Month: October 2010

Google has made a fundamental change to the way it ranks websites. Over the past three years, Google has been placing increasing emphasis on localized and personalized search results. This week, the search engine moved from being a general search engine to being an almost entirely local search engine.

Facebook has a long and tangled history with the concept of personal privacy. By its nature, Facebook opens two way window to the world, allowing you to see an enormous amount of information about other Facebook users and them to see an enormous amount of information about you. For many, the ability to see deeply into the lives of their friends and contacts is unendingly interesting. For marketers, that ability is absofreakenlootly amazing, so amazing in fact that some marketing firms will do almost anything to attain the ability including violating Facebook’s own privacy policies and the privacy laws of several nation states.

What, exactly, is search? The question is deceptively simple but finding a precise answer is surprisingly difficult. After a dozen years in the industry, you would think I would know a number of ways to answer the question but, after a dozen years in the industry I know enough to know my answer could change in an instant.

Search, as both a business and as a puzzle is getting exciting again. For several years, we have laboured under a monolithic and virtually monopolistic culture ruled by Google and its brilliant but constantly flawed PageRank algorithm. This week’s announcement of the deal between Facebook and Bing to include social recommendations (or “likes”) is likely to force change both at Google and in the way digital marketers market their clients’ digital assets.