Happy New Year - Welcome 2010
Happy New Year, and thanks for spending 2009 with us.
2009 saw some massive changes in Search Engine News, including Google and Yahoo forming an alliance for search advertising, Microsoft launching Bing, their not-quite-search engine titled an emotion engine, and Google’s continuous strive for World Domination, as well as presenting challenges for advertisers and traders in the face of the Global Financial Crisis.
The search engine market, and online economy in general will be a much different landscape at the end of 2010 with the introduction of new gadgets and search tools making information more accessible and easy to find, new innovations and increased competition.
Stay tuned with Search News for all the updates and nail biting announcements.
Welcome to 2010.
Yellow Pages Advertising 2009
It’s that time of year again. The time of year where Yellow Pages turns up the advertising campaign telling us that if we miss their publishing deadline, we won’t be getting any sales leads for the next year.
This got us to thinking, who uses Yellow pages these days? The good old-fashioned phone book seems nothing more than a door-stop to many people these days, as we reported last year. Most people these days use a Google or another search engine from their computer, or another web-based search on their mobiles when looking for information, so where does this leave Yellow Pages, when even Yellow Pages Online is competing for an audience?
We leave it to our readers to decide:
Will you advertise your business in The Yellow Pages This Year?
- Yes, but I will also advertise online (50.0%, 7 Votes)
- No, I will only use online advertising (21.0%, 3 Votes)
- Yes, I will use Yellow Pages Exclusively (14.0%, 2 Votes)
- Yes, but I am only interested in Yellow Pages Online (7.0%, 1 Votes)
- No, I will not advertise at all (7.0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 14
Loading ...Voting is now closed. Thanks to all who submitted.
Google moving further into the Phone Market
Google is further trying to penetrate the voice communications market by way of it’s recent acquisition of Gizmo5 in the US. Gizmo5 is an online phone company that operates an open-standards platform for Voice-over-IP phone calls that is similar to Skype’s popular platform.
In addition to the possibility of fierce competition that Google poses to Skype, it could also be threatening to some of the world’s largest telecommunications companies whose fat profits are derived from mobile communications.
Google Voice is on trial in the USA at present, and it enables the user to transfer their existing phone number onto the platform, and provides a way to unify your mobile, fixed-landline voice and Voice-over-IP into one number, providing a host of cheap and convenient options including Voicemail, cheap international calls over the internet, Conference calls, Free SMS and more.
The move positions Google as potentially one of the most cost-effective providers for phone-calls, and if the technology is successfully implemented into Google’s Android handsets, it could enable callers to benefit from substantial discounts on their mobile phone bill and provide a very compelling offering that appeals well beyond the tech-geeks who are the current demographic of owners using Google’s Android Mobile Phone handsets.
Google Voice is on trial by invite only in the USA, and invitations can be requested from http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
Market-Share Updates - Bing Gains on Yahoo
Microsoft’s recently launched Search Engine (or their coined term “emotion engine”), Bing is picking up market share for search volumes, and along-side Google is eroding Yahoo’s market-share, research by comScore Inc reveals.
comScore advises that between September and October 2009, Bing’s market share rose from 9.4% to 9.9%m with Yahoo! slipping 0.8% percentage points down to 18%.
Google still remains the dominant figure with around 65% market-share.
* This data is based on search volumes within North America.