Universal Search Reporting Traction

The upward trend in reporting activity with regards to changes in Universal Search are increasing testimony to an ongoing and expected change in SERP landscape. This includes all forms of Google’s vertical blend; video, news, blogs, images, products etc..

Search Engine Roundtable reports “if you notice halfway down the page, you’re seeing a whole brand new set of results that are pulled from a file built in C programming language.”

MediaPost reports “Google, Yahoo and MSN are rapidly integrating multi-media results into their search engine results pages…”

Search Engine Land qualifies ongoing discussion and speculation about Universal Search impact…

Search Engine Journal reports “Google tweaks Universal Search with horizontal video results…”

Universal Search is kickin-in

Out of 1.2 billion queries surveyed, 220 million (17 percent) contained a Universal search results. 87 million people searched during the measured period, and 58 percent saw a natural search placement. Within the Universal results, individual placements broke out this way:

Video 38%
News 34%
Images 19%
Multiple placements 15%
Maps/Stocks/Weather 10%

Source: Search Insider Rob Garner

Online Sales to Climb Despite Struggling Economy

Retailers report that search engine marketing continues to be the most effective way to reach new customers.

Online retail will continue to be a bright spot with retail sales rising 17 percent this year to $204 billion.

Apparel ($26.6 billion
Computers ($23.9 billion)
Autos ($19.3 billion)

Source: BusinessWire

A More Open Wireless World

Spectrum bid: Cone of silence is lifted and Google admits “top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called “C Block” reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important “open applications” and “open handsets” license conditions. In other-words, their bid was a bluff to “helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price.”

This helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee.

Source Google Public Policy Blog

GM Stands Up To Be Counted In Digital Shelf Space

GM puts $1.5 billion into the online digital shelf space…planning to to use gaming, search, mobile and a broad array of interactive applications.

GM’s Brent Dewar, vp-field sales, “to shift their focus to digital vs. spot TV”

Source: MediaBuyerPlanner.com

Online Ads Plug Away Like the Energizer Bunny

While many sectors of the US economy are going down, online advertising keeps going up and will be 10% of the advertising pie by 2009.

eMarketer predictions for US online advertising say it will account for 8.8% of total advertising in 2008, 10% in 2009, and over 15% of the US total ad spend in 2012. David Hallerman, author of US Online Advertising: Resilient in a Rough Economy says, “US online advertising is proving to be far more robust than other media channels.”

This report predicts overall Internet ad spending will continues to increase, with growth higher than all other major media. However, the report warns the Internet is not immune to downward economic trends despite being more resistant to advertising cutbacks than traditional media.

Source: eMarketer

YouTube Analytics Released

With a YouTube account you can now get more information about who’s watching your video? Where do viewers come from? How did they find my video?

Source: YouTube