Each year Millward Brown compiles its Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (pdf). For the past three years Google has sat atop of the list and this year has the distinction of being the first $100 billion brand.

Outside the Top 10, but showing impressive growth in brand equity, are Blackberry (#16, up 100%), Amazon (#26, up 85%) and AT&T (#28, up 67%).

The highest new entry is Pampers (#31). Pertinent don’t you think, considering our economy is down the crapper?

Apparently, Google’s engineers have adult attention deficit disorder. I’m being serious! Because of ADD, we now have Google Search integrated directly into the Gmail interface:

I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I’d have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I’d have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I’d get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I’d have to go through it all again when I remembered what I’d been doing.

Poor guy.

Anyway, head to the Gmail Labs tab in your account and you’ll see the option to switch on Google Search within Gmail. You’ll then get this in your sidebar:

And this handy pop-up with your search results:

Meanwhile, Twitter also decided today was a good day to better integrate its search tool with its interface. The previously announced changes should now be visible to all Twitter users.

It was only a matter of time but it appears as if the time has arrived. While the buzz from some folks inside of AOL is very positive about the addition of Tim Armstrong it is going to get louder as more major hires are announced. The first is the hiring of a new top ad sales executive for the company. Not a surprise considering Armstrong’s pedigree and the importance of showing that AOL is still in the business of generating revenue through its properties.

As reported by the WSJ

Jeff Levick, who has worked at Google since 2001, most recently as vice president of industry development and marketing, is the latest in a series of Google executives who have announced plans to leave the company.

The 38-year-old executive will become president of global advertising and strategy at AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. He will be responsible for Platform-A, AOL’s ad unit, and for developing global revenue strategies.

So there are several observations to make here. First, don’t get to comfortable in any new job. Levick is replacing Gregory Coleman who took the job of president of Platform under the previous AOL CEO in February. Two months doesn’t even give most people enough time to find all the restrooms at a company the size of AOL let alone work themselves out of a job. Coleman will be leaving the company. One thing that may be noted is that Coleman came to AOL from Yahoo, which may be a resume liability these days.

Of course, the other side of the story is another executive leaving Google. Need for concern? Too early to tell but traditionally Google has required exiting executives to sign agreements not to hire Google employees for one year. The terms of Armstrong’s agreement upon leaving Google are not known.

People familiar with the matter said AOL has interviewed other potential job candidates from Google as well. That suggests that Google has given Mr. Armstrong, a former senior vice president who was one of its earliest employees, more freedom to hire former colleagues than it has with other former executives.

With AOL now poised to spin off from the Time Warner mothership and new blood being injected in what many thought was a dying entity, could AOL get comeback player of the year honors? Or, will this be an overhyped flurry of activity that puts AOL back in the news but results in the same old, same old? Your take?

If ReadWriteWeb hadn’t looked at one of the newest players in the search engine game it may not have been found based on its name, Duck Duck Go. Before there is any further discussion about the merits of the engine one has to wonder why this name? Using a play on the name of an ages old kids game to represent results that are picked (I am guessing here) is a stretch at best and a brand manager’s nightmare at worst.

So what’s in a name? In this case it remains to be seen. The engine itself seems pretty cool. One feature that I found particularly useful was the ability to click on an icon and search a term on 27 other sites including Twitter, About.com, NY Times, cnet and more. On that front alone the search engine may be worth an occasional visit. Gee, I wonder what the chances of Google doing something similar?

The core results are apparently sourced for the most part from Wikipedia and Yahoo’s BOSS. While the initial reaction to the Wikipedia source was a visible cringe and an audible sigh (the accuracy factor of Wikipedia data is always a potential gotcha) the way the information is presented helps to overcome that concern (after all it is just a concern since measuring the actual accuracy is difficult). The results pages are very clean, easy to read and the results were helpful for the few searches I con-duck-ted (get it?).

The RWW article points out one of the great strengths of the engine

Duck Duck Go also does a great job at providing users with options for disambiguation, which also look like they are based on Wikipedia’s disambiguation pages. If you search for “Berlin,” for example, Duck Duck Go will ask you if you are looking for the German capital, an album from Lou Reed, or a town in Connecticut.

