No offense to the fine folks at Microsoft working on this product but I don’t often use “wow” and “Bing” in the same sentence. We assume the search engine market was locked up years ago and Google walked away with the top prize.

However, with change comes opportunity and the major search engines are working hard to figure out how best to integrate social signals with traditional search results. There is an opportunity to capture more market share based on how social integration is implemented. Bing is making some progress in this space which seems to eclipse what Google has accomplished to date.

While it has not launched yet, the redesigned Bing is going to include Facebook and Twitter data (among others). This is something that Google is not technically/legally able to do right now. If early adopters take to Bing based on their social integration there may be opportunities for socially savvy companies to capture additional eyeballs.  Based on your overall marketing spend, this could be a factor to consider.

Personally, I’m not happy with the social signals built into Google.  I don’t hate it and I’m certainly not part of the cadre of people who have railed against it.  I just don’t “love it”.  I’ve used the social signals built into Google a few times and face all the normal issues that exist, the most obvious one being that my Google+ Circles are not representative of my real social graph.  ”The idea is wonderful.  The execution is poor.“

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that may have been obtained was your email address and that the accessed files did not include any other information. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon determined that no other information is at risk. We are actively investigating to confirm this.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

In keeping with best industry security practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site,www.bestbuy.com. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy.

Our service provider has reported this incident to the appropriate authorities.

We regret this has taken place and for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We take your privacy very seriously, and we will continue to work diligently to protect your personal information. For more information on keeping your data safe, please visit:
http://www.geeksquad.com/do-it-yourself/tech-tip/six-steps-to-keeping-your-data-safe.aspx.

Sincerely,

Barry Judge
Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer
Best Buy

UPDATE: Almost 3 years later from the original post below (July, 2008) and AT&T took the lead on location-based shopping alerts in partnership with Placecast.  It took 3 years and AT&T to make this happen?!!?  Really.  Really!  I’m either way off base on the power of location-based marketing or the revenue model just isn’t there yet.

——————–

Security and privacy implications aside (see the NSA reference in the title of this post), July 11th is set to be a day that brings a renewed focus to mobile marketing.  What am I talking about?

• July 11th is the launch date for the new 3G iPhone.
• July 11th is also the launch date for the App store in iTunes.

From an internet marketing perspective, you should care about this date even if you do not own an iPhone (only a few million of us do at this point).  You should care because the launch date of this new phone is likely to place a renewed emphasis on the GPS chip that is already in many smart phones today.  I’m not giving Apple credit for putting a GPS chip in a cell phone……hardly……but I am giving them credit for putting the tools required to take true advantage of this functionality in the hands of developers.

Keep your eye on the ball.  Here are a few trends to watch:

Geoblogging: location-aware blogging adds a new layer to one’s posts and comments on the internet.

Location-based Advertising (Are we calling this something else yet?): You are in a new city…….say, Seattle…..and you really want a cup ‘o joe.  Power up the GPS enabled cellphone with Google Maps loaded on it and off you go.  Oh yeah….and Google Adsense will be adopted to provide coupons/discounts to those stores closest to you.  Location based advertising will be HUGE.

Posted via email from Greg Tirico – Tirico.net

UPDATE: Since posting this article Google has updated their terms of service for the Google Chrome product. Still not entirely consumer friendly it is *much* better than the original and even carries a Google apology along with the terms of service amendment.

Is it just me or does that new model car on the road make the model only 1 year older look like it has aged decades? You know the feeling. You put down a massive amount of money on a new car and 1 year later the new model comes out. Your car looks completely outdated at that point. I suppose we can chalk the sensation up to good design.

Speaking of which…..I hopped on the Google Chrome bandwagon as soon as it was released. Switching back to Firefox 3.0 gave me that old car sensation. Is Google onto something? I wouldn’t say that they have completely changed the landscape but they have created something very useful.

Pros –

1. Javascript heavy web apps load a heck of a lot faster. Noticeably faster. I mean *really* fast.
2. The minimalist design is worth mentioning. The amount of screen real estate available for websites is increased without sacrificing necessary browser features.
3. Desktop shortcuts for your favorite web applications: Similar to Mozilla’s Prism offering you are able to create desktop shortcuts for any web app that you frequent. Handy.
4. The name….Google Chrome. While I may not have tricked out my car, I have tricked out my internet experience.

Cons –

1. Third party cookie support…ugh. This is the biggest con for me and something that everyone should be paying attention to. Google Chrome allows for third party cookie support out of the box. You are then required to turn this feature off in the options menu if you so desire. My opinion: By default, all browsers should disable third party cookies thereby creating an opt-in solution vs. an opt-out solution.
   <sarcasm> I wonder if this has anything to do with DoubleClick? </sarcasm>
2. Privacy. Google Chrome has the potential to leak massive amounts of information about you….the internet user. While nothing catastrophic in the way of an overflow or other attack has been discovered, the potential is there.
3. As per usual, the Google terms of service is not very consumer friendly.

UPDATE:  Since writing this post a watchful and attentive reader (Michael of CloudSherpas.com) has pointed out that PicLens has been re-branded and launched as Cool Iris.  I find myself using Cool Iris almost exclusively for image searches via Google images or Yahoo photos.  Extremely useful and worth everyone’s time.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Right? Well, along that same line of thought several visual search engines have been developed.  Here is a quick rundown:

- Kartoo: This is the best visual search engine for determining relationships of sites based on your search term.  They group similar listings in folders and show the interconnected web that we weave….presumably through a link popularity algorithm.

- Quintura:  This site is visual only in the sense that related search terms are displayed in a large column on the left hand side.

- Searchme:  Coverflow for your search results.  ‘Nuff said.

Overall, I prefer Searchme as a visual search engine.  The interface is clean and the results are comparable to Google.  We all love eye candy and Searchme delivers in this area.

One thing to note about visual search engines would be their SEO/SEM implications.  If visual search catches on (I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature in Gng sometime soon) than not only will your current SEO/SEM efforts contribute to your success but the visual layout will also be an important factor.  An interesting mix of SEO and user interface design efforts will be required to rocket you to the top and……more importantly……capture those eyeballs with a click.

Kai-Fu Lee on Cloud Computing [Google Operating System]

This is also a good time to mention Microsoft’s Live Mesh announcement from Ray Ozzie.  Similar concepts…different approach.

Today we have an article from Wired that talks about using people to search, sort and segment information found on the internet. The best real-world example that comes to mind is Mahalo (another start-up courtesy of Jason Calacanis).

BUT! I did find this analysis of how Google could derail the process extremely insightful. It’s worth your time.