The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘search-engine’

Stealth startup Trada launched to the public today as an online marketplace allowing small and medium businesses and agencies to essentially crowdsource search engine optimization services. The startup has raised $2.2 million from the Foundry Group and angel investors Alan Warms, Carlos Cashman, Dan Murray, James Crouthamel, Stuart Larkins and Robert Wolfe.

As we all know, search advertising is necessary for businesses but SEO can be a time consuming, perplexing and tedious task. Many businesses overpay for common keywords or don’t use the right keywords to drive traffic. Trada comes into play here by crowdsourcing SEO experts to build and manage and advertiser or business’ paid search campaign across search engines. The service currently supports Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.

Essentially, Trada ends up being a middleman for coordinating SEO service. Advertisers use Trada to enter information about a campaign and experts, who must be AdWords or SEMPO certified and pass Trada certification, use the site to find interesting campaigns and submit keywords, ad copy and bid prices across the search engines and to track and optimize campaigns across the ad networks. Trada coordinates the payments and takes a small cut of each transaction between advertisers and SEO experts.

The benefit for the SEO experts is that they don’t have to deal with the administrative and management issues with clients. Experts earn money when they generate clicks or other actions for less than the advertiser’s target price. Advertisers get 25 qualified experts to work on their campaigns and according to Trada, those businesses who participated in the private beta of the service are seeing successful results.

Trada entered private beta in January 2009 and currently has 70 advertisers and 280 experts to date. Founded by entrepreneur Niel Robertson, Trada was born after Robertson grew frustrated managing his own $8,000-a-month paid search campaign. Realizing that paid search campaigns are best left to experts, he thought an online marketplace for PPC experts and businesses would be the best way to maximize SEO. The startup faces competition from Kenshoo, Conductor and many others.

For the past couple of years now, when talking about the Apple TV product, Apple likes to throw out the word “hobby.” It’s as if they’re ashamed of the device. And considering sales are anemic next to Macs, iPods, and iPhones, it’s no big surprise that they talk this way.

But there’s actually nothing to be ashamed of. The Apple TV is a good product. Apple just needs to put some proper time and energy into it, to expand it to its full potential. And news today about the so-called “Google TV” should do just the trick.

Apple and Google are on the verge of war. The formerly close allies are increasingly competing in key spaces for both, and the living room is likely to be a new battleground because it’s still very much up in air. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Google is working with partners including Intel, Sony, and Logitech to bring a Google TV experience into the living room. This is, of course, where the Apple TV resides. And Apple would be foolish to simply cede any ground it does have to its new favorite rival just because it’s focused on other things (*cough* iPad *cough*).

That’s a Microsoft move.

As Nick Bilton points out, this Google TV would be based around the Android platform. This means that the key idea is likely to have third-party developers work on it to make applications built for a television set. That’s easier said than done, but Android’s open nature should yield some interesting results rather quickly.

Apple, meanwhile, is of course anything but open with regard to their devices. In fact, the Apple TV is entirely closed right now, as only Apple is able to modify its software (without hacking it, of course). I suspect that will change, following this revelation.

The idea of running iPhone-style applications on the Apple TV has long been a sexy one. Hell, people have even ported apps over to a TV screen to show how well it could work. The main problem with developing iPhone apps for the Apple TV seems to be resolution. With the iPhone (and iPod touch), Apple offers only one screen size/resolution, ensuring developers have an easy time making great-looking apps — while at the same time, making sure end users have a great experience.

But the iPad has already changed everything. With their new device, Apple has kept things as simple as possible by making iPhone apps scale up two times to work on the bigger display, but it’s still shows a willingness to move beyond the one screen size. Unfortunately, with the Apple TV, it can be attached to a screen that could be a huge variety of sizes, so it would be hard to control that.

Google doesn’t care about that because Android already runs on dozens of phones with different screen sizes. But Apple clearly cares about how apps look on its devices (so much so that the iPad itself was likely designed at a strange ratio simply to make scaling apps look as good as possible). So does that mean they start offering an actual Apple TV (as in a screen)? Rumors of that have been around for a long time. Or maybe they black-box apps to a certain resolution — similar to what they’re doing on the iPad when an app isn’t scaled up?

