TechCrunch reports that a company called Kno has raised $55 million, and will create what investor Marc Andreessen says will be "the most powerful tablet anyone has ever made." That should be interesting. 
 
MG Siegler points to a humorous Twitter account from his personal blog, Parislemon. The account "translates" the tweets of rapper 50 cent into English, providing retweets of 50′s original post for context. 
 
Jorgen Sundberg has an interesting post about how to make Google love your Twitter profile. I haven’t tested his tips, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of his post, but it’s worth checking out. 
 
Greg Sterling points to a speech from Eric Schmidt this week in which he says, "One in three queries from smartphones is about where I am."  
 
MacDailyNews reports that Notre Dame has launched paperless iPad courses:
 

 
Geek.com reports that the Yosion Apple Peel 520, which lets you turn an iPod Touch into a smartphone that can send and receive calls and texts, is coming to the U.S. It’s apparently coming now that jailbreaking is legal. 
 
According to comScore numbers, Gawker Media and the Huffington Post both get more monthly unique visitors than any major newspaper site, except for the New York times. That’s more than USAToday, The Washington Post, The LA Times, or the Wall Street Journal. More at The Awl. 
 
MobileCrunch looks at the release of Yahoo’s open-source User Interface library,
 
According to Asymoco, app downloads on iTunes are on pace to surpass song downloads this year. On a related note, Cnet reports that Apple doesn’t have all of the licenses it needs to expand the length of iTunes song samples. 
 
According to Gizmodo, Justin Bieber takes up 3% of Twitter resources at any moment, and Bieber (along with other big users) have dedicated Twitter servers. 
 
The EFF weighed in on the topic of Craigslist censoring, talking specifically about what it means for free speech. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post has an article called "Thoughts From a Former Craigslist Sex Worker". 
 
Bing launched a new site today called Redu, which was built "to help people come and get informed, involved, and connected to challenges, opportunities, and activities focused on improving education" in the U.S.
 
Microsoft Advertising announced that it is launching third-party ad serving for mobile in the U.S. "Our solution enables agencies and advertisers to use trusted third party ad servers such as Microsoft Atlas and Google’s DART to serve mobile display ads on all of our premium Microsoft Mobile Media properties including MSN Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger, MSNBC, FOX Sports, CNBC and Wonderwall," says Microsoft’s Raj Kapoor. "Advertisers and agencies will now be able to centrally manage their ad campaigns and reporting using trusted and proven third-party systems."
 
MySpace has introduced a new way to experience video in the stream. Users can watch videos instantly from their stream.

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Do you think Google Instant is a threat to SEO? Share your thoughts.
 
iCrossing has a list of brands that come up when you enter each letter of the alphabet (not all are brands, but many are). A is for Amazon (not Apple), B is for Bank of America, M is for Mapquest (not Microsoft), N is for Netflix, P is for Pandora, V is for Verizon, and Y is for Yahoo. 
 
You must keep in mind, however, that the instant results are personalized. Google takes into account things like your location and your surfing habits when providing you results. 
 

 
Google Instant doesn’t necessarily make things any easier on small businesses, but it’s showing big brands in cases where Google probably would’ve suggested big brands anyway. If users do a lot of local searches, it’s possible that Google could show more local results (including small businesses) for those users, I’m speculating. 
 
Steve Rubel says that Google Instant makes SEO irrelevant. "Here’s what this means," he says. "No two people will see the same web. Once a single search would do the trick – and everyone saw the same results. That’s what made search engine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback. When you get feedback, you change your behaviors."
 
He’s not wrong about that, but I’m not sure that makes SEO irrelevant. Google has been showing different results to different users for quite a while now. This is really just an extension of that. 
 
Businesses might want to try (and have other people try) doing searches for keywords that they would expect people to use to find their site. See what comes up (keep in mind the personalization) and work from there. Easier said than done no doubt, but it’s something to consider. Think about what kinds of people will be interested in your products and what other kind of searches they might be doing. It’s not a science, but again, perhaps something worth considering. It might mean getting to know your customers better, which can’ t be a bad thing anyway. Maybe it means asking them to take surveys. Maybe it doesn’t. 
 
