Well, I always liked Top 10 list about the media industry. According to Silicon Insider, these are the 10 biggest media properties in the USA:

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Tags: google, Internet, Media, trends

There has been a lot of tension between the newspaper industry and search giant Google lately. Old media executives on both sides of the Atlantic believe that the Big G is going to destroy the business model of print media with its (free) online new aggregator Google News. CEO Eric Schmidt believes that a total misconception. In a recent interview with the New Yorker’s media reporter Ken Auletta, he said that media companies should see Google not as an enemy but as an ally that’s trying to make advertising work on the Internet. He even emphasized Google’s interest in a prosperous future of the newspapers. “It’s a huge moral imperative to help here”, he said. Google’s goal “isn’t to monetize everything. The goal is to change the world. … We don’t have an evil meter.” (more…)

Tags: google, Media, newspaper, trends

Ever since the infamous original Google master plan - a semi-humorous plan with upcoming Google services created by employers – was erased from the big lobby whiteboard at the Googleplex in Mountain View, fans of the ‘Big G’ have been wondering if there ever would be a sequel to it.

Well, apparently there is. Engineers from Google’s branch in Seattle put their idea of a new master plan on a couple of local busses (see photo above, more pictures).

Turns out – this is ‘advertising in motion’ and part of Google’s effort to make young web geniuses check out its job listings. Definitely a creative way to recruit new talent! We’ll see if G’s Seattle branch (funny website, btw) will make more headlines soon…

P.S. The erased original Google master plan has a great shrine on Picasa. 

Tags: google, Search

Ahh, clichés. Aren’t older people supposed to be technical ignorants and “web allergic”, while the younger guys and girls surf, chat and entertain themselves on the web 24/7? Well, apparenty that’s wrong. A new UK report (PDF version) on the habits of the “Google Generation” finds that kids born since 1993 aren’t quite the internet super-geeks they’re sometimes made out to be.

Yes, it’s true that young people are generally competent with technology, but it’s not true that students today are “expert searchers.” In fact, the report calls this “a dangerous myth.”But these are some truths about the “Google generation”, according to the report:

• They like to cut-and-paste. “There is a lot of anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue.”
• They prefer visual information over text. “But text is still important… For library interfaces, there is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, providing short-term novelty.”
• They multitask all the time. “It is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills.”

Does that mean they don’t care about copyrights, get easily bored about lengthy investigative magazine articles and suffer from ADD big time?? Well, somehow I expected a little bit more. Good news: We, the “older people” (meaning over 30), still have some chances to compete in the digital age….

Tags: google, Internet, Search, study

Getting into the holiday spirit, I decided to use Google Universal Search in order to find any indication if Los Angeles – the town I live – has the slightest chance against infamous christmas-y New York.

Like many others who love L.A. I get shocked when December approaches and I become aware that this city doesn’t have a official Christmas tree. But one can still hope…

Google’s universal search (meaning the inclusion of any keyword-related results, such as pictures, books, news stories etc.) for “New York Christmas” not only lists nice pictures of Christmas trees in the “Big Apple”, but also news stories about Billy Joel’s anti-war Christmas single.

And some New York residents actually OBJECTING a public Christmas tree!

What about the “Los Angeles Christmas”? Oh my, the search results paint a sad, sad picture. No L.A. related Christmas photos, no YouTube videos, no relevant books. Nothing. Zilch.

The only Lala Land relevant Christmas ‘universal’ search result is a news article about “24″ TV star Kiefer Sutherland who will spend Xmas in prison for his second arrest for drunk-driving!

Depressing – but so L.A.!!

Tags: google, Search, seo

Well, there were gazillions of search news out there todays, but I thought these were some of the most interesting insights:

- With 20 billion to 35 billion worldwide searches in 2006/2007, search growth is as strong as ever. (Via ClickZ)

- Google remained in the top spot for search queries in the United States, accounted for 64.49 percent of all searches (Hitwise)

- More than $14 billion has been spent online during the holiday season-to-date – a 17 percent gain compared with the corresponding days last year. (via MarketingVox)

- Nearly 400 million Google search referrals are to its own multimedia properties. (via ClickZ)

- Local search is expected to grow from rougly $2.5 billion today to $5 billion in 2008. (via SearchEngineLand).

- In the third quarter of this year, more than one of four clicks on ads running on content networks like Google’s AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network was fraudulent. (via Mediapost)

- The caches of major search engines are still providing a safe hiding place for malicious code. (Computerworld)

- Google will very soon begin treating subdomains not as separate domains, but the same as subdirectories. (via Webmasterworld)

- Search Engines can help you to find a “dead” spouse. (via SearchEngineLand)

- And last, but not least: Larry Page, the world’s only remaining bachelor Google billionaire, is getting married today. (via ABC News)

Congratulations, Larry! Hope your first child will have cute googly eyes!

Tags: google, Internet, Search, trends

Interesting. In a bid to offer functionality already provided by Microsoft’s adCenter, Google AdWords will be releasing a new ad scheduling feature in the coming weeks, allowing advertisers to schedule their ads for weekends or weekdays only, or other specified days of the week, according to a post by Jennifer Slegg on the Search Engine Watch blog (via Marketing Pilgrim). Dayparting will also be available.

Tags: google, tips, website