WebProNews

Google Website Optimizer Gets an API

Google has released a new Website Optimizer Experiment Management API. This means developers can utilize Website Optimizer for their own applications and experiments. Website Optimizer is a tool from Google that allows users to perform simple A/B and multivariate testing on websites to see what works and what doesn't. WebProNews discussed the tool at length earlier this year. Here is a webinar video that will familiarize you with it as well:

Gen-Y Favor Electronics This Holiday Season

The majority of Generation-Y (70%) said they will shop both online and at retail stores this holiday season, according to a survey from market researcher Peanut Labs.

PubCon - Competitive Intelligence

When evaluating and planning your own direction, knowing your sector's finer points is mission critical. It's difficult to look at your competitors without leaving tracks. It can be a challenge, but is extremely important to manage your own reputation. This panel will look at a number of issues surrounding competitive intelligence being probed by the competition and probing the competition yourself.

Working at Microsoft - An adCenter Story

Editor’s note: On occasion we reach out to people in the search marketing industry we’ve come to know and respect with a request to contribute. Today’s contribution comes from Microsoft’s adCenter Community Manager - Europe, Mel Carson. Mel’s job is to support, educate & evangelize through the adCenter Blog, industry forums, and to speak about adCenter at conferences such as SMX, SES, Pubcon and others. Mel writes his own blog at DigiTales & Other Stories.

Microsoft Live Labs Listas Preview

Microsoft Live Labs have recently released their latest technology preview, Microsoft Live Labs Listas, a web-based application tool for the creation, management and sharing of lists, notes, favorites, and other such stuff.

Google Transit Graduates, Gets Wrapped Into Maps

Saving people’s time, money, and the environment, it’s Google Transit to the rescue!  Only the service appears to have left on its Clark Kent glasses - despite officially graduating from Google Labs, the words “Labs” remains on its homepage.

Google Reader Leaves Labs, Learns Languages

Google’s known for leaving “beta” tags hanging about for long periods of time, but today, the company pulled one of its products out of testing.  Behold: Google Reader is no longer in Labs, and it’s also gained support for a number of new languages.

Storm Worm Spreads In YouTube Spam

One of the most prolific worms in recent memory has been seen in connection with spam that purports to be from a friend who wants you to see a YouTube video.

Ooga Labs Cooking In Creative Secrecy

Google’s known as the company with a “different” kind of corporate culture.  Call Ooga Labs “really different,” then - these guys play Calvinball, a game in which “the only permanent rule . . . is that you can’t play it the same way twice.”  Between matches, Ooga’s employees apparently work on stuff like search engines and social networks.

Experiment with GOOG-411

Google recently released their new Voice Local Search in beta, also known as “GOOG-411″, and I thought I’d kick the tires a bit. They also mentioned it on their new Google Lat Long Blog.