Archive for August, 2009

by Claudine Zap

Our top picks from the day's hottest searches.

1. Parker Posey (Searches increased by 8,070%). After being diagnosed with Lyme disease, the actress dropped out of the play "This."
2. Gypsy (+2,184%). A Romanian trio criticized a crowd for booing Madonna after she took a stand against discrimination of gypsies.
3. Concentration camps (+597%). The Israeli prime minister will receive blueprints to a Nazi death camp during his trip to Germany.
4. Girl Scout cookies (+152%). We'll take a box of Thin Mints, please. The real kind, not the Walmart knockoff.
5. Yosemite National Park (+151%). A rockslide forced guests to evacuate the historic Ahwahnee Hotel.

Follow us on Twitter

Want a little more SearchMonkey in your Yahoo! search results? Starting today, more enhanced results for product, local, entertainment, reference, social, and tech sites will appear automatically in your results, putting more information and answers right at your fingertips.

First, we’d like to thank everyone who deployed microformats, RDFa, and feeds in response to our blog post in May. Thanks to your efforts, we’ve finished user testing for the new enhanced results templates and have deployed these templates in production. This means that in addition to Video, Documents, and Games, you can now add Products, Local Businesses, Event, Discussions, or News items to your pages. Anyone who provides structured data according to the specified format will automatically gain SearchMonkey default-on status, as long as it adheres to our terms of use.

For example, here are some results you’ll see when you search for products:

Here are some results you’ll see when you search for local businesses:

You can see the ratings, number of reviews, phone number, and address for local businesses right on the search results page. You can also see the ratings, price, and number of reviews for products, helping you decide which page fits your interest most, and find what you’re looking for faster.

In addition to these SearchMonkey templates, we’re also releasing a number of custom SearchMonkey default-on applications. Entertainment buffs will be particularly excited about a few of the Entertainment apps, including RottenTomatoes, Netflix, IMDB, and Yahoo! Movies.

The following are just a couple of examples you’ll see when you search for entertainment-related info:

Beyond entertainment, we’re also automatically turning on results for high performing sites in as the social networking, reference, and download categories. The list includes Friendster, Britannica, and FileHippo.

We laud the efforts that developers everywhere have put into developing the SearchMonkey ecosystem and their contribution toward improving the search experience for users.

Great apps are built every week so look forward to even more SearchMonkey in your search results in the future – we’re looking forward to it, too.

Yi-An Lin and Nick Cox

Senior Product Manager

Yahoo! Search

Now that most advertisers are using the new interface exclusively, we want to share some efficiency tips to really unlock the potential of the new interface.

by Claudine Zap

You know things are bad when a state has to throw a garage sale to help pay the bills. Welcome to the California nightmare. The state is super-broke, in the hole by about $26 billion. They've cut the budget to the bone, but are still in need of some quick cash. (They really have tried everything else, from IOUs to considering early release of prisoners.)

So the state did what any hard-up citizen would do on a summer weekend. It rifled through its supply closets to come up with all sorts of odds and ends — and priced them to move. Some items are already for sale online, while the warehouse sale continues through the weekend at the state capitol. Yahoo! searches for "state of california garage sale" surged 128% on the news.

To add some sizzle to the sale, Gov. Schwarzenegger autographed 15 sun visors of the 500 government cars up for auction. (About those cars: No guarantees, no returns, no exceptions.) You can conveniently place bids on the state's eBay site. Bargain hunters hoping to take home the governator's Hybrid Hummer for a song, guess again. Some of the options are the far less glamorous GMC office van, Pontiac Grand Prix, and Honda Civic Hybrid — and that one's going for over $8,000.

Beyond cars, surplus inventory includes your basic office supply furniture: chairs, wood desks, coat racks. (We're hoping no government employees show up at work only to find their desks and chairs gone). Laptops are also selling on Craigslist (operating systems not included). Not too sexy, admittedly. But hey, money is money. And in this sad state, every penny counts.

