Over 1.2 billion people worldwide now use online social networks, and you might presume that Facebook is the biggest site in every country, with Americans being the most social-networking obsessed of all – but you’d be wrong.

Since the GoDaddy protests of last December, the seemingly innocuous terms SOPA and PIPA have been on the lips of tech-savvy individuals the world over.

The concept of cloud computing is nothing new, but its adoption by businesses as their sole method of operations is an idea that’s still greeted with trepidation.

We’re less than two weeks into the New Year and Google have already announced the first major movement of 2012 in the great social media war – social searches.

In a further step towards a regulated internet, the US Government is currently attempting to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill aiming to strengthen copyright laws.

Following on from our look at QR and AR codes, we take a closer look at Augmented Reality in this second part.

You’d have been hard pushed this summer to avoid the marketing world’s latest digital concept, the smart phone conduits of QR and AR (or Quick Response code and Augmented Reality, to give them their full names).

The new update which allows Facebook comments, posted via Facebook Commenting Plugins on websites, to be indexed by Google, has been met with a very mixed response.

You don’t miss your water ‘til your well runs dry, and this was embarrassingly highlighted earlier in the month when the world at large struggled to find Gaddafi related news in a post-Realtime Google.

Notice anything different about search results today, in particular your sitelinks?

Another week, another Google headline, and this time it’s their planned acquisition of Motorola Mobility

Just a day before the EU’s Privacy and Communications Directive comes into force (26th May 2011), the Information Commissioner’s Office has given UK websites a one year period of grace to implement suitable changes.

Targeted ads and pop-ups, specific to our likes, have become a mainstay of our online activity, especially with the rise of social media, but this could be about to change following proposals from some browsers.

There is a clamour being made about social media at the moment. You might think that is a bit of a redundant statement considering the noise it has been making throughout 2010.

It has been another busy year in the world of search and digital advertising.

Many of you might have noticed a little magnifying glass symbol appearing next to your search results in the UK over the past couple of days.

If September’s news focused on the launch of Google Instant, then much of what was discussed in October centred on the value of the internet and the growing importance of mobile marketing.

New research commissioned by Google suggests that the internet is worth around £100billion to the UK, which accounts for 7.2% of the UK’s Gross Domestic Profit (GDP).

Microsoft launched its new Windows Phone 7 devices this week. There are a lot of questions about how Microsoft will perform in the smartphone market, though they are clearly up to the challenge.

Bing-hoo’s impact on Google’s market share has decreased despite positive movement last month.

If we said the word instant to you at the start of September, what would come to mind? Instant coffee? Instant downloads? How that has all changed.

Let’s take a look at this shall we. A recent announcement has linked Facebook likes with improved performance in search results.

According to new information from comScore, mobile video is on the up.

It’s not often that, when talking about social media and the many platforms that exist, we mention Flickr.

Diaspora, the “privacy-aware, personally-controlled” alternative to Facebook has today (16 September 2010) released its first code as the four New York students behind it continue their quest to make a more controlled social environment for users.

Google Instants went live this week in the US and it will be rolled out in the UK, Germany, Spain, France and Russia over the next few days.

August figures from Experian Hitwise suggest little change in the search market share with Google still considerably dominating.

Another day, another experiment from Google. Having looked at Google’s continued obsession with search speed and relevancy of search results, this blog post takes on a similar theme – minus the speed.

Earlier in the year, one of the worst kept secrets in search - that site speed was being used as a ranking factor in Google - was indeed confirmed by the search engine giant.

Recent research by Facebook’s rival, Google, has shed some light on why we follow (or “like” as the new terminology would have us say) brands on the social giant.

Only a year ago Google were getting their PR machine in a frenzy ahead of the launch of Wave, a product they ambitiously announced would replace email and transform the way people communicate.

There is a sort of transitional air about the search market at the moment with the Yahoo! and Bing alliance growing at pace and Bing itself eating into Google’s dominance.

Yahoo! has started testing listings from Microsoft in both organic and paid search.

One of the biggest stories in June was Facebook and Yahoo! strengthening their relationship with the announcement of a cross platform status update.

Google’s Internet browser – Chrome – overtook Apple’s Safari for the first time in the USA last week, to put it third behind Internet Explorer and Firefox. IE remains the market-leader in the US with 52% of the market share.

It has been a week since SMX Advanced swept through London leaving behind a flurry of exhausted bloggers and square-eyed Twitter enthusiasts who no longer recognise a world outside of 140 characters.

Google is changing and your searches are about to become yet more refined.

Google have unveiled a new faster version of their web browser, Chrome, which they hope will speed up its growing market share.

Google are trying to get more local and as a result of this desire they have rebranded Google Local Business Centre and brought it in line with their Place Pages. The result is the rather hip sounding – Google Places.

So the dust has settled and the numbers are churning but what have we learnt from Google’s rather generous and surprising release of greater organic search information?

