Search engines shall remain Google's future

Google says search engines still its future despite new gadgets - Google has unveiled a new wave of software and desktop gadgetry in its ongoing quest to dominate users' experience of the internet. The world's most popular search engine, which faces mounting competition from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, showcased innovations while pledging to focus renewed energies on its core business of online search technology. At a meeting with reporters from around the globe, Google introduced several new search enhancements, including a way to subscribe to health research from experts and tools that let people save portions of websites in a pop-up box that can be shared via e-mails. Google's share of online searches rose to 42.7% in March from 36.4% a year ago. Yahoo's and MSN's shares fell, says research firm ComScore Media Metrix. Larry Page says 98% of what will exist in 10 years "has yet to be done, and we won't get there by looking at what other companies are doing." The new tools are:

• Google Co-op. Users can sign up at www.google.com/coop/directory to subscribe to free health information from several organizations, including the federal Centers for Disease Control, the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente. Their tips on the best health data will show up in search results. Google Co-op also offers city guide information for more than 300 cities, including London and New York. Co-op is designed to let organizations label Web pages relevant to their areas of expertise.

  "We're going to take the Tom Sawyer view and see how our users paint the fence"

• Google Desktop 4An extension of Google's tool to search for items on your computer now comes with more than 100 "Gadgets" — little widgets that do things such as list friends' birthdays, show videos and play music.
• Google Trends. Lets users examine searches for market trends. For example, a search for "surfers" will show that most searches come from Hawaii and Australia and link to news stories about surfing. "For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Mayer. Trends is targeted primarily toward marketers.
• Google Notebook lets people save a portion of a website to a box that can be shared with others. Google showed an example of shopping for shoes, saving a certain pair and writing a note about it, then sending it to friends. The tool works in conjunction with Desktop 4.

Executives denied the new products, especially an upgraded Google Desktop with a multi-media player, were a challenge to the dominance of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Eric Schmidt said he saw "no limit" to the company's growth, adding that Google would devote 70% of its resources to search technologies during the next 50 years. Elliot Schrage said Google's goal is more transparency and to be more open about what Google is doing and what not. - Google holds seminar for press on accurate story telling - Google Announces New Technologies to Improve the Search Experience - Independent - Outer Court - CNET News.com - ABC News

::: Technorati ::: ComScore Media Metrix, co-op, desktop 4, engine, Google, Larry Page, notebook, Eric Schmidt, Elliot Schrage, search, technology, theleadgeneration, trends ::: Sponsor ::: ecademy - connecting business people

Why does the loan industry turn to online lead generation?

Janis Mara thinks that technology innovation in shrinking mortgage market is one of the reasons why the loan industry has to turn into online lead generation!

"The mortgage market is shrinking and more lenders and mortgage brokers are turning to online lead-generation services and automated systems to stay ahead of the curve."

What online channels and automated processes is the mortgage industry using to attract customers and streamline lending in a tightened market? As growth in consumer lending slows, mortgage companies are becoming more creative in pursuing business, experts say, and one of the avenues they're pursuing is online leads.

"As the market is shrinking, transaction volumes are going down, commissions are getting squeezed. It's a tougher market if you are a mortgage broker. That has made people get more creative and aggressive on how they are going to acquire new customers. We have seen this translate into a much larger adoption of the Internet lead category, both in the real estate side and the mortgage side."

HouseValues, which has four consumer Web sites, provides mortgage leads on its site TheLoanPage. Another major online mortgage lead generator is LendingTree. In 2005, Borrell Associates predicted the mortgage industry will shift marketing budgets to predominantly online channels by 2009, eclipsing total dollars spent on television, print and direct mail advertising. According to Borrell, the mortgage industry currently spends more than $22 billion annually on consumer marketing. Between December 2005 and April 2006, Akeroyd said, TheLoanPage has tripled the number of leads sold to lenders and mortgage brokers. In April, HouseValues raised its guidance as to the amount of money the company expects to make in the first quarter of 2006 based on better-than-expected progress in its mortgage business, as well as demand for its real estate marketing services. Bid4Mortgage, takes a different approach from that of established lead aggregation sites. Consumers can visit the site and choose a lender without revealing their identities. David Prouty, CEO and founder of Bid4Mortgage quotes that his company, established less than two months ago, is getting more and more attention from lenders every day. Amran Kahn, director of marketing for E-Loan, said he believes that mortgage industry professionals have been using technology to generate leads at low cost for some time, not just because of the shrinking market.

"When it comes to online marketing, it's not direct lenders such as Countrywide who are leading the charge. We feel E-Loan is at the forefront of competition with search-engine marketing."

Kahn said this type of marketing has been successful for his company in capturing leads. E-Loan has done so, he said, by leveraging technology to capture all the data and use it to its advantage. Thomas Borcich, owner of Bixby Knolls Mortgage in Long Beach, Calif., and state director for the California Association of Mortgage Brokers, is a big fan of customer relationship management software to keep brokers in touch with their customers.

