Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 6/4 – 6/8

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Google will begin to display AdSense in its Maps product, video search engine, Blinx will power Ask’s video search, U.S. online ad revenues up 26% in the first quarter, WebProNews features video footage and interviews from SMX Advanced, and finally, AdWords adds new feature to management console – the Account Snapshot.

Monday

• Google Maps To Include AdSense - A new feature planned at Google will integrate Google AdSense into the Google Maps product. InfoWorld reports that in a sneak preview last week, Google revealed how it plans to integrate its AdSense advertising platform with Google Maps, meaning some push-pin graphics used at the maps site could be turned into mini-advertisements. Maps will continue to display information but also include where appropriate, advertisements.

  Greg Sterling provided the following screen shot at Search Engine Land -

  

Tuesday

• Blinx To Power Ask’s Video Search - Video search engine company Blinkx has made a deal with search engine Ask to power their video search results, giving Ask users access to more than 12 million hours of audio and video content. Blinx will earn revenues for each search that Ask.com users undertake, as well as from advertising when users visit media partner sites. News clips, music videos and other television content will be available by accessing a Blinkx search box on the Ask website. Blinkx claims it’s the world’s largest video search engine and has already struck deals with 130 media companies, including NBC, Viacom Inc.’s (VIA) MTV, HBO and YouTube.

Wednesday

• First Quarter Online Ad Revenues Up 26% in the U.S. - From Reuters, U.S. online advertising revenue grew 26 percent year on year to a record $4.9 billion in the first quarter of 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This is a clear sign that marketers are moving advertising dollars away from traditional areas such as print, radio and television. “The continued growth of online ad revenues clearly illustrates marketers’ increased comfort with the extraordinary vitality and accountability of this medium,” IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said in a statement.

Thursday

• Videos From Danny Sullivan’s SMX Advanced - The dust has settled in Seattle. Danny Sullivan’s inaugural SMX conference has come and gone. WebProNews has put together a variety of videos which include interviews as well as some conference coverage. Here are a few that I found interesting: Scott Woodard On Affiliate Marketing, Matt Cutts on Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, Matt Cutts on Duplicate Content and Paid Search, Discussion on Duplicate Content featuring Danny Sullivan, Tamar Weinberg and Carolyn Shelby on SMX Expo, Michael Gray on Search Engines and Google, and finally, Aaron Wall, Cameron Olthuis and Neil Patel on Tips, Tricks and Tools. There’s more. Check out the June 2007 archives for the complete set and look for “SMX Seattle” in the title.

Friday

• Account Snapshot Now Available in AdWords Console - Google has implemented a new feature they were testing last July called the Account Snapshot page. This new feature provides an easy-to-read account overview in one place. It also offers something completely new to AdWords – SMS (or mobile phone) alerts regarding important account events related to billing, disapproved ads, and campaign maintenance. You can aslo opt to be alerted online or via email.Here is a screenshot of what the new Account Snapshot looks like -