Google is offering free Wi-Fi on airports accross all USA from now till the 15th January 2010. It is currently available at 47 airports.

‘ A cool gift ‘ from the Search Engine which is helping raising money for local non-profit [...]]]> Google is offering free Wi-Fi on airports accross all USA from now till the 15th January 2010. It is currently available at 47 airports.

‘ A cool gift ‘ from the Search Engine which is helping raising money for local non-profit organisations. When connecting to the Wi-Fi Network, you have the choice to donate to Engineers Without borders, the One Economy Corporation or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.  The airport with the highest amount of donations will then receive $15,000 to donate to a local non-profit organisation of their choice.Virgin America has also taken the same initiative and is offering free In-Flight Wi-Fi until January 15, 2010. You can find a full list of participating airports at: www.freeholidaywifi.com.

That’s what we call the Christmas spirit!

source : Mashable

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Twitter and LinkedIn announced their partnership today, this will help bring tweets to LinkedIn. New features will be rolled out the next couple of days where LinkedIn account holders can tweet their LinkedIn status and vice versa (Tweets will be [...]]]> Twitter and LinkedIn announced their partnership today, this will help bring tweets to LinkedIn. New features will be rolled out the next couple of days where LinkedIn account holders can tweet their LinkedIn status and vice versa (Tweets will be sent to LinkedIn accounts in real-time).

Reid Hoffmn and Biz Stone – from Twitter – used ‘peanut butter and chocolate’ to explain how LinkedIn and Twitter should work together!

Really looking forward to this new feature…watch this space!

You can find the full article on the LinkedIn blog

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When speaking about the BBC, I immediately see a huge company with a massive turnover and a very big marketing budget.

With a guaranteed £3.5 billion revenue each year, the BBC holds a strong position in the market obviously, making its [...]]]> When speaking about the BBC, I immediately see a huge company with a massive turnover and a very big marketing budget.

With a guaranteed £3.5 billion revenue each year, the BBC holds a strong position in the market obviously, making its competitors struggle. It is said that the BBC has been paying Google – as part of a £100m marketing spend – to improve its search ranking. The corporation itself recognised the importance of high Search rankings and stated:

‘ Promoting content like the Mercury Prize online is an effective way to inform the licence fee payers who will want to watch it or read about it’

The BBC sees a huge opportunity in capitalising on Search and making sure it is achieving top organic search results.  Having said that, it is not the first time that BBC deals with Google directly. The previous agreements led to the exposure of BBC content on Youtube.

You may have a different opinion, but is that really fair ? What does that make of genuine SEO work and SEO effort? Surely this is not fair on the rest of the competitors, which probably can not afford these sort of deals, and working very hard on their SEO. All I can say, it is quite scary to think that money is now influencing Online Search in such a ‘direct’ and ‘obvious’ manner.

(source :  thisismoney.co.uk)

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Last week, I came accross an intriguing article with the title : HALAL Search Engine Launched….and I kept on reading.

The Search Engine targets the muslim e-community that surfs the World Wide Web and would come accross ‘haram content’, hence the [...]]]> Last week, I came accross an intriguing article with the title : HALAL Search Engine Launched….and I kept on reading.

The Search Engine targets the muslim e-community that surfs the World Wide Web and would come accross ‘haram content’, hence the name of ‘halal’. To clarify both terms, Halal is anything accepted by Shariah Islamic Law, while Haram is anything that is forbidden.

How is that possible ? The Search keywords and the search results have ‘haram levels‘ and would prompt you in advance if you are about to view content against Islamic Law. Words and phrases that may have sexual connotations, alcohol, drugs, or related to certain actors and actresses are flagged up to the user . (For instance, a search for ‘red wine’ will be flagged).

To explain it better, I quote the founder Reza Sardeha, explaining how the Search engine works: “First of all, we have blocked all sexually explicit content. We are also in talks with Imams to determine what might be considered haram, and therefore, be blocked”.

