The Week In Review

Gmail Sets Priorities

Gmail users are getting another little treat to follow up the calling feature they were recently graced with: Google is unveiling Priority Inbox in beta. The feature will sort e-mail into buckets called "important and unread," "starred" and "everything else." (NYTimes.com, CNET)

Hacking Online Advertising

Most of us have already heard about the guy who used Google AdWords to target specific people to land a job (successfully). This writer recently saw something along the same lines, but a bit off: an ad targeted at Mike Arrington sitting atop his Gmail inbox. Out of sheer curiosity, he clicked on it. "The people behind these ads took a system many believe is irreparably damaged and calibrated it for their specific needs. They didn’t rail on and on about the need for a new model. They didn’t passively seek salvation in a new device. Instead, they got to work and hacked online advertising." (O’Reilly Radar)

AOL Has Answers, Bounds into Location-Based Space

AOL is finally utilizing Yedda, the startup it acquired nearly three years ago. The company ill use that acquisition to launch its Q-and-A service. It’s not too different from the non-social Q-and-A services out there already. The company also acquired Rally Up, the creator of a location-based network with the same name, along with FacePlant, which allows iPhone 4 users to see who they can FaceTime with. (Business Insider, TechCrunch)

Yahoo Loses Ad Deal in Korea, Expands One in U.S.

Yahoo appears to be on the way out of a partnership with South Korean company NHN, the country’s answer to Google. On the other hand, Yahoo was able to expand its local ad deal with Dex One’s DexKnows. (WebProNews, paidContent.org)

Don’t Forget About Your Landing Pages

E-mail campaigns don’t end with the e-mails — they extend to the landing pages your clickers see. If you lose them there, the game is over. Give subscribers what they expect, meet them where they are, make the next steps clear, and keep your creative clean and simple. (MediaPost)

Consumers Are Wary of All Websites

More than a third of Internet users say that all websites are equally dangerous, according to a recent survey from Avira. Meanwhile, 26.7 percent of respondents surveyed by Avira (an online security firm) think so-called warez sites are extremely dangerous, and 4.1 percent think big portals are particularly vulnerable because of their popularity. (ReadWriteWeb)

Greplin Searches Clouds

If you’re looking for a search engine for all your data and information in the cloud, look no further than Greplin. The simple site enables users to search their Facebook message, tweets, Google Voice voicemail, etc., just as if they were searching from their desktops. (TechCrunch)

Backlinks + Visualizations = Useful (Somehow)

If you like backlinks and visualizations, you’ll dig this post of seven different visualizations of link profiles. The top pages function of Open Site Explorer, creating geo-link maps, generating pretty tag clouds and SEOmoz Labs are among the visual presentations of backlinks. (SEOmoz)

Retargeting Ads

Personalized retargeting or remarketing is the focus of this NY Times articles, which begins with the tale of a Zappos shopper who was mysteriously followed by the pair of snubbed shoes everywhere she went after leaving the site. While some find this breakthrough positive, others find it troubling. Is industry regulation in the cards? (NYTimes.com)

Preventing Affiliate Fraud

In the afterglow of the visual chart of the different forms of affiliate fraud recently posted at Ace Affiliates, this post walks through nine ways to prevent the misdeed. Among them are spelling out what constitutes a valid/commissionable affiliate action, keeping an eye peeled for sudden traffic surges and quick increases in affiliate-referred transactions (sales, leads, etc.), analyzing referral URLs and monitoring your brand online. (Econsultancy)

Chatroulette Returns with the Same Old Fail

Chatroulette 2.0 was supposed to be more user-friendly and less X-rated, but that still appears to be a far-off dream. The once-heralded throwback site continues to struggle while the likes of Gmail, Skype and FaceTime continue to thrive. (CNET, WebProNews)

iContact Receives $40 Million

iContact, a provider of e-mail marketing software targeted at small businesses, just got $40 million in second-round funding led by JMI Equity. (VentureBeat)

Polar Rose Goes Away

Polar Rose, the innovative facial recognition photo-sharing site, is boxing up its consumer-targeted service on Flickr and Facebook. The company will now focus on a series of facial recognition products. Stifling competition from the likes of Picasa and Face.com might have shoved the promising consumer-focused venture out the backdoor. (ReadWriteWeb)

TechCrunch Goes Disqus

As many have noticed, TechCrunch is now utilizing the Disqus commenting platform. This post explains why – to clean up the out-of-control commenting situation the site has grappled with for so long. The company is looking for a full-time employee to help monitor comments. (TechCrunch)

Etsy is Booming

If you still haven’t heard of the “arts-and-crafts eBay,” you’d better get with it. The company just nabbed a $20 million investment, bringing its valuation to $300 million. Etsy is expected to rake in $30 million to $50 million in revenue this year. (Business Insider)

Affiliate Fraud

If you’re more drawn to learning from pictures and visuals, this is right up your alley. Learn all about affiliate fraud — the risks and the solutions. Read definitions of duplicating, spamming, squatting and diverting, among other mischievous deeds. The solutions are forums, blacklists, checking, communicating, tracking and approving. (Ace Affiliates)