Follow us on Twitter

by Mike Krumboltz

If it exists, it can be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, nobody told John Mayer. The singer-songwriter-smooth operator challenged gossip site TMZ to find his mug shot from 2001. If they did, Mayer said he would donate $25k to a charity of TMZ's choice. Game. On.

Alas, the game didn't last very long. In very short order both TMZ and The Smoking Gun tracked down the police booking photo and published it for all to mock. (According TMZ, The Smoking Gun actually found it first.) Searches immediately soared on "john mayer mugshot" and "john mayer tmz" as did related queries on "what was john mayer arrested for."

The answer to that last inquiry is rather anticlimactic — Mayer was busted for driving without a license. Here's the photo for your amusement. Stay tuned for more on what charity will benefit from Mayer's hubris.

Follow us on Twitter

On a quest to explore the old adage, I recently returned from an engaging Image Search session at SES San Jose where I had the opportunity to talk about the Image Search market, share some customer insights, as well as demo some of the ways we’re focused on helping users with images in Bing.   

Since this was the first panel in recent history solely devoted to Image Search, the first question I explored was a fundamental question: How important is Image Search to the overall search market?   What many people may not realize is how big the Image Search market actually is.  In fact, according to Comscore (June ’09), over 60 million searchers generate over 1 Billion queries a month, driven both by the explosion of image content on the web today, and the increasing need of consumers to use images to help them complete tasks.  These were impressive stats, and make searching for images one of the top search engine activities we see today.

Diving a bit deeper, I was interested in sharing some insights into what customers are doing and what they need in an Image Search experience.  Behavioral data shows that consumers engage deeply in Image Search tasks, with nearly double the page views per query on average as we see in the more text-centric core search experience.   Looking at the consumer research, our analyses show that images on a traditional search results page are a big driver of consumer satisfaction, especially for task related queries like buying products, catching up on celebrity gossip, or planning a trip.  This is one reason why we are seeing images both on the main search results page and within the Image Search verticals.    Furthermore, a study conducted by Microsoft Research shows that consumers can process results with images 20% faster than text only results.  So it’s clear that images play a big part in helping consumer’s complete tasks for a variety of search activities where decision making is enhanced by a more visual search experience. 

Images in Bing

OK, since this is an image discussion, let’s show you some cool pics of ways images are enhancing the Bing experience!

Rich Homepage

Search is a daily activity for most people, so at Bing, we wanted to make the home page a great place for consumers to start their search experience.  Since consumers love rich images, we feature a fast-loading, and beautiful picture to enhance the Search experience daily (by the way thanks to all for the great feedback on this feature.) Click here for more cool info on our home page.

Image Search

One of the key areas of emphasis within Bing is our Image Search vertical, which is a great way to access the billions of images on the web today. 

In addition to our massive index, there a host of useful features that make searching for images a great experience within Bing.  Why wait for Images?  Infinite Scroll enables you to have a quick and easy way to view virtually unlimited images by simply scrolling down the page.  Another popular feature is the Related Search images found in the Explore Pane (the pane of tools on the left).  Related Searches in images enables consumers to quickly find other images of interest, based on what is most relevant for that query.  It’s an easy way to explore more about a topic.  Image search also has powerful viewing options (in the upper right), so you can choose how much detail you see on the page, from multiple small images to larger images with image details like the below.  

Also in the Explore Pane, Image Search has numerous filtering tools to help you quickly find what you’re looking for, including the ability to filter by image size, color, style, or body view.   The screenshot below is an example of how a search for Madonna can be then focused down to just the black and white, face-only images of Madonna.  It’s a great way to quickly refine the image you’re looking for.

One of the coolest features is our color detection feature that understands the colors in the query and returns items of the same color – super quick and helpful for many shopping and image related tasks!

We’re constantly adding new image features, so look for more additions soon.  In the meantime, one of the questions we get from webmasters and publishers is how do we ensure the images on our site are optimized for search?  

