Recently it seems like Google has put a lot of work into seeing itself go local. And this is a good thing. But in this tough economy, the single biggest thing that needs to happen is helping out small businesses while saving their patrons money. Google might have something for that.

Today I learned that Google is looking to integrate coupons, local ones, into its maps. And while this is great news, I was dismayed to learn that this functionality is both a ways off and will potentially not be available be hidden for iPhone users.

Still, there is something to be said about making this kind of thing available from a long term perspective. I remain a bit fuzzy on how redemption is to work out, but I am sure Google has plans for this as well.

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Before I jump on the “Murdoch is a fool” bandwagon, let’s think about something for a minute. First off, my gut tells me that much of the News Corp. content is on par for the same audience tempted to use Bing and other Microsoft products besides merely Windows.

Second, I honestly don’t think either Google or News Corp. is going to miss out much with one another should News Corp. opt to take advantage of Microsoft’s exclusive offer. Frankly, this deal is not going to do much for either company.

In Microsoft’s eyes, this is merely one opportunity to stick it to Google in some fashion. What is uniquely sad is that Microsoft honestly believes that this offering will have any “real” effect on Google in any way. Sadly, based on its revenue, it will not matter.

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One might not think it to be such a grand idea for Google to get into the real estate business at this point. However, considering it is merely offering listings for houses available at its maps site, it actually makes a lot of sense.

I don’t have to tell most of you out there that this move does wonders to boost the visual perspective for any featured real estate. And at the same time, I doubt that any real estate agents are struggling too hard with it either.

Adding further value to this is the option that Google users can also search for things nearby — such as grocery shopping, schools, parks, etc. This alone makes the real estate offering from Google a very big deal in a seriously wounded marketplace.

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While this article from the NY Times is clearly an opinion piece, it speaks with authority against Bing as if it is somehow doing “worse” than what Google and Yahoo! have done in China.

The short of it is that (without a source, I might add) Bing is allegedly working with Chinese authorities to skew search results, and that Google only censors them. Right, clearly one is worse than the other. News flash: it’s the Internet; half of the crap here is skewed. And while I detest what the Chinese authorities propagate as “fact,” the idea that Microsoft is somehow doing worse than Yahoo! or Google in how they present queried results is ludicrous at best.

The fact of the matter is all three search engine companies behave horribly in order to gain access to the Chinese populace. So if you are going to boycott one, best do it right and stop using search altogether. Because they are all guilty of the same approach as far as I am concerned. But this is just my opinion.

Despite the onslaught of competition from IE8, Google Chrome and Opera, Mozilla is still doing very nicely with their revenue which in large part comes from AdSense revenue.

This is not to say that all of Mozilla’s revenue is all coming from Google, but it does appear that most of it certainly is. Other sources appear to include Yahoo, Amazon, eBay amongst other sources not listed.

One thing is for sure though. Mozilla is poised for continued profits despite seeing any recent heat from the browser based competition. Call them too well embedded, perhaps there is something to the law of being first and most popular in the open source browser realm. Whatever the reason, both the status and profits for this browser company are going no where.

Despite me ripping on Yahoo as of late, I am among the first to admit that Yahoo does news vastly better than Google and Bing. They just do, no contest. I just prefer the way it is presented much better than with the other guys.

Where things get sticky however is the “news” of the news now featuring tweets from Twitter. Clever, inventive even…but where the hell is it? Apparently one must search for a timely topic. So I tried this, nothing - no Twitter options visible on my end?

Missing in action problems aside, the idea does sound intriguing assuming the results are specifically selected separately from the news we already know and love. I’d even be okay with this as a selected filter. But please, do not mix my Twitter with my news.

There is tremendous speculation that the ad space in the mobile market is where things are at. And be that as it may, most people seem to have a vastly different attitude about advertising on their mobile devices than with their desktop computers.

Basically if the ads are contained within the applications themselves, no one really seems to mind. Just make sure they are not inhibiting the option of enjoying things on the application front.

Well apparently Google has big hopes for one company in this realm, AdMob. And based on what I have been able to see myself, I think they might very well be a wise investment. Remember, advertising is not dead…it’s  just evolving.

