In the penultimate part of our experts view series, we asked the experts as to whether or not they thought 2011 would be a further year of consolidation given what has happened in 2010. With the Bing/Yahoo deal expected to kick into full swing, and legacy 2010 deals such as the Google/ITA deal (or not as the case might be) its already likely to be an interesting year – so we are our opportunities likely to be in 2011?

Do you think there is further consolidation within the search engine marketplace. Any suggestions where this may lie.

David Harry

Further? How’s that possible? Google buys Microsoft? A few years back I was still a dreamer that thought the social engines like OneRiot et al would be a new segment. Look where that got me. But what about the SEO provider world? That’s the one that scares me as there will certainly be some consolidation there. Recessions tend to cull the herd, it should be the more interesting area to watch.

Ben Bisco

Someone will want to buy facebook, but I doubt this will be possible. Instead Google & Bing will continue to buy niche technology companies to enhance their offerings

Paul Reilly:

I would love to see certain patented innovations which make up Google’s search technology licensed, or in keeping with their modus operadi, blatantly ripped off, by facebook, if only to help make facebook more searchable, but I don’t think it will happen. The trouble with facebook is that it simply isn’t the most searchable, particularly when digging into yours or anybody else history. That said, they’re mission isn’t to provide you with history, but rather the now, in realtime. Facebook appear to wan’t you to forget about your historic footprint – however there is, should facebook choose, plenty of scope for traditional search technology to help make it a better, more searchable place.

Nichola Stott

Yes. Blekko is the one to watch.

Judith Lewis

After Bing drives Yahoo’s search we will have 2 major algorithms and 2 major results providers. Any consolidation of the less major search platforms will have no impact. I think Google will continue to try and expand its influence through purchasing businesses but while they decided against Groupon they have to pick up an online business with significant income growth potential. Google is not, and likely may never be, a web portal like Facebook has become.

Andy Beard

Mozillia either buying someone or being bought – Mozilla combined with Blekko for instance might be interesting and shake things up a bit. Facebook seem to have just got a war chest of $1.5B too at $50B valuation

Andy Redfern

Yahoo’s Margin increased to 11% in 2010, mostly aided by the Sale of HotJobs, selling its investment into Alibaba and shedding of 4% of its workforce. Its Search Agreement with Microsoft will start to build in 2011. Yahoo’s partnership with Gannett will expand its local advertising reach, and provide additional content opportunities in 2011. In my opinion CEO Carol Bartz has made Yahoo a very attractive proposition for purchase in 2011, with Microsoft, Apple or Facebook all potential suitors. Any of these partner would be a great move for Yahoo; Apple being its most natural business fit. Yahoo can’t continue to lose more shareholder value and I expect movement in the second quarter of 2011.

Shaun Anderson

i will wait and see, and try and be opportunisitc whatever it is. maybe when I am older I will be concerned with such big picture stuff.

Peter Young

I think there is certainly further consolidation in terms of the likes of Google continuing to buy up niche services and technologies to integrate into the wider Google picture. However whether we see a major acquisition such as the likes of Facebook or Twitter being acquired by Google, is doubtful in my opinion. Outside of there, we may in my opinion see someone make a move for Yahoo, whether that be Bing, Google or someone like Facebook – I think the conditions are right for this to be a realistic consideration.
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Will Critchlow

Nope. We’re good for now. Some small players will get bought / disappear / reappear, but nothing that will change strategy until a disruptive player comes along.

Other parts in the Experts View series:
Q1 : Do you think a viable competitor to Google will emerge in 2011?
Q2 : Where do you think the growth area in search will emerge in 2011?
Q3 : Do you think Social media’s influence on SEO will continue to increase or fade away?
Q4: With many recent figures suggesting a ‘mini-revival’ – do you think 2011 will be a bumper year for search
Q5: What do you think will be the 3 biggest challenges facing search practitioners in 2011
Q6: With Google appearing to favour ‘brand building’ do you think we will continue to see affiliates struggle in the new year?
Q7: Will 2011 be the year of – Video/Mobile/Other (if other please specify)

Over the course of the last couple of months, I have unfortunately become quite addicted to micro-blogging site Twitter. I am constantly suprised by Twitter, not just in terms of its uptake, but also in terms of its functionality and usability,  not just in a pure financial sense but also in terms of context.

Last night was just such a night. Whilst a lot of noise has been made of Twitter from a networking perspective, Twitter from a thought leadership perspective, it was last night that I saw Twitter as a citizen journalist tool. Its not the first time to be honest. When the plane recently went into the Hudson River, there was a post on Twitter within minutes of it happening.

Last night was similar. In the early hours of Friday morning (UK wise anyhow), a story started doing the rounds regarding Martin Schaedel (@martin), a well respected person within the Silicon Valley community had died in a plane crash in Santa Monica. People like @btabke (Brett Tabke) @Jenstar Jennifer Slegg)( and @DannySullivan (Danny Sullivan) posted a number of comments relating to the crash over the course of a three hour period or so, keeping many people in the loop as to proceedings. A live stream of condolenses has been building within Twitter, many from prominent internet and search marketing individuals.

