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As a follow up to a recent article we ran on how press releases can be great for search, a representative for PRWeb, a press release distribution company, contacted us with another interesting example. This one looks at the shelf-life press releases can have, with regards to search traffic. "A small business called Leatherup.com, which sells peripheral gear for motorcycle riders issued a news release on November 6, 2008, titled, 'LeatherUp.com 2008 Sales Explode to over $20 Million,'" the representative tells WebProNews. "This year alone, this release has received more than 11,000 unique page views excluding advertising (I can see that Leatherup.com used this release as a landing page for some Doubleclick ads which boosted the total unique views to more than 20,000, so have excluded them)." "Once I had the 11,000 number, with the exclusion, I looked at the entrance sources," he says. Among the top ten, these include (all numbers are unique views): Google: 2,832 Direct: 1,551 AOL: 696... - Tweet Feeds

As we did last year, we have gone back through our archives and picked out some of the most noteworthy social media items we have covered since 2009 began. Now that 2009 is almost over, it was worth going back and seeing what all has happened. If you come across missing items, please feel free to share them in the comments. January In January, Twitter announced that it hired Kevin Thau as Director of Mobile Business Development, and that he would be working on a variety of different fronts as Twitter's "first official business development guru." LinkedIn introduced a new Polls feature, and launched a bookmarklet for IE. MySpace Music made deals with Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare to bolster its catalog by hundreds of thousands of songs. YouTube expanded its e-commerce platform and started letting people delete their own comments. Digg launched the "People who Dugg this also Dugg" feature. February In February, LinkedIn launched a set of HR Tools... - Tweet Feeds

Just as we did at the end of 2008, we have gone back through our entire archive for the year 2009 and picked out the articles that received the most conversation from our readers. As we approach the new year, we thought it would be fun to go back and reflect on some of the things that got people talking in the one that's wrapping up. Note: Please keep in mind that some of the articles are a bit outdated now as new developments have occurred throughout the year. 1. eBay Wants its Sellers Back This article received the most commentary by far from WebProNews readers out of every article we produced this year. 2. Top 10 Frustrations for eBay Sellers Another article on a related subject was also discussed frequently. 3. Does DMOZ Still Have a Place in Search? Indicating that DMOZ is still definitely a topic worthy of discussion, DMOZ's value was debated thoroughly in the comments on this article. 4. Do You Respect DMOZ After 11 Years? DMOZ was also a hot topic after the company had its... - Tweet Feeds

Google has issued a statement regarding the company's pending acquisition of AdMob. Google's intent to acquire the company was announced back in early November. The deal was for $750 million in stock. Since then, the Federal Trade Commission has vowed to closely scrutinize the deal. Google had this to say today: As we said when we announced the deal, we don't see any regulatory issues with this deal, because the rapidly growing mobile advertising space is highly competitive with more than a dozen mobile ad networks. That said, we know that closer scrutiny has been one consequence of Google's success, and we've been talking to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the past few weeks. This week we received what's called a "second request," which means that the FTC is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. While this means we won't be closing right away, we're confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will... - Tweet Feeds

Compete puts together a monthly ranking of the top 250 Web sites in the US, based on unique visitors, and breaks up the data by relevant categories and behavioral segments. The firm is sharing the top 50. "Despite continued concerns surrounding the economic recovery, holiday shoppers flocked to the Web in November," says Compete. "Of the 20 fastest growing Web categories last month, 13 were shopping related. November 2009 saw consumers shopping online for home and garden merchandise, searching for rebates and reading shopping blogs in record numbers." Here are the top 50 Sites in terms of unique visitors: Here are the top 20 gainers in terms of categories: Here are the top 20 gainers in terms of traffic: "If Web traffic is an accurate representation, Santa will be wrapping up a sleigh full of electronics this Christmas," says Compete. "In fact, 73.7 million consumers shopped for electronics in November, a 12 percent increase over 2008. Best Buy saw one of the month’s most dramatic Web... - Tweet Feeds

