“We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of [Twitter's] up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort; you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

It will be interesting (to say the least!) to see how Google displays Twitter posts in its search results pages, especially as it is yet another way it can denigrate traditional search results.

Is it the thin end of the wedge? Just for ’snow reports’? We will be eagerly watching this space …

Having your details in a Google Place Page will probably be good for business, but it’s not yet clear whether the Search Engine Optimisation of your website will have any bearing on how it appears in Place Pages. It will also make an impact on website traffic analysis, as people can find the information and contact details they need from your business without actually visiting your site.

If Place Pages takes off (and most of Google’s ideas do), it could mean that some users get the information they need from the web without ever leaving Google. If this is the case then optimising for Place Pages will become a key element of future Search Engine Marketing techniques.

We installed Snow Leopard on two different machines, a Macbook and a Macbook Pro, both of which are about a year old purchased mid 2008.

The installation on the Macbook said that it would take 45 minutes to complete once we got the installer running.  15 minutes into the installation the Macbook rebooted and started up with a completely black screen.  At this point we were concerned that the installation of Snow Leopard had failed and broken the machine, but despite the black screen the fan was going, we could hear the hard drive working and there was occasional DVD drive usage.  Then miraculously, 45 minutes after we started the intall the Macbook rebooted and started up perfectly.

The Macbook Pro took a little longer, the installer estimated 45 minutes to start with, then 20 minutes into the installation it said 52 minutes to complete.  The screen didn’t go blank for half an hour during the installation like the Macbook though and it took nearly an hour to complete the installation and reboot.

So following the installations of Snow Leopard what are our first impressions?

Well Apple claims  a reduction of 7GB hard disk usage with Snow Leopard and this certainly turned out to be true.  After installation, the Macbook regained 8GB of disk space, but the Macbook Pro regained 20GB!

The performance of both models has definitely improved and the new versions of Safari and Finder are a great deal quicker.  I have already set Safari back to being my default browser on the Macbook Pro as it renders pages far faster than Firefox 3.5.  With the Macbook there is a noticeable improvement in screen performance and clarity both with the inbuilt screen and when using an external screen.

One downside is that Snow Leopard broke Parallels 3 which we use for running Windows XP and Linux virtual machines.  Why, we don’t know.  The Parallels forums show posts claiming that Parallels were going to do an update to support Parallels 3 on Snow Leopard but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of this on their website as it says Snow Leopard support is only available in Parallels 4 and above.  So we upgraded to version 4 and had a few issues with the install because the installer wanted any suspended virtual machines to be stopped before installation, but we couldn’t stop them because Parallels 3 wouldn’t start.  We had backups of the virtual machines in a stopped state, so it wasn’t much of an issue though we have lost changes made to the suspended ones.  So a hours were lost sorting out Parallels, upgrading Virtual machines and then updating them.

On the whole, is £25 worth it for Snow Leopard, on the surface it certainly seems to be and the added support for Exchange 2007 is a great bonus, just don’t switch off your Macbook when the screen goes blank during the install!

At first glance, Woofer looks an awful lot like Twitter, although a disclaimer at the bottom of the page insists “We are not affiliated in any way whatsoever with Twitter”. The big (very big) difference is that each post (woof?) must contain a minimum of 1400 characters. This means users really do have to have something to say - it’s not easy to come up with 1400 characters about what you had for breakfast.

Woofer's disclaimer page.

While Woofer is at pains to make it clear that it is not linked with Twitter in any way, you are asked to provide your Twitter username in order to publish a post. This raises a major issue, as you are not asked to supply your password. This means you can attribute posts to any Twitter account you wish. While Woofer is obviously intended as a pastiche of Twitter, and most posts appear to be either copied and pasted sections from classic literature or the same word repeated until the character minimum has been reached, the possibilities for abuse are obvious. Apparently this issue is being ‘fixed’ at the time of writing.

Woofer is clearly meant as a novelty, but is it a sign that web users are growing bored of micro-blogging and want to get back to publishing longer and more meaningful posts? Only time will tell.

The most exciting of these new innovations is the new and improved version of their Search Engine (currently being referred to as Google Caffeine) which promises to be even faster than the current version. It also appears to be more reliant on keywords, which will make the need for good SEO even greater if you want your website to rank highly.

Another new tool that Google are currently working on is Side By Side, a search comparison tool which allows you to directly compare search results from Google with another Search Engine, in real time. Side By Side is aimed particularly at enterprise-level users, who can compare results from the Google  Search Engine and other Google applications with their own Site Search tools. Google is obviously confident that its results will compare favourably and attract new business for its own search applications.

It’s still too early to tell whether Bing poses any real threat to Google, but it certainly looks like things are about to get quite interesting in the world of Search Engine Marketing over the next few months.

Yesterday I just put a post up about Bing. But I accidentally called it Ning - which is a social networking site. And I didn’t notice until this morning, quickly changed the post, but then I realised - I had just demonstrated how unmemorable the name of this Microsoft/Yahoo! venture really is.

Ask your man on the Clapham omnibus what ‘Bing’ is, and they’ll start humming White Christmas. And we’re years away from people asking to be on the first page of Bing!

So introducing … Bing. Not just another Google clone, it has some intrinsic differences. We have been researching those differences and will publish findings on the i-Zimbra blog.

So far we are investigating some key features: Bing local, sitemaps and the rise and rise of social media …

It all started so well, with the perfectly reasonable: “1. Don’t shove as many keyphrases into the copy as humanly possible“. I agree, but it’s hardly ground-breaking. And then I read: “2. Don’t lose site of balance“. Sorry? “Site”?

Oh dear, I think Karon didn’t follow another golden rule of copywriting: don’t rely on your spellchecker to proofread your emails!

And where did I hear about this story? On Radio 4’s Today programme, not on the Internet.