Tetridia RSS News

Google is going into the British newspaper business

Google AdWords clients in the UK will soon have the opportunity to also place their ads in British newspapers, as – according to Times Online – search engine giant Google is currently talking with several newspaper publishers in the UK.

Although the company does not comment on if or when Print Ads will be launched in the UK, it seems to be foreseeable that they will introduce the programme in the UK as well as in Europe shortly.

Google Print Ads is a new extension of Google AdWords, the well known auction system that allows companies to bid for a slot next to the online word searches.

At the end of 2006, the new programme passed the test with 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers in the US and, in the meantime, has grown to more than 225 newspapers (from The New York Times and The Washington Post to smaller regional newspapers, college papers or Spanish language papers).

How does it work?

On Google Print Ads the advertiser chooses a newspaper, selects the day, the desired section and the ad size and then names the price he is willing to pay for the ad insertion. Generally within 72 hours, the newspaper publisher will respond to the bid by accepting it or indicating why he rejects it (based on this discussion the advertiser then can make a new bid). Finally, the advertiser submits the ad to the publisher. However, if he cannot design the ad alone, Google even offers to do that for him (taking a slice of the revenue anyway!).

According to Google, they bring new advertisers to newspapers with this programme which will benefit readers, publishers as well as advertisers. Google Print Ads makes it easier for agencies and advertisers of all sizes to plan and buy traditional newspaper media within a single, electronic interface bringing new efficiency and flexibility.

Indeed, it remains to be seen if the larger British newspapers join in Google Print Ads…

Google's PageRank update

22. November 2007

Google has recently updated its page ranking system. If you run a website it is likely that your Google PageRank has decreased.

Page ranking was originally developed by Google and it is a system that ranks websites from 0 to 10, needless to say that the higher ranking a site has, the better it is seen by Google itself and other businesses online. Pageranks are determined by the quality of the pages on a site and the links it has.

These recent changes, rumoured to be due to link selling and buying, has decreased the PageRank of a number of websites online, the BBC website for instance has seen its score go from 8 to 7. Pageranking is something that does not affect users finding you online, but it does affect how you are seen by your competitors, advertisers and stakeholders.

Some might see this as a form of cyber bullying by Google, but if you have to resort to buying links from higher ranked sites, what does that say about the quality of your web content?

Yahoo! announces new advertising deals

19. November 2007

Yahoo! will be offering discounts to its Gambling and Finance advertisers, in order to improve "partner quality" and increase advertising revenue and investment in the company.

Any advertiser from the Gambling and Finance sector wanting to advertise on Yahoo! and other members of its vast network such as Cheapflights will be receiving a discount based on how they are ranked by Yahoo! the search engine.

If you have a website, you will most probably be familiar with the word page rank, these are scores that search engines attribute to websites, based on the traffic they receive and generate, as well as quality. These scores go from 1 to 10, and each search engine attributes its own score to sites registered with them.

What Yahoo! will be doing, is charging advertisers based on the score of the site they want to advertise in. For instance if you are looking to advertise on a website with a Yahoo! score of 6, each click that you would receive through that website will be costing you 6p, originally it would have been 10p!

"This is about rewarding the high-quality partner sites and penalising the poor quality ones (...) It provides a universal tool and pricing programme that really focuses all of our partners on delivering the highest, most valid and most interested leads to an advertiser." Richard Firminger, Yahoo!'s regional sales director for Northern Europe.

This new measure will definitely motivate lower ranked websites to improve their quality and traffic, on the other hand, it would also give advertisers the option to use websites that have the same score as their clients, and still save a few pennies! In other words, if wanting to advertise a site with a score of 5 then it would be viable to use a site with the same score and pay accordingly.

As mentioned above, these new discounts will only apply for the Gambling and Finance sectors, but should soon stretch out to other sectors. Altogether, the advertising industry will be the big winner in this situation, advertising and its revenue is running the online world and it is predicted to continue doing so.

Youngsters spend more time online than watching TV

13. November 2007

A recent survey has shown that 16-24 year olds use the internet more often than they watch TV – 82% use the internet between 5 and 7 days a week while only 77% watch TV as regularly (a decrease of 5% since last year). 48% of these youngsters have also admitted to watching less TV now because of the internet.

This study by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has come to prove how the internet is growing and becoming so popular amongst young audiences. This study has also shown that internet users are spending on average 12 hours a week online, that is 1.7 hours each day.

Social networking websites such as Facebook and Bebo have also enjoyed an increase of 19% compared to last year, with 42% of internet users visiting such sites. This has led to a decrease on e-mail usage, however, e-mailing is still the second most popular online activity amongst Europeans.

The Top 10 most popular online activities across Europe, according with the EIAA are :

Searching	87%
Email	81%
Communicating via social networking sites	42%
Instant messaging	37%
Music downloads	31%
Listening to radio	31%
Watching TV, film or video clips	30%
Rating and reviews	27%
Sharing thoughts on forums	26%
Downloading a film, TV or video clip	20%

Source: www.eiaa.net

With Searching remaining the most popular activity more and more companies choose to optimise their websites for search engines since most people are directed to those through search engines. If you run a website this could be your golden opportunity!

The study by the EIAA has also attributed the increase of online users to broadband, which has come to increase the speed of connections, making it easy for users to watch and download online videos, hence the popularity of sites such as Youtube. Out of the 169 million people using the internet 8 out 10 are using broadband.

In all, 57% of Europeans now regularly access the internet each week, that is 169 million users across the 10 major European markets. Alison Fennah, Executive Director of The EIAA has stated: “Our Mediascope study shows that consumers are using the internet for function and fun as their media world becomes truly digital. We hope to help advertisers and agencies to understand this evolution and develop new and innovative communication strategies.”

AOL expands Truveo's availability

12. November 2007

AOL will be launching Truveo (a video search engine) in the UK, following its success in the US. This company is looking to increase its online presence by also launching the search engine in France, Spain Germany, India, Japan and Korea.

Truveo has been around since 2004 and it does have a large non-American users base, hence the opportunity to expand. Unlike Youtube, Troveo doesn't just store videos uploaded by members but also indexes them to different sources on the web such as the BBC and YouTube itself.

So, if your looking for a specific video on the web this might just be site to go to.

Google maps takes a step forward

09.November 2007

After the success of Google maps, Google has teamed up with Gilbarco Veeder-Root to bring Google maps to petrol stations across America. Internet connected touch screens will be installed on pumps and motorist will be able to get directions and print out a copy whilst filling their tanks.

Gilbarco Veeder-Root is a company providing fuel and retail management services to Petrol stations and convenience stores in the US, this new partnership and business step seems to be a good move by Google to a get a little more exposure and publicity not that it necessarily needs it. Note that Google will not be receiving any advertising revenue from this.

Insiders see this new move as good profit opportunity, petrol stations will increase their earnings from motorist that would stop to use the map and purchase fuel, the company involved could also see this as a good opportunity to increase volume sales of pumps and other services they offfer.

As per Kirsten Paust, vice president of global retail systems at Gilbarco Veeder-Root, "getting directions at the pump is safer than using Internet-enabled devices from the driver's seat and far more reliable than just asking a stranger (...) We believe consumers will prefer convenience stores that deliver useful information and ultimate convenience. Retailers who use these tools will make themselves more valuable to consumers and gain the competitive edge".

How useful would this service be for the consumers? More and More people rely on satellite navigation systems and previously printed maps from personal computers before starting their journeys. Can Google maps touch screens really compete against that?

Only time will tell. These touch-screens are meant to go 'live' next month in the United States ans there's yet no date or plan for a UK trial.

