Microhoo Clears Regulatory Hurdles

Combined Bing-Yahoo! Search Partnership Live by December

It certainly took a little time.  But all the bureaucratic issues have been resolved.  Microsoft and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union.  What this means, essentially, is that Microsoft’s Bing search engine results will combine in some form with Yahoo’s, and the pay-per-click advertising platform for both engines will be powered by Microsoft’s adCenter.

Though Yahoo’s spin on what comes next seems slightly different from Microsoft’s, there is some agreement on the fundamentals.

According to the official Microsoft announcement, after the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, you will:

Reach more potential customers. Search ad inventory from both the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks will be joined in a new, unified search marketplace powered by Bing, with a combined audience of over…

Facebook, Google to Add Music

Naming that Tune Gets a Lot Easier

The New York Times Bits blog (see our blog roll on the right) said it has inside scoop that Google will announce a new music service next week in L.A.  They report:

Several reports today indicate that Google is set to introduce a music service at an event at the iconic Capitol Records building in Hollywood on Oct. 28. The service, we’ve confirmed from three people briefed on the details, will offer searchers a better way to find and sample music on Google — much in the same way people can get detailed financial information about a company from Google Finance.

According to this and other reports, Google is teaming up with iLike (which is owned by MySpace, which, in turn, is owned by Fox/News Corp.), Lala and Imeem.  For folks who search…

Bing, Google Add Tweets to Results

UPDATE (8:43 a.m. PDT): Microsoft has struck a deal with Facebook to include its news feed updates in Bing’s searches.  Bing powers search on Facebook.

Tweets from users on Twitter have hit the big-time: they’re now going to be featured in search results on Bing and Google.

For those geeks among you who follow news from places like Twitter, Google and Microsoft (maker of Bing) like I do (it’s not a particularly scintillating life I lead…), you were no doubt enthralled with yesterday’s unfolding events.

First there was this blog post by Biz Stone, Twitter’s chief:

…there are already tens of thousands of Twitter apps and more to come because people want the choice to consume and create tweets wherever and whenever they prefer. The folks over at Bing took a keen interest in Twitter and worked fast to establish…

Microsoft & Yahoo: Live Together or Die Alone

Our Analysis of the Deal, Potential Impacts

The day has finally arrived.  Microsoft and Yahoo have figured out how to partner together.  And, it was all done under the unparalleled scrutiny of incessant press and blogger coverage.  Congratulations to Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz.  You get an A+ for persistence.

There are a lot of purists and contrarians criticizing Yahoo for entering into this agreement, most of which presumes a loss of entrepreneurship, innovation and competitive advantage.  However, let’s set the story straight.  Yahoo has been struggling in the search marketplace for quite some time.  They have seen their market share erode and have not shown any signs of turning that around.  Google, through their simple user interface and continuous innovation, has claimed the search marketplace as its own.

What options were left for Yahoo?  Dethroning the market…

Understanding the Link Economy

…and Why it Matters to You

It can be tough to be a small business these days. Once upon a time, one need only find a tidy shop on a busy street, hang out a shingle, and set about serving the people in your neighborhood.

Then came the internet. And Google. And terms like search engine marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising.  And that shingle? Forget simply hanging the little guy over your door: you now have to do things like “link out”; attract “inbound links”– especially the really juicy kind; and get crawled by search engines. (All of which sounds like a plot to a really odd horror movie.)

In other words, businesses today must be online and are governed, in part, by the concept known as the Link Economy – a term popularized by Jeff Jarvis,…

SEO Strategies Series: Developing Powerful Title Tags that Convert

Eight Dos and Don’ts for Driving Clicks and Traffic

In my last blog post, I discussed how to develop the right list of keywords – that is, keywords that people are actually using in their searches. Once you have your keywords in hand, you’re ready to incorporate them into your Title and meta tags. A significant part of your website is each page’s HTML source code, which includes these tags and which give the search engines information about your site.

From a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, the Title tag is most critical because it’s where you add your important keywords that describe what your Web page is about. (Some people call this tag the Page Title Tag for this reason.)

You see a Web page’s Title tag every time you open your browser as the Title tag is…

Hello, Bing

There’s a new search engine on the block and it’s called Bing.

Microsoft officially launched its new search product today at the D: All things Digital Conference, and CEO Steve Ballmer said it will replace the current Live Search offering beginning June 3rd.  The perennial search also-ran hopes their new product will be a game changer, and a (gorgeous) new promotional website describing the offering certainly offers a lot evidence to support such an ambition.

Bing will incorporate Microsoft’s adCenter, of course, and anticipates offering better targeting to advertisers. If you run PPC ad campaigns via adCenter for Live Search on our Yield Web Marketing Suite, there will be no interruption in service and your ads will display on results pages in Bing once the new service is fully live.

So what’s new and different about Bing? Here’s what we know…