In addition to Government Requests, Google also added traffic tab that shows how Google’s services experience traffic disruptions in some countries. Interesting thing Google pointed out on their blog is that YouTube is inaccessible from Iran since June 2009, right before their presidential elections. While this can be interesting tool for some people, I still consider Government Requests much more entertaining.
Blue Backlinks is a free backlink checker tool. This service launched today after operating 2 months in beta. It is a very useful tool if you want to keep up to date with other sites linking to you, the so called backlinks 
List of features that will be calculated for your website:
The backlinks that we show in detail contain:
After blue backlinks is finished generating backlinks it will refresh automatically and order the detailed links by OBL count.
Check it out yourself to see if it works for you 
P.S. It’s also an awesome tool to spy on your competition
I have just noticed Facebook is baking new service, Facebook Questions, which heavily reminded me of Yahoo Answers. See for yourselves:
Judging from this screenshot, kindly provided by facebook on their Questions Not Ready Page, it is exactly what Yahoo Answers is, but more like Google Answers tried to be, but apparently free (heey). Question looks polite, and answer is broad and well written. Or maybe they just did it for the sake of preview. I guess Yahoo is feeling sour already, but how soon will we head over to facebook for an answer to our stupid question? We’ll see.
It’s official! Quick update, Steve Jobs announcing it literally as I am writing this. So Apple plans to make Mobile advertising more interactive and emotional, right now ads on the internet are interactive, on TV are emotional (as an example). Ads will be displayed in an App, where person is getting data, not searching for it (Google). Average user spends 30 minutes a day in an App, they plan to have 100 million devices soon (right now 85 million), and if Ad shows every 3 minutes, it’s 1 BILLION impressions a day, huge market.
Ad serving is demoed in an Entertainment news app, with advertisement of Toy Story 3 movie. You can do interactive things with ad, such as learn about movie characters, watch trailer, even play games! The ad was made by Apple themselves, so it’s a mock-up, just to show opportunity. Steve Jobs asked audience “Have you ever seen an ad like this?” “Anything even close?” and audience is in laughter.
This type of advertising will attract serious advertisers, who have budget to make an interactive ad like that. This is surely a Win for Apple.
He proceeds to demo Nike Shoe Ad, with custom shoe-maker, history, and Store Locator (device can use GPS to find nearest store, and Nike (in this example) can only target people who are actually near their retail stores, and are likely to buy!
This is huge deal in Internet Advertising, and it’s HUGE in advertising in general, I really can’t stress that, this is new level.
I will try to write more on how internet marketers and business owners with lower advertising budget can take advantage of this platform from an early start. But right now I’ll head out for a drink with my friends
There is no official word from Apple as I am writing this, but was sort of rumored by allthingsD and BusinessWeek magazine. But iPhone OS 4 event is taking place April 8, and as will unveil the next generation iPhone, Steve Jobs is also rumored to present their new mobile Ad platform with a weird name iAd, and developer kit AdKit. Let me remind you that recently the iPhone company tried to buy AdMob, the biggest mobile advertising platform to date, but it was snatched by Google for $750 million. Apple went on to purchase second best option, mobile ad company Quattro for $275 million.
It’s worth noting that Google has a problem with FTC on their AdMob acquisition, so Google is more than happy that there will be another major player in mobile advertising playground. While AdMob is certainly has wider audience than Quattro, the company who revolutionized smartphone market with their unbelievable intuitive software and App Store marketplace, is controlling the market from top to bottom (App-wise).
Other thing that is of most importance to us, advertisers, is that Apple can get massive amount of information about a user, such as their location, iTunes data (e.g. what music do they like, what app did they purchase), and more. This could provide some extremely powerful targeted advertising that couldn’t be done before. And for what Apple is famous, that they always this of end user experience, so maybe, just maybe, more people will enjoy seeing the ads and not completely ignore them like it is now. It can be fairy easy to overhaul industry that is just 2 years old, they did it with phone market, which is, you know, much older.
30 Minutes ago I’ve received two emails, one from Yahoo! Search Marketing and one from Microsoft adCenter, both saying the same thing, they just got bigger: “Microsoft® and Yahoo! have now received regulatory clearance to form the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance in the United States and European Union.”
The important thing is that they are so optimistic that they plan to bring Search Alliance to life before the 2010 holiday season to US. Oh wait! While Microsoft says just that, Yahoo is more like “we may wait until 2011 if we determine this will be more effective.” Good news is that out of two interfaces, they will be sticking to adCenter’s, and it’s good because I find it more convenient, not as convenient as AdWords’ tho.
This is hands down the best news in internet marketing world this month. Microsoft is finally on their way to make their internet services profitable, and this alliance look like a real threat to Google. Many advertisers, especially affiliates, will resort to Search Alliance after Google spit in their face, and then spit again.
Dreams out loud: Since Microsoft own 1.6% of Facebook, maybe it is possible that someday Search Alliance will merge with Facebook
Google’s homepage is changed to a clean one, if you need something now, you need to roll-over. This reminds me of Apple’s logic, for example with indicators on their laptops: ”Indicator should be if it indicates something, if it’s not, then why should it be seen”.
Left: Before the fade. Right: After the fade.
I love how Google is working to improve user’s feeling about it. Have it ever occurred to you that they are loosing a lot of money by having “I’m Feeling lucky” button on their homepage? If even 1% of users click on that, that means they lose 1% of their revenue from AdWords, and this could be up to 100 million bucks.
P.S. I’m sorry for Apple reference, it just really feels like it.
Google is now testing it’s new layout, the main page changes are not significant, here is the picture
New Google Search Index Changes
The front page changes are really just to make a new, fancier feel. But if we will look at SERP:
Google's New Search Result Example
When you look at the SERP, you see the change. Real reason (as I see it), is that google thinks that not enough people are aware of their amazing features (Maps, News, Product search etc.) so they moved links to those search services in the hotter place according to heatmap, so that more people will notice and use those services.
How to try the new google search(after the jump): Read more »
Spending more money on marketing does not always mean better results. Many large companies spend a large amount on Internet marketing by hiring expensive advertising agencies with very disappointing results. Smaller successful businesses recognize the importance of developing a streamlined, effective and well-planned marketing strategy. For example, creating online business profiles can be a very inexpensive method of generating a large number of leads. You can also attract many prospective customers by learning how to conduct proper search engine marketing.Marketing Small Vs Large Businesses