Facebook offers new platforms to Advertisers

08.November 2007

After Myspace's recent announcements regarding its new advertising offers. Facebook has announced their new strategy on Tuesday, 6. November, they aim to have businesses build their own costumized pages. This new project has been creatively named "Facebook ads".

In an era where word of mouth and personalised messages are at the core of any successful communications/ advertising campaign, Facebooks new actions will be highly welcomed by advertisers and businesses in general, with 10.000 pages having already been created and launched the same evening as these announcements.

Facebook users will be able to become fans of those pages and any action they take on such would be automatically communicated to that users friends, who would receive a company logo. In other words, if your favourite chocolate brand happens to have a page on Facebook, you would have the chance to share your passion with other users on your friend's list.

Further actions would involve businesses being able to track their social ads, as well as users shopping sites being promoted to those in their friend's list.

As per Mr Zuckerberg, ( facebook's founder ), "nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend (..) a trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising. For the last 100 years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation.”

MySpace reveals their advertising plans

06.November 2007
By targeting adverts trough its new system, MySpace wants to show that it is offering more to advertisers than Facebook.

Indeed the first phase of its new advertising sales system called "hyper-targeting" will allow advertisers to use some personal information that users put on their profile to sell personalized advertisement.

MySpace has even assured that its click trough rate on its hyper targeting advertisements will be 300% greater than from competitors. It seems to have already convinced several well known partners: Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Ford and more, have already signed up for MySpace's new system.

The new scheme allows advertisers to search 100 different user segments like travel, automobile or movies. This is a gold mine for advertisers as they will be able to target their campaigns at people who are more likely to be interested in seeing this advert. Furthermore as Facebook claims that it receives an average of 54 billions pages views each month, MySpace being the market leader must have much more. But these informations will have a price and the more specific information the advertisers want, the more they will have to pay. Facebook has promised to announce the details of its new platform today, which will give users the option of letting the site track their movements on the web at large.

The social networking site is so trendy that everybody wants to create their own profile and get connected. Yahoo is starting to elaborate its own by enable university students to tap into a network of professionals and get advice for internships and jobs offers. What is next?

Google boosts social networking alternatives

31.October 2007

The battle against the two giants: Google and Microsoft is still rolling! With the recent news on "Microsoft acquiering facebook shares" it is time now for Google to shoot back by launching a system that will give the opportunity to developers to create applications for a variety of social networks.

At this time developers have to give their customized design for a specific site with many are already partner with the potential competitor Facebook.

The new Google open social system is the way to compete with Microsoft which took a 1.6 %share with the popular social networking site. Google will allow a wider distribution for tools like Facebook's music recommendation service iLike and its TopFriends application.

For the instance, Google has 12 social networking partners who signed up to the system which include LinkedIn, Friendster and Google's own social network Orkut.

The difference with Facebook is that the open social network will allow developers to write in normal Javascript and Html only and you will just need to do minor adjustments for the code on the social network platform. This is an improvement because according to Michael Arrington from TechCrunch's "Developers have been complaining non stop about the costs of learning yet another markup language for every new social network platform, and taking developers time in creating and maintaining the code,". The new Google plan is clever, because it will pursue many developers to work with Google partner applications and consequently strengthen Facebook's rivals.

Google tops advertising revenue

30. October 2007

According with the Timesonline, Google has beaten ITV in advertising revenue, the search engine giant has earned £327 million last summer compared to £317 Million by ITV. At a time when the future of advertising is highly discussed and the number of people with access to broadband internet increases. These figures come to show that online advertising, and search engines will become an essential part of any successful integrated marketing communications plan.

This year Google has already earned £9.25 million in advertising revenue, £54 million more than it did for the whole of last year when it surpassed channel 4's. ITV on the other hand is expected to face a revenue's drop of 7%.

One of the reasons why online advertising has become so popular is due to the limited amounts of restrictions when compared to television and other traditional media such as press and radio, advertisers like the fact that they can be more creative online. Due to this fact ITV is looking to loosen its restrictions to increase its advertising revenue. "Google, whose advertising revenues have overtaken Channel 4’s and which has 75 per cent of the search advertising market, is wholly unregulated. Yet ITV labors under a host of anachronistic proscriptions about what it can and can’t do" - Michael Grade, the executive chairman.

Very few people however seem to be skeptical about the power and future of online advertising and search engine marketing, discarding Google as a "brand finder" as opposed to a "brand builder". However figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau show that if it was not for online advertising value growth (41%) the overall value of UK advertising would have fallen by 19%.

The internet is and will remain a viable and successful platform to communicate with your customers. As per the Internet Statistics Compendium, 91% of adults who have used the internet, use a search engine to find information. It would then make sense to optimize your website for search engines so that users would be able to find you.

Web 3.0:The next Internet revolution

29. October 2007

Engineers from the Silicon valley have created a virtual picture how Web3.0 can revolutionize the internet. According to them, in 2030 Web 3.0 will be very powerful and smart. It will be able to connect every aspect of our digital lives.

Web 3.0 will have the possibility to know when you are typing an email and what subject the email has. It will also be able to suggest websites, books, documents and photos you have saved and choose which one can be relevant to your topic.

Basically the new web is going to almost have a brain. Technologists wants to improve the basic platform Internet. The main purpose of Web 2.0 was to gather collective intelligence of internet users to give information on internet a relevant value. The goal was to improve web's usability and creating connections between internet users.

In Web 3.0, the aim is to renew the web's key index. The engineers want to implement "a natural language search": search engines will be able to answer full questions and be not focused on the original search terms. The platform will be more open which means the possibility to mix and match (Mash-up) different services on the web.

According to John Doerr, one of the founding board member at Google "Web 3.0 will be a immersive and multi-dimensional environment". Many areas will be affected by the web, he warned them that they need to be ready.

Web - Web 2.0 - So be prepared to the next internet revolution = Web 3.0!

Microsoft aquired Facebook share

25.October 2007

For the bargain prize of 117 millions pounds, Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake of Facebook. Other companies such as Yahoo or Google also wanted to invest in one of the most popular social networking websites but Facebook declined their offer.

The aim of this partnership is simply to increase profits through advertising on both sides. Microsoft will sell internet ads for Facebook outside the US. The company already had an agreement with Facebook to provide banner advertising and links to the US version of the social networking site. This was the part of the deal discussed during several weeks. With this acquisition, Microsoft will become the exclusive third party seller of overseas advertising outside the US on Facebook. Knowing that the social networking site currently has 49 millions users, this could be a huge financial opportunity for Microsoft.

The Facebook deal is Microsoft's answer in its battle with Google. Looking one year back in October 2006, Google beat Microsoft with the 1.65bn dollar acquisition of online video sharing website YouTube.

With this partnership Facebook is looking to increase its current audience of nearly 50 million active users by becoming a real magnet for advertiser and also to compete fiercely with its rival MySpace which currently has 100 million users. Facebook also wants to take advantage of existing Microsoft skills. According to Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, the software group knew better -in comparison to Google- how to work with program developers and build computing environments. She said that “Microsoft is a company that knows how to build platforms, knows how to develop relationships with developers. The social networking site is hoping with Microsoft 's collaboration to struggle less to reach leader position."

Children's Safety on Facebook

24. October 2007

Facebook has recently admitted that their response rates to complaints regarding pornography and harassment are poor. The social networking site will now be changing their conduct to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content and Paedophiles.

Social Networking websites and the internet in general have been a playground for molesters that use these to prey on children. Last summer, Myspace in the US removed thousands of users from its network after being pressured by the US government.

