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Stories Discussed In The Show

• Google Pushing New Blogger In Search Results
  Now that Blogger is officially out with a new version, I guess Google's ready to get behind the service in a big way. The screenshot above shows a new promotional "tip" I just got in my web search results. I've never seen anything like that before for Blogger nor that I can recall for any other Google products. Not like this. The tip reads:...
• Fury Over Google's Self Promotion & Wishing For Perspective - It feels like a bad week to be Google. Honestly, if there's a tipping point, the freakout that they've become the evil company they said they didn't want to be seems to have arrived. Goodness knows there's plenty to be concerned about with Google, as with any large powerful company. The entire Google could become the next evil Microsoft? Yeah, been there, covered that 2002. Maybe the fears are coming true. But then again, you kind of feel sorry for Google in that so many of the accusations, as usual, become unbalanced.
• Google Removes "Tips" Feature After Recent Blog Controversy
  A search on calendar and blog no longer brings up the Google Tips at the top. Danny explained the recent controversy over Google adding tips at the top of the results with his Fury Over Google's Self Promotion...
• Google Patches Serious Gmail Contacts Bug
  Via Threadwatch, Engadget's summary of a serious bug in Google's Gmail, where web sites can retrieve your Gmail contact list, through a JavaScript loophole, has now been fixed. The bug allowed web sites to pull...
• Google Accidentally Deletes Email Of 60 Gmail Users
  GigaOM and TechCrunch report that some Gmail users have noticed some or all of their mail has been deleted. Google has responded with an official statement, explaining there was a bug that affected about 60 Gmail users. Here's the statement via GigaOM:...
• Google's Not So Top Terms & Top US Gainers For 2006
  Last week, I wrote The Lies Of Top Search Terms Of The Year covering how the top terms of 2006 from Google turned out not to be the top terms at all in raw popularity. I caught up with Google at the end of that week to talk about this more but didn't have a chance to post a follow-up before Christmas hit. Now Google's done a blog post -- How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data -- explaining that the top searches list really should have been called the "top gaining searches" list. More on that below, plus...
• Of Disappearing Sex Blogs & Google Updates
  Last week, Barry Schwartz reported there seemed to be a Google update going, based on forum activity he was seeing. Google's Matt Cutts quickly followed up with a short refresher on the difference between algorithm updates, data refreshes and index updates. The purpose was to explain that any changes some people were seeing were likely small and seemingly restricted to individual sites as new data flowed in, rather than a massive algorithm change similar to the great Florida update of November and December 2003. All fine and good and reassuring until the great sex blog disappearance happened this week. Folks...
• 14 "Is Google Evil?" Tipping Points Since 2001
  Earlier I wrote how Google seems to have had a bad week, with some recent negative publicity making it seem like the tipping point of Google becoming the big bad company they don't want to be happening -- at least...
• Google To Make Stronger Effort With Blogging & Communication In 2007?
  Over the new years weekend, there have been a lot of posts about Google and their blogs and bloggers. I think Matt Cutts sums it up pretty well with his the real lesson from this week post. In short, Google Pushing...
• Marketers Answer; "Would You Hire Matt Cutts" Away From Google?
  Shoe Money has an excellent post where he asks different marketers, Would You Hire Matt Cutts? based on recent unconfirmed rumors that Matt is looking for new work. Let me first state that these are rumors and...
• Question & Answer Search Engines Ranked
  Via Slashdot, What's the Best Q&A Site? from MIT Technology Review tests several question and answer search engine services. They reviewed and ranked AnswerBag, Askville, Live QnA, Wondir, Yahoo Answers and Yedda. So how did they rank? Out of a total 12 points, Yahoo Answers scored 11 points, coming out tops...
• Q&A With Jimmy Wales On Search Wikia - News came out earlier this week that Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales had a new project in mind, to build a community-driven "Google-killer" search engine. I've just finished talking with Jimmy about his plans. Here's a rundown on his vision and what may come as his Search Wikia project grows over the course of the next year or two.
• Google Blog Search Passes Technorati In Visits
  Hitwise reports that Google Blog Search has passed Technorati in visits this week. Hitwise explains that when Google added a link from Google News to Google Blog Search in October, the traffic for Google Blog Search spiked by 168%. Hitwise reports that currently about 60% of Google Blog Search traffic comes from Google News referrals....
• Google Shows Quality Score Indicator To Some AdWords Advertisers
  This morning I posted a screen shot of the quality score in AdWords, showing a rating of Great, OK and Poor. The quality score does not show all that much, but it does show more than before. Plus, Google has set up some more documentation on what the quality score column means. The help page says that this is a "customizable...
• YouTube's "Content Identification System" Delay May Hurt Google's Plans
  YouTube software threat to Google plans by the Financial Times shows that an anticipated software release by YouTube to crack down on pirated videos with an "content identification system" software was delayed...
• YouTube Forced To Shut Down In Brazil
  Reuters reports that a Brazilian court has ordered YouTube to be shut down due to not preventing a celebrity sex video from being posted time and time again. Daniela Cicarelli and company sued YouTube after being...
• Microsoft's Live.com Advertises On Google
  It is always amusing when one of the big search engines advertisers on one of the other ones. Both Google and Yahoo advertise through each other's PPC programs. And now it looks like Microsoft has jumped into it...
• Some Of Digg's Ban Domain List
  The 10e20 blog complies a list of the sites they know are banned from Digg.com. There has been a recent wave of Digg bans, and reportedly, once your banned, you cannot get back in. Here is a current list of banned sites as per 10e20's post.
• Google Jet Spotted At Christchurch Airport, New Zealand
  Stuff.co.nz reports that the Google Jet was reportedly spotted at Christchurch airport in New Zealand yesterday afternoon, complete with a nice picture of the plane. They do not know who was on the plane owned by Google's founders. Reportedly, the plane's tail number was blocked out so that it cannot be tracked by the public via internet tracking sites. No official statement from Google has been made to confirm this news....
• New Mobile Flight Status Tracker By FlightStats
  Gary Price reports that FlightStats has added a mobile flight tracking site at http://mobile.flightstats.com/. So for all you holiday season travelers, bookmark this address on your mobile device (I did), to check flight status, departures and arrivals, flight arrivals, airline & airport information, security wait times and more....
• Top 101 Search Stories Of 2006
  Chris Winfield over at 10e20 has compiled a list of the top 101 stories in the search industry for the past year. He orders the stories in descending priority order, and most of the stories link to external sources. Here are the top five: (5) Google & Yahoo & Microsoft supporting the Sitemaps.org protocol (4) The Big Daddy Google Infrastructure change (3) Social search and media optimization and how it can be leveraged for SEOs (2) Danny Sullivan leaving Search Engine Watch for this fine blog (1) Google Buys YouTube for $1.65 Billion...
• Search Bloggers On Their Most Popular Posts & Stats For 2006
  Search bloggers around the globe are celebrating the holiday season by giving the gift of competitive intelligence. From sharing their most popular posts to giving up all of their precious web statistics - a community of search bloggers are sharing more than they ever have....
• Search Engine Journal's 2006 Blog Awards Announces Winners
  Search Engine Journal has announced all the winners of the 2006 blog awards that we voted for a couple weeks ago. Here are the winners broken down...