Anyone who knows me knows I am a rugby NUT and an All Blacks tragic. So I’ve been following the Rugby World Cup action very closely over the past few weeks. The thing is, I’m finding this particular RWC season to be almost unbearable from a media perspective.

First it was the media coverage following the All Black’s 41 to 10 win over Tonga. The New Zealand media were bad enough, claiming the All Blacks played poorly and that the 41 point victory wasn’t decisive enough.  Which prompted me to ask Twitter:

“If a 31 point win margin *fails as a decisive victory* then how many freaking points did the #allblacks need to win by?”

Then there was the Wall Street Journal piece, written by someone who clearly doesn’t know anything about rugby (“New Zealand – nicknamed the All Blacks due to their attire” – REALLY?), claiming that the All Blacks “failed to inspire” and that “the win wasn’t sufficient to reassure fans”.

Of course, there have been the expected digs at the All Blacks team by the Australian media, about how they were going to choke, just like the last World Cup and Aussie television news anchors having a good old chuckle at the done-to-death sheep / Israel Dagg jokes wheeled out by the sports reporters. Commentators Andrew Slack and Ken Sutcliffe for Channel Nine in Australia clearly find it difficult to hold back their bias when it comes to their coverage of Wallabies matches. But in my opinion, there is a clearly defined line between light-hearted fun poking and outright racist commentary.

Today, New Zealand’s TV3 stepped over that line, in my opinion. With their One Eyed Kiwi Commentary of today’s game between the All Blacks and the Wallabies, I think 3News have sullied New Zealand rugby with their offensive, juvenile and racist pre-match banter. I wanted the All Blacks to win as much as anybody, but that promoted commentary was simply embarrassing.

Think I’m over-reacting? Here are some extracts:

• “Well here we go… the big one, the All Blacks totally dismembering our Aussie cousins from across the ditch and marching on to hand a hiding to the limpet mine-carrying nation in the final.”
• “Refresh your browser occasionally. We’ll warn you when video is up with the words ‘VIDEO UP’ (even an Aussie could follow that)”.
• “…here’s some friendly folly fire at the convicts from the island.“
• “The first Wallaby has been seen inspecting Eden Park.” (accompanied by the picture above of a giant convict carrying a rugby ball and chain).
• “What do you call an Aussie with half a brain? Gifted.”

And on it goes, with more crude anti-Australian jokes thrown into the mix. Based on his tweets, the content appears to have been written by a post-grad journalism student called Michael Oliver who is apparently about to be employed by TV3.

Now my main problem with this is not so much the content, as juvenile as it is. You can see this type of immature trolling on Twitter or Facebook about any big sporting event. No, my problem with this lies in the way it is presented on the 3News web site. It is published as *official* RWC content. There is no banner or byline indicating this content is written by a guest blogger or a student. The content is simply presented as endorsed coverage of what is likely the most important game of the World Cup, on the site of the official media sponsor covering the event.

I am concerned that the content will be viewed as offensive, if not outright racist and by allowing it to be published, TV3 is endorsing those views. As an Australian, I was quite offended, even though I (mostly) live in New Zealand and am a hugely vocal supporter of the All Blacks. I can only imagine how Wallabies supporters would feel upon reading that. And the petty limpet mine (Rainbow Warrier) reference is really quite a controversial and dangerous topic to bring up with so many French media representatives in NZ right now.

What’s worse is how proud the author is of his field day approach:

@mj_oliver : I’m manning tonight’s live updates for 3News.co.nz. We’re gunning for the most parochial commentary known to human kind. #RWC2011 Link to tweet

@mj_oliver: Sanctioned trolling. I love my future job. http://www.3news.co.nz/One-eyed-Kiwi-VIDEO-LIVE-UPDATES-All-Blacks-Vs-Australia-semifinal-2-RWC-2011–highlights/tabid/1534/articleID/229706/Default.aspx Link to tweet

With millions of international viewers studying New Zealand closely right now, can TV3 really afford to be seen as endorsing such potentially racist drivel? I don’t think so.

TV3 have a very strict policy when it comes to comments left on their site:

• No comments that seek to cause offence on the grounds of race, sex, sexuality, religion, age or ethinicity will be tolerated
• No comments that are obscene, offensive, pornographic, vulgar, profane, indecent or otherwise illegal
• No comments that are defamatory in nature

Right. But that apparently doesn’t apply to their own contributors?