Facebook will now be changing its procedures regarding complaints involving unsolicited approaches and inappropriate content, all thanks to New York attorney Andrew Cuomo who carried out his own investigation after receiving numerous complaints. As per Facebooks chief privacy officer "the attorney general pointed out some weaknesses in our complaint-handling process (...) what he has directed us to do is renew our vigilance around complaint handling.”

Facebook's new procedures will involve:

Fast-track and priority to any complaints to do with nudity, pornography and unwelcome approaches;
Quicker responses to any complaints of these nature, they will be aiming to respond within 24 hours, and demonstrate their actions within 72 Hours;
Warnings concerning the risks of social networking would be presented to perspective members before signing up;

An independent examiner should also be monitoring the effectiveness of these new procedures, nevertheless alot more could be done on Facebook, but it does seem to be a good first step.

The future of Google

22.October 2007

According to the TIMESONLINE, the search engine giant Google wants to conquer the world by holding people 's information. How is going to do that? Google has developed a three steps plan to make the impossible real.

1) Become the "universal search engine"

According to Google's head of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer: 'the web is actually very limited and primitive". Currently it is mostly a summary of words, image and music. Google wants to innovate web's content and be the only Search Engine to provide comprehensive search facilities. They currently develop a new software that will have the capacity to scan millions of news sources of information to give richer search results.

2) Make search personal

But Google doesn't just improve the search service, they also want to make search more personalized. With iGoogle, the internet user's search is monitored and web surfing history will be recorded. Signing up to iGoogle on your PC or even using your mobile, you can search anything you want at anytime and anywhere but don't forget as good as this sounds - they can also turn this around and monitor every step you do. It become a real personal service but also a way to be traceable.

3) Developing the concept of "Cloud Computing'

Step 3 to put Google's dream into practice is implementing the concept of "cloud computing". The big G wants internet users to create all of their documents online in order to work on them by using Google's web based software. The user will then be able to store these documents online on Google's vast global network of servers instead of doing it on their computer. This will be possible via Google Apps, Google's own web based program recently launched. Internet user will be able to create a password, to protect word files and spreadsheets, in order to edit and store them online .

By pursuing this dream Google will record 'everything' we do online and store this information. So be careful, Google is watching you !

MySpace and Facebook - outsourcing application development

18. October 2007
After Facebook's annoucement to open its doors to "new and innovative" applications as previously reported (New fun features for Facebook), MySpace is set to follow its footsteps, and gets outside developers to contribute new applications to their website.

Since adding new applications to its website Facebook has enjoyed some expected success and growth. Users can now share videos, audio and photos, and it has become a window for finding such services.

With the addition of new features, MySpace is looking to offer its users a similar type of services and continues competing at a similar level. Currently Facebook is the UK's most popular social networking website - with 47 million users worldwide, but Myspace is still the worlds biggest community with 188 million users.

As per Chris Dewolfe, MySpace's chief executive, "the idea will be to allow outside developers to tightly integrate their applications into MySpace (...) I would say we're different (than Facebook) and in spite of all the hype we seem to be growing faster".

This new step will definitely give this company another competitive edge on Facebook and increase the value of social networking websites, not only in the digital world but also in general markets. These are good news for all users finding new ways to promote themselves online. In the past 2 years musicians, such as Lilly Allen and Kate Nash, have found MySpace to be a perfect launching and social networking site, and could enjoy platinum success.

MySpace and Skype: a new team

17.October 2007
MySpace users will soon be able to make phone calls to each other as the social network site made a partnership with the internet phone company Skype.

This service will be available by the end of November 2007. As the 2 companies claim to be the worlds largest online voice connected community, with 110 million MySpace users and 220 million from Skype.

The concept

Free internet calls will be possible between MySpace and Skype users. MySpace users will also have the possibility to pay for land line or mobile phones calls through this application as it will be integrated into MySpace's existing instant messaging feature. No additional download of software will be required.

The deal of this new partnership is to increase pressure on traditional telecoms companies, who are battling to save margins in the face of virtually free internet calls. But it is aimed also to improve the way people can communicate online with each other.

Guardian Unlimited sees films differently

16 October 2007
Next month Guardian Unlimited is set to launch a new interactive film database as part of their See Films Differently campaign. Its main objective is to get different users to interact with each other and embrace different film genres.

This new database would allow users to review and comment on films as well as adding links and films, depending on their registration type, which is at present defined as 'film rookie' or 'film buff'.

Film databases are not unheard of, but it seems to be a first for an online newspaper. Nevertheless the Guardian will be facing competition from other online film databases such as IMDb - Internet Movie database, which has been around for over a decade and goes beyond movies by including TV Programs and video games.

Guardian Unlimited's initiave is a positive one, especially in times where we mostly have film experts telling us what is worth watching in newspapers, is good to know the average Joe's opinion.

Google on the top of the world search

12 October 2007
Google deserve to be called "Big G" or "Search Engine Giant" or any other similar phrase out there. With 37 billion searches in August, the market leader executed half of all search request around the world .

Yahoo comes second with 8.5 billions searches followed by Baidu, the chinese language search engine (3.2 billion), then Microsoft (2.1 billion) and finally the korean NHN search engine with 2 billion. These figures collected by analysts from Comscore revealed that most search activities are based in the Asia/Pacific region. For the month of August, it represented 258 millions users carried out 20.3 billions searches. Europe is the second region with the largest total of searchers with 210 millions users followed by North America with 206 millions users.

Focusing on the Asia Pacific region and due to the fact that this market has a huge potential it also has lead to some unethical changes conducted by the search engines. Some even are in contradiction to the first goal of the Internet - access of information. In China for example, Google, Yahoo, Msn have to obey to the strict Chinese laws controlling freedom of speech. This includes employing their own “monitors” to carry out government censorship orders and committing to remove any web pages that are considered politically sensitive. That shows that even these Giants of information have their Achille's heels.

YouTube videos on Google ads

10. October 2007

Google surely knows how to succeed. For the first time shares break the $600 mark and increase by 17% in only one month.

A growing source of revenue are its various advertising channels. In a previous article "Google reveals advertising strategy for YouTube' we revealed that Google has elaborated a new online marketing strategy where small half transparent adverts are incorporated in a selection of video clips on YouTube.

Google decided to expand its lucrative Adsense platform to video content by allowing advertisers to insert clips from YouTube videos into their promotional messages.

How it works?

A banner ad will appear across the top of the video player or as a link at the bottom when internet user click on the video. A succession of text ads will be also visible when users watch the video. These text ads will change at a rate of about 1 every 10 seconds at the bottom of the page and will seize a fifth of the video player screen. Advertisers will be charged on a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression basis. The advertising revenue will be shared with the video producer and the web publisher.

This program is a win-win relationship according to Google. Currently this new program is only available to a selected group of YouTube video providers. Mondo Media or Expert village have signed consent forms to provide/generate video content. Video Adsense is only available on YouTube US.

@ Tetridia

Search engines' piracy policies

Do you love using search engines like Google, MSN or Yahoo to find information? Whenever you are using a search engine, the information about your short "stay" will be tracked: IP address, the research, profile and even your name (because so many people type their own name to know if others can find it!) This information is stored by the search engines - with no exception.

We have put together a summery about the search engines regulations:

Search engines' privacy policies

Search Engine	Anonymizes user data after:	User control over data
Google	18 months	No
Microsoft	18 months	End 2007
Yahoo!	13 months	No
Ask	18 months	AskEraser: End 2007

By the end of 2007 Microsoft and Ask want to launch a new system to give the user the choice about their personal information being stored or not.

@ Tetridia

Optimize PDFs for search engines

08. October 2007

As competitive as the online world becomes, it also is crucial that a website is noticed online.

As repetitive as this might be, Search Engine Optimization ensures that your web content appears when a user is searching for it. It is essential that search engines can read the content from a website therefore optimizing PDF files as well as normal HTML/ XHTML web content would be an excellent step to take.

