There are reports that Twitter is releasing their own photo sharing service. No, Twitpic is not Twitter. Some are wondering why Twitter would continue to alienate third parties like Twitpic and YFrog that support them … or why not just acquire Twitpic?

Bottom line = Twitter is looking to make money.

Mathew Ingram, in a post on GiGaom pointed out:

Twitter may have inadvertently chosen the perfect time to launch such a service, judging by some of the backlash Twitpic has been enduring recently. Twitpic has been widely criticized for changes to its terms of service that give it the right to license user photos to an entertainment news service, without sharing any of that revenue with the original owner. A number of users have said they plan to boycott Twitpic as a result, which gives Twitter a large window of opportunity. That and easy integration with Twitter’s various software clients should give it a pretty big runway.

We all know how popular photo-sharing has become, so there’s no need to get into why that’s a good thing surrounding Twitter. Beyond implementing a tool to further engage your users, naturally – there’s ad revenue that could make this an even better thing for Twitter.

The positivity and excitement surrounding Yodle acquiring ProfitFuel this week is AMAZING! There has been a rush from New York and Austin to meet in the middle — on Facebook and Twitter, of course.

The Yodle and Profit Fuel teams have joined forces and are making friends and tweeting all about our newfound love and plans for TOTAL LOCAL DOMINATION!

@ProfitFuel
ProfitFuel: I didn’t think the future of @ProfitFuelInc could be any brighter but it is! Incredibly proud to be part of the @Yodle family…TO THE TOP!!
24 May via web

@Yodle
Yodle: @ProfitFuelInc @Yodle Welcome to the family and to TOTAL LOCAL DOMINATION
24 May via web Favorite Retweet Reply
from Manhattan, NY

The team at Yodle has been so welcoming and their product is absolutely killer! It allows customers a totally integrated online marketing experience that drives sales and helps build an impactful online social network. What businesses get is a full-service and turnkey solution. For example, a customer’s dashboard clearly shows real-time progress on growth in qualified traffic and search engine results. It also displays a live feed of actions we take on the customer’s behalf to achieve these results.

Paired with ProfitFuel’s service, Outrank, customers can customize their long term marketing and advertising campaigns that are optimized to drive relevant traffic to their websites and bring in new customers. Together, ProfitFuel and Yodle optimize content so Google, Yahoo and Bing will show customers’ profiles on the front page of search results. We’re focused on the keywords that drive the largest number of relevant customers to businesses and we promote our customers’ profiles across the internet to improve organic rankings in addition to local search rankings.

This partnership is the perfect match. Yodle CEO, Court Cunningham speaks for us all when he says,

With this acquisition, our goal stays the same: to change the game for small businesses by making online advertising more accessible and accountable. What changes is the additional scale we have to accelerate the speed of product innovation to help small businesses keep pace with the fast moving online landscape.

Not only is our mission one in the same, but the two company cultures – which promote integrity and balancing a strong work ethic with having fun – are nearly identical. Our offices even look extremely similar! We’re happy to be one big, WINNING family!

Google held their annual I/O Developer Conference last week in San Francisco. I previously mentioned in another post that they paired up with Foursquare to test NFC technology. They also unveiled the Chromebook — the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook. Chrome OS is set to be delivered to the masses this summer when the first Chromebooks become available.

The Chromebook is Google’s second attempt at a notebook, which will undoubtedly be compared and contrasted to the Macbook and lest we fail to mention – Microsoft. MG Siegler says in his post on TechCrunch

Make no mistake, Chromebooks are a direct attack on Microsoft. Thanks to Chrome, Google Search, Gmail, etc, Google has all the data they need to know that people spend the vast majority of their time on computers these days in the web browser. So why not just cut out the middle man? Microsoft.

The cost of the Chromebook will be $429 or $499 depending on if you get WiFi-only or WiFi/3G.

Google says that “Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web … So you get a faster, simpler and more secure experience”.

