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Google teleportation search results for "plasma tv" within Target.com.

Now, before we go much further, understand that I’m not suggesting ulterior motives here on Google’s part or that this is even a good or a bad thing. For regular users, I think this will be well received, and Google pays a lot of attention to delivering the best user experience it can–but that isn’t to say that there isn’t going to be a potential upside for the PPC program as well.

So what does teleportation mean for the various players? Well hopefully, for the searchers, it does get them to what they are looking for faster and easier, but this can really vary as well and may or may not be more helpful than getting directly to the site.

One thing this clearly means is that site optimization is more important than ever. Optimization will help to make sure that the teleportation results for your site are highly relevant and speak to the searcher, hopefully gaining the click-through from the searcher. If you are like Target and experience millions of searches a year just on your brand name, then you don’t want to leave your optimization to chance when it comes to teleportation.

Target.com on-site search for "plasma tv."

Below we see the results that someone might see doing a search in Google for “target plasma tv.” Notice how there are no paid search results showing up, and not surprising, Target shows up in the top organic listing.

Google search results for "target plasma tv."

This isn’t all as cut-and-dried as this example may seem. The appearance of ads can vary widely from none to many. But for now it does serve as an example of at least one scenario that site owners need to be aware of.

The “site:” advanced query is quite familiar to those within the search industry, but much less so to the average searcher. So bringing this functionality front and center for the searcher should be a well-received addition.

Google search for "plasma tv."

Below we see the results that someone might see doing a search in Google just for “plasma tv” which includes eight paid search ads.

Then when we do a teleportation search for “plasma tv,” we get the following search results. Notice that this creates the advanced search query “plasma tv site:target.com.” Now the searcher gets Target.com specific search results in the organic area, hopefully relevant to the search, but also eight paid listings that Target is now competing with.

Google’s new teleportation, its search-within-search function, is getting mixed responses, at least from some site owners, who may be remembering occasions when teleportation in the Star Trek transporter went wrong. Earlier in the month, Google introduced the teleportation functionality as a way to better help searchers find information within a site by providing a search box below the snippet of the top listing, which performs a “site:” search on the domain of that listing using the additional search terms the searcher added in.

For Google, it means that searchers will have performed at least one more search on Google, instead of clicking through to Target.com immediately. And it may mean that it has gained an opportunity to serve up more targeted (no pun intended) search ads that otherwise may not have been served up (as we can see from the other Target focused searches which yielded no ads). Even more subtle here is the fact that many advertisers may not have bid against a big brand name to begin with. Currently, advertisers can use a trademarked brand as a trigger word as long as they don’t use it in the ad itself. As much of the legislation in this area continues to be formed and reformed, who knows whether this will always be the case–but it would seem that teleportation search may provide an additional means to serve up ads around another brand without even needing the advertiser to use that brand as a trigger word.

When I first saw this, I thought it was interesting–once I was able to get it to show up. It doesn’t come up for every site, mainly big-name sites, nor does it come up for every search. One that it did come up for was searching for Amazon.com. After playing around with the teleportation search, I also began wondering how these big-name retailers would react and thought that some might not care for this new functionality. Why would they object?

But how might Target feel about this? Well, if it does help get searchers to their destination, then it might be happy with this. But it also might mean that its natural results are competing against paid-listings that it may not have been competing against under the other Target related searches. It also means that it may not be able to cull additional search information from its own site-search. While the quality of on-site search may vary from excellent to completely worthless, some sites invest heavily in their on-site search to not only deliver good results, but also to serve as insight into what their visitors are looking for. Being able to follow the search path, which they may be losing because of teleportation, may help improve the site experience.

So let’s take a look at some examples of how this may impact results and get a feel for why some site owners may be less than thrilled with this functionality. Let’s use national retailer Target as an example while we still can since its site is powered by Amazon. We’ll try this on searches for plasma TVs.

Needless to say, Target might prefer to get people directly to its site and have people search on-site, which at least in this example allows it to serve up a richer experience.

Let me show you–except I can’t use Amazon to do it anymore. According to the New York Times, Amazon is one such retailer that has already objected and asked Google to turn off this functionality for its site. It seems that most of the talk so far, like that happening at Search Engine Land (here and here), has been more about acknowledgment than anything else, but Rishi Lakhani’s post at SEO Smarty shows that others have had similar thoughts as I.