Pepsi will reportedly be skipping its annual Super Bowl commercials, and will instead invest the money it would generally spend on those, in social media marketing. This would make the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have Super Bowl ads. Larry D. Woodard, President and CEO of Manhattan ad agency Vigilante writes in an ABC News piece: Pepsi represents one of the stalwarts, not just of the Super Bowl advertiser lineup, but of broadcast TV in general. In 2006, spending on brand, Pepsi was at about $150 million. Although brand spending has been decreasing in recent years, Pepsi has continued to spend tens of millions on TV. And the Super Bowl annually has the largest audience of any TV show. As television viewership has gone down, Internet usage, particularly social media interaction, has increased. The 2009 Super Bowl attracted an impressive 95.4 million viewers (approximately 42.1 percent of U.S. TV homes) and many of those watch the commercials as attentively as the football... - Tweet Feeds

According to Opera, Facebook is the most popular site on the mobile web in Africa. In addition, a report from the company shows a 5% jump in global mobile Internet users. Opera Mini has garnered more than 41.7 million users worldwide showing a 5.3 percent jump compared to the previous month, according to the report. The number of page views in November went up 9.5% and data consumption increased 8.3% compared to October. In Africa, Facebook has taken a strong lead and ranks as the most popular site in six out of the top 10 countries, Opera says. The company highlights the following global trends: - In November 2009, more than 41.7 million people used Opera Mini, a 5.3% increase from October 2009 and more than 154% compared to November 2008. - Those 41.7 million people viewed more than 18.8 billion pages in November 2009. Since October, page-views have gone up 9.5%. Since November 2008, page-views have increased 231%. - Opera Mini users generated over 285 million megabytes of data for... - Tweet Feeds

Google has shared the top retail searches for the 2009 holiday season. These results are based on the company's Insights for Search tool. "Using Google Insights for Search, we can see that the hottest toys over the last seven days include stalwarts like Pikachu and Legos, as well as newcomers, such as the Nerf Marshmellow Shooter and the surprise hit of the holiday season, a blanket-with-sleeves known as the Snuggie," says Eric Lopez of the Google Retail Team. "In the shopping category, we've seen Black Friday reach new heights, toping the rising search term list over the last 30 days as consumers continue to seek out the best prices," adds Lopez. "Consumers too continue to turn to familiar, top retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon and Macy's." Google has been encouraging retailers to start looking ahead to the rest of the Winter season with regards to what people will be searching for: things like Valentine's Day gifts, Prom dresses, wedding planning, ski equipment, etc. On a... - Tweet Feeds

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, otherwise known as NORAD is tracking Santa Claus's rounds this year, keeping up a tradition that has been going on for 54 years. Norad has been working with Google for several years by way of Google Maps and Google Earth. Last year, they started using Google Analytics as well. Google is now sharing a video of last year's Santa tracking: On the YouTube blog, Jeff Martin writes: Oooh, it's almost Christmas! And that means that Santa is about to leave his digs at the North Pole to embark upon his '09 World Tour, placing presents under the trees of good little girls and boys all over the planet. Where will he be, and when will he make it to your house? You can find the answer at www.noradsanta.org . You see, every year, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, tracks Santa's journey from the time he lifts off from his Arctic village to his final stop in Hawaii at the end of a looooooooong night. You can join the ride at... - Tweet Feeds

Harris Interactive has released the findings of its latest poll on Internet users. This doesn't come as much of a shock, but people are spending more time online these days. According to the poll, adult Internet users are spending an average of 13 hours a week online." Of course, people's usage varies greatly; one in five (20%) of adult Internet users are online for only two hours or less a week while one in seven (14%) are spending 24 or more hours a week online," says Harris. The firm presents the following as highlights from the poll: - The age groups that spend the most time online are those aged 30-39 (18 hours) and those aged 25-29 (17 hours) and 40-49 (17 hours). - Half (50%) of all those online bought something on the Internet in the last month. This includes 62% of those aged 30-39 and 56% of those aged 40-49. - The number of adults online, now 184 million (80%), has not changed significantly since 2008 and 2007. This includes those online at work, at home, at school or any... - Tweet Feeds