"It allows you to track all your customers you have put in loans over the last five years so you can contact them regularly. The average customer refinances every three to five years, and if you have 1,000 clients in your database, 20% of them will refinance each year."

Borcich uses B.E.A.T. software that notifies you when six months have gone by without contacting a client and prompts, do you want to send thus and such message, or it can prompt you to call the client or send an e-mail or a letter. Another lead generation trick

"Number one: become a trusted advisor versus a loan hack."

He uses MortgageCoach that helps mortgage brokers work in concert with financial planners to help clients get a mortgage.

Berkshire buys 80% of a metal company

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Friday agreed to buy 80 percent of family-owned Iscar Metalworking Cos. in a transaction that values the company at $5 billion. Separately, Berkshire Hathaway said first-quarter profit jumped 70%, as the company's insurance units earned more from investments and Buffett's bet against the dollar paid off. Iscar, based in Tefen, Israel, makes metal-cutting tools. Its U.S. headquarters is in Arlington, Texas.

"My partner Charlie Munger and I have been impressed by IMC's simple and profitable business model. With this acquisition, we have the benefit of investing in a stable business with very significant growth prospects."

The deal appears to be the third largest in Berkshire's history, behind this year's $5.1 billion acquisition of utility PacifiCorp and the $16 billion stock purchase of reinsurance giant General Re in 1998. Investors had been speculating that Buffett might announce an acquisition at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting Saturday. A company spokeswoman said no one was available to discuss the acquisition because officials are preparing for the meeting. Berkshire Hathaway company had $44.7 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of last year, and Buffett said in his letter to shareholders in March that he would need to make "major acquisitions" to accelerate growth in earnings. He has complained about a dearth of investment opportunities as he has shifted to buying companies rather than equity stakes.

"Good for Warren. He's finally found something to buy."

The Wertheimer family, which founded the company more than 50 years ago, will own the remaining 20% of Iscar. Eitan Wertheimer, the chairman, and Jacob Harpaz, the president and chief executive, will continue to run the company from Israel. In March, Berkshire Hathaway's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. bought Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp from Scottish Power PLC for $5.1 billion in cash. Last month, Berkshire agreed to buy Atlanta-based Russell Corp., which makes athletic apparel and Spalding basketballs, for about $597 million in cash. Berkshire Hathaway said net income in the first quarter climbed to $2.31 billion, or $1,501 share, from $1.36 billion, or $886 a share, a year earlier. Foreign currency investments added $151 million in gains. Buffett, who relies on insurance for about half his company's profit, benefited from higher short-term interest rates and moderate weather. Profit before investment gains was $1.79 billion, or $1,160 a share, beating the $1,061 per-share estimate of Gary Ransom at Fox-Pitt, Kelton Inc. The report came out after the close of trading.

Chinese bloggers may reach 100 million in 2007

Blogging is booming in China with the number of bloggers expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year. China is the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States with more than 110 million users. A survey by Baidu.com put the current number of blog, or Web log, sites at 36.82 million which are kept by 16 million people, Xinhua said. The number of Chinese bloggers is expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year, quoting a report on China's media industry by the prestigious Tsinghua University. Zhang Xiaorong, strategy development director of "Bokee", which was set up in 2002 and claims the biggest share of China's blogging market, said his company adds about 100,000 blogs a day.

"The expected 60 million bloggers would account for more than half of China's 110 million netizens,"

The university report forecast the number of bloggers in China would hit 100 million by 2007. Although the industry has invested heavily in blogs, none of the blog service providers are making profits, the report said. A recent report by the Internet Society of China showed 9% of bloggers write every day, 29% write once to three times a week, while 35% write four to six times a week, Xinhua said. The growing stable of e-scribes has attracted homegrown firms and foreign giants like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo!

Business Lead Generation and Bids Company Expands into Maryland

BTB Bids the premier sales lead generation company operating in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut expanded their operations into Maryland. BTB bids specializes in supplying hidden local regional and government bid contracts to businesses searching for sales leads. Very often these lucrative but harder to find bids result in higher assignments for BTB bids customers. BTB handles a wide spectrum of sales leads for businesses. Some examples of the diverse bids they cover are: Musical Instruments, Computer Systems and Networks, Construction Jobs, Supplies and Equipment, Trucks, Cars and Vehicles, Telecom Services, and Landscaping to name a few.

"Like General George S. Patton moving through Europe, BTB bids is invading Maryland to rescue the state’s bidders from inferior bid reporting services. We completed the research; ordered the newspapers, discovered the websites, contacted the agencies… found the bids YOU need in order to make money for your company in Maryland’s vast bidding market. With a special focus on the more difficult to find local and regional bids, BTB bids now offers Maryland coverage that satisfies our high standard for this industry."

BTB Bids is a rapidly growing bid referral company headquartered in New Jersey. The secret to their phenomenal growth is their desire to place service first. BTB firmly believes that listening to their customers is the key to creating internal programs that add value that can't be found anywhere else. At the helm of BTB bids are Coleby Rogers and Kyle Yoder. Their combined years of experience in Law and Bid Management create an exceptional sales lead generation business.