Post Once, Change All, Spam Once, Spam Everywhere

It's truly a strange world online now. Google is rumored to be on the verge of an announcement on Monday that would make all social media data portable, connectable and linkable. How strange would it be to post to your favorite social networking site with an update like, say maybe adding a new friend - and instantly update any of your other social profiles with that change or addition?

Michael Arrington, first with many big announcements because businesses (and insiders, and PR departments and...) know the attention level of a TechCrunch post can beat (or lead as the source) for National Media outlets.

Well, Arrington is speculating (or leaking) that Google is about to launch "Friend Connect" following on the heels of the Yahoo Open Strategy announcement, the MySpace Data Availability announcement, then the FaceBook response to the MySpace announcement with Facebook Connect announcement and now, a truly strange service called OnlyWire bookmarklet for posting links to social bookmarking services - all of them - at ONCE.

Despite the fact that many want those services to be shared by different groups of friends, coworkers, or family - this is a very interesting development in what it means to be social, what being social means to search visibility and how this might affect spamming for SEO. Want a sample? Check out this Google Search for Xoost - a truly bizarre result-set.

If that group of Xoost search results doesn't concern you about how multi-posting and single source updates to social bookmarking sites might be abused for search engine spamming, then you have nerves of steel.

For perfect clarity - I am not labeling any site, service or company mentioned here as spammers - I fear for the abuse of this newest development as taking a step too far toward openness, so that all of them could be abused horribly. Yes, with proper attention, only briefly - but it's like standing on the precipice looking down several stories to a river of sewage we could fall into.

What is the right amount of openness, portability and single source updating? I don't have a clue - but I worry that the noise level could go up dramatically and search relevance could suffer in an escalating "openness" arms race.

I've had my nervous moment now - let's hope it doesn't get as ugly as all that.

Google News Showing AP & Reuters Video's Inline

Google News showing news video from Reuters and Associated Press video (posted at YouTube) in both search results and on home page.

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This was apparently announced without fanfare on the Google News Blog back on the 21st of August of 2007. Barry Schwartz blogged about it at SearchEngineLand that same day. Did nobody care about this? I hadn't heard about it until I noticed the little tiny word "video" next to a "+" sign to expand it tonight - over 8 months later. Hmmm. I'm on Google News daily and hadn't seen this before and hadn't heard anyone talking about it.

Clicking through takes you to the AP or Reuters channels at YouTube.

Startups in Social Content Sharing

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Microsoft / Yahoo Merger Off: Ballmer Walks Away

Well, it's over, thank goodness. Microsoft has walked away from their unsolicited bid for Yahoo. Whew! Deep sigh of relief from many Yahoo senior employees. But predictions are for an ugly day on Wall Street for Yahoo Monday morning - with a potential return by Microsoft with a lower bid after Yahoo tanks in the markets.

It's frustrating to those of us who love search to watch this epic battle, knowing that Microhoo may yet emerge from the burning embers. I commented in my last post that the Yahoo Open Strategy announced by Ari Balogh last week at Web 2.0 introduced some exciting prospects for the future of search if they can successfully pull it off and Microsoft doesn't win the merger through a lower offer and proxy battle. Well nobody has even commented in the news about the effect the YOS could have, not even Microsoft.

Maybe I'm way off base with this one, but I'm going to stick to my assertions until we see how this all shakes out. If Yahoo survives to stand on it's own and can put together the strategy for opening up their entire network to developers in a sweeping move like they've outlined - I predict that Yahoo could overtake Google in two years - but only if Google stands still and watches - which is not likely either.

Danny Sullivan has an excellent analysis and commentary on the Microsoft / Yahoo / Microhoo battle. I'm surprised that he didn't bring up Yahoo Open Strategy either - is it because nobody expects them to survive to see where that could take them? What if the merger happened - would Ballmer nix YOS?