Repeat Business

It’s easier on the balance sheet if you sell to existing customers than to acquire a new one. Offering special discounts, making existing customers feel good by giving back, e-mail clubs, VIPs and reward programs are among the methods you can use to tweak marketing campaigns for your customer base. (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)

Google Buys Angstro

In a move meant to bolster its Google Me social network, Google recently purchased a social-graph and news-crunching startup named Angstro. This, along with the company’s other acquisitions in recent months, appears to set Google on track for a big splash when it debuts its social network. (ReadWriteWeb)

Diaspora to Debut on Sept. 15

As if Google Me wasn’t a big enough headache for Facebook, the small, heavily touted open-source social network called Diaspora is set to be open sourced on Sept. 15. (WebProNews)

Promoted Tweets Lead to 50% Boost in Engagement

For Zecco, a discount online brokerage and one of the companies beta testing Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program, reports that its promoted tweets got an average of 50 percent more engagement (retweets, replies, clicked links), and up to 200-300 percent more in some cases. “What Promoted Tweets allows us to do is engage with a very targeted market on a very contextually relevant basis,” said Zecco CEO Michael Raneri. (ClickZ)

Yelp is Off of Google Places

Google Places is now void of any trace of Yelp, which makes for a mildly intriguing mini-drama between the search giant and the company that scorned its advances in late 2009. This could be bad for Yelp’s traffic, obviously. (TechCrunch, WebProNews)

Six On-Page SEO Tips

Title tags, description meta tags, keyword meta tags, heading tags, phrase elements and alt attributes are six simple tips for assisting your on-page SEO efforts. (Search Engine Journal)

Gmail Phone Calls: About Facebook, Not Skype

While it’s tempting to view Gmail phone call feature (which notched 1 million calls in its first day) as a shot at Skype, this writer sees it instead as an ominous wink at Facebook. The idea is to keep Gmail users more immersed in that browser window and to keep Gmail and Google was Web users’ central hub. Google Me will tie in a variety of Google’s tools, including Aardvark, Gmail and Google Wave. However, don’t make the mistake in thinking Google sees Facebook as a threat to search. (Wired.com, CNET)

Google’s Arms Race to Stymie Facebook

Google has struggled to be “fun” just yet but that could change once its social efforts take full effect. Its acquisitions so far in 2010 show a clear patter of the company ramping up its efforts to dislodge Facebook’s firm grip on the social realm. (AdAge.com)

Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com Gain in July, Search Down 16% for the Year

Google claimed 64.2 percent of the U.S. search market in July, down 1 percent from the previous month and down 1 percent from July 2009, according to Nielsen. Yahoo finished the month with 14.3 percent of the market, up 4 percent from June but down 17 percent from July of last year. MSN/Windows Live/Bing got 13.6 percent of the market in July, up 2 percent month-over-month and up 51 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, a total of 8.9 billion searches were conducted in July, down 16 percent from the previous year. Of all the five major search engines, only MSN/Windows Live/Bing (+28 percent) and Ask.com (+4 percent) saw year-over-year increases. (Nielsen)

Starbucks: Facebook’s Most Threatening Competitor?

Forget Google – Facebook’s most serious competitor is Starbucks, which is set to reveal its Starbucks Digital Network in conjunction with Yahoo. The looming cloud of an in-store network ready to unleash in-network freebies to customers should be something Facebook keeps an eye on. If pursued to the most extreme end, it’s feasible that Starbucks patrons will receive mobile coupons related to the very content they’re perusing while sipping on their frappuccino. (Convince & Convert)

Five Takeaways from SES San Francisco 2010

If you didn’t have the pleasure of attending SES in San Francisco last week, don’t worry – SEOmoz has you covered with five actionable takeaways: 1) Don’t forget about analytics; 2) Remember about mobile; 3) UGC rocks; 4) Hot triggers should be in your face; and 5) PR = public relations = social. (SEOmoz)

How to Write Headlines that Sell

How can you write headlines that lure a browser into becoming an avid reader who eventually presses the “buy” button? For one thing, make sure you tell your readers that they’re reading something relevant. Then add a powerful result to your headline. Lastly, tap the emotions of the reader with action words. (Copyblogger)

CollegeOnly: The New-Old Facebook for College Students

Facebook is no longer the simple social network it used to be. That’s why an entrepreneur in New York is launching CollegeOnly, which is aiming to utilize photos, gossip and obsessing about crushes to amass a large online community. One of the best parts? Photos won’t be visible to employers, parents and high-school siblings. The site isn’t aiming to topple Facebook – rather, it views itself as a complement that fills a void for college students. (NYTimes.com)

Lurkers Are OK

UGC sites are filled with users who fall into one of three buckets: power users (1 percent), casual contributors (9 percent) and lurkers (90 percent). The bad news is that you can’t overcome participation inequality. The good news, however, is that lurkers are OK to have around. In fact, you should make sure that your UGC site is made for them, too. (Both Sides of the Table)