Online Marketing

With today’s HP announcement and the recent MSN toolbar release, I want to discuss our recent moves in the toolbar space. Overall, these distribution deals come down to three things:

1. Live Search is ready for primetime

These types of deals require a search engine that can stand on its own, as we all know how easy it is to switch to another search engine. Sure, Live Search has room to improve, but we’re confident that when consumers now try Live Search they’ll get relevant results, differentiated experiences, and a unique value proposition (see cashback).

2. Distribution can help with awareness and preference

We’re building a stronger consumer connection that starts with awareness and ends with preference. To be successful, we not only need to care about traditional consumer marketing campaigns to drive awareness. We also need to care about how other channels can help spread the word. We recognize that awareness for Live Search is low and that to crack into the consumer’s consciousness we need to be in front of them in more ways than one. Case in point: check out our new Search Share Facebook app.

3. Enabling partners is good for everyone

We need to provide publishers and our partners, like HP, with great tools and platforms to help them distribute content and reach their customers in new ways. The toolbar platform we have created exemplifies how we’re looking to extend customer service, brands, and content through great new experiences. With this platform we will be able to quickly build a branded feature and content-rich toolbar for HP’s entire line of US-based consumer PCs with just a few easy customizations. When the toolbar is released, HP will offer easy access to their online services like Snapfish and customer support, and bring their brand to life through Silverlight. Now imagine that type of customization for anyone and everyone on the Internet.

The HP toolbar highlights our excitement about the new developments we’re working on. Let us know what you think of the new toolbars.

Google Friend Connect lets webmasters add gadgets or applications that connect their sites to the social networks more easily.

Our readers might be getting a little tired of all our talk about the social web, but there is a fair argument for saying that the social aspect of the web has become an essential part of Internet searching and navigation during the last couple of years.

Google certainly thinks so, and is now facing the threat from the mighty Facebook with a new toolbox of its own.

Facebook has, as you probably know, added software plug-ins or applications that lets users add social interactivity to their Facebook home pages. These could, for instance, be quizzes, maps over countries you have visited etc.

Facebook is a closed system, though. An application developed for Facebook will not work on other social web sites.

Facebook apps for the rest of us

Google Friend Connect is an tool that lets web masters add functionality that will make their web sites more social, and that help visitors to add info that can be transferred to social web sites like Facebook and Orkut.

It is a preview release, meaning that only selected webmasters are allowed to make use of it at the present time.

Preprepared code can be used to help webmasters add

• User registration.
• The ability to invite friends from other social networks.
• Picture sharing and member photo galleries.
• Message posting and product reviews.

and more.

This means that you do not need to be a programmer to make your site more dynamic.

Gadgets from Open Social

Applications developed for other web sites may be used by you if they are made public on the Google Friend Connect website.

Within the framework of the Google Open Social network there have been developed a large number of such gadgets or applications.

The gadgets are put in an iframe on your web site, which means that they are separate web pages integrated into your web pages. Nowadays this is is technology that normally works well.

(The content within these iframes will not be spidered by the search engine spiders, however, a point to keep in mind if you add such apps to strenghten your search engine friendliness.)

Google adds that Google Friend Connect integrates with contact lists for social networks like Facebook, Orkut and Google Talk:

“This means users who join your site are instantly connected with friends who are already members, and can invite friends from other networks to visit. They can opt in to broadcasting their activities to friends in their social networks. A post to your message board, for example, can instantly be visible to people in multiple social networks, along with links leading to your site. These instant networks, combined with the wealth of OpenSocial gadgets, can form potent new online communities, very quickly and very easily.”

Click here to sign up for preview release.

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