SeoAlchemist

Google Maps is global so why not Google StreetView as well? A London expansion is suggested by this image of one of the vehicles that takes the 360 degree street images. (Google has done some of the photography itself, but also uses partner Immersive Media in the U.S.). StreetView image collection is apparently underway in Canada, although there are some legal issues surrounding privacy and consent to be photographed that make it somewhat more complicated than in the U.S.

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Deconstrucing
  Google’s Billboard Experiment
  Last week’s coverage of Google’s Goog-411 billboard in Olean brought forth a
  number of other sightings of the billboards in San Francisco, Oakland and San
  Jose, Ca. & Tonawanda , Buffalo and Limestone (even smaller than Olean) NY.
  While there may be others yet to appear and more billboards coming…
• Sphinn: Our
  Internet Marketing News Site & Discussion Forums Leave Beta
  It’s official. Sphinn (we pronounce it like "spin"), our social news and
  discussion site for internet marketing, is now out of beta. OK — so the logo
  still says beta at the moment, but that will change in a matter of hours.
  Since we launched back in July, we’ve been…
• Searcharazzi:
  Bubble About to Burst?
  As fall settles in, another chill is in the air. Rumor has it that a top tier
  search and interactive services shop is about to have a management shake-up.
  M&A in the space appears to have slowed down as shops that should have taken
  their first offer decided to…
• Google Buys
  Mobile-Social Site Zingku
  Google Operating System reports (and confirms) that Google has acquired a
  mobile service called Zingku, which had been in private beta. Around since
  2005, the service uses text messaging and picture messaging to provide a
  platform for (what appears to be) entertainment and events-related
  communication but also has commercial potential….
• MarketingSherpa
  Report: Challenges To Bringing Search In-House
  MarketingSherpa has just released the fourth annual edition of its Search
  Marketing Benchmark Guide. The Guide is a comprehensive benchmark for all
  things related to search marketing, including things such as expected search
  spending for 2008, how search ROI stacks up against other tactics, difficulty
  in SEM staffing, new ways…
• Senate Hearing
  On Google-DoubleClick & Post Office Metaphors
  After all the buildup to yesterday’s hearing in the US Senate on the Google-DoubleClick
  deal, the actual hearing itself sounded to be a bit anti-climatic. Below, a
  look at what was said and how it doesn’t seem like it will influence the
  ultimate decision by the US Federal Trade Commission…
• Coupons Coming
  To AskCity
  Ask has partnered with IAC sister company EPI, publisher of "The Entertainment
  Book," which offers coupons and discounts to local businesses. Entertainment,
  which has had several false starts with online distribution, is planning to
  pump 75 percent of its coupons into AskCity. They may also eventually make
  their way to…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• 
  Kosmix releases Google GFS workalike ‘KFS’ as open source, Skrentablog

Conferences

• Dallas/Fort
  Worth Search Engine Marketing Meetup Scheduled for October 15, Search
  Engine Roundtable
• SES
  Chicago Speaker Updates, Search Engine Strategies
• 
  Facebook Conference Calendar: 3 More Coming Soon, Inside Facebook

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Middle Earth,
  ClickZ
• 
  Has Google Street View Hit London?, Search Engine Journal
• 
  Where’s the new Live Search Maps?, Windows Live Blog

Searching

• 
  10 Steps AOL Should Take to Reinvent the Open Directory Project (DMOZ),
  Search Engine Journal
• A Yahoo Approach to Avoid
  Crawling Advertisement and Session Tracking Links, SEO By The Sea
• 
  Google Tests Search By Time, Week, Month, Search Engine Journal
• 
  Shopzilla Realizes Its a Search Company, ComparisonEngines.com
• Whois Directory, a
  Tool for Brand Defenders, May Be Veiled, ClickZ
• 
  Talking with Satya Nadella at Searchification, LiveSide

SEM Industry

• Google Punished My
  Site For Selling Links - NOT!, Jim Boykin
• Webmasterradio
  adds premium SEO podcast membership, Pandia

SEO & SEM

• Content
  Creation: About Journey, Not Destination?, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Clever Hippo: A
  Better Search Tool for Facebook Apps, Mashable

Video, Music & Image Search

• A Great
  Primer on Using Images to Drive Traffic, Search Engine Guide
• 
  Making Podcasting Easier for the Listener to Access, Enjoy, and Utilize,
  ResourceShelf

Other Items

• 
  Googopoly [Humor/Pic], SEO Refugee

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News
Sharing Site:

