the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Search Engine Market Shares all over the Place

There have been some conflicting reports on search engine market shares by different analysts. CNET is reporting that Nielsen Megaview Search research results for August 2008 show that Google's market share in the U.S. was at 64.6% in contrast to StatCounter reporting a 77.83% market share for the same period of time.  While ComScore did not appear to have August data yet, their reports for July 2009 more closely parallel those of Nielsen, with Google reported to have a 64.7% market share.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

Given the emerging battle between Bing and Google, not to mention other search engines, this discrepancy in data analysis and reporting could have significant repercussions for advertisers, investors and consumers alike.

Online Video Players Continue to Expand

Online Video is increasingly viewed by a wide range of demographic segments.  The choices of sites continue to expand with innumerable players scrambling for a piece of the pie.  Among the players out there are Vuze, ranked #9 in market share in the UK according to Hitwise (Feb '08).  On the specialty side, we have music video site PluggedIn, offering access to a wide range of music videos; AtomFilms, focusing on comedy and animation; and VideoJug claiming "Life Explained. On Film.. 

We are also seeing expansion in the video search category with companies like Truveo, part of the scene.  Their site has a quote from The Wall Street Journal that claims them to be "the best video search engine I've ever seen".

All of these video players are creating opportunities for content creators and advertisers alike.  Stay tuned for future postings or articles on this topic.

Google Search Wiki

Google announced the launch of Google SearchWiki yesterday.  Among the features of this new search utility is the ability for you make notes about a site, move it in your search results and eliminate it from search results all while you are signed in to your Google account.  Here's a YouTube video announcing the service

You can see what Seth Godin has to say about the new Google Search Wiki with his recent blog posting "Google gets jiggy", i.e. people gaming the system and more attention to Google by searchers.

Web Tidbits - Online Music and Video, Widgets

The Wall Street Journal reported today "Web Tools to find Your Inner DJ" on some of the developments in the online music space.  Among the trends and sites that they referenced were the following:

• Music Streaming Sites - Jango, Pandora (I've been using this one for awhile and love it. )
• Music Search Engines - seeqpod, songza, SkreemR
• Music Social Networking Sites - imeem, last.fm, iLike, MyStrands

Widgets
iMedia Connection has a video clip introducing widgets and the role that they can play as part of your marketing strategies.  You can see the video at: Widget Marketing 101. Also see their article "Do Widgets Spell Doom for Portals?"

For more on widgets see my article "Widgets: Web Components for Plug and Play" at Wisconsin Technology Network.

Online Video
CoolzOr has a posting on a new service called Hey!Spread that allows you to upload your promotional videos to 17 sites saving you the hassle of individual uploads. 

Google Streetview Expands & the Demise of Privacy

One of my good friends John just sent me the Google Street View of his house and place of work in Chicago.  This feature in Google maps has expanded beyond the introductory cities to include Chicago, Tucson, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Portland and Pittsburgh.  It was interesting to be able to take a virtual walk up his street and see his house... John your trees need a trim! :)  It also generated some disturbing thoughts about where this was all leading.

Here's their introductory video for the new cities....

The scary follow-up to this will be when this Street View information is mashed in with other personal information captured on people search engines like Rapleaf, Wink, Spock or PeekYou that Heather Green reviewed in a recent Business Week Blogspotting post.  I can see how data on the house's appraised value (already mashed on real estate sites), ownership history, police history etc will all be attached to this search result in yet another invasion of what little privacy remains.  Who needs the NSA and secret FBI spying when this data is being aggregated by commercial vendors and displayed for free or fee.

Is this taking things too far?

Search Updates - TubeSurf, All the Web

PCWorld has an article in the June 2007 issue "Search Engine Shootout" that compares some of the search engines out there.  For text info they rank the search engines they reviewed in the following order:

1. AlltheWeb
2. AltaVista
3. Google
4. Yahoo!
5. Microsoft Live Search
6. Ask

For Video search they rank the search engines

1. Google
2. AOL Video Search
3. TubeSurf
4. YouTube
5. Blinkx
6. Yahoo Video

TubeSurf was a new one to me.  Apparently it is a metasearch engine that combines results from Google, MySpace, Yahoo and YouTube.

