Microsoft launches a new social network, but why?
When it comes to large tech companies and how they've fared with social networking, one could argue that Microsoft is the most successful.
Google has struggled to build viable homegrown social networks, Yahoo has largely done little of note, AOL purchased Bebo for $850m only to drive it into the ground, etc.
Microsoft's claim to success in the social space? A $240m investment in Facebook in 2007 which valued the social network at $15bn.
Online advertising trends in Q1 2012
With the adoption of new ad formats and further penetration of tablets, the growth of paid search is on the up. According to IgnitionOne's new online report on Global Online Advertising, the first quarter of 2012 showed a 30.3% year on year growth in search advertising.
The comprehensive report outlines some of the biggest areas of growth in this area including targeted paid search spend, Yahoo/ Bing market share and an increase of mobile search activity, especially from tablets.
UK search traffic up 9% in February: infographic
UK internet users made 2.2bn visits to search engines in February 2012, an increase of 174m visits year-on-year.
The data, compiled by Experian Hitwise, also shows that Google’s dominance has slightly increased - while Microsoft and Yahoo saw both monthly and year-on-year declines in traffic.
Google accounted for a massive 91.57% of search traffic in February, up 0.93% from January 2012 and an increase of 0.89% year-on-year.
Bing and Yahoo's 'Search Alliance': the experts' view
Yahoo has started the process of merging its UK search marketing accounts and search traffic into Microsoft's adCenter, so all search results and ads will now be delivered by Bing.
The migration, which is due for completion at the end of April, means the ad platform will now account for around 6% of UK search traffic.
2012: The trends every marketer should be aware of
As the countdown to 2012 speeds up, it's time for some predictions.
Here are five things brands will be devoting their time and budget to next year, including driving cross channel sales, multichannel attribution, and mobile marketing.
Bing drops CyberMonday.com, others over "thin" content
For companies hit by Google's Panda updates, the search giant's approach to cleaning up its index may seem quite unfair.
But if Google has been aggressive with Panda, its efforts appear to be no match when compared to Microsoft's efforts to increase index quality on Bing. Need proof? Just ask CyberMonday.com, which is run by the National Retail Federation's Shop.org.
Will Microsoft end up buying Yahoo?
In early 2008, Microsoft was willing to spend close to $45bn to buoy its search position. We know what happened next: Yahoo rebuffed, Microsoft walked away and Yahoo has floundered ever since.
It turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Microsoft. The economy, along with the stock market, tanked later in the year, saving Microsoft from what could have gone down as one of the worst timed deals in M&A history.
And despite the stock market's rebound over the past several years, Yahoo is still valued at well under half of what Microsoft was willing to pay in 2008.
Bing makes search more personal with Adaptive Search
For Microsoft, Google's overwhelming dominance of search has not deterred the Redmond software giant from trying to compete in the market.
In fact, if anything, it's only given Microsoft a greater incentive to try to recapture a market it probably believes it should have owned.
After years of failure, it's hard to argue that Microsoft has finally made some headway in the search wars with Bing. At the same time, of course, this doesn't mean that Bing will ever compete toe-to-toe with Google, or that Bing will ever become a profitable investment.
Five ways in which Bing is closing the gap on Google
In terms of hard numbers Google is still the leader in the search engine market, certainly in the US, UK and many parts of Western Europe, but that doesn’t stop Microsoft’s Bing from pulling out all the stops to gain some ground.
Here are five important ways in which Bing might just be starting to get an edge on Google.
Schema.org: good for Google, Bing and Yahoo, bad for everyone else?
Google, Bing and Yahoo may not be the best of friends, but every once in a while they do get together in a high-profile way.
That was the case yesterday, when the search trio announced the launch of Schema.org, which seeks to add more structure to content on the web.
