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My 2 featured articles for the week ending February 4:

Archived blogs for the week of Jan. 31, 2005

735 - February 4, 2005 - 9.55 AM EST

Search now accepted as big business

In November of 2004, Piper Jaffray financial analyst Safa Rashtchy surprised a handful of people at the New York Ad-Tech show.

Safa Rashtchy actually doubled his search revenue projections for the 2005 to 2010 period. And he even bumped these projections less than two years after they originally came out.

Back then, Rashtchy's $7 billion by 2007 revenue projection was quoted everywhere. You couldn't turn around without seeing a reference to these amazing growth predictions.

And now, he nonchalantly walked up to the podium and said search revenue in 2007 will be $13.5 billion! I was sitting in the audience and my jaw dropped.

Posted on Businessblog™

734 - February 3, 2005 - 11.39 AM EST

Yahoo launches new contextual search

Yahoo launches a new contextual search service designed to assist people in finding more relevant content on the Internet.

Yahoo's new Y!Q service offers "contextual" search that analyzes the page being read and gives a list of related search results.

Click to View Instead of starting a search from a text box, a person would search while reading a specific page. For instance, a reader looking at a news story about the State of the Union address might highlight the phrase "Social Security" to get a listing of pages that deal with that topic.

Posted on Businessblog™

733 - February 3, 2005 - 8.03 AM EST

Helping combat click fraud

Los Angeles-based search engine marketing professional Jessie Stricchiola seems to have inherited the position of industry pay-per-click fraud expert since she first wrote about it back in 2002.

“There may be multi-million dollar companies who aren’t crying about it, but they’re sure really tired of it. And to some of them it might just be another bunch of spread sheets and budgets. But to the smaller advertisers, this is their livelihood. They can’t afford to bleed $10,000 a month!”

Having recently been subjected to click fraud on a minor scale personally, and on a much larger scale with two of my clients, I contacted Jessie to get her expert opinion on just how big the whole click fraud issue is.

Posted on Businessblog™

732 - February 2, 2005 - 8.12 PM EST

The dynamics driving the growth in paid search

In its new Search Users and Usage Report, eMarketer explores the behavior and attitudes of various search users, the same people that monetize search by their clicks on paid advertisements.

"I think a lot of search and advertising professionals are going to be surprised," says David Hallerman, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the report.

"The good news is that the growth of paid search ad spending is flattening out," he says. "Yes, you heard me right. That's good news. In an industry once-burned by bubble-and-burst expansion, Internet advertising is best served when its most effective vehicles show steady, and less hyped growth."

Posted on Businessblog™

731 - February 2, 2005 - 10.52 AM EST

More on Blinkx's desktop search

Google and Yahoo are competing to make the best desktop search engine. Attempting to keep up in this race is Blinkx of San Francisco.

The startup’s software turns search on its head: instead of waiting for the user to type keywords in a query box, the software monitors what the user is working on and automatically supplies links to relevant content from the local hard drive and the Web.

The race heated up in October with the release of Google’s desktop search engine. Since then, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo have come out with competing products. But even last summer, Blinkx had its software ready to download. It has since accumulated a million active users.

Posted on Businessblog™

730 - February 1st, 2005 - 4.48 PM EST

Google reports strong earnings in its 4th quarter

Google reports strong increases in earnings in its fourth quarter. Its stock surged after hours on the news. The top search engine company reported net income of $204 million, or 71 cents a share, a 650 percent increase from the same period last year.

Analysts were expecting Google to report pro forma earnings, which do not include stock compensation expenses and other charges, of 77 cents per share.

Posted on Businessblog™

729 - February 1st, 2005 - 12.46 PM EST

The new MSN: more accurate answers in less time

The new MSN search engine offers consumers quicker search results and more precise answers.

Now available in 25 markets and 10 languages, the new MSN Search service delivers more-relevant results, instant answers to specific questions, and a collection of tools that give Internet users greater control in targeting and refining searches.

Consumers in the United States can experience this powerful service on the redesigned MSN home page at http://www.msn.com/ . The new home page features a cleaner look and feel and a simplified layout to make information even faster and easier to find.

Posted on Businessblog™

728 - February 1st, 2005 - 11.33 AM EST

Google to release its 4th quarter results today

With Google to deliver its 4th quarter results today, there is some confidence among analysts that Google could surpass general consensus estimates, as Yahoo did last month.

SEO Help Forum

That scenario faces one obvious threat. Given Google's brief history as a public company and its founders' aloofness, it is possible the company's quarter will reflect higher-than-expected investments in ventures that don't result in immediate cash.

And given the volatility of Google's stock, its phenomenal rise since its $85-a-share initial public offering last August and the confidence that analysts have in the growth of both Google and the Internet advertising market, it's plausible that Google's shares could take a tumble should the company make the slightest stumble.

Recall eBay, whose shares dropped 19% the day after its earnings came in a penny below expectations.

Posted on Businessblog™

727 - January 31, 2005 - 4.00 PM EST

Apple replaces Google as top brand

The results for BrandChannel’s 4th annual Readers’ Choice Awards for brand of the year show that Google is now the second most popular brand, behind Apple Computers.

Other winners in this year’s top brands survey include Sony, Pixar, Ikea and Al Jazeera.

Google being bumped down a position by Apple after the search giant sat on top of the branding heap after two years was not the only surprise of the Brandchannel Awards.

Posted on Businessblog™

726 - January 31, 2005 - 11.34 AM EST

Microsoft won't integrate desktop search in Windows

A company executive said at a conference this weekend that Microsoft won't integrate desktop search into Windows.

Speaking on a panel on search technology at the Harvard Business School's Cyberposium, Mark Kroese, general manager of information services and merchant platform product marketing for MSN, said the federal antitrust battle Microsoft waged with the government has made the company think twice about what technologies it can add to the operating system.

"Working at Microsoft today vs. five years ago is different," Kroese said. "If anyone thinks the antitrust case hasn't slowed us down, you're wrong. If I want to meet with a products manager for Windows there needs to be three lawyers in the room.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

All views and opinions expressed on this blog are those of Serge Thibodeau only and are not representative of any company listed. All slogans, trademarks, text or logo representation used or referred to on this blog are the property of their respective owners.