Image Courtesy - ab initio ad infinitum

So it would seem that everyone is in a race to become as transparent as possible.� It has become (clearly) evident that there is more revenue potential out there by opening up everything and making it available than there is by keeping it all horded and secret and hidden in the dark.

Cell phone technology is a brilliant example of transparency becoming extremely key.� It’s helping mobile carriers and equipment providers to quickly and easily design, develop, and deploy in tandem.� It’s also giving software development platforms such as Google and Microsoft the opportunity to build out their handset web technologies.

So I don’t know if you recall in the past when I mentioned that I believed Live to be the branding where Microsoft planned on competing with Google.  (See Virtual Reality - Microsoft Office Live).  Well, we should look at some of the things that they are doing from the User perspective.

Nice and clean, free of advertising, and links to other Microsoft places of possible usefulness. It’s very familiar, don’t you think?  Ever seen anything like it before from any other extremely successful search engines?

Image courtesy of rapidsharecinema.blogspot.com

According to the ComScore figures, growth in paid-search clicks happens to be slowing down.  Is it because of the economy?  Is it because of the “R” word that is being used in the United States?  Don’t know, but there was still growth in Google.  Certainly it may not have been huge growth like the numbers we are used to being reported, but still almost 3% growth year over year is substantial compared to the losses evidenced by the competitors Yahoo and MSN.  Yahoo paid clicks went down by about 3% year over year and MSN went even further in the wrong direction by a note-worthy 12%.  It all really does make that 3% growth in Google clicks stand out that much more, and lends that much more credibility to their reputation.

Image Courstesy Businessweek.com

HOLY SMOKES!  I am completely blown away by the moves of Yahoo this week, in an effort to stave off the Microsoft takeover.  As of yesterday for a two week trial, Google will handle advertising for a tiny piece of the searches carried out on Yahoo.  In fact, Google will place ads alongside 3% of the U.S. queries on Yahoo’s site.  GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS ON YAHOO!!!  It would appear that instead of being eaten by the lion, Yahoo would prefer to throw itself into the dragon’s mouth!  I’d LOVE to hear what you all have to say about that, or what your thoughts on this maneuver are!  Doesn’t that actually reduce Yahoo’s perceived value as a search engine, having results served up by the competition?  Wouldn’t that also drive down the stock price, making it even easier for Microsoft to be able to pick it up?

The auditorium is packed with spectators there to cheer on their favorite contender!  In one corner, weighing in as the largest search provider the world has ever seen, with creative genius that seems to never falter, and a “the sky is the limit” develop and deploy stance that has seen them through to the development of robust search tools, you have Google - The search engine that would, could and did, also known as the search engine that will, can and does!

Image Courtesy of ahajokes.com

So Microsoft adCenter is the only one of the 3 major paid search platforms that does NOT report on revenue.  Google AdWords will break it down nicely for you with conversion types, being leads, sales, sign-ups, and other, complete with revenue dollars generated from paid search ads in AdWords.  It’s quite a beautiful thing, but for the money it can now cost to run ads on AdWords with the competition these days, its good that there are such details to be accountable to.  It looks pretty much like this:

One of my New Year’s Wishes for 2008 was that Google would introduce a negative market option, much like negative keywords.

In short, I want all of Ontario, but not Ottawa.

Well, the new Google geo-targeting tool comes close, so I guess it’s only a matter of time.

I had the opportunity to use it to day, creating a North American campaign… Well, North America sans Mexico. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Mexico, just not part of my campaign needs.)

Click on North America bundle and viola! Canada, United States and Mexico. Click on Mexico and viola! There it is. Gone.

It was my intention to blog on something else today until I chanced upon this article from SearchEngineWatch.com: 48 Practical Questions to Qualify Prospective Search Marketing Vendors by Marty Weintraub.

The 48 questions in question are both enlightening and informative.

And frankly, they should be information volunteered, not solicited. Run the questions around your agency/office and everyone from the receptionist to the CEO should be able to answer any one of them.

So how many of you are familiar with Enterprise tools such as Google Search Appliance? Google Mini Search Appliance for example, starts at $2,990 for searching up to 50,000 documents with a 300,000 max document capacity. Google Search Appliance starts at $30,000 for searching up to 500,000 documents with a 30 million max document capacity. (By the way, these are tools used for internal development of infrastructure and intranet and to enable maximum efficiencies between the internal world of information and the internet, among other things, for those of you wondering.)

Wow! What a beating Google took on the heels of the comScore data showing Google’s paid search ads were down 12% in January from October, and flat from a year prior.

“Has Google Peaked?”

Google’s shares drop as surfers cease clicking, another wails.

Dear Goth, has there been more fraught chest-thumping, more moaning, since last Celine performed that song at the 69th Annual Academy Awards®?

Google will go on. And oddly enough, if surfers have stopped clicking and are now only treading water like Leonardo’s Jack Dawson just before succumbing in that movie where Celine performed that song then why haven’t Yahoo and MSN been just as negatively affected?