Other search services referenced in the article are Rollyo where you can "roll your own" and create a Searchroll that will aggregate results for you from up to 25 search engines; Congoo that aggregates samples from paid content sites; Picsearch an image search engine and IceRocket, a blog search engine.

For additional information on new and specialty search engines see my article "Outflanking to Google, Yahoo, MSN Juggernaut" in Wisconsin Technology Network.   

Search Updates - MyRide and Searchforithere

Autobytel has announced that they'll be launching a new vertical search engine for car purchasers called Myride.com.  The new search engine was announced in February at the National Auto Dealers Association meeting with Computerworld reporting that it will launch June 21st (a pretty long lead time for a press release). 

In other search news, Searchforithere was launched yesterday.  The press release about the site states "rather than charging for each click, the new site charges a monthly fee regardless of how much traffic the advertiser receives". 

For additional insights on developments in search see my article "Outflanking the Google, Yahoo! Juggernaut" in Wisconsin Technology Network.

Blinkx & Cha Cha Announce Strategic Partnership

blinkx, "the world's most comprehensive video search engine" and ChaCha, the "breakthrough search engine that uses human guides to enhance search results" have announced a strategic partnership.  As the press release states "Under the terms of the agreement, ChaCha will provide its users with video search results from blinkx's extensive index of the rich media Web.  Results can be either culled instantly or by using the support of a human ChaCha "guide" who assists users in real time at ChaCha".

For other developments in the search world see my new article "Outflanking the Google, Yahoo, MSN Juggernaut" in my Buzz Network article on Wisconsin Technology Network.

New Column in Wisconsin Technology Network -

I've written a new column for the monthly Buzz Networks series in Wisconsin Technology Network.  The article, "Outflanking the Google, Yahoo, MSN Juggernaut" discusses some of the latest trends in the search engine world.

Taking it Beyond the Article
One trend referenced is the growth of vertical search engines that focus on a particular technology or discipline.  One of the latest ones that I've come across is called Balihoo, a vertical search engine for advertising media.  In other vertical search news, Blinkx, a video search tool referenced in my article is going for an IPO according to Business 2.0 Next Net.  Another new search engine that I've come across is local search engine Oddpath, that appears to have content tagged for geographic search.

Bad Baidu Beats Google in Beijing, Shanghai and China...

PC World reports on how Baidu has out-gunned and outmaneuvered Google to become the number one Chinese language site in the world and number one search engine in China with 62% of all searches on their site.  In a rare setback, Google the world's number one brand according to Millward Brown and number one visited site according to ComScore (reported at SFGate.com) has some lessons to learn to get China right. 

So what are the factors that have made Baidu successful?  One key to Baidu's success is reported to be their .mp3 search capabilities, a feature that due to copyright reasons has not been pursued by Western search engines.  Another success factor might be the simple user interface that Baidu seems to have borrowed from Google.  Yet another is reported to be that their search results are heavily weighted towards advertising rather than organic search results according to the New York Times.  A final reason is their willingness to allow search results to be heavily censored, a factor that leads to government support for the search engine.  

The Baidu IPO on August 5, 2005 was the "hottest" since Google according to Investor's Business Daily with an initial offer price of $27 a share that rose to $122 by the end of the day.  Today it is trading at $127.39 following first quarter results showing that advertising revenue had led to a profit jump of 143% in the first quarter of the year.

With only 10.7% or 137 million Chinese now online according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), there are still immense opportunities for growth for Internet players in the world's most populous nation as Internet access continues to expand.  CINIC published their 17th survey on the status of the Interent in China in January.  You can download the 83 page report from their site.