Who Can Take the Cake in Chrome Creativity?

Update: Google says the Google Chome Icon Project is over now.

Original Article: Feeling creative? Fan of Google's Chrome browser? If your answer to either of these questions is yes, you might be interested to know that Google is hosting a global project in which it is asking fans to submit creative videos in which they create a Google Chrome icon.

Jason Toff from the Google Chrome team says the idea for the project came when the team itself was experimenting with using different objects to create the icon - like this cake for example:

What Google considers to be the best entries to this project, it will feature on Google and YouTube. "We know from past experience that users are the ones who come up with the coolest stuff. So with that, we now turn the challenge to YOU to make a video showing the formation of the Google Chrome icon in a big, unusual or creative way," says Toff. He tells me he likes the magnets one so far (video below):

You may recall that earlier this year, Google created its first television advertisement, and this was for Chrome. I don't know if any of these designs will make it into an actual commercial or not, but I suspect the initiative itself is designed to generate buzz and draw awareness to Chrome. Not a bad viral campaign.

Participants have until July 22 to submit their videos. You can do so here, and while you're there, you can also check out what other people have done. I'll leave you with a few samples below. By the way, they should be between 15 and 60 seconds long.

source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/06/11/can-you-take-the-cake-in-chrome-creativity

Is Google Really Threatened By This Yahoo Microsoft Deal?

Are you tired of reading about the Microsoft Yahoo deal yet? Obviously not or you wouldn't be reading this. There has been a whole lot of coverage to digest, and there will certainly be a whole lot more as the deal gets scrutinized and continues its journey to fruition.



There has been a lot of talk about the deal being bad for Yahoo and good for Microsoft. This may or may not be true, as it's really way too early to tell for sure, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been doing his best to try to convince people (mainly Yahoo shareholders) that Yahoo is in fact getting a good deal.

Yahoo's shareholders of course didn't see it that way, and Yahoo's stock plummeted after the announcement of the deal. But that's because "nobody gets it," according to Ballmer. Shareholders wanted cash, but Ballmer says they should be happy with the elimination of Yahoo's search costs and the added advertisers that will surely come from the deal.

Others in the industry feel that Yahoo is simply making a big mistake by eliminating its own search business. Although there's no denying that Bing has been building some buzz, and those pricey TV ads are helping to fuel that, but how many of the average Yahoo users will even care?

The ultimate question of this whole thing is will this really give Google significant competition in the search space? Again, it's too early to truly tell, but my gut is telling me it's not going to make an incredible difference.

If a typical Google user has tried Bing and decided to continue using Google as their primary search engine of choice, they're not going to abandon it because Yahoo's using it. Does it matter that much to Google if Yahoo users are using Bing? They were already using Yahoo over Google, so what's the difference?

Microsoft and Yahoo may get some more advertisers out of this with the combination of Bing and Yahoo making up a greater percentage of the search market share, but it's not like its going to draw advertisers away from Google, which still controls an incredibly dominant amount of that market.

And let's not overlook the fact that when something eye-catching occurs in the search industry, and Google's not the one catching eyes, they are usually quick to counter with their own offerings (or at least acknowledge that they will be forthcoming). When Bing launched and started highlighting all of its "cool new features," Google was quick to add a link to its homepage highlighting some of its own "decision-engine-like features."

As some discussed back then (namely Danny Sullivan if I'm not mistaken), Bing's launch merely highlighted some things you could do with a search engine that other search engines (like Google, and in some cases even Microsoft's own Live Search) were already doing. Bing's launch has been more about branding than anything (despite the fact that it does bring some new things to the table).

I could be incredibly wrong, but I just don't see this partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft having a tremendous effect on Google. Many want to see more competition in the search industry, and that's a good thing. Competition can only make the industry as a whole better.

But Google is so dominant for a reason. People like Google. Like I said when Bing launched, even if the competition offers a product that is just as good or even better in some ways, it's going to take Google dropping the ball and driving people away on their end to make a significant impact on its share of the search market.

Google is so far ahead, and it has been for so long. Think about all of the products that Google users are already tied into from Gmail to Google Docs to AdWords to Google Calendar, etc. Google search is always right there. Users have a lot of their online lives invested in Google, and switching is probably asking a lot to most of them. Yes, you can use both Gmail and Bing, but it's about convenience and familiarity.

Microsoft has done a very good job combating the branding issue that has held them down in the search market for so long though. Bing appears to be doing much better than Live Search from that standpoint. We'll see what happens.

source

Do Meta Geo Tags Influence Google?

Google's Matt Cutts frequently posts useful tips for webmasters on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. The short clips generally offer valuable nuggets of info that can have an impact on your site's performance in Google.

In these videos, Matt always answers questions submitted by users, and in a recent one he answers the question: "How do meta geo tags influence search results?"

Cutts says it's not something Google really looks at at all. He says they do look at:

- IP Address
- gTLD
- ccTLD

He also points out that there's a feature in Google's Webmaster Tools where you can tell it that your site pertains to a specific country even though it's a dot com. "Typically the geotags that are in meta tags are not as useful and We don't tend to give those as much weight if at all," says Cutts. He suggests spending your time:

- trying to make sure you have the right domain name

- trying to make sure you have the right IP address if you can

- If you have content (even if it's geo-located) even if it's a sub-domain or a sub-directory, you can specify it in Google's Webamster Tools. You can tell it that certain content is relevant for a particular country.

