The Week in Review

Airtime Sets out to Re-Humanize the Internet, Create Shared Experiences

Airtime, the project co-founded by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, is hoping to re-inject some lost humanity and intimacy in online interactions. The video chatting application enables users to create shared experiences with people you know and strangers who have common interests or locations. (VentureBeat, TechCrunch)

Building Links From Scratch

Here’s a look at a "template" for building links from scratch. Google’s Webmaster Tools and Analytics are two free tools to start with. The types of links to pursue include directory links, blogroll links, sitewide links, resource links and infographic links. (Search Engine Watch)

The Unintended Consequences of Link Removal

"Link building is public relations, and always has been." While in some cases link removal may be the obvious answer, it isn’t always the way to go for every site. Assuming you aren’t deciding on hundreds or thousands of links, follow these two steps: reach out to contacts in charge of off-site links and have them no-followed; and examine your on-site links. (Search Engine Land)

9 Ways to Improve Local Search Rankings

Local search marketing is emerging, but many businesses still aren’t doing anything about it. To improve your local search rankings, do things like claim your Google Places page, have a consistent address and phone number on the Internet, and ask for online reviews. (Search Engine People)

25 Free Google Tools for Marketers

Marketers should consider these 25 free, helpful Google tools to amplify their search engine and social media efforts. Among the Google tools listed here are Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, Google DoubleClick Ad Planner and Google Trends. (KISSmetrics)

The ‘Paid Gamification’ of Facebook

"The future of Facebook marketing isn’t about display ads. It’s about visibility and reach." Facebook’s " organification movement" means Facebook ad units are taking a backseat to paid interactions, increased reach and word-of-mouth advertising. (Marketing Land)

The Direct Path to Online Prospects and Customers

Direct marketing produces more sales than display advertising, PR or community-based social media, but it’s still not understood by most people. Writing direct-sales communications requires a new skill set. (Copyblogger)

Salesforce Acquires Buddy Media for $745 Million

Salesforce will acquire social media marketing platform Buddy Media for $745 million in cash and stock. Buddy Media will be an important addition to Salesforce’s "Marketing Cloud," which includes social listening platform Radian6. The move puts pressure on the likes of SAP, IBM and other CRM businesses to bulk up their social media capabilities. (Inside Facebook)

How to Write a Post That Goes Viral

You should write to get the attention of people who will share it, not to get the attention of Google algorithms. In other words, turn away from SEO and focus on writing viral posts. Here are three steps to follow: 1) write your own headline using the 4 U’s; 2) allow professionals to rewrite your headline; and 3) write killer content. (Quick Sprout)

All About Quality Score and Landing Pages

Here are some answers to follow-up questions from attendees of a webinar titled "How to Use Killer Landing Pages to Get Better PPC Results." They cover topics ranging from the weighting of ad CTR vs. landing-page relevance as it relates to Quality Score, whether you should create a separate landing page for every ad group if you’re targeting the same service, and how often Quality Score is updated. (WordStream)

When Will Google Combat Infographic Spam?

Infographic spam is on its way to entering the realm of splogs, duplicate-content articles and mass directory submissions. In other words, “spinfographics” are about to flood the Internet. (WebProNews)

Bing’s Social Search Opens up to the U.S.

Bing has rolled out its social search update to all its users in the U.S. The new version of the search engine uses a three-column design, along with a snapshot feature and social features. The social column, which will include results from friends and experts, will appear to the right of the traditional search results. (Bing)

SEO and Paid Ads With Google Goggles

Google Goggles have an important role to play in the future of search and SEO, and they may make location-based advertising more effective. “We may see more businesses including different types of barcodes on their street signs and products and marketing images, and/or their URLs. We might also see more people making sure that their store front signs are cleaned up and easier to read by people and search engines.” (SEO by the Sea)

