Image via Businessweek.com

A quick glance at John Battelle’s resume is evidence enough that the founder & chairman of Federated Media Publishing is somewhat of a modern-day renaissance man. In addition to leading FM – the publishing company behind many of the most prominent blogs, sites, social networks and brands – he’s also a respected businessman, journalist, author, professor, blogger and conference programmer.

John’s diverse repertoire of expertise allows him to provide valuable insights about emerging trends in the digital space. He regularly addresses a number of hot-button topics on his blog, Searchblog, which covers the fusion of search, technology and media.

At 360i, we’re interested in those same topics as they pertain to the work we do on behalf of our clients in all areas of digital marketing and advertising – and we are always looking for ways to share thought leadership and continue the conversations that will ultimately propel our industry forward in new and exciting directions. I spoke with John about a few of the most “now” trends in digital, as well some things to look out for in 2010. The interview follows below:

[David Berkowitz]: Social search has been a hot topic for years, but now Google is experimenting with integrating results from one’s social graph into search results. Do you expect this kind of social search to now go mainstream?

[John Battelle]: Absolutely. “Social” is now mainstream, and search cannot but reflect the habits and usage patterns of the mainstream. Recent announcements of the integration of Twitter and Facebook into Bing and Google are harbingers of this. The real question is whether we’ll even need search “portals” anymore as our habits shift to a more mobile, social and less destination-driven interface for search.

Read the full interview »

With the latest Google search announcement of its BETA Caffeine engine, what can marketers expect if Google flips a switch or starts a transition to a newer “next-generation” infrastructure?

Now that Google’s sandbox beta engine has stabilized – it was previously too volatile to run comprehensive and accurate testing – we’ve evaluated rankings for a sample set of 40 retail keywords. We looked at ten major retail brand names (keywords), ten retail head terms (single keywords), ten retail torso terms (two-word phrases) and ten retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases) and compared the search results on the first three pages of both engines (standard Google and “Caffeinated” Google).

40 Retail Keywords Used in the Analysis

Six things stood out to us as notable differences that could impact marketers when Google makes the switch.

Read the full article »

Facebook has done so well blowing out its core social features – the News Feed, Mini Feed, brand Pages, virtual gifts, applications, and Facebook Connect, to name a few – that it’s amazing how frustrating it is to use some of the basic functionality like search and email. Part of that’s finally about to change, now that Facebook is rolling out trials of an upgraded on-site search engine.

Here’s a snippet of the preview from Facebook’s blog:

With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone.

This is a start. As Read/Write Web notes, this inches closer to the real-time search features that make Twitter so useful, but Facebook’s focus seems to be helping users search their friends’ content, rather than content across all of Facebook. It’s also unclear right now if they’re fixing other fundamental problems – for instance, when you search for groups or Pages, you can’t sort them in any way, such as by the number of members or fans. [Update: TechCrunch reports Facebook will soon make it possible to search content from everyone, and will update privacy options accordingly.]

Read the full article »

Update: According to ZDNet.com, New York is back in full swing as of noon Eastern, but “packets are still being lost around the globe.” The outage affected all Google properties, including YouTube, Gmail and Google Analytics. Google SVP of Operations Urs Hoelzle said this afternoon that the outage was the result of a “web traffic” jam.

Google is suffering from some sort of outage this morning, and judging by the hysteria brewing on Twitter – it’s a Google world and we’re just living in it.

Here’s a live look at how people are reacting:

The issue does not appear to be affecting everyone. Some Googlers are reporting that they’re able to use the search engine just fine; however, many users are reporting limited functionality if not downright outage.

We’ll update you if and when we learn more.

While I couldn’t fully capture every quote from the panel I moderated at MediaPost’s Search Insider Summit this week, here’s a rough rundown.

The panel was Search as We See It, “Search Insiders’ view of the Future: Industry Trends, Challenges and things to keep an eye on.” The panelists included:

• Ron Belanger, VP, Worldwide Agency Sales, Omniture
• Daniel Boberg, VP, Advertiser & Agency Professional Services, Yahoo
• Brian Boland, Director, Media Auctions, Microsoft Advertising
• John Nicoletti, Head of Agency Operations, Google

Q: What was different compared to the Search Insider Summit in May 2008?

Everyone mentioned the economy to some extent, often to the full extent. Ron said profit optimization was big, as was customer retention. Yahoo mentioned that the economy has led to declines in click-through rates for commercial times, and lower order sizes. John noted economic issues, brought up the expanded use of universal search, and plugged Google Flu Trends (the only swine flu reference I recall hearing at the events.

Read the full article »

Big news or just juicy gossip? Either way, 360i’s David Berkowitz says the deal would be a slam-dunk for marketers.

The rumor mill’s working overtime today as competing stories fly about how badly Google wants Twitter. In one corner: Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who says talks are far along with Twitter’s founders, who previously sold Blogger to Google. In another corner: Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, who says Arrington cried wolf about Google acquiring Digg and Bebo, while noting that no one’s buying the well funded but poorly monetized Twitter for some crazy valuation. Backing up Swisher’s point is a story in Ad Age about how Google allows recent Twitter posts (or “tweets”) to be included in AdSense ads, which would signal that Google may be seeking to partner with Twitter rather than acquire it. Read the full article

Are search engines for toilets more than just bathroom humor? (Image via Flickr)

When you have to go on the go, where do you go? Yes, even the vertical of toilet search engines is rife with competition.

There may be some kinds of searches that are more critical, like when you have an emergency need for a plumber or a proctologist. But on that curve of searches that are both critical to your well-being and likely to arise in an average month, the need for a good bathroom search engine hits that sweet spot; parents with young children will find such engines especially useful. It’s time to seek out the No. 1 bathroom search engine, even when you really need number two. Read the full article