A lot is happening in the world of search and social and as you know State of Search is not a news-reporting site but a site that interprets the news and looks at why something is happening and what that means to you.

That doesn’t mean however we are not interested in the news. In this post we will bring the top stories of what happened last week with links to articles around the web. So you will know what you’ve missed.  

Here’s what happened last week

Facebook launches Conversion Measurement Tool

After the news of the Graph Search Facebook this week again came with news. Even though less ‘big’ it is still interesting, especially for advertisers: it launched the long awaited conversion measurement tool.

Related stories online:  State of Search, Facebook Studio, TechCrunch, WebProNews, JonLoomer

Bing brings tags pages into search results 

Search is getting more personal by the day. With Google, but also with Bing. Bing now brings its “Bing Tags” functionality to the search results, which means you and your friends will show up in search results once tagged to a page.

Related stories online: Bing, Search Engine Land, The Next Web

Google revamps image search

Google has revamped the look and feel of image search into much more of a ‘tablet’ look. According to Google it is now faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking.

Related stories online:  googlewebmastercentral, WebProNews, Search Engine Roundtable, Marketing Pilgrim, CNET

Twitter moving into Middle East with Expanded Ad Service

Twitter is broading its horizon, towards the far east. The Micro-blogging service announced it has started selling advertising services in the Middle East and North Africa.

Related stories online: The National, Mediabistro, TechCrunch

Non-social page-Like ads Facebook mobile site

Facebook is expanding its test that puts non-social page-Like ads in the feed by opening inventory on m.facebook.com. It is not yet visible within the app.

Related stories online: Inside Facebook

Yandex Launches Wonder, A Voice-Powered Social Search App, but…

Yandex quickly responded to Facebook’s launch of Graph Search by launching “Wonder”, a voice powered Social Search App. But…

Related stories online: TechCrunch, Yandex.Company, Search Engine Land, The Next Web

… Facebook immediately shuts down Yandex’ Wonder API

…Yandex couldn’t enjoy ‘Wonder’ for too long before Facebook blocked all API calls from Wonder making the app less interesting within a day of the launch, but the story more interesting.

Related stories online: TechCrunch, Facebook Developer Blog, Yandex.Company, AllFacebook, SocialTimes

‘Gangnam Style’ earned $8 million on YouTube

Big numbers coming out of Google’s revenue overviews. One of them being that the video “Gagnam Style” earned over $8 million on YouTube alone, a staggering number.

Related stories online: ABCNEWS, The Register

Google’s Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2012 Results

The Gangnam Style announcement was part of Google’s Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2012 Results which were announced last week as well. It maybe wasn’t as good as expected, but still: big numbers!

Related stories online: AllThingsD, Associated Press,Google+, Search Engine Land, Business Insider, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Searchenginewatch

Facebook and Google spent loads on lobbying against privacy issues

Google and Facebook take privacy seriously, but not in the way you might expect: they spend tons and tons of money on it. But not on making it safer, but on lobbying around it.

Related stories online: The Next Web, CNET, PR Newswire

Yes, there was a new Panda Update

And finally, I am not sure it is even news anymore, but yes, Google last week confirmed there was another Panda Update let lose on the Google indexes, cleaning 1.2% of searches.

Related stories online: Searchengineland, Searchenginewatch

Posted in News | Tags: Bing, Facebook, Google, News, Twitter