Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 8/27 – 8/31

A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including new version of Bloglines launches in beta format, CNN and Google enter into multi-year AdSense deal, a successful viral marketing campaign relies on knowing your audience, micro-blogging platform, Jaiku adds instant messaging feature, and finally the funny video that was shown prior to the start of the “Are Paid Links Evil” session that drew so much acclaim at Search Engine Strategies last week in San Jose.

Monday

• New Bloglines Beta Challenges Google Reader – Barry Schwartz points out that Bloglines (my RSS reader of choice) has released a new beta offering several new features including, a customizable start page with drag and drop AJAX functionality and three feed viewing options including a “Quick View,” “3-Pane View,” and a “Full View.” A new “Unread System” that makes marking feed items clearer, quicker and easier. Read/Write Web has a comprehensive review of the new product. Gary Price has also done a write-up at ResourceShelf. Now I’m off to download and test out
  the new beta version.

Tuesday

• CNN Enters Into Multi-Year Advertising Agreement with Google - Two leaders in their niche, CNN for news and Google for search, have entered into an agreement that enlists Google’s AdSense™ advertising program to deliver site targeted advertising to CNN.com. The official Google press release states, “Through this collaboration, the AdSense service places contextually relevant ads alongside CNN.com content, allowing both small and large advertisers to target CNN.com specifically and connect with high quality content and traffic. Under the terms of the deal, Google will serve as the exclusive provider of auction-based text advertisements throughout CNN.com.”

Wednesday

• Successful Viral Marketing Relies on Knowing Your Audience - Jennifer Laycock reminds us that while sites such as Digg, Facebook and YouTube can drive a lot of traffic, they do not guarantee a successful viral marketing campaign. She points out that a good social media campaign focused more on reaching your target audience than it did on reaching a lot of people. To see exactly what she is talking about, check out “A Successful Viral Campaign Relies on Knowing Your Audience.“

Thursday

• Jaiku Adds Instant Messaging Feature - TechCrunch reports that micro-blogging platform
  Jaiku has added Jabber-based instant messaging capabilities to its service. This new feature will allow users using Jaiku’s Web, iPhone, and Nokia Series 60 smart phone clients to communicate with users on Jabber-based IM networks including Google Talk. Functionality includes the ability to instantly add and read new posts, comments, channel messages, and receive notifications of inbound responses directly.

Friday

• Are Paid Links Evil Comedy Video Shown During SES Session - And finally to get to ready for the three day weekend (Labor Day for us in the United States), I just came across this video shot by blogger Dave Dugdate which takes a comical look at the paid links debate. It was played prior to the panelists taking the podium. Enjoy.