The Seattle-Search.com Blog

Making the first acquisition in its 11-year history, MSNBC.com, a joint venture between Microsoft and the NBC Universal division of GE, is diving into citizen journalism and social media by acquiring Newsvine.com, a six-employee startup that has helped pave the way in what is known as “participatory journalism.”

Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson will report to Charlie Tillinghast, president of MSNBC Interactive News and publisher of msnbc.com, but otherwise, Newsvine will continue to operate independently.

Tillinghast said msnbc.com was racing to foster a community among its readers and to exploit the power of unmoderated user commentary and ranking of the news. Ideally, he said in an interview, the site would design and build its own tools, but Newsvine, headquartered in downtown Seattle a few minutes from msnbc.com’s newsroom, “is just a great fit.”

Costco.com is the newest member of the online billion dollar sales club.

For the year Costco Wholesale Corp. grew its e-commerce sales by about 39% to $1.22 billion compared with web sales of $880 million in fiscal 2006.

At the same time total revenue rose by 7% and same store sales by 6%. The company, No. 21 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, reported net income of $1.08 billion on revenue of $64.4 billion for the 2007 fiscal year compared with net income of $1.1 billion on sales of $60.1 billion in the prior year. Amazingly, the Web still accounted for only 2% of total sales.

Rand Fishkin believes in transparency.  He runs his company, SEOmoz, like he does his blog, publicly.

A few months ago he hired SEM consultant Andy Beal to advise on the growth of the business. Rand reported Beal’s findings and recommendations to his audience of SEO enthusiasts and commentators. He also asked this blogging community whether he should accept outside investment in his agency.

Reactions were mixed, but Rand appears to have squarely connected with two VC firms — Ignition Partners and Curious Office.  Today he announced an investment of $1.25 million in his firm.  Rand also disclosed that he has invited Zillow’s Vanessa Fox to join his board of directors.

SEOmoz is now on a mission to add products and services that add value  to search marketing, right here in the Emerald City. As Rand puts it, “We literally have a hundred different ideas for tools, search analytics, tracking, guides, [and] resources.”  Clearly, Rand also wants to get into the training end of the business as well.  Will all of that amount to the earnings multiples that will impress his new VC partners in terms of ROI? Only time will tell.

With this new beginning , Rand also sees a potential ending.  He writes, “…When we decided to accept this money, we took a step in a direction that will probably end with the sale of SEOmoz (as we’re most likely not a target to go public). I think that this is one of the other big fears that members and commenters had - and I can completely empathize. However, I will say this - I’m in this for the long haul, and even though SEOmoz may, in 4-7 years, be part of another company, I’m going to do my damndest to make sure that all the great things about us get preserved.”

Alaska Air Group will test satellite-based wireless Internet access on an Alaska Airlines jet in hopes of offering inflight Web and e-mail service to attract more customers.

The technology developed by closely held Row 44, based in Westlake Village, California, will be installed on a Boeing Co. 737 early next year, Seattle-based Alaska Air said in a statement today.

Passengers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices will connect to the Internet through wireless hotspots inside the aircraft, linked to a satellite receiver on top of the plane, the company said. Alaska Air, the ninth-largest U.S. carrier, said it’s been working with Row 44 on the system for two years.

American Airlines and Virgin America are working with closely held AirCell to develop air-to-ground broadband Internet service.

JetBlue Airways is studying ways to offer inflight e- mail and text-messaging through its LiveTV subsidiary, and Southwest Airlines said it may equip planes with wireless Internet connections.

Does Amazon know for sure that I’m a search marketer who might be interested in buying ads for clients on Amazon product pages, or is it just the fact that I’ve purchased The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords in the past, or more recently, Shane Atchison and Jason Burby’s Actionable Web Analytics?

In either case, instead of  being cross-sold a robust espresso maker to help me manage those complex PPC campaigns long into the night, Amazon is inviting me to go down to the River.  ClickRiver to be precise.

Dear Larry,

As an Amazon.com customer who purchased Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords, we think you’ll be interested in a new program that lets you extend your pay-per-click marketing efforts to the tens of millions of customers per month that have made Amazon.com the leading online marketplace.

Clickriver Ads, offered by A9.com, works just like the sponsored link programs of the major search engines. You bid on the keywords you want, and pay only for actual clicks to your own web site. Your sponsored links appear both on Amazon.com’s search results pages and product detail pages.

What differentiates the Clickriver program is the audience. Customers who visit Amazon.com aren’t in search mode. They’re in shopping mode - the best time to introduce them to your product or service. That’s why we think Clickriver is the perfect way to extend your marketing reach.

Visit Clickriver.com to sign up now; you can have your sponsored link up and working for you in minutes. Registration is free, so it’s a zero risk proposition, and we think you’ll be very pleased with the results.

Next, they’ll be suggesting that those Who Purchased ClickRiver Search Advertising were also interested in Yahoo! Sponsored Search or perhaps Google AdWords. Hey, interested in a good used Google Advertising campaign?

Seattle’s Marchex, which recently acquired VoiceStar, launched 100,000 local search domains and is about to relaunch OpenList as a new, comprehensive local destination site, has issued a local report entitled “Unlocking the Potential of the Local Internet.” The document is a very good overview of the state of the market (with data) and the opportunity. Here’s where you can download the report. Simultaneously, the company has started a local blog called “LocalPoint.”

Attending the Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose this week along with the annual Google Dance event, it’s easy to see the ascendancy of Search across so many categories.

The Google Dance, Google’s open house and social mixer held on the Google campus in Mountain View features Google product demonstrations, an “Ask the Engineers” breakout session,  and a carnival like atmosphere under the California moonlight that is festooned with multicolored lights and Google T-shirts, plus everything from karaoke contests, billards and beach volleball to stations where you can build your own root beer float.

The date of this year’s Google Dance coincided with Google looking skyward in a stellar direction.  The company announced the debut of Google Sky to allow searchers to peer into the cosmos and study astronomical photos, Google Sky being a supernatural extension of Google Earth.

Meanwhile, on the shores of Lake Washington, Google is breaking ground on a new Googleplex which will surely be the site of a future northwest edition of The Google Dance.  The LakeView Plaza campus is a  three-building, 195,000-square-foot development currently under construction in Kirkland.  You’ll soon be able to spot it on Google Maps, and Google Earth of course, even from millions of miles away in space!

Ka-ching, ka-ching! Amazon is rolling out a new web service for online payments which will compete with PayPal and Google Checkout. The new program is an extension of the existing Amazon Payments, which allows third parties selling items on Amazon’s extended network to receive payments from buyers.
For the time being, users will be redirected to Amazon’s servers to complete the payment and then returned to the shopping site. PayPal’s integrated solution currently allows users to remain on the original ecommerce site, an attractive feature for larger partners. The new service will also allow sites to use Amazon to manage payments between users, and receive confirmation of transactions. This seems particularly useful for the new crop of online money management services.