search engine advertising options

Related Articles
Safari for Windows: All about the money?	16 June 2007
(InfoWorld) - The debate is still on about why Apple Inc. decided to develop a version of its Safari browser for Windows. One of the most popular ideas online -- though one that doesn't appear to be widely supported in the analyst community -- is that Apple hopes to use its age-old rival, Microsoft Corp., to boost its revenues. Offering Safari to Windows users could significantly increase the number of Safari users, and that larger user base could translate into revenue for Apple because some browser makers have revenue sharing deals with search engines, says John Gruber, writer of the popular Daring Fireball blog. Search providers like Google Inc. reportedly split with browser makers the advertising revenue generated when browser users type search terms in the bar embedded in the browser. Gruber's suggestion has spread wildly across the Web, with bloggers and mainstream publications as far flung as the BBC picking up on the idea. It's difficult, however, to confirm Gruber's suggestion. Google declined to comment on any such arrangements that it might have with browser partners. Mozilla Corp., however, has said that it earns a significant portion of its revenue from the search bar in its browser. In its official company blog, Mozilla's CEO Mitchell Baker wrote last year: "We are very fortunate in that the search feature in Firefox is both appreciated by our users and generates revenue in the tens of millions of dollars." Firefox comes with Google as the default in the search bar and users can change that to five other options including Yahoo and Answers.com. Mozilla didn't respond to additional questions about how exactly it earns revenue from the search bar. Apple did not reply to questions about a potential revenue share with search providers. Safari users can choose Yahoo or Google to run the search bar. Microsoft Corp. doesn't have any kind of compensation deals with search engine providers or other browser makers based on users who set Windows Live Search as the default search engine or based on users who set other search engines as the default in Internet Explorer, a company spokesperson said. Google could very well have a similar deal with Apple as it may have with Mozilla, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research. Still, he doubts that revenue from the search bar is the primary reason Apple developed Safari for Windows. "Whatever incremental revenue they'd get is almost irrelevant for a company of Apple's size," he said. Instead, Apple has a stake in making sure that Safari has strong support in the market from users and developers because it is a critical piece of the Mac OS and will serve as the primary application development environment for the iPhone, he said. Revenue from the search bar could play a role in the reason behind making Safari for Windows but it's probably not the primary one, said Danielle Levitas, an analyst at IDC. "I think the revenue is not insignificant," she said. "Maybe it's the tactical reason but the strategic initiative is more about the connected device vision and using the browser to deliver Web-based applications." Apple appears to be trying to position itself so that it can control Web access in a variety of devices, including phones, televisions and computers, she noted. The move to Windows could encourage the development of more attractive applications built on Safari because developers will be able to create applications on Safari that can reach Mac and Windows users as well as the iPhone, Van Baker, a research vice president at Gartner wrote in a blog posting on Friday. He doesn't mention the potential revenue gain as a reason. Whatever the reason, Apple has already learned that Windows users are interested in Safari. On Thursday, Apple said that 1 million copies of the Safari for Windows beta were downloaded in the first 48 hours after it became available. Safari has around 5 percent of the browser market share, compared to Microsoft's Internet Explorer's 78 percent and 15 percent for Mozilla's Firefox.
Google Apps manager: Google hearts IT managers	24 May 2007
(InfoWorld) - With the launch of the Google Apps suite last year, Google became a provider of hosted collaboration and communication software for small and medium-size organizations, and it made clear its aspirations to lure large-company IT managers and CIOs with the suite's Premier Edition, introduced in February. This move, which puts it in direct competition with software heavyweights like Microsoft, builds on Google's first steps as an enterprise vendor years ago when it launched its first enterprise search product. Although Google generates most of its revenue from search engine advertising, it says it is committed to the IT enterprise space. IDG News Service recently had a chance to talk to Rajen Sheth, Google Apps product manager, about the challenges and opportunities Google sees in enterprise software. Following is an edited version of the interview: IDGNS: Does Google's Enterprise unit have a good understanding of the needs of IT managers and CIOs? Sheth: I think we do. We're breaking new ground in some of these areas, for example with Apps and the concept of hosted applications for large companies. We're learning as the industry is learning in some areas. In our Enterprise division, everyone has worked at a significant enterprise company before, from the sales force to product management and engineers. They all know what it means to be an enterprise company and to build enterprise products. That said, you'll see us do things differently from other