Major Search And Social Media Developments In 2009

1 Feb, 2011 - Posted by admin in Search Engine Optimization
Array
0

2009 has seen major events and happenings that could have a wide impact on the aspects ranging from usage to advertising on the Internet. Some of the developments that are set to change the course of Internet are Yahoo-MSN search deal, MSN Liveâs transformation into Bing, introduction of Google Caffeine, the emergence of Facebook as the top social networking site and popularity of Twitter. However, there are no surprises in the search engine shares in 2009.

Search Engine Trends-2009
When it comes to search engine market shares, Google continued its domination in 2009 also. According to the comScore, Google maintained the top position throughout the year with over 60% market share. Yahoo showed a negative growth in 2009. Its market share dropped from 21% to 17.3% from January 2009 to December 2009. MSN slightly improved after migrating from Live to Bing. The market share improved from 8.5% to 10.7% during January 2009 to December 2009. Though the growth is less, MSN came out of the decline trend, which is noteworthy.

Here are the major developments of 2009-

Yahoo and MSN Search Deal
The search and advertising deal between Yahoo and MSN is the biggest development of the year.
In order to give competition to Google in the areas of search and the advertising, Yahoo and MSN joined forces in their areas of expertise. This is a major advancement for both the companies citing the history of the deal.
Some of the key specs of the search deal are-
Â·Â Â Â The agreement tenure is 10 years
Â·Â Â Â Microsoft can access Yahoo's search technology exclusively
Â·Â Â Â Yahooâs search technology can be integrated into Bing
Â·Â Â Â Bing will answer the search queries on Yahoo sites
Â·Â Â Â Yahoo will get 88% of search ads revenues generated from its site for the first five years
Â·Â Â Â Yahoo will sell premium search advertisements for both the companies

Launch of Bing
Bing is the third transformation of the Microsoftâs search engine, which is being promoted as "decision engine". Its primary objective is to compete with Google by improving the search market share. Many industry experts and users were skeptical about the success of the development, considering the earlier failures. However, this time Microsoft got it fairly right. As stated above, at the end of 2009, it has 10.7% market share. Some of the salient features of Bing are quick website preview, provision of videos in the results. Above all, Bing focuses on the major search categories of Health, Local, Shopping and Travel searches.

Google Caffeine
Search engine market leader Google announced about its new algorithm technology in August 2009. According to Google, âthe new infrastructure wouldn't affect the look of Google's home page or even results, but it would have an impact on site developers, so Google made a test or "sandbox" version of its search site for themâ. Google announced that Caffeine would be live after the holiday season. Faster and fresh search results are observed from Caffeine. Some industry experts interpreted the move as a response to Bing.

Facebook Crosses Myspace in Usage
When it comes to the major developments in the social networking segment, Facebookâs emergence as the top social networking site is the most important one. Facebook surpassed MySpace in terms of number of visits during May 2009 according to the comScore. Facebook totally attracted 70,278,000 unique visitors, up 97% from May 2008 to May 2009. MySpace was down by 5% over the same period and attracted 70,255,000 unique visitors. Facebook, with 350 million users worldwide, is also becoming popular among the marketers.

Rapid Evolution of Twitter
One of the finest developments during last year is the growth of Twitter. The user segment of age 18 and older grew by 200%. In 2009, Twitter attracted 18 million users, when compared to 6 million in 2008. According to the Nielsen December 2009 statistics, the average time spent by U.S. users increased by 368% YOY. Overall, according to the iStrategy Labs, female users accounted for 53% and men were 47% and more popular among the age group of 18 to 34 young adults accounting 47%.