Yahoo's Digg-like service, Buzz, will be opening up to public contributors as of 7 p.m. PDT tonight. Since the service's launch in February, only a select 400 publishers could add new links to Buzz.

With so many submitting and rating sites out there, including the mighty Digg, Yahoo Buzz has a few advantages up its sleeve. Besides using the links submitted by contributors, Buzz's algorithms take into account search engine popularity, feeding the most popular stories to Yahoo's home page.

Making it to Yahoo's home page and getting server-melting traffic will likely create a new frenzy among Web traffic manipulators who are already pushing their luck with Digg and AOL's Propeller. Buzz wants to avoid this kind of exploitation by adding editorial discretion when determining headlines.

Full article: pcworld.com 

Labels: Buzz, news, Yahoo

There’s been a lot of noise over the fake news posted by Money.co.uk as an SEO tactic today, and perhaps it’s that I don’t have any scruples whatsoever, or perhaps all the other coverage I’ve read is just too holier-than-thou, but in the case of Lyndon Antcliff’s hoax story that ended up gaming Google, I simply don’t see how this is an example of “black hat SEO.”

In case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, I’ll quote blogger Jonathan Crossfield, who summarized the affair fairly succinctly:

“Online marketer Lyndon Antcliff recently helped a client achieve over 1500 inbound links in under a week with a story designed to grab attention.” The article, titled “13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers,” was and still is hosted at the authoritative looking domain Money.co.uk, which is a financial advisor and Lyndon’s client, apparently. The hoax news explains that “Ralph Hardy, a 13 year old from Newark, Texas confessed to ordering an extra credit card from his father’s existing credit card company,” taking his friends on a $30,000 spending spree “culminating in playing ’Halo’ on an Xbox with a couple of hookers in a Texas motel.”

Full story: mashable.com 

Labels: fake, news, punishable

Google has recently announced that they are launching a new service allowing direct access to wire services such as the Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP), UK Press Association (UK AP), and the Canadian Press (CP). In the past, content publishers have complained about, while at the same time benefiting from, the links on Google news and the brief overview of the content hosted on the site.

Several newspapers and sites have threatened to sue Google over the issue, some having said outright that Google is attempting to kill traditional print media. Maybe now Google is looking to force the issue, scrubbing their index by removing duplicate links that most of these sites use to get listed.

Full story: monstersandcritics.com 

Labels: news, wireless

Newspapers could see a drop in traffic redirected to their websites from Google News after a redesign of the site that will mean newswire stories carried by other publishers no longer show up in search findings.

Agreements between Google and four news agencies will also allow Google News to carry full stories on its own site for the first time, rather than its current practice of carrying a headline and a few snippets of text but sending readers to publishers' sites for the full story.

Full story: msnbc.msn.com 

Labels: agencies, Internet, news, stories, Web

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is giving the subjects of news reports a way to comment on articles written about them.

The company this week introduced an experimental feature on its Google News Web site in the United States to allow any person mentioned in a news report that is linked there to submit a written response.

A Google employee then must verify the authenticity of the e-mail response. Methods include independently tracking down the subject's contact information and calling that person directly, or checking the author's e-mail address and phone number against information on a company or organization Web site.

Full article: the International Herald Tribune 

Labels: articles, comments, news, stories

Google is overhauling its search system so it returns "universal" results not just those from webpages.

The change means users will also get results from news sites, blogs, video services and other relevant places.

Before now the different categories have been separate which meant searches had to be repeated to pick up all possible results.

The expanded results will be available via a series of tabs that will appear on the results page.

Full article: BBC News 

Labels: blogs, categories, news, service, video

Google went live Wednesday with a revamped Internet search engine that integrates video, books, maps and news into "universal" results to online queries.

Google spent two years transforming the architecture of its search engine to broaden results to include web pages that one had to previously seek out in separate search categories such as "photos" and "news."

"It's all the stuff on the web," said Google's vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer.

Read more: physorg.com 

Labels: books, images, Internet, Maps, news, search, video