Who knows. But what I do know is that upon hearing this Google TV news, the Apple TV became a little less of a “hobby” yesterday.

Aside from calling it a hobby, Steve Jobs has referred to the Apple TV as being a potential “fourth leg” of a chair Apple is building. Leg one is the Mac, leg two is the iPod, leg three is the iPhone, and Jobs had hoped the Apple TV would complete the chair one day. But it seems clear now that he thinks the iPad could be the fourth leg instead.

Screw that. I think it’s time for Apple to build a whole dining room set of furniture. We, as consumers, need a living room arms race between Apple and Google (and Microsoft, TiVo, Roku, Boxee, and the rest) to kick the cable companies’ shitty television user experience to the curb.

Social commerce site Groupon is on fire. Everywhere I go, people are talking about it or trying to copy it. The Chicago-based startup just hired a big gun. Rob Solomon is joining as the company’s president. Solomon is a venture partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, which he joined after selling travel search engine SideStep to Kayak for $200 million. He was the CEO at SideStep, and prior to that was the VP of Yahoo Shopping.

Now will help lead fast-growing Groupon. Founder Andrew Mason will remain CEO. “Social commerce is something I have always been fascinated with,” Solomon tells me. He thinks that the virality that comes with online social connections will take e-commerce to the next level. Groupon offers group buying at the local level which is only triggered once a certain minimum number of participants agree to buy. As local businesses try to figure out what will replace the Yellow Pages and radio advertising, Groupon hopes to fill in that gap.

The company’s “growth is spectacular in revenues and users,” says Solomon, without going into more details (but the numbers are spectacular enough for him to move from sunny Silicon Valley to Chicago). The company operates in 45 markets, has made 2.5 million group purchases on behalf of customers so far, and says it’s saved them $117 million. Groupon recently raised $30 million at a rumored $250 million valuation. And, yes, it is still hiring.

Google has just announced via tweet that it’s integrating Facebook Page updates into its real-time search results. Google first revealed that this was coming back in December, when it first started including real-time data in its search results. Other data sources for Google’s real-time results include MySpace and Twitter.

The only problem with the new addition is that Facebook is only granting Google access to updates from its 3 million Pages, which are generally for celebrities, politicians, brands, and local businesses — not your average Facebook user. That information could occasionally be useful, but the power of real-time search comes from having a large number of contributors. Facebook has a huge amount of data from its 400 million active users, but it isn’t sharing most of that with Google. Instead, it’s only granting full acess to user updates to Bing (though that isn’t live yet).  Bing will still only be getting status updates that are shared with “Everyone“, but with its recent privacy overhaul in December, Facebook ensured that it would have far more of those than it used to.

Unlike Twitter, which is reportedly making money off of its search deals with Bing and Google, Facebook isn’t charging the search engines for its data. According to Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, Facebook is giving away the status updates because they may drive more people back to the social network.

Here’s a sample of some of the updates you can get from Facebook Page updates:

Mobile question and answer startup ChaCha is on a roll, possibly achieving profitability, raising boatloads of money, and even venturing into social media with a Facebook app. Today, ChaCha is getting into the business listings game with local business search startup Localeze. Localeze will provide ChaCha’s website with in-depth information about more than 15 million businesses across the country.

ChaCha.com visitors can access the local business listings in a search bar and through a direct listings page. In both cases, they will be served a full content page that includes Google maps, directions, phone, and other contact information. And of course, any questions and answers related to the business can be found on the content pages. Business listings can also be viewed by category and or state and city. Eventually, ChaCha’s listings will be integrated with its chachacoupons.com site.

The local business listings feature makes sense, as ChaCha realizes the importance of local content for both its mobile application and website. Localeze also helps power local business listings for Microsoft Bing’s Bing Local and Bing 411. ChaCha also recently rolled out its API, allowing developers to tap into the startup’s database with of questions and answers. ChaCha’s recently launched Facebook App allows individuals pose a question to any friends within their social network and ChaCha.com. ChaCha returns an answer from its database of hundreds of millions of answers. Users can also select “add to profile” to get a permanent “Ask ChaCha” prompt on their profile pages.

