Internet Marketing and Social Media Consultants

Google’s Matt Cutts is reporting that Google plans on updating toolbar PageRank in the next couple of days, and will also be removing some of the penalties incurred during the great PageRank massacre of 2007.

Many blogs that feature paid posts were demoted last year (apparently) for chronic selling of paid links. Some paid media providers were more interested in promoting themselves than their clients, and littered their blogger sites with a cornucopia of easily identified code. I’m not saying this is exactly how it went down, but it couldn’t have helped.
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Ever since I purchased my iMac back in March, it has been plagued with wireless dropouts. It’s not the worst thing in the world, they usually occur every couple hours or so and are worse while doing certain tasks. For most normal web surfing, it’s not a problem. It doesn’t make the computer unusable, but for tasks that require a long, steady connection (like Skype), Leopard is a disaster. On my iMac, Skype lasts about two minutes before shutting down. On my little Eee PC, I can talk on Skype forever in full camera mode and it never dies. And this is at the same desk as my Mac.
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This fall, Facebook will integrate Microsoft’s Live Search with their social network, giving Microsoft the ultimate return on their $240 million investment. Along with Live Search will come Microsoft’s search advertising. Things were already looking up for Live Search, and now they’re looking even better.

Live Search had a big month in May, getting 15% more visitors than the previous month, and they have also inked a deal with Hewlett-Packard to get the Live Search toolbar installed on HP PC’s.

MySpace has a similar search and ad deal with Google, but so far, things aren’t exactly going to plan. Lackluster results have led to finger pointing from both sides, notably with MySpace accusing Google of doing a poor job with their ad service. Searches just aren’t utilized through social networks very much. People are accustomed to using the search bar in their browsers by now.
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Google today has formally launched Knol, their service for the sharing of knowledge about anything the author may have in mind. While on the surface it may resemble Wikipedia, there are some key differences that make it unique and unlike an online encyclopedia.

First of all, there is no one entry for a particular topic. In Knol, a search for a particular topic will bring up any number of results, all individually rated and commented upon. The author is the only one allowed to make changes to a particular knol, and can moderate based on his or her preferences. Instead of Wikipedia’s one entry for “ford mustang,” there may be several on Knol written by several different authors. The most relevant ones will be thus rated by users and will appear at the top of the heap.
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Robert Scoble went on a rant today about the sorry state of Tech blogging. He covered a wide variety of issues, including the influence of PR firms, the lack of fact checking that goes on in a rush to be first, and the inordinate interest in business (the Yahoo deal’s constant place on TechMeme being one of his pet peeves).
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