Whilst in the grand scheme of things this was a fairly small incident, from a personal perspective it has opened my eyes as to the power of Twitter from this sort of perspective, particularly when you combine services such as Twitpic to the whole Twitter mix. All of the sudden you have a real-time, interactive overview of breaking news in some cases from a 1st person perspective. How many other communication channels can do that….

It was alleged on Friday that Belkin, the developers of IT hardware were involved in a fake blog review scheme using Mechanical Turk -  a side business of Amazon. Mechanical Turk is a site where users can go and get paid to do things that computers can’t do in exchange for small contributions – generally a couple of pennies to a couple of pounds

Mechanical Turk Homepage

According to the article, a number of requests were posted for people to post ‘positive reviews’ for Belkin products as follows

Arlen Parsa from ‘The Daily Background’ goes on to say

That’s a request from somebody named Mike Bayard to review a product and “give [it] a 100% rating (as high as possible).” It doesn’t matter if the reviewer doesn’t own the product or has never tried it– the requester has helpfully written, “Write as if you own the product and are using it.” It even goes a step further, asking the Mechanical Turk user to “Mark any other negative reviews as “not helpful” once you post yours.”

Users are paid 65 cents for every positive review they leave. There are dozens of these requests from this Mike Bayard guy on Mechanical Turk.

So who is Mike Bayard. Mike Bayard just happens to be a Business Development Representative from …. you guessed it… Belkin, and his activity appears not just to be limited to Mechanical Turk – other posts have been identified on both Buy.com and NewEgg.

Now this activity – known as ‘Astroturfing’ is not just unethical and against Amazons terms and conditions, if it were taking place over here (UK)  it would also be illegal. Astroturfing is a word in American English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, ie fake grass = AstroTurf. It is not the first high profile example of Astroturfing, back in 2006 Wal-mart was found to have developed a couple of blogs which were later discovered to work undertaken by Edelman – their PR agency – however it is an activity that has become less common over the last couple of years.

To their credit, Belkin have been quick to respond. In correspondance printed over at CrunchGear, Mark Reynoso, President at Belkin announced he was unaware of the activity and that they would be taking action

Belkin has always held itself to the highest standards of corporate ethics and its employees to the highest standards of personal integrity. Similarly, we support our online user community in discussion and reviews of our products, whether the commentary is good or bad. So, it was with great surprise and dismay when we discovered that one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment.

Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this. We know that people look to online user reviews for unbiased opinions from fellow users and instances like this challenge the implicit trust that is placed in this interaction. We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened.

We want to stress that this is an isolated incident and to re-instill trust with you, we have taken the following courses of action:

- We’ve acted swiftly to remove all associated postings from the Mechanical Turk system.

- We’re working closely with our online channel partners to ensure that any reviews that may have been placed due to these postings have been removed.

It’s also important to recognize that our retail partners had no knowledge of, or participation in, these postings.

Once again, we apologize for this occurrence, and we will work earnestly to regain the trust we have lost.

Sincerely,

Mark Reynoso

President, Belkin

This does highlight one important thing to any person or people representing commercial ventures online. Nearly everything you do online is accountable and nearly everything you do has a trail.

I guess the lessons here should be two fold

1. Just because you can do it online, doesn’t mean you should
2. If you wouldn’t do it offline, don’t do it online.

Ever dreamed of superstardom? Money beyond your wildest dreams? Hobnobbing with the rich and famous?

Well unfortunately those jobs are few and far between. In the meantime it appears that Britney Spears, is on the lookout for ’2.0 Media Manager’, in other words her online guru. With Britney now on a range of different online social media forums including Bebo, MySpace, Facebook – and my current favourite toy Twitter, the work must have got a bit much – so she has decided the time is now right to get someone else to do it.

Posted on a Harvard University only job board yesterday (January 9th 2008), the ideal candidate must have some of the traditional traits:

• Manage a high profile online branded network of digital properties for one of the worlds top celebrities
• You are  a social media expert with Googloe(?) Analytics experience , Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing experience

And then some real favourites:

• You are addicted to social networks such as MySpace and Facebook
• You are an analytics nerd ….

If you are interested in learning more about the role, it appears the right man to contact is Joseph Nejman at Brandcasting.com. CV’s in the post

Rumour is rife at the moment that Marissa Mayer, Google’s 19th employee may make 2009 her last year with Google. According to a post at Gawker, “Top Googlers” were overheard talking about the real possibility of Mayer departing the Google Nest.

If the rumour is true, there is likely to be no shortage of potential opportunities for Ms Meyer. Whilst she already lectures part time at Stanford university, teaching computer science – one cannot help thinking a surge of new venture capital opportunities may try and sway her to give a new startup another opportunity. However given the fact that she was/is Google’s 19th employee (aka filthy rich), one would suggest any new venture is unlikely to be financially based.

In terms of impact, it is unlikely to operationally hit as hard as some previous (ex) Google employees – Sheryl Sandberg being one example, however she is a popular figure, both within the Google campus and within the wider community.

Should the rumours be true, I am sure she will make a success of whatever she decides to do.