I left the very first comment on the page, politely expressing my concerns, but for some reason, @3newsnz seems to be only publishing positive comments. When I tweeted Mr Oliver about this, he claimed he didn’t have control over comments.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments. And unlike the team at 3News, I’ll actually publish them.

POSTSCRIPT 1: Since I started writing this blog post, TV3 have put up a pseudo disclaimer in red text on the page. It reads:

“Thanks for tuning in to tonight’s completely biased commentary. It was all in good fun, and no offence to our friends across the ditch was intended. The Wallabies weren’t allowed to play, and that’s entirely due to their opposition being on another level.”

Yeah, that’ll fix everything.

Art Clokey was the pioneer of stop motion clay animation, bringing to life Gumby and his horse Pokey, who first appeared on the American kid’s show Howdy Doody. Art Clokey died last year, but to celebrate what would have been Clokey’s 90th birthday yesterday, Google’s home page featured the tribute doodle you see pictured.

The initial image shows a toy block and 5 balls of colored clay representing the letters in GOOGLE. Clicking on any one of the clay balls launches a delightful animation of the clay taking the shape of one of Clokey’s famous animated characters. A link above the doodle takes you to SERPs for Art Clokey and his life.

One of Google’s better doodles!

I heard it from a client who lives one mile from Apple headquarters and was awoken by helicopters over his house at 4.30am. But most people heard about it via social media. Within seconds of an official statement released by Apple, the first tweets started to appear.

“#ThankYouSteve for the magic you brought to people’s lives.”

“iSad. RIP Steve Jobs for leaving your mark on technology.”

“My iPhone made all the difference during earthquakes on 4 Sept, 22 Feb & 13 June – it found my kids & reassured my family #eqnz #ThankYouSteve”

“Life is the only thing Bill Gates has beaten Steve Jobs at. #ThankYouSteve”

“Steve Jobs changed the world. We have lost a true pioneer and American visionary #iSad #ThankYouSteve”

Twitter users started spreading the news of Jobs’s death, adopting #SteveJobs #iSad and #ThankYouSteve hashtags attached to their tweets. For the first few hours, the rate of Twitter activity about Job’s death looked like it was going to break the tweet per second record of 8,868 tweets per second, set after U.S. R&B artist Beyoncé announced her pregnancy at the MTV Video Music Awards in August.

Australian social media monitoring firm SR7 estimated that Twitter activity hit 10,000 tweets per second following the announcement:

“We’re awaiting the official Twitter data to be released, however, from the numbers that we’ve been monitoring through the day since the announcement it’s certainly been trending to break that record,” Peter Fraser, co-founder of SR7, told the news agency Agence-France Presse.

TwitSprout went even futher, claiming tweet activity reached 42,000 per second at one point.

But it was Twitter who finally revealed the truth. In a statement given to Forbes last night, a spokeswoman from Twitter said that their internal data showed a rate of 6,049 tweets per second. That’s faster than tweets following the death of Osama bin Laden (a little over 5,000 TPS), but below the 8,868 tweets per second that followed Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement.

But even though the death of the technology icon failed to break the all-time tweet record, Steve Job’s death *did* break Twitter temporarily. The site fell over for around 2 minutes under the weight of the heavy initial tweet load.

Apart from anything else, it’s an interesting insight into the growth of Twitter. Consider this: following Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 there were just 493 tweets per second being sent, yet this was still enough to crash the service.

As a final tribute to Steve Jobs and the impact he had, Twitter staff put together a fascinating infographic portrait, consisting of a visualization of public #thankyousteve Tweets, sent over about 4.5 hours yesterday.

RIP Steve Jobs.

To celebrate, Google’s home page sports a tribute doodle 3D birthday card. The card features a retro-inspired birthday party scene complete with party hats, balloons and nanna’s flowery tablecloth. Clicking on the doodle takes you to SERPs for, (unsurprisingly) Google.

Seems like just yesterday that Google was still in diapers, clutching lovingly at the legs of it’s users at every opportunity. Teething was tricky, with quite a few painful months sucking on everything across the web in an effort to stop the pain. Independence came early, with Google spending less time with it’s family of users and more time with those naughty shareholder kids in an attempt to grow up too fast.

Then Google went through that greedy stage, eating everything in sight, including smaller competitors. No wonder it’s grown so large, although we did warn it.

