David Dalka attends and reports business events and conferences to discover the future of business where technology, organizations and customer exeperience meet. Also serves as emcee, moderator and motivational business keynote speaker.
Google (GOOG)
I went to use Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool this evening via a Google query. The page in the search results was this: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
Upon clicking the page, it redirected to this page: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Did I miss an announcement on this moving out of beta?
Congrats to all the people I know at Chicago based Feedburner on the now official Google acquisition, but in all reality this deal didn’t have to happen! Let’s see why…
1. Google had already acquired the color orange when they bought Blogger!
2. Feedburner’s symbol is fire, which some folks relate to hell. If you believe this, Google will actually be acquiring evil.
3. Eric Olson of Feedburner (along with Frank Gruber and others) organizes Techcocktail, a tech community quarterly networking party in Chicago. Google could come to Chicago and throw a party all by themselves!
4. Google already had all of Feedburner’s IP because Rick Klau, VP of Publisher Services uses Gmail and Google Docs & Spreadsheets for all business deals! (Second source: talk at ABA TECHshow2007)
5. Google already has had adsense for feeds for a long, long time.
6. Once Google has access to the keys of legitimate RSS sources it will be able to determine the original source blog if it is using a Feedburner feed. When combined with Google Blog Search, Google could likely better control splogs in it’s blog search index which will reduce (MFA) made for Adsense site revenue!
Hey what is done is done though, I hope that funding for many more Chicago startups is now available!
This is the URL to interact with Google Developer Day 2007 Online. Have fun!
As you know, I strongly advocate blog search being a top level option on all search engines. Now with selection of category on the top bar, there is even less excuse not to do this on a permanent basis. Now Google is showing signs of experimenting with this via universal search on a case by case basis depending on the search term. Before I go on, I feel that I should disclose that I’m an undecided voter in the 2008 Presidential election.
Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton now show Web, Images, News and Blogs in their search result selectors!
Ron Paul, the candidate with tons of video viewing activity now shows Web, News, Blogs and Video. This shows a customization that is occurring, either video submission or video viewing trends to change the view to video from images. It would be interesting to see the Ron Paul supporters reaction to this.
One result that puzzles me is that of Dennis Kucinich, the search results only show Web. This is odd to me because I know he has active blogosphere results and has had a trend of increased video views. It makes me ponder whether Google might have something against Dennis Kucinich? Is there any history here? Or is this just some random event? I look forward to seeing your posts on this.
A result that baffles me more is that of Matt Cutts. When I think Matt Cutts, I think blogs, yet his results show only Web and Video! Strange indeed.
There is clearly other things going on as well. A search on the Rolling Stones currently returns Web, Music, News, Images, Video and yes even Groups.
Again, Google should act to add blogs permanently to all search results so they are not perceived as favoring the mainstream media. What do you think of these variations? What unique examples can you find? I appreciate your thinking about these complex issues and joining the discussion via a post of your own on these issues.
Screenshots:
This article about Google is certainly an interesting read. It raises some interesting questions worth pondering.
Barry Schwartz started a meme on Google Search Activity by Trends and I was tagged by Cshel to join the discussion.
Well, I’ve turned off search history because I’m taking a wait and see attitude about the whole issue. I don’t currently see a lot of value in seeing my searches in a graph by hour of day versus the potential cost of having this data stored and I see more potential downsides than upsides at this point, but I hope time proves my caution unwarranted.
So, I’ll tag:
Jason Bartholme
Adam Lasnik (How is that paper airplane post coming along btw?)
Danny Sullivan has been steadily beating a drum about the potential conflicts of interest in regards to Google, and now Microsoft, owning the search engine while owning a firm that provides SEO and SEM services.
In yet another area where my expertise from BlackRock would prove to be extremely valuable for immediate consulting or leadership roles at search engines, it is in the building of policies and management controls to build effective Chinese Walls. STOP – read that previous Chinese Walls link completely so that you don’t confuse it with the China Search Marketing Tour)!
If Google and Microsoft are to retain these services fully, they will immediately need to bring in people experienced in working in these Chinese Wall environments and who also understand the Internet space. This is a rare and highly valuable combination! Only this select group is capable of to be able to develop policy and have a Board of Director’s mandate and resources to make it a reality.
I look forward to continuing this conversation, there is much work to be done here to ensure the integrity of the marketplace and it needs to happen quickly!