If ever you were looking for conclusive evidence of just exactly where experts think the future of online use lies then look no further than Google's acquisition of Admob (a company only founded in 2006) for the astronomical price of $750million.
Admob is an advertising agency specialising in the mobile industry, clearly a very good place to be at this point in time. To spend that kind of money on such a new company demonstrates without question how important Google envisions mobile use in the future and judging from some other sources in the newspaper industry they're seeing it much the same way too.
We'll have to wait and see how Microsoft responds to this latest strategical advantage. Having already purchased Phonevalley last year, they may be forced to review their position once more.
In what can only be seen as an extremely bold move Rupert Murdock has suggested that his newspaper sites may well be taken out of Google search results. Having already announced earlier in the year that Newscorp would start charging for online content, this announcement is sure to be laughed off by critics who are already calling Murdock's strategy suicide.
The billionaire is certainly cutting cords all at once. He is risking further backlash here by challenging the brand loyalty online users feel towards Google. But Murdock must be well aware of the radical change that's needed to spring life back into the newspaper industry. In a recent interview he referenced the fact that few people under 30 were actually buying newspapers at all.
This move indicates he is keen to generate an entirely new, stand alone model online and whilst the developments will be raising quite a few eyebrows, suggestions that Rupert Murdock is taking his eye off the ball could be somewhat premature. After all, you don't get to where he is without having a bit of tactical nous about you.
Ever get those days where you feel really good about what you do? Today I discovered these statistics relating to the online business intelligence we are providing for a customer.
For the customer in question we are currently tracking 1,100 subjects (companies, regulatory bodies etc) alongside 500 separate business events (stories relating to corporate and market news), whilst removing stories irrelevant to their needs on the process.
To search individually for all of these things combined would take over half a million searches...half a million separate search queries. That's a very long day at the office! And we're doing this everyday, with no search hassle whatsoever.
Apologies if I sound smug but that is an incredibly powerful concept. And seeing as it's Friday I'm going to raise a smile and continue on my path of smugness. Enjoy the weekend!
Google are to launch the 'commerce search' today, a hosted enterprise search product to power online retail stores and e-commerce websites. Another useful tool in the B2C arena I'm sure but what about B2B?
Business search, sales search, media monitoring, all extremely important factors for a company being widely ignored by the search engine giants. Of course, the main focus of the search engine is to gain the biggest market share available, therefore heading after the consumer is far more productive from their point of view.
But business intelligence should not be ignored. There is a big demand for market news and precise results and search engines are proving that they aren't looking to cater for such a need. Delivering results for a consumer is clearly the objective, which should conclude to many that there is life and alternatives after Google.
MSN are set to launch their brand new homepage tonight with Microsoft's corporate vice president Erik Jorgensen boldly announcing that "now is the time to clean up the mess on the Web–people need less clutter and less hassle to find what matters most to them." Of course, he'd be right, but does the new MSN offer this? This is the preview of the new design
One thing is certain, it's a big improvement on the previously cluttered homepage. And it's taken strong influences from other successful models including Facebook and Twitter feeds as well as not being a million miles away from the appearance of rivals Apple. But I'm still not entirely sure where it's improving search.
It's a great base, something I'd happily view every morning but what has it actually done to improve the search experience? Everything still goes through Bing, that's not going to change and the same old generic titles are still filling the page ('money' for example, can mean many different things).
About as close as it gets to making an innovative change is with local search which 'combines media with Bing search and provides access to real-time community news that is grouped by ZIP code.' That sounds an exciting possibility, although unless you can also group stories by subject, clutter is still likely to be an issue.
However, it'll be great to see how this affects the search engine battle, that's for sure. Watch this space.
Search engines are forever working on ways to purify search and give users more relevant results but the rivalry between Bing and Google seems to working in a rather counter productive manner. In the constant battle to recruit companies onto their side Microsoft and Google are in actual fact striking deals to make search results more about strategy than quality.
Two very recent examples: Bing signing a deal with Thomas Cook in a marketing drive offering free holidays to customers in return for Thomas Cook pitching up top of it's travel queries. And not to be out done, Google's convenient sponsored ad from Apple that accompanies typing in 'Windows 7', advising you to switch over to avoid difficulties.
Is this really improving search? Or is this just the user being caught up in a battle of tactics? Of course there has always been money involved in getting to the top of search engines but this fight is setting a dangerous precedent of 'you scratch my back I'll scratch yours' in an arena that most certainly doesn't need favoritism.
It seems like only a couple of weeks ago all seemed rosy for Amazon's Kindle (...probably because it was only a couple of weeks ago...)but the news that ebooks are now outselling games on Iphone apps must be a worrying trend. Despite the Iphone screen being considerably smaller, the appeal of doing things on the move is pulling down any barriers that may previously have come with usability issues.
It's almost ironic calling it the I phone. I can't remember the last time I saw someone making a call on one. It's now a portal, a point of entry to access everything you can possibly need quickly.
If people are willing to reads books on the Iphone, then the very idea of printed news could be going the way of the dodo. Everyone knew the online shift was going to change the face of the newspaper, but this report could well be a sign that print could be wiped out altogether (The London Lite and The London Paper wouldn't disagree).
I Know I've rambled on about the mobile media trend recently, but this is surprising even amongst the patterns before it. This, to me is a strong indicator that the shift is coming much sooner than expected.
