Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image, interviewed Eisenberg about the impact of the economy on search engine marketing.

Bryan Eisenberg on Site Metrics and Optimization

Jennifer Laycock of the Search Engine Guide Blog says, “If you only read one link from today’s Puppy’s Picks, you should check out Chris Winfield’s fantastically creative Twitter presentation from SES Toronto.” Winfield made his presentation at the “Twitter: Ultimate Time Waster or Great Tool?” session.

Rahaf Harfoush, aka The Foush, also weighs in on this session in a post entitled, “SES Toronto - Is Twitter A Time Waster?”

Chris Ragobeer of The Toronto Marketing and Technology Blog covered “SES Toronto 2008 Day 2 : Web 2.0 & Search Engines.”

Lisa Tarticchio of the aimClear Blog covered the “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing” session in a post entitled, “SES Toronto: Essential Return To Basics.”

Jim Crocker of the Boardroom Metrics CEO Blog “took a break from reality” to attend the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Toronto and reports his observations in a post entitled, “SES Toronto Day 2.”

Naoise of NVI’s Blog also provided some perspective on the conference in a post entitled, “SES Toronto - There’s something sticky going on here.”

Stephan Spencer shared some Social Media “Hacks” (at SES Toronto) in his presentation on the “Social Media Success” panel and commented on them in his Scatterings blog.

Meanwhile, south of the border, The Austin Business Journal reported that Austin-based Apogee will open an office in Toronto, Canada, in an article entitled, “Apogee Search sees big potential in Canadian office.”

A few hours ago, before I went to bed, I blogged about someone who stole my SEW column content for their own online marketing blog within hours of its publication. I also commented on their blog and asked them to remove the offending content.

This morning, things look different:

• The offending entry has been removed and is now a permanent server-side redirect back to my column
  
• An apology of sorts was posted on the blog (see below)
  

The reply starts with an excuse: “my blog has very little content as I am only testing it at the moment” - as if the perpetrator’s low readership makes their actions justifiable. It goes on to say that the blogger “didn’t mean to leave your part copied article on the site”. That’s what a small child might be expected to say if caught doing something wrong. It further states “I was surprised to see that Google had indexed it”. Isn’t that why we blog in the first place? If the content was good enough to post on a public website to promote their business, there should not be any great surprise when Google picks it up.

I find all of this in keeping with the original theft of my content and do not view it to be a satisfying explanation.

However, by the end of the response the person had apologized, removed the stolen content, and promised not to do it again.

Here is what I have done for my part to edit my original post:

• Removed the URL to the offending website
  
• Removed the URL of the stolen blog post content
  
• Anonymized the screen shot
  
• Edited out their name and city from the public disclosure at the end of the post
  
• Cross linked to this follow-up blog post
  

• The Internet is a very responsive medium
  
• Public exposure of wrongdoing can be effective at rectifying some situations
  
• We have to be okay with everything we do on the public Internet because it is completely transparent
  
• Some things can’t be undone - there may be electronic echoes of this incident for a long time
  
• This type of situation will probably happen again and must (unfortunately) be monitored for continuously
  

Clickable is the latest Software-as-a-Service offering for Search Engine Marketers. SmallBusinessComputing.com’s Gerry Blackwell had the chance to get insight from one of the private beta testers selected to test the product.

Pam Emery, marketing specialist at outdoor gear supplier Backcountry Edge, found that Clickable streamlined her SEM efforts, which are just a part of the four-year-old companies’ overall marketing strategies. Emery engaged in a learn-as-you-go method when it came to paid search advertising. But now she’s finding that Clickable helps her manage PPC campaigns with ease.

Clickable is able to explain tricky paid search analytics in plain English. It can make suggestions such as “Bidding more for this word will improve your return.”

Emery says that instead of dealing with different interfaces for different search engines, she can now rely on just one – at least for Yahoo and Google. Clickable has a plugin for both of the top two search engines with one for MSN on the way.

Clickable’s interface is web-based and uses the company’s servers, relieving customers of additional IT burdens. Emery told SmallBusinessComputing.com that it’s too soon to tell if Clickable improves sales over her previous efforts, but it has given her confidence in her newly gained paid search strategies.

Related Reading:

SalesForce, Google “Deep Integration” May Improve Google Analytics
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Widemile Inc. has announced the beta availability of its third-generation optimization and multi-variate testing platform. The new technology allows users to simultaneously test a variety of offers, text, images, and other key variables.

The announcement coincides with 13 partnerships with companies participating in the initial platform. Those companies include Ascentium, Avenue A | Razorfish, Brand Digital, Closed Loop Marketing, DDB in Seattle, Palazzo Intercreative, POP, Portent Interactive, Red Bricks Media, SolutionSet, Stratigent, TMP Directional Marketing, and ZeroDash1.

