Microsoft is making a lot of moves lately with the launch of Bing, their new "decision engine." Personally, I was not overly impressed or excited about Bing. It was visually aethstetic, and the results seemed about the same as Google. There was not enough of a difference to make me stop "Googling" and start "Binging."

End of discussion. Continue with normal life using Google maps, search, and documents etc.

But today, I saw this: http://www.BingTweets.com and I realized the possibilities.

Your web searches are more powerful because you are able to cross reference them with real time results from Twitter. Your Twitter searches become more powerful because you have a web search that allows you to dive deeper into the topic. Things like deciding where to eat, or finding the latest news on a Twitter topic are incredibly simplified using Bing Tweets.

Average search process to find mexican restaurant in Boulder using Google:

1. Search "Mexican Food in Boulder" - (Here are the results: http://snurl.com/nljyx)
2. See list of 10 Restaurants.
3. Let out a big hungry sigh, and sift through reviews for each restaurant.
4. Weigh the good reviews vs. the bad reviews. Ponder meaning of life.
5. Possibly click on link to Yelp or City Search and continue researching there.
6. Narrow the list down to 2 or 3 locations.
7. Ask friends/coworkers/Twitter friends where to eat.
8. Follow friend's advice and finally pick a place to eat, hopefully before dying of starvation.

Average search process to find mexican restaurant in Boulder using Bing Tweets:

1. Search "Mexican Food in Boulder" - (Here are the results: http://bit.ly/293g8r)
2. See list of 10 Restaurants, and a scrolling list of Tweets about "Mexican Food in Boulder."
3. Read this tweet: "Efrain's tonight - the BEST Mexican food in Boulder, by far, esp. the chile verde."
4. Get directions from the web-search
5. Go to Efrain's. Stuff face with delicious mexican food that was recommended by someone on Twitter.

By my very scientific process, Bing Tweets gets you there in three fewer steps.

All joking aside, real-time search has the power to revolutionize the way web search works. As Twitter becomes more popular, search engines will have to take its activity into account in results. Why? There is simply no better way to find out what people are talking about at this very moment than to look at Twitter topics.

As Facebook makes it's user's updates more public and open (and hopefully searchable) those results will also be a valuable source of up-to-the-second information.

Bing Tweets is one of the slickest real-time search engines I have seen to date. It is something that I can be excited about, and it will certainly move a few of my searches away from Google.

• 25% of posts through Deicious are pages that have yet to be indexed by search engines.
• 35% of URLs submitted are first-time submissions (roughly 120,00 URLs submitted per day).
• Tags are considered 93% relative to associated content.

What does it all mean? People, not search engines, are assigning relevance to content. Whether they know it or not, it's their keywords, their descriptions and their opinions that are making the impact.

Now consider how your opinion is shaped to people you are actually connected (networked) to online. Granted, some connections are stronger than others (Peter refers to three kinds of online connections in his Ad Age post) - but all are still highly relevant because they are ultimately chosen by you.

Bottom line: Marketing and PR folks need to get what this is about - and if you are a "social media expert", then you really need to be on it.

Most interactive media planners would agree that having a free planning tool would benefit our industry tremendously. Google has already released updates for Ad Planner, so I have hope that they will continue to improve the product to compete with larger, subscription-based tools. Until then, below are three reasons Ad Planner will not put Nielsen or ComScore out of business any time soon.

Why Google Ad Planner Can't Compete

1. Target audience definition is limited.

Media planners love to define niche audiences for their targeted marketing messages. These target definitions usually contain a mix of both demographic and psychographic qualities (such as age and specific purchasing behavior/interests).

Currently, Google's Ad Planner only allows you to define a target based on a very limited number of demographics. Both @plan and Media Metrix allow planners to mix and match hundreds of characteristics to create a targeted audience, and thus a more targeted list of sites.

2. Sites can only be filtered by inclusion in Google's content network.
When I am planning an online campaign for a client, I am only interested in reviewing sites that accept advertising. Ad planner does not have a good way to filter these sites out of the master list. The current filter does allow you to exclude sites that are not included in their content network, but this filter gets rid of sites that may be a good fit for sponsorship or banner ad placement.

@plan and Media Metrix offer filters that show any site that accepts advertising, whether or not they are included in a specific network. This type of filter is more ideal than sifting through hundreds of site names to determine which ones accept advertising.

3. Site metrics are not target specific.
With the exception of Comp Index, all of the site metrics shown are based on total traffic, not the specific target audience defined in Ad Planner. While Comp Index gives planners a general comparison of which sites have a higher composition of the defined target, I am more interested in the actual percentage of site visitors that meet the target audience I defined.