Twitter has partnered with Telstra to launch Twitter SMS in Australia. "As always, it is free to receive notifications and standard text messaging rates apply to sending," says Twitter's Kevin Thau. "It's the same pricing as sending and receiving text messages from friends." To use the feature, users can simply send "START" to 0198089488. This page shows all of the official Twitter Text Commands. Twitter recommends Aussies follow the following accounts: @australian (News from The Australian newspaper) @delta_goodrem (Musician) @kyleandjackieo (Australia's #1 radio show) @DanniiMinogue (Team Minogue judge for The X Factor) @KevinRuddPM (Prime Minister) To follow via SMS, just send "FOLLOW" and the username. Twitter says more countries and more carriers will be coming soon. Aside from Australia, Twitter already has such support for the US, Canada, UK, India, Indonesia, Ireland, and New Zealand. Related Articles: > Google SMS Launches > Twitter Expands SMS Tweeting in Canada > Text... - Tweet Feeds

Yahoo will reportedly shut down MyBlogLog in January. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb claims to have heard from "sources close to the project" that this is the case. "Yahoo! has let the service atrophy for years and will now put it to rest," writes Kirkpatrick. "To think that this service offered publishers and developers access to personal, demographic, taste and activity data of a website's readers - and yet that offering has in the end gone no where - that's downright crazy." MyBlogLog was originally developed by Cloudspace out of Florida, but was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007. The company paid over 10 million dollars for it. According to Wikipedia, there were over 45,000 blogs subscribed to it at the time, and it currently has 275,000 registered users. It's no secret that Yahoo is cutting costs wherever it can. For example, earlier this year, they shut down the once popular Geocities. Just this week, they announced that they would be closing their offices for a whole week... - Tweet Feeds

The mobile version of Firefox - also known as Fennec - is almost ready to launch. Indeed, a Mozilla exec was recently quoted as saying that a release could be "days away," so it's possible that the new mobile browser will appear in time for some tech-inclined individuals to play with it on New Year's Eve or even Christmas. Word of this short-term goal comes via the BBC from Jay Sullivan, who's Mozilla's vice president of mobile. Apparently Fennec's going through a last phase of testing, and, barring any "showstoppers," will be available quite soon. The catch relates to compatibility, meaning this rollout won't put Fennec in everyone's hands. Owners of Nokia's N900 phones will be the first to get their hands on the mobile version of Firefox. Then, as the BBC reported, "The organisation is also developing versions for Microsoft's Windows mobile and Google's Android operating system." Something for the iPhone might follow, but not in the near future. Still, given how long Fennec's been... - Tweet Feeds

As people return home this holiday season, there will be all sorts of hugs and "have you had enough to eat"s. Then they'll be pressed into service, lifting heavy stuff or perhaps climbing ladders. And Google would very much appreciate it if visitors install the company's software, too. A new post on the Official Google Blog about "unofficial tech support" isn't blatantly self-promotional at first. Jeffrey Chang of the Google Chrome Team wrote, "[T]o ensure your family is getting the most speed and security out of their web experience, you can help your family upgrade to the latest version of Google Chrome, Firefox 3.5, Opera 10, Safari 4, or Internet Explorer 8 - just to name a few modern browsers." It's a good bet that readers of the Official Google Blog are more inclined than the average person to use Chrome, though. Then we get into an almost comical advertisement. Chang continued, "You can also check out Google Pack, a collection of free Google and third-party software that's... - Tweet Feeds

To say that 2009 has been the year of Google Wave might be a stretch. It was introduced this year, and invites have been sent out to quite a few people now. It has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion, but it hasn't reached the mainstream yet. That said, 2009 was the year Google Wave was unleashed upon the world in its most primitive state. There is certainly a lot of potential for Wave, and we will no doubt see that more and more as time goes on if it truly does "catch on." We have already seen some pretty cool things done with it. For example, the Google Wave Pulp Fiction video has already become something of a cult classic in the tech industry (contains strong language): Another Google Wave video has surfaced, uploaded to YouTube by RockYourWhirled (via LifeHacker). It recaps the year with Google Wave. It fits in pretty well with the rest of the year-end discussion, and shows how Google Wave can be used to communicate ideas at the same time. Google Wave was introduced... - Tweet Feeds

