2007 December

A B2B survey of media and Internet professionals titled “Vertical Search Report 2008” was recently released by E-consultancy, an online publisher of Internet marketing reports and research, and Convera, a company that customizes specialized search functions for publisher web sites. Time-challenged web publishers in various commercial and industry segments provided their insights on staying on top of business information, getting the most useful business information quickly and staying up-to-date. ·        …

“Go Local!” has long been the rallying cry in the whole foods movement (buying most edibles from regional growers, or The 100-Mile Radius Rule among food advocates) and in energy conservation green movements (thinking globally and acting locally). Given gasoline prices and transportation costs, combined with buyer behaviors that favor local sources, it should be no surprise that buyer, wholesaler and retailer advertising is focusing on regional/local media as well. …

Second-tier search engine Ask.com has tried to expand its share of the search market throughout 2007 with user-friendly features and user-sensitive privacy initiatives. For example, Ask.com paced the big tier-one search engines (Google in May, Yahoo! and Microsoft by September) by offering Universal Search Results: Returning multimedia (video, images, maps, audio feeds) plus localized search results. Like the Big 3 engines, Ask no longer asks search users to click on …