Recession influences search trends

Britons are demonstrating increasingly frugal and security-conscious habits when it comes to what they’re searching for online, according to figures released by Google.

For example, it said searches for home safes were up 150 per cent over their levels in October 2007. And perhaps less surprising - but all the more stark in terms of increased popularity - searches for safe savings were up 900 per cent.

Money dominated the major areas where people were looking more and more to the internet for guidance, where searches for petrol prices were up 200 per cent over last year and searches for negative equity rose 220 per cent. Searches for redundancy insurance were also up 450 per cent year-on-year.

In efforts to economise, people were also searching for vouchers 35 per cent more this year than last, as well as budget meals, which have grown in terms of search frequency by 53 per cent. Taking up sewing classes was up 60 per cent and clothes swap searches were up 90 per cent.

In the meantime, the desire to find a city break dropped almost 20 per cent, while searching for a home in Spain was down 28 per cent Fitted kitchen research dropped 17 per cent and interest in moving home fell by 16 per cent.

The data was taken from Insights for Search, a free tool that the firm said it uses to analyse a portion of Google searches entered for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches carried out through Google over time.

Elan Dekel, Google product manager, said the analysis provided a snapshot into how Britons are reacting to the current economic situation.

“Every day, hundreds of millions of people search on Google, so we can see trends emerge in real time. What people are searching for gives insights into the zeitgeist, what people are interested in and what concerns them,” he said.

Dekel added that anyone can use the data to learn more about past and current trends and break down search data by geography and category.

TMG develops news app for Google Android

Amidst the US availability of the first Google Android-based handset and its imminent arrival on a T-Mobile handset on these shores, the publishers of the Telegraph newspaper have unveiled they’ve been hiding an application up their sleeve.

The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) – which reckons it is the first UK publisher to launch an application for Android – is offering free software that people can download from the Android Marketplace in order to get their mobile fix of the newspaper's website.

“We’re delighted to be the only UK provider in the Android Marketplace at launch,” said Paul Cheesbrough, TMG’s chief information officer (CIO). “Mobile access to our content and products is a growing part of our offering, and Android provides us with a rich and innovative platform to reach our customers.”

Google gets live traffic information from Highways Agency

Google has teamed up with the Highways Agency to create a live traffic map.

The agency is providing its traffic data to the web firm, which is overlaying it onto its Google Maps to colour code all of England’s motorways and major A road network by the speed of traffic.

"I'm delighted that we are the first country in Europe to work with Google and use our information for the benefit of road users across the country,” Denise Plumpton, director of information at the Highways Agency, said.

“This sort of project is a key part of our information strategy aimed at getting traffic information out to motorists where and when they need it.”

The data is sourced from the agency’s own National Traffic Control Centre, based in Birmingham, and has previously been already available online via the Traffic England website - which has had its very own mapping system for some time.

To check out the traffic mash-up, go to the UK version of Google Maps and click the ‘traffic’ tab.

NetSuite cuts prices to take on Salesforce

NetSuite is looking to pull customers away from rival software maker Salesforce.com by offering discounts of 50 per cent.

NetSuite - which is majority-owned by Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison - is focusing the new marketing drive on pricing at a time when businesses are increasingly cutting back technology budgets.

The discounts are only targeted at Salesforce.com, whose customer relationship management (CRM) software helps sales staff manage their work.

NetSuite also sells other types of software, including accounting programs, and may expand the discounting to include other rivals and product areas, said NetSuite chief marketing officer David Downing.

"We are probably going to be launching similar salvos at some of our other competitors," he said. "In a bad economy, pricing plays a bigger role in decision making."

NetSuite will offer customers who dump Salesforce.com with up to 100 hours of professional services to help with tasks such as migrating to the new system and staff training.

Salesforce and NetSuite are among the most prominent business software makers that deliver their products as services over the web, using the same approach that Yahoo and Google have used to deliver email, maps, calendars and other programs to consumers.

AMR Research analyst Bruce Richardson said NetSuite's campaign is likely to generate some buzz, but that he is not convinced it will lead to many customer wins.

Yahoo cuts jobs after poor results

Yahoo is to cut ten per cent of its global workforce, after profit plunged, the web search and services firm said.

