Gord Hotchkiss ranks among North America’s preeminent experts on how people use search engines. As the author nearly a dozen notable whitepapers on search marketing, including the widely quoted Google EyeTracking Studies, Gord is known to be one of the most able minds in the SEO/SEM sector. Today, in a piece published at Search Engine Guide, “I Speak Search“, he takes note of how sophisticated search engine users have gotten using short two or three word search queries. Read more…
AOL Webcasts Green Day LA show
AOL’s love affair with the pop-punk band Green Day continues with the live webcast of the band’s Los Angeles show last night. A replay of the entire Green Day concert is available at AOL. The show features ten songs, most of which were drawn from their latest CD, American Idiot. Read more…
It seems Google is getting concerned about how the US federal Government might regulate the Internet and/or the practices of the search engines that spider it. Ealier today Google announced it had hired the services of registered lobbiest Alan Davidson, an Associate Director of the Center to Promote Democracy and Technology. Read more…
Google and Sun Microsystems held a joint news conference today to announce a multi-year collaborative agreement in which both companies will help distribute the other’s software. The agreement also sets the stage for Google and Sun to introduce server-side software that could pose a serious challenge to Microsoft’s Office suite. Read more…
Last week Google hired a net-god, Vinton Cerf, as its “chief Internet evangelist”. Google’s hiring of Cerf has set off a wide range of speculation among Internet watchers. Vint Cerf is not what many would consider a “normal” person and is no where near a “normal” employee. Cerf has been called the Father of the Internet and the most important person alive. Read more…
Vint Cerf is one of the original pioneers of the Web. Cerf is the guy who developed the TCP/IP communications protocol that directs all packets of information from servers to users. He is also Google’s newest employee. Cerf joins the search giant as its “chief Internet evangelist” on October 3rd having defected from MCI Inc. where he served for 11 years as the Sr. Vice President of Technology Standards. Read more…
Earlier this week, Fortune magazine editor John Huey wrote a call to action editorial to American businesses and corporations telling them to put their vast resources to good use in this national emergency. On Monday, Toronto based automotive parts magnate Frank Stronach showed how it should be done. Read more…
Along with our colleagues in other parts of the tech sector, the search engine community is starting to respond to the devastation Hurricane Katrina left along the northern Gulf coast. Several blogs, forums and search tools have been redesigned, rewritten or refocused to aid in relief efforts. Google, MSN, Yahoo, and Lycos have all announced the development and implementation of tools to assist disaster victims and those who want to help. Read more…
By now everyone with electricity has seen images and video of the devestation that befell New Orleans and the surrounding areas yesterday. 80% of the city has been destroyed. Over 100 people have been killed, tens of thousands injured and hundreds of thousands left homeless. The magnitude of the disaster is impossible to express in simple words. When words fail, all we have are deeds. Now is the time to help in any way we can. Read more…
One week left. That’s it. One week from the time this piece is being written the school doors open and the dog-days come to a close. Summer is over in seven days for tens of millions of students across North America . Going back to school is both exciting and anti-climactic, at least if I remember correctly. It has been quite a few years since I sat on the students’ side of the lecture podium. Today, my only experience with schooling is as an infrequent guest lecturer at the University of Victoria or at one of the local technical colleges. My career as a student ended long before the advent of the commercial Internet. Read more…