Add in an iPhone app and the ability to add the engine to the Firefox toolbar and I am a convert of sorts. Of course, the question always comes back to how can another search engine survive with Google being the 800 pound gorilla in the space. Since there are a ridiculous amount of people using search to get around the Internet it may not take a big percentage of overall users to make the business go.

One nagging question that seems to be popping up a lot lately regarding Internet business is that annoying need to know how they plan to make money. While that is not readily apparent some quick information is that the company is based in Valley Forge, PA and its founder is Gabriel Weinberg. It may be worth keeping an eye on this entry into an already crowded field. Having options usually is a good thing especially when the other major search engine options outside of Google are more well known for their questionable business moves than actually doing search.

This post is a big, public “thank you” to the folks behind PortableApps, a suite of open-source software (including Firefox and Thunderbird) that have been modified for use on removable media.

As you know, my HP notebook recently became unusable due to a motherboard problem. The data on the drives was fine, though, so I purchased a couple of external 2.5 inch hard drive enclosures to hold the notebook’s hard drives. I installed the PortableApps suite on the main drive and moved my Thunderbird profile over to the PortableApps installation directory. Started up the PortableApps version of Thunderbird and was able to access all my mail and everything. Whew! I had backups, but this lets me use the latest and greatest stuff without changing anything.

Now I can take my drive to any computer, plug it into the host computer’s USB port, run the PortableApps console and access my email. A nice, simple solution while I figure it what to do to replace my laptop.

While it is no surprise that Yahoo started announcing the layoffs of between 600-700 people this week (the number varies according t the source) there is a bit of a surprise in what business units were targeted. The biggest surprise comes from the cuts made at Flickr.

Om Malik of Gigaom gives some interesting insight into these changes by sharing the announcements he picked up from various engineers through tweets. While layoffs do seem to be a part of it there seems to also be some voluntary exits that go along with the forced reductions. While this is completely conjecture on my part, the experience I have had is that when there are voluntary exits that coincide with layoffs that is not a very good sign. Most people are happy that they didn’t get let go and move on with their jobs and just deal with the ‘survivor’s guilt’. If folks are jumping ship of their own accord in conjunction with the layoffs then you have to wonder what is actually happening there.

Malik’s statement below poses an interesting thought.

Frankly, cutting the Flickr team is a bit of a head-scratcher: That group is one of the few pockets of future-thinking tinkerers at Yahoo, especially when it comes to building new media experiences around “social objects” such as photos.

If that is truly the case then there is a talent leak occurring. Of course, the changes that have come with the Carol Bartz era could simply be too much for some to handle. It certainly isn’t the same Yahoo that existed just a few short months ago. Talent that liked a loose culture and atmosphere may be having a negative response to the decidedly different culture that is going to result from Bartz’s leadership.

As can be the case, some of the comments that follow this post exhibit the Yahoo supporters coming to bat for the new Yahoo world order while others wonder if they need to move all of heir photos from the service. There also appears to be a debate about how much, if any, money Flickr generates for the company. All good questions for sure that will only be answered with the passing of time and not opinions.

Disney has announced it has acquired a stake in Hulu that is thought to be as high as 30% according to the folks over at Mashable. Disney has now joined NBC Universal and News Corp. in this venture.

The momentum this gives the video site is very real as it looks to jump on a position in the market that perhaps YouTube may be too late to the game on. YouTube has just started to strike deals with the major media producers and their lineup of available programs to watch is not as impressive as Hulu’s.

Another player that may be left in the dust is CBS. They currently show their productions on their own site and through TV.com. While they may feel like they have more control they are now on the outside looking in as FOX, NBC and ABC can be viewed on Hulu. For now this service is only available in the US much to the consternation viewers elsewhere in the world.

