The new July issue of the monthly Web Marketing newsletter has been published, covering some of the recent stories on web search and online marketing trends.

This month's edition looks at Microsoft's launch of Bing, its new a 'decision engine', which is designed to "empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web". It also reviews the release of Google's Wave, the new collaborative communications platform which has the potential to create massive workplace and communication efficiencies. Finally, this edition covers tips on how to use email-marketing campaigns as a powerful online marketing tool.

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The Official Google Blog has revealed the huge volumes of search traffic generated through the search engine worldwide as the rumours of Michael Jackson's death circulated on Thursday afternoon, US time. There was a high initial peak as news started to break, followed by a steady volume of traffic over the following hours, with mobile phone searches also showing a high level of activity.

Google News initially thought they were suffering an automated spam attack due to the sudden increase in search activity, which resulted in the service being taken offline for about 25 minutes.

Labels: google

Google is currently rolling out the new management interface for AdWords advertisers, with some accounts still going through a transition stage, where both the old and new versions can be used, and others now fully converted to the new layout and functionality. There are some clear advantages with the new interface in terms of managing an AdWords campaign, but there are also still teething problems, not least of which is the comparatively slow load times.

Google has been doing a lot to educate and train AdWords advertisers on the new system, with a series of webinars, videos and blog postings, including this latest one as part of their 'New Interface Thursday' series of articles. It will take some time for advertisers to get fully conversant with some of the changes but in the long term, this move will be seen as a good benefit for users to understand and improve their campaign performance.

Labels: google adwords

Advertising Age reports on the new self-serve advertising product launched by Yahoo!. Called 'My Display Ads', this tool is intended to make it easier for local advertisers and existing search advertisers to try more display advertising on the web. This sort of tool is already provided by Google and Facebook, but Yahoo! has the advantage of a large display advertising inventory which it now wants to develop, including linking search advertisers with the benefits of running display ads at the same time to improve conversions.

Advertisers can choose pre-designed creative layouts from more than 800 display ad templates, or they can make their own by using the simple management tool or by uploading new designs. Ads can then be purchased on a cost-per-thousand impression basis or as part of a cost-per-click auction.

Labels: internet advertising, yahoo

Bloomberg reports that the search share of Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, rose to 11.1% in the first week of June. According to ComScore figures, this increase in the first week in operation was up from the 9.1% share in the US during the previous week. This is probably to be expected with the luanch publicity and advertising campaign as people try it out - no doubt promising news for Microsoft execs, but the real figures will need to be seen over a longer period of time to show that search habits can be changed.

Labels: bing, microsoft