Session Blog Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo’

Data portability has been a big buzzword for the last couple years. Just about everybody has gotten in on the act, from MySpace to Facebook to Google . Even Yahoo has a universal login option. An new data from commenting platform Echo suggests that the Yahoo ID is doing pretty well for itself (despite launching almost a year after the others). Echo allows commenters to post from a number of profiles, including Facebook, Google and Twitter—and Yahoo ID is the most popular choice: Over a third of their logins use Yahoo IDs. Facebook sees a quarter and Google a little less. One in ten use Twitter and one in 14 use Open ID. Facebook may face an automatic increase—or decrease—soon, however. Friday, Facebook announced a new initiative to automatically share your information with pre-approved sites participating in Facebook Connect. Usually, you have to login to Facebook Connect on a participating site in order to comment using your Facebook profile. The new system makes Facebook Connect opt-out instead of opt-in —if you’re signed in to Facebook and browse to one of the pre-approved sites, they may get your information even if you don’t choose to comment. At the same time, Facebook says they’re working on finer privacy controls so you can limit the data shared with these sites. What do you think? Will Facebook Connect see an automatic boost from this, followed by a serious drop once people figure it out? Does Yahoo have a chance with Yahoo ID?

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Yahoo ID Hanging in There (Is Facebook Facing a Dive?)

We haven’t heard much from bing as of late so it makes sense that they would use SES NYC to make a few announcements about their Google slaying search engine bing. Of course, it would be a little more interesting if there were announcements of actual product enhancements rather than the following from the bing blog : Today at SES New York we shared with attendees our plans to begin testing some new Bing features as we start to move into the next wave of innovation which will be rolling out later this spring and summer. Our focus remains consistent – we want Bing to be the best place to help you make better decisions. When we launched last June, one of the ways we helped customers get to better decisions was by providing a more visual, more intuitive, and more organized experience. This spring we will continue this evolution by making some changes to our user experience and providing new experiences throughout search. I think the search industry needs to have a very strong second player to Google and I wonder if bing will have the chops to pull this off. Google’s rate of search innovation is dizzying and they don’t “pre-roll” ideas too often. Instead, they put the ideas and concepts to work in Google Labs or slap an indefinite beta on them (after the usual backend testing unless we’re talking about Buzz). The announcement is made when the product / service is at least somewhat available and the people can have at it. I don’t get that same feeling of urgency from bing and Microsoft. Maybe their time and energy is being sapped with the Yahoo integration or maybe this focus on the integration is taking away the creative minds that are needed to innovate at a more rapid pace? I don’t really know. I am just speculating here. One thing I do know that is a marked difference with how bing and Google talk about their offerings. Google tries to keep it loose and somewhat conversational in their blogs while bing’s ‘excitement’ around their future product rollouts are about as inspiring as a clinical trial. Here is an example that is talking about these future new offerings. But we are constantly looking for ways to make the experience even better. Jeff Henshaw, GPM of our user experience team put it well, “We have a vision for Bing to serve as a vital assistant to your online decision-making. In these latest designs, you’ll see a lighter, cleaner presentation of results that highlight key actions that will efficiently guide you toward your goal. Every day, Bing gets more intelligent about tasks that are important to people like you and me, so we continue to streamline and polish the Bing experience in ways that let you tap into that intelligence.” This reads like a product manual (which Microsoft knows something about) rather than something that inspires the reader to get excited about any offering. While the weather may be wet at times out in Redmond the products appear to be very dry. Oh, so what is being announced as bing enhancements for some future point in time? Moving QuickTabs functionality to the top of the page More link options to publications in support of real time search Taking real time data from foursquare and integrating it into Silverlight maps Here’s a picture so at least you can get an idea of what will be happening in one of the upcoming seasons of the year. As for today? Same stuff different day for bing. Don’t worry though. There may be more announcements of something that will be rolled out at some time in the future when Microsoft deems the time to be right to let you play with their toys.

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Bing’s Features for Someday in the Future

Just in time for the iPad, Yahoo is premiering two new Apple apps based around their local/mobile search offerings . One is a fairly standard search app—but the other brings an interesting dimension to local search. Considering that, as Google reported, a third of mobile searches are local , there’s obviously a significant market for local/mobile search. Using the iPod and iPhone’s touch-screen capabilities, users of the new Sketch-a-Search app can outline an area on a map and search within that area for a specific type of business. The feature is specifically geared toward US restaurants and lets users search by details including ambiance, ratings and types of cuisine. The app is slated to expand to other business categories and countries soon. This is especially nice if you live in one of those megalopolii (the plural of megalopolis, of course), where you can never be sure exactly what city that awesome Thai place was in (and who on earth would remember a ZIP code?). The regular search app also includes some cool local features: Since mobile searchers tend to ping-pong back and forth between map applications and search, we’ve integrated maps into the app to simplify the experience. The app also allows you to customize the local maps experience: Want to see more map and fewer local results? More results and less map? It’s totally up to you. . . . Finally, we’ve made it easier to search for what’s nearby with location-based, local results. For example, if you’re searching for plumbers here in Sunnyvale, California, the app will detect that you’re likely looking for plumbers in this area and will provide you with results in a combined map-list view. As you scroll down the list of plumbers and their reviews, the app repositions the map with the currently selected item. You can also use the map to browse the associated ratings and reviews. The search app also includes shortcuts for Yahoo’s Movies, Finance and News areas, as well as a voice to search feature. I think these apps (especially Sketch-a-Search) are a big step forward for mobile search. While there may already be some similar offerings out there, the backing of a big brand like Yahoo can help these apps gain popularity. We can only hope that these apps and this kind of thinking can continue after the merger with Microsoft (you know, if/when). What do you think? What other features would you like to see in mobile search?