Microsoft has lost an appeal in a patent case over Microsoft Word. A U.S. court of appeals upheld a jury verdict against the company for infringing on a patent held by Toronto's i4i. Microsoft lost the case to a tune of $290 million. Reuters reports: The court also affirmed an injunction that prevents Microsoft from selling versions of its Word program which contain the offending software, set to take effect January 11, 2010. Older versions of Word are not affected. Microsoft said it is taking steps to remove the feature from Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 put on sale from that date. The disputed patent feature relates to the use of XML, or extensible markup language, used for manipulating text, in the 2007 versions of Word. Microsoft described it on Tuesday as a "little-used feature". "We couldn't be more pleased with the ruling from the appeals court which upheld the lower court's decision in its entirety," said Loudon Owen, Chairman of i4i. "This is both a... - Tweet Feeds

You may recall that a lot of entities -including Google, Yahoo, and Bing - released some top/best of/worst of 2009 lists back in late November and early December, seemingly forgetting about the last one-twelfth of the year.  Bing returned today with more data about search trends, however. As with the list of popular status updates that Facebook released yesterday, we'll trust that you're able to read the information for yourself.  There's not a whole lot of useful analysis we can provide, either. Perhaps the one thing worth mentioning is that Bing conducted an "End of Year" quiz on Facebook before releasing its lists, demonstrating that Microsoft's interest in the social network remains fairly strong. Otherwise, here's what Bing found to be the top search terms of 2009:   Related Articles: > Microsoft Launches Bing iPhone App, Addresses Issues > Nielsen Also Puts Bing Up In  November > Yahoo, Bing Trade Market Share Again - Tweet Feeds

Google's Custom Search turned three in 2009, and it had arguably its biggest year to date. The technology is powering "many tens of millions" of queries a day on millions of sites, according to the company. As many others are doing, Google is reminiscing about the year that is almost over, and reflecting upon some of its accomplishments. The Custom Search Team specifically is reflecting on some of its highlights for 3009. Google lists the following as key developments for the year in custom search: integration with several hosters to bring Custom Search to your doorstep enabled support for rich snippets, giving you more control over presentation of results it's now easier for you to promote specific content to the top of your search results we deployed contextual search within Blogger, Google Sites and Wikipedia automatic transliteration is now integrated into the search box improved results rendering flexibility with the Custom Search Element plug-n-play with themes for enhanced... - Tweet Feeds

Motorists who write text messages while driving are six times more likely to crash than those who don't text while driving, according to a new study by University of Utah psychologists. Researchers Frank Drews and colleagues found evidence that attention patterns differ for drivers who text versus those who talk on a cell phone. For those who talk on a cell phone, researchers say, "drivers apparently attempt to divide attention between a phone conversation and driving, adjusting the processing priority of the two activities depending on task demands." Texting requires drivers to switch their attention from one task to the other. When attention switching happens as drivers write, read, or receive a text, their overall reaction times are substantially slower than when they are talking on a cell phone. The type of texting makes a difference, with reading messages affecting braking time more than writing them. To find why and how much drivers are impaired during texting, the Utah... - Tweet Feeds

Amazon.com said today it is offering free one day shipping for orders of its Kindle placed on December 23 and promises delivery in time for Christmas. The company is also offering free two day shipping for Kindle orders placed today. Last week Amazon said its Kindle broke another record with its best sales day. The company did not provide any specific sales figures. Amazon boasts that its Kindle continues to be the most wished for, most gifted and best selling product across the company. "It's easy to get busy during the holidays, so we've decided to make it easy even for procrastinators to order Kindle, the #1 most wished for gift on Amazon, and get it delivered for free and in time for Christmas," said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "With Kindle, you can give the gift of choosing over 390,000 books and more than 100 top newspapers and magazines from around the world and begin reading in less than 60 seconds." Related Articles: > Barnes & Noble Says No Nook For Holidays >... - Tweet Feeds

