Remember when the iPod came out? The Apple-PC wars had been strong before then. But the iPod shone a national spotlight on Apple. For 10 years, Apple has been playing the position of underdog. Even us devotees still think of them as the alternative option. But, right before our eyes, Apple has soared to become the most valuable brand in the world. Shooting ahead of Google in #2, and firmly atop a list that includes IBM, McDonalds and Microsoft in positions 3, 4 and 5, respectively.
It’s the latest two inventions that have really helped Apple take the 84% jump in brand value this past year; the iPad and iPhone. Apple is selling more iPads than Macs, and more iPhones than iPods. By creating products consumers aren’t aware they need, Steve Jobs has been able to design winner after winner. And this underdog is one no longer.
Microsoft adCenter is looking to help Bing advertisers reach local users, with new features including radius targeting, local search attributes and something entitled “Bing Vision”. Many of these features are simply playing catch-up to Google AdWords.
For instance, the ability to target specific radiuses, 5-100 miles away from a city, listing the merchant’s address and phone number. “Bing Vision”, however, is the new one. Bing Vision helps customers already in store, further investigate product information, reviews and prices.
As Bing continues to chip away at Google’s market share, and more and more advertisers start to take notice, kudos to Microsoft AdCenter for not only catching up, but looking to innovate.
Google +1 is here. And it’s simply Facebook’s Like button. I wish it wasn’t that simple. But, that’s what it is. And it’s a huge testament to Facebook discovering the golden egg. Because Google has had time to think about this and re-think about this. But they came up with +1. Which is essentially the exact same product.
The only difference? Well, Google +1 lives outside of Facebook of course. It’s primarily designed to make your search results better. If your friend has +1′d a page that comes up in your search results, you’ll probably try there first.
Of course, Bing already offers this with your friend’s “like’d” pages.
This Google +1 feature will slowly roll out over the next few months on ads and sites as well.
Yahoo’s leadership team is getting flack for falling in the search market rankings. But, this is unfair. When Microsoft bought Yahoo! Search, it was a sign to the market that Yahoo had given up. So, if Bing is now where this dual power is going to be, that’s where I’m going to go. Plus, Bing’s advertising campaign has been blaring for two years now, without a single Yahoo search ad.
Yet, Yahoo shareholders are pouting that Yahoo’s search ad share will fall to 8.1 percent this year, and is predicted to plummet to a new low of 6.5 percent next year. News flash: That’s what happens when you sell off your search market. The really bad news is on Microsoft’s end. Because Google AdWords is still growing – predicted at 75.2% this year, and up to 76.6% in 2012. And Microsoft is climbing at a tortoise’ pace, up from 10.2% last year to 10.8% this year, and 11.1% in 2012.
With the newly released Mozilla Firefox 4 outpacing the also newly released Internet Explorer 9, industry experts are making long-term browser market share predictions. But, I wonder if they’re forgetting one big thing – that none of these browsers are super mobile-friendly?
And the one browser that is – just released a new version of well. Opera 11.10 beta, codenamed “Barracuda” is fresh full of new mobile features, including sync, which allows a user to have a seamless experience across both platforms, with shared bookmarks and other elements.
Perhaps that’s a better gateway into the browser leadership position? Becoming the mobile leader that people get used to, and decide they want for the desktop experience as well – simply because of the information share. Alas, it seems like only Opera is playing the game that way. But as the only player with chips in this post, they’re going to get them all if they’re right.
I still have a Hotmail e-mail address. I’ll admit it. Yes, it’s slightly embarrassing sometimes. But at the time, I was an innovator. This was a Microsoft product for crying out loud!
And now, the great and might Microsoft has launched a new feature for Hotmail, a feature that other providers like Yahoo have been utilizing for a long while now. And it doesn’t really solve my problem.
Hotmail users have been able to create e-mail aliases for a while by using + and a descriptor word at the end of your e-mail name to organize different types of e-mail. But what about for the Hotmail user who’s embarrassed to be using Hotmail? Well, now you can create completely different e-mail addresses that you can still receive within your primary e-mail account. Not completely different though. You can get yet another Hotmail account. Or a slightly improved live.com account. But that doesn’t help my problem, does it?
WebMatrix is a new web development tool from Microsft, designed to simplify website creation and optimization for developers of all skill levels. WebMatrix lets users code, test and deploy their websites, incorporating built-in search engine optimization features.
In fact, users can run a search engine optimization report within WebMatrix to find out how to make their sites more visible to search engines with practical feedback and recommendations.
WebMatrix lets developers utilize templates and code through WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke, Umbraco and more. With these open-source integrations and easy optimization tools, WebMatrix may become the DreamWeaver replacement for the wannabe web developer on a budget.
At the end of 2010, Chrome had just shy of 10% market share, double from their less than 5% market share at the end of 2009. Great growth numbers from the fastest growing browser out there.
How are they doing it? Well, they utilized their own line of laptops, the Cr-48, that runs solely on the Chrome browser. And they also developed the “Chrome for a Cause” promotion that incentivized people’s use of the platform. Not to mention the fact that for all intents and purposes, it’s the best browser out there – in terms of speed, security, openness and more.
So, how did its competition do this year? Internet Explorer dropped from 63% to 57% last year, while Firefox shrank from 25% to 23%. So, even while the numbers look good, Chrome’s still only half of Mozilla. So, there’s still some work to do.
Bing has officially gone social. If you make a search in Bing, and one of your Facebook friends has “liked” one of the pages that returns in your search results, you will see their “like” highlighted on the results page.
Instant social authority feedback. And they’ve beaten Google to the punch with the greatest authority in social media, Facebook. Other incorporations include seeing which movies your friend’s have liked on IMDB. FanSnap sports ticket information directly within the search experience. And more.
Plus, Bing is also playing detective and trying to guess what you’re looking for with their “instant answer” information, similar to what Google already offers. So, the big question is, will this help Bing increase its market share? We’ll see. But this search engine social integration en masse is a very good sign of things to come.
It seems like Microsoft has two girlfriends. And they’re taking advantage of the situation. Fresh off the announcement of Office’s integration with Facebook, now Google Docs can tie directly into Microsoft Office via the Cloud Connect plugin.
Let’s walk through the idea together. Now, you can continue creating documents in Microsoft Office – where you’re probably used to doing it. But every time you “save”, it will automatically sync to your Google Docs account. So you can start a document at home. Continue at work. And finish in the airport.
Plus, share the document with your friends and co-workers no matter what software they have. Just send them a link to the Google Docs file. That’s two big benefits here. One, the idea of convenient document creation. Two, solving the problem of document sharing.
This plug-in is not yet compatible with Mac, because Microsoft doesn’t offer the same public APIs for the Mac versions of Office.