• Everything I Know About Online
  Marketing, on One Page
• Stop Abusing Social Media to Boost
  Your Own Ego, You Jerk!
• Using StumbleUpon All Day Won’t
  Bring More Traffic
• All I Needed to Know About Social
  Media I Learned In Kindergarten
• Avoiding Clueless-Is As
  Clueless-Does SEO
• Linking Abuse Or Linking Awareness
• Marketing Isn’t Bullcrap
• Google Gods. I Need Your help…..
• 100 (Legal) Sources for Free Stock
  Images
• Google Doesn’t Penalize your
  Rankings if you Sell Links! - by Jim Boykin
• Should a Small Business Blog?
• How To Get to The Top of Sphinn on
  Your First Try
• Sphinn Wishlist
• Master Sphinnbaiter Lyndoman on
  Psycho-Social Persuasion
• Why You Better Learn the PR Side of
  Search Engines
• SEO QUIZ - Just the essentials
• Discovery Channel Selling Hidden
  links?

Text Link Ads marketplace allows you to purchase static html ads that can drive targeted traffic while building link popularity, which is a top factor in search engine rankings. TLA is offering new Advertisers $100 in free Text Link Ads. Stop by Text-Link-Ads.com for more information.

Last week’s coverage of Google’s Goog-411 billboard in Olean brought forth a number of other sightings of the billboards in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, Ca. & Tonawanda , Buffalo and Limestone (even smaller than Olean) NY.

While there may be others yet to appear and more billboards coming from Google, the very specific geographic clustering of the billboards in Western New York and the greater San Francisco area speak against Valleywag’s speculation that the boards were surplus from a Google experiment in brokering billboards.

Click to continue reading…

It’s official. Sphinn (we pronounce it like
"spin"), our social news and discussion site for internet marketing, is now out
of beta. OK — so the logo still says beta at the moment, but that will change
in a matter of hours.

Since we launched
back in July, we’ve been working out bugs and improving features. Not every bug
is gone, but things are stable enough that we decided to stop calling it a beta.
Nor are we done with development. We have a
wishlist of features that we’ll be
implementing over the coming months. We’ve also already
released a number of new features
since Sphinn launched.

Earlier this week, I
posted how we are now using Sphinn to handle comments for Search Engine
Land, so I hope readers are starting to try the site. If you only use it to
comment on our stories here on Search Engine Land, that’s fine. But there’s a
thriving community of over 3,500 people now at Sphinn, collectively voting up
hot stories, submitting
news items and discussions for
consideration and doing a huge amount
of talking within the site. Check it out!

As fall settles in, another chill is in the air. Rumor has it that a top tier search and interactive services shop is about to have a management shake-up. M&A in the space appears to have slowed down as shops that should have taken their first offer decided to keep on trucking.

So what exactly is going on, folks? Bubble bursting? Or are we still very early in the game?

Click to continue reading…

Google Operating System reports (and confirms) that Google has acquired a mobile service called Zingku, which had been in private beta. Around since 2005, the service uses text messaging and picture messaging to provide a platform for (what appears to be) entertainment and events-related communication but also has commercial potential. Zingku also integrates the desktop with mobile. Below are some excerpts from copy on the company’s website:

Click to continue reading…

MarketingSherpa has just released the fourth annual edition of its Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. The Guide is a comprehensive benchmark for all things related to search marketing, including things such as expected search spending for 2008, how search ROI stacks up against other tactics, difficulty in SEM staffing, new ways to evaluate clicks and click fraud, and many other topics.

One interesting aspect of the research this year focused on the challenges to bringing search in-house. If you’re thinking about bringing your search engine marketing in-house, how hard is it? The report features answers from 247 marketers who did just that in the past 24 months, a subset of the 3,053 search marketers who took our August survey.

Click to continue reading…

After all the buildup to
yesterday’s hearing
in the US Senate on the Google-DoubleClick deal, the actual hearing itself
sounded to be a bit anti-climatic. Below, a look at what was said and how it
doesn’t seem like it will influence the ultimate decision by the US Federal
Trade Commission one way or the other.

Click to continue reading…

Ask has partnered with IAC sister company EPI, publisher of “The Entertainment Book,” which offers coupons and discounts to local businesses. Entertainment, which has had several false starts with online distribution, is planning to pump 75 percent of its coupons into AskCity. They may also eventually make their way to Ask.com’s SmartAnswers and finally into mobile. Here’s more information including some examples from the Ask Blog.

Click to continue reading…