Google Wave didn’t do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz’s privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after.  But now that Google’s addressed most of Buzz’s faults, it’s trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave.

Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of functionality.  Also, there are just 18 extensions listed at the moment, and Google’s suggested design tweaks are on the way.  We’ll let you decide whether the company’s gotten ahead of itself or made a smart move by involving developers and users as soon as possible.

As for what’s available, the extensions represent an interesting mix of useful and fun/frivolous stuff.  One’s called Wave Sudoku, while others function as poll gadgets, phone and video chat aids, and a weather forecast provider.

Anyway, Dan Peterson, Google Wave’s Product Manager, explained on the Google Wave Developer Blog, "The gallery is simply a set of waves containing extension installers (the puzzle pieces).  The first wave, ‘Read me first‘ contains an introduction to extensions and how to use them.  In many cases, those particular waves won’t maintain their read/unread status in Google Wave preview; we’re working on this."

It should be interesting to see how long Google takes to make its tweaks, and how quickly the extensions gallery is populated.

Okay, so my title is fairly misleading. Google Wave HAD extensions… just maybe one or two. When Wave came out I was so excited that I totally exhausted the “poll” option. I sent out ridiculous polls to all my friends such as, “Can you make me blueberry muffins? Yes, No or Maybe?”…. to which I would always get a maybe.…

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New Google Wave Extensions Debut!

If Yahoo has its way, it’ll soon be the place to go for information about movies, TV shows, and the celebrities who star in them.  Yahoo announced several upgrades to its search engine this morning, and they’re all meant to make entertainment-related queries turn up much better results.

A Yahoo representative told WebProNews, "Today Yahoo! Search is unveiling new ways for people to explore information on their favorite celebs and TV shows by providing the most comprehensive and up to the moment entertainment news and content.  With Yahoo! Search’s celebrity shortcuts, people can see news, photos, movies and even the celebrity’s official tweets right on the search results page."

What’s more, "Yahoo! is also introducing a TV shortcut so people can search for their favorite TV shows and see videos, episode lists, schedules and ratings from Yahoo! TV."  And "we are launching new celebrity-related suggestions on the left-side of the Yahoo! Search results page for entertainment queries, with links to results for related people, movies, etc."

You can see an example of how this all comes together below.  The results page packs in a whole lot of information, but still manages to not look overly cluttered or messy. 

Yahoo appears to have leapfrogged well ahead of Google and Bing with these upgrades.

Search Engine Journal’s Official Facebook Fanpage hit the 5,000 mark last week, and is now pushing 5,600 fans who are sharing search marketing news, blog posts and comments on SEJ’s Facebook Fanpage.

Not only does the SEJ community share SEJ posts on Facebook, but we also have 5 admins sharing search engine news, SEO tips and other relevant news on Facebook…

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I rate search engine optimization on content accessibility, popularity, and usability. We can say that content is well optimized for search engines when it is accessed as soon as it published, generates links from trusted sources, and drives user engagement. The safest road to sky rocket the performance of any SEO campaign is to create or generate quality content that…

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3 Tricks on SEO & User Engagement

A few weeks ago I shared four addons to show you some website stats at a glance. Earlier I had also compared the three most popular advanced SEO toolbars. Today’s addon is one more multi-purpose SEO toolbar to add to your arsenal. SEO Professional Toolbar offers a few useful SEO-related tools in one place (SEO stats as the page loads,…

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SEO Professional FireFox Toolbar: Tracks Yahoo! Backlinks

Is the Google Apps Marketplace just over-compensating for Microsoft-envy? It depends on who you talk to. It may not matter much in the long run anyway.

In 2005, I wrote an article that talked about the possibility of Google creating a set-top box, and how it could change the game in a lot of ways. The same is true today — set-top boxes, for the most part, are really crappy and have a ton of room for improvement.
It sounds like [...]

Just a quick update to inform you that if you’re using Google’s product search, whether on your computers or mobile devices such as iPhone or Android phones, you can now check whether a particular product is in stock on a store nearby. You can check out the product’s availability by clicking on the “blue dot” included in the search…

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Google Adds Blue Dots to Product Search Results

Finally. A good reason to use geolocation software.

Last week, we reported that Facebook wanted to hire two people in Washington, D.C., and then dissected the official descriptions of the positions as best we could.  Still, the bullet points left a lot unclear, so it’s noteworthy that Facebook provided some clarifying paragraphs today.

Adam Conner was the first member of Facebook’s D.C. team, and a post he wrote for the company’s internal blog was actually promoted to its public blog this afternoon.  Conner – who also deserves applause for being a Conan supporter – did a good job of explaining some of his responsibilities and favorite moments.

Here’s one excerpt that reveals just how politically connected Facebook may be: Conner wrote, "The week of January 11-17 was pretty cool, helping to pull together the Global Disaster Relief Page in just few hours.  I went on vacation that weekend and was on the phone in Mexico convincing President Clinton to plug our Facebook page as part of the relief efforts."

As for the more day-to-day stuff, Conner described his duties by writing, "I get to sit in meetings with vaguely important and occasionally actually important people and explain why Facebook is like the wheel or fire and how not using it really isn’t an option anymore."

It sounds like the social network’s well on its way to being omnipresent in Washington, then, especially as it adds two more employees.

YouTube Partners are, pretty much by definition, some of YouTube’s most important users.  They create original content, don’t violate copyright laws, and have huge audiences.  It makes sense, then, that YouTube is now looking hard for ways to improve its Partner Program.

The hunt has taken the form of a crowdsourced project.  Just as the Ideas Page for YouTube was created not too long ago for the sake of the whole site, the new Product Ideas Page for the YouTube Partner Program covers this single subject.  People can submit ideas and vote on which ones they think are best.

It’s an effective process.  On the YouTube Biz Blog, Filipe Lima noted with respect to the first effort, "It was a success, receiving almost 3,000 ideas and more than 300,000 votes.  We even launched a few features that directly addressed some of the requests – namely, an HTML5 Beta (there were many HTML5 advocates who participated) and a sneak peek of our new cleaner video page (some desired a ‘less cluttered’ YouTube)."

So now we’ll see where round two takes us.

The deadline for both new submissions and votes is April 12th.  If you have any suggestions, get them in earlier, though, for the sake of giving them more time to become popular.

I have been enrolled in the Market Motive social media online course for close to two months now.  Each week I have been given a social media topic and have been responsible for viewing a certain number of films which go into detail about the topic being taught.  There have been a wide range of social media topics such as…

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I Admit It – These Videos Taught Me a Few Social Media Tricks

Users of the mobile version of Google Product Search can now see if items are in stock at a local store from select retailers. These retailers include: Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm.

Product listings from these retailers will have blue dots that can be tapped to see an "in stock nearby" link, which takes you to a seller’s page where it will either say "in stock" or "limited availability". In addition, these pages will show you how far away the store is from your location (assuming you have My Location enabled or have manually specified your location).

The feature is available for iPhone, Palm WebOS, and Android users in the U.S. Users can hit the "more" link, and select "Shopping" or find the "Shopping results" section in Google’s Universal Search results when searching from Google.com.

Google offers a form for retailers who are interested in participating in this program. Google says to make sure you have your Local Business Center data up to date and to ensure your Product Search data is in "great shape."

I am very happy to announce the countdown to Search & Social Spring Summit 2010, the official search marketing and social media conference of Search Engine Journal!

Search & Social Spring Summit 2010 is the second annual conference from Search & Social, the team behind Search Engine Journal, DailySEOTip, IMBroadcast and various other search marketing projects. With a lineup of speakers…

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15% Off Search & Social Spring Summit for SEJ Readers!