@plan and Media Metrix both provide these target specific numbers, such as composition. Hopefully by now you get my drift. These two tools provide a more detailed analysis of which sites are best for a specific target audience.

Despite being somewhat disappointed by the initial beta of Google Ad Planner, the tool does provide an easy way for any online marketers to compare traffic for multiple sites. Hopefully, with enough feedback, Google will turn Ad Planner into a more competitive interactive planning tool.

Why is this valuable? In a nutshell, using Google's Webmaster Tools is a basic but important part of optimizing your website for high search visibility. Not only do you gain insight to how Google crawls your pages, but also how search queries are driving traffic.

All of our Seach Visibility clients have a Google Webmaster account we access through a central location. Giving hosting customers a direct way to do this through an area where they already administer email, stats and other functions was a smart move by GoDaddy.

Laurie Petersen of MediaPost has a nice recap on her blog post - looking at WPP Group, Google and Microsoft all making huge multi-million/billion dollar acquisitions.

Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive is most interesting to us, as Avenue A comes with that package. This is in our mind is a great strategy, as Avenue A|Razorfish provides the expertise to clients seeking to use the actual medium.

What's next? Google's recent universal search announcement, I believe the next logical step is to take a look at how companies are going to implement search visibility strategies leveraging their own sites and taking control of and managing thier ow digital assets. The push is to become their own content publishers and feed the searc engines with new and relevant content. Right now, one sees companies leveraging social media (YouTub, MySpace, Flickr) to increase online search visibility.

The true breakthrough is to implement a RSS media casting strategy on their own site for their own content. So right now you have very large companies with websites that have no RSS feeds coming off them at all. With Google indexing RSS feeds, this is a tremendous waste of an opportunity. When compaines are looking at social media, word of mouth strategies it's all about leveraging other services. The focus now needs to turn internal where they can have a single system to manage and syndicate their own audio, video and text content.

So, this might answer a lot of questions we get about why Room 214 a search marketing, social media agency, also has its own CastLock (now Post Zinger) product. What we are doing is providing not only the marketing strategy, but the distribution and RSS management strategy for a client's content.

Now it looks like this:

Not sure if their idea was to go even simpler than it was before, but I'm definately missing the ability to go to image search as well and having a quick link for Addons and Themes.

Having one search taking care of ranking the relevance of 6 different search engines will certainly lower the rankings and SERPs for most websites and SEO won't be targeting just plain vanilla search, but taking into account video, Google local, images and most certainly news sections of Google. How cool is it to get a Bill Gates Pie video to be a top result for "Bill Gates" query?

A few other features rolled out today:

• New Navigation: Gone the bar right above the search box, it is moved to the top and dubbed "new universal navigation bar" which displays links to relevant Google apps depending on which property you are now.
• Google Experimental: If you ever had a feeling like you aren't part of the google proccess and they are in the blind, you can now help them test new things out. Right now you can give them feedback on a new "Time Line" search, using keyboard shortcuts while you search and Left or Right navigation bar instead of the brand new top navigation bar. Try it here.
• Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR): Not yet implemented, but as an effort to globalize and unifiy all information regadless of the language its written it, google has showcased what their systems are capable of, and its pretty damn impressive.

If the idea of a quality score sounds familiar, it is because Google has been using a similar method for quite a while to determine ad rank and minimum bid prices. In fact Yahoo recently updated its entire sponsored search system to be more like Google, so it is not surprising that they are following Google's suit and incorporating a quality score.

I was curious if Yahoo, like Google would periodically visit landing pages, look for relevant content to you keywords and factor that into the quality score? The answer for now is no. I spoke with a Yahoo rep and they stated that the landing page will only be viewed once during the approval process, and the quality score would be determined by the relevancy of ad text to keywords and click through rates compared to your competition. This means it will be important to have all of your keywords broken out into very specific ad groups.

I expect (and hope) Yahoo will eventually change their methodology to periodically visit the landing pages of ads. This is a great way to ensure relevancy for its users and overall keep pace with Google.

Why is this significant? In our experience talking with organizations about online reputation management, they often respond saying they monitor online conversations using Google Alerts. The previous version of Google Alerts failed in capturing the online conversation due to the lack of blog tracking. Now when anyone signs up for Google Alerts they will have the option of tracking blogs in addition to Google News, groups and the web. Even better, the default is set to the Comprehensive Alert to track all, giving communications professionals the ability to track a deeper thread in the online conversation.

