It’s been one year since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, and governments and NGOs are continuing to respond, many using high-resolution images of the area. To support these efforts, we’ve updated our aerial imagery in Google Earth of the Port-au-Prince area to include images from before and after the earthquake, as well as made updates throughout 2010. These pictures provide an evolving view of the movement of people, supplies and rubble.To access this imagery directly, use ...

As a member of the Search Marketing community, I am always eager to see what great announcements those search engine powerhouses have in store for us. This year, my hope is that the search engines will realize that usability should be a primary ranking factor over some current metrics that are so... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

AMBER Alerts for missing children are now available to Facebook users. Facebook users can sign up to receive AMBER Alert bulletins for their state which will be sent to them through their news feed.  A total of 53 new AMBER Alert pages have been created, one for each state, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia.  Facebook users will also be able to share the AMBER Alerts with their friends.     Information about the new initiative was announced today by ...

Google has launched Google Places with Hotpot for the iPhone. Given the iPhone's pending availability to Verizon customers, this should provide a huge boost in use for Google's recently launched local offering. Google Places with Hotpot has been available in Google Maps for Android, but now it's a standalone iPhone app too.  Google Places with Hotpot lets you search for places that are nearby and personalizes the results based on places you've rated using the service in the past. More on how ...

Now that the holidays are over, many search marketers want to put their feet up and enjoy the down time. But does search ever have a lull? Not really – it is always on. However, the slow season offers search marketers a great branding and growth opportunity. The Opportunity For Brand Marketers... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

The Internet Society, a nonprofit organization for Internet standards has announced World IPv6 Day to take place on June 8. This is a day in which major web properties like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo (the three of which make up a combined billion visits per day) join major content delivery networks like Akamai and Limelight Networks for a 24-hour global trial of IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol.  The need for the new protocol arises as the older IPv4 runs out of room. "IPv4 has ...

The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) has introduced an extensive online exhibit at museum.tv called “We’ll be Right Back: 60 years of Television Commercials.” The online exhibit features MBC's archives of more than 10,000 commercials and nearly 100,000 hours of content. “We’ll be Right Back: 60 years of Television Commercials” spans more than six decades, and showcases more than 100 of the best television commercials from the 1940s through ...

There's lots left to do, and nothing's guaranteed, but it seems Firefox 4 will arrive in less than 50 days if all goes according to plan.  Word's come straight from Damon Sicore, Senior Director of Platform Engineering at Mozilla. In a post directed at Mozilla developers, Sicore indicated yesterday that Firefox 4 should launch before the end of February.  He wrote, "We've worked tremendously hard on Firefox 4, and it's time to ship it.  I'm seeing the same burst of excitement and ...

(Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Blog)We recently released Google Places with Hotpot in Google Maps for Android, and starting now, you can have that same great experience as an iPhone app. We realize the importance of finding places you’ll love while you’re out and about, no matter what mobile device you use. And Places with Hotpot not only helps you find places near where you are, it gives you the best places to go for you by personalizing your search results.In case you ...

With the automotive world assembling in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show, we thought it be a great time to debut our enhanced auto search. Now you can search for your favorite car and Bing will assemble all of the important information (price, Fuel Economy, user rating, listings in your area) as well as quick links to additional information right within the search result. Simply enter in the make and model and Bing autos will pull together everything you need to research in ...

Google announced that it will no longer support popular video codec H.264, with its Chrome browser. The move has raised some eyebrows. Google basically says it's about openness and that by removing support for the codec, it will enable innovation. Here's what Google said: We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are ...

Today, Google and major websites are joining the Internet Society to announce World IPv6 Day, a 24-hour test flight of the next generation Internet protocol on June 8, 2011.The story begins in 1977, when Vint Cerf, the program manager for the ARPA Internet research project (and now one of the driving forces behind Google’s IPv6 efforts), chose a 32-bit address format for an experiment in packet network interconnection. Who would have thought that the experiment would evolve into today’s ...

Yesterday, Google announced that it would stop supporting the H.264 video codec in Chrome, and in the process, praised the concept of openness.  That approach isn't always popular, however, and a Trend Micro exec cited it when stating that Android devices are less secure than the iPhone. Trend Micro founder and chairman Steve Chang explained to Tim Culpan, "Android is open-source, which means the hacker can also understand the underlying architecture and source code.  We have to give ...

TripAdvisor said today it has introduced airline ratings to its flight search engine. The new feature allows users to view feedback on airline experiences from other fliers and offer their own airline ratings.     When users do a flight search on TripAdvisor Flights, they can view and compare ratings for different airlines by clicking on the carrier name and seeing what percentage of fliers would recommend the airline to others. TripAdvisor has also introduced a Fees Estimator that ...

2011 is being touted as the year of the website, so the start of the New Year is the time to get your online marketing campaign started. The key is to plan your strategy so you don’t become overwhelmed or fork out too much money. I have outlined below some areas to consider when creating your plan: 1. Know Your Customer Its no use starting an online marketing campaign without knowing who your ultimate customers is. They are the ones you want to target your advertising at, after all. Some ...

Some Google AdWords advertisers are not pleased with what they are finding in Google's Search Query Performance reports for their campaigns. These reports show advertisers what keyword queries are surfacing their ads, and some are finding some of these keywords questionable.  You might think that an ad impression is an ad impression, but when you're charged by the click, you want the clicks to come from people who are likely to buy what you're selling, considering that you are paying Google ...

Every webmaster knows that you need a lot of links pointing to your website in order to get some traffic. Some of it comes directly through the links, and some results from improved search engine rankings. There are literally dozens of ways to find and negotiate new links to your website. Unfortunately, not all of [...]Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.Efficient Link Building With Planning and Tracking

Have you fallen victim to these search engine optimization pitfalls in the past? If so, it's time to correct them. Now. ...

Was one of your new year’s resolutions to make more money online with more visitor conversions? If so, then 2011 might be the year for you to expand your web presence to the foreign language internet. English is rapidly being overtaken as the lingua franca of the web, as foreign languages are seeing massive growths [...]Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.How to: Conduct Foreign Language PPC Campaigns

In the event you were “off planet” yesterday you still might not know that Verizon is getting its own version of the iPhone on February 10. There are some differences between the Verizon and AT&T versions of the iPhone beyond their underlying technology (CDMA vs. GSM). Among them... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.