Stats Put Android Ahead Of iPhone In Eight States

There’s encouraging news for Google in the Android vs. iPhone war.  A company that’s delivered more than one billion applications, games, ringtones, videos, and wallpapers to mobile users claims Android has topped the iPhone in terms of user concentration in eight states.

As the map below shows, these eight states are Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  Then another five states are considered swing states, leaving the last 37 under Apple’s control.

Obviously, these findings don’t represent a true victory for Google even if they’re absolute facts.  The states associated with Android aren’t all chockfull of people, and eight to 37 isn’t a good ratio.  Apple fans are sure to point out that Myxer is relatively new to the stats game, as well.

Still, the data indicates that Android’s gained a lot of ground within a certain sample group, and that it’s done so at a more than reasonable pace.  What’s more, Myxer’s promised to update the map every quarter, meaning we’ll get a better idea of how things are trending as time goes by.

According to Myxer, “A total of one million unique users from both the Android and iPhone operating systems were used to make this comparison.”

Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses

Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others, and these real-time results are often featured prominently on the first page of search results for the hottest queries.

Apparently only updates from Facebook PAGES are indexed, and according to Danny Sullivan, that includes links, status updates, photos, videos shared by page owners (not comments made by the fans).  Any Facebook update (from regular user profiles) can be shared publicly, so I wonder why these aren’t being pulled. Results from Twitter and other places aren’t only from branded sources.

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This seems to indicate that brands should be getting a good amount of play for Facebook appearances in Google’s real-time search results, and possibly in the real-time search results in general (due to Facebook’s huge user-base). Right now, Facebook isn’t dominating the results, but that is bound to change with it being the largest (by far) social network on the web.

A lot of brands who don’t have Facebook pages in place are likely going to consider this a new reason to create one. Here are some tips for making a good one and promoting it.

This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook.

Now Google’s real-time search results include (as listed by Sullivan) Facebook, MySpace, Twiter, Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, TwitArmy, Google News links, Google Blog Search links, new web pages, and freshly updated pages. At this point, Google generally only shows the real-time results for newsy/trending topics.

Note: At the Online Marketing Summit out in San Diego, WebProNews talked about a different kind of real-time search that involves local businesses, with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn. It’s not local search as you would traditionally think of it, but it involves location, which one might consider a new kind of query.

Does Google Buzz Deserve All the Criticism It’s Gotten?

Google Buzz has been a magnet for skepticism, controversy, and criticism since it launched earlier this month. The skepticism is a result of past Google social media efforts not having the greatest track record. Much of the controversy and criticism has been the result of privacy, and more recently copyright concerns from users.

Google Buzz launched with auto-following, and among countless other complaints, that led to one woman complaining about being re-connected with her abusive ex-husband, just because they had previous correspondence through Gmail. Google addressed this, and has made various changes to Buzz since launch based on user feedback.

This week, blogger Jesse Stay raised the issue of content being shared on Buzz without the ads that go with it, while Google shows its own ads. Google quickly responded to this as well, saying that they expected to have the issue fixed by next week.

For all the criticism, there are still plenty of people out there that view Buzz as a good tool, and a step in the right direction from Google, with regards to social media. Some even think the extensive criticism has gone a bit further than Google deserves.

“As a big company, Google has an incredible microscope focused on their every activity,” Silicon Valley blogger Louis Gray tells WebProNews. “Those people who are naturally distrusting of large companies with high market share are aggressively looking for ways to highlight weakness or issues with Google Buzz. While Google no doubt made some early missteps, and has apologized for them, the reaction has far outweighed the potential issues.”

A common sentiment seen throughout the Blogosphere is that Google simply rushed Google Buzz out a little quicker than it should have. Even many of Buzz’s critics have no problem admitting that Buzz has a great deal of potential to thrive. I discussed this potential at length upon the launch of the service.

Right out of the box, it seemed clear that Google was onto something with Buzz that it had not been able to tap into before – a way of taking its existing services and building its own social network in and around those – a strategy some of us have been expecting for quite some time. Buzz quickly drew in users (some didn’t have much of a choice if they were Gmail users).

It’s important to consider that Buzz hasn’t even been around for an entire month yet. It’s already gotten tons of publicity (even though some has been negative, Google has been pretty good about turning much of that around). Publishers and bloggers have been quick to jump on the Buzz bandwagon and promote their Buzz profiles. How long did it take people to “get” Twitter? Some people still haven’t gotten there.

Google will be integrating Buzz into more of its products, and will no doubt be adding more useful features as time goes on, most likely making it more appealing to users. It’s just in Google’s nature to crank out new features for its products. The biggest advantage Google has with Buzz is that Google already has so many users among all of its products, and ultimately, it can put Buzz wherever it wants. I have a feeling Buzz has barely scratched the surface of what it will be. But we’ll see.

Will Bing Powering Yahoo Make SEO Easier?

There is an interesting discussion going on in our WebProWorld forum about search engine optimization post Microsoft-Yahoo deal. For those unfamiliar with the topic, Microsoft and Yahoo recently gained regulatory approval on a search and advertising deal announced last year, which will see Yahoo using Bing’s algorithm in its search results. The discussion is about whether or not this means businesses and webmasters will only have to worry about optimizing for 2 search engines (Google/Bing) rather than 3 (Google, Yahoo, and Bing).