Here’s what our top image developer recommends:

• Name image files appropriately – For improved relevance, make sure that the file name describes the image appropriately.
• Alternative image text (alt text) matters – For increased optimization, make sure photos are properly described with alternative text tags, and ensure that test within any images is also
• Watch frame breaking – Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search.  Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.

For additional information on how to get the most out of the images on your site check out the great post here, or find more information at our resource center called Toolbox.

So that’s the brief recap of the panel presentation and a quick overview of the Image Search space.  Hope you found it useful.   The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words certainly holds true here - all the data supports how significant a role images play in Search.  And with Bing, our focus is to continue to build out image experiences focused on helping consumers complete the tasks and make the decisions that matter most to them. 

So check out our Image Search… I hope you enjoy all the images that make Bing a delightful and productive search experience. 

Todd Schwartz-Bing

If you're a publisher located in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Slovenia, or Vatican City, you can now switch to local currency reports to view your earnings in Euros. Once you make this change, any earnings generated from advertisers paying on other currencies will be converted to Euros each day. This also means that if you're receiving payments in Euros, there won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month when payments are issued.

Before you switch to local currency reports, we suggest you download and save copies of your past reports in U.S. dollars for your records. Once you've done that, look for the green prompt in the upper right hand corner of your Reports Overview page. Click the link in the prompt, and you'll be asked to agree to a new set of Terms and Conditions. If you have questions or need legal advice on interpreting the new Terms, please don't hesitate to contact your attorney.

We encourage you to switch to local currency reports soon, since we'll be requiring this update in the future. You can learn more about these new reports in our Help Center, and we also recommend reviewing answers to a few FAQs we covered on the blog before.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

We are committed to providing a safe, secure and positive experience for our more than 300 million customers across the globe using Windows Live Messenger every month. To deliver on that commitment, beginning on August 25, we started asking our customers using versions 8.1, 8.5 and 14.0 to upgrade to the newest version of Messenger. The upgrade will provide customers with the latest software updates including code fixes and feature enhancements, as well address vulnerabilities discussed in the Microsoft Security Advisory 973882 that existed in previous versions of Windows Live Messenger.

The upgrade process will take place in a phased approach over the next several weeks:

First Phase, Optional Upgrade:
The optional upgrade will happen in two stages:
Starting Aug. 25, customers using versions 8.1 or 8.5 were asked to upgrade their client.
Starting early Oct., all customers using versions 14.0 (but not the latest release 14.0.8089) will be asked to upgrade their client.
The upgrade at this time is optional. Customers who haven’t upgraded during the optional phase will be required to do so during the second phase. 

Second Phase, Mandatory Upgrade:
The mandatory upgrade will happen in three stages:
Starting mid-Sept., all customers using Messenger 8.1 or 8.5 will be required to upgrade their version of Windows Live Messenger.
Starting late Oct., all customers using Messenger 14.0 will be required to upgrade their version of Windows Live Messenger.
To ensure that we are protecting customers, those who do not administer the upgrade will not be able to sign in to Messenger after this time.

Please Note: It will take several weeks for the upgrade process to be completed, as the upgrade will be rolled out to customers over the course of several weeks. 

Below are some examples of the prompts that you will encounter during the upgrade process. 

Notification to upgrade.

Want to upgrade now?  You don’t have to wait for the notification. In fact, we encourage you to download the updated version of Messenger right now by visiting http://download.live.com .

If you aren’t sure which version you have, you can go to the Help menu and select About Messenger.  Help –> About Messenger.  If you have a version that is lower than 14.0.8089 you will need to upgrade.

New Features and Improvements

There are a ton of great new features and improvements in the current version of Windows Live Messenger (14.0.8089) that we know you will be impressed with. In fact, Windows Live Messenger won both the Editor’s Choice distinction by PC Mag as well as a 2009 Webware 100 award from CNet honoring the people's choice for the best Web 2.0 apps and services. Learn more about all the new features in Windows Live Messenger here.