Last year was a challenge, with Google getting bullied by the neighbor kids Bing and Yahoo. But this year has been the hardest of all, with Google getting all emo over Facebook status updates.

Let’s hope the rest of Google’s teenage years aren’t full of angst and acne.

I’m a regular speaker at these Bootcamps and SMX shows across Australia and New Zealand, but despite being a 10 year conference veteran, I always learn something new. (By the way, the photo is me handing over a voucher for Search Engine College training to the value of $1,495 to a lucky Bootcamp attendee).

Today’s event was fairly small compared to the larger SMX-branded events, but I actually found the smaller crowd both switched-on and highly engaging. I’m not sure if it was because many of them were small to medium businesses rather than staff of large ad agencies or marketing departments, but these guys were truly interested in what we had to say and how they could use the information immediately.

Many audience members made the effort to track me down during the breaks or after the show to ask questions or simply let me know how much they took away from my session.  Quite a few of the attendees run their own companies and (like me) are responsible for all marketing, advertising and management aspects of their business. They desperately needed SEO, PPC and Social Media explained to them in 30 minutes grabs, minus the industry jargon and in real actionable terms that they could implement NOW. As impossible as that sounds, I think we actually delivered that today.

I spoke about one of my favorite subjects, How to use Twitter for Business (watch this space for a summary) and it was rewarding to see a few light bulbs go off in the crowd as they worked out how they could apply some of the case studies I presented to their own businesses, whether they were a one person company or part of a multi-national corporation.

But what really struck me about today was that the attendees were really keen to share what they knew about the subject matter (whether learned today or in the past) with other attendees. There was genuine excitement in the break out sessions where people were just completely open and honest about their own experiences in the marketing space, the successess and failures, and a willingness to share and learn that I haven’t witnessed at a conference for a couple of years.

At larger shows I’ve been to in the past, attendees tend to be quite secretive about what they do, who they work for, what agencies they use and what methodologies they employ. Not today. Today was all about connecting, engaging and sharing as much as possible. I’m convinced this is a by-product of our increasing involvement with social media. I sense that sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on are encouraging us to talk to each other again.

I overheard lots of conversations that began with “I follow you on Twitter” or “I saw your Facebook post the other day” or “I heard you ask for information about X – here’s a link that might help”. Despite the generational hype that we have lost our ability to communicate without a modem, I actually think our sense of community is returning.

Bring it on I say.

It went something like this:

Me: “Look at that, she’s making a business from broken china. I love how innovative kiwis are.”

Him: “No they’re not.

Me: “Yes they are”.

Him. “They *think* they are, but they’re not.”

Me: “Two words for you: Number 8 Wire.”

Him: “That’s three words.”

Me: “Shut up.”

Him: “Kiwis are too isolated to be innovative.”

Me: “That’s total crap! How the heck do you think they became so innovative? They were forced to innovate because of tyranny of distance, to quote Tim Finn.”

Him: “Who’s Tim Finn?”

Me: “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Him: “Is that someone you met on Twitter?”

Me: “#%%**&^!!”

Him: “Ok, so name some innovations that came from New Zealand.”

Me: “I already did.”

Him: “Something not related to farming.”

Me: “SilverStripe. Weta Workshops…”

Him: “Not…”

Me: “The first iPhone app in the world.”

Him: “I didn’t…”

Me: “Jet boats… bungy jumping… Pavlova.”

Him: “That’s not an innovation, that’s a dessert”.

Me: “A very innovative and complex dessert”.

Him: “You’re kidding.”

Me: “Xero software… America’s Cup yachts.”

Him: “You’re forgetting the long drop toilet.”

Me: “The long drop toilet….”

Him: “Oh come on!”

Me: “Ski planes, egg beaters and… ooh! I know – Webstock.”

Him: “Ok, fine. You win.”

And that’s pretty much why I’m here in Wellington this week. Webstock is as much a celebration of kiwi ingenuity and bravado as it is a web conference.

As I recently learned from the article Raising Webstock, the whole she-bang started out as a bunch of geeks meeting at the library to discuss web standards. This progressed into regular gigs featuring guest speakers, which in turn led to discussions about organizing a proper web conference to be held in New Zealand.