Then let’s see what happens if someone searches just on “target.” No surprise that Target.com shows up No. 1 again in organic results and still no paid search ads. What is different is the appearance of the teleportation, search-within-search, box showing up below the sitelinks in the Target result, labeled as “Search target.com.”

Good, bad or otherwise, what this means to site owners is that SEO may be more important than ever. Now, getting to the top listing may not be enough. Defending your brand may not be enough. Securing multiple listings through blended search may not be enough. What happens to the site that has excellent search, but terrible indexation in Google? Now more than ever, site owners need to focus on creating the most search-friendly site as they can to make sure that Google and other search engines can spider and index the site as completely as possible. For some sites, this is a huge challenge, trying to overcome legacy CMS and e-commerce systems. Fortunately, there are solutions like Netconcepts’ own GravityStream proxy optimization that can help many sites overcome these obstacles, but GravityStream isn’t for everyone.

Google search results for "target."

Grand Central had already been offering the free phone number and voicemail service to people in San Francisco through Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Project Homeless Connect, which brings together nonprofit organizations and other social-service providers in one location to provide on-the-spot services for homeless. The services include medical, mental health, substance abuse, housing, dental, and legal services, plus free eyeglasses, California ID, food, clothing, and wheelchair repair.

For homeless individuals, a phone is a luxury, and yet, telephony communications is an essential tool in our society. Without a phone number you can’t apply for a job or even get on a waiting list for low-income housing.

Another shocking statistic is that individuals with children make up about 40 percent of the national homeless population and the average age of a homeless person in the U.S. is 9 years old. Imagine a teacher or school social worker not able to contact a parent of a homeless child because the parent doesn’t have a phone.

Between 25 percent and 40 percent of the nation’s 750,000 homeless are unemployed, according to a 2005 survey conducted by the advocacy group the National Alliance to End Homelessness. And without a way for a potential employer to reach these people, they are often destined to remain jobless and most likely homeless.

On Wednesday, Google announced that it would expand Grand Central’s project and partner directly with homeless shelters that will now be able to give out phone numbers and voicemail accounts and help individuals set up their accounts anytime. The idea is to expand the service, and eventually offer it in other cities, a Google spokesman said.

The Internet giant is expanding a service that was started by Grand Central, a San Francisco-based start-up that Google acquired last year. Grand Central’s technology allows calls to be routed to a home, business, or cell phone using a single phone number. The service offers people a way to organize and unify their communications, a Google spokesman said.

Google is partnering with homeless shelters in San Francisco to distribute free phone numbers and voicemail accounts to those without homes, the company said Wednesday.

“When you lose your home, you lose more than your house,” said Google’s spokesman. “You lose a permanent way of staying in touch with family members, employers, and social service providers. Being able to give a phone number to people and access voicemail can be a very powerful thing in sustaining quality of life.”

Most Americans take telephony service for granted. Nearly every household in the U.S. has phone service, thanks to the federally funded Universal Service Fund. What’s more, more than 80 percent of the population owns a cell phone.

Since the acquisition of Grand Central last year, Google has been participating in periodic Project Homeless Connect events in which it has been providing the homeless with free phone numbers and voicemail accounts that they can access from any phone. More than 4,000 phone numbers and voicemail accounts have been distributed this way, Craig Walker, a senior product manager of voice products for Google, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

commentary

Google continues to be at the top of its game, shoving Microsoft and Yahoo! aside in search market share and pushing into new markets, like its innovative slant on collaboration with Google Docs. But in one area Google is proving to be human, all too human:

Daycare.

The New York Times dissects Google’s recent problems with its daycare (allegedly jacking up the price to accommodate Sergey Brin’s sister-in-law’s beliefs on the one true way to do daycare), concluding:

Google may be providing the greatest day care ever, but so what? It doesn’t matter how good the day care is if only its wealthiest employees can afford to use it. If Google had really wanted to do something path-breaking about its day care crisis, it would have spent less time creating elitist day care centers and more time figuring out how to “scale” day care for everybody no matter what their salaries.

Instead, Google has shown that it thinks about day care the same way every other company does — as a luxury, not a benefit. Judging by what’s transpired, that’s what Google is fast becoming: just another company.

Which is not to say that Google is a bad company. My problem with the situation is that Google felt the need to turn daycare into such an elitist experiment in the first place, making it so expensive that it then had to resort to tactics to shed many of its employees from the daycare rolls who wanted the service. (Read the Times’ article for the details.)

