 Microsoft To Bolster Cashback For The Holidays
Techland
Yi-Wyn Yen gets the inside scoop on Microsoft's plans to bolster its Cashback program to help ride the holiday shopping wave -- despite the fact that the rewards program hasn't really helped the software giant gain (or even hold on to) search market share. "On Wednesday, Microsoft plans to unveil a new rewards program to get more consumers searching on the company's Live Search engine," Yen says.
Brad Goldberg, Microsoft's general manager for search, "hinted" that the company planned to offer even greater savings leading up to the holidays. "We look at traffic, different tactics, and ways of execution... and we've learned that the higher the rebate [we offer], the better," Goldberg said in an interview. He also disputed traffic stats from third parties like comScore, saying that they don't accurately represent the number of Cashback users -- only the number of queries. - Read the whole story... PopGist: A Spinout Of Yahoo BOSS
Read Write Web
Yahoo's BOSS open source search platform has been lauded by many in the industry as a tool that will help advance the progress of search, simply because it allows developers to tinker with algorithms (and their ensuing results) to create customized search experiences. One of the latest BOSS-inspired creations is PopGist, and Frederic Lardinois calls it one of the "more interesting" applications he's seen.
"PopGist blends search results with Techmeme-like discussion sections that list related stories from other sites," Lardinois says. A search for Google Chrome, for example, will include reviews from major blogs, while a search for a startup would likely include links to its profile on properties like TradeVibes or CrunchBase. "At its best, PopGist can become a one-stop search engine for researching a company or a product and save you a lot of time and energy, as you won't have to try multiple search queries to get relevant results," he says. - Read the whole story... Zvents Gets $24 Million
Alt Search Engines
Zvents has snagged a $24 million investment from a roster of telecom partners, including AT&T and Nokia. The local, events-based search engine plans to use the funds to grow its ad network (which lets local businesses and national chains promote their events through searchable listings) as well as upgrade the technology behind its search platform.
Nokia Growth Partners, the investment arm of Nokia, and AT&T were both new investors, though previous investors NAVTEQ, Vantage Point Venture Partners and Red Rock Ventures also participated in the round.
- Read the whole story... Track (And Improve) Your Blog's Quality Content With DeliciousCount
Search Engine People
The latest WordPress plugin aims to help bloggers track the quality of their resource posts (or articles based on facts and research, as opposed to entertainment or sensational news) by analyzing their impact on social bookmarking site Delicious.
"The plugin displays the number of Delicious saves of each post in a blog in a user friendly 'summarized' format," Quipp says. Users can sort results by date, post title or by number of Delicious save. According to Quipp, there are a number of benefits to using the plugin. For example, a company could track which posts garner the most saves over time, deconstruct them to tease out the best aspects and then apply the "best practices" to all future posts. He also says that companies can use the tool to help gauge blogger performance.
"Something saved a few hundred times is obviously more of a resource than something with no saves," Quipp says. "It's not perfect since not everyone uses Delicious, but it is a great relative measure, and the single best metric to track progress over time." - Read the whole story... Using Recon To Give Yourself A Unique Search Angle
Search Engine Watch
Carrie Hill explains how to use competitive reconnaissance to give yourself (or your client) a unique advantage when it comes to search, using a hypothetical example. "Let's pretend I live in Phoenix, it's mid-August, and my air conditioning breaks on a Friday afternoon," Hill says. "The news says it will be a record heat weekend and I need service right away."
During her online search, she finds that the top-ranked company doesn't highlight its 24-hour service hotline, while another competitor's IYP listing has seemingly expired. Other AC companies err in featuring too many numbers to call in their Google Onebox listing or a nonfunctional 10% off coupon.
Hill says that these shortfalls highlight key angles for her client, including a strong, easy-to-type (and remember) URL, posting the 24-hour emergency number on the homepage (possibly with a click-to-call option), a mobile friendly interface, as well as links to consumer reviews. - Read the whole story... |
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