But organizers Mike Brown and Natasha Lampard were insistent that it should be less of a formal conference and more of a geek love-in where they could meet and mingle with Internet legends. Rejecting advice from important conference types, in true Kiwi spirit, they forged ahead with their ingenious plan.

According to legend (well @hadyngreen anyway) during discussions over a few wines one night, Natasha announced:

“Fuck it, let’s get Tim Berners-Lee!”

And get him they did. Berners-Lee opened the inaugral Webstock in 2006 via video link up and the rest is history. Serendipity may have played a role, but so did balls. This joyous combination has created the world’s best unconference that is now in its 6th year.

I don’t say *world’s best* lightly. I’ve attended bags of web conferences and I can assure you that Webstock is the finest of them all. You don’t attract speakers like Amanda Palmer, John Gruber, Ze Frank, Bruce Sterling and Merlin Mann without a radical reputation. And you don’t get speakers like David Recordon, Tom Coates, Amy Hoy and Michael Lopp coming back year after year unless you offer an incredible experience.

And it’s the experience of attending that I get the most from Webstock. Not so much the content of the presentations, although they are usually incredibly inspiring. But no, it’s the thrill of being part of something extraordinary that I cherish the most about Webstock. It’s the only conference I know of where the buzz starts at least a month early – or at least that’s when I feel the need to create a dedicated TweetDeck column for the #webstock hashtag.

Everything about Webstock screams Geek Cool. The barista coffee bar on site, the all-you-can-eat Kapiti icecreams, the grapefruit and lemon Frujus (a new addition for 2011), the Lego building stations, the massage chairs, the luxurious swag, the trading card game, not to mention the incredible after (and after-after) parties. Absolutely no corners are cut for this event and attendees couldn’t be happier. I’ve seen complete strangers high-five each other in the street when they spot matching Webstock gear.

This year’s programme reads like geek viagra. To top off the impressive speaker list, Mike and Natasha have somehow convinced Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley to not only deliver presentations, but also to provide a private concert *just* for Webstockers at the Friday evening wrap party. News of this was enough to make me pay a change-fee penalty and switch my flight home to Saturday.

Such is the prize of being a Webstocker that two Aussie IT guys, desperate to attend after the 2011 event had sold out, turned to begging online this week for help in sourcing the elusive golden tickets.

I feel their pain. I truly didn’t understand how very much Webstock inspires me until I had to miss 2010. I could only watch jealously from afar, scanning the tweetstream, trying to understand the back channel jokes, hanging out for twitpics from the ONYAs, oohing and aahing at the dodgy YouTube version of the amazing $40K light show I’d missed. I was absolutely GUTTED not to be there. And I think my level of guttedness made me love Webstock even more.

So hand me the pavlova – I’m back for the love-in.

Webstock has a reputation for having the coolest conference swag around. The question is, can they match their previous swag reputation? The answer? Yes they can:

Webstock 2011 Swag Contents:

• Ultra hip, ultra strong Webstock laptop satchel - available in your choice of black or white (I chose white). It’s rumored that whenever Webstockers bump bags, a LOL cat dies.
• Webstock 2011 tee – available in any color as long as it’s black. Features Webstock logo on front and list of speakers on back.
• Conference lanyard – with Wellington map and programme printed conveniently upside-down so you can read it while wearing.
• Black cap – groovy black cotton hipster cap/hat with subtle logo from gold sponsor Xero.
• Conference handbook – gorgeous gold trim quarto containing speaker, venue, sponsor and need to know stuff.
• Stickers – exercise-inspired stickers from sponsor Springload. Weird but amusing.
• Magazine – a bumper Webstock edition of the Idealog magazine, featuring the must-read Raising Webstock article by @hadyngreen.
• Pencil – yep, it’s a pencil. But the coolest pencil you could ask for, with Webstock logo on one side and “YOU ARE AWESOME” on the other.

All in all, a pretty sweet swag. Topped only by Webstock 2009 when we all got keys which we had to exchange for matching wind-up robots. I hear we’ll also be getting Webstock Trading Cards on Thursday so we can all play the @webstockgame.

But it’s not just about the swag at Webstock. The conference hasn’t even started yet and as always, the buzz is palpable. Jealous much?