He then adds: “Imhalal is not a dictatorial or censorship website, we want people to be able to continue their online search. We use a two-layer system, first of all the search engine analyses the content fetched by Imhalal.com and all websites that contain explicit material will be filtered out. Some websites will still be fetched and there the secondary, more aggressive and progressive filter kicks in and that is when you will see the haram level”.

The website was launched on the 1st September 2009, called: Imhala.com . There is a strong muslim feel about it, and offers you 4 types of Search: Home, Images, News and Website. I strongly recommend you try it yourself, and make see what you thin.

One thing springs to mind, why do we have to ‘restrict’ the Search in such a way where you have to be told whether your search is haram? Saying that it is not a censorship is a small contradiction in itself. Furthernore, why do we have to let other people decide on what should or should not appear on the Search Result Page ? Or even ‘determine’ what is hallal and what is not ? Surely the muslim community would not make ‘haram’ searches’ in the first place ?

Whether the muslim community will adopt this as the main source for their Searches …time will tell.However, it will be very hard to dishelve the monopoly of the major Search Engines.

(Read similar posts by Maktoob and the Daily Telegraph)

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I was reading a very interesting article from Search Engine Roundtable news archive dicussing the geotargeting of Ireland…which made me think.

When it comes to UK and Irleand, UK companies tend to place their UK site on a ccTLD then [...]]]> I was reading a very interesting article from Search Engine Roundtable news archive dicussing the geotargeting of Ireland…which made me think.

When it comes to UK and Irleand, UK companies tend to place their UK site on a ccTLD then add some localised flavour of the english words (such as colour, favour,localise,…). It is heavily the case when it comes to the scenario UK/US where all your S turn into Z or vice versa.

What do you do when you want to target Ireland ? Surely your UK site will appeal to the Irish market? Well, a thread from the Google Webmaster help raised few points :

* Make sure you specify the right geotargeting setting in your webmaster account….But it takes time to take effect.

* Accept the fact that your Irish site will show in UK results…only because Google finds that UK and Irish sites are related.

The most most interesting point is yet to come….

* If you want your Irish site to stand on its own and rank speartely from the UK, simply create unique content. Otherwise just use one domain and both will be ranking well in UK and Ireland together.

It is down again to unique content and unique targeting! it makes sense though, if you want to speak to your Irish target market …you should tell them something new…not something you already told the UK, right ?

I truly believe that you should be able to address your target market in a different manner each time, even if you are using the same language more than once. Bear in mind those flourishing numbers of the Irish online market as the Mintel has just released the Irish Consumer Lifestyle report. And it looks like our Irish neighbours are outliving the recession, I quote: ‘Almost one in four claim that the recession has had little to no impact on their lifestyle’

(Source : UK & Ireland Geo Targeting in Google Need unique Content )

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Have you ever wondered what the Japanese, Arabic or even Turkish press are saying in the news today ? Well it may now be possible for the monoglot community to ‘read’ and ‘understand’ different languages.

Indeed, the World Wide Lexicon [...]]]> Have you ever wondered what the Japanese, Arabic or even Turkish press are saying in the news today ? Well it may now be possible for the monoglot community to ‘read’ and ‘understand’ different languages.

Indeed, the World Wide Lexicon Project (as reported by the NewScientist) is essentially a simple software that identifies the language of the web page you are trying to view and translates it for you…without changing the layout or the design of it, of course.

How does it work ? You specify the language you want it translated into …and it does the rest…However do not be too amazed by this technology. The software (or plug in) simply researches the translations available for that website, provided by the project’s community. In which case none is available, it will simply use the infamous: Google Translate.

These sort of projects are not new, and few have been around for quite a while. In fact, this reminds me a little bit of the ‘Facebook Translation Project’…what happened to it? Does the Facebook community need more volunteers ?

I suggest you give it a go, a test version is avaible with Firefox. You have also an option to join the project’s community.

…I will be watching this space .

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