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Yahoo Integrating Mobile, Maps and Search

Yahoo is the top display ad seller at this point in time. That may come as a surprise to many because Yahoo has had a rough go of staying on top of anything lately. Now they are coming off a rough transition year and the tumult of the Microhoo deal is behind them (from a public perspective at least) so Yahoo needs to get in gear. One of the methods it will be using to keep its top spot in the display ad sales category is to do what everyone seems to figuring out as of late: go local. Forbes.com tells some more National advertisers spend more than $120 billion on advertising in local markets and Yahoo wants it. This year the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s sales reps are going after big companies with outlets that advertise in local newspapers and on regional radio stations and Web sites. These marketers include Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Pizza Hut, State Farm Insurance and Home Depot. The list goes on and Yahoo intends to call every advertiser on it, offering them the opportunity to target regionally and reach millions of people online. Granted, when you hear about a sales rep charge to make inroads into a hot market you can only hope that you aren’t on the other end of one of those calls. Despite that though, savvy local advertisers may see the value of Yahoo’s local display offering all by themselves (how about that idea?!) and can take advantage of the traffic that Yahoo’s site generates. Hearing this kind of focus is being put into what Yahoo is actually good at is a great change of pace from the search “news” that still trickles out of Sunnyvale from time to time. In my opinion, Yahoo as a search entity is pretty much dead. They are a content company that provides a search option that will be run by another company who may or may not be a search company themselves. From a business perspective this push for display dominance makes sense especially since Google is flexing its muscles in this area as well. Yahoo’s focus on local markets comes as Google is diving into the display world to grow beyond its core search business. Having launched a new ad exchange system similar to ones the stock market uses, Google is heating up the competition, adding more clients to its growing roster of display advertisers. Google is also going after some of the same customers–the burger joints and home-improvement centers–as Yahoo, pitching similar opportunities to reach TV-sized audiences without TV prices. It makes for a big battle. With location based offerings becoming more prominent in the marketplace (at least by the social media industry types….The rest of the world? We’ll see.) and efforts like AOL’s Patch.com to generate local content for businesses to place ads around this space is getting the attention it likely deserves. Most of our lives occur on some local level. Even if you live in a big metro area you do much of your regular life in close proximity to your home. Local is for everyone. Of course, it is also different for everyone so how this market plays out over time will be interesting as marketers try to find more ways to reach the consumer closer to home when they are closer to buying. Your thoughts on local display advertising through large publishers?

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Yahoo Wants Local Display Dollars

Each month we tell you about reports that have come out which talk about the fact that Google is still leading in search. It pains me to write these sometimes because there is nothing to make anyone stand up and take notice. I think we all get it that Google is the dominant search engine across the board. Where it can get interesting, though, is just how dominant Google is in search for a major business segment online: the enterprise. The latest findings from iCrossing have been reported by MediaPost . To be fair, the author of the article I am referring to is an iCrossing employee. In this instance, though, there is less concern for results being “skewed” since there is no real advantage to iCrossing in reporting these findings (other than some market exposure, of course). So what’s the difference between Google in general and Google with regard to enterprise search? Even more dominance. Sorry all of you bing and Yahoo folks who would like to see something else. The reality is that when people are searching for business information Google is clearly the search engine of choice. I know it is for me personally. I’ll let some pictures tell the story. With Google having 80% of the enterprise search market it becomes a bit ridiculous to consider that bing is gaining on Yahoo and AOL lost 25% of its enterprise search traffic according to the study. It feels nearly irrelevant but considering the overall size of the market can you afford to ignore the 16% of the enterprise search market that bing and Yahoo currently hold? So rather than ponder the “Why is this so?” questions let’s consider another angle. As marketers, whether you are working with enterprise accounts or not, what percentage of your efforts in search are focused on Google? Is it 80%? Is it higher? How do you really view bing and Yahoo as search options and how much money and effort do you direct to these engines? Lastly, do you really see these numbers ever changing? If so, how and what might be the cause?

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Google Dominates Enterprise Level Search