Now ABC shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives will be available to view online via Hulu. The sheer volume of the offering on Hulu by striking these big deals is far bigger than just the straight network plays. The days of the TV only companies are long gone. The shows on ABC are just one part of the gigantic Disney media machine that is searching for ways to get distribution in the widely decentralized market that exists in the Internet age.

In what can be viewed as a statement that shows the maturation of the media industry and the realization that they may actually be able to help each other, Jeff Zucker, president and CEO, NBC Universal said

“Hulu has shown that if you make quality content available on the web and combine it with an unbeatable user experience, viewers will come, and so will advertisers. The addition of some of the best content Disney/ABC has to offer will only enhance Hulu’s standing as a top site for high quality video entertainment.”

Maybe it’s as true in business as in reality where all ships do actually rise with the tide. By grasping that fact and working with it rather than fighting against it the future of broadcast content delivery may be more wide open than anyone imagined. Keep tuning in to find out.

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Does anyone else see the similarity between Facebook’s attempts to raise additional funds and last week’s episode of The Office?

A quick re-cap. Michael Scott’s paper company is offered a buyout by his old employer. On their way to the negotiation table, everyone is eager to ensure that Michael Scott doesn’t reveal that his company is actually flat broke, and desperate for the money.

(click to watch the clip at Hulu.com)

Enter Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg:

“We absolutely do not need to take money,” she said. “We might take money, but it doesn’t mean we need to.”

OK, while Facebook is not exactly flat broke, it is playing a game of brinkmanship with venture capital firms–which value Facebook in the $2-3 billion range instead of the $5-6 billion Sandberg wants.

If you were a betting (wo)man where would you put your money? Facebook getting the valuation it wants, or VCs getting something lower?

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John Connor would be relieved to learn that we don’t yet have to worry about our super-computers rising up against us–apparently, they’re still only as smart as the humans operating them.

Case in point, Wired reports that despite the thousands of computers at Google’s disposal–and over 10 years of data analysis–it wasn’t able to identify an increasing trend in searches that suggested the Swine Flu outbreak was beginning.

…Google Flu Trends team, which aggregates and analyzes search queries to estimate how many people are sick, wasn’t watching Mexican flu data until after the outbreak had already begun. That highlights the problem with tech-heavy disease-detection systems: Often, we don’t know what internet data to look at until after a problem starts.

The chart below shows the up tick in “flu” related searches happened over a number of days in April–which you would think would be long enough for a super-computer to recognize a trend, right?

Unfortunately, this reminds me of the 9/11 attack. I seem to recall that our intelligence agencies where able to piece together data after the fact, but didn’t actually see it coming.

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Google just announced a series of changes to the AdSense program policies. Some of the changes are cosmetic — they cleaned up the policy page to make it easier to find information about what’s acceptable or not acceptable. They also clarified some of the vagueness around encouraging clicks and such — read the Inside AdSense article for the details.

If you wonder why this is important, it’s because the AdSense program policies are officially part of the AdSense terms and conditions. They’re not “unofficial policies” or “recommendations”, they’re real rules that AdSense publishers have to follow. (If you don’t believe me, read the first section of the terms and conditions.) It’s important for AdSense publishers to keep up-to-date with changes to the program policies.

Meanwhile, I’m doing my taxes (grrr) and am trying to figure out how to go forward with my broken laptop. I’ve pulled the two hard drives from the laptop and purchased some hard drive enclosures so I can access them as external drives, but it’s an imperfect solution because that just gives me access to the data, not the apps. I think I’ll consolidate everything onto a single external drive and install PortableApps so I can run Firefox, FileZilla, Thunderbird, and a few other useful things directly from the external drive. This will save me from having to reinstall the world when forced to switch devices.

I’m so disappointed that my HP notebook died, though. I didn’t cheap out, I bought a developer-class 64-bit laptop running Vista Ultimate so I could use NetBeans, Eclipse, and all the other tools a good developer uses. Also on my laptop was the Finale software I use for music notation, along with the drivers and software needed to record my piano playing and singing, which means it’s been impossible to update my new site since then.

