Talking Bing/Yahoo Integration with Yahoo Search

As you know, Microsoft and Yahoo were recently granted regulatory approval on their search and advertising deal, and we've discussed what this might mean for search engine optimization. WebProNews stopped by the Yahoo Headquarters in Sunnyvale before heading to SMX West in Santa Clara this week, and talked with Shashi Seth, Sr. VP of Yahoo Search Products about the deal, how it will be integrated, and timing, among other things.

Seth says that the integration of Bing results into Yahoo Search will take somewhere in the range of 18 to 24 months for it to happen worldwide, and they'll start with the U.S. first. He says the core thing users will find is a compelling set of experiences that go on top of just the algorithmic and paid results that come from Microsoft. In other words, Yahoo users will still find the Yahoo experience.

Shashi says he feels like Yahoo can surface a lot of things better on its own, simply because of the content its properties provides (local, sports, finance, etc.). That stuff won't be going away, and it will be weaved into the experience.

One thing that Shashi stressed was that the integration of Bing frees up a lot of Yahoo's own resources, so they can improve on other aspects of the user experience. Comments from Yahoo's Director of Search Marketing David Roth at the State of the Search Union keynote suggested that some amount of those resources will be moved over to work with Microsoft as well, with others staying at Yahoo:

WebProNews actually spoke with Roth himself after the event as well. He thinks he has something of a unique viewpoint about the integration, as he comes from search marketing himself. He will also likely be one of the first to be able to use the integration, given his position within the company. You can hear more of what he has to say in this interview:

Reactions from marketers are still mixed about how this integration is going to play out. This point was made clear in the keynote. Misty Locke of iProspect said a lot of her clients are excited about it, while former Googler Vanessa Fox is reserving judgment, hoping Yahoo doesn't lose "all the Yahooness." From the way Yahoo has described the coming integration, particularly Shahi Seth, it doesn't sound like it will be losing much Yahooness at all, but the extent of integration of things like Yahoo's BOSS and SearchMonkey features is still largely unknown.

eBay-PayPal Tie-Up Draws Complaints In Germany

This has not been a great week for American tech companies trying to do business in Europe.  First, Google got in trouble over allegedly anticompetitive search practices and its policy on Street View data retention.  Now, German antitrust authorities are looking at the way in which eBay has supported PayPal.

John Oates explained earlier today, "eBay.de recently asked sellers with low feedback points to offer PayPal.  The company justified the move because it said the number of bad buying experiences is twice as high from sellers with less than 50 feedback points than the average."

But some people are less than pleased with the change, and as a result, "[T]he German Federal Cartel Office is investigating complaints made against eBay over this tying policy."

Since the promotion of PayPal should increase its market share and help eBay earn more money, they may have a point.  eBay's liable to have trouble arguing that there's no other way it could protect buyers, at least.

As always, we'll see what happens.  German authorities haven't yet launched a full investigation or given an indication which way they're leaning.  eBay, for its part, is still more in "dialogue" than "sound the alarm" mode.

Has YouTube Found the Right Ad Solution?

YouTube has begun testing a new kind of ad format on some of its videos - skippable pre-rolls. These ads let users choose whether or not they want to watch the ad as it appears at the beginning of a video.

YouTube says that when it first began testing in-stream ads a couple years ago, abandonment rates on videos were as high as 70%. They found that users were much more likely to view and engage with overlay ads.

"But over time we found that different kinds of content provide different experiences for viewers, and that in-stream ads work pretty well on certain videos, like clips from TV shows or full-length movies," says YouTube. "We first launched in-stream ads last year, and we've continued to innovate and test different in-stream formats on YouTube (like user-choice pre-rolls)."

Users may find the skippable pre-rolls slightly annoying but tolerable, since they are still in control of whether they have to watch it or not. They may come off as a bit intrusive, similar to pop-up ads, but if they are easy to skip, people will probably be willing to continue on with the video.

Chances are, they will see enough of the ad to begin with to at least gain some kind of brand awareness. That's really going to be all up to the ad though. Advertisers looking at this kind of spot may want to strongly consider getting the meat of the message in as early as possible.

"We know what you're thinking: who would choose to watch an ad when they can skip it?" says YouTube. "Well, that's what we're trying to find out. In our previous research, we've actually seen that lots of users will watch pre-rolls. Abandonment rates are affected by several factors, notably length and creative. When a pre-roll is only 15 seconds, we see completion rates as high as 85%. Also, creative matters a lot: the quality and relevance of the ad itself seems to have 3x the influence on abandonment online as it does on TV. Viewers online tend to be much more active in making choices about what they watch."

Remember that these new ads are only being tested at this point, but YouTube seems quite optimistic that it may have found its best advertising solution yet. We'll see if the tests confirm this, and if this becomes a normal ad-type for the world's most popular video site (and 2nd largest search engine).

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Google Utilized to “Make History” for 9/11 Remembrance

Google has been criticized by some in the past for not featuring 9/11 doodles on the home page on the anniversary of the attacks on September 11th. Google is, however, pointing to a site from the company's official blog, that invites people to "share their experiences of 9/11 and its aftermath in an effort to preserve the memories of that time."

The site is called Make History, and utilizes Google Maps Street View and Google's App Engine. People can submit their photos/videos of the site of the World Trade Center attacks, as well as the Pentagon, and the site of the Flight 93 crash, as well as their stories.

The site was created by the National September 11th Memorial & Museum in partnership with design firm Local Projects. 

Bing and Ask both have up 9/11 memorial images, and there is an iPhone app called 9/11 Numbers (via RWW).

Doug Caverly of WebProNews, who also writes regularly for the NYC Tower site, has a new piece up today. Read that here.

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