]]> http://www.ask-kalena.com/events/first-peek-at-webstock-swag/feed/ 6 http://www.ask-kalena.com/personal/happy-holidays/ http://www.ask-kalena.com/personal/happy-holidays/#comments Fri, 24 Dec 2010 22:57:50 +0000 Kalena Jordan http://www.ask-kalena.com/?p=2685 A very Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays to all my blog subscribers. Thank you so much for being such loyal readers and avid commenters. It means a lot to know at least a few of you are listening.

I’d also like to say thanks to my trusty guest bloggers Andy and Pete who have been helping me answer Q and A’s when I’m inundated.

I’m taking a well-deserved week off from writing duties, but will be back in the New Year with lots of tricky search engine questions to answer and juicy industry gossip.

See you all in 2011!

Search industry heavyweights like Google, Yahoo! and Bing are constantly jostling for position to be the most popular search destination, have the largest search database, have the most relevant results and grab the most market share.  As is typical for such a heated industry, it’s in a constant state of flux.

Since I joined the industry in 1996, I’ve watched search companies make deals, break partnerships, launch products, copy technology, sue each other or simply buy each other outright. Even if you live and breathe search, it’s hard to keep up to speed with what’s going on, so it’s not suprising that newcomers to the industry can be completely overwhelmed!

While writing new content for our Search Engine Optimization courses at Search Engine College, I thought it might be fun to put together a bullet point history of the major events over the past 10+ years to help students make sense of this crazy industry. So here it is:

