Swedish social blog search engine Twingly has introduced its proprietary BlogRank system to rank the relative importance of blogs. To mark the launch, Twingly has also released its 100 most important blogs in 12 different languages.

What makes one blog more important than another? According to TechCrunch, the only thing Twingly will disclose about its ranking technology is that its based on ‘inlinks and likes among other things’. Twingly also admits that the list is based on its data and not necessarily 100 percent accurate. Who woulda thought?

Click here to view Twingly’s list: http://www.twingly.com/top100

Source: Robin Wauters, “Twingly Debuts BlogRank, Guess Who Leads The Top 100,” Twingly, December 16, 2008

Either Google is kindly responding to its customers’ requests… or is looking for more and more revenue opportunities… or both, but the search engine has decided to allow Internet marketers to display ads that mention hard alcohol and liqueurs on Google Adwords.

In a follow-up to its decision to allow beer advertising in autumn this year, Google will now allow search engine marketers to advertise information about hard alcohol and liqueurs that target the U.S.

Advertisers will not, however, be allowed to directly promote the SALE of hard alcohol and liqueurs. They will need to comply with Google’s updated hard alcohol and liqueurs policy, which, among other things, states that they may use Google Adwords to promote information about hard alcohol and liqueurs that their websites contain, such as recipes and brand messages.

While ads that directly promote the sale of hard alcohol and liqueurs won’t be allowed on Google Adwords, ads for beer MAY directly promote its sale.

So, in simple terms, a Google Ads advertiser:

MAY offer a beer for sale at a certain price… MAY promote information about hard alcohol e.g. 50 Great Cocktail Ideas MAY NOT offer a liqueur for sale at a certain price.

Source: Amanda Kelly, “An update to the AdWords alcohol policy,” Inside AdWords crew Monday, December 08, 2008

Yahoo has introduced thumbnail previews for its image searches. The new feature will allow searchers to quickly see the results of their searches and, if dissatisfied with the results, modify their searches accordingly.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft has released its own image search innovation this week. You can now use an image on Microsoft’s search engine, Live, to look for similar images online.

Source: Jason Kincaid, “Yahoo Search Assist Adds Image Previews; I Wish Google Had This”, December 3, 2008, TechCrunch

Technorati, the popular blog search engine, will lay off six staff and reduce staff pay by 15-25 percent for managers and 10 percent for employees.

Announcing the cuts in a blog post, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra said Technorati needed a “leaner and reconfigured mix to get us through 2009.”

Source: Richard Jalichandra, “Changes and Tough Decisions at Technorati”, Technorati Weblog, November 25, 2008

Microsoft is apparently considering rebranding its search engine ‘Kumo’ having taken over the Kumo.com domain name.

Presumably the current brand, ‘Live’ (is it MSN Live, Microsoft Live or Windows Live anyway?) just doesn’t have the coolness of “Google’ or ‘Yahoo’. ‘Kumo’ on the other hand…

What’s more ‘Kumo’ apparently has a relevant meaning - it means ‘cloud’ or ’spider’ in Japanese. Well, maybe a little relevant…

That doesn’t mean Microsoft will dump Live.com though. According to TechCrunch, Live.com will become a pure social network and personal productivity portal.

Source: Mary Jo Foley, “Would you ‘Kumo’ it?”, ZDNet, November 23, 2008, Michael Arrington, “Microsoft To Rebrand Search. Will It Be Kumo?” TechCrunch, November 23, 2008

If Michael Arrington from TechCrunch is right, Google’s iPhone voice recognition application should hit Apple’s iTunes store today. (Apparently there was a misunderstanding between Google and Apple that created the widespread belief that the free application would be available last Friday…)

In any case, Google’s technology is pretty neat. Basically, it enables iPhone users to generate Google search results based on a question they ask into the phone. The sound is converted into a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which attempt to decipher the words spoken, and then send them to Google’s search engine.

Using some of the iPhone’s features, the technology will also take into account the user’s location to generate localized search results.

Source: Michael Arrington, “Update On Google iPhone Voice Recognition App: Look For It On Monday”, TechCrunch, November 16, 2008

The problem with Twitter is… it doesn’t make any money.

