Healthy Blog Reviews

Bing’s announcements annoy me. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Why do they annoy me? Because if something can be said in 50 words, Bing will figure out how to say it in 5000. A common theme among Bing’s announcements is too much explanation of the features they’re rolling it. It’s like they’re trying to convince us that we’ll like the features. Look, we’ll either like them or not, so just tell us what they are! So, I’ve decided to cut and past Bing’s latest announcement and highlight the actual news….all in good fun, of course! ========== I In this release of Bing one of the biggest investments we are making is in the area of entertainment. As the content on the web has exploded, it has become difficult to navigate and find what you are looking for. In the field of entertainment, 76 percent of people use search to help find and navigate their entertainment options online, but only 10 percent say they have a trusted place to go. So we see a great opportunity to help customers make important entertainment decisions — from deciding what movie to buy or see, which TV shows to watch online or on your TV, what music to listen to, how to find and safely play your favorite casual games – Bing is making a first step today to help make entertainment on the web easy and fun, so you spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love. Working with key groups inside Microsoft that have deep entertainment heritage, we’ve made significant investments in four key areas: Music, Gaming, Movies and TV . Our focus was on making it easy – if you can type in a search box, you can have a great entertainment experience on Bing. Or, if you prefer a browsing, discovery oriented experience, also make that easy to, just visit http://www.bing.com/entertainment . Here’s a look at what’s launching today. Music: Answers, Lyrics, 5 million free plays. People love music. In particular, folks want more than just a song or artist, they want a fuller experience around the music they love. Over 70 percent of people look for lyrics online. Whether you want to get ready to kill it in karaoke or just rock it in the shower, it’s now easy to safely find lyrics to all in one place. We didn’t stop at lyrics. In addition to the full Bing answers experience where you can get photos, videos, and even tour dates for your favorite acts , we partnered with our friends at Zune, and are now able to offer full-length streaming for more than 5 million songs . You get a single play of every song in this 5 million song catalog, and after that 30 second previews . So you can really get into the music you love. When it’s time to buy, we’ll offer you the ability to purchase and download songs from Zune, iTunes and Amazon.com MP3. Gaming: Search, Click, Play. In the gaming realm, people go to the web for a few key tasks. They want to choose which games to buy, become a better gamer by finding cheats and walkthroughs, and find and play casual games online in a safe and easy manner. Working with some of the best data sources out there, w e now provide detailed information on over 35,000 games, including in depth reviews, cheats and walkthroughs for all your favorite games. Working with the Microsoft Games team we offer nearly 100 of the most popular casual games online safely from right within Bing. Just Search, Click. Play . So you can now search for your favorite casual game, and with one click, be playing the game. This is cool for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy. Second, hosting the games inline means you can be sure they are actually games and not malware. Finally, the Microsoft Games team included some fun social features that allow you to actually invite friends from your social network to play with you right from the game. TV: The Shows You Love, A Click Away Like most people, we love TV. We know from research that people spend 60 hours watching TV online video every single month. What’s more amazing is that more than 30% of people watch all of their TV episodes online, and over 60% of people have used a search engine to look for full-length TV shows online. With Bing, we’ve brought together a very comprehensive collection of full length TV episodes and visually organized them so it’s easy to find what you are looking for and start watching. With thousands of episodes from over 1500 shows including lots of HD content , watching your favorite shows online is easier than ever before. And if you are one of those people who watch TV on an actual TV, we’re pulling in guide information to help you easily find what’s on in your area from your service provider, so you can make sure you are on the couch or setting your DVR to catch your favorite shows. Movies: Plan the perfect night out. Going to see a movie turns out to be a bit more complex than you might imagine. That’s why 90% of people turn to search to help them find movies information. What time is the movie playing? Which theater? Where does one park? What’s traffic like right now? Is the movie any good – what do reviewers say? What do my friends say about it? What does the Twitterverse say? Bing brings together all of the information and tools you need to get to the movie stress free and have a great night out. Reviews from the pros, real time Twitter and Facebook sentiment, real time traffic information and directions, nearby restaurants and even parking information from Bing Maps make it simple to spend less time searching and more time doing. All of this cool stuff is going live right now , with the exception of the TV listings, which will be along in a couple of weeks, and the music playback will ramp up over the next few days. Try it out, tell us what you think. We know there’s more we can do, and we are hard at work on new ideas that can continue to make Bing the best place to go on the web for all your favorite entertainment content and decisions . Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Bing