A Short History of the Search Industry

• Feb 1994 – Stanford University Electrical Engineering graduates Jerry Yang and David Filo founded a website called “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” which was later renamed Yahoo!
• 1995 – AltaVista, the first search engine to use a multi-threaded crawler (Scooter), was launched by researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation’s Western Research Laboratory.
• March 1995 – Yahoo! became officially incorporated.
• August 1995 – The Microsoft Network (later rebranded as MSN) debuted as an online service and Internet service provider to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.
• 1996 – Stanford University Computer Science graduates Larry Page and Sergey Brin began collaborating on a search engine called BackRub.
• 1997 – Page and Brin rebranded BackRub as Google. See the original Google Home Page.
• 1995 – The web portal Go.com was first launched by entrepreneur Jeff Gold.
• 1995 – Inktomi Corporation was founded by UC Berkeley professor Eric Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier based on the success of the search engine they developed at the university.
• 1998 – Infoseek was merged into the Go.com network.
• 1998 – Go.com was acquired by the Walt Disney Company and redeveloped into The Go Network portal using Infoseek search technology.
• 1998 – The MSN.com domain name was reinvented as an Internet portal, putting MSN Search in direct competition with search sites such as Yahoo! and the Go Network.
• Feb 1998 – GoTo.com became the first company to successfully provide a pay-for-placement search service (a pre-cursor to today’s PPC programs).
• Sep 1998 – Google Inc. became incorporated as a private company and began operating out of a home garage in California.
• Feb 1999 – MSN Search launched a revised search engine which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi.
• Jun 2000 – Google became the official search results provider for Yahoo!
• Jun 2000 – Google reached 1 billion pages indexed, becoming the world’s largest search engine.
• Oct 2000 – Google launched the AdWords self-service ad program in direct competition to GoTo.com.
• Jan 2001 – Disney announced that it would be closing Go.com, its search engine and its volunteer-edited directory, prompting the creation of offshoot directories like JoeAnt, Goguides.org and Skaffe.com.
• Mar 2001 – Go.com rebranded as GoTo.com and switched over to providing search results from paid listings service GoTo.com, with non-paid results from parent company Inktomi.
• Oct 2001 – GoTo.com rebranded as Overture Services Inc.
• Dec 2001 – Google reached 3 billion pages indexed.
• Sep 2002 – Google News is launched.
• 2002-2003 – Google became king of the search engines and the most popular search destination with worldwide Internet users, wrenching market share away from Yahoo.
• Feb 2003 – Yahoo purchased the Inktomi search index.
• Feb 2003 – Google acquired the Blogger brand from Pyra Labs.
• Feb 2003 – Google was named Brand of the Year for 2002.
• Mar 2003 – Google launched AdSense.
• Apr 2003 – Pay-Per-Click provider Overture bought search engine Alta-Vista.
• Apr 2003 – Overture purchased search engine AllTheWeb from FAST Search.
• Jun 2003 – FAST Search purchased AltaVista Enterprise Search from Overture.
• June 2003 – Microsoft announced their intention to build their own search engine.
• Jul 2003 – Yahoo purchased Overture (including AltaVista and AllTheWeb).
• Oct 2003 – LookSmart lost their MSN distribution partnership.
• Nov 2003 – Google rolled out a major algorithmic update across data-centers, nicknamed *Florida* because of the hurricane-like impact it had on the SEO of many web sites.
• Jan 2004 – Pay-Per-Click providers FindWhat and eSpotting merged.
• Jan 2004 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Research Labs.
• Feb 2004 – Google expanded their web index to over 6 billion documents.
• Feb 2004 – Yahoo dropped Google results and launched their own search crawler.
• Mar 2004 – AskJeeves purchased Excite.
• Apr 2004 – Google announced an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
• Apr 2004 – Google launched Gmail.
• Apr 2004 – Google purchased Picasa.
• Jun 2004 – Overture (Yahoo) launched Local Sponsored Search
• Aug 2004 – Google and Yahoo resolved their patent disputes.
• Aug 2004 – Google rolled out their Initial Public Offering (IPO), listing on the stock exchange and becoming a public company.
• Sep 2004 – MSN launched MSN Music.
• Oct 2004 – Yahoo launched mobile search.
• Oct 2004 – Google launched Desktop Search
• Oct 2004 – Yahoo unveiled personal search.
• Nov 2004 – Microsoft upgraded MSN Search to provide its own self-built search engine results, codenamed Longhorn.
• Nov 2004 – Overture (Yahoo) extended sponsored search relationship with MSN until 2006.
• Dec 2004 – MSN launched the MSN Spaces blogging service.
• Jan 2005 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Desktop Search.
• Jan 2005 – Google launched AdWords API.
• Jan 2005 – Google launched Google Video.
• Feb 2005 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Music.
• Feb 2005 – Google added Movie Search.
• Feb 2005 – Google moved Google Local to their home page.
• Mar 2005 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Search Developer Network.
• Mar 2005 – Yahoo re-branded Overture as Yahoo Search Marketing.
• Mar 2005 – MSN launched the MSN adCenter online advertising platform.
• Mar 2005 – Google purchased Urchin Stats.
• Apr 2005 – Yahoo launched Personal Search.
• Apr 2005 – Google launched My Search History.
• Apr 2005 – Google launched Site Targeting in AdWords.
• Apr 2005 – Google launched Google Advertising Professionals program.
• May 2005 – MSN launched MSN China.
• May 2005 – Google launched Toolbar 3.0.
• May 2005 – Google launched AdSense for Feeds.
• June 2005 – Google launched Google Maps.
• Jun 2005 – Google launched Google Sitemaps.
• Jun 2005 – Google launched Mobile Web Search.
• Jun 2005 – Google added Personalized Search.
• Jun 2005 – Yahoo settles click fraud class action suit with Checkmate Strategic Group.
• Jun 2005 – Google released Google Earth.
• Jul 2005 – Yahoo revamped their home page.
• Jul 2005 – Google announced China office.
• Aug 2005 – Google launched Google Talk.
• Aug 2005 – Yahoo launched Audio Search.
• Sep 2005 – Google launched Blog Search.
• Sep 2005 – Google announces partnership with NASA.
• Oct 2005 – Google launched Google Reader.
• Oct 2005 – Google merged Google Local and Google Maps.
• Nov 2005 – Google launched Google Base.
• Nov 2005 – Yahoo launched a mapping service.
• Nov 2005 – Google launched Google Analytics.
• Nov 2005 – Google launched Froogle Local.
• Nov 2005 – Google launched AdSense OnSite Advertiser Sign Up.