The whole thing doesn’t help organic SEO’s case in the old SEO vs PPC debate. I’ll give Rubel that. 
 
Speaking of PPC, Google says Google Instant changes the way it counts impressions. "It’s possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels," says Google’s Dan Friedman. "However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need."

 
Trevor Claiborne of the Google Analytics Team says that Analytics users might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and traffic for organic keywords. "For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward," he says. 
 
You should read this post on the Google Webamster Central blog. It says that impressions are measured in three ways: the traditional way, when a user clicks on a link that appears as they begin to type, and when a user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds.
 
Sidenote: Google’s Matt Cutts weighed in on the whole will Google Instant kill SEO thing. "Almost every new change at Google generates the question ‘Will X kill SEO?’ Here’s an video I did last year, but it still applies," he says.

He says, however that over time, it could <i>change</i> SEO. "The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time," says Cutts. "For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results."
Google Instant will likely become increasingly important to search marketing, because not only will it roll out to more countries (it’s starting in the U.S. and a select few others), but it will soon come to mobile and browser search boxes. Each of these factors will greatly increase how often Instant results are displayed. 
 
The mobile factor actually has implications for Google retaining a substantial amount of mobile searches in general. The better (and quicker) Google can give results on any kind of query, the less reason users have to go to different apps to acquire certain information. 
 
Google clearly said that ranking stays the same with Google Instant, but it will change the way people search. It will affect their search behavior, and that is what search marketers are going to have to think about more than ever. You should also consider that some people will simply deactivate the feature, leaving them open to Google’s standard results.

Tell us what you think of Google Instant. Do you like it or not? 

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Original Article: As you may have read by now, Craigslist has censored its "adult services" section. This appears to stem from a combination of pressure from numerous state attorneys general and negative media exposure. The issue at hand:  prostitution and human trafficking being solicited through the site. 

The situation brings to mind the conviction of Google execs over content uploaded to Google-owned YouTube, which led us to asking if social media sites should be held accountable for user actions.  Should Craigslist be held responsible? Comment here.

Craiglist opted to display a "censored" bar over the "adult services" category, caving to the pressure to remove it, while also making it obvious that its not really what they wanted to do. They could’ve simply removed it. Craigslist clearly feels attacked. Some have even suggested that the move was made to influence public opinion. 

Some are coming at the story raising questions about free speech, and while that is one issue, not even all supporters of online free speech find this to be the real issue at hand. Microsoft Research Senior Researcher Danah Boyd wrote a lengthy editorial on the subject for the Huffington Post in which she comes to Craigslist defense (as a service provider, not for censoring the section). Boyd, who claims to be a victim of abuse herself, makes the case that censoring Craigslist does more to add to the problem than to help solve it, saying that it helps the abusers. 

"The Internet has changed the dynamics of prostitution and trafficking, making it easier for prostitutes and traffickers to connect with clients without too many layers of intermediaries," she writes. "As a result, the Internet has become an intermediary, often without the knowledge of those internet service providers (ISPs) who are the conduits. This is what makes people believe that they should go after ISPs like Craigslist. Faulty logic suggests that if Craigslist is effectively a digital pimp who’s profiting off of online traffic, why shouldn’t it be prosecuted as such?"

"The problem with this logic is that it fails to account for three important differences," Boyd continues. "1) most ISPs have a fundamental business — if not moral — interest in helping protect people; 2) the visibility of illicit activities online makes it much easier to get at, and help, those who are being victimized; and 3) a one-stop-shop is more helpful for law enforcement than for criminals. In short, Craigslist is not a pimp, but a public perch from which law enforcement can watch without being seen."

Boyd elaborates on each of these points in the article. Despite the censoring, Craigslist appears to agree with Boyd.  
"The law is on craigslist’s side – websites are not liable for content posted by users under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. But craigslist has given up anyway," says Adrianne Jeffries at ReadWriteWeb. "It’s not because its owners want to prevent sex trafficking – craigslist has maintained that it does more harm than good because law enforcement agencies can use it just as easily as pimps can."