On Friday Google finally announced that site speed is now one of their ranking factors. However, site owners shouldn’t be falling over each other, scrambling to make their site the quickest on the Internet – the tortoise and hare analogy still applies when it comes to rankings.

In a snapshot, here are the key numbers pertaining to Internet advertising revenue in 2009 – which shows increases in search revenue but decreases in overall spend.

With blogs about businesses not using social networks properly or maximizing their marketing potential appearing more frequently than Google product updates there may now be a single answer to all of these ‘top tips’, ‘things you should know’  type of blogs – fish!

Whisper it quietly but is Internet advertising coming of age? The growth in the market over the past couple of years might suggest so.

There is plenty of talk at the moment about are you getting your content out to the right audiences but, whilst this is vital for your material, are you producing the right kind of content?

The fall-out following Google’s announcement to end censorship in China is having a positive effect on Baidu’s share price, forcing a shift in the market share of the search engines in the country.

Google AdWords’ new feature, Search Funnels, will now allow you to map and record all the keywords used that lead up to a conversion; showing each keyword’s relevance.

Having a social media presence can say a lot about a brand both directly and indirectly and, according to new research, it can considerably improve sales. At a time when Facebook has knocked Google off the top of most visited sites in the US, cultivating a social presence is becoming increasingly vital.

Delays continue to stall Google Caffeine’s launch with the latest forecasts predicting months, not weeks, before it is rolled out on all data centres.

The week ending 13 March 2010 marked a historic day in the short life of Facebook and also hinted at a potential shift in power between the leading search engine and leading social media platform. Yet it seemingly crept under the radar.

Users’ online search habits are becoming increasingly savvy after Hitwise reported an 11% rise in 4+ keyword queries. The results measured against the same period 12 months earlier indicated that we are now looking for more specific results from our searches.

For the third successive month Bing has slowly increased their market share, which should please Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Yahoo!’s new search marketing desktop tool has been improved further by a raft of updates to increase speed and efficiency.

It has been a year since Google, Yahoo! and Bing jointly announced the canonical tag but only last week did it emerge that Yahoo! and Bing were going to start supporting it.

Last month we asked the question and now it would appear that the results of Yahoo! and Bing’s...

As Jet2.com extends their bases and number of routes they have also enjoyed a greater share of...

Last week the US Department of Justice and European Commission sanctioned Yahoo!’s...

It’s true you can now go anywhere you want at the swipe of your finger after Google Earth became available on Android 2.1. It also exemplifies the closing gap between what you can do on a desktop and what you can do on your phone.

Google have once again managed to create a, err, buzz about their latest product...

In some ways Twitter is like a popularity contest but unlike Facebook you have to earn your followers. As you may or may not be aware, on Facebook, if you request someone as a friend and they accept, or vice-versa, you will immediately follow each other’s profile. It isn’t quite the same on Twitter!

If I had a pound for every blog post I have read about how to make the most of Twitter, I’d be able to retire. Yet for all the collective wisdom out there prescribing best practice lists, there are very few guides on how to understand Twitter. This got me thinking, are companies failing to make the most of the social network because they simply don’t understand it?

We’re not trying to flirt with conspiracy enthusiasts with this assertion, merely questioning the influence that Google is having on a rapidly changing social-driven Internet.

Marketing agency, Latitude, this week went into administration before being bought out in a “pre-pack” deal led by its management and Vitruvian, their private equity agency.

If 2010 is the year that mobile presence emerges with just as much clout as SEO and SMO then the expected launch of the Nexus One, the first Google-branded phone, on January 5 will ensure that the year starts with a bang.

There is a consensus that Google might have been a little hasty in rolling out real-time search and this could lead to its impact declining in 2010.

In part two of, the 12 Rules of SMO, we continue our look at some of the key factors that you should consider when approaching an SMO campaign. Part one focussed on planning your strategy and ensuring your content is clear and offers value to visitors. These last six festive offerings will hopefully also add some value to your SMO campaign.

Okay, so this isn’t a definitive guide or Holy Grail of Social Media Optimisation (SMO) best practice. Instead, think of it as a timely look at some of the key things you should consider for an SMO campaign this Christmas and into the New Year.

Hot on the heels of Google’s announcement to roll-out personalised search to everyone with an Internet connection, they delivered their second wave of innovations – real-time search results. This will usher in the brave new world of SMO and SEO search results.

Has the future of SEO been irrevocably altered to the detriment of its potential use in Google? This kind of question has been slowly infiltrating search forums this week following Google’s personalised search announcement on Friday (04/12/09).

Traditionally the golden rule of writing content for your site or your blog was to be niche – one narrow vertical. However, going horizontal could be the new vertical for some.

The must attend conference in the world of search is once again returning to the UK in 2010. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) is a two day conference featuring sessions led by industry experts on SEO, PPC, organic search, mobile search and many more.