“Widemile’s third-generation software-as-a-service (SaaS) multivariate optimization system was specifically designed using open software and systems to meet enterprise standards for security, stability and performance,” said Dean Kimball, Widemile co-founder and CTO. “Developed with partners in mind, the Widemile optimization system contains a wide range of testing, reporting and client management capabilities within an easy-to-use browser-based application, and provides a level of performance and interactivity that has previously only been possible with desktop applications.”

Those partners are lining up to sing Widemile’s praises. Randy Barney, Director of Site Optimization, Avenue A | Razorfish said, “We’re excited about Widemile’s approach and toolset, which is structured to scale with our business and client needs,” while Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing articulated that “Widemile is positioned well to enable us to seamlessly provide optimization services to our clients.”

Search Engine Strategies London has wrapped up Day Two and the 2,000 attendees have adjourned until this morning. Meanwhile, the bloggers, videographers and photographers covering SES London have posted another batch of blog posts, YouTube videos and Flickr photos. Here are the ones that I found this morning/evening (depending on the time zone you’re in):

SES London 2008: Day 2 Roundup Feb. 20, 2008. This YouTube video includes just some of my interviews with speakers at Search Engine Strategies London yesterday. (More to come over the next few days and weeks.) Andy Beal, Consultant, Blogger & Author, Marketing Pilgrim LLC, gives positive reviews (however ambivalent his accent) of his own sessions and those he sat in on for their direct applicability to increasing revenue and extensive use of case studies. Piers Stobbs, VP of Comscore Networks, previews his big-picture presentations on user trends in search with implications for search marketing, such as increases in frequency and familiarity/capability of individual searchers. Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association, evangelizes on behalf of website testing, and breaks down in brief the web analytics players between free and paid packages and their various advantages in increasing ROI. And Jon Myers, Head of Search at MediaVest, provides some down-to-earth comments on dealing with click fraud.

Video: Interview with Adam Lasnik of Google by Lee Odden, who was able to catch up with the Google Search Evangelist to do a short (10 min) video on several topics important to web masters looking for better results on Google.

SES London 2008. More than 60 photos on Flickr provide an overview of the speakers, attendees and exhibitors at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

SES London Day Two Photos by Lee Odden. Additional pictures from Search Engine Strategies London capture the highlights of the event.

SES London 2008 - A Few Pictures by Mel Carson. Even more photos from the event.

SES London 08: The Changing World of Search, Keynote Roundtable by Li Evans, who covers the video from Nick Carr and panel discussion of Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo.

SES London 08: News Search Optimisation by Li Evans, who covers the News Search SEO session.

SES London 08: Video & Podcast SEO by Li Evans, who covers the Video & Podcast SEO session.

SES London 2008 - Competitive Research by Simon Heseltine, who covers the Competitive Research session.

Ralph Wilson’s Introduction to Search Marketing at SES London by Amanda Watlington, who covers the Introduction to Search Marketing session.

Search Engine Strategies - London - Video & Podcast SEO by Mal Watlington, who also covers the Video & Podcast SEO session.

Nofollow, What a Load of Crap! by David Fairhurst, who covers the Organic Listings Forum.

SES Update #1 by Rick Bosch, who provides half a dozen observations from the event.

SES Update #2 by Rick Bosch, who covers the Search Engine Friendly Design session.

Collapsed Lungs & Micro-hoo: SES London Day 2, Part 1 by ciaran, who covers the keynote, News Search SEO session, and Search Term Research and Targeting session.

SES Audience: Pro-Merger by Andrew Goodman, who polled the audience: “From your standpoint as a marketer using these ad platforms: would you prefer that Yahoo remain an independent company, or that Microsoft and Yahoo merge to form a single #2 vendor in the space?”

Pilgrim’s Picks for February 20 - London Edition by Andy Beal, who links to the coverage of Search Engine Strategies London by Li Evans.

Off to London to Tempt Scottie and Simon by Jennifer Laycock, who is hopping a flight to London.

SES London Day Two Recap by Barry Schwartz, who provides a roundup of coverage.

What a Blackhat SEO Looks Like by Barry Schwartz, who comments on one of the photos from the show by Lee Odden.

SES London and SES New York by Jason, who will be going to the post-con party organized by LondonSEO.

Search Engine Strategy à Londres by Estelle Schomann, who provides a roundup of the coverage in French.

På vej til SES og SMX by Mikkel deMib Svendsen, who writes something in Danish that I’m sure is insightful, if I could read Danish.

SEO Headlines by Lisa Barone, who says she is being “ranty” today because she can’t be in London for SES.

Perhaps we’re just happy it’s Friday, but this sounds like good news all around: CNN has bought the domain iReport.com for $750,000.
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I just went through and added the Navigator, Comments and Ratings service provided from JS-Kit. These free remotely hosted services allow you to added a few lines of code to your site and add comments, ratings, and a few other services as well.
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