Would you use Bing in exchange for some free Wi-Fi? Honestly, depending on where I was financially, I might. Then again, I suspect some folks will find a way to simply game the system so they can still use Google, but enjoy that free Wi-Fi that Bing is to be offering at select locations.

I will say it is campaigns like this that do not lend any credibility to Bing as a legitimate threat. TV, print and Internet ads, sure. Bribery… not so much. Then again, some might say Google does the same thing. But I do not know of anything Google is doing like this on this kind of scale.

Frankly, outside of the cheesy factor, I don’t really see a lot of harm here. Besides, the sad fact of the matter is that people will either choose to use Bing based on its search performance or not. I for one, remain unimpressed and have continued to use Google.

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So what is with the cooperation between Twitter and LinkedIn. At its core, it does make sense. After all, both are used for networking and can be used effectively by professionals across the globe. What remains unclear, is just how effective this marriage of the two services can actually be?

Then there is the matter of once again, over-taxing an already double-booked Twitter. As it is today, the service still fails far too often for my taste. Even with recent performance improvements, I think Twitter is still too vunerable to problems for it to be tied into something such as LinkedIn.

At the end of the day, I think that they need to get a handle on their outages, give more resources to the API then let’s talk about a tie in with services such as LinkedIn. But this is just my perspective, your opinions will likely vary.

Nobody likes Facebook scams. Not one bit. But as you can clearly see from this article, Facebook may not be doing quite enough to help curb the problem. Some might even argue, that Facebook allegedly encourages the behavior of promoting these crazy things!

Then the above linked article makes a fantastic point - Facebook users are not really good for ad placement where a product is being sold. And based on ad research I have done with Facebook myself, I would be inclined to agree.

Thankfully there has been a real push by legitimate advertisers on Facebook recently that is showing signs of potentially overtaking the crap-factor seen in Facebook’s past. With any luck, this will stick for the mainstay. No matter what though, it is going to pay to keep your eyes peeled

Based on what I am reading, this could very well be a good thing for the affected Chinese looking to use the Baidu search engine to illegally download music tracks.

The deal being struck with Qtrax looks pretty promising for curbing rampant music piracy. This is not to say that it is going to solve everyone’s problems with dealing with music piracy, but I think for Baidu it may very well be a solid start.

Further expanding their reach, Qtrax is looking to launching in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This could translate into Qtrax positioning themselves into a real growth position as they enter each individual market.

Generally I am not someone to get too excited about the idea of yet another Web 2.0 company piggybacking on Twitter’s success. But I am feeling like there may be cause for Topsy to get a pass on this.

For me personally, I find that Topsy provides an interesting way to track the success of individual articles. I might not be inclined to say that it is the only tool out there anyone should be using, rather something like Twitterurly.

At its core, it is one of those real time search engines. But thanks to its Digg like UI, WordPress retweet badges and ease of use, I find it is not a service to be ignored when you are in the blogging game. Too people using it to ignore it completely.

Bing users will be happy to hear that Microsoft has released Bing Mobile for those looking to Bing while on the go. And from the looks of things, it appears that Bing Mobile provides the full functionality of the Bing search engine.

Where Bing really steps it up, is for touch devices. Likely being aimed at the iPhone, Pre and Android, Bing Mobile provides some smooth glide controls for those looking to make their touch experience a bit more fluid.

Where Bing really drops the ball is ticking off folks overseas with yet more USA only Bing applications. This is sad as it is likely there are potentially millions of people overseas who would be thrilled to try Bing Mobile. Too bad it’s not available to them.

Apparently, even filling out paperwork is something that takes months for Yahoo! to complete. While this article is speculating that it is merely ironing out some details, it is insane to believe that it takes this long!

Further reading shows that apparently, the deal is not likely to be closed before 2010. Seriously, I am sure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are thrilled to see this deal getting such a high priority. Not.