Tags: answers, cool, entertainment, friends, games, gaming, Local/Mobile, lyrics, microsoft-games, music, president, Search, Social
Posted June 23, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Quite simply? You never know what you’re going to get with Yahoo these days. Yesterday, the search engine web portal tried to jump on the Google interface redesign with a pitiful attempt to point out all the cool features it has in common with the new design. Unfortunately, Yahoo gave up on search when it handed the keys over to Microsoft, so no one really cares what it does in search anymore. Then today, Yahoo launches a new ad blitz–aimed at distancing itself from the blandness of Google. Really, Yahoo? Either you’re in the game or not. As the famous Yoda once said: “Do, or do not, there is no try!” Anyway, back to the new ad campaign. Apparently Yahoo plans to spend boatloads of cash on promoting its new slogan: “Your favorite stuff all in one place. Make Yahoo your home page.” Here’s one of the ads: Yahoo! Tile Video @ Yahoo! Video “When you look at this home page nothing looks back at you. You come to this place so you can leave.” How cute! That’s a great message–assuming we all still use homepages. I know I don’t necessarily represent the online masses, but personally, I don’t like to linger on a homepage. I don’t browse a homepage–looking for things to read or ideas on things to do. I WANT to get in and get out. It’s kind of like an airport terminal. I don’t want to spend my day there. Show me which gate my plane departs from and get me out of here ASAP! Still, I’m happy for Yahoo. It’s making an effort to define its place in our lives. Now, if it could only stick to message and focus on being the homepage of our web lives–instead of trying to be all things to all people–we’d know exactly whether it’s an orange creme or a chewy-caramel.

Tags: blandness, cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, cool, focus-on-being, game, Microsoft, pitiful attempt, read-or-ideas, Search, video, Yahoo
Posted May 6, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

It’s no secret: Google’s been working toward selling eBooks for over a year (with their intentions public since BEA last May). And now it looks like they’re almost there, according to the Wall Street Journal . The search giant could enter the battle against Amazon, Apple, et al. , in late June or July. Despite rumors to the contrary, Google isn’t looking to fight the Kindle, however (or yet?). Although they partnered with the makers of the COOL-ER e-reader in September, Google plans to offer a bookstore that’s platform-independent, the WSJ reports. But no proprietary devices isn’t the only departure from the Amazon/Kindle model: Google says users will be able to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book-search service. It will also allow book retailers—even independent shops—to sell Google Editions on their own sites, giving partners the bulk of the revenue. The company would have copies on its servers for works it strikes agreements to sell. Google is still deciding whether it will follow the model where publishers set the retail price or whether Google sets the price The browser-based Google Editions , along with Google Books, will provide the storefront and the books. Meanwhile, Google’s book licensing agreement may still be in limbo with the DoJ —and that’s something they definitely need to work out before they can hope to make it big. Meanwhile, if all goes well for Google Editions, this could mean big news for Google at large. As Evan Schnittman, vice president of global business development for Oxford University Press, told the WSJ: Google Editions will also be critical because it represents “the ultimate test” of whether the ability to search, find and instantly buy content will generate significant gains in revenue. “This tears down barriers,” he added. What do you think? Will Google get into retail? Will they be allowed to sell books at all? Will this constitute an eBook revolution?

Tags: books, cool, google-books, google-editions, intentions, kindle, press, price, retail, sets-the-price, street-journal
Posted May 5, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

All the cool kids have apps these days, and Google Analytics doesn’t want to be the last to the party. Yesterday at the eMetrics Summit (and on the Google Analytics blog ), Google announced several additions to its Analytics offerings, including better integration with AdWords and a Google Analytics App Gallery . The App Gallery premieres with almost 40 apps, targeting everything from phone call tracking, to widgets, to enhanced reporting tools. Google’s examples include “tools like Excellent Analytics, which lets you work with your Analytics data in an Excel spreadsheet, and the Analyticator for Wordpress, which automatically implements Google Analytics across your entire WordPress site.” Expanding Google Analytics and its features, of course, can be a great way to enhance the offerings, and maybe make it more competitive with paid packages. Meanwhile, Google AdWords is also integrating more into Google Analytics. Now, for example, developers can pull AdWords data through the Analytics API. Also, says Google: Over the coming weeks, we’ll be making a new set of AdWords reports available in Google Analytics. These reports expand significantly on the AdWords reports you currently see in your account. For example, you can break out your AdWords traffic by actual search query, match type, distribution network, and many other AdWords attributes. We’ve added reports for day parting, placements, and destination URLs. And since the people at Google are apparently visual learners, they made a video to explain this. On a related note, AdWords Search Funnels are now available in all AdWords accounts. What do you think? Which apps are you most excited about? Will this be enough to bring Google Analytics on par with bigger paid packages?

Tags: AdWords, analyticator, Analytics, api, cloud-computing, cloud-hosting, cool, metrics-summit, offerings, over-the-coming, party, people, Search, words-search
Posted May 5, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

Do you have 10 minutes to spare? Would you like to help the SEO industry understand exactly where we’re at in 2010? Oh, and would you like to win an iPad and other cool prizes? You would, huh? Then read on Pilgrim! SEOmoz is once again taking on the task of surveying the SEO industry and they need your help. All you need do is complete the very simple, 10-minute, online survey and you’ll do your part to help us all! In particular, the survey will address: Who are the people in the SEO community? How do they learn about SEO and sharpen their skills? How are companies embracing search marketing? Which tools and tactics do people in the industry use to support their SEO and social media efforts? Your country industry needs you! Take the survey today . PS. Yes, the results will be made public once the survey closes.

Tags: cool, country, help-the-seo, once-the-survey, online-survey, people, read-on-pilgrim, seo, survey, take-the-survey
Posted April 22, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media