Along the way, during meetings with concerned parents, Google’s Sergey Brin apparently said that “he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of ‘Googlers’ who felt entitled to perks like ‘bottled water and M&Ms’.” I bet. But that’s precisely the culture Brin has helped to foster at Google, and it is his sister-in-law who turned the daycare system into an entitlement so overwrought that Google was bound to have to cancel it for many of its employees…and then face their ire.

Google hasn’t done anything egregiously wrong. It simply built up expectations too high. What will happen when the Oddwallas are replaced by bottled water (generic, not Evian)? When the organics-laden cafeterias give way to preservative-laced cafeterias?

As Google becomes mortal - something that it increasingly appears to be as its stock drifts - it will become more and more like other companies. Is it prepared to suffer this blow to its own self-created myths?

I think it is. But the company will need to start weaning its employees from the entitlement-nipple it has created for them, starting now.

(Credit:
Apple Inc.)

I watched The Prestige (starring the always-excellent Christian Bale) this past weekend, so I was looking for the sleight of hand used by Steve Jobs as he pulled the MacBook Air out of that manila envelope at the Moscone Center earlier today. Jobs skipped the Pledge and the Turn, and jumped right to the Prestige (while oddly choosing Paul Otellini over Scarlett Johansson to assist him on stage). Still, it was an excellent display of consumer electronics magic. I’ve assembled a bunch of images of Apple’s newest and thinnest laptop. Take a spin through this Macworld 2008 slide show to get a good look at the MacBook Air and find out which features it boasts and those it lacks.

The Air Jacket adds protection without changing the way your iPhone looks.

(Credit:
Power Support)

I finally got my iPhone 3G. Love it, hate it, this is all getting old. However, one of the things I do really notice is that although the phone seems very sturdy and scratch-resistant, it attracts fingerprints and shows sweat stains easily. I have the black model and it looks dirty all the time.

For this reason, the Power Support Air Jacket for iPhone3G caught my attention Thursday. It’s one of hundreds of jackets you can buy for the new
iPhone, but with one unique attribute: it’s very thin (merely 1mm thick), and see-through. This means your iPhone won’t get any bulkier and will still show its original color. You can also choose to have the Air Jacket in black if you have the white version of the phone and aren’t happy with the color.

This is probably the most uncompromising protection jacket you can get for the iPhone. An Air Jacket kit includes the Air Jacket itself, one thin crystal film, and one piece of anti-glare film to protect the LCD.

The catch? It’s not cheap. As a matter fact, at $35, it’s easily one of the most expensive jackets you can get for your iPhone.

This morning Vysr is launching its browser plug-in and Web widget platform RoamAbout at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The app has been designed to give you access to a slew of Web services as small, widgetized Web apps that can be called up in an instant without requiring additional software.

It was pitched to me as “a new way to browse the Web,” which usually makes my stomach lurch, but it’s actually pretty darn useful for giving you contextual searching and reference without mucking up the pleasingly simple experience of navigating Web pages.

Vysr works a lot like a browser toolbar, hanging out in the lower-right corner of your browser window and giving you access to a small grouping of Web services that can be used almost like the contextual menus when you right-click on something onscreen. However, instead of attempting to edit the sensitive ecosystem of your right-click menu, it opts to reserve that functionality to just the plug-in. When it’s time to pick what service you want to use, you get to pick from its built-in directory, and custom-tailor the apps you want on hand to a short list.

To use RoamAbout, users need to install it in Internet Explorer or
Firefox. It’s unlike a regular toolbar, though it sits in the corner of your screen–out of the way of the important things you look at while browsing, but still readily accessible. CEO and Founder of Vysr, Guda Venkatesh, told me that he was tired of seeing start-ups go for the toolbar approach, and that users want something useful but that doesn’t take up valuable screen real estate.

I met with Venkatesh last week to see the app in action. At the time there were just half a dozen tools that ran the gamut from maps and photos all the way to turning Web text into speech. In one instance he highlighted an address and used the MapQuest widget to look up the address. It showed up on top of the screen as an overlay and let us jump right back to the page when we were done.

The general idea is that you could do the same thing for maps that you could do with any other Web service and add it to the RoamAbout app shortlist for quick use later. Venkatesh says they’re trying to put out one to two additional apps for RoamAbout a week, while expecting enterprising developers to beef up the directory with specially designed apps of their own.

This plug-in is definitely worth taking a look at. We’ll get a hands-on soon.

