Posts About ‘Industry News’

Is Microsoft Going For A Second Attempt to Buy Yahoo?

When Carol Bartz was fired in a way the “Bold and the Beautiful” writers could have thought of immediately rumors started about Yahoo possibly being up for sale. So far there is no official news around that, but now there are rumors that Yahoo’s partner in crime when it comes to search, Microsoft, might be considering a new attempt to buy Yahoo.

In 2008 Microsoft also tried to buy Yahoo bidding up to an amount of 44.6 billion dollars in a hostile take over attempt. That take over then was prevented and Yahoo and Microsoft found each other in a special search deal with Bing. (more…)

UK Searchawards Announces Shortlists

The UK Searchawards, which are presented November 3rd in London, have now gotten into the next stage. With the announcement of the shortlists we now know the finalists which are in the running for an award next month.

The awards are setup by Don’t Panic in association with Manual Link Building and SEMPO. They have gathered a well respected group of people to judge the many entries they got. And with that many entries, it is not easy to judge them all. You can find the shortlists below. (more…)

The Problem with Testing in SEO

Let me start by saying I’m a huge fan of testing in SEO and other online marketing disciplines. Proper tests can take away a lot of the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that exists in the online marketing industry.

And there are several search engine prophets out there that are doing a superb job testing SEO myths and the impact of new search features. David Harry at SEO Dojo has done some great stuff, and so has the crew at SEOmoz (though a bit hit and miss).

The problems that exist with testing in SEO aren’t deliberate. I’m convinced that pretty much all tests performed by SEOs start with the best of intentions: to help uncover truths and add quality information and best practices to our methods. (more…)

Million Euro Google and Heineken deal shows new business directions for Google

The Financial Times last week announced that Google and Heineken have struck a million dollar deal. The beer-giant and the search giant will become ad partners.

The deal will mean Heineken will be advertising on different Google properties like YouTube and Mobile ads. The most important part of the deal however is going the other way around: Heineken gets Google’s data.

Heineken will be getting access to databases from Google. They will be able to extract data about the preferences of those watching the ads on Google properties: “where they shop, or what other words they search for on Google.” (more…)

Facebook now second-most popular in UK

UKOM/Nielsen reports that for the first time ever Facebook surpassed Microsoft to become the second-most popular website in the UK. They grew 7 percent compared to a year earlier to 26.8 million visitors in Britain in May.

With that Microsoft falls back to the number three spot. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing sites combined were still good for 26.2 million visits from Brits. Google is still leading the dance with 33.9 million. Nielsen came to these numbers by looking at their panel of 50.000 people. (more…)

Yandex goes public at $25.00 per share

Google doesn’t take them seriously, but many in the East of Europe and the countries below Russia certainly do. And for a reason, they are growing rapidly and making new functionalities and taking new steps all the time. Who? Well Yandex off course.

Yandex earlier announced it was going public and today announced the pricing of its initial public offering. 52,174,088 Class A ordinary shares will be available for $25.00 per share. The Class A ordinary shares will begin trading today on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “YNDX”. (more…)

Eric Schmidt named Media Person of the Year

Now what if you were CEO of a big company and wanted to become “Media Person of the Year”. What would you do? Show up in the press a lot off course. And be controversial. Maybe that is what brought Eric Schmidt to his several epic quotes.

Or it is just a coincidence. What is happening is that Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, has been named Media Person of the Year by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. (more…)

Facebook Behind Whisper Campaign Against Google

Earlier this week I reported about a “whisper campaign” which had been set up against Google by PR Company Burson-Marsteller, trying to get media outlets to report about privacy issues around Google’s social circle and Gmail. The whisper campaign backfired at Burson-Marsteller when the story came out on USA Today.

At that time the client which had hired Burson-Marsteller to set up the campaign was unknown. We immediately thought of companies like Microsoft, Apple or Facebook. But Burson-Marsteller was smart enough to mention them too in their e-mails as being companies who were dancing around on thin ice when it comes to privacy matters. Now is revealed, and confirmed, that it was indeed Facebook that had hired Burson-Marsteller. The reason? Google tried to use Facebook data for their search results. (more…)

PR-Company Supposedly Started Whisper Campaign Against Google

The world of PR is a strange one. Some might think it is nothing more than sending out a few press releases. It however is a lot more than that. And it also has a dark side to it. PR agencies also are very well versed in lobbying. Trying to get politicians to vote a specific way or trying to get journalists to write about a specific topic. Now that sometimes can get into a grey area. Because the ways to get people to vote or write in a specific direction differ very much.

PR company Burson-Marsteller doesn’t have the best name in the market when it comes to campaigns like this. And it now seems as if they tried to ‘nail’ Google on privacy matters using a so called “whisper campaign” (Wikipedia: “a method of persuasion in which damaging rumors or innuendo are spread about the target”). They tried to get several top media outlets in the US to write news stories and editorials about how Google was invading privacy from Americans using their Social Circle features. (more…)