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My 2 featured articles for the week ending June 17, 2005:

Archived blogs for the week of June 13, 2005

900 - June 17, 2005 - 9.57 AM EST

Google launches Mobile Web Search

Google's new Mobile Web Search service points users of Internet-enabled cell phones and mobile devices to a special index of Web pages that have been specifically tailored for small screens by their publishers.

The XHTML-based service takes advantage of the alignments of text, graphics and tables that mobile-aware publishers have created to make them easier to navigate on a mobile phone.

"Given that a lot of browsing does tend to happen outside the desktop, XHTML is an important new technology," said Deep Nishar, director of wireless product management for Google.

Google does a special Web crawl to create a separate index of XHTML pages, Nishar said; he wouldn't disclose how many pages were in the Mobile Web index, but said, "Many sites are using formats that are more conducive to a better user experience on mobile devices."

Posted on Businessblog™

899 - June 16, 2005 - 5.33 PM EST

The way doctors search with Google

Patients trust Google almost as much as their own physician. Now let's take a look at how doctors use Google. Not surprisingly, they too find the search engine results very useful.

Kevin MD and California Medicine Man have nice summaries on Google use by doctors, and I will add a little bit of my experience as well.

Google Image Search is very helpful, especially when you are reading on some "dry" subject from a book without illustrations. Also, you can check out the web page that Google shows below the image (when you click on it).

Sometimes this can lead you to very interesting websites which are otherwise hidden on page 20-30 from the regular search results. We are all visual creatures and clinical images are definitely helpful.

Posted on Businessblog™

898 - June 16, 2005 - 9.26 AM EST

Yahoo testing search on subscription-based Web sites

Yahoo is testing a new application that would let users search subscription-based websites. If successful, people will be able to perform simultaneous searches for information contained within subscription-based Web sites.

While most search engines crawl the Web and troll freely accessible sites, they cannot get into much of the 'deep Web', vast amounts of data stored within paid and password-protected sites. Yahoo Search Subscriptions will allow search access to seven different subscription Web sites simultaneously, including the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal Online.

The other subscription sites Yahoo users will be able to get access to are ConsumerReports.org, TheStreet.com, The New England Journal of Medicine, Forrester Research, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. LexisNexis, Factiva and the Association of Computing Machinery subscription Web sites are expected to be added in coming weeks.

Posted on Businessblog™

897 - June 15, 2005 - 5.46 PM EST

iFilm and Blinkx.tv ink deal

Blinkx has inked a deal with iFilm to provide video content to Blinkx.tv users.

Under the terms of the partnership, Blinkx will be able to search rich media content available at iFilm , a leading video-entertainment destination, offering content across a variety of channels including movies, short films, TV clips, video-game trailers, music videos, action sports as well as its celebrated Viral Videos collection.

iFilm also enjoys content distribution partnerships with Yahoo Video Search and AOL SingingFish. iFilm streams millions of videos to browser-enabled PCs, set top boxes and mobile devices.

The iFilm Network serves 20 million viewers and delivers approximately 50 million video streams monthly.

Posted on Businessblog™

896 - June 15, 2005 - 11.37 AM EST

Google is professionals' preferred search engine

According to a new ChangeWave Research survey, Google is the preferred Internet search engine of professionals.

However, Yahoo ranked above Google as the overall favorite web site. ChangeWave found that 78% of 1,440 professionals surveyed use Google as their primary search engine, compared with the 14% who use Yahoo.

38% said they use Google’s toolbar in their home browsers while only 28% said they use Yahoo’s toolbar.

But Yahoo is the most popular web site, with 32% saying it is their favorite, compared with 17% for Google. Yahoo also was named by 32% as their primary web site for online news and information, followed by MSN (10%), CNN (8%), and Google (5%).

Posted on Businessblog™

895 - June 14, 2005 - 1.51 PM EST

MSN and PriceGrabber partner together

Comparison shopping site PriceGrabber and MSN formed a partnership to integrate the shopping site's listings onto MSN's vertical shopping site.

The partnership, which hasn't yet gone live, was signed earlier this month. "We're all about linking consumers up with the right merchants and the right products," said Chris Jolley, MSN Shopping's consumer programming director.

"It's about expanding the kind of content that consumers are looking for when they're looking for purchases online, whether it's more selections or more information about the selection."

The new listings will go into effect before the fourth quarter, Jolley said, and are part of MSN's preparations for the end-of-year holiday shopping frenzy.

Posted on Businessblog™

894 - June 14, 2005 - 8.32 AM EST

ValueClick acquires Web Clients

ValueClick will acquire Web Marketing Holdings, which does business as Web Clients, for about $141 million. The deal gives ValueClick more than 100 promotional Web sites, which lets it offer media directly to advertisers.

Harrisburg, Penn.-based Web Clients runs Web sites focused primarily on generating leads for advertisers, charging on a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or cost-per-lead basis. Those sites include americanbeautysweepstakes.com, hartfordopiniongroup.com and designerbag4free.com.

Web Clients also possesses an opt-in e-mail business and operates a 1,500-strong affiliate network. Last year, it generated approximately $59 million in revenue and was profitable, according to ValueClick.

Posted on Businessblog™

893 - June 14, 2005 - 8.10 AM EST

Financial Times selling invisible text ads

Aaron Wall reports that the Financial Times is practicing some black hat SEO techniques that would get normal sites banned out of search engines. Ever get the sense that many business models are being challenged by the web?

In spite of being subsidized, the Wall Street Journal has been seeing eroding profits. In the most recent issue of the Linking Matters Newsletter Ken McGaffin noted that Financial Times sells hidden advertising links.

Posted on Businessblog™

892 - June 13, 2005 - 3.41 PM EST

MSN blocking anti-communist phrases

According to reports, the MSN search engine could have banned the keywords democracy and freedom from the Chinese version of its search portal.

MSN is preventing anti-communist phrases by sending an error message to anyone using the words, in a bid to avoid upsetting the Chinese government, according to the Financial Times.

The message reportedly says: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item." The words "demonstration," "democratic movement" and "Taiwan independence" are also said to be banned.

Microsoft issued a statement via e-mail saying: "The content posted on member spaces is the responsibility of individuals who are required to abide by MSN's Code of Conduct, which can be viewed (here). MSN abides by the laws and regulations of each country in which it operates."

Posted on Businessblog™

891 - June 13, 2005 - 12.20 PM EST

Pay-per-Call working well for AOL

AOL says its Pay-per-Call business model is a success. Pay-per-Call is ultimately a key to local for SMEs, but this model will likely be adopted by large advertisers (i.e., the Cruise Operator) sooner than mass adoption by SMEs.

Cruise Operator started in February by testing pay-per-call ads within the FindWhat network and was intrigued but “not blown away” by the results; new calls came in and some new business was booked, but the volumes were low.

But a few months later, AOL announced that it would begin offering pay-per-call advertising using a platform by Ingenio. Monahan decided to do a trial run on the AOL network with an ad that routed calls to two of the agents affiliated with his company.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

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