Hulu’s moving fast on both fronts.  The development center is supposed to be ready by the end of this year, and Richard Tom, Vice President of Platform Technology, made his email address (richard at hulu dot com) public if any software developers want to apply.

In a post on the Hulu Blog, Tom also pointed out that Hulu has a solid track record in terms of moving quickly.  He noted, "Over the last year, we’ve scaled our service to handle over 30 million users and over 1 billion streams per month."

As for the future, Tom hinted at lots and lots more growth, adding, "The online video experience today is only a fraction of what we think it can and should be . . ."

Anyway, Hulu’s move to Seattle seems solid due to the area’s strong tech credentials.  Also, since Hulu has already has offices in Beijing, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, Seattle represents a natural fit in terms of geographic distribution.

Unfortunately, Hulu didn’t share any details about size or price in connection with the new development center.

This will perhaps not be a huge deal; Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said in a statement that Facebook’s only looking for an office that will accommodate 30 or so employees.  On the other hand, any expansion out of Palo Alto is a sort of new and exciting thing at this point in the company’s history.

Also, it looks like Facebook is trying to move quickly here, as the office is supposed to open this summer.

Then here’s one more interesting detail concerning this development: an engineering manager wrote earlier today, "To help recruit a local team of ‘super-star’ engineers, we’re also announcing that Hadi Partovi will be joining Facebook in an advisory role.  A serial entrepreneur who has worked with many of the groundbreaking companies on the Web, Hadi is a great addition to the Facebook team."

Good luck to everyone else who submits an application.

Okay, okay – those "things" are dogs, and in the opinion of your humble author, even a cubicle in fish factory would be made cheerful by the presence of a canine companion.  Monica Guzman has a video featuring puppies named Brody and Doug that’s definitely worth a look.

Aside from the dogs, though, there are all the standard Google amenities – free food, massages, quirky and comfortable furniture.  And as an added bonus, Nancy Gohring writes, "The offices overlook a picturesque canal.  Workers can clear their heads by hopping in company-supplied kayaks for a trip up the canal, where they can float by the houseboats that line Lake Union . . ."

Of course, none of this will come as too much of a shock to anyone who’s familiar with Google (and for anyone who’s not, we have serious questions about what you’ve been up to).  Still, it’s always fun to check in on the company’s offices, and this glance seemed particularly enjoyable.

One last note: for two more cute pictures of Googlers’ dogs, feel free to check out different versions of an article by John Cook.

Seattle Economy Still Tied To Microsoft

Microsoft’s market cap is currently resting around $284 billion.  Google Maps depicts its main campus as a square-kilometer block.  Such a corporation would be hard-pressed not to affect those around it, and Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times notes that Microsoft is “growing at a time when Seattle’s glad for anything that can keep its housing market from crashing like in other parts of the country.”

Also, “Microsoft really came through during the last downturn, after the dot-com bust and 9/11’s effect on Boeing.”

But without the corporation’s financial support, Seattle could be in trouble, and Dudley continues, “[T]he question I have, as we watch for darkening clouds, is whether Microsoft will have that same effect if the economy hits a truly rough patch in the future.  It no longer has the same flexibility, now that its growth is slower, its investors are more restless and its latest venture – advertising – is more cyclical.”

Tumbleweeds won’t roll through Redmond anytime soon.  Still, with Yahoo also setting up shop, local wealth would appear to lean on this one particular sector.

Google Leases More Land In Kirkland

Have trouble translating that figure into “people space”?  I know I do.  Luckily, Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times is able to report, “the site has three buildings . . . and parking for 640 cars.”  Then, given that these are Googlers we’re discussing – some are likely to walk, bike, take the bus, or carpool – add another handful of people to your mental sum.

Exciting stuff, at least for folks living in the Kirkland area.  Dudley then adds, “But that’s not all. . . .  Yahoo! is looking to open a large office – around 120,000 square feet, the source said – giving the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company its first major presence in Seattle.”

For the record, Yahoo wouldn’t confirm this move.  And the Puget Sound Business Journal puts the size of Google’s new property at 195,000 square feet, not 180,000.  I’m inclined to believe Dudley, however.

Either way, Google just keeps getting bigger.  Don’t be surprised if its “campus” label falls by the wayside – at some point, we’ll be looking at Google “counties.”