My issue with Google Alerts is that its still an email-based deliver system. Why not put an RSS feed directly on the Google Alerts sign up page?

As Google is rolling out advanced features in many areas of its business, we can only assume there will be a RSS tie in with Google Reader.

Our biggest concern from a usability standpoint is blog spam. We'll be testing this out to see if the quality of the results from blog posts are good or not. There are companies out there like Collective Intellect and Umbria that have entire systems to track the blogosphere and in our opinion their greatest value is eliminating blog spam. Try doing a Technorati search on a specific topic, 90% of the results are irrelevant, maybe popular, but irrelevant. Google Alerts is no way a substitute for a brand monitoring systems like Collective Intellect and Umbria, but it is a first step into understanding the impact.

So it's still up to the Communications Analysts to take the data from search that is relevant, the data from blogs that are popular and craft a strategy to identify and converse with the influencers.

Note to PR Firms: Google Alerts just upped itself a notch to becoming your clipping service - and it's Free.

Others in the Google Alerts conversation:
TechCrunch
Google Blog

Almost a month ago we posted "Syndicating Press Room - The 9th Free Thing Every Site Should Do" in response to Seth Godin's post about 8 things every site should do.

It continues to be our strong belief that if you are responsible for visibility, public relations or expert positioning one of the first items that should be addressed is getting your press room syndicating RSS feeds for the masses.

The residual benefits are tremendous and the impact can be immediate.

Others in the conversation:
Steve Rubel
Marshall Kirkpatick

"Website Optimizer is a free tool that helps AdWords advertisers test different landing pages and determine which one drives the most conversions. A true multivariate testing tool, Website Optimizer allows you to test variations of headlines, promotional copy, and images. The tool allows you to update your site with the winning test combination and continue to experiment."

I recently posted on the importance of split testing landing pages and after initial review, Website Optimizer looks like a great tool to facilitate the testing process. It goes beyond the elementary A/B split testing and offers multivariate testing. Multivariate testing allows you to test different ideas for images, headlines and sales copy on different landing pages at the same time, delivering insight into which combination of elements work best to increase conversion and ROI. Here is an example screenshot from the combination report which shows which combination of elements you are testing are performing the best.

The guys over at ROI Revolution pointed out one very cool aspect of the new Website Optimizer: "The comprehensive reports of your test results work similarly to Google Analytics, and are VERY EASILY applied to pages already tracked in GA." This is great for users who are already running Google Analytics and are familiar with interface and set-up process.

As the Google machine keeps rolling out the free analytics and testing tools to help advertisers improve their campaigns, the only challenging part is finding the time to stay educated on all of them. Currently Web Optimizer is in beta launch and available to AdWords advertisers on a sign-up basis.

MySpace has always been a great place to find young influencers and marketers have definitely taken note. The research now shows the potential for reaching a wider age demographic and also helps to address advertising concerns that MySpace would only ever be popular with the younger generation. Google certainly sees the potential and in August secured a deal that gave them exclusive rights to provide Web search results and sponsored links across MySpace. This move gives Google an important source of traffic and ad revenue since each members MySpace page will contain a Google search box. Also, ads will appear both in search results and contextually targeted placements on MySpace pages.

Social networking is becoming more than one-generational and will continue to appeal to a wider range of visitors due to the simple fact that humans are social animals and social media helps fulfill that basic desire to interact with others.

That could -- and should -- be changing, according to the experts here. However, a big part of the problem is that online advertising isn't as easy as it should be for small business owners.

In the "Local Search Ads" session, Brad Geddes of LocalLaunch noted, "The typical small business owner's advertising effort usually involves just a few phone calls or conversations a year."

And in the session before that, Jupiter analyst Barry Parr observed that in local advertising, sales and service are a huge part of that business. "Creating an Adwords account and placing an ad on Google is not all that easy for someone who's used to placing ads in the yellow pages. Ad sales and service is the big missing link in online ads."

Seems to me that there's room for a smart entrepreneur to start serving the small business advertiser market more effectively. The big portals simply aren't cutting it. Either that, or (as Geddes recommended) the portals need to start offering more data and tools to agencies that are willing to offer the sort of support, guidance, and assistances that small businesses need in order to want to advertise online.

Back on Jan. 17, Google announced that it had acquired dMarc Broadcasting, which offers an automated platform to serve advertising into the broadcast radio market -- a very mature ad market, compared to online advertising.

