Brilliant! Sometimes I think the folks at Google are too smart for their own good. Okay, perhaps I am a little too excited about this but I just love to see a good idea. Yesterday Google announced “Google Teacher Academy”:

“The Google Teacher Academy is a pilot program designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies. The Academy is a one-day experience at Google’s Mountain View Headquarters where participants get hands-on experience with Google products and other technologies, receive instructional resources to share with colleagues, and share innovative instructional strategies with other local educators. Upon completion, Academy participants will become Google Certified Teachers and will be asked to lead at least three related professional development activities for local educators.” (source, Google Teacher Academy) Read more…

It is widely known that the Indian economy is booming and as a testament to this fact a new search engine providing entirely Indian based content has recently launched: Guruji.com .

The design of Guruji is very nostalgic of Google’s early days; clean, simple, no advertising, and quite attractive. Created to capitalize on the growing need for local search, this 30 million page index is bound to grow considerably over the next year. Currently in English, Guruji will offer search in the following languages within the next 6 months: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali.

If you are interested in getting some exposure in Guruji then your site had better have some Indian content. From my own tests I have to say that their filter to ensure Indian-only content is quite good.

Last week Yahoo! posted that they had launched a few updates to their Site Explorer tool in response to user feedback.

Here is a list of the updates:

• Authentication filenames have been reduced to 27 characters in response to users who stated they were far too long.
• Authentication files are now in HTML format for those who had problems uploading text files. The older text file format is still compatible so no need to change if you already have it setup. They also reminded users that they should not remove the keyfile from their sites because if they do their site will be unauthenticated.

Site Explorer is a great tool for anyone who wants an idea on how well their site is indexed in Yahoo and to find out how many backlinks they have. Here is an article that describes how to use the Yahoo Site Explorer tool.

Occasionally rumor becomes reality! This October 9th, 2006, Google agreed to purchase YouTube for 1.6 billion in swapped stock. Here are the main points of the sale:

• YouTube will stay separate and short of working in an air of unrestrained giddiness the YouTube offices will be business as usual.
• The purchase provides Google shareholders with a fantastic media portal and a great software platform that is in sync with Google’s mandate of organizing the world’s information.
• Other than the obvious financial benefit, YouTube will now have Google’s resources to become bigger and better.

This purchase has been approved by both companies and expects to close in the fourther quarter of 2006.

Source: Google’s Press Release

I hope all of you experienced an excellent weekend full of family, and friends, swirled in the aroma of oven-baked turkey! I had a wonderful holiday weekend with my fiancee, my family, and hers; I ate and drank far too much and I am certain I set my workout routine a few paces back

In any case, I just wanted to wish you all a great short week full of profit and fun. Now it is time for me to get back to work and get our blog caught up with the times – among many other things.

All the best.

Yahoo will be introducing the new sponsored search soon and with it Yahoo wants their advertisers to know about a few structural changes about to take place. In their latest monthly edition of “On Target”, Yahoo noted a few key points advertisers should know about.

1. Account upgrades are expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2006. At this time some of the account terminology will be changed.

2. Listings will now be known as ‘Ads’ and will be joined into Ad Groups (not to be confused with Google AdGroups). This will allow for bidding based on the entire group, or by individual keyword.

3. Categories will now be known as ‘Campaigns’ which will consist of one or more ‘Ad Groups’. (This is starting to sound a lot like the AdWords setup.)

Once Yahoo has implemented the new structure all current categories will be moved into campaigns automatically. However it is advised that if you have not already done so ensure your current listings are added into appropriate categories. This is not required, but this extra step may help you with organizing your account after the switch over.

All in all the account upgrades are likely to make life easier and more structured. The one thing I wonder about is why it has taken so long to have them implemented. The changes have been in the works for a while now and it will be nice to see them in place. Hopefully they meet their projected Q4 deadline.

Yahoo announced this morning their beta launch of sponsored search results on their mobile web service in the US and UK. This will allow Yahoo! Advertisers to reach searchers on their cell phones and other mobile devices.

The beta launch will allow a select group of advertisers to post their sponsored ads to the mobile marketplace. While this service is not yet available to the general business person, it is certainly a step in that direction.

Ads will allow you to direct consumers to either a mobile landing page, courtesy of Yahoo which can display your company info and phone number, or to a mobile site of your own.

Yahoo already has a Mobile Web service available throughout the US and UK with a browser-based service designed specifically for the mobile market. Incorporation of paid ads seems like a natural progression. For more information on Yahoo Mobile visit http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/mobile

Online calendars have been available for many years now but the calendar-sharing feature that Google has included in Google Calendar has opened the door to a great a form of social marketing that is bound to make waves and possibly increase your bottom line.

What is Google Calendar?

If you are not a GMail user or even a fan of Google you may not know what I am talking about so here is some background. GMail is Google’s free web-based email program, which has many features that has helped it create a significant user base. After the emergence of Google Mail (GMail), Google launched a number of additional free applications for Gmail users, which culminated in a combined solution called Google Apps . One of these applications is Google Calendar, which is the subject of this article. Read more…

Google has another, somewhat secretive search engine called SearchMash.com. Kudos to Nathan Weinberg for releasing this valuable piece of information! Search Mash appears to be a testbed of sorts for AJAX search technology (the same technology that Microsoft’s new Live.com search engine uses). Check out the Search Mash features list and you will see how some of the options seem to steer more toward a higher level of personalized results; a direction Google is forging towards. Read more…