Launched in 2007, ChaCha started as a human powered search engine – meaning a human found you answers when you typed in a query. ChaCha encountered the high cost of hiring humans to basically do Google searches and return results to people but then evolved into a mobile version of the service that lets users ask questions via SMS. The site also archives questions and answers on their website, with 500 million of them currently listed on the ChaCha site. ChaCha is answering one million questions a day via SMS, passing Google as the no. 1 SMS search service according to Nielsen Mobile.

HyTrust, which helps companies manage and control virtual infrastructure, has secured $10.5 million in Series B funding from Granite Ventures and Cisco Systems. Existing investors Trident Capital and Epic Ventures also participated in the round. The latest round of funding brings the HyTrust’s total funding to $16 million.

HyTrust says it will use the new funding to drive product development and to fuel sales and marketing efforts. HyTrust has developed a policy management system specifically for virtualization, enabling IT departments to control and virtualize servers.

Investment from enterprise giant Cisco is a huge coup for the company that only launched last year. Of course, the investment must indicate that HyTrust’s product will work seamlessly with cisco’s own virtualization business. HyTrust faces competition from Catbird.

Passlogix, an enterprise software company focused on simplifying access to company resources, is announcing an authentication product which will allow users to log on to Windows with any type of identification device–including national ID badges, access cards, one-time password tokens, and biometrics. The product, v-GO Universal Authentication Manager, utilizes the customers’ existing infrastructure while also leveraging corporate directories, thus lowering the total cost of ownership from an average of $150 per user to $15.

Passlogix aims to be the last strong authentication product that companies will need to buy as their product can evolve based on their customers’ needs. They hope to achieve this goal by providing an open architecture whereby any device from a multitude of manufacturers can be used for Windows login, rather than forcing a company to choose a singular method which is often times proprietary. By employing this type of architecture, clients are able to move to a new authentication vendor, use physical access devices already being utilized for other purposes, and use multiple types of authentication methods across a company’s network. For example, a company could use pre-existing building access cards (which only allow entrance to those who work in that building) to log in at one branch, while others from the same company, but at a different office, can use a completely different proprietary access card to log in from their location. Similarly, those in the second branch could use an entirely different mode of authentication, such as biometrics, to securely log in. This feature is especially useful for companies who have varying levels of access privileges.

By allowing organizations to use authentication devices which are already deployed, Passlogix removes the need for additional investment in secure Windows logon. Those who use this product will never have to remember their password again, as it is stored on the authentication device. Furthermore, dedicated servers typically needed for secure network access are not needed, which again lowers the total cost of ownership, and brings down any potential scalability barriers.

Strong authentication solutions for Windows are also more secure than the use of a password, which can be compromised in any number of ways, as physical access of the authenticator is needed. If an employee loses, or his means of authentication is stolen, Passlogix can remotely shut off the authenticator, thus blocking access to any files or information on an organization’s network. Additionally, they can report on the use of access of the authenticator to see what, if anything, has been jeopardized.

Passlogix is in a unique situation given that most of their competitors are also those whose products they support. Companies such as HID Global and DigitalPersona provide strong authentication tools which can be integrated into Passlogix’ infrastructure.

v-GO Universal Authentication Manager is priced at $15 per user and carries a yearly 20 percent fee for support and maintenance.

Passlogix was founded in 1996 and has raised approximately $20 million in venture capital. Their latest round of funding was for $11.5 million in 2002 and was led by Hanseatic Americas. The company has sold 21M user licenses of their various products in 140 countries.

A new website launches in the UK today that uses “the power of group-buying to save consumers up to 90% off the best things to do, see, eat and buy.”

Sounds familiar? Yep folks, it’s yet another Groupon clone.

Only this time, Groupola.com is already making claims to be biggest group buying site in the UK. That’s because it’s launching simultaneously in 8 of the largest cities across the UK, including London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

This makes it immediately standout from rivals such as Berlin-based MyCityDeal and Groupon itself, both of which have a UK reach currently limited to London.

