Sabre, Amex Unveil Self-Booking Social Networking Platform

Sabre Travel Network today announced plans to launch by mid-2008 a social networking platform that delivers a communication forum for corporate travel programs, initially through American Express Business Travel. The application, called Cubeless, will reside in Sabre's GetThere online booking tool as an application module, as do its meetings and ground transportation booking applications.

Link: Sabre, Amex Unveil Self-Booking Social Networking Platform.

Online comparison sites move beyond price - Rob Lovitt columns- msnbc.com

Six to eight billion — according to Yen Lee, a former Yahoo! manager and now president of Internet start-up Kango.com, that’s approximately how many travel-related searches are conducted in North America each year on the Web’s major search engines.

Link: Online comparison sites move beyond price - Rob Lovitt columns- msnbc.com.

Microsoft: Online Ad Revs Climb 38 Percent in Latest Quarter - ClickZ

Microsoft today said online advertising revenue reached $623 million during its second quarter, which is the three-month period ended December 31. It represents an increase of $170 million or 38 percent from the same period in 2006.

Link: Microsoft: Online Ad Revs Climb 38 Percent in Latest Quarter - ClickZ.

Google's Travel Industry Director Offers Online Advice to Agents

Link: Google's Travel Industry Director Offers Online Advice to Agents

Perhaps because his background includes a stint as vice president of strategic hotel partnerships at Expedia, Rob Torres, Google's travel industry director, is understandably excited by the fact that 2007 was the first year that more travel dollars were spent online than offline.

Black Hat SEO Techniques Will Cost Your Hotel Big Time

Your ultimate goal from your investment in search engine optimization is to gain the best possible organic rankings on as many search terms as possible on as many search engines as possible to help increase the potential for a website visitor and the opportunity for an online or phone sales conversion. Pretty basic, huh? Well, can you imagine the impact on your hotel’s business should your search engine results page (SERP) rankings be reduced or eliminated by the search engine?

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Google Hooks Students with Online Marketing Challenge - ClickZ

Link: Google Hooks Students with Online Marketing Challenge - ClickZ.

If you were a marketing student, what would you do with $200? Groups of students from colleges and universities worldwide will be given $200 to spend on AdWords campaigns for local businesses as part of a Google Online Marketing Challenge.

Google Watch - Google Gadgets - The World Is Warming to Widgets

This just in: Google doesn't lead every market it's in. No, it's true. According to the latest November 2007 widget stats from comScore, Google has the sixth widest widget-viewing audience with more than 19 million viewers.

MySpace.com widgets had the widest audience, reaching more than 57 million Internet users. Slide.com, which just banked $50 million in investment funds, ranked second with 39.2 million viewers. Nearly 148 million U.S. Internet users viewed widgets, confirming that the public is wild about widgets.

Link: Google Watch - Google Gadgets - The World Is Warming to Widgets.

SEM's Midlife Crisis - ClickZ

Link: SEM's Midlife Crisis - ClickZ.

I'm fascinated by the role that perspective plays, especially when looking back over the brief but eventful life of search marketing and advertising. We're safely past the time when people would routinely say things like, "Search marketing is still in its infancy." But as everyone knows, childhood and adolescence aren't simple, either.

U.S. Search Engine Rankings, December 2007 - ClickZ

The year closed with Google holding 58.4 percent share of searches, slightly lower than the previous month, according to December 2007 U.S. search engine rankings data released by comScore.

Link: U.S. Search Engine Rankings, December 2007 - ClickZ.

MySpace received 76% of US social networking visits in 2007

MySpace.com averaged 76.35% of all US visits in 2007 among a custom category of 53 leading social networking websites, according to online competitive intelligence service Hitwise.

 

The data is based on averaging the monthly market share of US visits from January 2007 to December 2007.

Link: MySpace received 76% of US social networking visits in 2007.