Now that the dust has settled after the big announcement about Yahoo and Bing joining hands, I wonder if the two brands will be able to take on Google and change the competitive landscape of "Search" just a little bit.

Yahoo had announced that it had begun transitioning Bing results into Yahoo results – a product of the Search Alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo search experiences are now powered by the Microsoft platform in the US and Canada (English), with more markets to come. The speed in which this was completed is a testament to the great work and partnership between Yahoo and Microsoft employees.
 
To minimize the effect of the merge on marketing dollars, Yahoo will be displaying mainly organic results from Bing. Currently Yahoo only delivers English-language searches via Bing but that’ll change over time. Yahoo searches will switch over to Bing in other countries throughout 2011 and 2012.

The big question in all of our minds is whether the competitive landscape will change. I mean, come on, Google is still the big dog and it still dominates the search market with almost 66 percent usage share.

 By combining Yahoo’s and Bing's search shares, however, Microsoft will get control of more advertising dollars. Maybe this will allow them to invest in more better search technologies?
 

The recent August statistics released by comScore prove that Google has an impressive 65.8 percentage of US search market share under its belt. Yahoo had 17.1 percent and Bing had 11 percent of the Search Market Share in August.

Search market share calculations

ComScore calculates search market share using a methodology called “Explicit Core Search”. They exclude contextual links and slide shows to determine each individual click. However because Yahoo and Bing recently added contextual links and slideshows comScore was forced to calculate metrics using a different method called “Total Core Search”.

Slideshows and contextual shortcuts make a difference in the search count because a single click on a slideshow triggers a series of sites to load whereby each slide is counted as a click. When users hover over some words in articles contextual links pop up and these are counted as clicks.

When they looked at the Total Core Search statistics, Google accounted for about 61.6 percent of the market share while Yahoo was at 20 percent and Bing followed with 12.6 percent. This difference in data prompted comScore to change its methodology and offer two distinct  calculations, called Explicit Core Search and Total Core Search.

Experts have backed this shift in methodology. This is because explicit core search tracks only those searches in which users entered specific queries to get results.
 
Yahoo joining hands with Bing will change the landscape a bit but it is anyone's guess at this time as to how it will evolve. Will they or won't they be successful in leveraging their combined strengths to grab a larger search market share by taking some of it away from Google?

In May 2010, social platforms surpassed the number of visits by Internet users when compared to the search giant Google. Google is the most popular search engine in town, if not the only search engine that really remains "standing". I mean who uses Yahoo for search anymore (anyone???)?
 
Top visited sites remain Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and then the rest.

But I don't see how Facebook can ever become a "search engine". It just doesn't have the content that Google has. Facebook and other social platforms have "user-generated" content. So from a user reach perspective, they are great tools for businesses. But individuals and companies will continue to use Google as a search engine to find relevant information. Hence the need for search engine optimization and top rankings. But since top rankings can benefit from links from social networks, businesses benefit from incorporating search engine optimization and social networking together.

Google's got competition in Facebook for sure from a simple "user" number perspective which I can see why. Grandmas who'd never go to Google to search for anything would definitely go to Facebook to see pictures of their grandkids. Right?
 
So is it really surprising then that Facebook will continue to lead the "number of users" statistics? But when it comes to finding anything at all; from cooking tips to products to vacation spots, Google's where I'm going to be and so are you.

Oh yeah, here we go! Yahoo's jumping on the bandwagon, the social media bandwagon that is. And you know what, it's with the use of YOUR free yahoo email address.

Yep, Yahoo 280 million or so email users will be able to share information and pictures, exchange ideas, and network online with others in their address books. Unlike Google's Buzz, a user's contact list won't be made public but if you have a Yahoo email address and if you don't OPT OUT, you will be in part of the Yahoo social networking scene whether you like it or not.

Who knew when you signed up for your free Yahoo email that this would happen to you eh?

Suddenly the people you emailed to will become your "Friends" and you'll be sharing your vacation pictures, your thoughts, and every comment you make with others and vice versa.

Not interested? Want to protect yourself from the Yahoo social craze? Well, you will have the option to OPT out. Yahoo plans to notify users on June 7th, one week before they go live with these new features so be on the look out if you want to opt out.

If you don't want to participate, just click one button on the settings page and you'll be opted out. Alternatively you can go and select  the areas that you want to opt out from and stay opted in for certain features.