Vysr's browser plug-in lets you take words or images and use them in conjunction with a suite of small Web app tie-ins that sit on the bottom right of your screen. Seen here, Vysr's RoamAbout is letting you search MapQuest by selecting the address and picking one of the appropriate apps. (Click to enlarge)

(Credit:
Vysr Inc.)

Excccccellent.

(Credit:
CNET Networks / Jerry Lerma and Terry Hogan)

Here’s an oldie but a goodie if you’re a Simpsons fan. It’s an interactive map of Springfield, the fictional home of The Simpsons that has been painstakingly recreated based on various appearances throughout the show’s 19 seasons.

The map was drawn using locations that were featured on the show, as long as they appeared more than once. Some of the spacing was determined using recent aerial shots (there’s a listing here).

The map was started in 2001 by Jerry Lema and Terry Hogan. The current version is about four years old (so there are no marks from the dome featured in the recent film). In addition to a quadrant view, designer Adrian Noterdaem has put together a slick Flash-based version that lets you zoom in and out. There’s also a PDF and printed version of the map residing in Harvard’s map collection.

I’m still waiting for the Google Earth layer.

Related:
‘The Simpsons’ avatar creator: A marketing site done right.

Recently an associate whose PC lacked Adobe Acrobat sent me a Word file via e-mail, asking if I could convert it to PDF and e-mail it back to her. Since the process took all of about 30 seconds, I was delighted to help. Then the next day she sent two more files in need of conversion to PDF, and a couple of days after than another. After her fourth request of the week I felt compelled to tell her about two ways she could have converted the files herself for free: Adobe’s own Create Adobe PDF Online free trial, and Arco Software’s great CutePDF Writer freebie.

If you use Office 2007 you can download Microsoft’s free Save as PDF or XPS utility, which adds the ability to convert files to PDF or Microsoft’s competing XML Paper Specification to all eight applications in the suite. The great thing about CutePDF Writer is that it works with programs other than Office 2007. See below for more.

Slow and limited, but readily available: Create Adobe PDF Online
I’ve used Adobe’s free PDF-conversion service for years, and while the $10-a-month service ($100 for one year) used to allow you to create 10 PDF files for free, that number has been reduced to five free conversions, which is sufficient for people who rarely have the need to make a PDF. (If you need more than five files converted, sign up for a new free e-mail account and re-register with that address.)

The downside to Adobe’s free trial is that you have to register, and you have to wait for your PDF to be delivered. Otherwise using the service is straightforward. After you sign up, click Convert a file (you can also choose Convert a Web page), enter the path to the file/page you want to convert, or click Browse and navigate to the file.

Enter the path to the file you want to convert to PDF, and click Continue.

Click Continue to open the Conversion Settings window. Here you select the type of output you want to optimize the file for (Web, Print, etc.), password-protect and otherwise limit use of the file, and select a delivery method.

Optimize your PDF for print or viewing on the Web via these options.

The default delivery method is to have a link to the PDF e-mailed to you, but you can also choose to have the file sent to you as an e-mail attachment, wait for the file to open in your browser, or download the file from your account’s Conversion History page.

Choose the delivery method for your PDF file: e-mail link, e-mail attachment, open in browser, or download from server.

After you click the Create PDF button, you receive a confirmation of the conversion that tells you how long you’ll have to wait for the file to be available. When I tested the service, I had to wait a little less than 25 minutes for the file to be delivered, which seems like a long time to me. You’re also informed that you have 72 hours to retrieve the file.

The confirmation screen lets you know how long you'll have to wait for your PDF file.

Fast and full-featured: CutePDF Writer
If you have more than the occasional need to convert a file to PDF, downloading and installing CutePDF Writer is a faster and simpler approach. The program installs in just a few seconds, though it requires a second program, which it downloads automatically–after you grant it permission–as part of the installation process. Once it’s in place, simply open the file you need to convert in the application of your choice, choose File > Print, and select CutePDF Writer in the drop-down list of available printers. The utility opens a Save As dialog box, where you can rename the file and choose where to store it. What could be simpler?

Which makes me wonder why anybody would choose Adobe’s clunky and limited online PDF-conversion service over a free utility such as CutePDF Writer. Perhaps they have an aversion to downloads, though this one lacks ads, spyware, or other unwanted companions. Or they may be using a PC other than their own and need a one-time conversion that doesn’t entail a download. Still, downloading, installing, and using CutePDF Writer is faster and simpler than using Adobe’s service even after you’ve completed the initial sign-up. I guess this is one of those computing areas where the online version can’t match the desktop approach.