Facebook ‘Likes’ Become Ads

Facebook’s Sponsored Stories turns a user’s affinity for something into an ad shown to the user’s friends. Amazon, for instance, pays Facebook to generate these ads when a user “likes” their brands or refers to them in some way. Though Facebook will likely lean on this channel of revenue more heavily, users aren’t always keen on having their “likes” turned into marketing efforts. (NYTimes.com)

Microsoft Makes ‘Do Not Track’ Default for IE 10

Microsoft will make the “Do Not Track” feature default in Internet Explorer 10. This is bad news for online advertising companies, including Google. This could affect about a quarter of the Internet’s users. (Wired.com)

27 Ways to Segment Your Email List

The evidence in support of email list segmentation is strong, but how you segment your list depends on your business and the goals of your email marketing and lead nurturing. Nevertheless, here is a list of 27 smart ways to segment your email list. Included are job function, past purchases, purchase cycle, content topic and form abandonment. (HubSpot)

Google Applies for More Than 50 New Generic Top-Level Domains

Google has confirmed that it has participated in the application process for new generic top-level domains, including .google, .youtube and .lol. If reports are accurate, Google has spent more than $9 million in application fees. (Marketing Land)

The Welcome Email Is Dead

A welcome email is better than no message at all, but marketers should think about it as an onboarding program rather than a welcome message. “An onboarding program evolves the initial greeting into a strategically designed, calibrated series of automated messages designed to convert your new subscriber into a regular customer in a highly personalized and systematic way.” (MediaPost)

Google and Facebook Interested in Vevo?

According to the New York Post, Google and Facebook are considering investments in Vevo, the music video service. Vevo’s deal with YouTube expires at the end of the year, so it’s looking to negotiate a better ad cut with Google’s video platform or explore other options. (The Next Web)

Google Product Search Will Become Google Shopping

Google Product Search is set to be renamed Google Shopping. In the new business model, only merchants who pay will be listed, heralding the first time the company will put to rest a search product that once listed companies for free. This raises the concern that Google will start cutting free listings elsewhere. While Google takes the stance that a paid relationships ensures high quality of listings, there’s obviously a lot to talk about here. (Search Engine Land)

New York City’s Startup Scene

An interactive map of New York City’s tech companies (created by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Internet Week NY, and the New York Tech Meetup) illustrates the emergence of New York as a legitimate alternative to Silicon Valley. According to the map, more than 800 tech companies in NYC are hiring. (Co.Design)

Google Places Is Replaced by Google+ Local

Google Places is kaput and has been replaced by Google+ Local. Among the changes are a "Local" tab within Google+, the integration of Zagat reviews and the integration of a Circles filter to find reviews/recommendations from friends/family/colleagues. "As a result, Google+ becomes another local search destination within Google, arguably with richer content and more functionality than Google.com offers at the SERP level." (Search Engine Land, NYTimes.com)

5 Common Google Display Network Mistakes to Avoid

More advertisers are utilizing Google’s Display Network in their advertising arsenal, which is great. But many of them are making some serious mistakes in their campaigns. Here are five to avoid: 1) lumping image and text ads into the same ad group; 2) disregarding average position for text ads on display; 3) under-bidding on managed placements; 4) assuming topics and interest categories are directly relevant; and 5) not using remarketing. (Search Engine Watch)

Apple iOS Facebook Integration May Be Coming

Could Apple iOS Facebook integration finally be on its way? Apple CEO Tim Cook seemed to hint at that at AllThingsD’s D10 Conference. "While Cook did not outright promise that Facebook integration would be coming in iOS 6 (or OS X Mountain Lion), it’s pretty hard to avoid the impression that it will at least be coming fairly soon." (WebProNews)

Google Embraces ‘Paid Inclusion’

"Paid inclusion" was one of Google’s original sins in its "Don’t Be Evil" creed." Well, it seems the search giant has changed its tune. Google has warmed up to paid inclusion, which involves selling main listings without guaranteeing good rankings (the algorithm, not payment, decides that). For publishers, this begs the question: Will Google start charging in the future for traffic that is considered "free"? (Marketing Land)