Some of the Chromebook features:

For a long time now, I’ve been discussing the ways businesses can advertise efficiently on the internet–namely SEO. As a marketer, I can’t help but notice how the mobile channel is exponentially growing, and how slowly the business world is adapting to this. My goal in this post is to help you understand the value of mobile marketing, and how you might capitalize on its growth.

Recently, I saw two Google Account Managers (Anjali Vaidya and Bon Mercado) make a presentation about this topic. Though both were clearly selling Adwords, they presented some very compelling data:

• Mobile search queries grew by 400% from January 2010 to January 2011 (faster than desktop search growth)
• Mobile search volume stays constant hour-to-hour, day-to-day, unlike desktop searches
• 1 in 3 mobile searches are locally-focused
• After looking up a local business on their smartphone, 61% of searchers called the business and 59% went to their website
• Tablet users spend 50% more than PC desktop users
• In the next 18 months, 15-30% of website traffic will come from mobile users

Most businesses are bad at SEO. They are even worse at landing page optimization/conversion. With this in mind, it is not surprising that mobile landing pages are generally glitchy, frustrating and poorly designed (where they exist at all). Fortunately, for Outrank’s local business clients, ranking on the front page means your mobile customers are only a touch of the finger away from calling you.

Another area of mobile advertising that cannot be ignored is the app market. Businesses are investing heavily in games and utility applications that keep the attention of mobile users for long periods of valuable time. Some companies and individuals are banking solely from selling standalone apps that profit from an up-front downloading fee or from advertising. An interesting presentation from The Nielsen Company’s Jonathan Carson, CEO, Telecom, made last month at the AppNation conference highlighted some good data profiling app downloaders:

• 36% of U.S. mobile consumers now have smartphones
• App downloaders with Apple iOS and Android OS smartphones have more applications on their mobile phones than those with other kinds of smartphones, with an average of 48 apps on iPhones and 35 apps on Android phones. (By comparison, app downloaders with Blackberry RIM smartphones only had an average of 15 apps on their phones.)
• They also use their apps more often: 68 percent of app downloaders with iPhones and 60 percent of those with Android phones reported using their mobile apps multiple times a day compared to 45 percent of app downloaders with Blackberry/RIM phones.

The 2011 results from the 15th Annual Webby Awards were revealed this week. There are four major entry types: Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile & Apps. Each category wins two honors – The Webby Award and The People’s Voice Award.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which includes an Executive 750-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities, and Associate Members who are former Webby Award Winners and Nominees and other Internet professionals.

The Academy of Digital Art and Sciences is made up of luminaries like

musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein.

Interesting that Google barely made an appearance, even as far as simply being nominated. Google and YouTube: YouTube Play did win the People’s Voice Award in the Art category, though. It’s no suprise that they didn’t win anything in the Social category – they’ve had a difficult time syncing things up (Hotpot, Places, Reviews) to make for a seamless user experience. Here are some categories they would surely like to win next time around: 

• Best Use of GPS or Location Technology (Foursquare won both The Webby & People’s Voice Award)
• Guides/Ratings/Reviews (Yelp won  both awards as well)

Definitely a favorite of mine as well as around the office: Pandora won the Music category from both the Webby Academy and the People’s Voice.

I thought it would be interesting to look at what categories Google has won in the past compared to what they haven’t won in more recent years. You can visit the Webby Awards website to browse through each year, starting with 1997. It’s amazing to be able to see the changes in technology and trends — and how competition plays such a major role in progress.

2001 Best Practices: The Webby & People’s Voice Awards

2002 Best Practices: The People’s Voice Award

2003 News: The Webby Award, Webby Technical Achievement: The People’s Voice

2004 Best Practices: The Webby & People’s Voice Awards, Services: The Webby & People’s Voice Awards

2005 Best Navigation/Structure: People’s Voice, Best Practices: The Webby & People’s Voice Awards

2006 Best Practices: The People’s Voice

In 2007 they were nominated for Best Visual Design Function (gapminder.org: The Gapminder World 2006) and in 2010 they were nominated in the Music category for Google Creative Lab: YouTube Symphony Orchestra.