I'm no Yahoo fan. I've disliked their strategy for years, I hate how they buy up companies and then kill them off or let them die within Yahoo, I can't believe they didn't leverage GeoCities and Yahoo Groups to become a social networking leader. I'm astonished that they aren't more profitable than they are because they emphasize monetization above audience satisfaction and utility. (Yahoo mail still doesn't allow pop access unless you pay for it when gmail allows this access, even using imap.) So I don't use my Yahoo mail account except to log in to the few services I use like MyBlogLog, Yahoo Groups and Flickr.

The public seems completely uninterested in the whole thing if Google Trends is any indication. The chart showing searches for the story and news stories seem to drive little interest. (click to enlarge)

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Well - I will once again throw out a cautious cheer for Yahoo and hope that they survive the Wall Street rollercoaster to pursue Yahoo Open Strategy as it is their best hope for a true contribution to search. Without YOS - it's over for Yahoo IMHO.

Yahoo Open Strategy a Volley Against Microsoft?

Yahoo announced last week at the Web 2.0 conference that they are opening up their entire network to developers to build apps and mashups. The announcement was covered by Greg Sterling for SearchEngineLand and the brief 14 minute announcement and explanation by Yahoo CTO Ari Baolgh has been covered by very well by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch. There's also a wonderfully prescient view from Loren Baker at SearchEngineJournal - from a YEAR ago, which he looks at again in the light of Yahoo announcements this past week.

Here's a video of the Ari Baolgh Web 2.0 Keynote presentation, thanks to Yahoo Video:

I got to attend a later, Friday Web 2.0 presentation titled "Yahoo! and Open Platforms, A Deeper Dive by Yahoo Chief Architect of Platforms, Neal Sample, who delivered as promised with a presentation on how the whole Yahoo Network, including Yahoo Mail, Flickr, Answers, etc. all get reworked and rejiggered to make this one massive Social experiment.

I've taken a look elsewhere at the Y!OS or Yahoo Open Strategy idea through the lens of privacy concerns this may raise for the 500 Million claimed Yahoo users.

But privacy issues aside here, this announcement could truly gain Yahoo an increased bid from Microsoft now that the MSFT deadline for a response from Yahoo has come and gone this past weekend. Watching the video above, one has to imagine Balogh seeing this as a presentation directly to Microsoft and picturing the camera as Steve Ballmer - the video being made available first to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch (hmmm what Yahoo strategy!), who put it well in his coverage, saying:

They still, of course, have to actually launch this massive project - for now it’s all ideas and vaporware. And no one knows what Microsoft thinks of all this, or what happens to YOS if that deal is done.

Now let's see how the press reacts Monday morning and what noises Microsoft makes in light of these Yahoo announcements. Microsoft invested $240 Million in Facebook not long after they announced a much smaller scale "Open" strategy, that's the same Facebook which is not even participating in the Google Open Social model - but Yahoo is participating and - one might argue - leading in this monstrous experiment that must have Microsoft groaning in agony.

Microsoft, open? They gotta hate this Yahoo Open Strategy (YOS) idea. Google moves to undermine Microsoft on Google Docs, Yahoo moves to undermine Microsoft takeover bid by open-sourcing their entire network (hmmm what Yahoo strategy!).

Despite my privacy concerns, I'm excited at what this may mean for search in general - not just for Yahoo - but for the web and how search works. I've been critical of Yahoo for their massive acquisitiveness in the past and have never understood how they failed to take advantage of their massive audience to become a social networking leader (Geocities anyone?).

This is big and I can't imagine how this could fail to evolve search and social media. It will affect everyone if they pull it off successfully and if Microsoft doesn't screw it all up for them with a proxy battle and eventual win.

I never could have imagined myself in a position to cheer for Yahoo, but I may ... I just may. ;-)

Previous Query Refinement vs. Search Pollutants

This morning I saw a Danny Sullivan post from SMX Sydney after interviewed Google's VP of Search Products, Marissa Mayer during the SMX keynote. Sullivan emphasized the importance of Mayer's announcement that "Previous Query Refinement" is coming to web search - after that product had been tested in a limited way on Adwords ads only.