Yep, seems everyone is making money off Twitter… except Twitter! So while various Internet marketers will tell you how great Twitter is, in terms of generating traffic, a list, buzz, sales etc, Twitter is still looking for a way to make money.

An article by Corvida in ReadWriteWeb indicates that the venture capitalists who have funded Twitter are expecting the company to establish a revenue model in 2009. That’s right, harking back to the dotcom days of the late 1990s, Twitter was founded - and funded - without having a model for making money!

In fact, asking how Twitter will make money was, until recently, a ’stupid’ question. Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures which helped fund the company is quoted to have said:

“It’s like the stupidest question in the world: How’s Twitter going to make money. It’s like ‘How was Google going to make money? Eventually Google was going to make money and they figured out how to do it and they figured out a great business, and I think the same thing is true with Twitter.”

But Wilson has since recanted his statements… perhaps in light of current economic conditions.

Sure, Google started out as an exceptional, ground-breaking search engine and only later established a model for making money. But I wonder: for every technology company that began without any idea of how to make money, and ended up successfully working out one (or more)… how many other companies self-destructed because they were never able to commercialize their technology, or at least sell something that people wanted to buy?

I don’t know the answer. But we need only look at what happened during the dotcom bust of 2000 to get an inkling of what happened to many companies that lacked an effective business model.

So it will be interesting to see what Twitter comes up with, and more generally, how many non-money-making Web 2.0 companies make it through the current period.

Oh, and why is Twitter’s inability to make money a problem? Well, if Twitter is helping YOUR business… then you’ll want it to stick around, right? Well, it won’t be able to stick around… unless it becomes self-sufficient. In other words, unless it makes money.

Source: Corvida, “Revenue Model for Twitter Coming Soon”, ReadWriteWeb, October 18, 2008

Blog search engine Technorati has acquired AdEngage, a small online advertising network.

While Technorati’s own ad network (launched in June) is mainly targeted at large, high-traffic sites, the company plans to roll out a new ad network based on the AdEngage platform, which will be open to all publishers who fulfill Technorati’s quality standards.

AdEngage will continue to operate as an independent business, while the newly created Technorati Engage will be aimed at blogs and social media sites.

AdEngage, which was founded in 2004, currently delivers over 12 billion ads on over 4,000 sites each year. Writing in ReadWriteWeb, Frederic Lardinois notes that a substantial part of AdEngage’s business comes from adult sites (2,112 out of 3,577 currently active sites).

This, he says, is probably the chief reason why Technorati has decided to let AdEngage continue to operate independently for the time being.

Source: Frederic Lardinois, “Technorati Acquires AdEngage - Launches Self-Service Advertising Network”, ReadWriteWeb, October 15, 2008

Want to buy Bloglines? According to TechCrunch, Ask is trying to divest itself of Bloglines. But although the service has been up for sale for the past few months, there are no serious buyers in sight.

Ask acquired Bloglines in February 2005 for around $10 million, but TechCrunch believes it may be willing to sell the service at a loss. Despite delivering a popular blog / news search engine and reader service, Bloglines has generated virtually no revenue, let alone profits, to date.

Source: Michael Arrington, “Bloglines Gets A Band-Aid; And We Hear It’s Still For Sale”, TechCrunch, October 20, 2008

AdGooroo reports that in the third quarter of 2008 Microsoft benefited from a 19.3% increase in active first page advertisers, the biggest quarterly increase since AdGooroo began measuring advertising activity in April 2007.

Moreover, compared with a year ago, Live Search has grown its active advertiser base by almost 32%, placing it in the strongest position its ever been in.

Google, meanwhile, has had a mixed quarter. Although AdGooroo recorded a 3% increase in active advertisers, Google’s ad coverage dropped to its lowest levels in August and September, suggesting that August and September may have been weak months.

AdGooroo believes that May’s roll-out of the new AutoMatch algorithm has not made up for the attrition of small advertisers. The impact of Google’s algorithm change in mid-September - one which appears to undo some of the aggressive quality control measures which have purged advertisers (and spends) since July 2007 – is yet to be seen.

Yahoo experienced no significant change in ad growth. AdGooroo measured a 2.5% decrease in active first-page advertisers, but noticed no significant changes in other metrics.

Source: AdGooroo Q308 search marketing research report now available Search Engine Advertiser Update – Q308 October 9, 2008