WebProNews Feed

Google Offers Inbound Link Advice

Jason Lee Miller — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:08:06 -0400

Google’s Maile Ohye concluded Link Week with a tutorial on inbound links. It says basically what SEO experts have been saying for years: content and inbound links are most important, and in that order.

Twitter A Tool For Thieves?

Jason Lee Miller — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:56:28 -0400

Some small alarms have been raised over the possibility that Twitter and social media like it could be used as information sources for those with nefarious purposes.

World Bank Hacking - Great Timing

Dan Morrill — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:41:13 -0400

The world bank has been hacked repeatedly over the last year according to a report on Dark Reading, which once again brings out the question, where was the information security team on this one?

This Cesspool We Call the Internet

Chris Crum — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:55:45 -0400

Survey Shows How Much People Make in Blogs & Social Media

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:53:01 -0400

Read Write Web conducted a survey with some quite interesting results. They asked 20 bloggers and social media consultants (that they claim to know and trust) what kind of money they make with their blogging gigs. The agreement was for RRW not to disclose their names, and for the bloggers themselves to be honest about their earnings.

Lime Wire Wants to Play By the Rules

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:00:07 -0400

File sharing outfit Lime Wire is looking to go the way of Napster, but in an even bigger way. As it continues to battle the RIAA in legal matters, independent labels are embracing the service as it strives to become legitimate.

YouTube Finallly Looks to Full-Length TV Episodes

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:00:24 -0400

YouTube has finally gotten to the point where they are going to start offering full-length episodes of TV shows, presumably to compete directly with Hulu and its ilk.

Ebay Chiefs Opposites On Political Spectrum

Jason Lee Miller — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:31:28 -0400

Former president and CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, was thrust into the national spotlight once again after Republican presidential nominee John McCain dropped her name as possible Treasury Secretary at Tuesday night’s debate with Barack Obama. Judging from cofounder Pierre Omidyar’s Twitter account, he took issue with McCain’s assertions.

Report: Google Preparing iPhone-Specific Ads

Doug Caverly — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:25:11 -0400

Let's stereotype the average iPhone user, shall we? He's young, an early adopter, and not poor - an advertiser's dream. So, as a new report indicates that Google's gearing up to deal with iPhone-specific ads, the plan makes perfect sense.

Kentucky’s Gambling Assault Featured On Digg, YouTube

Jason Lee Miller — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:04:26 -0400

What is it about politicians? They seem great when running for office and once they get there they either do dumb stuff or reach for powers not given to them. In Kentucky’s case, it’s both, unfortunately, and when Governor Beshear talks about the threat of online gambling, every sensible thing he ever said flies out the window.

Digg Cuts A Couple of Features

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:39:01 -0400

Digg has decided to do away with a couple features, namely Digg Podcasts and Digg Spy. As Daniel Burka at Digg The Blog notes, subtraction can sometimes be a form of improvement, and Digg believes this is the case here. He writes:

Yahoo Hoping For $22/Share Buyout From Microsoft

Andy Beal — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:22:08 -0400

Microsoft Launches Tech News Aggregator

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:11:25 -0400

Microsoft has released a tech news aggregator at microsoft.com/web that seemingly has little or nothing to do with Live Search News, though I have to wonder if it might be integrated somehow further down the road.

LinkedIn Downtime Turning Heads

Doug Caverly — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:27:38 -0400

If LinkedIn has its way, the image of a blue-robed wizard will become nowhere near as familiar as Twitter's fail whale. But in what might be a good or bad sign for the company, this symbol of downtime is indeed being seen more frequently.

Ning Gets In On the OpenSocial Initiative

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:38:04 -0400

Ning has followed in the footsteps of other social networking services like MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, and Hi5, and started to integrate with Google Code initiative OpenSocial, the platform that "defines a common API for social applications across multiple websites."

