Yahoo! vs. Facebook Patent Battle Escalates Even Further
The animosity between Yahoo! and Facebook is picking up pace once again as Yahoo! adds two more infringement claims against Facebook taking the total to 12.
These claims come just when the social networking giant is busy with its initial public offering slated for release later this month.
For those who don’t know, about a month back Yahoo! filed a law suit in a San Jose Federal District Court accussing Facebook of knowingly infringing ten of Yahoo’s patents. This lawsuit comes after Yahoo! gave Facebook a final warning to pay a licensing fee to use the technology stolen from Yahoo!. Facebook did not pay much heed to Yahoo’s claim and instead filed a counter lawsuit claiming that it was Yahoo! who has infringed 10 of their patents. Wow, talk about a soap opera!
In its latest petition, Yahoo! has denied any violation of the patents Facebook has cited in its suit and argues that the social networking site is infringing on 2 more of their patents.
Backing its claim with relevant paper work Yahoo! said that
Facebook lacks a good faith basis for most, if not all, of its counterclaims, particularly those patents that it purchased from others.
Yahoo! has reportedly demanded an undisclosed amount of monetary compensation for the use their web technologies in areas ranging from social networking to instant messaging to advertising and privacy.
The 2 patents that are being contested by Yahoo! are “System and Method to Determine Validity of and Interaction on a Network” and the “System and Method Allowing Advertisers to Manage Search Listings in Pay for Placement Search System Using Grouping”, which the Yahoo! alleges is being violated by Facebook Ads.
In an e-mailed statement from Yahoo!, the company said:
Today’s filing underscores the breadth of Facebook’s violation of Yahoo!’s intellectual property. As we have stated previously, Yahoo!’s technologies are the foundation of our business that engages over 700 million monthly unique visitors and represent the spirit of innovation upon which Yahoo! is built. We intend to vigorously protect these technologies for our customers and shareholders.
Responding to Yahoo!’s claims, Facebook released a statement saying:
We remain perplexed by Yahoo!’s erratic actions. We disagree with these latest claims and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.
Many in the know in Silicon Valley perceive Yahoo!’s decision to sue Facebook as a desperate attempt to grab its stake in the IPO action. But whatever it is, it sure makes for a juicey news saga.
Just Launched: Google AdWords for YouTube Videos
Google recently announced that AdWords for Video is out of Beta and has been given its very own platform in YouTube for anyone who wishes to cash in on their video.
For those who are unaware, AdWords for Video follows in the footsteps of its counterpart on Google search, the only difference here being that you pay only when someone clicks to view your video and watches the entire ad (also known as True View Pricing). For example, if someone clicked ‘skip’ in the first thirty seconds, the advertisers doesn’t pay anything. But if the ad runs it’s full course (30 seconds), the advertiser will be charged a cost-per-view (just like cost-per-click).
Four types of True View ad formats have been made available for advertisers to choose from and determine exactly where they would want their ads to appear on YouTube and the Google Display Network (GDN). These ad formats are:
- In-stream – ads play like a TV-style ad before, during or after another video from a YouTube partner
- In-search – ad appears in a special promoted section of the video search results pages on YouTube and Google video results
- In-slate – ads show before YouTube partner videos that are 10 minutes or longer
- In-display – ads appear alongside other YouTube videos, or on websites on the Google Display Network that match your target audience
To keep things simple, Google is allowing advertisers to create and manage video campaigns from the very same platform as their search and display ads.
Advertisers with some experience in video advertising can now look forward to targetting their ads to the right audience of YouTube users because AdWords for Video gives an option to promote a video ad by specific keywords so that they appear in YouTube search results. Advertisers can also choose to show their ad against content their target market are most interested in. For example for a business selling sporting equipments, it would make sense to have their ads appear in sport-themed videos.
To sweeten the deal, Google is giving away a total of $50 million in free advertising credits worth $75 to the first 500,00 new Google Adwords account holders.
Here’s a quick look at how Google AdWords for Video works
Google Ranking Explained in Just 8 Minutes
Last week Matt Cutts released a video titled “How Does Google Search Work?″ that explains how Google crawls, uses page rank, sets priorities, indexes, and filters in just 8 mins.
Part history lesson, part education lesson; Cutts kicks off by explaining the journey that crawling has taken since he first started at Google. Actually when he first began working at Google, they only crawled website’s every three or four months. Imagine if that was the case now; webmasters and SEO’s would be up in arms!
Stating Page Rank as a crucial parameter for deciding your website’s ranking in Google, Cutts explained
We basically take page rank as the primary determinant. And the more page rank you have– that is, the more people who link to you and the more reputable those people are– the more likely it is we’re going to discover your page relatively early in the crawl.
Among other topics Cutts covered in his video included how Google is laying great emphasis on the freshness of a website (hint hint, webmasters!), although he does not go into explaining how the freshness of a site actually affects the overall ranking in the SERPs. But basically, a website with fresh, up-to-date relevant content surely stands a better chance of being crawled and indexed faster than sites with old content.
Cutts’ attempt to provide an overview of how Google works within just 8 minutes is commendable but don’t expect to hear any new groundbreaking info. This really is a video targeted at marketers who are relatively new to search however the video’s can be helpful for understanding the basics. However, it is good to get an explanation of how the Google search engine works from someone who really knows what he’s talking about and who has been there from the start.
For those who want to take a look, enjoy!
Exact Match Keywords Coming to Google AdWords
Research shows that 97% of website visitors do not convert the first time they visit. With this in mind, Google is now offering you a new way to re-market and re-engage with your potential customers and bring them back to your website.