• Dec 2005 – Google re-vamped and re-launched Book Search.
• Dec 2005 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Answers.
• Dec 2005 – Google and AOL announced global advertising partnership.
• Dec 2005 – Google created Music Onebox Search.
• Jan 2006 – Google launched the Google Video Store.
• Jan 2006 – Google News comes out of BETA.
• Jan 2006 – Google releases new version of Google Toolbar
• Jan 2006 – Google released Google Pack.
• Feb 2006 – Yahoo re-launched Yahoo Music.
• Mar 2006 – Google launched AdWords Local Business Ads.
• Mar 2006 – The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled by Microsoft.
• May 2006 – Yahoo re-designed Yahoo Search Marketing.
• May 2006 – Google launched the Google Co-op.
• May 2006 – Google launched Google Desktop 4.
• May 2006 – Google launched Google Notebook.
• May 2006 – Google launched video ads on Google AdWords.
• May 2006 – Yahoo re-vamped their home page.
• May 2006 – Yahoo announced strategic partnership with eBay.
• Jun 2006 – Google launched Google Spreadsheets.
• Jun 2006 – Google introduced Ad Scheduling for Google AdWords.
• Jun 2006 – Google combined Google Analytics with Google AdWords reporting.
• Jun 2006 – Google launched Google Checkout.
• Jul 2006 – Google launched Google Maps for Mobiles.
• Aug 2006 – Yahoo re-branded Yahoo Music to Yahoo Music Jukebox.
• Aug 2006 – Yahoo signed mobile search advertising deal with go2
• Sep 2006 – Google News introduced Archive Search.
• Sep 2006 – Windows Live Search officially replaced MSN Search.
• Oct 2006 – Google launched Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
• Oct 2006 – Google launched AdWords Website Optimizer BETA.
• Nov 2006 – Google acquired YouTube.
• Nov 2006 – Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced joint support for the Sitemaps Protocol.
• Dec 2006 – Google added new features to Google Toolbar for Firefox.
• Dec 2006 – Yahoo launched the Yahoo Search Marketing PPC service to directly compete with AdWords.
• Dec 2006 – Google launched Google Patent Search.
• Jan 2007 – Google launched mobile search in China.
• Jan 2007 – Yahoo launched Internet Search for Mobile.
• Feb 2007 – Google made Gmail available to the general public.
• Mar 2007 – Windows Live Search was rebranded to Live Search.
• Mar 2007 – Google launched AdWords Pay Per Action BETA.
• Mar 2007 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Go for Mobile.
• Apr 2007 – Opera named Yahoo exclusive partner for mobile search.
• Apr 2007 – Yahoo and Comcast announced advertising partnership.
• Apr 2007 – Google announced acquisition of DoubleClick.
• May 2007 – Google launched a new version of Google Analytics.
• May 2007 – Google launched Universal Search model.
• Jun 2007 – Google acquired FeedBurner.
• Jun 2007 – Microsoft launched MSN Mobile.
• Jun 2007 – Yahoo launched Search Marketing APIs.
• Jul 2007 – Yahoo acquired Right Media.
• Aug 2007 – Yahoo re-launched Yahoo Mail.
• Sep 2007 – Google launched AdSense for Mobile.
• Sep 2007 – Microsoft launched MSN Video.
• Oct 2007 – Google launched video units for AdSense.
• Oct 2007 – Yahoo re-launched Yahoo Search.
• Nov 2007 – Google launched OpenSocial.
• Nov 2007 – Yahoo and Adobe announced advertising program for PDF publishers.
• Dec 2007 – FTC cleared Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick.
• Dec 2007 – Yahoo and CNBC announced a global distribution agreement.
• Feb 2008 – Google launched Google Sites.
• Feb 2008 – Microsoft made a bid to purchase Yahoo for 45 billion.
• Feb 2008 – Yahoo officially rejected Microsoft’s acquisition offer.
• Feb 2008 – Yahoo launched Yahoo Buzz.
• Mar 2008 – Google completed acquisition of DoubleClick.
• Jun 2008 – Microsoft and Yahoo ended acquisition negotiations.
• Jun 2008 – Yahoo started using Google ads in US & Canada.
• Jul 2008 – Yahoo rejected new Microsoft acquisition proposal.
• Sep 2008 – Google launched Chrome, a new open source browser.
• May 2009 – Google launched Google Wave.
• May 2009 – Microsoft re-branded Live Search as Bing.
• May 2009 – Microsoft launched MSN City Guides featuring Bing Maps.
• Jul 2009 – Microsoft and Yahoo announced major search and advertising partnership.
• Jul 2009 – Google announced the launch of their own operating system – the Google Chrome OS.
• Oct 2009 – Google launched Social Search.
• Oct 2009 – Google announced partnership with Twitter to include their updates in search results.
• Dec 2009 – Google redesigned their home page for the first time in many years.
• Dec 2009 – Google Real Time Search went live.
• Jan 2010 – Google entered the retail market by launching their own mobile device – the Nexus One.
• Feb 2010 – Google launched their social network Buzz.
• Feb 2010 – Microsoft and Yahoo announced the impending implementation of their Search Alliance.
• Feb 2010 – Yahoo partnered with Twitter to integrate content and enhance social search experience.
• Apr 2010 – Google Real-Time Search was enhanced with Twitter content.
• Apr 2010 – Google Local Business Center was renamed Google Places.
• May 2010 – Google rolled out a completely new look for SERPs and an algorithm update later nicknamed *MayDay*.
• Jun 2010 – Launch of Google’s new search index Caffeine provided 50 percent fresher results than previous index.
• Jun 2010 – Yahoo announced a partnership with Facebook to integrate their content into Yahoo Search results and allow users to link their accounts.
• Aug 2010 – Google announced discontinuation of Google Wave.
• Sep 2010 – Google Instant is launched, with predictive search results appearing as you type.
• Oct 2010 – Google launched Place Search functionality that helps you find local information by organizing websites around real world places.
• Oct 2010 – Yahoo rolled out new interactive features in their search results including rich content and multimedia search.
• Oct 2010 – Bing became the 4th largest search engine on the web by query volume.
• Oct 2010 – Yahoo Search Marketing PPC accounts were transitioned to Microsoft adCenter accounts, combining the services into a single brand.
• Oct 2010 – Bing announced partnership with Facebook, integrating more social signals into search results.
• Nov 2010 – Google added local product availability to Google Place Search.
• Nov 2010 – Bing launched Movie Search.
• Nov 2010 – Yahoo launched new social and local search features, including Twitter integration and local Search apps within Yahoo search results pages.
• Nov 2010 – Google rolled out a new interface for Google AdSense.
• Nov 2010 – Yahoo launched the Yahoo Contributor Network.
• Dec 2010 – Yahoo announced they would be shutting down Del.icio.us, Altavista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Picks and Yahoo! Buzz.