KODA.us, a social recruitment service for employers to recruit young professionals, has received an additional $1.5 million injection of private angel funding.

Back in August last year it raised $1 million in angel funding on top of an existing $2 million, so it now has, you guessed it, $4.5m in capital.

KODA wants to bring social networking and job recruiting together into one unified service, claiming that it is “more professional than Facebook but more personal than LinkedIn”. The jury is out on whether this market space actually exists.

Job seekers get to broaden their CVs with personal attributes and relevant life experience, with the theory being that employers will get more out of it. On the other side, employers themselves get to portray job openings with more “branding” to get across their corporate culture. Sounds like traditional “advertising” to me.

And it must be said, LinkedIn, XING and other professional social networks seem to be doing just fine at getting peole jobs.

Perhaps we are in the midst of a generational shift in how CVs work? Leave your comments below.

Last summer, realtime search engine OneRiot was one of the first engines to debut an API to allow developers to integrated OneRiot’s search results into their applications. Less than a year later, OneRiot is seeing 97 percent of its total searches coming through its API. Today, OneRiot is rolling out a new version of its search API, which includes support for for RiotWise, OneRiot’s ad network, enabling developers to make money off of search results. Additional new features include the ability to deliver vertical and domain-specific search experiences for their users.

OneRiot originally opened its free search API to web developers in June 2009. The startup says the API is now powering hundreds of millions of searches for a growing number of partners. Partners include social messaging apps (e.g. Digsby), browsers (e.g. IE8), mobile apps (e.g. ÜberTwitter), large consumer websites (e.g. Guardian.co.uk) and, other search engines (Yahoo and Microsoft). Currently OneRiot has 105 API partners in total.

The first major part of the new API is the integration of a href=”http://www.crunchbase.com/product/riotwise”>RiotWise. Last year, OneRiot ventured into the advertising world with RiotWise, an ad format which places content in an emphasized position in their realtime feed. The search engine also launched a pilot program of RiotWise Trending Ads, a stream of ads that correspond to trending topics as they emerge across the social web.

Now any developer using the OneRiot search API will now also receive RiotWise ads for the realtime web. Developers can choose to display them (and get paid) or not. RiotWise’s ads are comprised of content that similar to within Google, are served up via keywords being searched for. But unlike Google, advertisers aren’t bidding on keywords. Instead, content producers strike a deal with OneRiot to place their content in an emphasized (but clearly labeled) place in their realtime feed within the search engine. OneRiot claims that RiotWise ads have been performing at 3 to 4 times the average industry standard click through rates (CTR) for ads in realtime web apps. Developers who tap into the new API will share revenue with OneRiot but it’s unclear what the rev share will be.

The new API has also been tweaked to allows for specific searches. Developers can enable domain-based search, which allows for realtime search across a specific website or network. For example, the Guardian is the first partner to use this feature of the new API in its “Zeitgeist” tool that features realtime news content from the site.

OpenRiot’s API will include the ability to integrate vertical realtime search so developers can choose to receive realtime results for specific verticals such as news, videos and images. The same filter can be places for searches across niche verticals, including realtime search results for gadgets, politics, and music.

Lastly, OneRiot has rolled out a new “Tweet” format to search results allowing developers to receive search results and ads formatted like a Tweet, with only 140 characters, including a bit.ly shortened URL. This format is ideal for third-party Twitter applications working with limited real estate.

As we’ve written in the past, OneRiot runs the risk of surfacing irrelevant or spammy content with realtime ads. But as a realtime search engine, OneRiot has invested heavily in spam prevention and is constantly sorting through millions of pieces of content to determine what is relevant and what isn’t. Regardless, it seems like a viable monetization tool for developers.

The startup, which just raised $7 million in funding, has been steadily innovating its product and is gathering up partners quickly. The realtime stream ramped up this year with all the big players adding functionality to their search offerings and OneRiot was smart to get in the game early. As we’ve seen with the various partner deals struck with both tech giants and startups, OneRiot’s search results and API are in demand. And the improvement to its API to be able to refine results and possibly make money will only make its offering more appealing in the future.