These are good things to keep in mind if geographic information is important to your site. Have you used the Webmaster Tools Feature Cutts refers to?

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/07/06/influencing-search-results-with-geographic-info

15 Nifty SEO Google Alert Tips

You may know that you can get the latest news headline links using Google alerts. Simply go to http://www.news.google.com and put in a search for something you want to know more about.

For instance, I may want to get updates on news about "search engine marketing". After you get the results on that page, drag down to the bottom. In the middle you will see New! Get the latest news on search engine marketing with Google Alerts. Click the link to got to the Alerts page.

On the Alerts page you can tell Google how often you want to receive the alerts (I always choose "once a day" and to which email account you want to receive the alerts (some people have many email accounts to choose from). Then hit the "Create Alert" button and you will start receiving the alerts for the term you searched. Easy enough unless you are lazy like me. See, I never thought to investigate the "Type" of search result I was looking for so I was getting just news. I could also have been getting blog, web, video and groups alerts, You also have the option to receive "Comprehensive" alerts. Now I select that option. You can subscribe to alerts in multiple languages.

You can receive up to 1,000 alerts. Woot!

Here are some ideas about how you can use Google Alerts.

1. monitor your competitors - new products, ideas, financial changes - competitive intelligence
2. monitor your customers and prospects - It would be nice to send them a card when they do something newsworthy
3. track your name and your business name - put quotes around the phrases like "Joe Jones" or "Pete's Pies" - what are people saying about you or your company in the blogs?
4. in the "Advanced Search" page you can narrow you search by geographical location, date and other parameters.
5. Track news about new software releases or version upgrades
6. local news - track the subject and the newspaper
7. Want to know when someone links to your website or blog? Search link:myblogname.com
8. authors - get ideas for a new article
9. niches - more ideas and what is happening in your niche
10. job seekers - think of the many ways to use this to learn more about the job market
11. when is a new page from you blog included in Google? type in a unique line from your article
12. cache- what a page looked like earlier cache:sitename.com
13. site: get results from just one website
14. related: what does Google think is related to the site - related:www.sitename.com
15. inurl: search for the page URLs - inurl:seo Leave your good Google alert tips in the comments.

Google Profile | Create your Profile in Google

Social community sites are very famous and popular for making lots of fans and sharing your thoughts, ideas, suggestions, stories, blogs, sites, some products which you sell on internet. And especially we use our common profile in some most popular and famous social sites, like Digg, Facebook, Linkedin and MySpace.




Google today promote on page to create profile in Google.com with below text, as google always mention some new updates from his side on main page of Google so all visitor can take a serious not about it. Also we can make static url of our profile on Google.com

Meet Wonder Wheel & Google Squared - The Next Frontiers of Search

Source from Here
We may be coming upon a new era for the Internet search results. And, despite what you may think, Google is not the only player.

New search engines that are popping up across the Web strive to make searches faster, smarter, more personal and more visually interesting.

Some sites, like Twine and hakia, will try to personalize searches, separating out results you would find interesting, based on your Web use. Others, like Searchme, offer iTunes-like interfaces that let users shuffle through photos and images instead of the standard list of hyperlinks. Kosmix bundles information by type - from Twitter, from Facebook, from blogs, from the government - to make it easier to consume.

Google also showed off something it called the “Wonder Wheel,” a graphical way to explore topics by clicking on related searches that go deeper into the subject of the main query. It also showcased Google Squared, a tool designed to chart research into columns and rows for those who are trying to track and organize information they get from the Web. Google Squared will be available in Labs later this month.

Wolfram Alpha, set to launch soon, is more of an enormous calculator than a search: It crunches data to come up with query answers that may not exist online until you search for them. And sites like Twitter are trying to capitalize on the warp-speed pace of online news today by offering real-time searches of online chatter - something Google’s computers have yet to replicate.

As of this writing the new options aren’t available to everyone, but Google says they should be available to all users in the next 24 hours. These new features will be very helpful to students in need of assistance in refining searches or help in thinking of alternative search terms.

US President Barack Obama Has Targeted Outsourcing Industry Once Again - NASSCOM

US President Barack Obama has targeted outsourcing once again in his attempt to bring back the ailing US economy on track and the clouds seem to be getting darker for Indian IT companies.

Indeed, Obama’s proposal to limit U.S. companies’ ability to defer paying U.S. taxes on offshore earnings does put Bay Area companies doing a lot of business overseas directly in the crosshairs. “It would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the (United States) and to compete against our foreign competitors,” said a spokesman for Cisco.

Google, whose CEO, Eric Schmidt, is supposed to be a close buddy of Obama’s, said it is “too early to evaluate the potential effect on Google’s operations, as there will likely be multiple proposals considered.”

IT body NASSCOM said it is still reviewing the tax proposals announced by Obama. However, “prima facie, the proposals appeared to be aimed at addressing the tax rate differentials that exist across the world and if implemented, this would impact American headquartered companies with overseas operations,” it said.

source from here