This might or might not be an obvious point, but by unplugging their computers, shutting the lights off, and turning the heat down, people who leave their homes this holiday season stand to save a significant amount of money. And now Yahoo should, too, as it's announced a decision to close corporate offices worldwide for one week. Except for customer support centers, just about everything under Yahoo's control should go dark from December 25th through January 1st. Since employees won't get paid for the time off unless they use vacation days (or local laws require it), Yahoo will save a lot there, too. This is the first time Yahoo's ever mandated a shutdown of this nature, so it's fair to say that the move is a big deal. There's no need for Yahoo's fans and shareholders to get panicky, however, since other companies, including Adobe and Apple, are in the habit of doing the same thing. Also, as reported by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Yahoo actually told employees about the shutdown much... - Tweet Feeds

Eight days ago, we wrote about a Google Chrome advertising campaign that's taking place in the UK. This morning, Hitwise followed up on the subject by publishing some statistics, and the stats indicate that that the campaign's achieved a certain level of success. Robin Goad wrote, "As the chart below illustrates, UK Internet searches for Google Chrome have almost doubled over the last couple of weeks and are currently running at their third highest level since the browser was launched towards the end of last summer." What's more, it doesn't look like the Chrome lines have leveled off yet, and the people searching for Chrome now probably aren't the same folks who searched for information about the browser at launch. Of course, it's impossible not to observe that Internet Explorer's doing all right, and Firefox still has quite an edge over Chrome. Also, Chrome fans must consider the simple fact that searches don't always correlate to market share. Still, it looks like the recent... - Tweet Feeds

YouTube has launched its own URL shortener, but it is not like other URL-shorteners, because it can only be used specifically with YouTube videos. This way, YouTube says, when you click on one, you know you're going to a YouTube video no matter what. That should certainly cut down on the likelihood that you could be going to a malicious site. YouTube's URL-shortener is at Youtu.be, although if you go there, you will just be taken to the YouTube home page. You can use the shortener manually though. If you take a video URL and replace the part that says "http://www.youtube.com/watch..." with "http://youtu.be/" and you will have your short URL. "It's all the rage: link shorteners to ensure that those useful URLs you're sharing don't take up too much precious character count while also giving you an inkling of what you're about to click on," says Engineering Manager Vijay Karunamurthy. "Also, because the link contains the ID of the video you're going to see, developers can do interesting... - Tweet Feeds

Facebook users are a pretty important group of people; after all, in recent months, it's been established that there are more of them than there are individuals in the United States. So to wrap up 2009, Facebook's provided a list that helps spell out what its users have been thinking about all year. You can view the list of top status trends below. It was made possible thanks to something termed "Facebook Memology," and as you can see, has been a bit simplified (condensing Farmville, Farm Town, and Social Living into "Facebook Applications," for example). We'll respect your intelligence by just hitting some of the items that might not be completely obvious. Here's a quick one: at number two, "FML" stands for "f*ck my life." Which makes sense given the economy's nosedive. Then, at number eleven, "years" is nothing more than a reference to dates like 2008, 2009, and 2010. Apparently a lot of folks thought about life on something other than a day-to-day basis. Finally, "yard" is simply a... - Tweet Feeds

Some time ago, Google established a tradition of sending top AdSense and AdWords users holiday gifts. This year, it's departing from that routine. But people are going to have a hard time complaining about the decision, because instead, Google's committed $20 million to a group of charities. AdSense and AdWords partners received messages today that announced the move by saying, "We hope you'll find it fits the spirit of the holiday season." A special "Happy Holidays from Google" site was set up to relay a more detailed explanation, too. All in all, it looks like 25 entities will benefit from Google's choice (and $20 million split 25 ways works out to $800,000 each if an even division takes place, by the way). The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Reporters Without Borders, and the World Wildlife Fund are perhaps some of the most recognizable charities, along with Feeding America, the Mango Tree, and Save the Children. And of course, Google's still fond of its... - Tweet Feeds

