Comments(0) Online advertising companies are going through major consolidation. Big boys are buying online ad companies like there’s no tomorrow — Google buys DoubleClick, Yahoo buys the rest of Right Media, Publicis buys Digitas, AOL acquired a controlling interest in Adtech AG, WPP signed a deal to buy 24/7 Real Media, AOL gobbled up Boston-based mobile advertising startup Third Screen Media, etc.
Comments(0) According to Venturebeat.com, Google has agreed to purchase DoubleClick for $3.1 billion (all cash deal). This move for Google will enhance Google’s banner and other display ad positions. To date, Google dominates the text ads, but has been week on banner ads. Purchase of DoubleClick will put Google on competitive level with Yahoo on non-text ads. Banner and rich media ads on Google? I hope not.
Comments(0) Last couple years or so, I’ve noticed that more and more specialized sites were popping up. Among specialized search sites, local search seems to be the big one. Local search feature is really cool, especially, when you are searching for something locally.
Here’s some features I’d like to see….first, why not incoporate local search results with general search results (grouping local and general on one page). Second, apply some smarts to the search. When searching locally, the search engine should recognize the user location thru IP and serve local search results. Most search sites, you have to type in your zip or select city/state to get local search results….it should be automatic…I think.
Comments(0) Big Brother of the Internet Era is Google. I’ve seen several news reports on how Google’s user search activity reports were used to nab someone on a criminal charge. Now, I’m not saying that catching criminal is a bad thing. What I’m saying is… what is Google storing on their servers about every user coming to use their search? It seems like they are collecting way too much about Google search users. Netscape was sued over some ridiculus claim that Netscape Smartdownload collected user specific data and tracking them…..not true, but the suit dragged on for years. I think Netscape/AOL ended up settling the suit out of the court. If Google is able to pinpoint “per computer”, “per Keyword”, “Per who knows what”….don’t you think that’s considered as collecting personal info? I didn’t see any privacy statement on Google that states what Google collects and how it’s being used. Have you?
Comments(0) Adventure by Yahoo! Korea
Yahoo Korea has some cool features on their site. Most recently, I landed on a service called “adventure” by Yahoo Korea and found it to be interesting and different way to search and discover news on the web. Adventure is a flash based app that let’s you search for news based on timeline and topic. I’ve not seen anything like it in the U.S. Now, Adventure is not going to revolutionize or take search to the next level. But, it shows that there are many different ways to present search content to the user. If you want to try Adventure, click here. Let me know what you think. I’m out!
Comments(0) Here is some search market data from Oct. of 2006 (Data by comScore Networks)
Google - 45.4% (+.03 from Sept. of 2006)
Yahoo - 28.2%
Microsoft Sites - 11.7%
Ask Network - 5.8%
Time Warner Network - 5.4%
Yahoo and Microsoft has much to catch up. Time Warner (mostly AOL) and Ask better get their act together. Search market is huge, but if Google has their way, they will keep taking shares away from Yahoo, Microsoft and others.
