Survival tips

Kids have been looking up ways to help them through the year and live comfortably.  Some of these searches include “how to survive freshman year,” “how to make friends,” “styles for freshman back to school,” “list of items for college freshman,” “dorm checklist,” “dorm bedding,” “dorm room ideas,” “how to make scrambled eggs,” “how to cook spaghetti,” and of course “how to do laundry.”

ALPHA GAMMA PHI?

Many incoming freshman have also been looking up information about Greek Life, which is very popular at many schools.  Some researched “reasons to join Greek life,” “Greek life policies,” “fraternity hazing,” “best fraternity houses,” what is fraternity hazing,” “how to know if a sorority is right for you,” “sorority initiation,” “sorority paddling stories,” and “sorority hazing pics.”  Clearly girls and boys are both worried about being accepted into these brother and sister organizations!

Oh yeah, We’re Here to go to School

Students have also been Yahooing how to grow up.  Thinking about their future, kids have looked up “what should I major in?,” “how to choose a major,” “how to save money,” “tuition,” “student loans,” “how to make a budget,” “cheap textbooks,” “internships,” and “rent textbooks.”

The internet and search engines, like Yahoo!, are helping kids prepare for college they best way they know how—by looking everything up on the internet!  Good luck to all incoming freshman; have fun and work hard!

Internet Protocol is the main communication system used for transmitting digital data between internet connected computers.  Devices recognize each other by their IP addresses.  In order for information to transmit, each device needs a separate address.  We currently run on IPv4, or Internet Protocol version 4.  This means that every device’s unique IP address consists of four groups of numbers that gives them access to the internet.  Every time you connect your mobile device, you are assigned a different IP address.

However, due to the exponentially increasing number of devices that can now access the internet, our combinations for IPv4 addresses are sold out.  This is known as IPv4 exhaustion, or how the restricted availability of address space is coming to an end.  Once we run out of IP addresses, we will have to wait until one becomes available to connect to the internet—unless…

We start switching to Internet Protocol version 6.  IPv6 is a six unit numeric address, providing 4 billion times more addresses than before.  It will allow any individual to have multiple IP addresses with plenty more to spare.  It’s rumored that we will never need to update from this if we make the switch.

On World IPv6 Day, major companies—such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Verizon—all did 24hour test runs of the new system for promotion of switching.  We will be following up with the results of their tests.

There are still many IPv4 addresses that are not in use, but most likely all new devices will have IPv6 addresses.  There are many concerns with the new system, such as security, cost, and methods of actual migration of all devices to it.

Clearly Yahoo agreed that it was time to cut bait and announced in a statement that while the decision was a difficult one, it “will help us focus on our core strengths and new innovations.” This move was likely a wise one according to market analysts. Yahoo Buzz was created as a means to drive more traffic into the site in hopes of surpassing Google and Bing in the media market, yet the project was less fruitful than Yahoo had anticipated.

Just yesterday, Yahoo reported that it has seen a dramatic drop in profit and sales during the first quarter of 2011. Blame for the decline is being placed on the “headwind” of paying Microsoft, Yahoo’s partner, it’s promised 12% of net search revenues. The search engine also blamed Microsoft for its underwhelming advertisements.

Industry expert Danny Sullivan commented extensively on Yahoo’s decline in search revenue and proclaimed that the drop in search revenue “doesn’t mean that Yahoo as a company overall is a bad investment” and that “not hosting a search infrastructure may allow Yahoo to do other things.”

It certainly seems this is the mindset that Yahoo has adopted. It will be interesting to see what Yahoo’s next move will be, whether it be dropping other failed projects or taking on more promising business strategies.

Yahoo’s new “Search Box of Awesome” (cheeky nickname and all), is designed to make the search engine experience as user friendly as possible. The upgrade promises to give users instant results as they type. A spokesperson for Yahoo describes the new venture as “the simplest and fastest way to find answers, not links.”

The beta release features the most relevant results according to your search, while displaying them as you type in the search box. In order to make the answers you are looking for easier to find, Search Direct will produce just three highlighted results. These three results are generated from the content of your search, network behavior and behavior of the masses (trending topics).

Yahoo has been nipping at the heels of Google for quite some time now; attempting to take the top spot in the search engine world, which Google has been stationed for years. Will Search Direct put them in that coveted position? Well, that’s what Yahoo is hoping for.

Yahoo claims that Search Direct is nothing like Google Instant…what are your thoughts?

This comes on the heels of weeks of speculation – and finally confirmation – that hundreds of Yahoo! employees would be let go (4% of its workforce in all).  That news set the table for this current batch of cutbacks.

So, what happens to Yahoo! in the next year? That’s a questions that industry experts have been trying to answer for some time now and even this recent chain of events doesn’t tip anything off as far as what comes of the one-time internet powerhouse. Not to say that Yahoo! is not still a valuable commodity. Millions still use its plethora of services, including Yahoo! Mail.  But it’s easy to forget just how many sites fell under the Yahoo umbrella. Among those that will feel the wrath of the chopping block include Delicious, Yahoo! Buzz, Yahoo! Bookmarks, MyBlogLog and AltaVista. It should be noted though, that not all will be necessarily shut down. Some, like the popular Delicious, may find homes elsewhere.

Said a Yahoo! spokesperson, “Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond.”

In an interesting take on matters, Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Softbank which owns a sizable portion of Yahoo! Japan, said to DealBook that Yahoo! was foolish for trying to be an all things media-type site and acquiring services and brands it had no idea what to do with instead of focusing on innovating its technology in search.

At this juncture it’s hard to say what Yahoo’s “core strengths” are. Many in the industry believe the company has given up on its search technology after its search and ad deal with Microsoft. Now it’s giving up on relatively popular ideas like social bookmarking, it seems.

With the company seemingly having trouble finding its identity, the speculation truly begins. Will Yahoo! itself shutdown? Will there be a merger? Will it slowly fade away while continuing to downsize? Will there be some sort of new branding leading to resurgence? The only certainty here is that this one-time giant is standing at a crucial fork in the road.

With all that’s been going on, eZanga.com founder and CEO Rich Kahn recently weighed in on two of the most talked about topics in the industry this week.

At Search Engine Watch, Kahn was one of many leading industry insiders to give a reaction to the big news of the search deal made between Microsoft and Yahoo and what it could mean in the long run.

“I believe Microsoft and Yahoo are going to have what it takes to slowly close the gap between their companies and Google,” he said.

Kahn also crafted a piece about the differences between SEO and SEM at Building43.com, lending his opinion on which marketing strategy is more effective in driving traffic to company sites.

The article, titled “SEO and SEM: Truth in Numbers” takes a careful look at both methods through extensive research before making a conclusion on which makes the better option for advertisers.