Search Engines rate websites based on their relevancy to content and keywords, but also on many quality links the sites has - outgoing and incoming. The same way Search Engine Optimization specialists can optimize websites, PDF documents can be optimized too.

How to optimize a PDF file:

Make all PDF's in text format, so that the search engine can read it;
Complete the document's properties, (especially the title) - what usually happens is that people forget to set a title, that way the search engine will pick content from the PDF file and it might not be exactly what you would want.
Optimize text, by making sure that selected keywords are there and can easily be identified;
Add links to PDF files, so that readers can always be redirected to your website;
Save files at the lowest possible Acrobat version, so that readers can easily open it, and search engines can find it;
Sizes should be kept as small as possible, if files take too long to download users will abandon the site;
Place links to your files on your web page where it can easily be found, i.e. closer to the root level of the site’s file structure.
Specify reading order, in terms of text and headlines;
Publish articles in different directories that directly link to your PDF documents

In order to achieve a higher ranking, it is important to use a set of well chosen keywords and relevant content, by optimizing PDF files. They can achieve a higher number of links and the opportunity to have more content associated with your website and your business, which would ultimately affect one's ranking on the most popular search engines.

Seminar Review - Youtube, Joomla, Youhoo?! Conference in Berlin

We had the pleasure to present the Tetridia seminar “Boost Sales Using The Internet And On-line Marketing” at the Youtube, Joomla, Youhoo?! Conference in Berlin last weekend. It was a great success and judging by the number of people coming to the seminar – the interest and the expectations were very high.

While concentrating on online marketing methods and strategies – we started out with generic but very essential issues such as defining your target group or the USP of specific website. Talking about all online marketing channels would have been too time consuming – we therefore mainly focused on search engine marketing. The audience was eager to learn about Keyword research, Link building as well search engine optimisation. Some attendees had previous experiences with Google AdWords or similar schemes which we could refresh and deepen. Relatively new areas such as article marketing as well as social media, which includes social bookmarking, media sharing and social networking applications were greeted with curiosity and excitement.

It was a fantastic experiences for us to take part in this 2-day conference – worth every minute.

Is Yahoo catching up on Google?

03. October 2007
Yahoo! has improved its search engine by creating a new " Search Assist " tool. The aim is to win market share from the search giant Google, leader of the search market and also resolve a problem of consumers called "internet search fatigue".

Indeed Yahoo! will propose ways to phrase a search as a user types into the query box and will produce more links to photos, music and videos on the main results page.
This new search tool will also pull information from Yahoo's calendar service:Upcoming.org to highlight local events to a search request .

Yahoo!'s idea when deciding to create this new "search assist " tool is partly based on a research showing that online consumers were suffering from "web search fatigue".
The study by 'Harris interactive' reported that 99 % of adults online use a search engine to find information online but only 15% of them find what they looking for on their first search. They have to conduct a search three or four times to find what they are looking for.

The manager of Yahoo! Search said that they make the changes to give the best answers to their consumers. This internet search fatigue damages yahoo's earning and profit and also has a dramatic effect on their market shares too. In August 2007, Yahoo market share represented 23% of U.S Search market compared to 56.5 % for Google. Two years ago, Yahoo market share(32 %) was only 3 points away from Google (35%).

The gap between the two search engines is going to be hard to fill but it is certainly worth trying!

Wikipedia's founder explains new editing rules

26. September 2007
Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales, denies that the new strategies intented to improve the site's reliability, will jeopardise the users ability to edit text, and go against its original premises of having information that could be edited by people around the world.

As previously reported by Tetridia ("Wikipedia - 100% reliable source?"), Wikipedia will be launching a new strategy indented to improve its reliability. The new structure involves the online encyclopaedia’s text being edited by "accredited editors", instead of the instant editing being used at present.

In a recent interview with the Times Online, Wikipedia's founder has affirmed that the site's original premise will not be sacrificed for accuracy and reliability, users can still make the changes they feel necessary, however they would have to be registered for at least 4 days before making any changes.

Jimmy Wales believes, that these new modifications will decrease the number of wrong input information on the site; " There are no plans to restrict anybody's status (...) anyone can make an edit, but if the user hasn't been registered for at least 4 days, then it would have to be approved by someone who has been registered before going live".

As for Wikipedia's new competitor Citizendum which runs a very similar policy, the mogul denies that these new actions are a response to their competitor, which admits entries from the public but are edited by an expert panel, before being published online.

At the moment, the company is also facing a new challenge, the launch of its own search engine, which would involve users with website ranking, scheduled for December this year. Search Wikia is the name, and Mr Wales refutes that he intends to rival Google, "when we launch search Wikia, people will probably expect it to be a fully fledged Google - it won’t be!"

Altogether, search Wikia seems to be following its sister company's footsteps as a place in the online world where users have more control, if users rate the websites and the order in which they appear, that would definitely give cybernauts the power to exclude unnecessary sites from our search results. As for Wikipedia the future might look bright, it is not the most reliable source, but it will always give a good base start to any research.

Update: Microsoft Live Search

24. September 2007
Microsoft decided to take action to compete with industry giant Google. On 26th of September, a new version of Live Search will be launched.

The relaunch of MS Live Search has two main objectives: increase the numbers of users and build a stronger reputation in the search field.

What are the main changes?

Microsoft has made improvements to the search functionality of Live Search and added more personalized elements, focusing on social networks. New features have been added such as Windows Live translator. They also want to change the way results are brought to the consumers, also delivering multimedia results like its biggest competitor Google does .

Marc Bressel, regional sales director for EMEA at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, said "We want to bring a totally different search results experience to what we have in the market".

These innovations are following the launch of AdCenter in the UK last summer. A paid search platform to compete with Google Adwords but Microsoft didn't achieve to be a serious thread to the market leader just yet. To be successful in this market Microsoft needs to win back its slice of the search engine market share in order to make the AdCenter platform work, one step to reach this goal is to bring more users to Live Search with their new version of Live Search .

But will it work? Time will tell .... so watch out for more news.

Wikipedia - 100% reliable source?

21. September 2007

Wikipedia has been facing inaccuracy claims throughout its existence, but recently the online encyclopaedia has announced that it will be taking action towards making the information displayed on their website more reliable.

They intend to resolve their problems, by using a new package that will first be tested on the German version, where readers will no longer be able to alter information instantly, besides their own "reliable" editors. Any readers wanting to make an alteration would have to propose it to these called editors, which are picked based on how many reliable articles they have online. Certified "vandal-free" pages will also be available, as well as a new rating system that would rate editors on how many changes to their input info are requested, the fewer the changes, the higher the reliability score.

On the other hand, this could also be Wikipedia's response to Citizendium, as Tetridia has reported last month, Citizendium was created by Wikipedia's ex co-founder, as an online encyclopaedia that provides reliable and accurate information, the public can alter information but not anonymously, there are also editors and all reports are constantly monitored and checked for accuracy.

Wikipedia started in January 2001 and it was created with the objective of providing a "free content encyclopaedia", that could be edited by anyone around the world, offering one site that people could turn to for a wide array of articles and content. These new changes would obviously affect their original premises, but can we really trust Wikipedia to become a reliable base for information?

New fun features for Facebook

20. September 2007
The popular social networking website is in need of new and innovate applications (small programs which can be integrated in the users profiles like a music sharing service or Texas HoldEm Poker).

These applications need to be constantly improved and renewed as they are part of Facebook's growth and popularity.

The founder of the social networking website decided to offer a grant of £125,000 to companies or individuals to develop outstanding and engaging applications. To receive this grant, finalists will be judged by a jury including Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and Accel's Jim Breyer, the primary investors of Facebookfunds grant (fbFund).

