As Live.com is still live and users can currently opt to use either service, so far what we are seeing is the preview version of Bing. However as of today Microsoft will replace Live.com with Bing.

Bing has been live for only one day and there are already thousands of reviews of Microsoft’s newly improved search engine available on the net. Unfortunately people outside the US are seeing a local version of Bing without most of the new features. If you can’t wait to exploit and play around with Bing, select United States as your default region.

(found this tip on Techmeme)

These two videos perfectly describe and explain how Bing works, they are both being used as part of Microsoft multi-million marketing campaign to promote Bing’s services and capabilities.

Microsoft Bing Search – Product Tour of Bing.com

Microsoft Bing “Decision Engine” Launch

Have you tried Bing yet? If so we would like to hear your thoughts and opinions, so please leave them in our comments section.

The new browsing algorithm is called BrowseRank and it is meant to compete against Google’s controversial PageRank.

BrowseRank calculates how often and how long users visit the site to determine the rankings; Microsoft believes that will give more control over page relevancy leading to a more democratic Internet

The researchers said

“The more visits of the page made by the users and the longer time periods spent by the users on the page, the more likely the page is important,”

This will give more control to web users emphasising the concept of a more democratic rankings systems.

Compared to PageRank the main difference is that BrowseRank uses a continuous-time Markov process while PageRank uses a discrete-time Markov process also know as the Markov Chain.

eMail Databases are considered a quick route to successful online marketing. There is no work involved in building the list. It can be bought in and setup in next to no time. So why not go out and buy a ready made list?

Experience

Here at TH UK we have been working with eMail Marketing for ten years now. In a relatively new market, that’s a lot of dog years! A common service requested of our eMail Marketing department is to buy in a list on behalf of our clients and build a campaign around it. However, things are not that simple and we advise our clients to think very carefully about their objectives and what they can expect from a ‘bought in list’.

Types of eMail data lists

There are different sorts of lists which you can buy and some of them are not worth the effort of setting up and sending, let alone the cost of buying the eMail database.

The best eMail lists are without doubt the ones that you develop and nurture in house. These are lists grown from people that have requested to be communicated with. However, it is commonplace at TH UK to be asked for a list that a client can send to, perhaps because they do not have the time to build their own database, or the inclination to.

Costs

eMail lists vary considerably in cost. We have known eMail lists exchange hands for £1,000 per thousand names. Whilst this is rare, it tends to be because the list is very niche, reactive and well looked after.

The next rung of the eMail list ladder, is the proven and responsive list generated by buying habits. These lists can be purchased around the £500 per thousand mark. Although these lists have proven buying trends, be wary of the fact that unless what you are selling is related to their area of interest, the recipients are still unlikely to interact in volume with your message.

On the cheap end of the scale, £100-£250 per thousand addresses, you will find the bargain bucket eMail lists. These could be generated by surveys, or offers, but in our experience, you are unlikely to achieve a return on your investment with them. These recipients are likely to have exchanged their email address for a personal gain, like a freebie, or document, even a competition entry.

In summary, be cautious about paying out for eMail lists, and consider whether or not it may be worth investing in developing your own list – wouldn’t that be a more valuable asset to your business?

TH UK are eMail Marketing Experts that can help you generate in house lists and maximise the potential of the list, Contact Us Now to find out how we can add benefit to your specific business.

The new version is so fresh that after installation, it redirects to the site on the Mozilla server which doesn’t exist yet. The Interface is very similar to the one we know from Firefox 3.0, however the latest version archive is much smaller, therefore in comparison to the 3.0, the Firefox 4.0 functionality has been reduced.

During our short test we noticed that Mozilla Firefox 4.0 is very stable and loads websites as fast as Firefox 3.0.

Preview of TH UK Online Marketing in Firefox 4.0.

A nightly compilation of Mozilla Firefox 4.0 can be downloaded from Mozilla ftp server: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-central/

We mentioned the rumors surrounding the possible competition to PayPal from Google a while back.

It now looks like the rumors were correct. The San Jose Mercury News has an article discussing this. Its very interesting that they are initially going to tie this to the GoogleBase service. And it will also provide an alternative to PayPal for small e-commerce sites.

Google’s spreadsheet will allow subscribers to share spreadsheets with others online, enabling all users to view and edit the data at the same time. Google are also supporting the import and export of data from Excel and CSV formatted files.

Google recently purchased Writely (article on Writely here) an online word processing software program, so it certainly looks as though Google believe there will be people wanting to ditch the Microsoft Office applications for a free online service.

At the moment Google spreadsheets is in limited trial. You can register for this free program on a first come first served basis here Google Spreadsheets.

Eagle eyed  people who watch who registers what domains have noticed that Google have registered (via a proxy) googlecheckout.net.

Some commentators think this may be an indication that this may be Googles version of paypal

Garett Rogers  at zdnet comments

“I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items on line.  The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google — just like ad sense works.”

I think that this is a plausible and could give website owners an extra way of integrating payment into their sites and if it linked up with ad sense, froogal and google base could almost provide a full online shop.

The domain has been created to help the use of browsing through a wireless mobile device. The idea being that content at the .mobi domain will support mobile browsers. It also highlights the adoption of browsing through a mobile device.

Until May 29th 2006, registrations are being accepted from companies that are in the mobile industry. From the middle of June 2006, holders of trademarks can register, then September opens registrations to the general public.

It will be interesting to see what kind of take up the .mobi domain gets, as there is nothing to stop a website at any domain extension building a site for mobile use. In fact some industry players are suggesting that adding a .mobi domain is just over complicating matters and that there are enough domains available already.

Learn more about .mobi

The Wall Street Journal runs a piece today, highlighting some of the more high profile online / technology fads that have not been successful. Most cost millions to develop and market. View Article
Highlights include:

Flooz.com, who attempted to create a digital currency.

iSmell, who wanted to improve your web experience by generating smell via your USB port.

and Microsofts iLoo, the internet enabled toilet.

Some of these ideas are obviously ridiculous. Just goes to show that even the large corporations (Microsoft) and highly experienced business investors can make some big mistakes.