Next year, Ford will be introducing it's new version of SYNC, a technology it partnered with Microsoft on. This technology will allow you to have constant Wi-Fi in your car. All an owner of a SYNC-ready car would have to do is plug in a compatible USB mobile broadband modem (or air card), and they will create a secure wireless connection that will be broadcast throughout the vehicle. "While you're driving to grandma's house, your spouse can be finishing the holiday shopping and the kids can be chatting with friends and updating their Facebook profiles," said Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas. "And you're not paying for yet another mobile subscription or piece of hardware because Ford will let you use technology you already have." "The speeds with which technology is evolving, particularly on the wireless front, makes obsolescence a real problem," said Doug VanDagens, director of Ford's Connected Services Solutions Organization. "We've solved that problem by making SYNC work... - Tweet Feeds

Over the years, more than a few people have compared the Googleplex to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Now, fact and fantasy will come even closer to merging in Pittsburgh, as Google's decided to lease 40,000 square feet at the former site of a Nabisco plant. For better or for worse, this development doesn't signal Google's entry into the candy/baked goods market. The site will play home to all sorts of retail and office space when a renovation is completed, and Google will set up its two floors (the top two in the building) as a fairly standard workplace. Still, just about any expansion on Google's part is worth noting, and given the economy's recent contraction, this one stands out even more than usual. Plus, a change of physical surroundings isn't the only thing set to take place, since reports indicate that additional engineers will be hired. (An exact or even rough number remains unknown.) Then here's one more important note: although Google's move will take it away from its... - Tweet Feeds

Hulu has a new captions search feature available via Hulu Labs. The feature allows Hulu users to search the captions of videos across hundreds of different shows. Show and video pages now have a "Captions" tab, and search can be found there. "Recently I watched an episode of House, and they made a funny joke about the resemblance between Dr. Foreman (Omar Epps) and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. I couldn’t remember which episode it was in, let alone which moment of within the episode," says Hulu's Eugene Wei. "With the new caption search, I just type in 'mike tomlin', and voila." Users can hover their cursors over images to get quick previews. It will show a short segment of a video centered around the search term. This will play in the thumbnail. This is a good example of how video search is going to be improving significantly. YouTube, the world's most popular video site (and 2nd largest search engine) recently announced that it would be including automatic captions on... - Tweet Feeds

The Federal Trade Commission has joined an effort to warn consumers about deceptive online marketing related to free trial offers that require people to cancel or opt-out of a recurring charge for future products or services. The Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, David C. Vladeck, along with officials from Visa and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) are cautioning consumers about the free trial feature, known as a "negative option." In a negative option feature, a company takes a consumer's failure to cancel a free trial offer as permission to begin charging for the service. The FTC says many businesses use this billing process appropriately, others pre-check consent boxes, bury details of the offers in fine print, terms and conditions, and make cancellations or returns difficult, landing people in a cycle of recurring charges for products and services they do not want. "Free trial marketing can be convenient for consumers-if the terms are clearly spelled out... - Tweet Feeds

As you have no doubt heard by now, actress Brittany Murphy tragically passed away over the weekend. As saddening as that news was for many, people wanted information about it. As with any other celebrity death or big news event, people scrambled to find updates. This need for fresh info is really where real-time search has its greatest potential. Google has only recently begun showing "real-time" results in its search results, pulling tweets from Twitter, updates from Facebook fan pages, blogs, news, outlets, etc. The idea behind Google showing such results, is that people can find the freshest info possible that relates to their query. Have you found Google's real-time search results useful for finding fresh information? Discuss here. Real-time search is generally thought of as providing results as they are posted online. In its truest sense, that's what it is, but Google's so-called real-time search may not be as real-time as initially thought. It's close, but not quite there.... - Tweet Feeds