One of the commenters suggested I go for a cheap netbook, but I need a machine with good horsepower for programming. What a pain… losing a hard drive would have been simpler, because then I’d have a backup to work from. Losing the entire computer because of a faulty graphics chip is incredibly frustrating… And, of course, my model of notebook is not listed on the special HP limited warranty extension page. Somehow, I doubt I’ll be replacing my notebook with another HP, which is too bad for HP — I was happy with the notebook up until this incident.

Nielsen Wire posted a shocking statistic to its blog:

Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent.

The post also included a comparison of Twitter’s retention rate, compared to Facebook’s and MySpace’s:

But–and it’s a big but–did Nielsen fail to take into account that many Twitter users start off using the web site interface, then quickly migrate to a third-party application? That’s the suggestion Brendan O’Connell offered up.

A quick look at Twitstat seems to back up his theory. Twitstat is tracking over 200 different Twitter applications and, as the chart below shows, only 27% of Twitter users are using the web interface:

Of course, if we’re to question Nielsen’s numbers, we should also question Twitstat’s, but that 40% retention rate may not tell the full story.

UPDATE: For those of you that assumed Nielsen would have been smart enough to include external apps, it turns out the company did forget. It also turns out that the retention rate was still only 40%.

The more you read about the trouble inside Time Warner the more you have to admire Tim Armstrong for ditching his comfy job at Google for the top job at AOL.

In quarterly numbers just released, Time Warner’s revenue dropped 7% from 2008 to $6.9 billion, with AOL being the biggest culprit for the decline–it saw a drop of 23%!

Clearly AOL’s just not thriving under the wings of Time Warner and it now seems inevitable that the division will be spun-off as a separate entity. Reading between the lines, you suspect that Armstrong was all but promised that AOL would be released from Time Warner. Speaking to Ad Age, Armstrong said:

"The understanding of the value of brands at AOL has gotten a little gray over time," he said in front of a crowd of ad agency CEOs, adding that the intense scrutiny of the company has had a negative affect. "The questioning from the outside" has actually bruised the company internally, he said. "There are cases where we have tens of millions of people touching a brand every day," but people inside AOL have forgotten the need to improve the products behind those brands.

I suspect that the people inside AOL are either content to be a part of the Time Warner juggernaut or feel that so constrained by it, they don’t have the enthusiasm needed to get AOL to where it needs to be. Either way, AOL needs a shake-up!

Still, there is hope for AOL. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes hinted at a possible spin-off for AOL in yesterday’s earnings announcement:

With our separation of Time Warner Cable, Time Warner has become a more content-focused company. We’re also working to determine the right ownership structure for AOL.

Like I said, why would Armstrong make the giant leap for mankind his career, if he wasn’t promised that AOL would be released from Time Warner?

Whenever a new start-up makes bold claims about its search technology, my first question is usually: what’s to stop Google from building the exact same thing?

For the benefit of all future search engines, Google has kindly proved my point by practically undermining the first public demo of Wolfram Alpha with the announcement of its own structured data search.

Just how much of a threat is this Google announcement to Wolfram Alpha’s plans? Enough of a threat that TechCrunch received a screenshot that attempts to show how Google’s data just doesn’t stack up.

OK, so Wolfram Alpha’s search data does look prettier in this example. But, here are the challenges the start-up faces:

1. What the heck is a Wolfram Alpha? I hope they re-brand.
2. Google’s data is already public, WA’s is not.
3. Google has a gazillion engineers that can work on this, WA doesn’t.
4. Google is the brand billions of people love and trust, most people won’t even be able to correctly spell Wolfram Alpha in their browser.

I’m not saying start-ups shouldn’t try, I’m just pointing out why WA (and Cuil) have the odds stacked against them.

TechCrunch reports that Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie have been named to President’s Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council is designed to help the President and Vice President form policy related to science, technology, and innovation.

The council has an impressive roster of people associated with major academic and research organizations

The group is co-chaired by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former head of the National Institutes of Health and a Nobel laureate.