There has been a lot of criticism about how the media has covered the story in general, with Craigslist itself probably being the harshest critic. CNN’s Amber Lyon recently interviewed Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, apparently catching him off guard on the subject. In a post at The Faster Times, Newmark says:

Amber approached me after an event where I had just spoken about stuff like getting real support for our troops and veterans — a cause I care about and support whenever I can. She said because “I’m the Craig in craigslist,” she expected me to have all the answers on the spot about anything to do with the company. Well, I don’t. Jim Buckmaster, our CEO, has been running craigslist for the last 10 years. I am a customer service rep, and I still love being connected to our users and trying to help people. But I have no role in managing the company’s operations because basically (a) I suck as a manager, and (b) while overall company direction matters to me as founder and a board director,  the deal was to hire good, trustworthy people and then get outta the way. If Amber had done her homework, she would have known ambushing me with questions I am not qualified to answer, or even the right person to ask, would not get CNN’s viewers the accurate information they deserve.

Buckmaster also posted a letter to Lyon on the company blog, criticizing her approach. In this clip, Lyon says Craigslist isn’t living up to its promise of filtering ads, and offers a rebuttal to Craigslist accusations that  she "ambushed" Newmark (though doesn’t mention the part about him not running the company).  Since the Newmark interview, there has been no shortage of media coverage of Craigslist, though as Jeffries and Lyon both note, Craigslist itself is no longer talking. 

Craigslist had another blog post up recently criticizing the notion that alternatives to Craigslist are any better for preventing human trafficking. The post was a response to a Facebook Page based on that notion, indicating that eBay was such an alternative. The post goes on to discuss examples of ads that would contradict that notion.  In Boyd’s piece, she compared the whole thing to a game of whack-a-mole, suggesting that if you censor one site, the content will simply pop up on another one. 

Is censoring Craigslist the answer? Share your thoughts.

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Experian Hitwise noted in an official statement, "The percentage of U.S. searches for the one-week ending Aug. 28, 2010 for the Bing combined powered search accounted for 24.56 percent, as Yahoo! Search and Bing received 14.32 percent and 10.24 percent, respectively."

That’s perhaps not a terrible starting point.  After all, Ask, AOL, and lots of other companies can only dream of performing one out of every 20 searches, never mind one out of four.

The bad news for Yahoo and Bing is that they still didn’t gain ground on Google in August.  Google’s market share rose from 71.43 percent to 71.59 percent on a month-over-month basis, while Yahoo’s market share fell (from 14.43 percent to 14.28 percent) and Bing made only the tiniest bit of progress.

Plus, Experian Hitwise observed that "Google delivered the most visits" to its Automotive, Health, Shopping, and Travel categories.

The big search announcement Google’s supposed to make later today may not play in Yahoo and Bing’s favor, either.

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Google’s doodle was actually the sole cause of the spike.  A statement released this morning explained, "Clicking it brought-up the Google search of the term ‘Buckyballs’ which in turn brought up the page for the desktoy of the same name.  2,000,000+ unique visitors in total landed on the www.GetBuckyballs.com page."

Then, "When it was all said and done, Buckyballs, already the world’s best-selling desktoy, saw an alarming jump in sales: 10,000 units sold in a single day – that’s over $250,000 in product, and the term ‘Buckyballs’ has since rocketed to the top of retail and keyword search-term charts!"

Of course, we should note that the statement came courtesy of GetBuckyballs.com, so despite the use of the word "alarming," it doesn’t represent much of a complaint.

Instead, the whole situation seems more of an illustration of Google’s power.  How many other companies could generate a quarter of a million dollars in sales while trying to celebrate an obscure scientific achievement?

Hat tip goes to Steve O’Hear, in any event.

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"We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible," says Pascal Finette at Mozilla Labs. "We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices."

"Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geo location, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web," says Finette. "With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform.  And what better way than through games?  Traditionally games and game developers have been at the forefront of technology, often pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible."

Mozilla is launching an international gaming competition to kickstart the new initiative. The event, called Game On2010, will be open to all developers using open web technologies. 

Mozilla’s sudden interest in gaming comes as Google (a direct competitor with Chrome) has begun placing a great deal of resources in the gaming space. In fact, Google’s efforts (at least some of them) are directly related to Chrome, and the Chrome Web Store.

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