Microsoft Looking Better To Yahoo Investors

Jason Lee Miller — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:26:36 -0400

It was only a matter of time until somebody brought it up again. If Microsoft investors once loved Yahoo at $19 per share, they’re bound to get whiplash staring down the slutty, red-dressed vixen in distress at $12 per share.

Facebook Continuing To Grow In The UK

Doug Caverly — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:00:13 -0400

Forget eBay, YouTube, Bebo, and the BBC. When it comes to the most visited websites in the UK, Facebook's topped them all. According to new Hitwise data, the fast-growing social network only sits behind Google UK.

Yahoo Shares Reach Five-Year Low

Mike Sachoff — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:40:13 -0400

Yahoo shares dropped to their lowest level in five years on Thursday, plummeting 8 percent to $12.65 amid continuing economic chaos.

It was Yahoo's lowest level since the summer of 2003, when the company was recovering from the bursting of the Internet bubble.

Getting All You Can Out Of Online Social Communities

Kailee Brown — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:31:44 -0400

So you’ve entered the land of brand-building in online social networks. Now what? Online communities can be great places for marketers to learn and engage with their customers and other consumers. In order to get all you can get out of it, there are certain guidelines to follow that may help. Below are the 5 Commandments for How to Act in an Online Social Community.

Branding And Search Engine Marketing

Aaron Wall — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:20:34 -0400

Do you have a brand? If not, your site is part of a "cesspool." In AdAge Google's CEO Eric Schmidt explains the AdWords quality score and organic ranking algorithms in laymans terms:

Could A Little More Info in the SERPs Improve Relevancy?

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:00:06 -0400

Google is testing the concept of showing a date alongside certain results on its SERPs. The tests were spotted by Michael Gray (like two months ago) and by a WebmasterWorld member. Search Engine Roundtable quotes the latter:

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" Director Blogs for Hulu

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:00:14 -0400

When visiting the Hulu blog today to see if they were up to anything worth writing about, I was greeted by a familiar voice (well, in text form). A voice that I have enjoyed for years through film, and "literature" (he's got a couple books). A voice from a man who is ironically most famous for being silent.

GM CEO Takes Message To YouTube

Jason Lee Miller — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:58:49 -0400

Let’s annoy you by understating it and call these “uncertain” economic times. While it’s unclear what a tumultuous economy means for online business—after all, there was no Internet in the Great Depression—old standby General Motors saw its stock drop the lowest it’s been in half a century.

Ads Appear On Google Maps

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:27:29 -0400

Want to buy property in Bangalore, India? Or stay in a Dublin hotel? Google hopes so, because the search giant's latest effort in terms of monetization is tied to Google Maps, and when you search for certain cities, you'll see ads for things like these placed at the bottom of the page.

Text Ads Get More Clicks Than Video Ads

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:11:54 -0400

Online video ads are not as popular as perceived with only 11 percent of consumers saying they were likely to click on video ads, according to a new study from iPerceptions.

Simple text ads were found to be the most likely to receive clicks with 25 percent of consumers doing so, followed by display ads at 20 percent and banner ads at 12 percent.

The only people who seem to be engaged by video ads are young people under the age of 25, a group that accounts for nearly one-third of the video-ad viewing audience.

Size Doesn't Always Matter, Authority Does.

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:12:05 -0400

Bankaholic is a one-man WordPress blog run by 22-year-old Johns Wu, who just got the deal of a lifetime when he sold it to BankRate for $15 million, proving that blogging dreams really can come true.

Hacker Indicted for the Palin Email Job

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:43:20 -0400

You may remember a few weeks ago when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account was hacked. This was revealed to be the work of David Kernell, the son of Tennessee Democratic State Representative Mike Kernell. David was indicted Wednesday morning, and faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after turning himself in.

Photobucket Introduces New Features

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:52:17 -0400

Online photo and video sharing site, Photobucket has added new features to make it easier for users to organize and personalize their photo and video collections.