In its quarterly report, Yahoo said it would shed ten per cent of its workers – about 1,500 – as part of cost cutting measures started last quarter, largely because the majority of its expenses are related to staff.

The firm’s quarterly income fell to $54 million (£33.3 million) from $131 million (£80.86 million) in the same period last year.

Yahoo said its revenue was $1.8 billion (£1.11 billion) for the third quarter, effectively flat from the same quarter last year. While revenue in the US increased seven per cent on-year, international revenue slid 12 per cent.

“An increasingly challenging economic climate and softening advertising demand contributed to revenues this quarter coming in at the low end of our outlook range,” said Blake Jorgensen, Yahoo's chief financial officer.

Google reiterates US Justice Department talks vow

Google’s head has reiterated that the search giant will continue discussions with the US Department of Justice over its proposed deal with fellow online giant Yahoo.

Under the terms of the agreement, first mooted back in June, Yahoo would turn over some of its online advertising space for Google to sell.

Back in August, Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt said that the company would move forward with the Yahoo search partnership in October, with or without approval from antitrust reviewers at the Justice Department.

But yesterday, comments made by Schmidt alluded to little movement. "We agreed to extend our discussions ... with the DOJ," he said yesterday when asked for an update on the Yahoo deal after he participated in an economic summit in Florida with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Schmidt was repeating a decision first announced on October 3 that it would not begin sharing advertising immediately in order to give the Justice Department time to assess it, said Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich in Washington.

"He was reiterating what we announced several weeks ago," he said.

The advertising deal is unpopular with some advertisers because Google and Yahoo dominate the US web search market. They fear their rates could go up.

Google's market share widened to 63 per cent in August, while Yahoo's dropped to 19.6 per cent and Microsoft’s slipped to 8.3 per cent, according to figures from comScore.

The deal to share advertising has been widely seen as an effort to help Yahoo fend off Microsoft by bringing Yahoo an additional $800 million in annual revenue.

Blogging for business

While blogs are still considered to be written by individuals from their own viewpoints, a number of companies have presence online in this space - and it's proving to be a worthwhile investment.

That was among the messages from the many professional and corporate bloggers at the recent Blog World Expo. Indeed, at one time, a corporate website was the exception, not the rule. This has obviously changed, and most people expect businesses to become more involved in blogging and associated aspects of social media over the next few years. However, most companies simply do not have the experience of blogging technology and of dealing with the reader community.

From the growing enterprise blogging sector, the guidance is clear: listening is an important first step.

Listen up

“You have to start to listen to the conversations that are going on, so you can decide where to engage,” explained Chris Brogan, the vice president of strategy and technology at CrossTech Media, a company specialising in online interaction for mid-sized enterprises.

But how do you go about doing this? For starters, there are free tools already on the web that will help you listen and monitor online discussion, such as Google's Blogsearch.

Put in a search term, such as your company name, and you’ll get an immediate snapshot response of blogs that mention your business. On the left of the screen, you can set up an automatic alert to email you when this search term is mentioned on a blog. Think of it as a modern spin on the newspaper cuttings file that many companies maintain and distribute in order to track positive and negative mentions along with media perceptions and understanding.

The advantage now is that companies can react instantly to the discussions online, either to answer questions, correct inaccuracies, or simply to acknowledge an interested audience.

“The most important lesson is to get involved,” said Mari Smith, a relationship and marketing specialist. “But the challenge is how to get involved.”

Taking part

The general consensus has always been to set up a blog, where you can join in the conversation and hopefully trigger debate. This has been the traditional advice from bloggers to companies, but this approach does not necessarily fit today given the proliferation of additional web services and social networking sites.

“Using services like Twitter and Facebook, you can start aggregating all this content together and pull it back to your blog. The blog still remains your core, where all your content is,” advised Smith.

A strong social media presence for any company can start out with the aim of bringing all these disparate conversations back to one managed location, ideally a blog or traditional web site. In doing this, you will not always be the one setting the agenda; in many cases, you will be reacting to your customers and a conversation they have initiated. The important thing is that through savvy monitoring of the blogosphere, you can enter the conversation, and if need be bring it to a natural and positive conclusion – in turn building up public and industry trust in the company or brand.