Search giant Google has just announced on their blog they have reached a deal with Twitter to include Twitter tweets in search results.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

This means a great deal for the online marketing industry in so many ways. “#Hashtags” that were once Twitter trends now have become very real to non Twitter users. What people have previously said about your brand on blogs and forums is now joined by the inexpliccably huge volume of tweets. Twitter’s power is now vastly increased - and so is Google’s, once more.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 - in particular -has no support from Microsoft and has

• Security holes that are never properly patched.
• It crashes.
• The CSS model for it is worthless.
• It uses big, messy workarounds for Flash

Working as a plugin for Internet Explorer, Google Chrome Frame leaves the rendering of the page to Chrome.

Google says this will lead to better browser performance for Internet Explorer users, thanks to a faster JavaScript engine, support for HTML 5 and better CSS handling. PC Pro’s own tests have repeatedly shown that Chrome far outstrips Internet Explorer in terms of raw performance, using JavaScript benchmarks such as SunSpider.

Google allows web developers to trigger Chrome Frame by inserting a single line of code into their webpages:

The switch of rendering engines is achieved using a tag Microsoft invented to emulate compatibility with older versions of Internet Explorer.

The meta description, however, is useful as it is displayed below your link in the Google results - this is called the “snippet”.

Google works out what your page is about by looking at the actual text displayed on your page. Focus your efforts on creating good keyword-rich content, rather than worrying about meta data.

Read the official Google blog post here.

You may recall Microsoft courting Yahoo last year only to be rebuffed.

Yesterday (July 29) Microsoft inked a deal with Yahoo to provide Bing as the search engine for Yahoo sites.

Essentially, this means we now have 2 major search engines: Google and Bing. Only time will tell whether Google will lose any marketshare to this new joint offering. We’ll be keeping a close eye on our analytics to see how this plays out.

This could be seen as the end of an era - “Web 1.0″ if you like. Yahoo was the original start point for many web surfers, starting out as a directory of all known web pages and morphing into a search engine. Will it ultimately be swallowed up by Microsoft now that its founder Jerry Yang has less control? Only time will tell, but I for one would not be surprised.

Microsoft clearly has Google’s search and online apps in its sights just as Google is gunning for a share of Microsoft’s desktop market with Google Docs/Apps, Chrome, Android and even launching its own operating system to compete head on with Microsoft Windows. Owning Yahoo would increase Microsoft’s search footprint: an area totally dominated by Google. Microsoft has also recently announced free online versions of Office Word, Excel etc. to compete directly with Google Docs/Apps.

Competition is healthy and I think Google are a bit too powerful online right now (just as Microsoft are offline). Interesting times ahead!

Read more on the BBC website

Interestingly, for web marketeers, Twitter is now the 30th biggest source of traffic to sites - driven by people posting links in their tweets (Twitter messages).

We are seeing a lot of traffic to our sites from Twitter and strongly recommend including it in the online marketing mix.

In the recruitment sector we have been feeding our recruitment clients jobs to Twitter both by using RSS feeds built into our FXRecruiter e-recruitment website system and also by sending XML feeds to Workhound who use them in their TwitterJobSearch site.

If you are a recruiter and are interested in feeding your jobs to Twitter and also to the other job search engines (including Indeed, Trovit, SimplyHired) then get in touch!

Well, as has been expected for a while, Google have made their move: squaring up to the dominant Microsoft and Apple, and typical of Google “re-thinking the OS”. However, as with most Google stuff it’s free and funding will be coming to them via web advertising: the web is the platform; the OS is just the “chrome” around the edges (hence the name) and will be minimal.

Based on their recently launched browser, Chrome, and leveraging the ever-developing Linux system, coupled with their ever-growing list of web applications (Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Calendar) they are pitching this first at the cheap and cheerful Netbook market.

Knowing Google, they won’t get it right first time, maybe not even second, third or fourth. But perhaps they will nibble away and erode the markets dominated by a few key players, just like they have with Google Mail (against Hosted MS Exchange) and are attempting to also do with Android (against Windows Mobile and iPhone)

More here:

Official Google Announcement

Lifehacker

Wired

Gizmodo

More recently he has been discussing “freemium” business models - where companies offer a free product and look to turn a proportion of their customers into paying customers (Flickr for example)

Interesting interview which gives some high-level explanations to his thoughts…

Some highlights:

Another Recruitment Website using our FXRecruiter system for Hamilton Energy Recruitment Consultants

RDR Specialists - microsite for The Consulting Consortium who want to specialise in RDR Training

Redesign of the Craven & Murray Designer Spectacles optician website

Microsite for The Works, for an industry salary survey.

Content-managed website for the IP Federation.

View more, as usual, in the portfolio.

Improving your own web site’s performance reduces your reliance on the job boards and leads to lower (or at least more controllable) marketing spend.

By online marketing, we mean SEO, Email Marketing (newsletters and job alerts) and XML/RSS data feeds to job search engines — anything that gets your jobs in front of prospective candiates. These solutions do not have to be expensive, especially compared to more traditional forms of advertising; and they are certainly more measurable.

I’m a little biased, but Alex - I couldn’t agree more!

Read on…

A very thorough guide can be found here on the Mashable site.

In Google’s own words:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

If you have 1 hr 20 mins, you can find out much, much more by watching the video below

So sign up to be alerted when it is launched here