In what has been billed as the “biggest change” to the Internet “since it was invented 40 years ago”, net regulator Icann has invited countries to apply for “internationalised domain names” in the non-Latin characters.

Leading search marketing specialist, home james, has been appointed by Leeds University Business School to raise the profile of the school, following on from the re-launch of the new Business School brand.

With Google Caffeine expected to give the world’s leading search engine a shot of speed and accuracy in the New Year it appears that speed could become a feature of SEO rankings!

Good Social Media Optimisation (SMO) should be about personalised content and meaningful interaction.

The net of opportunities for mobile advertising looks set to grow after Google bought AdMob, one of the leading mobile advert companies.

We all know that online ad spend has recently outstripped TV for the first time but where’s it all going?Before I answer that, here are some of the stats.

Over the past couple of weeks Google have conducted some studies with major international brands, Heineken and Levi’s, to investigate the value of paid for search to branding. The findings of both studies returned positive results that indicate paid for search can considerably boost brand awareness as well as increasing sales.

Increase your standout in an ever-competitive PPC landscape

Social Media Optimisation (SMO) is the new buzz topic in the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) field and companies considering a campaign utilising this shouldn’t stop at just using Twitter and Facebook.

The advent of social media marketing through Facebook and Twitter has cast a lifeline to many small businesses trying to stay afloat in the turbulent recession waters.

Targeting social media, and in particular twitter, has fast become this season’s must-have accessory.  Evidence of this can be found across the social networks which now play host to a graveyard of corporate Facebook & twitter pages, pages that were once in vogue, left to fallow.  Why is this happening?

Almost a year earlier than forecasted, online advertising spend has superseded television expenditure in the UK with paid-for search leading the way. This is the key finding of a study by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The second installment of our new series of blog posts from home james  - the most important stories in search and SEO for the last month, all in one easy to digest post. This month - August 2009.

Today, home james was unveiled as a RAR Recommended Agency and joined the elite few on its register.

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but the expected deal between Yahoo & Microsoft has finally been announced – with one aim, being more effective at taking on Google.

Presenting the most important stories in search and SEO for the last month, all in one easy to digest post.

Search is not just about keeping up with algorithms, it’s about keeping up with customers. The customer is, after all, the most important part of the process. Provide customers with what they want, and serve it to them in a fresh and engaging way, and you gain loyalty, trust and authority.

So, unless you’ve been hiding under a mighty big rock of late, you’ll no doubt have heard about Google Streetview. There’s a lot in the media at present about the privacy issue (yawn) – but this post IS NOT about that, so you can continue reading without getting bored!

What is universal search? It’s the diverse means of displaying results in the SERPs to give individuals greater choice over the style of listing they choose.

There’s been a lot said of late about the future of search, and two common themes have appeared time and time again. We’ve already talked about semantic search (and its effect on PPC), and now seems an apt time to talk about personalisation.

Search is one of the most important ways that users find their way around web sites.

Google Site Search now features up to date search results following a recent upgrade to this service.

Google Site Search is a popular choice for web sites which do not already have a search facility.  It allows webmasters to quickly and easily set up a Google powered search engine specifically for their site.

There’s a recession looming, in case you didn’t know, it’s changing how we think and hitwise have been sharing some of their insights with us.

Fast moving search terms for September include Hadron Collider, HBoS, Sarah Palin, Sex on Fire, Elbow, Ryder Cup & Google Chrome, amongst others.

Interestingly, the rate of growth in the Social Networking & Forums category has slowed quite a bit, whilst blogs & personal websites have seen a decrease in popularity year on year – this could be our last post!

Yesterday, Google announced it would open up its paid search platform for gambling related terms in the UK!

If this floats your boat, you’re probably in the industry and, therefore, this is a seismic u-turn of notable proportions.

If it doesn’t, it’s probably just another piece of online twoddle, it’s likely to be jargon-riddled and mean very little to the common man.

Google have entered the world of web browsers with one of their latest releases, Google Chrome.

Chrome is a web browser that, on the face of it, seems to be in line with most other browsers.

It's currently in Beta stage so there are certain things it still doesn't do for example, still no Google toolbar!

There are things it does above and beyond all other web browsers though.

Following our recent post ‘Fannie Mae Get Help, But Will the Crunch Affect Online’, it seems marketing folk are making the shift to online in readiness for what may be a more difficult year ahead.

It’s staggering to see how many PPC campaigns are still being managed through automated software and are set on position-based, automated bid strategies.

We see this every day when analysing the competition and tracking competitors’ positions.

This approach can reduce the efficiency of a campaign and, as a result, it’s important for campaign managers to take greater control of their bid strategies if they want to increase the returns.

If you believe the hype we’re 24 hours from doomsday, not Tulsa!

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG Financial, FTSE’s up, FTSE’s down, Lehman Smehman; how’s my website performing?

It was reported in this week's Marketing that PPC managers are locked & loaded, following Google's abolition of brand protection on keyword bidding in April this year, but are yet to draw their weapons.