This Week’s Industry News

Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff

Facebook Set To Roll Out New Messaging System

Catching up to Google in regard to innovations, Facebook recently announced that they are about to launch a new messaging system modeled after chat. It has been adamantly declared not to be email, but more of conversation tool that logs all of your messages on separate pages by contact. There will be a priority folder for your top contacts, an ‘other’ folder for less important contacts or businesses, and a spam folder.

The messaging system sounds like it will be popular and it will be interesting to keep an eye on it as it slowly rolls out to users. It’s hard to say if it will be a game changer, but having the ability to not have to sort through e-bills and advertisements that typically clog your inbox is a very desirable feature.

Source: CNN

Google To Release Nexus S With Gingerbread OS

Google, already leading the industry in smart phones sales, is about to put another horse in the race. The Google Nexus S will be the fastest and most social network friendly phone in their product line. It will also contain Gingerbread, the latest Android OS that will someday have a feature that will allow you to make purchases with your phone. It is not exactly known when that service will be available but a lot of people are already excited about it.

The Nexus S sounds like a very promising device but there will inevitably be skeptics due to the massive problems that the Nexus One faced. As for Gingerbread, while I’d be happy to no longer have to carry a wallet, I’d also be a lot more devastated if someone stole or found my phone.

Source: Sun Sentinel

Temporarily Delete Your Facebook Account

Is your Facebook page and profile littered with inappropriate photos or uncouth language? Don’t worry, you can now “super logoff” and temporarily hide your account from anyone that may be looking for you or wanting to contact you through Facebook.

This will also help those few that go off the deep end and completely delete their accounts. With the “super logoff” feature you can put away your account by logging off and then, when you get over your tiff or realize that you need Facebook as a support system, you can log back on and get your entire profile back.

Source: CNN

Google Adds Personal Touch To Places With Hotpot

Hotpot is a new location recommendation tool that allows you rate and keep track of places you’ve been. It is also has a social element to it by allowing you to see how your friends liked or disliked a particular business.

Don’t ask your brother or best friend what they think about that new Italian restaurant, check out how they rated it with Hotpot.

Source: CNN

AOL Attempts To Be Relevant Again With Project Phoenix

AOL is throwing their hats back into the ring with a new email system that they’re calling “Project Phoenix.” AOL’s President of Consumer Applications, Brad Garlinghouse, recently told Fortune, “we think there’s an opportunity to redefine what email does for the consumer.” To that end, AOL’s “Project Phoenix” is built to be fast and can integrate all of your other email accounts within it.

Here’s a list of its unique features:
• Aggregation of Aol, Yahoo, Gmail, Comcast, and other email accounts into one inbox a la iOS.
• A “Quick Bar” or shortcut bar above the inbox with short email, IM, text, Facebook and Twitter status update capabilities.
• Three inbox views — “expanded,” which allows viewing of the first few lines of each email, “compact” (think traditional), and and the Entourage-like “reading pane.”
• Web browser-like tabs for switching between user inbox and messages.
• A Mapquest sidebar adjacent to the email body that automatically detects addresses listed in open emails and offers directions
• A photo sidebar that aggregates photo attachments.
• New optional email domain names.

I personally have no problems with my Gmail account, but I’ll definitely have to poke around at this and see if it raises AOL from the ashes.

Source: CNN Money

Notable Commentary

From Sources We Trust

Insight Into Week Old Search Engine (Blekko)

Blekko is a new search engine that’s just a little more than a week old, but provides some great features for usability and search experience. Read the blog post above to learn about the challenges Blekko faces and some things they are doing/can to do convert users.

Analysis By: Jonathan Allen, Search Engine Watch

How Facebook Could Take The Net From Google

This is an interesting perspective on targeted ads in both Google and Facebook, and what they mean looking to the future of online advertising and generated revenue.

Analysis By: Ryan Singel, Wired

Steve Wozniak Predicts Android Will Overtake Apple iOS In Popularity

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak spoke to a Dutch newspaper about the future of iPhones and Androids, and why he believes Androids will eventually do to phones what Microsoft did to computers in terms of market share.

Analysis By: Jay Yarow, Business Insider

Lifehacking: Optimize Your Gmail Usage!

This article is full of lots of great tips and shortcuts. Not worth spending a lot of time on in discussion, but since many people have a Gmail account as their primary personal email, it’s definitely worth a read.

Analysis By: Catherine Smith, The Huffington Post

Rel Canonical: Impact On Analytics

While we (Rocket Clicks SEO) think that Rel Canonical is valuable, it can certainly be misused and abused.

Analysis By: Mathiaswh, SEOmoz

Matt Cutts Wants You To Brainstorm Ideas For Google

Google is encouraging its users to ask themselves the most pressing question facing humanity as we know it: “What would you do if you were CEO of Google?”

Analysis By: Matt Cutts