Internet Marketing Blog

Archive for February, 2010

Today it was announced that Yahoo and Microsoft have received “unrestricted” clearance from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission to proceed with merging Yahoo and Bing, owned by Microsoft. We should be seeing integration within the next month.

According to Experian Hitwise, in December of 2009, Google had 72.25% of the search engine market share. Yahoo came up second with 14.83% and Bing had only 8.92%. Together, Yahoo and Bing will now have almost 24% of the market.

Webtyde Internet Marketing targets primarily Google, but we never neglect Yahoo and Bing. Remember, less than 10 years ago, Yahoo ruled the search engine market and nobody ever thought this little company with another weird little name would go anywhere.

The buzz is that Google is violating privacy rights with Google Buzz. Google’s reach stretches far and wide, but this time they crossed into even more questionable areas by violating the federal consumer protection law.

In the fight for social media supremacy, Google violated privacy laws by making all Gmail account holders automatically have a Google Buzz account. The default is set to opt-in, just as Google customized search is set, so users who don’t even know what Buzz is have an active account available for the world to see. If you have any personal data in any of your Google accounts using your personal Gmail address, this information can be ported over and displayed.

Another very questionable practice for which the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint was regarding how Google created your circle of friends. Google used your most frequent Gmail contacts. Google has made changes over the weekend that will only “suggest” user’s most frequently utilized Gmail contacts become friends rather than making it automatic.

From a personal aspect, this is a little scary for those whose primary email is their Gmail account. If you have a Gmail account, you should probably make sure you do not have any sensitive information out on the Internet courtesy of Google.

From a business perspective, this is more beneficial. Google Buzz will eventually be a powerful social media tool which your Internet marketing campaign will benefit. To what extent, nobody knows yet. I’m sure we will see some changes in the next few weeks after the Federal Trade Commission reviews the EPIC’s complaints and determines what is best for the public’s privacy.

The latest buzz in social media is Google Buzz. Google Buzz is the answer to Twitter’s instant status updates and Facebook’s social networking.

Yesterday, Google announced it launched Google Buzz on it’s official blog. With the competition being so tight right now between Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter to capture and keep the attention of the social media masses, Google is targeting Twitter and Facebook directly. I gave it a spin today and set up Webtyde Internet Marketing’s official account.

So far I feel it’s much more like Twitter than Facebook. Most likely because I haven’t set up the other media which is pulled from Picasa, Flickr, or Google Reader. Buzz updates your status feed instantly like Twitter, let’s others follow your updates, let’s you follow others status updates, and even has it’s own mobile software portals already. At this point, I’m not sure I need another instant way to update my status, but rather another me to update it for me.

A nice feature in Google Buzz is that it does integrate Twitter into your feeds so at least your followers can follow you in one place rather than two. I imagine Google Buzz integration/compatibility will be next on Twitter’s agenda.

I feel like the way they have Buzz set up will probably give it a legitimate chance to compete with Facebook. With Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter integrated as options to share media and the *prettier* image viewer (which looks rather nice), it should give Facebook a run for their money.

What this means for rankings: Not entirely sure yet. Definitely more exposure and inbound links. It’s up in the air how people will take to it and if it will stick.

I’ll be looking forward to where the new feed URLs will land in the rankings once Google gets to indexing and ranking them all. As always, I recommend creating an account if you have the time because, well, it’s Google.

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