As reported last week in the ComputerWorldUK article, Major corporations post sensitive data on Google calendar it appears that you can tell two friends and they can tell two friends, and so on and so on.

Or, you can just make the entry public in your Google Calendar and the whole world can know.

Again I wonder how much information we’re giving Google, exactly.

Or how much information we’re giving our competitor’s via Google.

And Google’s defense is “well, just don’t make it public”. Except the default setting makes it public, the settings being Default, Public and Private.

The hallmark of Web 2.0 is supposed to be user generated content, wherein users contribute their own text, pictures and video content.

But according to Bill Tancer of Hitwise and the Red Herring article, Web 2.0: More Voyeurs than Creators.

According to Tancer, only .16% of visits to Google’s YouTube are by users with the goal of uploading material. .16%. One has to wonder, as well, how much of that is truly original material.

Tancer further details that the numbers for Flickr are similar, with .2% of visitors destined to the site are there with the intention of uploading photos.

How about…

• adding a third of the young, upward and mobile Internet users — those aged 24-34 and with a spending power of several billions of dollars?
• adding up to an estimated 32 million Internet users for whom the Internet is a much needed life line?

You can do that…

• and make SEO virtually built into you site
• and dramatically lower your cost for all future web improvements.

No sales copy - here’s the answer

Now I’m not selling anything here so there’s no need for long, drawn-out sales copy and a “30 days money back” graphic. I’m not going to keep you on hold for the next 200 words or so but will give you the technique and the answer right away:

Well, day four of the New York Search Engine Strategies conference has passed, and it was another full schedule. Three panels yesterday (Linking Strategies, Link Baiting and Viral Search Success, and CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines) then the 8 hour drive back to Toronto (someone forgot to renew his passport).

One of the interesting tidbits I was reminded of today (in the Bookmarking session) and had meant to blog about earlier was the fact that Google had “quiet launched” Google Bookmarks late last year. Such a launch would not normally be cause for excitement, but I think the implications merit some discussion, as they are certainly likely to impact Google’s search results. Accordingly, this blog posting is not to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Google BookMarks versus Del.icio.us, but rather how Google is likely to use this bookmark information.

As a friend discovered this week, not all Google results are the same.

A search from Toronto and a search from New York will usually resulting in a different set of organic results appearing.

To be clear, using Google.com as your base search and not Google results from Google.ca or Google.ca Canadian specific results will show variations depending on where you search from.

To borrow from George Orwell’s Animal Farm; All searches are equal but some are more equal than others.

The difference of course is about server location, IP and all of that. I’ve long maintained that this is, while probably an algorithm oversight, nevertheless a shortcoming of the search engines.

In October 2005, when Martha Stewart had her own “The Apprentice”, contestant David Karandish didn’t win. He did however, mention that Martha’s site was nowhere to be found in the search engines for the specific term “recipes” and stated if he took over the Internet division, he would fix it.

Alas, David Karandish didn’t get the job.

And it shows. A search for “recipes” on Google and there it is… no MarthaStewart.com. It does show up on Yahoo but not on MSN. A search for “home decor” on Google and MarthaStewart.com results? Nada. Yahoo results? Zip. MSN results? Bupkis.

First of all, credit where credit is due. Elixir Sytems, a search engine marketing company out of Phoenix has an excellent white paper on online reputation management posted on the SEMPO site here.

They’re definition of online reputation managment as a cross between marketing, public relations and search engine optimization is pretty much on the money. Once the domain of public relations, reputation management has witnessed a migration from the hands of primarily, the media into the hands of the consumer.

A couple of weeks ago now, okay, a month ago now… The (SEP) Guy has been busy… Piper Jaffray released its Internet Media & Marketing Report.

One the more interesting findings was the opportunity that abounds and remains untapped in search. More specifically, in Local Search or to put it another way, Niche Search or to put it another way, Vertical Search. Greg Jarboe had an interesting perspective at SearchEngine Watch with Piper Jaffray Maps Out Where the Search Industry is Headed.

Partnership marketing can be summed up in one word. Synergy.

Connecting the right corporations with the right products and putting them in front of the right audience at the right time.

It sounds at first a little bit like product placement and to a certain degree it is. Looking for that coat Carrie wore in Season One of Sex And The City, do a search on eVisure.com.

While the devil may wear Prada, your average executive assistant can’t afford to. And that is where people like Ron Kunitzky of Geyser Marketing come into play, by creating partnerships that have a context that makes sense.

Money Magazine Online had an interesting article today, “Policing The Online Buzz“.

In short, an innovative and affordable buzz tracking tool about to be launched by Buzzlogic. According to their site…

Influence moves markets. It’s a basic tenet of marketing. But until now, it’s been impossible to understand influence — and who wields it — within specific conversations taking place in social media.

BuzzLogic changes this dynamic by uniquely defining and measuring influence in social media, and by surfacing the key influencers who are shaping and defining markets, issues and reputations.

….which all sounds good until things go horribly, horribly bad.