What a week it’s been for the business of Social Media. Telecom giant Nokia acquired social media sharing service Twango, the YouTube CNN debates delivered solid ratings and Sun Microsystems said its latest earnings report today will be released on its website 10 minutes before it is distributed to news services.

“Nokia’s unique vision for social media aligns perfectly with Twango,” enthused Jim Laurel, co-founder of Twango.com. “It’s really exciting to imagine what we can achieve by combining our social media experience with the resources of a company that has played such a major role in shaping the mobile landscape.” What makes this noteworthy is that social networking has yet to make the leap to the mobile phone arena. If you recall, late last year Nokia launched musicrecommenders.com, a site that recommends new music based on user’s preferences. With this purchase, Nokia is trying to bridge that divide.

In what may well be a sign of things to come, it appears Google has removed 30% of organic listings on local market searches in some markets.

Note that in the above images, local maps appear, however, where there was once 10 organic listings there are now 7.

Do maps qualify as organic results?

Could Google increase the page to put the 10 listings back? That would mean they have to reassess the paid landscape on the side and that’s unlikely.

These results are not typical of Google.com, but are pervasive in alternate Googles.

This was previously posted but we had a blog burp so we’re reposting it now. Cheers.

Earlier this week we had the pleasure of being the pleasure of being taken out to dinner by some Google folks up from Mountain View.

There were few surprises, but we all wound up with one unanimous and pleasantly surprisingly opinion: these were very pleasant, amicable folk.

Perhaps it’s our genteel, Canadian way, but we were, frankly, expecting alpha geeks with IQs off the charts and frankly little in common and less to talk about. Not so.

I’ve been watching with great curiousity the, ummm, tension between Google and ebay with great interest.

Who hasn’t?

To wit: Ebay holds annual ebay live convention, Google announces competing party with the unstated goal of having ebay/Paypal users force inclusion of Google Checkout.

Ebay gets, oh, what’s the word? PISSED Mildly annoyed. Ebay cancels all paid advertising on Google. How much? In excess of $100 Million annually or about 1% of Google income. Um, ouch.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

We’re off to Search Engine Strategies Toronto to set up the booth today because we’re sponsoring it. (The conference, not the booth.)

For those of you in Toronto, we hope to see you there.

For those of you visiting Toronto, we hope to see you there.

There look to be some interesting panel sessions not the least of which include the opening panel with Andrew Goodman and Chris Sherman, and Seth Godin’s keynote.

Eric Ward will be there. As will Mitch Joel, Adam Lasnik and Jake Baillie.

Our resident PPC dude, Sasha was wondering hither and yon over Google today and came up with this little nugget on a search for “business cards Toronto”.

This is everything that appears above the fold and if you look very, very carefully, very, very carefully and you’ll see it waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy at the bottom.

Why it couldn’t be, could it? An organic listing. A single organic listing.

There’s been a lot of chat regarding whether this is a good Google or a bad Google thing.

It’s coming, Search Engine Strategies - Toronto - 2007.

For the 2nd year in a row, Search Engine People is sponsoring the conference. Not only because we’re good corporate citizens. Not only because a couple of us will be speaking.

But because it’s an opportunity to become more entrenched in what we do every day. And because it’s an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with some of the familiar faces in our business. And because it’s an opportunity to meet some of the new faces in the business.

Wow, what a difference 24 hours makes.

Suddenly 3 and 4d is all the rage. From the CAVEman above, to Google, Microsoft and Everyscape all releasing 3D mapping.

To Microsoft’s new table top computer.

Talk about a change in perspective.

Have a good one.

~The (SEP) Guy

Well, week 1 of the SEO Lyrics Contest has been a resounding success. We’ve received 19 entries to date, which is suprising given it takes time to put pen to paper and construct a song. Voting has been brisk also. Most surprising however, is the quality of the lyrics being submitted … nothing less than spectacular! Any number of these submissions could be classified as an industry anthem.

Something we would like to see yet are some submissions by the search engines or social media themselves. While many of us in the SEM community write about rankings, I’m certain the other perspective would sing a different song so to speak.

And under the category of not news, Google announced today that is unveiling Universal Search but for the sake of convenience, let’s just call it AGATT. (ALL GOOGLE ALL THE TIME.)

Work with me here. Do a search for red roses on Google, not google images. Theses are the results and my, aren’t those just about the prettiest durn red posies you ever seen? Click on those results and you go to another Google property, not to the web site from which the flowers image orginated.

Do a search for car crash and there it is, as it’s been for months now, a YouTube result and now with pictures!!!