Will you focus your efforts more heavily on Bing? Discuss.

What Bing Coming to Yahoo Means

It’s important to note that Microsoft and Yahoo still have plenty of details to work out before anyone knows just how the product of this deal will function. We know that Bing will be used in the back-end of searches on Yahoo, but we don’t know what other elements Yahoo will still be incorporating into the search experience. For example, Yahoo said last week that the companies will still be discussing how SearchMonkey and BOSS figure into the mix.

Optimizing for Yahoo is not going to be limited to showing up in Bing’s results. That’s not to say that showing up in Bing’s results won’t have its advantages for Yahoo search, but there is a lot more going on at Yahoo than that. The company has been stressing that it is still very much focused on search, and under the deal with Microsoft, Yahoo will still be controlling the user experience at Yahoo.com.

Right now, Yahoo.com has plenty of elements to consider, from news and trending topics, to a whole slew of “applications” that users can customize on their Yahoo homepage. Among these are Facebook and Flickr. If you want to get in front of Yahoo users, it’s not limited to Yahoo search results. That said, Yahoo search results also have their own thing going on. Keep an eye on the box that appears under the search box after you enter a query. It contains related queries, and “related concepts”. This is one area that could conceivably be independent from Bing (although that remains to be seen at this point). Yahoo is not shy about putting brands in these “related concepts” either. You can find WebProNews in there for a query like “ebusiness news”.

The point is, Yahoo has made it clear that it will continue to control the user experience, and that means there should be plenty of areas within Yahoo that are out of Bing’s control. This leads me to presume that Yahoo will not be something you’ll want to ignore, just because Bing is integrated into it. Remember that at this point, Yahoo controls a much greater percentage of the search market than Bing.

All of that said, you may want to pay closer attention to your Bing rankings if you haven’t done so in the past, because while Yahoo will still be Yahoo to its users, the deal also means there will be significantly more eyeballs on what Bing determines to be the most relevant results to searches.

Why Stop at Google, Yahoo, and Bing?

These may be the biggest three search engines in terms of market share in the United States, but there are still plenty of people using others. For one thing, YouTube is number 2. Not Yahoo or Bing. If you are concerned about simply being found where people are searching, you should have a YouTube presence. That of course means having a video strategy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a huge video budget.

There are still people using Ask as well. In search industry coverage, it often gets overshadowed by the others, but there are still a lot of people using it. In fact, the Ask Network’s market share grew by 6% from December to January. Ask.com’s market share grew by 1%. A lot of people search with AOL. AOL’s search is powered by Google, but it doesn’t always return the same results as Google.

Facebook’s search market share grew by 13% in that same period of time. You may not think about Facebook for search as much, but people are spending more and more time on Facebook, and it stands to reason that they’ll be conducting more and more searches from Facebook. Granted, Facebook’s web search feature is powered by Bing, but that’s only a piece of the Facebook Search puzzle. If you don’t have a Facebook strategy, you may be missing out on a lot more searches. By the way, did you know that Facebook recently passed Yahoo as the 2nd most visited site (just under Google)?

These are just a few examples. People are searching from a lot more places. Rather than just optimizing for Google, Yahoo, and Bing, perhaps you should think about all of the places where your site/business would make sense when a user searches (consider niche sites as well).

Does the Yahoo/Bing deal make optimization easier? Weigh in with your thoughts.

Google Testing a Revamp of the Search Results Page

Update: Danny Sullivan reports that “slight variations” of this design are “live in the wild,” and “still being shown to a randomly selected group of people,” and that Google doesn’t have an expected launch date for a complete roll-out.

Original Article (11/19): Google is testing a new user interface for its search options feature. If you are unfamiliar with the search options feature, it is the link on your search results page that says “show options” and brings up a menu on the left-hand side of the screen providing a number of ways to filter your results.

According to Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, a “small number” of Google users will see the new interface starting today. The aim of the new interface is to provide users with a cleaner display. Sullivan says that if the testing goes well, Google may roll it out after the New Year. He quotes Google’s Marissa Mayer as saying, “We’re basically looking at a new look and feel for Google. It’s an overall cleaning up of the search engine results page.”

Do you think Google’s results pages need a new look and feel? Tell us what you think.

Images of this new look and feel look strangely familiar – similar to that of a certain “decision engine.” Take a look:

Of course, the Google’s search options and Bing have been compared in the past (and other search engines utilize a similar design too for that matter), in terms of the general layout. Their functionalities differ on various levels. It’s important to note that this will just be how the search results pages will look, without having to click the search options link to get to it. There has been discussion in the past about how much users actually use Google’s search options, simply because the feature is easy to overlook. Such a change would put the options right in your face.

Besides being visually different, the options themselves are different in some areas. For example, a “see also” section has been added, which suggests related queries. There is also a section called “show search tools,” which now contains things like the Wonder Wheel, Timeline View, and “more shopping sites.”

Google may start messing around with the top navigation on search results pages next year, but the company has acknowledged that it works well right now. It will be interesting to see the change in use of this top navigation if the left-hand options go mainstream.

What do you think of this re-working of Google’s search results pages? Do you want to see it go mainstream, or do you like it better how it is right now? Share your thoughts.

Related Articles:

> Google Launches Search Options

> Google Presents New Image Search Options

> Google’s Search Options Increase

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