This clever move will bring many new ideas and innovation to the website. The interest in the developer community is expected to be very high as well as pretty much every programmer will be able to work with the Facebook API.

Great plans - not a very new scheme as such as the main idea is of course very simple and straight forward - bringing in new members or alternatively (and probably even more important, keep existing user on the website for longer. This will help to increase revenue made with advertising.

A previous article "Facebook opens profile to the public: How to Hide!', explains how the social networking site wants to profit from its members. Now the new weapon of choice are the software developers and even Mr. Zuckerberg said: "With just a little bit of capital, a company can grow to hundreds of thousands of users,...". Anyway - the new application will be great fun to use too!

Microsoft to pay a £345 million fine

18. September 2007

Software giant Microsoft has lost its appeal against the European Commission at the Court of first instance and due to its anti-competitive actions it has been ordered to pay a £345 million fine.

"The court of first instance essentially upholds the commission's decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position"- Court's statement.

Over the past 9 years the European Commission has battled against Microsoft to make the software market a more competitive one. More recently in 2004, Microsoft was ordered to share information with its software rivals, so that their products could operate with other computer systems. As well as making their Windows operation software available without Windows Media Player, which was seen as being anti-competitive since the user would not have a direct option as to what entertainment software to use.

On Monday the court has ruled that Microsoft's behaviour has been anti-competitive, and that their software should not be sold as part of a package and that they should share information with rivals. Microsoft is now unlikely to appeal again, and will comply with the demands. However they feel that handing information over to rivals would only affect theirs and competitors creativity.

Neelie Koroes, the competition commissioner has stated that "Microsoft cannot abuse its windows monopoly to exclude competitors in other markets". She has also predicted Microsoft's 95% market share to decrease.

Facebook opens profile to the public: How to Hide!

18.September 2007

In the previous article "Facebook opens profiles to the public" , we rang the alarm about the new search functionality of Facebook and the possibility for anyone to track down Facebook members via public search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN (Live) or Ask.

Here are some tips to prepare to defend the privacy attack!

Facebook's plans are clear. The social networking site wants to use the collected personal data of Facebooks members to increase its revenue. Indeed it will serve to target advertisement to individual users and you will notice this in the week to come, new advertising features are going to be added. Facebook's current priority is making advertising more personal, as because of the media's anonymity targeted online advertising is rather difficult. Search Engines don't know enough yet about their users to fullfil their commercial potential.

This is a simple reason why Facebook wants to make all this private information such as favourite music or details of personal/private events accessible to the public especially to advertisers and marketeers because they know it is a goldmine and they want to profit from it.

In the long term, Facebook's will transform from "its online talking shop to a massive distributive network for services and advertising." according to the TIMESONLINE .

So if you don't want your private life be a part in this 'amazing' transformation, learn How to hide on Facebook.

@ Tetridia

Do you have a successful website?

17. September 2007

It is important to speak to the usability and web experts, get advice on what works best for your business online. However to really KNOW the success of a website it is necessary to work with numbers, to understand what they mean and what the consequences are. Web Analytics can paint a clear picture on how successful your website is, if the right users are coming to visit and even what they are up to.

What is web analytics software?

First of all a web analytics software will trace the behaviour of the website users. The software will pick the useful data from the website to determine which aspects works towards the business' goals and objectives.

A wide choice of various software packages is out there such as Omniture, WebTrend, WebSideStory, Click Tracks, Visual Science and Google Analytics (free of charge).

What does the software tell?

Web analytics software will improve your websites efficiency and its success online, like more sales or leads, increase the ROI (Return on investment) or decrease your online marketing costs:

Website Traffic Reports: help to understand the users of a website, where they are from, how long they stay, which pages they visit ...

Key Performance Indicator or Dashboard: closely monitor the KPIs of the online activities and let them guide you to to improve the website or the marketing campaign

Possible KPIs: Number of visits, Pageviews, Pages/Visit, Bounce Rates, Average time on site, New Visits, Goals and Conversions.

Understand the KPIs of your online business

It is important to keep an eye on the KPIs you have selected as even simple changes on the website or activities can thrive your statistics crazy.

Lets assume the visits to your company's website have increased by 20% from August to September. Looked at this on its own is a pretty good performance. But think twice - should you really start celebrating? What is the consequence - your companies main aim? Can you expect more signed contracts, more newsletter subscriptions, or leads? There is more to it - if we look at the bounce rate which indicates an increase to 85% - a rather high number of users looking at only one page.

This is only one simple example of how different numbers tell different stories. Take the time to understand the results and you can achieve a highly successful website.

Google tycoons park at Nasa airbase

17. September 2007

Jet parking problems? not Google!

Did you ever find yourself stuck between two options? For instance, do I park my jet at San Francisco airport or San Jose airport? Probably not.

Sylicon Valley tycoons, however, have had to face such difficult dillema, but what they really want is to park closer to their offices. Recently, Google inc co-founder, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have found themselves a parking space at Nasa airbase, just 1.7 miles from their offices, costing £650,000 a year.

Whilst these Google bosses get to park closer to their offices, Nasa will be installing instruments on some of these jets (Boeing 767-200) in order to obtain scientific data. Nevertheless, some locals seem to be against these arrangements.

What you need to know about Social Bookmarking

13. September 2007

The success of the "social" web applications is undeniable. Social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo or YouTube have reached success and fame in the past & present. Now followed by social bookmarking websites as they are becoming more and more praised by internet users.
Why create such a buzz around these websites? Let us give you a brief overview and the reasons why you should be in it to win it!

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is an online tool which allows people to organize, rate and share their favorite sites on the Internet. Categorize favorite sites using tags, which describe the content of the website. Other people who are interested in the same subject can browse through this selection, based on the recommendation and choose to bookmark the page themselves. The web application often allows users to store links (bookmarks- hence the name ), share and search a web page location (URL), web page address or a file name. All of these lists of online resources can be made accessible to the public. That is why it is called " social " bookmarking site. These bookmarks can be private or shared. To get your own social bookmarking storage - simply register to one of the website below.

List of Social Bookmarking websites

Blue Dot
del.icio.us
Digg
Diigo
Furl
GiveALink.org
Ma.gnolia
My Web
Netscape
Netvouz (Allows both tags and folders for organizing bookmarks.)
Newsvine
Reddit
Shoutwire
Simpy
SiteBar (SiteBar bookmark server is open source software)
StumbleUpon
Thoof

A bit of Social Bookmarking History

The idea of sharing internet bookmarks was born in April 1996 with the launch of the first social bookmarking website itList.com. The market flourished in three years and websites like Backflip, Blink, Clip2, hotlinks and quiver enter in the competition. But this first generation of social bookmarking software didn't have a viable money making model behind it. Many failed especially with the dotcom bubble gone burst in 2001. In 2005 and 2006, a second generation of social bookmarking site like Del.ici.ous, Simpy and furl rushed into the social software market, followed by Diigo, Ma.gnolia, Netvouz and Stumbleupon. Latest members to the family are websites like Reddit, Digg, Newsvine, the Uncut Times and Netscape. Recently IBM have revealed plans to enter this market and even the traditional BBC has added social bookmarking links for its news and sports articles.

Social Bookmarking: a small web revolution!

This a new way to discover the web. It is a big innovation in the area of searching for information online. Compared to the traditional system using a search engine, social bookmarking sites have a great advantage: The categorization of the bookmarks is made by humans who understand the content of the pages they have listed (or so we hope), unlike to the search engines which are using algorithms to rate & store the content of web sites. The result pages are ranked by the number of users or the times the keyword searched has appeared on the resource.