Just days after introducing zip code targeting to Google AdWords, Google announced another set of changes to the AdWords property, this time an update that will improve matching behavior for keyword or phrase in search queries.
Following this update the traditional “keyword or phrase” and [exact] match rules will now include misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents, abbreviations and other variants.
According to Google:
Based on our research and testing, we believe these changes will be broadly beneficial for users and advertisers.
People aren’t perfect spellers or typists. At least 7% of search queries contain a misspelling, and the longer the query, the higher the rate.
Advertisers who already have misspellings, variants, abbreviations, etc in their AdWords campaign will not be affected significantly by this change. However for those who do not have these variants already included; Google’s new Matching Behaviour could prove to be a beneficial tool to tap into the pool of potential traffic that might have gone unnoticed due to keyword misspellings, variants, and abbreviations usage.
Google warns that advertisers must be aware of two things:
- The new “Matching Behavior” will be automatically activated and set as the default behavior to all AdWords accounts unless advertisers decide to ‘opt-out’ an option Google will offer to advertisers in this controlled feature. If you don’t want the potential for more clicks and prefer to maintain the current matching behavior in your campaign, you’ll still have that option. In the coming weeks, Google will begin rolling out controls which will allow you to adjust your keyword matching options. Once they’re live, log in to AdWords and select the campaign settings tab. Under “Advanced settings” select Keyword matching options”.
- It is important, that advertisers are careful while assigning acronyms, misspellings (that are relevant to their ads) etc to their ad campaigns as it will have a direct impact on their ad performance and campaign budgets.
The actual matching won’t start until mid-May to give users a chance to opt out if they’d like.
Want to Sell Products Online? 8 of the Best “New Breed” Online Store Builders
Many people dream of starting their very own online store. The chance to make $1000’s by becoming the next big online retailer.
That dream quickly evaporates when they start looking into the complexities of setting up an online store. With website design, ecommerce platforms, merchant accounts and payment gateways to sort out – it quickly becomes too hard and too expensive.
The following 8 sites are changing all that. These companies have totally changed the e-commernce model offering online retailing as a software as a service! That means:
- No expensive start-up costs
- No complex IT infrastructure
- Minimal ongoing platform management
- Almost INSTANT online stores
So welcome to the new breed of online store builders:
Shopify
Shopify is a hosted ecommerce solution that allows you to set up and run your own online store. List your products, customize your store’s design, accept credit card orders, and ship your goods — all with a few clicks of the mouse. Shopify is easy to use and there’s no software to download or maintain.
Goodsie
Make a branded storefront without any of the traditional hassles of setting up shop online. Click to design. No code. Customize layout, product display, background, fonts and colors in real-time. It’s simple, but the possibilities are endless.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel provides you with your own independent store to sell your stuff online. We provide clothing designers, bands, jewelry makers, crafters, and other artists with their own customizable store to sell their stuff online.
Spiffy Stores
Setting up an ecommerce website has never been easier! Spiffy Stores is popular for its easy-to-use interface, reliable 256 bit SSL security and low entry cost – you can start your own online store for less than a dollar a day.
Jumpseller
With JumpSeller creating an online store has never been easier. Sign up and start selling online in minutes. No technical knowledge needed, Multiple payment methods available and the option to sell in multiple languages.
Volusion
Build and manage your online store with a shopping cart software that’s full of easy-to-use tools – no programming skills required. It’s used by over 35,000 online stores.
Magento Go
A hosted eCommerce solution for small businesses with big ambitions. Magento Go offers the power and flexibility of Magento – the platform chosen by many of the world’s most respected brands – at a price that every business can afford.
Storeenvy
Storenvy is a marketplace and store platform for the world’s most unique businesses. Shop thousands of indie merchants or open your own store for free.
These great new SaaS online store builders make building your dream online store more of a reality. They’ve eliminated the infrastructure hassles, removed the costly barriers of entry and made web updating simple as pie.
Wannabe online retailing moguls should definitely check these and fellow “new breed” e-commerce solution sites out.
If you use a solution that’s worthy of the list – share it via the comments below.
Google Announces New “Brand Activate” Advertising Program
Google recently made a big announcement on changes to the way brands can advertise with the search giant.
It’s being dubbed as the ‘Brand Activate’ advertising program and will integrate useful brand metrics into the online marketing tools that advertisers use to manage and evaluate their online ad campaigns.
Big brands currently spend over $190 billion per year on television advertisements, so this move by Google could be a very lucrative one by attracting these brands to re-allocate their budget from traditional advertising methods to more modern online advertising methods.
The first Brand Activate solutions to be rolled out for advertisers are:
- Active View: measures if the ad was seen by the user, the percentage of the ad that was seen, and the duration of ad exposure. Google will only count the ad as “viewed” if the advertisement was “at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least one second.”
- Active GRP metrics: similar to the Gross Rating Point metric used by the television industry. However, since the metrics are delivered in real-time, Active GRP will allow advertisers to quickly measure the effectiveness of a campaign and adjust accordingly.
Active View is expected to make its first appearance within the Google Display network in a few weeks time and will eventually be available within the Double-Click network. Active View data will be immediately actionable; meaning advertisers will be able to pay only for viewed impressions.
Here’s how Neal Mohan, Google’s VP of Display Advertising, explains the service:
The objective is [to] make it easier for more and more brand dollars to come online.
One of the biggest opportunities to crack the nut as it relates to brand advertising is in the area of measurement.
We think that a new generation of measurement solutions will help brands quantify the benefits of investing online and will help to fund the next generation of great online content and services.
If you want to know more about “Brand Active” advertising, check out the video below or read the official announcement here.
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