Spammers Smacked With $236 Million Penalty

Jason Lee Miller — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:01:50 -0400

Iowa-based CIS Internet Services, a small ISP, will likely never see the $236 million awarded to them by a federal judge, but there is at least the satisfaction of watching a pair of spammers get clobbered.

US Researchers Decide Spying On Citizens Is Bad

Jason Lee Miller — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:56:28 -0400

You remember back in 2006 when there was all this controversy over the US Dept. of Justice subpoenaing search results from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL? Remember how AT&T and Verizon sold their customers out by making telephone records an open surveillance buffet for the government?

A Closer Look at Google Maps on the Google Phone

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:27:06 -0400

Google is giving those interested in the new Google Phone (the G1 from T-Mobile) a closer look at the different aspects of it on the Google Mobile Blog. Today Android Product Manager David Conway talks about the Google Maps capabilities on the device:

AdGooroo Paints Microsoft's Q3 As Excellent

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:24:31 -0400

Companies' third quarter reports will soon be out, and given current economic conditions, what they say will be more important than ever. AdGooroo indicates that Microsoft might just steal the show with some impressive search and advertising data.

YouTube Fights Comment Idiocy With Audio Preview

Jason Lee Miller — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:44:56 -0400

Two things a person doesn’t always know: Who’s listening and how words are going to sound before they come out. The latter, if we want to get technical about it, is regulated by the orbitofrontal cortex of the amigdala, which unfortunately is switched off while a person uses the Internet—nonverbal communication is required for this to function properly—hence all the stupid comments loading down the Internet like a soiled diaper.

Countrywide CEO Disgusted By His Customers

Jason Lee Miller — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:29:26 -0400

There are lots of rules for being a decent person. None of them apply to banking, as we’ve seen again and again lately. But you’d think a certain level of smarts would accompany the lack of decency required to run a banking institution, and that level of smarts would include an understanding that when your house is on fire, you don’t piss on the firemen.

Sequoia Capital, Ron Conway Issue Warnings

Doug Caverly — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:58:04 -0400

It's officially time for tech companies to take cover. Sequoia Capital (a venture capital firm known for backing Apple, Google, and YouTube) and Ron Conway (an angel investor behind Google and PayPal) have advised entities in their portfolios to cut costs and hunker down.

Bebo Searches For Alien Life

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:51:50 -0400

Social networking site Bebo has transmitted 501 photos, drawings and text messages into space using a giant radio-telescope in the Ukraine that is used to track asteroids.

The communications were selected through a contest on the site called A Message From Earth, Bebo users sent in images that they believed would best represent life on Earth.

Hi-Res Google Maps Images On the Way

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:42:42 -0400

You may recall about a month and a half ago, it was announced that GeoEye would be launching a satellite with the highest resolution available on the market and would be lending its technology to Google Maps. Today, the first image was released from the GeoEye-1.

"We are pleased to release the first GeoEye-1 image, bringing us even closer to the start of the satellite's commercial operations and sales to our customers," says GeoEye CEO Matthew O'Connell.

The Journey to a $15 Million Blog Sale

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:27:52 -0400

As all WebProNews readers are probably aware by now, Bankaholic, a blog run by 22-year-old Johns Wu was sold to BankRate.com for $15 million, a price some people find shockingly high, but enough to change a man's life dramatically. We've covered this inspirational story extensively since we first learned of it.

Google Tries to Keep Drunk People From Messing Up Their Lives

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:22:48 -0400

Google is working on a new Gmail feature in Google Labs that allows the user to better protect themselves from sending emails that they may later regret sending. The feature is called "Mail Goggles", and seems to be aimed at people who have too much to drink on the weekends and send out drunken emails that when they wake up the next day and wish they hadn't sent.

So What Does it Do Exactly?

Soon You'll Be Able to Subscribe to Google SERPs

Chris Crum — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:00:08 -0400

Accoding to Matt McGee at Search Engine Land, Google will soon start offering RSS feeds for search results as an extension of Google Alerts. McGee writes: