Google made a announcement that they have acquired Marratech, a video conferencing software. wherever there’s an Internet connection, Marratech will enable from-the-desktop participation for Googlers in videoconference meetings.

As Google has not acquired the company, Marratech’s engineers focus on desktop conferencing research and development in Sweden.

Mark

SEO Tags: Google, Marratech, video conferencing software

In the Press Release announcement, Experian has announced the acquisition of Hitwise for about $240 million.

Hitwise is a leading Internet marketing intelligence company, which helps clients monitor the performance of their websites and target their online advertising spend more effectively. Experian, the global information solutions company has acquired it.

And from the press release,
Don Robert, Chief Executive Officer of Experian, commented:

“We have been successfully repositioning our Marketing Solutions business to meet our clients’ needs as they continue to switch more of their advertising spend online. Hitwise, which is a rapidly growing, successful business, brings new, unique data to Experian and complements the existing data, tools and expertise that we already offer to clients in other areas such as research services and email distribution.”

Andrew Walsh, Chief Executive Officer of Hitwise, said:

“Over the last 10 years, Hitwise has developed a truly unique digital intelligence service that helps inform the online marketing strategies of 1,200 clients around the world every day. We are excited to become part of Experian, having worked with them for over four years. We will now be able to accelerate Hitwise’s growth and profitability through access to Experian’s wider pool of data, tools and clients, while more quickly expanding our global footprint.”

Mark

SEO Tags : Experian, Hitwise, Internet marketing, online advertising

Google’s Acquisitions Chief Looking for `Crazy’ Ideas is the topic in Bloomberg. Salman Ullah, Google’s director of corporate development, at a meeting of the Los Angeles Venture Association said,

“The really crazy ones do really well.”

Ullah also said,

“The crazy ones mean they ignore the usual restraints of investment levels required or design parameters or ‘Gee I need more servers than anyone ever thought was possible’. When you free yourselves from these constraints, you create crazy, cool things.

Google wants companies that can build revenue streams from their users, instead of buying firms with a lot of users that don’t bring in much in sales.

We don’t do traffic for traffic’s sake. It has to be highly monetizable.”

And from the article, Google also has about a team of 15 people working on acquisitions and they also meet with dozens of companies a week.

Mark

SEO Tags : Google, Google Acquisitions, Crazy Ideas

Edison is a new search engine algorithm code to be launched by Ask.com instead of Teoma, the algorithm they use currently. Edison is algorithm code which merges two search technologies Teoma and Direct Hit of Ask.com.

Apostolos has leaked the information in SERoundTable. He said,

• Direct Hit uses click data to determine relevancy for rank. So the more clicks, the higher the click popularity, the higher a page would rank.
• Teoma uses hubs and authorities to determine relevancy. In a sense, it uses the “wisdom of the crowds” to determine relevancy and show the best results they can.
• They will be combining the best of both Direct Hit and Teoma into one engine.
• They have been tagging for three plus years

Search Engine Land also has an update about Edison. Apostolos Gerasoulis feels this will be the most powerful algorithm in search.

Mark

SEO Tags : Ask.com, Search Algorithm, Edison, Teoma, Direct Hit

TechCrunch has written that Google Takes Partial Ownership of Maxthon Browser yesterday. TechCrunch has already discussed about Maxthon Browser and its really fine working with it and they have made a statement that Maxthon is a great alternative for Internet Explorer.

About Maxthon Browser,

Maxthon has had over 80 million downloads of its browser, and over half of its users are in China. Maxthon-originated searches may account for up to 25% of total Baidu traffic, according to one source.

Google is expected to invest around $1 millon and it is a part of much larger strategic deal between these companies. The default search option is to be changed to Google due to this deal. This deal may replace Baidu in China and Yahoo in other countries with Google.

Mark

SEO Tags : Google, Maxthon Browser, Search Engine, Baidu

thefind.com is a shopping search engine which has scored A+ in vertical search. Read write web has blogged about this search engine. According to Siva Kumar, CEO of thefind.com the search engine means,

TheFind.com is a discovery shopping search engine optimized for lifestyle products such as clothing & accessories, home & garden, sports & outdoor, kids & family, and health & beauty.

The find.com has used web 3.0 framework.

The search engine indexes all products and lists it in order of best selling brands, styles and stores. The results are shown in large pictures and a brief description on mouse over in the pictures. This is a very different internet shopping experience than the largely text based results offered by Google, Shopping.com, etc.

Mark

SEO Tags : Search Engines, thefind.com, Shopping Search Engine

Google has launched local voice search 2 days before. I noticed the launch in Search Engine Land. Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

Greg Sterling about the experiment says

Google’s experimental entry into automated voice-based mobile search (free directory assistance [DA]) establishes a clear competitive landscape, which will likely mean a further decline in call volumes and revenues for traditional mobile directory assistance, as consumers become more aware of the availability of these free services.

Try Google Voice Local Search from Google labs.

Mark

SEO Tags :  Google local voice search, Google labs

In April 1, the news was released by valleywag, a phython named kaiser, a pet for a Google staff is missing in Google’s NewYork office. The alert was given to the workers in the office and all thought it as a April Fool Day’s joke but the news was confirmed and the snake named Kaiser was really missing.

Kaiser was missing even on April 2 and the staffs are mentioned not to touch it and also to call the security as soon as they see it. The photo copy was also attached throughout the office which will be easy for the staffs to identify it. Finally kaiser was tracked.

More Photos and videos on News.com, Valleywag, Money.cnn

Mark

SEO Tags : Phython missing in Google, Google,NewYork , Latest Google Search

Google joins race to buy DoubleClick: report  from MarketWatch  reports that Google has emerged with Microsoft Corp. as a contender to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company. The report was given from Wall Street Journal.

The price of DoubleClick emerges to $2 billion due to the high competition between Google and Microsoft. According to the report

DoubleClick acts as a middleman between advertisers and ad agencies and online publishers.  The New York company’s Internet-based systems let advertisers deliver ads to Web sites and serve up ads for publishers when consumers view their Web pages.

The bidding is too large as four of the biggest internet players are involved(Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Time Warner - a unit of AOL).

Mark

SEO Tags : DoubleClick, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL 

Search Engine Land has made a post on Cuttscon. Cuttscon is a conference for Matt Cutts, Google from his fans.

Matt Cutts fans are commonly nicknamed as “Cuttlets” and they are proud to be called so. Matt said

I was hesitant at first, but when they told me it would be happening in Louisville, Kentucky — I was sold. I’m a Kentucky native, have family in Louisville, so how could I resist.

The conference will be held later this year on Kentucky, Matt’s native.

Mark

SEO Tags : Matt Cutts, Google, Cuttscon