To build upon their “Bing Is For Doing” philosophy, America’s second largest search engine has decided that it will follow in Google’s footsteps and provide social integration.  More information about the merger of social and search platforms across the web can be found in a previous 90blog post.  Bing will attempt to do what Google has decided against and use Facebook (among other social networking sites) as its primary tool to get answers for its users.  As Bing says, “Recent attempts at social search haven’t unlocked the full potential of tapping our social networks.”  Through an integrated format called the Sidebar, users will be able to get the opinion of friends, family, and colleagues online, much as you would in person.

The Internet: love it or hate it, you probably spend a decent amount of time online both at work and at home. In 2010, comScore reported that the average American spent 32 hours per month on the Internet. With the vast amount of time we are spending (or wasting) online, wouldn’t it be nice to be rewarded for your browsing efforts? This wish has been granted thanks to Google’s latest venture: Screenwise Trends.

The Wall Street Journal recently announced that Google will be undergoing a big change. The search giant plans to do a large re-fresh of its algorithm to include “semantic search” technology.  The support system will be Google’s Knowledge Graph and the change is expected to take effect in the next couple of months.

The overall goal of the refresh will be to provide users with direct answers to a search query by understanding the actual meaning of the words, which is generated through an understanding of the association between words used. Amit Singhal, a top Google search executive, said the update will allow Google search to more closely replicate “how humans understand the world.”

This is nothing entirely new, as Google has performed similar updates in the past. Google’s primary goal seems to be to maintain their lead ahead of Bing and catch up to Apple’s Siri voice-activated mobile search. Singhal said, “Let me just say that every day, we’re improving our ability to give you the best answers to your questions as quickly as possible, so stay tuned for updates on what will continue to be a long road ahead.”

A marketing analytics company called RevTrax just completed a two year study on the effect of PPC advertising on consumer in-store spending.  The study analyzed the purchase habits of consumers referred by pay-per-click ads to e-commerce sites. RevTrax used landing pages with coupons that featured a unique barcode to track the information.  The bar code information was then able to track the consumers’ buying cycles and show conversions.

There has been much discussion lately surrounding Internet piracy as a result of Congress’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Long before the creation of this act, Google made four promises to help fight online piracy in a 2010 blog post titled, “Making Copyright Work Better Online.” Recently, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued a report card lecturing Google on not following through with several of its promises. The report card, which gives Google an overall “incomplete” grade, also makes the bold request for Google to “stop making money from digital theft.”

Here is a quick look at the RIAA’s follow up to each of Google’s promises.