The importance of Social Bookmarking sites for Search Engine optimisation!

These Social Bookmarks are a nice "Add-On" for every companies Internet Marketing Strategy. It is all about traffic -and your online bookmarks again generate links which can potentially bring traffic to the website. Furthermore social bookmarking sites are highly considered by search engines because they are seen as reliable and recommended websites - human edited.

Create your account and start digging!

Firefox reached 400 Million target

12. September 2007
As a loyal reader of the Tetridia News section you know that Mozilla wanted to re-structure its Firefox brand to increase it's retention rate compared to Microsoft's Monopole with Internet Explorer. Last Friday Firefox has reached its 400 Millionth software download.

The Firefox power is growing strong since its launch date in 2004, with an increase from 100 Million to 200 Million 2 years later. It managed to doubled popularity in 2007 reaching 400 Million last week.

It's important to say that these 400 Million downloads do not represent the number of people who use the increasingly popular Internet browser. The number also includes updates or people who have re-installed Firefox. However there is no time to rest as it does not mean that every user who has downloaded the software is actively using it.

Firefox is gaining more and more market shares from Microsoft (Internet Explorer) and has reached around 18% according to W3Counter, this is a loss of about 9% for Internet Explorer.

The next Big Thing - Mobile Networking

10. September 2007

It is a fact - we travel more. Not only for holidays or weekend breaks - we have also become more accustom to travel further to work. The consequence of this is that many industries adjust to this development and research new markets. One of these markets is the mobile phone industry - new features with sheer endless possibilities - listening to music, chatting and surfing on the web = skyrocketing revenues.

The logical next step for mobile operators: After the success of user generated content online with websites like Facebook, Bebo or even YouTube, they adapt this scheme and take it mobile. With the expansion of the social networking to mobile content, this could be generate about $5.74bn (£2.87bn) by 2012.

One of the most attractive elements which could be the key factor for success is that everybody would be able to keep in touch with their friends wherever they are and keep up-to-date with their online profile whatever they do. The user can type "I'm at the beach right now" or "I'm doing some Xmas shopping" directly on your mobile phone. Of course we can debate about the importance of this type of messages and the already existing overload on information.

Some facts about the power of social networking - an increase of 270% of Facebook's users for the last 2 years. We can notice an increase for MySpace (72%) as well but lower as the less saturated market of Facebook. MySpace now has more than 114 Million users world wide instead of 52 Million on Facebook. Bebo, with it's majority of users in Europe, grew 172% to more than 18 million users.

Research has shown that the user profiles of people who are using web sites like Facebook is very similar to the one's likely to be interested in using the internet on a mobile phone. (Comscore)

The results show that people who are experimenting with the internet on a mobile phone are younger than users who access the web only with a computer. In Britain, more than 25% of mobile internet users are aged 15 to 24, compared with 20% who go online using a computer; a further 41% of mobile internet users are 25 to 34 compared with less than 20% using a computer.

Different social networks are now available on some mobile operators such as Facebook in the US with Verizon or AT&T or even YouTube with an exclusive deal with Vodafone.

With this in mind it also becomes clearer why Google would want to join this profitable market with its own Gphone.

Tetridia's advice: Get your mobile marketing strategy ready!

Facebook opens profiles to the public!

07. September 2007

Facebook is transforming its social networking web site into something similar like the "White Pages" online. Following the trend of Spock.com and ZoomInfo. Not only has Facebook now opened users profiles to the public. A publicly available search functionality has been added, which allows anyone, Facebook member or not, to search for a specific person. In about one month time, people will also be able to track down Facebook members via search engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn or Ask.

What about the privacy?

People who are not registered can only see the picture of Facebook members from their profile image, But if you are or you wanted to be an user, you can add this person as your friend or send him a message and sometimes see its profile. The problem still remains the same: this site can be dangerous. Tetridia has reported on privacy issues of Facebook in the past - about Facebook members reveal their personal details too easily. Many have never modified their privacy settings, where you can restrict the information available. So if your profile is not private and can't only be seen by your friend, anyone can have access to your mobile telephone, date of birth, interests or events you will attend.

This site is a goldmine to anyone who want to exploit people's private information this to include identity thieves, hackers, cyber criminal and of course the all prominent advertisers. Indeed they will have all the information to target YOU. Considering that Facebook has 39million members it really is a great opportunity for marketeers. The new regulation will come into force in the beginning of October 2007 - so you still have one month to change your settings and protect your Facebook profile.

Article by Sonia Langevin @ Tetridia

Google - the master of Easter Eggs

06. September 2007

Google has big dreams - and as a big company it can even effort to put those dreams in reality. Apart from putting rather real dreams into action - like buying "YouTube" for the bargain price of $1.65bn, sometimes their fantasy runs wild.
Google is well known for their little gadgets be it to change their logo for various occasions or seasons or the equally entertaining "Easter Eggs".

Earlier this year we heard about weird things happening to the Google templates at 3.14am sharp: the Loch Ness monster or the “Pi” symbol with the sky template at 3:14 am ( Pi = 3.14159265!!!!!) suddenly appeared on your personalized Google homepage template.

Google Earth - Flightsimulator

Using Google Earth we can now even fly between buildings with a secret Flight Simulator that takes full advantage of Google’s extensive satellite imagery.

To access these hidden feature, open Google Earth and hit or Ctrl+Alt+A (with a capital A) if you’re using a Windows Machine. (or Command+Option+A with other hardwares)

The Google Earth Flight Simulator comes with two aircraft options, a F16 Viper and the more manageable SR22 4 plane. Players have the option of commencing the game from their current location in Google Earth or can pick from a list of pre-determined runways.

Get more information about control instructions from Google.

Overall the game is fairly simple to play, but the striking difference is flying over real images of locations.

For example you can take a quick trip from San Francisco International Airport, heading north to the Golden Gate Bridge then turn back over the city before heading towards the Valley. The software is not perfect but you can have some good fun and an (let's say semi-professional) overview how a flight simulator works.

Fasten your seat belts and enjoy your flight: Click here to download Google Earth now

Firefox - USE ME!

05. September 2007
Research has shown that only 25% of the users who download the Mozilla built browser Firefox use it regularly. That is a very good start but not enough...

Why is it so hard to outrun Internet Explorer?

First of all and most importantly - Internet Explorer comes with Windows and is ready to use. There is no additional work for the user and all Windows applications work hand-in-hand with it.

Another part of the users will simply not want to switch because they feel more comfortable with Internet Explorer and don't see the reason why to make the switch.

How to increase the Firefox market share?

Mozilla has build valuable partnerships to further increase their market share. Google Pack now includes Mozilla Firefox. When a user downloads and installs the software pack the possibility is given to choose to install every single item separately but also as a bundle. It is all about the ease of use - and the possibilities are much higher for people to install the software if less work = less hassle is involved.

Mozilla Firefox has agreed on a new strategy with a 12 point plan retention to increase its usage:

Change Firefox icon label to resemble action of getting to the Web
Put the Firefox icon in a better location
Make default browser settings easier to use
Big outbound marketing program driving brand recognition
Improve download page and first run pages
Improve support page
Make plug-ins work out of the box
Make add-ons and personas more accessible
Make the Web feel more human
Improve messaging through communications channels
Stickier start page
Explore Changing the Firefox icon image to closer resemble the action of getting to web

Tetridia's advice - be adventures and you will not regret it: download Firefox !

What you need to know about Podcasts

Hearing the name 'Podcast' could give you the idea its coming from the all famous iPod from Apple don't you think? But what is really behind it?

We like the following explanation: Portable On Demand - broadcast.

What is a podcast?