enterprise organizations in the ways we build products and roll things out, and you see that already with the Search Appliance and with Apps. IDGNS: How big of an issue are government regulations when you offer hosted applications and you store customers' data, particularly for customers in heavily regulated industries like health care and financial services? Sheth: We've added functionality like the ability to put a mail gateway in front of Google [Apps] to filter all your incoming and outgoing mail and also archive it. That's important for financial services companies that need to archive mail for six or seven years and can't let e-mail messages that, for example, contain social security numbers go out. IDGNS: You have made an uptime commitment for Gmail of 99.9 percent availability, and yet you have had several Gmail outages affecting Premier Edition customers. Sheth: Several of the things we hit were anomalies right after our launch, unfortunately. We have done pretty deep postmortems on them, and we're using those experiences to improve the product and what we do. [These incidents] have helped us examine the whole process and think of other things we're going to do. For example, regarding notification to customers, we're working through a variety of processes by which we can further give customers visibility into what's going on with their systems, expected recovery times, current status, and things like that. IDGNS: Are you thinking of beefing up phone support? Sheth: We offer 24 by 7 phone support with the Premier Edition. We're scaling that team more and more. We have a combination there of front-line support and enterprise support engineers. Similar to how we support very high-end customers of the Search Appliance, I think we can do the same for Google Apps. IDGNS: Becoming a Premier Edition customer is pretty inexpensive at $50 per user per year. Have you been hit with a tidal wave of signups? Can you support the volume of customers you're getting? Sheth: The uptake and interest have been very good, but we were expecting it. We were scaling up the team and the resources, so we were able to handle it quite well. In terms of scalability of our systems, it's something we're tremendously good at. Even if we add a 100,000-person corporation, it's still a very small fraction of the entire user base, so we can scale up our systems pretty easily. The [consumer] services that we offer are already scaled up to very high degrees. We have tens of millions of Gmail users, for example. In terms of support, we started scaling up that organization a while ago to meet the demand we have now. IDGNS: Any plans to create desktop clients to give offline support to Google Apps? Sheth: The offline experience is definitely a hole in the product. It's something we're exploring in various ways. Right now, we let people import and export to a [third party] offline client. That's adequate, but it's not the endgame. There's nothing I can talk about right now in detail [regarding future plans]. IDGNS: Many express concern over data security in hosted applications in general. How do you address those concerns? Sheth: Security has been part of Google's development and operational philosophies from the very start. We've taken a lot of measures to protect the data centers and the infrastructure from external attacks. Also, Premier Edition lets customers apply their security policies on top of the Google applications. For example, you can use your own authentication systems so that a company that requires employees to sign in to their e-mail by putting a fingerprint against something can implement that with Google Apps. You can also lock all of the applications to be encrypted and make it such that it's all talking over HTTPS so that the level of encryption we have for your e-mail and chat sessions is the same you would use for a stock transaction. IDGNS: How are you doing in terms of mobile access to Google Apps? Sheth: It's definitely an area of focus. We have a pretty good reach for Gmail right now with the Gmail mobile application and Gmail mobile browser experience. We're continuing to think across all the applications and figure out how to make the experience better and better on mobile devices. In general, mobile access is an extremely important thing to Google because in so many parts of the world, more people access the Internet by mobile devices than they do by a laptop or PC. IDGNS: Are you interested in including vertical applications in Google Apps, maybe as options to customers in certain industries? Sheth: Our forte and user benefit is in applications that have a very broad appeal, especially within collaboration. That's where you will see a lot of the emphasis. That said, I've been pleasantly surprised about the amount of development that has happened on top of Google Apps since its release. We want to continue encouraging developers to take our platform and a lot of our core components and extend them.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from over 800 sessions. Register today!
Search Engine Bootcamp Posted By : Bruce Gow	22 December 2006
What is Search Engine Bootcamp? Search Engine Bootcamp is a one-day Search Engine Marketing seminar, designed to maximise your knowledge on a wide range of search engine marketing techniques, ranging from how to build a search engine friendly website to understanding what options are available for pay per click search advertising.
Google: Jolly green giant?	28 November 2007
The search and advertising company is a force to be reckoned with across the Web. Now it's looking to do the same in alternative energy (along with many others, large and small).
