Pingdom Documents Twitter’s Worldwide Growth

Another school year's started, and (probably by coincidence) the Royal Pingdom blog has presented what might be considered a long-term report card on Twitter.  The data shows, as a blog post explains, "how Twitter has been taking over the world."

The good people of Pingdom put together a few images based on Google search data, and a map of where Twitter was popular in 2006 displays nothing besides the United States in dark blue.  The rest of the globe hadn't paid any statistically significant attention to the site.

Now the graphic's looking quite different.  Twitter's of interest to searchers in all sorts of places.  The top 10, according to Pingdom and Google, are the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Singapore.

Finally, in addition to documenting these facts about the past and present state of things, the blog post issued an interesting prediction: "[I]t's probably just a matter of time before other languages take off on Twitter."

So if you wouldn't have already done so, look for dark blue to appear in even more far-flung corners of the 2010 map.

Processor Specialist Promotes Android

The use of Android in devices other than cell phones may soon receive a big boost courtesy of MIPS Technologies.  MIPS, which deals in processor architectures and cores, is making the source code of its Android port publicly available.

Art Swift, the vice president of marketing at MIPS, explained in a statement, "Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing internet connectivity and a broad range of applications to MIPS-based digital home devices.  We are working closely with customers and partners to ensure that critical technologies are available for developers to take advantage of Android for consumer electronics." 

And since MIPS has previously worked with Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Linksys, Pioneer, Microchip Technology, Motorola, and Sony, that could mean that some very exciting and polished stuff is being lined up.

Indeed, digital TVs, home media players, mobile Internet devices, set-top boxes, and VoIP systems were all mentioned in the MIPS press release (although nothing resembling a concrete release date was shared).

So Android fans may not need to keep their fingers crossed much longer.  It looks like it's becoming just a matter of time until the operating system is found in a lot more products than mobile phones.

Microhoo Deal Not the Only Piece of Significant Search News

Yahoo and Microsoft intend for their freshly announced search advertising deal to be completed in early 2010. That's not too far away, and in that deal, Bing will become the algorithmic search used by Yahoo. At that point, Bing becomes the clear competitor to Google in straight up search.

As Microsoft and Yahoo get the majority of the spotlight, however, let's not overlook the fact that Twitter just redesigned its own homepage, and guess what it looks like...a search engine.

Industry analysts have been frequently citing Twitter's real-time search as something of a threat to Google. Obviously, Twitter Search doesn't begin to embody the essence of what Google search or any other traditional search engine has to offer, but it has highlighted the relevance of a new kind of search, and it is frankly just one that is lacking on those traditional engines. You can search Google or Twitter for topical information related to a news story, but you can always get the most recent discussion on Twitter. There are other real time search engines out there, but Twitter has the users.

Google has of course acknowledged that they need real-time search in their own mix, and it's likely only a matter of time before that happens. Over the weekend, Matt Cutts pointed out that Google "keeps getting fresher." He pointed to a tweet that was indexed after an hour. That's close, but not quite real-time.

But back to Twitter. Lots of people know about Twitter search already. It's not like it's a brand new feature. However, you have to assume that lots of people don't know about it too. At this point, you're still lucky if someone you're involved in a conversation with in the physical world even understands what Twitter is, let alone that it has a search feature, and that that search feature provides results in real time.

Twitter's new homepage puts that search feature right in you face. When a new user comes along to discover Twitter for the first (or even second or third) time, they'll see that search box. They'll say to themselves, "What is this? I thought Twitter was just some pointless way to tell people what I am having for breakfast. It's a search engine now?" Then they will start to understand that there is more to gain from Twitter than what they previously thought.

Don't get me wrong. There will still be plenty who don't care, search engine or no search engine. But it will be interesting to see if more people begin to use Twitter for their searching needs. No, it's not going to replace Google, but for some, it might replace Google for x-amount of their searches - the searches where a Twitter search makes sense.

Twitter's new homepage is one of the interesting pieces in the search puzzle this year. And that puzzle is getting more interesting very quickly. Do you think Twitter will continue to play a more significant role in people's search habits? Share your thoughts.

Understanding AdSense for feeds

Google AdSense program offers more than one way of earning revenue from serving Google AdSense Ads. Though ‘AdSense for Feeds’ is one of the more recent ways of advertising using Google AdSense Ads, it’s in no way less effective than the others. Here, Google places the Ads of the advertisers in the relevant feed articles (again, note the most important characteristic of the Google AdSense program comes into play here too i.e. ‘relevant feed’ not just any feed).

The feeds are in the form of articles, headlines or summaries. These content formats allow the users to easily access the content from several publishers (content owners) at one place. This is achieved through feed aggregators like Bloglines etc. Again, Google uses its technology to determine what advertisements would be contextually suited for a particular feed. You get paid as the publisher of original content and hence make easy money. As for the readers, they as such get a rich experience because they can see the relevant advertisements with the content that they are interested in. Moreover, they can also choose the feeds that they want. Users can click the advertisements to visit the advertiser’s website and check if their products and/ or services are of any use to them. Of course, the Advertisers benefit too. They get targeted advertising which means only the really interested people get to know about their products and services (and hence there are more chances of a better conversion rate for sales).

So, the prime concept for ‘AdSense for feeds’ remains the same as the Google AdSense program; only the orientation changes a bit. But note that Google is currently beta testing ‘AdSense for feeds’. Beta test for the program quickly got fully subscribed, so Google is not accepting any more applications for AdSense for feeds.

It’s only a matter of time before Google AdSense for feeds hits the internet and opens another revenue earning opportunity for website owners.