Daily SearchCast, May 11, 2006: Google Trends For Researching What's Hot & What's Not; Google Co-op, Google's Big Time Tagging Experiment; Complaints Over Commission Cuts & More!

Today’s search podcast covers new Google products unveiled during yesterday’s
Press Day, including the hot research tool Google Trends, the “freaky weird”
mass tagging system of Google Co-op, Google Gadgets for your desktop and a
coming Google Notebook. Also a look at Google issues with a click fraud
settlement, pushback on cutting commissions and more!

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Below are links to items discussed:

• My Big Fat
  Google Press Day 2006 Round-Up
  We’ve blogged a number of items out of Google Press Day today. I wanted to recap
  them below, along with coverage from across the web that’s beginning to flow in.
  I’ll likely update this page over the next day, as well. New items will be
  posted below old stuff and flagged, or we’ll do postscripts, to help those who
  keep checking back. Let’s go!…
• Google
  Trends: Peer Into Google’s Database Of Searches
  Now live via Google Labs is a new Google Trends service, announced today as part
  of Google Press Day. The service allows you to tap into Google’s database of
  searches, to determine what’s popular. For example, do a trends query on cars,
  and you can see the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and
  so on….
• Fun With
  Google Trends
  Danny just posted about Google Trends, a service of Google that shows you search
  volume trends over time for a keyword or for multiple keywords. I thought it
  would be fun to ask Google Trends which search engine, of the top four, is the
  most popular, in terms of search volume. So I queries Google Trends for Google,
  Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN (keep in mind ask jeeves is now ask.com). I also thought
  it would be fun to pin Apple vs. Windows vs. Linux. So let’s see what Google
  Trends had to say……
• Google
  Co-op: Add Your Own Vertical Search To Google
  Google said it would have a health-related announcement at today’s Google Press
  Day — but no, it’s not Google Health. Instead, it’s Google Co-op, a way for
  people to create specialized search engines by tapping into the main Google
  index or the option for searchers to pick preferred vertical search providers to
  show up in Google OneBox results. Yes, health information is one of the new
  features — but this is more than Google Health. This is Google making a giant
  and somewhat perplexing leap into mass tagging….
• Google
  Destination Guides: Not Much There — Yet
  A part of Google Co-op, “Destination Guides” was promoted as ?Google City
  Guides? at Google Press Day today. And while everything about Co-op has been
  officially qualified as a ?work in progress,? this is something of a
  disappointment ?- as are many of the content areas and the general
  user-experience of Co-op. Danny has a more complete write up of Co-op here.
  Co-op is an ambitious project, not unlike Base, to create verticals, add
  structured and user-generated content and make the search experience more
  personalized. If you want to create your own “vertical search engine,” which is
  one of the…
• 
  NetworkWorld Talks With Raul Valdes-Perez, CEO of Vivisimo & Clusty
  Gary Price points to a NetworkWorld.com interview with Vivisimo CEO Raul
  Valdes-Perez, of Clusty Search. Clusty uses clustering technology to provide
  results. The NetworkWorld author was convinced, during his interview with Mr.
  Perez, that Google/Yahoo/MSN provide “incomplete results.” Is clustering the
  future of search? Give Clusty a try for yourself. Also, for past articles at
  Search Engine Watch on Clusty click here….
• New Google
  Desktop Beta Features Google Gadgets
  The Inside Google Desktop blog announced the release of a new version of Google
  Desktop. The new version’s main feature are Google Gadgets, some of the many
  widgets include Weather Globe, Google Calendar and many more….
• Google
  Notebook Comes Next Week
  Announced today as part of Google Press Day is a new Google Notebook service to
  go live via Google Labs next week. The service will allow you to add notes to
  search results, which in turn can be saved into one or more notebooks. Notes you
  make about a site also will show up when you visit those sites, similar to how
  the A9 Your Diary feature works. Yahoo and Ask also offer the ability to add
  notes associated with search results….
• New Google
  AdWords Traffic & Cost Estimator
  Google AdWords has finally launched a standalone tool where advertisers can
  get traffic and cost information for keywords without needing to login to their
  AdWords accounts to do so. Data included in the results are keywords/minimum
  bid, maximum CPC/predicted status, search volume, estimated average CPC,
  estimated ad positions, potential clicks per day and potential cost per day….
• Advertiser
  Files Complaint To Block Google Click Fraud Settlement
  One Google advertiser is making a very formal rejection of the proposed
  Google click fraud settlement — he’s filed a complaint to try and block the
  agreement, and this before notifications from Google have even gone out….
• Google
  Commission Woes In Sweden, Australia
  Over the past few months, Google’s been trying to reduce or eliminate commission
  on its ad products in countries where they are offered (North America, notably,
  has never had them). Now there are some news reports that the plans aren’t well
  received Down Under and in Sweden….
• Online Ad
  Spending Continues to Grow
  During the Dot Com Boom, many companies planned their online revenue models
  around free services supported by advertising, and for many, this model didn’t
  pan out because many traditional ad agencies – and their big brand, big spend
  clients – did not embrace the online advertising opportunities available at the
  time. However, a new article from CNET reports on the current status of online
  advertising, including how it has cycled back to a point where many new services
  are expected to be supported through online advertising and where big brands are
  a major part of the expected growth of online…
• Google &
  Yahoo Are Challenged In Mobile Search Space
  A Wall Street Journal article reports that InfoSpace, amongst other startup
  search engines, are providing a challenge for Google & Yahoo in the mobile
  search space. I believe both Yahoo and Google are taking mobile search very
  seriously. The market is still extremely new and there is a lot of opportunity
  for startups to make key partnerships with the carriers….
• Finding
  European Flights On The Move
  Stuck in a European airport and looking for a cheap flight while on the move?
  Skyscanner has got a new tool for you — a mobile-friendly version of its site,
  Skyscanner Mobile….
• Google Maps
  Marriage Proposal Or Not?
  Nathan Weinberg reports that someone has proposed to his girlfriend via Google
  Maps. If you take a look at the this roof top in Google Maps, you will notice it
  reads, “Will U Marry Me.” But the true question is, was this meant for a fly
  over via plane or helicopter or was it meant to be a proposal via Google
  Maps?…