Users upgrading from 14.0

Customers currently using Windows Live Messenger 14 are already enjoying the new features of the latest version of Window Live Messenger. We’re doing our best to minimize the impact this upgrade may have on our customers and apologize for any inconvenience it may cause.

To answer any questions you may have, we’ve provided a short FAQ about the upgrade process below.

Thanks,
The Windows Live Messenger Team

FAQ – Windows Live Messenger update

What are the changes with the new upgrade?
The changes vary depending on which version of Windows Live Messenger people currently have on their PC. The process will upgrade customers of Windows Live Messenger 8.1 or 8.5 to our latest version. Separately, customers who installed Windows Live Messenger client 14.0 before August 19, 2009 will receive a code fix, but there will be no visible feature changes. 

What is new in the latest version of Windows Live Messenger?
With the current version of Windows Live Messenger, several new, socially oriented features and an entirely new look and feel were introduced:
• Personalization. Add a profile picture or video, display a personal scene in the chat window, update the status message with your news, add a favorite link, or add what song you’re listening to. 
• Integration of “What’s New” feed. With the “What’s New” feed in Messenger, you can stay in touch with the latest updates from your circle of friends at a glance, without any need to log in across multiple destinations.
• Photo sharing. Photo sharing lets you share and comment on pictures while you’re chatting.
• Favorites. Identify your most important contacts and they will appear at the top of your Messenger window, for easy access. It’s like speed dial for your Messenger contacts.
• Groups. Create groups on the fly and chat simultaneously with up to 20 members at the same time.              

Who will receive the upgrade notification?
All Windows Live Messenger clients with versions 8.1, 8.5 or 14.0 will receive the upgrade notification. Beginning August 25, customers of Messenger 8.1 or 8.5 were prompted to upgrade their client. Customers who installed the latest Windows Live Messenger client (14.0) before August 19, 2009 will start receiving an upgrade notification in September 2009. Customers of older versions of MSN Messenger on Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, Windows Me or Windows 98 will not receive an upgrade notification.

Update (Aug 28 6:30pm PST) 

Hi everyone, we’ve had several comments about what happens if you are running an operating system on which you cannot install the latest version of Messenger.  In this case, you will NOT be prompted to upgrade and can continue to use the version you currently have.

To clarify, if you are running Messenger 8.1, 8.5 or 14.0 on the following operating systems: Windows XP 32bit, Windows Vista (32bit/64bit), Windows 7( 32bit/64bit) or Windows Server 2008, you will receive the upgrade notice.  See this link for the system requirements of the latest version. http://download.live.com/SystemRequirements

---

by Claudine Zap

Our top picks from the day's hottest searches.

1. Dominick Dunne (Searches increased by 12,552%). The chronicler of celebrity crime has died.
2. Vogue (+436%). A documentary offers a look at the the making of the fashion mag's most important issue of the year.
3. CIA jobs (+517%). Spies-in-training: The agency is recruiting.
4. Steve Martin (+163%). How do you get to Carnegie Hall? By playing the banjo.
5. Calories burned calculator (+77%). For maximum effect, count your calories while walking on the treadmill.

Follow us on Twitter

My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don't speak English very well, it's been tough. Today we're releasing a feature for Google Docs to make this kind of multi-lingual sharing easier — you can now automatically translate documents into 42 different languages.

So for my cousin's latest story, I helped her type it up in Google Docs and then clicked "Translate document" from the "Tools" menu. In a matter of seconds, Google Docs has translated the whole story into Japanese using Google Translate's technology.



You can replace the original document with the translation or make a new translated version. I like keeping an English version for friends here and creating a separate Japanese version for her grandparents. All the formatting and layout is preserved no matter what language it's in — translations aren't perfect, but we are continuously working on improving translation quality over time. We hope this new feature helps you more easily share information without worrying about language barriers.

Posted by Rita Chen, Associate Product Manager Intern, Google Docs