Sorry about the lack of posting … I’ve been at PubCon all week … a search engine conference hosted by WebmasterWorld. This was the 10th PubCon event and Brett Tabke (WMW CEO) told me “that there will be many more …

Apparently all those reports about Google preparing to unleash an expansive wireless broadband network are simply fanciful dreams in the minds of columnists; Google says it just wants to unwire its headquarters city, Mountain View.

Sorry about the lack of posting … I’ve been at PubCon all week … a search engine conference hosted by WebmasterWorld. This was the 10th PubCon event and Brett Tabke (WMW CEO) told me “that there will be many more …

According to Hitwise, online shoppers begin their Christmas season even before little Johnny can recover from his Halloween stomachache. For the week ending November 5th, US Internet searches on the term [Christmas] were up 41% over the previous week.

More and more Internet users are opting for carpel tunnel syndrome over inky fingers, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings done for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). The percentage of Internet users visiting newspaper Web sites hit all-time highs in September.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” you ask. For food and beverage websites, it has everything to do with it. As the holiday season approaches, reference sites posting recipes see a sudden spike in search engine-generated traffic. This year, just before Thanksgiving, everybody asking what the hell they’re supposed to do with a butternut squash (and other vegetables) produced 48% of epicurean website traffic, according to Hitwise.

File this one under “Oops.” A security flaw with Google’s new Sitemaps service has been dug up that allows anyone to “claim ownership” and view statistics for websites if they have improperly set up 404 error pages. Want to see site statistics for AOL, eBay, or About.com? The Sitemaps flaw will get you there, assuming you own them.

Some schools have had difficulty getting a grip on the free-wheeling blogosphere, and have punished students for blogging negatively about their learning institutions.

The former chief scientist for AltaVista, once the name in search until Google came along, has reemerged as Yahoo’s vice president of emerging search technology.

Emmy-winning actor and science fiction legend William Shatner plans on beaming a rather rare rock on to eBay. Shatner recently passed a kidney stone, hopes to recover it from his doctors and sell it on eBay as the ultimate piece of Star Trek memorabilia. The sad thing is some goob will pay it.

Pundit Robert X Cringely, who recently keynoted WebMasterWorld’s PubCon in Las Vegas, claims to know what Google wants with all the dark fiber it’s reportedly purchased, but we think there’s another reason.

At this point, many who follow news in the Internet community know of Sony BMG’s desperate maneuvers and unethical tactics to protect their copyrighted material. The largest forces against Sony were bloggers. The bloggers waged an assault against Sony and now Sony has relented somewhat and recalled those CDs.

The US Thanksgiving holiday arrives next Thursday, November 24th, and online searchers have been hunting for menu suggestions and recipes on AOL.

There’s a debate in PR circles-a decades-old debate-that centers around whether PR practitioners should be licensed.

A number of posts generated from a 26-page Best Buy internal document leaked to Gawker Media property Kotaku have been removed by the site under legal threat.

Sorry about the lack of posting … I’ve been at PubCon all week … a search engine conference hosted by WebmasterWorld.

With local search marketing at the forefront of e-businesses, retailers and electronic service providers are funneling their efforts into micro-scale services. Verizon Wireless announced this week that they’re continuing that trend by offering three new map-based applications for subscribers seeking traffic and fuel information on the go.

Google has been getting into the referral game, with enticements for users to download Firefox and join AdSense; now, publishers can offer advertisers the chance to join AdWords and create an ad for that publisher’s site.

Universally, marketers love to use e-mail marketing for nurturing and cultivating future opportunities with their target audiences.

A London college professor has compressed the essential parts of classic literature into tidy mobile text messages to help students study for exams. For example, (from my interpretation) a message about Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations might read PipsASissyTheEnd.

A live blogger at last night’s “intellectual law smackdown” featuring Google, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Wired Magazine captured the rancorous debate about Google Book Search.

Service & Trade Marks