But then today Mediapost also wrote about search privacy concerns voiced by the Center for Digital Democracy in a complaint filed with the FTC back in November of 2006, brought to a head when public comment to FTC's proposed "voluntary guidelines" drew objections by all major players in "behavioral marketing" ad networks . According to MediaPost, Google's comments to the FTC, said:

"We are currently experimenting in our Search service with providing ads based on both the current query and the immediately previous search," Google wrote. "For example, a user who types 'Italy vacation' into the Google search box might see ads about Tuscany or affordable flights to Rome. If the user were to subsequently search for 'weather,' we might assume that there is a link between 'Italy vacation' and 'weather' and deliver ads regarding local weather conditions in Italy."

So while the two issues (web search and Adwords that appear beside those search results) would not BOTH be affected by the FTC "guidelines" it could mean that we would see better search results and worse ads if those "guidelines" are in any way enforced by the FTC against ads, but not natural algorithmic search results.

What an odd position to be in for a privacy advocate like me. While the search results are bound to be better when previous queries are factored into the algorithm, the ads may be off-limits to the same refinement. Hmmm.

A very funny kink in this story from MediaPost is the quote:

Google rival Microsoft, on the other hand, said it supports the FTC's goals and that the proposed guidelines should be extended "to include the full array of online advertising activities."

Umm, yea - poor search results, no worthwhile algorithm from the last place search company MSN Live - who would never use their latest $6 Billion acquisition, aQuantive, to serve behavioral advertising to anyone - right? aQuantive execs had to be moaning in pain when they saw their new parent making such statements.

It's bound to be an interesting decision with lawsuits flying in both directions from privacy advocates on one side and ad networks on the other after those "voluntary guidelines" from the FTC are finally handed down.

I really do believe the search results using "Previous Query Refinement" would be better in most cases, for most people. I'll probably like those results sometimes and hate them others. I'll love them when I search for "Restaurant, New York City" and then "Italian food, Theater District" but I'll absolutely hate those results when I'm researching "accounting software" client keywords and decide to switch to my "plastic surgeon" client keywords or a search for a local auto parts store right after doing a medical search query.

Do those of us who search constantly get different types of cookies served for "Previous Query Refinement" searches than say my wife who searches for things only after asking me a tough trivia question or home repair question and I say, "Why don't you Google it?" She does two searches a day at most and I do 50 to 100 daily. Will I need to disable cookies? Sign out of my Google personalized search? How will "Previous Query Refinement" distinguish between those of us who want Unpolluted search results and those who need a helping hand with "Query Refinement?"

Best Pictures On Web Awards

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Google Adsense Ads Scroller Feature? Why?

Last week I saw a couple of up/down arrows displayed next to the Google Adsense ads on my blog and, curious what it was, I clicked the down arrow - a bit worried that it might count as clicking on my own ads - but the ads simply changed. They changed five times to show different ads and then I could scroll back up through them again. How odd - what good is this to visitors? You know you are looking for a particular advertiser and want to find them? Maybe you are bored and just like studying others ad copy? Hmmm.

Anyway, the feature then disappeared for a week and I didn't see it again. So I kicked myself for not getting a screenshot and moved on. Today I saw it again, but so are others. Has this fully launched?

The first time this was spotted was apparently in December when a couple people on the Webmasterworld forums brought it up. Today there's a bit of buzz on it again.

My question is why?

SEOBook Firefox Rank Checker Extension - Free

Aaron Wall of SEOBook is offering a free Firefox Rank Checking plugin which may come to replace many paid services or software! At only one day old (introduced publicly on March 31st), it's got some significant buzz going - at least on his own site - with over 75 comments already.

Here's a tutorial video Aaron Created which reviews the powerful feature set and use of the tool.

Amazing Stuff Aaron! Thanks for the great FREE tool!