Monday: disk management and optimization made simple.

(Credit:
Newegg)

Most cable companies charge at least $3 per month for your modem, which adds up to $36 per year. But there’s no law that says you have to lease their modem; BYO and you can pocket that cash instead.

You’ll start recouping your investment around month seven with the D-Link DCM-202 cable modem, currently on sale for $19.99, shipped, after a $20 mail-in rebate.

Before you buy, you should call your cable company to make sure they support the DCM-202. But judging by the roughly 400 Newegg buyers who rated this modem 5 out of 5, compatibility isn’t an issue. And while I know many of you detest (or at least don’t trust) rebates, you’ll still end up ahead even without it.

The bigger concern is getting your cable company to stop charging you for their modem even after you turn it in. Keep a close eye on your bill after making the switch.

The rebate deal ends January 31.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

The first regulated carbon market in the U.S. will take its cue from eBay.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, pronounced “Reggie”) is scheduled to go online September 10. It’s a cap-and-trade system for carbon that electric power generators in 10 Northeast states need to participate in.

An online auction company called World Energy won the bid to write the software that utilities will need to use.

I spoke with World Energy Solutions to get a feel for the mechanics behind carbon trading at RGGI. In a nutshell, it’s a blind online auction where power generators are competing for the cheapest price, in this case, a permit to pollute.

World Energy Solutions already has a business operating energy markets where electricity purchasers in deregulated markets buy contracts from suppliers. For example, a handful of representatives from power producers could compete during a half-hour-long online auction for a municipality’s planned power purchases.

The way a carbon cap-and-trade system works is that participants have to purchase allowances that allow them to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.

These allowances can be bought and sold. So if a power generator buys the right to emit 40 million tons of carbon, but manages to fall under that threshold, the company can sell those credits to a power generator that has gone over their ceiling.

In the RGGI scheme, polluters will buy these allowances once a quarter and will base their purchases on what sort of weather they anticipate and kind of fuels they use.

The blueprint for the cap-and-trade system draws from a successful U.S.-devised system to cut down on power plant emissions that cause acid rain. The market-based mechanism is meant to be a more efficient and flexible alternative to government-set limits and more politically palatable than a straight carbon tax.

The elusive price tag
There’s a lot riding on RGGI and carbon trading, in general.

Many environmentally oriented consumers are looking for some sort of action to address climate change.

Policy makers, meanwhile, appear to be coming around to the conclusion that regulating greenhouse gases will be more effective than voluntary goals for large polluters.

There are a number of federal carbon-restricting laws now being proposed, which many people in the power industry expect to take effect within the next five years.

What form these regulations take–and how they are initially set up–will go a long way to determining whether they succeed in stemming the growth of greenhouse gases. RGGI will be considered as a template for other regional carbon exchanges being established in the U.S., and potentially for a federal regime.

For businesses, the emergence of RGGI and other carbon trading markets that operate in Europe and Alberta, for example, mean that they have an additional way to make money from green technology.

The operator of a solar power plant, for example, can sell the carbon reductions that a project generates. Several clean-tech start-ups anticipate they will be able to monetize carbon credits with the products they sell.

But the big unanswered question, which RGGI should help clarify, is what is the price of putting a ton of carbon in the atmosphere?

Initially, the price for carbon on RGGI is expected to be in the $5 to $7 range, said Phil Adams, the president and chief operating officer of World Energy. That’s roughly the same price for carbon the voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange but far lower than the current price on European markets.

Carbon-trading research firm CarbonPoint said that RGGI may be over-allocated. That is, there may be so many allowances for emitting carbon that the price for carbon will stay very low.

Adams said that the first round of RGGI won’t be perfect. But at least it’s a start, which can be modified over time.

Between now and September, his company is trying to get a grip on the logistics of getting 250 emitters to participate in a quarterly auction without too many glitches.

“Herding the cats is job No. 1,” Adams said. “Job No. 2 is making sure that nobody gets their nose out of joint because he’s looking for one misstep as an excuse to sue somebody.”

Update at 8:50 PT: An astute reader points out that the Chicago Climate Exchange is already putting a price on carbon in the voluntary market, which is noted in the article. I changed the headline to clarify that RGGI isn’t the first attempt overall at pricing carbon emissions in the U.S. It’s expected to be the first regulated carbon emissions market to go online in the U.S.