A group of Canadian recording artists is calling for an end to the RIAA and SOCAN lawsuits against music fans who share digital files. Calling themselves the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (CMCC), many of Canada’s best known musicians have signed on to the petition with more expected to endorse the CMCC’s public statement.

“Until now, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright. Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let’s be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels’ control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels’ foreign parent companies.”

The coalition includes The Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavinge, Sarah McLachlan, Sum41, Sloan, and many others.

Attending a Search Engine Strategies Conference has been likened to having an encyclopedia downloaded into your mind in two or three intense days of concentrated information sessions. For long term SEOs and SEMs, a SES conference is a chance to catch up with colleagues and exchange gossip, information and collegiate humour.

Traveling across the continent to get to the conference can be tiring. My parents live in Toronto so I am fortunate enough to have a place to stay complete with home cooked meals and the security of sleeping in a familiar bed. Given the tenor of the conference and the exhaustion of jet-lag, staying at my parents’ place is more than helpful. Read more…

It is sometime close to eight fifteen in the morning when our sales manager, Bill, unlocks the door, fires up his computer, and begins brewing the first of several pots of coffee the staff will soon consume. As the coffee machine sputters and burbles, Bill scans his emails, listens to phone messages and begins his daily hotlist to-dos for clients and resellers. As we work in the Pacific Time zone, communication with the rest of North America is an early morning priority. The East Coast tends to take lunch around the same time those of us out west are ingesting our first cups of java. Read more…

Online gambling is illegal in the United States and has been for years. Though it is against the law to place a bet online, US Government regulators have been unable to prevent sportsbooks, online casinos and for-profit poker rooms from opening, advertising and profiting.

Increased enforcement of anti-gambling laws is expected to grow to include targeting revenues generated by all casino and gambling advertising, including participation in affiliate programs. Read more…

StepForth’s methods of providing search engine optimization services for Google rankings have evolved significantly over the past year. Since the release of Google’s March 30, 2005 patent application, “Information retrieval based on historical data“, our SEO and research departments have made site usability and understanding user behaviours a priority.

After reading, analysing and writing about information found in the patent application, we correctly predicted user behaviours were becoming critical factors in Google’s estimation of the relevancy or importance of documents in its index. Read more…

Yahoo is testing a new paid-ad placement and revenue model in Scandinavia that appears similar to the algorithm Google uses to determine the placement of paid advertising.

Basing its rankings on a combination of cost-per-click and the number of times search users click specific paid ads, Yahoo’s new ad placement system is expected to be rolled out in the UK in July.

While there is no official word on when the new system will be introduced in North America or other parts of the world, an announcement about Yahoo’s intentions is expected in the coming weeks with speculation on a global rollout in late 2006 or early 2007.

Codenamed, Project Panama, the switch is expected to bring a higher volume of click-throughs than the current system that determines ad placement based on the highest keyword bidder.

According to a story in Forbes Magazine, Yahoo has already notified a number of high volume search buyers of the upcoming changes.

North American MSN users awoke today to find MSN Search was out of commission. The service was down for at least four hours today. Thus far we have been unable to find out why. Read more…

The search engine, web portal formerly known as America Online has changed its name to that of its acronym, AOL.

“Our company long ago accomplished the mission implied by our old name. We literally got America online,” said Jon Miller, chairman and chief executive of AOL LLC, in an interview with Associated Press.

This is the fourth time the company has changed its name. Formed in 1985 as Quantum Computer Services, it changed its name to America Online Inc. in 1991. Ten years later, it bought the Time Warner media empire and changed its name to AOL Time Warner in 2001. Three months after the purchase, the bottom fell out of the tech market and the name AOL became a liability on the larger corporation. It was later dropped from the Time Warner banner.

Time Warner is making AOL a limited liability company, removing its corporate status, hence the name AOL LLC. Miller added, “Our new corporate identity better reflects our expanded mission – to make everyone’s online experience better.”

Around here, we’re just going to keep calling it AOL.

Google is without a doubt the world’s number one search engine. According to the research firm Neilsen/NetRatings, Google’s share of the global search market in February 2006 was 48.5%, more than double the 22.5% share its nearest rival Yahoo saw. Having been the engine of choice for nearly five years, Google is synonymous with search. Because Google is the first thing most folks think of when they think about search, it is the most important search marketing venue, at least for the vast majority of SEOs. Read more…