Basically podcast is a digital media file (mostly but not exclusively used as - audio-mp3 or video-mp4) which is distributed over the internet using RSS (syndication feeds) and than listen to on a mp3 player and a desktop computer. Using RSS ensure you get the latest podcast as soon as it has been published.

Undisputable the biggest advantage of podcasts is to have the option to listen/view the content whenever you have time and only the content you are actually interested in. You can keep old shows and listen again later if you wish.

Is an iPod needed to use podcasts?

Contrary to popular belief, listening to a podcast is not restricted to the famous Apple product. Any other mp3 player will do perfectly well too. There are also many programs available online to be downloaded and used with your desktop computer.
The most popular software to use to manage your digital content such music, videos or podcast is iTunes from Apple also available for MS Windows.

Possible Podcast use cases

News / Talk Shows - Industry or organisational news, investor news, sportscasts, news coverage and commentaries.
Business- Business audio advices or business news in general.
Music - Band promotional clips and interviews.
Training - Instructional informational materials.
Story - Story telling for children or the visually-impaired.
Self-Guided Walking Tours - Informational content.

How to find Podcasts

The best way is to use podcast directories - you get a wide choice and many also have a rating/voting system in place which can give you an indication on the quality of the content. Mostly pod cast are available free of charge.

http://www.digitalpodcast.com/
http://podcasts.yahoo.com/
http://www.podfeed.net/feedburner_rankings.asp

News Provider

BBC - Podcast Directory
The Guardian - Podcasts
The TimesOnline Podcasts

Create your own podcast

To create your own podcast for your company or for your friends, have a look at this podcast tutorial which will guide you through the technical requirements and what else is needed to get your voice published and broadcasted online!

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the search industry.

Article by David Datour @ Tetridia

Citizendium, the rival twin of wikipedia

28. August 2007

Unbelievable but true - TimesOnline and the Guardian have revealed that larger companies are editing their entries in Wikipedia in order to brush up their public image in the free online encyclopedia. If we are truely honest - who would not do the same....

Wikipedia is among the top ten of most visited websites (it has Rank 9 on Alexa). Several times the website has been criticized for their way of editing and in consequence of this the rather high possibility to hold inaccurate and nonsense articles. The fact that anyone can edit articles degrades the quality of the content and has raised the question of the credibility of the authors.

Larry Sanger, ex co-founder of Wikipedia and new competitor, has launched a new services about 6 months ago - his online encyclopedia Citizendium. The big difference to Wikipedia's service are editor experts. The website is also open to public collaboration but volunteer contributors don't remain anonymous. Authors have to provide their real names and the accuracy of their articles is checked and approved by experts. The goal of Larry Sanger was precisely to avoid all the criticism that Wikipedia is now facing.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the search industry.

Article by Sonia Langevin @ Tetridia

Google reveals advertising strategy for YouTube

23. August 2007

You Tube, which has been bought by the Big G (a.k.a Google) in November 2006, has revealed its new online marketing strategy - small half transparent adverts are incorporated in a selection of video clips.

How does it work?

The advert will be shown for 15 seconds after a user has started to watch the video. It will appear for 10 seconds on only 20% of the bottom screen without much disturbing the viewer. The user will have the choice during these 10 seconds to close the ad or even let it run throughout the video clip.

Who would apply for this new marketing channel?

For the moment more than 1000 partners such as BMW or Warner Bros. have the possibility to broadcast their message through YouTube.

Will the ads show on all YouTube videos?

This new advertising system will only appear on selected partner videos and not on the personal movies.

How can the target group be selected?

Companies will have the possibility to target their ad through different criteria like demographic, geography or even day part.

According to Google “Less than 10% of viewers actively move to close the overlay when it appears and that there is a 5 to 10 times “click-to-play rate” compared with standard advertising format”.

This means it could be a good opportunity to diversify the way to broadcast an advert and try to get other people or new target groups never reached before. With this new way of presentation, community and sharing websites like YouTube will capture the interest of more people and as a result generate more revenues for Google and its partner companies.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the search industry.

Article by David Datour @ Tetridia

Knowledge is power! - The Power of Search Engines?

23. August 2007
The American company SPOCK has recently launched a new search engine :SPOCK (public beta) which can track down the names of the world's six billions people. The idea of Jay Bhatti, founder of Spock.com, is to create a people search engine to help its users finding and discovering literally everybody on the web.

Google, Yahoo or Ask.com already do provide a similar service but they only work well if the person in question has a rather unique name, otherwise they have difficulties to filter out relevant information. Spock.com wants to do better and overcome this difficulty by delivering specific results to the people requests.

How does it work ?

When you are looking for a specific person - you enter the full name and the results will come up in the form of profiles. These information is found online from social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.
Spock.com is not the first search engine doing this - Zoominfo was the precursor. In 2001, this site gathered informations from websites and was used by recruitment companies or sales people who could subscribed to the service. In 2005 a service for conducting personal searches was made available for the public. At the beginning these new websites were a way for headhunters to review job applications but now it is used by everyone who is trying to find information about somebody. As simple as this.

The danger of these sites!

Even if the concept is very interesting, it can be dangerous - as we all know it is not just us searching for an old schoolmate. EVERYBODY has access to this data and can search for a person, find every information about him or her online.

This raises several issues: first of all - privacy , for example if you don't want that your headhunter knows if you are gay or Muslim, cat lover or dog hater...

This kind of application will create a massive catalogue listing every person on earth and everybody can look into it. It invates your private space. There is also the likely risk that the information available is being abused. This has already been confirmed from public figures. Give it a try, type "Mel Gibson" on Spock.com, the result will show the actor among the most famous anti-semitic people behind Hitler and Osama bin laden and described as a drunk driver.

So be careful when you add something on your Facebook or MySpace profile, your Boss/ Neighbor/ Dad/ Husband/ Children/... could see it!

The Sky is not the limit for Google

22. August 2007
To commemorate the first lunar landing on July 20 1969, Google gives the opportunity to its users to 'fly' around the lunar surface themselves.

Indeed Google Moon is an extension of Google Maps and Google Earth. The image was taken from the U.S space agency NASA which signed an agreement with Google in December 2006. This agreement promises to make some of the NASA information publicly available online. According to the NASA administrator Michael Griffin, this could soon allow everybody interested to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon.

But Google doesn't stop here with the launching of Google Sky it will allow astronomers a chance to slide through images of more than one millions stars and 200 million galaxies. These images can be seen from the Hubble space telescope. To use Google Sky, Google Earth needs to be installed too. With just a click, you can than see the earth and the sky from a particular location. It is not the first time that Google explores space. Launching Google Mars in March 2006, it allowed users to explore the surface of the red planet. With Google Earth, Moon and now Sky, there is no limit for the Internet giant - and we enjoy the novelty to see something which only a few could until now. At least so we believe :)

Facebook's chamber of secrets has been opened

20. August 2007
Facebook is the victim of its own success, with now 32 millions users worldwide, the social networking website is more likely to be subject to be attacked. Last week part of the source code had been published on a public blog. Bad Press for the social network starlet.

It is the first time that some of the site 's secret code has been made public and the lack of users private data security is seriously questioned. Hopefully this incident does not permit hackers to have direct access to private information but it is an open window for identity thieves. Indeed Facebook users, 2 out-of 5, divulged too easily their personal details like phone number, address or full name - they happen to be too friendly and trusting with people they have never met.

The UK fraud prevention is worried because this trend is increasing especially in the younger, more vulnerable generation. It has been shown that in the last six month a record number of fraud has been committed including an estimated of 40.000 identity thieves.These cyber-criminals can create a false identity by gaining access to personal information displaying on Facebook online accounts or infiltrating employers computers networks. Even if Facebook guarantees that users private data has not been compromised by this leak - people are now questioning the security of the website.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the online marketing industry.

