The latest upstart to, er …. start, is Attendi, a search engine that differentiates from other search engines by enabling visitors to search and communicate with others online at the same time and learn about the search topic from attendees who are online. Attendi likes to call this “a living breathing search engine”.

Basically, you enter a search query and get a set of results paired with someone who can answer your questions in real time (unless they are offline naturally, in which case they are labeled “offline”). In order to use this you have to be a registered user. The whole thing is actually a chat session and looks something like this for the query “halo 3″:

The concept is interesting, but would I use this kind of search instead of standard search … well, I am not sure. Maybe when researching something more complex, when a single search result simply won’t cut it, Attendi might be useful because chatting with someone (or seeing a chat session relevant to my query) who is well on top of my search topic can give me bits of information and resources that I would otherwise be searching for for hours using standard search.

The site is still in beta so you have to leave your email address to get an invitation from the team to be able to register. There is limited content since the project just started but the authors promise more content soon. Their goal is “millions of Attendi’s storing billions of insights”, and since there seems to be a patent pending, maybe they are actually serious about this goal. If it ever gets to that, a social network powered search with all the social network features comes to mind as the next evolution step for Attendi. Something like Facebook with the primary purpose of friend assisted web search.

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SEOMoz has introduced another free tool - Popular Searches. Basically it’s a popular search aggregator which takes its data from many different sources on the web and compiles a neat looking list of popular searches organized by source and popularity. You can pick a date and get the list for that exact day, while the default on the page is the date of viewing (today). The tools also gives an overall popularity list, which takes into account data from all the sources. One thing I’d like to have seen was perhaps a chart or graph showing popularity trends for the top ranking list (there are PHP/Flash tools that can do this easily enough), maybe even trends for each source in particular. This would be very useful for identifying searches which have a seasonal character, or are periodical and have highs and lows over the course of the year, searches that would otherwise easily escape our built-in “hmm, interesting” radars.

Useful tool, added it to my bookmarks.

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Just read an interesting article on Google’s ongoing efforts to enter the mobile environment on Reuters , although the actual source is the Wall Street Journal. Google is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in different mobile related products and services. Talks are going on with major European mobile providers. Google is pretty silent and only states that there are no immediate plans for development of something that would be called Google phone. If Google pushes through with these deals and starts offering its services through mobile providers, as well as advertisements through the mobile platform , then indeed there is no hurry for a Google phone to be developed at this stage.

A natural development though, if everything goes well for G, is a device made by Google. Such a device would be filled with a plethora of useful things such Google Maps, integrated with a whole range of local search services, of course with real-time advertising messages tailored according the space-time coordinates of the user, as discussed here.

Google has already approached major mobile operators, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, but reportedly hasn’t been able to reach an agreement with them. T-Mobile and Vodafone already incorporate Google search in their mobile Web service in Europe. AT&T offers Google search as one of several search options for its users.

It is no longer a question where Google is going with this initiative. Taking the mobile web sector is logical if you think about it. What puzzles me is what’s Google plan B in case things don’t go as planned. They have already met resistance regarding the WiMAX frequency deal in the US.

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Interesting developments surrounding Google’s uncompromising interest in the WiMAX deal (where they aim to buy the WiMAX part of the frequency spectrum). With behavioural targeting of ads already taking place, and the intelligent approach towards engaging the surfer with advertising content, what’s next? Well, when if we have tracked behavior, got inside the mind of the searcher, the only thing left is to know their location and possibly time (time-space coordinate). With this kind of approach Google aims to be able to engage the searcher with search on their mobile device way earlier in the process. Instead of predictive text input (T9), how about predictive searching (search suggestions while the user types the query, based on geographical location and local time of day). This brings a whole new dimension to search by integrating the searcher’s state of mind and matter and bringing it straight to the appropriate advertising content.

More interesting posts about this on GrokDotCom and SilliconValleyWatcher .

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Yahoo and ComScore conducted a study on behavior of visitors who had been exposed to online advertising and found that pre-shoppers (people who research products and services online prior to purchasing) have a tendency to purchase more in stores after having conducted research online. On average, these highly engaged pre-shoppers tend to spend about 41% more in-store than consumers that had not been exposed to online advertising.

Although recent research cites 89 percent* of consumers shop for information about products online, less than 7 percent** of retail sales actually take place online…

This means retailers have a prime opportunity to engage this audience of ‘pre-shoppers’ through online advertising to capture incremental sales in-store.

Amy Vener, Senior Director of Retail Category at Yahoo!

Here are some key insights from the study:

• Consumers exposed to online advertising are more engaged: Consumers exposed to display and/or search advertising viewed an average of six more pages during the period in which they were researching compared to those not exposed to advertising.
• Almost 90 percent of the incremental sales generated by online advertising take place in-store:
  Consumers exposed to online advertising spent an incremental six dollars in-store for every one dollar spent online.
• Integrated search and display campaigns have maximum impact:Combined search and display ad campaigns resulted in deeper engagement for consumers exposed to those ads, leading to increased sales.

The study was conducted from April 2006 to January 2007 and involved more that 175000 comScore panelists.

It seems retail companies have something to look forward to. The Internet is becoming a great resource for qualified leads for retailers, and such a drastic difference (+41%!) when comparing regular consumers to pre-shoppers should justify an increase in online marketing spending. Even if the actual difference for your operation turns out to be smaller that found in this study, if properly leveraged, is still a very good improvement for your retail operation.

Read the whole story here.

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WeLoveLocal.com is a local business and review portal for businesses in the UK. Nothing very exciting I guess if it wasn’t for a small twist. The developers added Facebook integration (using the Facebook API), so registered members (aka Reviewers), can share personal information using their Facebook profiles, but on WeLoveLocal.com . Neat. Oh, it’s London only businesses for now, but the developers promised to cover all UK very soon.

Another dimension to consider about this concept is that apart from reviews alone, reviewers are engaged in a community where they can add friends, and share information about businesses they reviewed or are interested in. This presents a new opportunity for social promotion. If you have a business based in the UK, you can add your information for free to their categorized business directory. After confirmation, using regular mail, your business will be available for viewing and reviewing. Just be careful, if you are an offline retailer, the next customer that comes to your office or store may just be a WeLoveLocal.com member and reviewer. So tidy up and leave a good first impression!

I have a client who runs a UK based business, and I’ve already submitted his business information to this directory. We are awaiting the mail confirmation and activation. When new developments occur, I’ll post my impressions here to add to the introduction.

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