As we prepare to enjoy the festivities of the Holiday Season and the beginning of a new year, I thought I would recap some of the industry highlights of 2009. It's been a wild ride so far and I suspect 2010 will keep us on our toes as well!
- Social Media Mania – What started out as being an online social outlet for high school and college students, has now taken over the Internet. Usage of the social media channels has grown exponentially and crosses all imaginable demographic profiles imaginably. These channels have started to formalize their platforms, incorporate great advertising opportunities and provide open forums for businesses to listen to feedback and represent themselves in response to consumers.
- Google's Latest & Greatest
WAVE – online tool for real-time communication and collaboration
Chrome – fast, new browser released
Real-Time Search – dynamic stream of real-time content from across the
web in search results (i.e. Twitter, Friendfeed, etc.)
Android – software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system,
middleware and key applications
Google Goggles – Use pictures to search the web via mobile browser
Caffeine – the new algorithm being tested
NEW: URL shortener – condense your hyperlinks to a shortened version
- BING Microsoft renamed and rebranded their search platform in another attempt to capture
additional market share and establish their engine as superior to the competition
(Google). An incredible amount of money was allocated to the initial media blitz
introducing the name and the concept. Although there are several unique and cool
features of this engine from the others, it has not proven to be a threat to Google
(so far).
- Microhoo Well, after much speculation and several attempts, Yahoo and BING (Microsoft)
announced their partnership relative to search results. Although there has not been an
official start date revealed, sometime in 2010 Yahoo will begin to serve results
directly from BING's database, for organic and paid search results. There will then be
only two major search engines producing data results for search queries.
- Paid Inclusion No MoreYahoo officially announced it was ending its Paid Inclusion program on December
31, 2009. Although there were recently some rumors about a possible program
starting up at AOL, at this time nothing has been announced. Please read Andy Wetzler's column on this.
