Fastest rising searches for 09.

Last year it was all about Heath, Barrack and iPhones, but Google released this week the top ten fastest rising search terms for 2009.

So the top ten are (drum roll):

• Swine Flu (lets be alert but not alarmed about this one!)
• Susan Boyle
• Masterchef
• Stimulus Package (I wonder what “other” results were returned?)
• Wimbledon
• Twitter
• bing
• one hd
• afl fixture 2009
• bruno

So why is this important?

From Google’s Blog:

Because people use Google to search for what's new and interesting, trends in search terms are a good reflection of what's been on everybody's minds so far this year.

Search volume trends can also be a glimpse of people’s response to a changing world around them, especially in light of the unprecedented global economic events. (According to research conducted by Monash's Australian Centre for Retail Studies, 50% of people research their purchases and decisions online before purchasing).

You can read more at Google’s Australia blog. Also its worth checking out Google Insights For Search, which allows you to track search terms and their popularity over the last 12 months.

Could Bing become Microsoft’s Search Saviour?

It is no real secret that Live Search didn’t seem to live up to Microsoft’s expectations. Now with the recent launch of their Bing search engine it would appear that MS would like to rectify things. They have come out somewhat “guns blazing” with their not subtle pokes at Google in their recent campaign of American TV commercials, with the theme being “Search Overload”.

Watch one of the commercials here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIxfk3hS0uU

It seems that MS are really trying to brand themselves something here, titling Bing’s easy all-in-one style search as a “decision engine”.

Any seasoned web searcher knows that Google offers the same features as Bings, i.e. weather, movie times etc. and it doesn’t look like Google are too shaken by MS’s new search revamp. After all, as of last month (June 2009) Google still held almost 75% of US search engine share. http://www.flickr.com/photos/searchengineland/3704354971/

At the end of the day, it really is up to the users to decide, and the advertising that Microsoft is employing is sure to make regular users more aware of their search engine than ever.

While Google sometimes seems unstoppable, Bing just may win Microsoft back some of the Search Engine Market Share it seems to desire.

Australian Anthill no longer producing Print Version.

It was interested to see today, that Australian Anthill Magazine (a magazine covering 'fast growth' business) has stopped producing its print version after 6 years, instead deciding to focus its attention on its online activities.

In a message to subscribers, founder James Tuckerman said:

This year, our evolution has continued, heavily influenced by the state of the economy and reader migration online – forcing us to question our identity and plans for the future.

Anthill has always prided itself on its ability to embrace change – we are advocates of change – despite the hardship, cynicism, criticism and just plain confusion that change causes. This is one of those occasions.

You read more at Mumbrella
Also check out Australia Anthill

Police raid “rave” after viewing on facebook

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook in recent years have grown at extraordinary rates, allowing millions of people to communicate. However, it’s not just the public that has caught on to this fad; riot police, arrived by helicopter, dressed in full suits of camouflaged body armour stormed Andrew Poole's 30th birthday party in the small village of Exeter, Devon in Britain it was advertised on Facebook as an ‘overnight’ event.

The police say that the reason for their intrusion was that the birthday event that Andrew had sent to his friends on Facebook – of which 17 people had confirmed, was posted as an overnight event which police somehow interpreted as a rave.

This then prompted the response the police cars, riot van and a helicopter.

Stories like this show just how powerful a tool social networking is, but it also is a warning to people on how the information that they provide to websites such as Facebook can be viewed by entities other than which you may have intended.

While this may be an extreme case, I suspect that this will not be the first time authorities will use social networking in order to try and reduce crime.

For more information on the story visit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200310/Police-raid-30th-birthday-barbecue-man-used-Facebook-invite-friends.html

Will the National Broadband network spell the end of Free to Air Television?

Will the new national broadband network (NBN) spell the end of Free to Air TV and pay TV? David Braue from Zdnet seems to think so, and I tend to agree with him. To quote an old TV Ad, it may not happen overnight but it will happen.
More at Davids blog here

Treading carefully - Who you should accept as friends on facebook.

Facebook is a great social networking tool - and offers many benefits such as sharing photos, keeping friends in the loop, inviting people to events and a lot more! However have you been selective in accepting "friends" or have you been accepting willy nilly every friend invitation?

If you haven't been selective (or at least making sure you know the people who you have accepted as a friend) - you could find yourself in the position of a women living in Switzerland. She has recently lost her job after her employers noticed she was updating her facebook profile (at home) when she had claimed to be too ill with a migraine to use a computer. She said the company had created a fictitious Facebook persona which become "friends" with her, allowing the company to monitor her online activity.

But the company says it followed a simple logic: that those who are well enough to use Facebook with a migraine are well enough to work with a migraine.

So should you accept invitations from your clients, suppliers or employers (or even your employees!)? To be honest I am not overly sure if this is a great idea. If you're happy with the fact that a client, customer or supervisor / boss can take a look at what shananigans you got up to on the weekend then go ahead - but I know many people would feel uncomfortable about it.

And this just doesn't apply to Facebook either. Whatever you post online is accessible by everyone (including prospective new employers!).

Leslie Nassar, a former Telstra employee had a very public spat with his employer over his fake Stephen Conroy account on Twitter, and ended up leaving (or possibly fired) due to his comments.

I guess the moral to all of this is:

a. Be careful what you post
b. Consider who can access what you post.

60% of new twitter users don't come back.

Apparently more than 60% of Twitter users have stopped using the service a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research released on Tuesday.

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty. Or in other words, Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month's users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 per cent". David Martin From Neilsen Online.

This may be related to the massive hype around twitter, and the rush of customers who are joining twitter without really understanding what it is all about or the benefits of using this service.

For those that don't know what Twitter is - its a free micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). For those users who are on Facebook - a good analogy would be updating your "status".

From a (business) perspective here are some good examples of using twitter

• Get Feedback on your products, services or marketing campaign
• Hire staff
• Drive traffic to your website
• Customer Notifications (telstra uses twitter for this)
• Event Updates

Also from a personal perspective

• Read news ("tweets" often contain links to other interesting material)
• Make friends and influence people
• Network with other like minded people.