Spinfield: Web marketing trends today, tomorrow, and beyond…

Google seems to have been the busiest in the search world last week. Here are some of the top happenings from the week in search:

• Microsoft has won out over Yahoo to have Live Search become the default browser on new HP computers sold in North America starting in January 2009.
• Yahoo! is once again providing real-time stock quotes to users for free, in their Yahoo! Finance section. They used to provide this service for users, up until 2006, due to marketplace consolidation. They have partnered with BATS Trading to make these real-time quotes possible again.
• Google has continued spending money on outdoor advertising for Google maps, even though they usually do not spend money advertising. Ads for Google maps can now be seen on buses and trains in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago. Google still falls behind AOL’s MapQuest in total users, but has increased 307% since April 2006. Google has been running ads for Google Maps for about six months now.
• According to comScore’s monthly report, Google’s growth of ‘paid clicks’ in the U.S. in April was 19.6%, compared to last year. February and March were only up 3.1% and 2.7%, respectively. This could be a good sign for the economy, or it could just mean more costs for advertisers.
• Google updated their browser favicon at the end of last week:

Old Favicon:

New Favicon:

There has been discussion as to whether it is smart for Google to keep changing things like this, when they already have such a strong brand known to the public.

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