Because, you know, the prisons aren’t full enough, gambling’s a sin, and government fines keep the country moving.

Washington State is even tougher on online gambling, which makes it an interesting choice of venues for Betcha.com. The site’s founder and attorney, Nick Jenkins, thought he could skirt the law by making all payouts voluntary.

It’s an "honor-based betting platform," where site users are rated based on how often or not they welsh on a bet. Technically, Jenkins tells the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Betcha.com doesn’t accept or back bets, and therefore the laws don’t apply to him. It’s more of a social network for gamblers than a gambling site.

That argument lasted about three weeks, as the joint was raided by the Washington State Gambling Commission. The site’s still online though, it appears.

Maybe one day the government will stop trying to protect us from ourselves, and remember we set this country up with the intent to protect ourselves from the government.

He mentioned some of this at the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle earlier this week, and the Webmaster Guidelines are a nice, clear echo:

,,,some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying links in order to improve a site’s ranking is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such.

There are several of these explanations and tips which remind the webmasters that, paraphrasing Cutts: It’s your site. It’s our index. And you need to play by the rules to be in it.

The new "specific" guidelines address hidden text and hidden links, cloaking or "sneaky" redirects, automated queries, keyword stuffing, duplicate content, malware, doorway pages, and no original content.

In a nutshell, be a good Webmaster and everything should work out fine between you and Google.

Hat tip to Jennifer Laycock at Search Engine Guide, who goes into more detail.   

A live question and answer session with Google’s own Matt Cutts. Here are a few of the questions that were posed to Matt:

• I have a question about image results in the search results page. How is this going to evolve?
• Why does Google love Wikipedia? When will you break up with him?
• A lot of people have found that supplemental pages don’t come up. Is this the way that they’ll be in the future, or will they be found in search results if there are links in the near future?

Matt Cutts finished the session by asking everyone what they’d like to see from the Webmaster Console.

Duplicate Content Summit
Issue and concerns over duplicate content featuring personnel from the major search engines: Vanessa Fox, Google; Amit Kumar, Yahoo; Peter Linsley, Ask.com; and Eytan Seidman, Microsoft Live.

This session addressed items such as:

• Why duplicate content matters
• How to avoid having people copying your content
• How each of the search engine handle duplicate content
• The definition of duplicate content
• Legitimate reason to duplicate
• Accidental Duplication
• How users can help the Search Engines

SEO, Meet SMM

Social media marketing experts spoke about leveraging social media in addtion to traditional SEO Strategies. The speakers included: Rand Fishkin, Cindy Krum, Neil Patel and Todd Malicoat.

Topics covered included:

• Social Media Marketing vs. Viral Marketing
• What can viral marketing do for you
• Places you can submit link bait
• Unwritten rules for Social Media Marketing
• The Golden Rules for SMM
• Benefits to strategic linking with Social Media
• Building Reputation within online communities
• Social Media Brand Awareness
• The creation of Profiles
• Developing Evangelists

 Nice work, Tamar!

Comments

Dianne Kelley has filed legal action against Microsoft, proposing class action status, which alleges the company used false and/or otherwise misleading language in designating PCs that would be “Vista Capable” and would be easily upgradeable to the new operating system. The catch, however, is that “Vista Capable” only applies to Vista Basic, which lacks many of the core features that Microsoft touts as the operating system’s signature items.

Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer highlights some of those features:

Machines carrying "Windows Vista Capable" stickers included those that only met the requirements for Windows Vista Home Basic — which lacks the "Aero" on-screen appearance, Media Center PC interface, Flip 3D window-switching and other features available in advanced Windows Vista versions.

Microsoft, responding to the allegations, claims that it went above and beyond all reasonable measures to ensure that consumers would have a full understanding of which version of Windows Vista their particular machines would support.

In its defense, Microsoft did also employ a “Premium Ready” designation for PC makers to affix to their products, specifying that those particular machines contained the necessary hardware specifications to run Vista’s more advanced features.

The suit also alleges that the claims of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates that consumers could upgrade their machines to Vista for less than $100 were deliberately misleading, as that price only applies to Vista Basic.

So, the negative publicity surrounding Vista continues to mount, and rival operating systems like Linux are reaping all the benefits.