Allegedly, the rumor is that the two companies are merely looking to get their ducks in a row due to problems with alleged click fraud issues on the Yahoo! side. But those are merely rumors. Yeah, sure…

• Internet Fraud: Phishing, Spoofing attack, Pharming, Click fraud, Spyware, Ticket resale, Hushmail, Backscatter (e-mail), Romance scam, Lottery scam, Make Money Fast, Caller ID spoofing
• Click fraud puts a damper on Web ads: online marketing gains favor despite deceptive practices.(internet fraud): An article from: San Diego Business Journal
• Understanding Click Fraud (Synthesis Lectures on Information Security, Privacy, and Trust)

In today’s media, two terms that nearly everyone under the age of 35 knows is “Google it” and “There’s an app for that”. Apple, being the inventor of the latter saying, has seen amazing success with their iPhone app store. So much in fact, that some are stating that Apple is no longer a computer company. No, they are becoming a media company.

Where the app store fails for most companies looking to get something distributed is that Apple is not going to be of much help here. They will provide you with a platform and audience, but you will have to do your own promotion. Apple just makes it simple to access.

Now let’s imagine that we are talking about those failed brands of media know as newspapers. What if a simple subscription model is provided by the app store for a flat, reasonable monthly fee of $5. Many would avoid it, with more leaping to it like it was providing something life sustaining. Yet much of the mainstream media still does not get this.

Are quality search results just too much to ask for? According to this article, one might easily come to this conclusion sooner rather than later. The problem is despite advancements given, some search engines remains better than others depending on the query.

Even then, those other search engines that provides results from everywhere are not really helping with the information overload. It’s just too much I am afraid. The sad state of reality is that search has remained entirely too lazy, in my opinions. Even Google, falls into this category to some degree.

Where do we go from here? Human powered indexes and real time results appear to be the future - unfortunately, this is not going to lead to accuracy. No, this will simply continue to lead to more confusion and general frustration.

Yes, because clearly the solution to my search queries are going to come from the mindless updates from Facebook. Really? Is this a worthy addition to Bing’s otherwise usable search functionality.

I would point out that the same thing applies to Twitter as well. A great way to communicate, but there is no way that I have found ANY data from either source to be good for anything other than the occasional URL discovery. And even that is few and far between.

But this is hardly something that Bing is alone in. Google is also getting their feet wet with this social networking search nonsense. As stated previously, I love social networking. Just don’t mix it up with relevent search results and we’ll all get along just great.

Is Google losing its simplicity? Sometimes I feel like it might be. After looking into this article about how Google is beginning to feel more like a searchable Wiki rather than a search engine, I cannot help but wonder if they are putting emphasis on stuff that is actually not all that important.

Look, Google offering a new layout is fine. But at the same time, I think Google would be wise to continue using what works. Why start changing things about if it is not needed? This is something that Google might want to start asking themselves as newer UI is often time totally unneeded.

One the other hand, the inclusion of something called structured search might be of some value as Google pushes forward. Anytime you offer more ways to search content, that can be a good thing. But it should be by choice, not being forced upon anyone.

I think that by now, we are fully aware that even protected Tweets, are not all that protected. And as this article demonstrates, it sure seems like anything we Tweet these days takes only a small amount of time to become public record.

If anything, the above article should prove to be a reminder that even protected tweets, are easily accessible and that it is never a great idea to announce stuff you would not want visible to the world.

Does this mean we should avoid using Twitter completely? No, not at all. Rather consider the fact that Twitter is a public tool for communication, hence using our best judgment when utilizing such a tool. Really should be a matter of common sense.

With newspapers continuing to swirl around the proverbial toilet financially, making sure that they are able to compete in the online space is no longer a nice idea - it’s critical.

As news came down the line of TownNews adopting the hnews format, I suddenly found myself wondering why this matters to the reader? Looking into the matter a bit deeper, I found that in truth, all that is being offered is a consistent read. Little more than that.

Yes, it means very little to the reader. But it matters to the publisher as this translates into seeking to meet with open standards, which in the end is actually good for everyone. And with TownNews supporting the online operations for something like 1500 newspapers online, standards are becoming increasingly important in this highly competitive environment.