I checked out the press release regarding the announcement of these appointments to see what other corporations were present on the council. Google and Microsoft are the only two. I realize that it is important for the private sector to be represented. It is worth noting, however, that the private sector representatives on this council that will be helping set public policy are leaders in two technology giants that many already feel have garnered unfair advantages that stifle competition. Also important to note is that prior PCAST members have included Michael Dell so this is not a precedent setting move, just an interesting one.

In all honesty, I have no idea what could actually be accomplished through this type of group regarding a company’s opportunity to gain further advantage and influence. It is interesting, however, that there appears to be little hiding the fact that people like Schmidt, who campaigned hard for the President, are now being ‘rewarded’. The difference between this appointment and people like Dell, is that Google has lately been under more serious government scrutiny with regard to data privacy concerns. You can connect the dots if you wish.

So what impact can this have to us Internet marketing types? That is definitely a ‘to be determined’. As Google expands further into services that are not directly related to search like health information and other areas where privacy concerns are being raised it does seem curious that their position with the US government is getting a little more cozy. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means but I, like many of you, can observe and wonder what might happen.

In what is being called just a start, Google has introduced the ability to better search and then actually use public data. The data that being used in this initial run is provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau’s Population Division. Google’s hope is to not only make this data more easily accessible but then be able to use it in a way that can be helpful through comparisons of different data sets.

Two years ago Google purchased Trendalyzer, which is part of this offering. The Google blog states

We have been working on creating a new service that make lots of data instantly available for intuitive, visual exploration. Today’s launch is a first step in that direction. We hope people will find this search feature helpful, whether it’s used in the classroom, the boardroom or around the kitchen table. We also hope that this will pave the way for public data to take a more central role in informed public conversations.

Rather than just take Google’s word for how easy this was to do I did a search for Wake County population and the first result on the SERP (search engine result page) was a small line graph. Clicking on that line graph then brought me to an interactive feature that allowed me to compare the growth of Wake County v. that of surrounding counties by simply clicking a box. I could also do this v. any other county in the US. The verdict is that if you need this type of information for any reason this is ridiculously easy to use. The hardest part of the process was resizing the screenshot. Here is the chart that was created.

So one limitation is obviously the age or timeliness of the data that Google has indexed to help do these things. Data is often like that though so this is nothing to really be concerned with. You make do with what is available and go from there. Since this is just the first step you have to believe that there is plenty to follow. A quick list of some of the other public data that exists shows where this could go. Google explains

The data we’re including in this first launch represents just a small fraction of all the interesting public data available on the web. There are statistics for prices of cookies, CO2 emissions, asthma frequency, high school graduation rates, bakers’ salaries, number of wildfires, and the list goes on.

So it looks like it continues to be more and more of a Google world and we are simply allowed to play in it. Honestly, though, if they weren’t doing things like this who would have the resources to make this happen with the current state of economic affairs?

Aside from bringing butlers out of retirement, Ask.com has been working to improve its search results. This week Ask adds Domain Navigation (what Google calls Site Links) to the first listing in its organic results.

Here’s how it looks for a search for Disney:

Not really earth-shattering, is it? On the one hand, I’m glad Ask is continuing to make enhancements to its search engine. On the other, it’s just not enough really, is it? Adding a feature that’s already offered by Google, isn’t going to get anyone switching search engine loyalty.

According to Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman, Google could soon decide which news you should be reading on a daily basis.

Waxman cornered Google CEO Eric Schmidt and grilled him asked him over cocktails to share his vision for Google News. Here’s what he reportedly said:

In about six months, the company will roll out a system that will bring high-quality news content to users without them actively looking for it.

Under this latest iteration of advanced search, users will be automatically served the kind of news that interests them just by calling up Google’s page. The latest algorithms apply ever more sophisticated filtering – based on search words, user choices, purchases, a whole host of cues – to determine what the reader is looking for without knowing they’re looking for it.

Does that sound like Big Brother to anyone else? Seriously, Google will decide the news that it thinks I should be interested in? What happened to free will?

Yes, I am somewhat kidding–Google will likely no more customize its news results than it does currently with web search results–but if you think your local newspaper is biased in its reporting, wait until Google gets a hold of your news!