Article by Sonia Langevin @ Tetridia

Google is now attacking the media industry

16. August 2007

Google has added a new revolutionary feature to its Google's news section. The search engine giant is giving the chance to the people who are related to a story published in Google news to directly respond to it.

So called ''participants'' (...of a story) can send their comment to news-comments@google.com and their contact details in order for Google to verify their identity. These comments are linked alongside the normal media coverage of the story.

At the moment, it is up to Google to contact people and organisations concerned by a specific story and ask them to comment. This idea is not new, Yahoo news has already experimented with this by displaying forums based around specific news stories. But the experience was a disaster and they stopped it again last year because the site had been quickly encumbered by spams and other irrelevant comments.

Even if Google pretend to only give to 'Google News' users different points of views and information on the story written, the media industry are skeptical and worried. This could be a way to control the content of information and even worse it can 'decredibilize' the entire article because how Google can guarantee that the comments come from a true ''participant ''.

Article by Sonia Langevin @ Tetridia

Search Engine Optimisation - The pitfalls!

14. August 2007
If you are planning to relaunch your company's website keep Search Engine Optimisation in mind from the very beginning. Avoid making mistakes which can lead to a much lower ranking than expected. Find below some of the most common mistakes and how to overcome them:

1. A bad title is a bad web page

The title tag is one of the most important website elements to keep in mind. Because of the "title tag" we have a general idea about the subject and content of a website. It also works well for human visitors and search engines. The human visitor will know he/she is on the right web page, but also a well chosen title is a sign of credibility and professionalism.
For your "not so human" visitors - the search engine robots - title tags play an important part in ranking your website if used properly with the valid keywords corresponding to the content of the web page. Don't forget - every web page is unique, it is therefore recommended to be very precise with the title of website if you have web pages which are similar to one another. Should you have web pages with a very similar title - consider merging the content.

2. Bad or duplicate content

A website is unique ans so should your web page as well. Sometimes we found that webmasters lacking originality and use plagiarism techniques. This is not only unethical but will also lead to a low ranking and in the worst case - the website can be banned.
Advice: hire a professional editor who will write the content of your website.

3. Cross link your website

Just because you have a great website and perfectly optimised web page does not mean you are going to be ranked on top of every search engine. This would be too simple.
Link building is often referred to as OFF Page optimisation. When linking from other websites to your own remember that a website with a high page rank will have more weight than one with a low rank. It is probably the most important SEO element on your way to the top. The principle is to sell you own pages to other website owner. One way is to buy text advertising linked to your website.

4. The incoming link anchor text

Anchor texts for incoming links are probably as important as the link itself. The text should be targeted at your main keyword/s and the page it points to should also have those keywords in relevant prominent positions. The website you link from should be relevant to your website.

5. Be patient!

Patience is the virtue of online success. In fact a website has to be updated often to stay on top of the game. You need to check, validate, may be even re-build the website and add new content etc...This is vital because achieving a high ranking once does not mean that the website will keep this rank forever. Search Engine companies are constantly changing their ranking criteria.

6. Keyword selection: The Key of Online Success

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. A well chosen selection of key phrases is vital for the future success of a website. It is important to think like a person who wants to find you - therefore chose key phrase which are actually been used by visitors, where is less competition to other websites and of cause is strongly related to your website.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the search industry.

Article by David Datour @ Tetridia

The World is not enough! - A Google & Gphone story

09. August 2007
It looks like the Search Engine “Giant” Google has been inspired from the recent launch of Apple's new iPhone in the US. Countless articles, as found in THE TIMESONLINE, have speculated about Google's mobile phone venture and it's reason to 'go mobile' - is it time to put ideas and plans into action? Lets look at the facts:
The mobile advertising market is growing fast and is set to be more than 11.3 billion annually in 2011. Google can extend its dominance of online advertising by offering free services like google maps, google mail through Gphone's pre-installed applications which of cause are subsidised by advertising revenues.

Many speculations go around this, one of them saying that Google's potential new phone would have its very own Google operating system. But this is not all. Google has already discussed partnerships with operators and mobile manufacturers like Orange , T-mobile or LG. If we can believe 'Big G' the aim is not to compete with brands like Nokia who control 36.2% of the mobile market, but only to get their share of the advertising market which is very targeted and therefore more attractive for businesses.

Tetridia's Tip: Get your wishlist ready for the big IPhone/GPhone battle at Christmas!

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the online marketing industry.

Article by Sonia Langevin @ Tetridia

Google AdSense – easy money?

27. July 2007
How about making some profit with your website? All you need to do is to provide space for small advertisements in relation to your website's content. The magic word is: Google AdSense.

Google AdSense is a service which places ads on websites and pays the owner for each click or pageview the advert receives. The scheme is the counterpart of the Google AdWords program. The ads are being selected automatically by Google but are corresponding with the selected website. A crawler is reading the content of the particular website and feeds through matching adverts. In addition you can filter out various attributes - as of course no one wants to feature your competitors on your own website.

First you need to register with the AdSense program, your site will be included if your website meets a certain level of quality. Google offers you a toolbar with which you can adapt the ads to the design of your website. In addition to that you can adjust their size and format.

Payment time!

Google is keeping a low key attitude about the payment. The advertisers pay Google for posting ads, but the final share of that amount going to the website's owner where the ad is posted is still unknown. The average payment per valid click is said to be 0.20$. According to a New York Times article Google spends approximately 78.5% of the AdWords income for AdSense ads.

Logically, click fraud is not far, since it seem to be an easy way to earn money by clicking on the ads on your own page again and again and again. But Google is carefully observing all AdSense participants and actions taken. Whoever offends those rules will be banned from the AdSense program.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information about search engine marketing and new developments in the search industry.

Article by Lea Loana Roelz @ Tetridia

Who owns Facebook? - story continues...

26. July 2007
We always kept a close eye on Facebook and the news are hitting fast these days. Headlines like "Facebook users run risk of fraud", "Nosy 21st century neighbours" and the latest this morning from the MediaGuardian -"Facebook in court over ownership"

Website optimisation is not enough!

25. July 2007
If you still think it is enough to optimize your company’s website for search engines - look again! The competition is fierce out there and everybody want to be the best and of course winner in this ambitious “cat&mouse” game – website owner/designer vs. search engine. It might be hard to believe, but it is actually not the main task for search engines to chase cheating web designers or invent countless ways to prevent their dubious search engine optimization methods.

The emphasis should be on their and also your companies clients – basically everybody who is using a search engine. We all have one aim: to find what we are looking for easy and fast! To achieve this search engines have been developing very sophisticated algorithms.

We distinguish between 2 types: ON and OFF pages optimisation. It can be safely said that ON page optimisation is only about 20% of the total effort and the remaining 80% in down to a well organized OFF page optimization.

What is relevant to Search Engines?

The amount of links pointing to your site and its pages – increases credibility.
The actual linking text (anchor text) of these links, indication for the “value” of the link
The quality of the pages where these links are on

But why is off-page optimisation so important and why do search engines focused on these methods rather than OFF page optimisation?

A simple reason is that “on-page SEO” is controlled by the owner and can easily be abused in the hope of gaining an unfair advantage in the Search Engines result pages. OFF page optimisation is controlled by other mostly external sources (other website owners, online communities…) This makes it much harder to bend the rules in one single websites favor and relevancy is spread to be judged by many.

Contact Tetridia on +44 (0)20 8144 6655 for more information on how to raise your marketing to the next level using Search Engine Marketing.

Article by David Datour @ Tetridia Ltd.