This Week in Search: 2009 Edition

By Betsy Carpenter, Coordinator, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships

I know it has been a while, and you are probably wondering what’s been going on in the world of search…for this, I apologize. In the New Year I will try to be more regular in my postings, but for now get excited: “This Week in Search” is HERE!!!

Open your minds and prepare for a lot of info – the web is buzzing with news…

• Carol Bartz, who served as the CEO of Autodesk for the past 14 years was finally announced as Yahoo’s new CEO. On another note, Sue Decker, President of Yahoo, has resigned. It’ll be interesting to see how Yahoo advances under Bartz’s leadership.
• The Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group have updated their complaints to the FTC regarding the growth of mobile advertising. The complaint focuses on several forms of mobile targeting. At the forefront is behavioral targeting saying, “The FTC, thus far, has failed to address the unique threats to privacy and consumer welfare—including the targeting of children, adolescents, and multicultural communities—reflected in what the industry calls its ‘mobile marketing ecosystem.’”
• Adobe has announced the discontinuation of its PDF ad program with Yahoo! due to “the current state of the economy.”
• Google released a new Google Sitemap Generator – it’s fast, it’s effective…it even pings your Blogs!
• Ask announced their new “Super Verticals”, an idea they hope will help make them a stronger competitor to the search market leader, Google. “Super Verticals” are search engines specialized in a particular category that will provide specific answers to questions within the vertical. The first vertical announced is a NASCAR search engine, making Ask the official search engine for NASCAR. Think this will shift the search engine demographics?
• Ask is not the only one trying to reinvent itself lately. AOL announced two new divisions, People Networks and MediaGlow, in hopes to better position the company for competitive growth.
• Getting around throughout the world just got easier with the release of the Google Transit Layer in 50 new cities. And yes, Chicago is one of them!
• How much do you love your whopper? Enough to sacrifice 10 friends? That is just what Burger King is challenging with their new Whopper Sacrifice Facebook application. What will they think of next?

So that’s it! Consider yourself learned…er taught. Until next time, cheers!