Client-side vulnerabilities loom large	28 November 2007
Critical vulnerabilities in common PC software, including both applications and operating systems, continue to grow in number and stand as the leading cause for concern in the IT security landscape today, according to training experts at the SANS Institute.Holes in so-called client-side applications, including Web browsers, e-mail clients, productivity suites, and media players, have become particularly worrisome over the last year, according to SANS, which highlighted the issue as part of its annual report on the top 20 Internet security risks for 2007.As hackers have shifted their attention further away from operating system flaws and drilled down to applications-layer vulnerabilities they have found a seemingly endless wealth of possibilities for infecting PCs with everything from spyware to botnet programs, SANS researchers contend.Unless something can be done to improve software developers' coding habits or better test popular applications for such issues before they land on end-users' machines, attackers will be able to continue their successful assaults against enterprise networks and devices for the foreseeable future, said Rohit Dhamankar, project manager for the Top 20 report at SANS and a senior manager of security research for TippingPoint.?"There's just been such a dramatic rise in the numbers of vulnerabilities found in applications like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office and a number of media players that attackers are having their way," said Dhamankar. "Enterprises are bolstering security, but desktop users still pose a massive risk if they can download anything they want from the Web; the attacks are also growing in sophistication to the extent that many can defeat antivirus and other security systems primarily by obfuscating their code."Some of the most powerful tools that hackers have adopted in hunting for potential targets are the same industrial-strength applications fuzzing tools that software vendors themselves are using to search for holes in their products, said the expert.Enterprises could do themselves a favor by enforcing stricter policies that dictate the types of applications that end-users are allowed to put on their work machines and using technical means to ensure that those rules are being followed, Dhamankar said.Other SANS researchers noted that while companies may not want to tell end-users that they cannot utilize media players, messaging clients, and other applications that have moved into the business world from the consumer sector, they could help themselves out by limiting the variety of client-side applications that people may choose from."IT departments can't focus on all the applications of the world, but they can choose several and keep their eye on those while allowing end-users some freedom," said Amol Sarwate, research manager at Qualys who studies vulnerability patterns for SANS. "What companies need to do is enforce standards for applications usage and utilize technical means to block unwanted software, devices, and even wireless access points."While many businesses have already realized that they need to shift more of their efforts toward defending client-side vulnerabilities, most have failed to embrace a proactive approach versus simply keeping track of publicly-reported flaws and patching those issues said Sarwate.Enterprises need to think about future security issues It will be particularly important for firms to examine the additional security issues that will be introduced in the coming years with broader adoption of technologies including VoIP (Voice over IP), according to the expert."The key is for people to start thinking ahead of these client-side vulnerabilities to understand what the next big thing may be. Things like VoIP need to be examined for their security implications," said Sarwate. "Many companies are already adopting these tools because of all the advantages they offer, but there will be many attacks carried out against these systems as well."Among the advice that SANS is offering organizations hoping to improve their client-side security coverage is to mandate secure configurations at installation time for all applications, to constantly verify patching and upgrading of both applications and system software, to scan for new vulnerabilities frequently, and to keep their security systems up to date.Other leading areas of concern highlighted by SANS in its report included critical vulnerabilities in Web applications that allow for cross-site scripting attacks or for computers to be otherwise compromised simply by pointing their browsers at poisoned URLs."Gullible, busy, accommodating computer users," including executives, IT staff, and others with privileged access also remain a major weak point for enterprise security, according to SANS, as these seemingly more seasoned users of computers and software are still falling for increasingly targeted spear-phishing campaigns in large numbers.One of the best ways to educate users about the problem is for organizations to create fake spear-phishing threats and send them out to internal users to determine which individuals might be most likely to fall for the schemes and follow up with additional training, the group said.Critical vulnerabilities in the software and systems that provide the operating environment and primary services to computer users, or server-side software, remain another area of leading concern, according to SANS.Problems in Microsoft Windows services, Unix and Mac OS services, back-up and AV programs, management servers, database software, and VoIP technologies in particular are proving troublesome, according to the report.Many of those issues can be addressed by following the same advice offered for solving client-side vulnerabilities, SANS said in the research.
Google service uses cell towers to locate users	28 November 2007
Google launched a location service for mobile users on Wednesday that doesn't rely on GPS.Google Maps with My Location, currently in beta, locates users who don't have GPS-enabled phones based on their location to nearby cell towers. The result isn't as accurate as GPS but works for people who lack the positioning technology in their phones."It helps users speed up search by showing the general neighborhood they're in," said Steve Lee, product manager at Google for the service. Without the location service, users must type in their address or neighborhood in order to find nearby businesses using Google Maps.Google Maps with My Location will use GPS data to locate the user if the phone has the capability. But even for users of GPS-enabled phones, the cell location service might be useful, Lee said. That's because the cell tower feature works better indoors than GPS, it doesn't drain the phone battery as quickly and can bring up a result quicker, he said.The service could be useful to a person who might be traveling in an unfamiliar city and looking for restaurants or other businesses. A user pulls up Google Maps and hits the zero key on the phone. A blue dot will appear on the map in the user's location. If the service used GPS in the phone, the blue dot will be solid. If the service used cell towers to determine the location, the blue dot will have a halo around it, indicating that the location isn't precise. The user can then search for nearby businesses.Google says the cell tower technique will locate the user within about 1000 meters. It doesn't use triangulation, which calculates a user location based on the user's distance to three nearby towers. Instead, it essentially shows the range of the tower that the user's phone is connecting to.But the accuracy should improve as more people use the service, Lee said. That's because Google is keeping a database of location queries, minus any personal information like individual phone numbers or names. That will allow Google to learn more precise information about the range of each tower so that it can deliver a more accurate location area to users. The coverage area of cell towers can vary from about a quarter of a mile to several miles based on whether the tower is in an urban or rural area.For now, Google Maps with My Location doesn't feature any advertising, but it could in the future. "This product makes a lot of sense for advertising," Lee said.In order to use the service, phone owners must download a free application from Google. The application will work on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones as well as many phones that support Java. A few notable exceptions include the Samsung Blackjack, Moto Q, and Palm Treo 700W, which don't support the APIs Google requires to find cell towers, Lee said.