Can't wait to see the latest foray into social networking by "almost obsolete and eclipsed by Google" Yahoo!

Well, here's more research and now it appears that finally Facebook IS the number one site accessed by internet users as of last week. According to an Internet Research company, Hitwise, Google got 7.03% of all web visits while Facebook got 7.07%.

Hmmm……….

Ok so Facebook and Google will probably play this number 1 or number 2 dance until a real winner emerges or a third player enters the competition. Google or Facebook, it matters not to me, I visit both frequently but I do visit Google more than Facebook. Perhaps it's the nature of my business or perhaps it's that I just like Google more for now.
 

Well, if you have a Facebook account, you know how much time you spend on Facebook and you also know how much time others are spending, right? Now we have statistics that show that Facebook is the 2nd most popular site from a total number of visitors perspective.

Compete Inc, (a company which publishes research data on these kinds of interesting web & other stuff) published results that showed that Facebook's 134 million unique visitors in January bypassed Yahoo's 132 million unique but was just short of the 147 million unique visitors on Google.

Another statistic reported by Compete was that users spent 11.6% of their web time on Facebook which is more than double the time they spent individually on Yahoo or Google.

I think that Facebook's popularity is largely due to the connectivity it offers which no other site currently offers. Even Google Buzz just doesn't have the same "connectivity" and interactivity which I feel Facebook offers.
 
Will Facebook bypass Google in traffic sometime soon? Well, given the January 2010 numbers reported by Compete Inc (shown above), I think that that could happen sooner rather than later. It's not just the sheer volume of users interested in networking with family and friends that will make Facebook the number one site. I think it's also because Facebook offers personal and business interactions; what with the fan page and group participation opportunities that no other site offers. LinkedIn and Google's Buzz have a few features that may grow over time but I feel that they have a while to go before they catch up with Facebook. 
 

Google's Got Buzz! 

A whole new networking site from Google for it's Gmail users who can share updates, photos and videos.

You know why Google needed to launch the BUZZ……it needs to hold its own against Facebook & Twitter.
Gmail has over 176 million users according to a market research study conducted by comScore. So that's a ready audience. Buzz provides a "built-in circle of friends" which is basically a group that Google selects based on who you communicate with most frequently using Gmail and Gchat.

Meanwhile as I was writing this blog; Twitter was aflutter with both positive and negative comments about Buzz.

So will Buzz give Facebook a run for its money? Lets wait and watch…..

Fed up with its lack of success and progress in the Social Media space, Google recently hired social media evangelists such as Chris Messina, Will Norris, and former Plaxo executive Joseph Smarr to lead a new "Social Web Team".

Is Google unsuccessful in the Social landscape because the giant itself doesn't have it's own social media strategy?

Google's social web products like Orkut, Google Friend Connect, OpenSocial, Google Profiles, and even Google Wave haven't had much acceptance on the social front. None of these products have resonated with the public or the developers that architect the social-networking technologies. Coupled with the shutting down of acquisitions DodgeBall and Jaiku due to budget cuts, Google suffered another social-media blow when its attempt to acquire Yelp failed.

Google's biggest and probably only success in social networking is YouTube. However, the core of it as well as its initial base of mainstream popularity preceded the Google buyout.

Other than that, what exactly has Google contributed to social networking?
 
So what will the big dogs Messina, Norris and Smarr do for Google? Hopefully a focus, new product ideas, and a way to take on Facebook???
 

Google wants to obtain a patent for a technology that can let its online video portal YouTube become an interactive gaming portal as well. They applied for the patent earlier in 2009.
 
The description of the patent is “Web-based System for Generation of Interactive Games Based on Digital Videos”. This patent details a system where the procedure of creating video annotations can be used for game like mechanics and video behavior change. The system can alter the appearance and even behavior of on-line videos. The system also provides for authentication based control over the annotation abilities that a user can acquire.

Now you may already be familiar with the YouTube video annotations as they are today. However they are fairly simple when you compare them to the patent they are applying for.  The new technology that Google wants to patent will allow users to create a game that can switch between different videos based on specific conditions such as different user responses etc. And users will also have the ability to control playback.

So if they win the patent, can you imagine what that will do to Google’s Youtube usage, not to mention advertisement revenue? And if they even charge a small subscription fee of $1 per application (like the one Apple charges for many of its ITouch apps), the sky’s the limit given the huge video game-loving audience out there.