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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Feb. 23, 2007:

Archived blogs for the week of Feb. 19, 2007

1305 - Feb. 21, 2007 - 5.11 PM EST

Ask.com extends its license for LSs AdCenter

Yesterday, LookSmart announced that Ask.com has extended its license of LookSmart’s AdCenter for Publishers for another two years.

Ask.com uses LookSmart’s AdCenter as a component of its Ask-sponsored PPC advertising service.

ASL (Ask Sponsored Listings) consists of an automated open-auction system that allows search marketers to acquire, manage and optimize search marketing campaigns on Ask.com and its extended publisher network.

James Speer, v.p. of search marketing products at IAC Advertising Solutions said “we’re focused on delivering results for our advertisers and AdCenter is one component of our overall strategy.”

1304 - Feb. 21, 2007 - 12.58 PM EST

Google offers productive online applications

According to new numbers published by Internet traffic metrics firm Nielsen//NetRatings, Google Docs & Spreadsheets have captured a very good percentage of online productivity applications since October of last year.

Collectively, Google's new Docs and Spreadsheets had 445,763 unique visitors in Oct. 2006. These are users that spent an average of ten minutes on the site.

This represents about 92 percent of visitors and 95 percent of time spent that month across all the major providers of Web-based productivity tools, a list that include EditGrid, Zoho.com, ThinkFree.com, NumSum.com and WriteBoard, among others.

Since then, Nielsen//NetRatings reports that growth has been rather flat. Google Docs & Spreadsheets attracted 424,785 unique visitors in November and an average of 432,156 in December 2006.

The average visit length has increased from ten minutes in October to fourteen minutes in December. Jon Stewart, senior analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said in a statement "Internet-based productivity software further expands people's use of the Web browser beyond Web site visitation, and clearly demonstrates how the collaborative power of the Web is bringing "traditionally" offline activities online." Read more...

Posted on Businessblog™

1303 - Feb. 20, 2007 - 5.14 PM EST

Medio to become the standard to search the mobile Web?

While mobile phone users may still say they're going to "Google" something on the Internet, there's a good chance the search engine giant may not even be involved, since Medio Systems, a four-year-old startup is quietly powering the default search feature on many cell phones from Verizon, T-Mobile and Amp'd Mobile services, among others.

Overall, the emergence of Web-connected mobile phones, or what's commonly referred to as the Mobile Web, is converting the wireless search business into something that is getting harder to predict.

Unlike its dominant role as an efficient Internet search engine, Google's tiny U.S. lead in search via mobile phones is anything but solid.

According to M:Metrics, a research firm that focuses mostly on the mobile market, the Mountain View, CA. company is the early front-runner in the United States, with Yahoo a very close second.

M:Metrics estimates Google had about 4.75 million U.S. subscribers in the fourth quarter of last year, roughly 1.1 million more than its closest contender, Yahoo.

Microsoft's MSN Mobile was a very distant third with slightly under a million subscribers. Google does have a lead worldwide thanks to various deals with leading telecom companies in China, India, Japan and Europe.

However, Google and Yahoo may not even be the true leaders. Trouble is, M:Metrics and other researchers don't even track Medio Systems, simply because its search engine is bundled into other wireless carriers' offerings.

Medio Systems CEO and co-founder Brian Lent claims his "white label" search engine actually has more users than Google's mobile product. "What we see is that someone who goes to Google search will often switch and use our product," says Lent.

Independently of who is actually leading at the moment, the mobile search field is still wide open. What's more, though brand matters to mobile users, it seems that service matters even more.

"To think that you have a straight line from Internet success over to mobile is missing what is happening in the marketplace," says M:Metric senior analyst Mark Donovan. "This market is up for grabs," he said.

This is the sole reason why startups and search giants alike have scrambled to come out with the killer app for mobile, launching a stream of new search products within the past several months. At stake is a global advertising market estimated to reach roughly $11.4 billion by 2011.

According to Oppenheimer & Co., a national investment company, global marketing revenue from online search is predicted to reach $27.4 billion in less than three years.

If you take Yahoo as an example, on Feb. 12 the company launched a new test version of its "Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0" service. The product, which will be supported by more than 100 types of mobile phones, allows consumers to search directly from Yahoo's map service, making it easier to find the nearest coffee shop when they're on the move.

Yahoo's announcement came on the same day that the company officially added LG Electronics to a list of partnerships with mobile device manufacturers including Motorola, Samsung, Nokia and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion. Read more...

1302 - Feb. 19, 2007 - 11.18 AM EST

Krugle to provide search functionality for the YDN

Last week, Krugle announced it will provide search functionality for the Yahoo Developer Network (YDN). Krugle is a code search engine for programmers and IT developers.

Overall, the YDN is a centralized resource for the programmer community that offers open-cource code and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and Web Services that make it easier to design and develop new applications that run on various Yahoo services.

The Yahoo Developer Network hosts the publicly-available code and documentation for Yahoo-owned properties.

It also provides tutorials, code samples and other resources for developers.

The Yahoo's new Developer Network can now take advantage of Krugle’s code search engine and interface to allow developers working with Yahoo APIs and data to find, save and share code written in six different languages.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2006. All rights reserved.

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