Hitwise announced today that the search term Facebook was the top U.S. search conducted in the four weeks ending March 27, 2010. Overall, Facebook related terms accounted for eight searches across the three top 10 lists.Yahoo! related terms accounted for six spots while MySpace terms accounted for four searches across the search engines. Other search terms that were among the top 10 searches for all three search engines include youtube, facebook login, craigslist and yahoo mail…

You’ve obviously heard about Google’s PageRank algorithm which heavily focuses on link data to provide a grade for every website in their index. Trst.Me (powered by InfoChimps) has just launched their own version of PageRank, but for Twitter. The trst.me score is also based on a scale of 0-10, where 10 is the highest reputation possible.

Some users are more valuable followers than others…

According to Techcrunch, app store veteran, UrbanSpoon, has officially launched their iPad app. I agree with them in that the iPad app will not be useful for quick dinner solutions (like it is when firing up the app on an iPhone), however the iPad app will be useful for longer, more thoughtful decisions. Details of the UrbanSpoon iPad app below:

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The Internet Evolution blog has released a very interesting post which lists the top 10 personalities across 10 different Digital Media/Web 2.0 categories. The categories included:Social NetworkingEnterprise & Cloud ComputingNews/MediaGreentechWireless & GadgetsE-CommerceSearchSecurityDigital EntertainmentMost Over-RatedBelow are a few of the categories that caught our attention, check out the Internet Evolution blog for the complete list…

Last Friday, in his weekly whiteboard Friday, Rand Fishkin discussed how to get around Google penalties. He started by helping viewers assess whether an actual penalty occurred or not, looking at items like: Ranking Drops, Traffic Drops, Technical website issues or link issues. Rand mentioned that Google also looks at factors for the penalty such as severity, repeat offenders, and authoritative brands vs…

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WordStream this week announced the release of Keyword Management for SEO. It offers the same keyword suggestion capabilities as Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, and similar tools, but layers on keyword analytics, keyword grouping and organization, and integrated content authoring tools starting at $49/monthRather than offering a static list of keyword suggestions along with a handful of related keyword suggestions, WordStream for SEO provides you with:

• Traditional Keyword Research: Not unlike existing keyword tools, WordStream offers keyword suggestions that the software pulls from a deep database of search queries…

It must be infographic week here because we’ve found yet another killer graphic, this time from the team at DataDial on the topic of Search Engine Optimization. Their infographic is essentially a guide to SEO, which discusses: keyword research, site structure analysis, on-page optimization, link building, high/low value SEO tactics, and social media link baiting.

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I love the latest Twitter infographic designed by TwiTip, which shows the valuation of Twitter including information such as: Angel Investors, Rounds of Funding, Acquisitions, Revenue Model and Comparative valuation.

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The latest study by 8coupons.com shows that 85% of users regularly shop/spend money within a 5 mile radius of where they work/live. The data is based on 8coupons.com’s 1.3 million users and 180,000 local deals.The example below, maps out one year’s data compiled by tracking all the users in ZIP code 10003 (East Village, Manhattan). The map is a visual interpretation of the average consumer deal search pattern in NYC…

Last week at the Google Analytics blog, Nick and Avinash released episode of their Web Analytics TV program, this time discussing topic such as:

• How to create Advanced Segments for many sites (or other parameters)
• Tracking affiliates in Google Analytics
• Using an Event as a goal like tracking people who watch videos to conversion
• Measuring embedded Flash with Google Analytics
• Using custom reporting to display landing pages and page titles
• Breaking down paid vs organic search by landing page
• How site overlay currently works and reasons why it could not work
• How to get the / and /index…

The Gmail blog announced a new feature to Gmail that I have been wanting for quite some time: drag & drop attachments, rather than the traditional: add image >> browse >> search/locate >> attach. Google has enabled this capability for both Chrome and Firefox at this time.

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SeeWhy Inc, a company who specializes in understanding and improving abandonment rates on websites, recently released a list of the top 10 converting websites. You can find further information about the criteria of their selections on their blog, check out a quick list of the top 10 below.

1. Schwan’s (food) 41.7 percent
2. ProFlowers (flowers) 26.5 percent
3. Vitacost…

As you may have recently heard, Twitter has launched their very own advertising service called Promoted Tweets. Historically Twitter has primarily generated revenue through their partnerships with Google/Bing, so Promoted Tweets is a way for Twitter to make money a little more consistently. Promoted Tweets is less than a week old, so here are some things you should know about this ad service:

• Promoted Tweets has not been rolled out to all users, only a handful of companies have been selected to beta test the service
• Beta partners where you can find promoted Tweets through include: Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America…

As Apple announces new enterprise features in iPhone OS 4, Localytics reports in a new study that BlackBerry usage of mobile apps is higher during the work day than the iPhone. Weekend usage of BlackBerries is statistically identical to weekday usage. In contrast, iPhone owners use mobile apps more frequently on the weekend with the greatest difference at 2:00 pm EST when weekend usage is 40% higher than the same time Monday through Friday…

Today the Google Analytics blog announced several enhancements to Google Docs. Here is a summary of the updates from the Google Blog:

1. New document and spreadsheet features: Added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets: a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, and drag-and-drop columns
2. Higher fidelity document import: Improvements to the document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier…

The Google Webmaster blog has officially stated that page load time is now a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. Even though they state that page load time only affects less than 1% of queries, this is still 1% of 100+ billion searches a month. Below are a few tools to help you test your site’s page load time more effectively.

• Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement…

Custom variables in Google Analytics are one of the more advanced and useful features of Google Analytics. Today the Google Analytics blog, posted a great video giving users insight on how to setup custom variables and understanding reports after capturing the data.

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Guest Post by Ivan Chalif

Last week, Alterian, an integrated marketing platform provider, launched a new behavioral web analytics product – WebJourney. Unlike traditional web analytic tools, WebJourney focuses on the individual’s interaction with the content and not just their path through the website. It offers analytical capabilities which produce a truer picture of the visitor by building a profile based on each and every act they perform – whether a click, a scroll, a copy / paste or hovering the cursor in a particular part of the page…

We will be giving away two ticket to the Social Media Strategies conference for Web Analytics World readers. The conference is hosted in Santa Clara (May 18th) and is focused on social business, social marketing, advertising and optimization. To enter, add the text “webanalyticsworld” in the tag field when you sign up http://www.webguild.org/user/registration.php?retURL=/lists/?p=subscribe. (You cannot be a vendor, consultant or provider of search, SEO social media marketing services…

comScore has released it’s monthly report on smartphone/OEM marketshare in the US, below is a summary of the smartphone data findings:45.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the December to February period, up 21 percent from the three months ending November 2009. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 42.1 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1…

This week I will be attending Think Mobile in New York which is presented by MediaBistro.com. With 2010 finally being the official year of mobile, I think we’ll continue to see conferences like Think Mobile popping up frequently. I am really excited that the speakers plan to coverage topics such as: monetizing mobile, marketing mobile apps, and targeting based on mobile platform. If you’re in the neighborhood, you can ping me @WaWorld (we also plan on doing some serious Twitter coverage of the event)…

The YouTube blog highlights the updates to the YouTube redesign, below is a summary of the changes from their post:

• Information about a video is now grouped together in one place and there’s a consistent way to get more detail when you need it.
• Cleaned up the actions bar; you’ll see a streamlined presentation for sharing, flagging, and embedding controls.
• The right-hand side of the page is devoted to the next video to watch…

David Pogue of the New York Times has written one of the first reviews of the Apple iPad. He approached the review from 2 different angles, 1 for techies and the other for everyone else. You can read the entire post here, below is few tidbits from his findings:

• The Apple iPad is basically a gigantic iPod Touch
• At 1.5 pounds, the iPad gets heavy in your hand after awhile (the Kindle is 10 ounces)…

A recent post from the Sysomos blog discusses the findings of a study they conducted focusing on the growth of Twitter and its stickiness as a service. This study was based on 1 billion tweets.Summary of the findings below:

• Twitter growth rate outside US is 8% which is higher than the 5% growth rate within the country.
• Rate of contribution by new users has remained steady over past 4 months, suggesting continued user retention…

By: Rand Nickerson, CEO, OpinionLabOpinionLab announced enhanced integration of its customer-feedback offering with web analytics: voice-of-customer (VOC) tools can now integrate data from web analytics and multivariate and A/B testing platforms such as Omniture Test&Target, giving site managers the ability to layer page-specific customer feedback over analytics test results. By revealing the reasons that govern user actions, this data helps companies identify issues more efficiently and leverage key insights across the entire website or organization, exponentially increasing the ROI of every test performed…

Today SEMPO released its annual State of Search Engine Marketing Report. Key findings from the report included:

• The rise of social media marketing budgets, although still modest compared to search engine optimization and paid search, represents the biggest opportunity for search marketers this year.
• Around half of companies (49%) are reallocating budgets to search engine marketing from print advertising…

Advertising in Google’s content network effectively is not an easy task to accomplish, so the Google Adwords blog has created a great set of best practices to help you get started on the right foot. Some of the best practices are detailed below, but check out the Adwords blog for the complete insight.

• Setup the same starting CPC bid as your Search campaigns: We recommend starting with the same maximum CPC bid as your Search campaign ad groups…

According the latest post from the Hitwise blog, MoshiMonsters.com (a children’s social networking/gaming site) has started to make some noticeable traction against Club Penguin and Webkinz. Below is a summary of the post:

• Moshi Monsters offers visitors the chance to adopt a pet monster and take care of their monster by earning a virtual currency called ‘Rox’ through solving educational puzzles that test math, logic and vocabulary skills…

Recently I helped contribute to a new eBook called Demystifying Twitter Marketing which takes a deep dive into the world of Twitter. Starting from the foundations of Social Media all the way to professional uses of Twitter such as Zappos/Starbucks, our eBook offers great insight into how you could leverage Twitter for yourself.We have made the book available for free to read online here, otherwise for only $15 you can download the Twitter eBook for yourself to use and reference at your leisure…