Internet Marker

Google’s Superbowl Ad

imarker — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:38:11 +0000

This is the first time Google has done some actual brand advertising. And they have a lot more ads like these over on their YouTube channel.

Here’s the Superbowl ad: An American finds love in Paris.

Google Wouldn’t Be Stymied

imarker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:50:55 +0000

I’m sure Google could develop a good security system that wouldn’t require us to take off our shoes:

Another point of failure, acknowledged last week by the White House, was that a misspelling of Abdulmutallab’s name at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria initially made the State Department believe he did not have a U.S. visa and therefore was less of an immediate concern.

“A system shouldn’t get stymied by a single misspelling,” Holt said. “If you mistype something in Google, Google comes back and says maybe you want to look at this other spelling.”

Kardashian Will Tweet for $10K

imarker — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:59:57 +0000

From The Daily Beast:

Several new companies, like the Beverly Hills-based Ad.ly, are facilitating the relationship between brands eager to jump on the social-networking bandwagon. “The beauty of Twitter is that everyone is an influencer in their own right,” said Sean Rad, Ad.ly’s CEO.

“Everyone is a content creator and holds a level of influence within their following.” He explains that the company is designing a “pricing algorithm” that assesses the value of someone’s audience depending on how many followers they have and how many of those people are actually listening, among other variables. Other reality stars, like Kim Kardashian’s sister Khloe, Kendra Wilkinson, and Lauren Conrad, can command anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 per tweet. Even a fake Twitter account for Twilight god Rob Pattinson can command anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 per tweet.

Why Twitter Will Endure

imarker — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:33:33 +0000

From a NY Times piece by David Carr:

Like many newbies on Twitter, I vastly overestimated the importance of broadcasting on Twitter and after a while, I realized that I was not Moses and neither Twitter nor its users were wondering what I thought. Nearly a year in, I’ve come to understand that the real value of the service is listening to a wired collective voice.

Not that long ago, I was at a conference at Yale and looked at the sea of open laptops in the seats in front of me. So why wasn’t my laptop open? Because I follow people on Twitter who serve as my Web-crawling proxies, each of them tweeting links that I could examine and read on a Blackberry. Regardless of where I am, I surf far less than I used to.

At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, but think of it as a river of data rushing past that I dip a cup into every once in a while. Much of what I need to know is in that cup: if it looks like Apple is going to demo its new tablet, or Amazon sold more Kindles than actual books at Christmas, or the final vote in the Senate gets locked in on health care, I almost always learn about it first on Twitter.

There Is No Enemy

imarker — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:46:38 +0000

Built to Spill

New album is out now.

The Great Migration

imarker — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:26:14 +0000

Scott Pelley visits Kenya, the site of the great wildebeest migration, and looks at the threats to this natural spectacle comprised of over a million animals.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Search Engines: Market Share Update

imarker — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:15:36 +0000

Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine continued to grow rapidly in August, according to the Neilsen research firm.

But the overwhelming search leader, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), also managed to grab more market share.

Neilsen said searches using MSN, Windows Live and Bing grew from 9 percent of the market in July to 10.7 percent in August, an increase of about 22 percent for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). Google grew nearly 3 percent to 64.6 percent.

No. 3 Yahoo Inc.’s (NASDAQ:YHOO) market share dropped about 4 percent to 16 percent.

Google: 64.6
Yahoo: 16
Bing: 10.7

Is That 50 Cent on CNBC

imarker — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:16:35 +0000

When asked about the recession, Jackson added: “A Recession is predominantly for the middle class. Where I come from the majority of people have always lived in a recession.”

Bill Simmons: Mexico Versus United States

imarker — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:38:13 +0000

Great read from ESPN’s Page 2 writer Bill Simmons:

On the day of last week’s World Cup qualifier between the United States and Mexico, a Mexico City newspaper polled citizens asking if they felt the country’s national pride was at stake. Seventy-six percent said yes.

Think about that for a second. Americans are obsessed with sports. We currently sustain four major professional sports leagues, as well as NASCAR, the MLS, MILS, the WNBA, every conceivable NCAA sport, dozens of golf and tennis events, boxing and UFC cards, the WWE and even the Little League World Series. Can you remember a sporting event making us feel as if our national pride was at stake? Me neither.

Read more…

Update Often

imarker — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:26:05 +0000

It makes sense to update your site more often, users know to come back for fresh content, and Google likes to crawl sites that update their sites often. Fresh content is also usually more timely and relevant – so makes sense for Google to crawl it.

Interesting piece on statisticians in the Times:

For example, Ms. Grimes worked on an algorithm to fine-tune Google’s crawler software, which roams the Web to constantly update its search index. The model increased the chances that the crawler would scan frequently updated Web pages and make fewer trips to more static ones.