Wow. I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning. I know it’s not the most exciting way to present the data, but I’m working on a bells and whistles version for the new year.

I’ll keep this search industry timeline updated with major activities taking place, so make sure you bookmark it now.

Monte starts by saying that 96 percent of Google revenue is AdWords and AdSense, while the other 4 percent is stuff they do to piss off Microsoft. This gets a big laugh from the audience.

The Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) of today, Monte says, are almost unrecognizable from the Google SERPs of 10 years ago. The majority of search results are now dominated by local matches, social search and/or universal search. So SEO just won’t cut it anymore. You absolutely need to be in Google Places and social search.

He mentions Page Preview – which is a new search feature launched this month, where Google adds thumbnails of a page, directly into the search results. These previews are accessible via the search navigation menu on the left of the SERPs, under the heading Page Previews.

Monte moves on to talk about the impact Local Search is currently having. Monte showed an example of a SERP for “florist Brisbane” and how it has changed in the past two weeks due to the introduction of Place Search. The traditional “7 pack” of Google Maps search results is gone and in it’s place is a kind of universal local search, with images, videos and map pins all pulled from Google Places listings. Results are algorithmic and predictive, based on the search terms used. You can even drill down to isolate only Google Places results for your search terms. This provides a significant opportunity to businesses targeting local searchers via their Google Places listings.

Google Boost is a brand new beta service offered to to select Google Places users in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, allowing them to pay a monthly fee to Google for AdWords ad creation. Boost enables business owners to create search ads from within their Google Places account, without the need for an AdWords account. Monte suggests that this is the way local search is headed – with localized ads right there in your maps.

Links on the SERPs now often lead to a Google Places page rather than web site, says Monte. If you claim your spot in Google Places, you’ll get into Universal Search, Google Maps, Google Earth and mobile search, whereas if you don’t, you won’t!

Something to be aware of when you claim your Google Places listing, says Monte, is that you CANT change the email address associated with your listing. Monte suggests creating a new Gmail account JUST for your Places account so you have more control over it and future flexibility. Monte suggests looking at Davidmihm.com as a great resource for Google Places info.

If you have a mobile business, you can mask your physical address in Google Places. So for example, if you have a mobile pet grooming service, where a physical address is not relevant – you can still use Google Places to your advantage.

Also, try to get reviews on Google Places and add YouTube videos and photos about your business as these are all included in your data allowance and you should be making the most of them.

Google Places is another platform for your business! Make the best use of it you possibly can.