Google said it "plans to integrate dMarc technology into the Google AdWords platform, creating a new radio ad distribution channel for Google advertisers" -- which means serving ads to radio. My understanding is that the new service will launch this fall.

Still though, I wonder if that kind of platform might be used to serve ads into podcasts? That could make a huge difference to the economics of podcasting, certainly.

Although I must admit, the podcast ads I find most effective and least offensive are those which involve the host -- like the way Andy McCaskey of Slashdot Review (one of my favorite podcasts) reads a variety of ads from his sponsors, and often adds some commentary from personal experience. Most of the time, those ads sound pretty relevant to that show. I doubt such custom ads could be handles completely via automated platform -- but my guess is custom audio ads offer higher value to the advertisers, podcasters, and audiences.

As you can see, Google has indexed 49 pages with links to the Room 214 homepage. This is a great way to gauge ongoing SEO, SMO (Social Media Optimization) and link building efforts. However, this is only showing the number of incoming links indexed by Google so you will want to consult other search engines for the most accurate number.

Another interesting alternate query type is the [cache:] query. Using this query will show the version of the webpage that Google has saved in its cache. You will also see the cache crawl date, which gives you the last date the Googlebot has crawled your site and indexed your latest content. Even if a webpage has not changed, Google will still show you the date that it checked your page for new content. Here is what the [cache:www.room214.com] results look like:

This can be handy when a website is lost due to computer failure, or if a co-worker happens to overwrite recent updates you made to a website. More details can be found on the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

If you want to get really fancy, check out all of the alternate query types in the Google Help Center.

The wait time had become shorter, so it's good to see that Google bridged the remaining gap and eliminated it altogether. As a company with several Certified Google Adwords Professionals, we regularly use Google Analytics as one of many tools to optimize and track the perfomance of client websites. Now that we no longer have to wait to receive each code, our clients can benefit from having Analytics implemented a little sooner.

Analytics for everyone!

Direct from the Google Help Center, here's what the ads look like: Mobile ads contain two lines of text, with a limit of 12 or 18 characters per line, depending on the language in which you write your ad. Your destination URL appears on a third line if you choose to enter one. If you select the option that allows customers to directly connect to your business phone, a Call link will appear next to your destination URL. You can also set daily budgets and establish scheduled marketing messages.

The big advantage could be for advertisers looking to draw in local customers. For example, people who are on the road traveling and looking for a restaurant, hotel or service. David Utter from WebProNews.com commented on Google's strategy: "We know that Google and its competitors have been actively engaged in a battle for dominance in the local search arena. It makes sense to corner the mobile search market for advertising if possible."

Businesses purchase the ads through the Adwords interface, and must have either a mobile web site for pay-per-click ads, or a toll-free phone number for pay-per-call ads.

Now that mobile phones are fully integrated into mainstream America with over 200 million subscribers, mobile phones are and will continue to be an important place to deliver advertising.

With Google's new Link Unit feature, you can place links to ads on your site without displaying the ads themselves. This provides a less obtrusive way to earn money from advertising on your website, and potentially a more relevant path for people to locate topic-specific information.

Why is this kind of thing important? Just ask someone like our good friend, Tim Carter, from askthebuilder.com who clears $30,000/month from Adsense revenues alone. There is also a growing population of companies from India who have come to rely on Adsense revenue to make up eighty percent or more of their entire operating incomes. Any advantage Google can offer to increase click through rates is a good one.

I've been talking to people about companies like Umbria for several months now, all in the spirit of using tools that collect the kind of data that can help predict the future (as opposed to simply summarizing the past). Now, we are beginning to see this topic talked about more in main-stream news circles. If this isn't the future of Marketing, I don't know what is.

If you are a mall-loathing online shopper like me, you'll enjoy Google's new Checkout feature which simplifies the check out process, enabling you to purchase from many stores with one login - no more entering the same info each time you buy, and no more having to remember different usernames and passwords for each store.

Google's official blog entry explains how Google Checkout works with Adwords, offering online stores a more complete solution to attract customers and process sales. When Checkout is combined with Adwords, a small green shopping cart icon appears next to the display URL in the Adwords ad text (see picture). Now if I have a super-easy-to-use Google Checkout account and see that little green icon in the ad text, you bet I will be more likely to follow that link than one without this functionality.

As the creation of effective Adwords ad text and display URLs has become a science, it will be interesting to see if you will have the ability in to split test ads with the icon vs. without. Overall the set up process was painless and the checkout/purchase history interface is very google-esque - simple, clean, and uniform - I'm down.