The Irony of SEO and the Death of Osama bin Laden
Last Updated on Monday, 2 May 2011 05:19 Written by Alan Monday, 2 May 2011 05:19
As I perused my usual news feeds in Google Reader today I noticed an overwhelming trend – Osama bin Laden. You may think that’s not unusual given it’s pretty much the only thing in the news today. Maybe, but my RSS feed is filled with tech sites, hundreds of them. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. There’s not a tech angle of any kind to the news of a Navy SEAL team coming out of nowhere and storming bin Laden’s compound. Sure, there were probably some high-tech gadgets being used, but we haven’t yet heard about those, and many of them we will likely NEVER hear about.
So why were tech sites everywhere writing article about this news? Simple – SEO. Sure, they all worked hard to disguise their stories with some technology of some sort – like a Google Earth photo of the compound. But, the bottom line is that web sites live by getting page views and big news stories generate those eyeballs. Even major sites like Yahoo got in on the game by writing a blog post about the top bin Laden searches they were seeing and what they mean.
The biggest irony of all is that by writing this I am falling into the same trap as the sites I am talking about. Of course, this site needs readers to survive as well so I guess I just brought this little irony full-circle 
Google Brings News to Feature Phones
Last Updated on Sunday, 17 April 2011 05:26 Written by Alan Sunday, 17 April 2011 05:26
With the coming proliferation of smartphones it seems as though the old feature phone has been left behind. But, Google has not forgotten those users. In fact, in many other countries the feature phone is still the most popular format. To accommodate this important market, Google has released a version of Google News designed especially for low-end phones.
By “low-end,”we mean “not using a full-fledged browser.” The most popular browser solution for feature phone users is currently Opera Mini, which is exactly what Google optimized their new feature phone version for.
It’s a smart move by the internet giant, since there is still a thriving market, even if it shrinks a bit each day. According to Google’s Arun Prasath and Dimitris Meretakis “We have rolled out a redesigned Google News for Opera Mini in all 29 languages and 70 editions of Google News. This includes an enhanced homepage featuring richer snippets, thumbnail images, links to videos and section content without explicit navigation, a convenient search bar, comfortably spaced links and the ability to access your desktop personalization on your phone.”
If you have a feature phone then open Opera Mini and head over to Google News to check out the latest version. You can find more information at the Google News Help site.
Bing Search Update Adds Real-Time Twitter
Last Updated on Friday, 25 March 2011 02:13 Written by Alan Friday, 25 March 2011 02:13
It’s been a busy few days for Microsoft’s Bing team. First they updated the Bing Mobile app and then they announced additions to the Bing mall maps collection. Now, today, they are rolling out real-time search of the Twitter feed via the Bing search engine.
The new feed will appear in the right-hand column of the Bing News page. When you search for news you will be shown this feed along with your results, but the feed will narrowed to your search topic. As Microsoft puts it:
As we’ve seen with the tragedy in Japan or political turmoil in the Middle East, real people are relaying timely and compelling items not captured by traditional outlets. Bing news now lets you compare and assess authoritative news analysis alongside real-time citizen journalists so you can decide which content sources you want to use.
This is a great move for Bing since Twitter has quickly become a go-to news source for a great many people. Showing the feed next to more traditional news sources can also help users to weed out the occasional fake trends that travel through the Twittersphere. Score another win for Bing. They may (probably) will never surpass Google, but they are sure carving a nice place for themselves in the market.
