Around The Search Engines Jan 14 2008

Here's another faithful Around The Search Engines:

Google For iPhone Update - Blogscoped

In an interesting article on CNET, Vic Gundotra – a vice president of engineering at Google, responsible for developer evangelism and open source programs – revealed that a new user interface for Google services on the iPhone would be announced at MacWorld only 6 weeks after the previous revision. (Do these people ever have holidays?)

Is your site a secret garden? - Official CPG BLog

A new survey from Prospectiv, a lead-generation company, further indicates that consumers are actively looking for information on CPG products online. Some 70% of respondents said that they seek information on the Internet before purchasing. Most people preferred researching CPG products via branded e-newsletters or search. The real takeaway, though, was that although consumers trust and prefer branded CPG sites for product information, 67% said they often cannot find them.

Professor Bans Google & Wikipedia In Class Room - SE Land

Lecturer bans students from using Google and Wikipedia from The Argus reports that Professor Tara Brabazon from the University of Brighton has banned the use of Google and Wikipedia in her classroom.

Yahoo on Testing Relevance and Variety in Search Results - SEO By The Sea

At Yahoo, if you’ve ever seen the words “Also Try” at the top or bottom of a set of search results, along with a list of selected queries, then you may have seen part of Yahoo’s internal relevance and variety checking process in action.

Adwords Tweaked Conversion Optimizer for Profit Increase - SE Journal

The Conversion Optimizer introduced by Google AdWords in September is now out of beta. Along with this development are some improvements that would benefit AdWords advertisers in increasing profits and saving time. Conversion Optimizer is a free AdWords tool for managing CPA (cost-per-acquisition) bids.

20 Awesome Images Found In Google Maps - SE Land

The introduction of satellite images into map search interfaces has excited both virtual sightseers and local app developers. Further innovations like Google's Street View have caused consternation from privacy advocates while further pumping up the buzz about online mapping. In 2008, we can expect further innovations that stretch the envelope while dynamic map interfaces solidify as basic table-stakes for all local sites. In gearing up for this year in local search, I thought I'd give you a pure entertainment piece—here's a guide to the top coolest things to see in Google Maps.

Google Checkout Launches Shopping Trends (Goes Offline) - SE Roundtable

In short, Google Checkout Trends uses Checkout data to show you trends in what people are buying and selling online. It aggregates the sales data from their merchants and plots the revenue (price x quantity sold) over a time chart. Currently it's offline.

Thank You