In a recent MarketingProfs survey 425 Twitter users were asked a series of questions about their use of Twitter. There where some interesting findings, including why we use the micro-blogging service.

Twitter users were asked to rate the reasons why they participate, on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree):

• “I find it exciting to learn new things from people”: Average score 4.65
• “I value getting information in a timely manner”: Average score 4.58
• “I like to be connected to lots of people”: Average score 3.91
• “I want to generate new business”: Average score 3.70
• “I find it gratifying to have people follow me”: Average score 3.64

Curiously, despite a strong showing for being "connected to lots of people" only 34% of users agree it’s important to follow those that follow you. Not quite sure how that gels with their desire to make lots of connection. Oh well.

Lastly, despite spending an average of almost 3 hours a day on Twitter, we’re apparently not discouraged when we tweet and get nothing back but crickets–only 24% of us have our egos bruised when we tweet with no replies.

If you’re interested in the full study head to Marketing Charts (I couldn’t find the study on the MarketingProfs site).

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Microsoft has announced the private beta launch of Microsoft Vine, a web tool designed to keep family and friends in contact with each other.

Now, before you start screaming “Twitter ripoff,” take a close look at what Microsoft Vine is trying to be:

Send and receive alerts. Organize people into groups - the sports team you coach, people who live nearby, family far away, special friends, and emergency contacts…Check in safe and well to let your family know you are okay, let trusted neighbors know you’re headed out of town, keep people informed of situations that matter, or share general information like the team practice schedule for the week.

What’s cool about Vine is that it’s not trying to be an alternative to Twitter, but Microsoft has clearly sat back and looked at one of the most popular uses of Twitter–spreading important information quickly among a users network. Twitter does this now, but if an earthquake hits California, getting any valuable information is like trying to listen to the Fire Chief give instructions while everyone else in the room is talking about the great sushi they just ate.

Microsoft Vine’s more of an experiment at this stage, but then again so was Twitter when it first launched.

Take a look at the video demo then let me know what you think of Microsoft Vine.

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In a report from eMarketer there is a mixed bag of news for online sales from Q1. The study that was done by Forrester Research and Shop.org shows an overall increase in online sales of 11%. Nice number for sure considering the daily doom and gloom that seems to dominate the economic news of most days.

Digging into the findings just a bit reveals how that increase is not something that appears to be felt across the board. Overall, 58% of those using the online sales channel experienced an increase in sales. When you put it that way it seems to say that the increase may be more a result of some areas showing bigger increases which were offset other poor performers. The chart below reveals the weak spot.

Of online or web only merchants 6 out of 10 reported sales were either flat or they declined during this same period. One guess as to what this means could be that less people are leaving their homes to go to the stores that they normally would (to save on gas, eating out and other activities related to shopping at a physical store) but still buying from those same merchants online.

If that is the case, then this number could be a little deceptive. The more telling number is the experience of online only merchants which says they didn’t have such a good quarter. eMarketer sums it up with the following

In the survey, about 70% of both consumer brand manufacturers and multichannel retailers reported online sales increases. However, Web-only merchants had a different situation. About six in 10 reported Web sales declines.

Taking the role of the optimist Citi Investment Research feels that overall there will be a 4.4% increase this year followed by the more familiar double digit increases (16.5%) in 2010.

Since no one’s crystal ball seems to be calibrated correctly these days it seems more prudent to look at the past quarter to get an idea of what might happen in the current quarter. I think we have enough evidence that predictions in general are at best an educated guess with most predictions extending past even 6 months being more of a crap shoot than ever.

So it makes sense to keep an eye on the web only retail performance as we move either deeper into this recession or head out of it. This climate is the first real test of just how influential online is in the mind of the majority of consumers. If these first quarter numbers are any indication it looks like a lot of people still like stores and that affinity may even impact online behavior as well. Maybe this will serve as a wake up call to web only merchants that they need to do something different if they want to truly get people away from their habit of shopping with retailers that they can drive by on the road as well as surf by online.

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