Panelists: Content management, meet social networking	28 November 2007
Enterprise content management and social networking form a natural nexus that is already taking tangible form, a software executive said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Gilbane Group's annual conference in Boston."People have real requirements to secure information, but also have a demand to interact with people," said John Newton, CTO of Alfresco, an open-source content management software maker. "We are starting to blur the lines between what's inside the enterprise and what's outside the enterprise."Panelist David Mendels, senior vice president of Adobe's enterprise and developer business unit, echoed the idea. "The biggest single shift we're seeing is from the infrastructure of content management to humans -- to how humans engage with it," he said. "The real question is, what experiences are you going to build for your end-users, and how are you going to securely connect that back to your back-end systems?"David Boloker, CTO of the company's emerging Internet technology group, touched upon security concerns as well. "When you end up in the Facebook world or the Web world, you have to ask yourself, is that information correct? Do you have to annotate it, do you have to clean that information?""There are people out there who will try to take your information or plant a worm," he added.Mendels predicted that enterprise rights management software for securing content will see wider use. "We've talked about this for a while, but I think we're really on the cusp of it starting to accelerate," he said.Beyond addressing bottom-line concerns, such as security, enterprises will soon be compelled to apply social-networking principles in a wider range of areas, said Andy MacMillan, vice president of product management in Oracle's enterprise content management division. "The Web is going to lead the way, but pretty soon, you're going to be talking about the call center, the checkout kiosk at the airport -- how do I personalize those things?"Panelists took questions following the main discussion. One audience member asked them to render an opinion on content management's adoption rate around the world.Newton said lower-cost options have diversified the roles of content management software: "We see content management being pulled into types of applications it normally wouldn't have been before.... It's changing -- it's much more democratized. It's not so much about compliance."Mendels said hosted content management services, such as Adobe's Share and Buzzword offerings, will see faster growth outside the U.S., particularly among SMBs.Panelists at one point peered into their respective crystal balls. Mendels said Adobe's goal moving forward is "creating applications and experiences that keep people in context."Ideally, he said, the current practice of jumping among e-mail programs, instant messaging services, and the phone would be no more. "We see a world where you should have all those experiences tied to one document," he said.Mendels gave the example of a person sending an e-mail that prompts the recipient to return the query by phone. "Instead of picking up the phone and calling you, the document can call you," he said.Boloker pointed to mashups, saying they represent a new "application paradigm we're all walking into." IBM is working on a drag-and-drop mashup development environment called QEDWiki, which Boloker demonstrated for IDG News Service following the panel discussion.MacMillan said enterprises must now focus on not just cataloging their structured and unstructured data, but also applying analytics against it. "I think the next big step for content management from the infrastructure layer is to turn BI loose on it," he said.But Newton's take centered more on philosophy than a given technology. The Web 2.0-social networking boom has unleashed a "wave of creativity" that stands in contrast to "introverted, left-brain thinking" types, in Newton's view. "What our industry needs to do is get out of our left-brain, introverted mindset," he said.
Miscreants subvert search results to punt malware	28 November 2007
Using botnets to plant links and nurture zombie farms Miscreants have set out to poison search results with links to malware infested sites via a new campaign.…
'Cleantech' Investing Gets Its Day in the Sun	26 November 2007
Everybody seems to be looking for ways to make money on technologies that are said to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, wean the country from foreign oil and, generally, save the world. Venture capitalists have invested $3.64 billion nationally this year in search of promising ideas in what they call...
Verizon Plans Wider Options for Cellphone Users	28 November 2007
Verizon Wireless plans to give customers more choice in what phones they can use on its network.