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Local search site Local.com has integrated local video ads throughout its site. Initially the ads will come from Jivox, an online local video advertising provider. Eventually, the video ads will expand to include more providers.

“We believe that video advertising provides consumers with relevant, timely information about local businesses, products and services. It’s natural for video to be integrated into our local search ecosystem over time,” said Kim LaFleur, Local.com vice president, product management. “Local video bridges the product gap that exists between businesses that advertise in print, but perhaps don’t have the budget to move to television advertising yet, and unlike TV advertising, ROI is fully trackable. We plan to incorporate additional video capabilities and syndication to our network next year.”

Related Reading:
Local.com Partners with Hearst’s White Directory Publishers
Local.com Launches Ratings and Reviews Engine
Local.com Renews With Yahoo As Search Partner

If you’re not familiar, CafePress is a site where you can purchase custom-designed apparel and gifts. There are many merchants selling their designs as well. Today, CafePress unveiled its new design, and it looks great.

But searching for a design you like can be a chore. That’s why I think CafePress should adopt an online ratings system to help the best designs be showcased first in their search results.

Yes, this can be abused, but it can also create a community, something that is currently only found in the CafePress forums.

CafePress competitor, Zazzle, which has experienced explosive growth in the past year despite higher prices and fewer products. What they do have is a 5 star rating system as well as the opportunity to leave comments on products. I think this helps customers better find what they’re looking for. If I had to take a guess, a customer would rather pay $5 for better design at Zazzle than a mediocre design at CafePress.

Don’t get me wrong, there are quality designs at CafePress, but finding them organically, like I said, is a chore.

Hopefully the next design update CafePress unveils is a techie-one that improves search.

Related Reading:
SEO, Site Search, and Email Marketing Ranked as Most Important to Online Retailers
Make a Good Investment in In-Site Search Engines

WebMD is apparently the target of yet another merger by 2 major health web sites. Last week, Revolution Health and Everyday Health merged.

This week, HealthGrades.com has announced its acquisition of WrongDiagnosis.com.

Here’s a Compete.com snapshot at how the 5 sites stack up against each other.

It looks like Revolution and Everyday are in better position to take on WebMD. HealthGrades has a ton of content behind a premium content wall.

But all of them, including WebMD, have a long way to go in catching Yahoo’s Health site:

UPDATE: As a commenter pointed out, Compete can only measure the Yahoo.com traffic. So, I looked up the most recent comScore ratings for the health niche. Here they are, showing WebMD as the clear leader:

Soleil Securities has downgraded Google stock (GOOG) from “buy” to “hold.” Their reasoning is that ad-driven companies will see a slowdown to the weak economy and that Google is already experiencing a slowdown in growth of their ad revenues. Soleil analyst Laura Martin downgraded the price target for GOOG from $580 to $350. GOOG was at $334 at the time of this post.

Google will hold its 2008 third quarter earnings call and webcast next week.

Meanwhile, Local.com has announced a stock repurchase program. The program will last 18 months and the company may buy up to $2 million of outstanding common stock.

“The board of directors has confidence in our company,” said Heath Clarke, Local.com chairman and chief executive officer. “Local.com is a leader in the rapidly growing local search market with both patented and patent-pending technologies. We are gaining significant market share, increasing our organic traffic, growing our direct advertiser base and, as a result, projecting continued high growth.”

LOCM was at 1.89 at the time of this post. Its high is 2.36 and its low is 1.78.

Both GOOG and LOCM trade on the Nasdaq which was up 4.40 points at the time of this post.

Related Reading:
Local.com Partners with Hearst’s White Directory Publishers
Local.com Launches Ratings and Reviews Engine
Google Earnings Top $5.37 Billion in Revenue Q2 2008

Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire Greenfield Online, the owner of Ciao, a European price comparison and shopping site. This seems to be in line with Microsoft’s strategy of focusing on building up focused areas of search.

Ciao also includes consumer reviews and ratings with its search results. They boast a multimillion-user-strong online community and see more than 26.5 million unique visitors per month across seven countries. So far, more than 5 million product reviews have been generated.

Ciao joins Farecast, FAST, and Powerset in Microsoft’s portfolio of search-related acquisitions for 2008.

“Ciao’s success has been led by a team of talented people who took a unique combination of intuitive technology and the insight that comes out of their passionate consumer community to become one of Europe’s leading shopping comparison sites,” said John Mangelaars, vice president, Consumer and Online, Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa. “This makes the company a fantastic asset to the future of our search offer. Integrating Ciao’s capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launchpad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN.”

Our industry still has a lot of growing up to do. Participating in advertising programs masquerading as objective ratings services is not going to help us do that. In today’s natural search column, “Top SEO Firms Paid for by the Following…,” Mark Jackson issues a plea for the SEO industry to mature, become more responsible corporate citizens, and educate the masses, in a non-commercial way. Perhaps, then, we can see more companies putting faith (and budgets) behind SEO efforts, so that every SEO firm will benefit from the growth of the entire pie.

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Online reputation management just became much more crucial. Google has enabled reviews and ratings for businesses, restaurants, etc via mobile. Now people don’t have to wait until they get home (and have time to cool down on the way?) to write a review after a negative (or perceived negative) experience.

On the flip side, you could encourage your customers to write a review if they had a positive experience.

Don’t freak out too much yet - it’s still not available for iPhone customers. But, it will be soon.

Never fear, we’ve got you covered. Read up on online reputation management to keep your virtual image afloat:

• How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics
• Local Search Lives or Dies by User Reviews
• Constructive feedback on online reputation management
• Defining Yourself Through Search
• Search and Reputation: Your Brand Standing Is Your Shelf Landing
• Video Marketing and Brand Management Online
• Hospitality Social Media Marketing: Influence Critical Customer Reviews
• Women Execs Have Better Online Presence

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.