Second Life, get a life. Google Lively is the new virtual world created by the world's largest search engine.

Google Lively is billed as a "chat experience" using avatars. Google says, "You're about to embark on a chat experience in which you can communicate and express yourself using avatars in your very own space. Choose an avatar and use it to make friends and chat. Create rooms, decorate them to your liking, and make sure to invite your friends over."

Here's how it works:

Choose a Google Lively room

* From the Room List, click the title of the room you'd like to visit first.
* Use the tabs at the top of the page to sort rooms by most popular, most visitors, or newest.
* Once you've added friends or created a room, the My Rooms and Friends' Rooms tabs will also be handy.

Choose your Google Lively avatar

1. Click My Avatar on the right sidebar.
2. Click the avatar you like and choose Select Avatar (your avatar changes instantly).
3. Once you've chosen the one you want, click the X to hide the menu.

Change your Google Lively avatar's clothing

To change your outfit, check out the styles available in the wardrobe picker. Here's how:

1. Click My Wardrobe on the right sidebar to open your wardrobe.
2. Browse or search the options in your wardrobe inventory and select items to wear. When you double-click an item, it'll appear on your avatar instantly. You don't have to close the window to find out if you like the look.

If you don't like how something looks on your avatar, go back to your wardrobe, left-click on the item, and choose Remove Item.

If you want more wardrobe options, add new stuff to your inventory by o quickly change your entire outfit, click my avatar and choose I'm Feeling Lucky . You'll see the new duds on your avatar instantly.

Create your own Google Lively room

1. Click new room and choose Create New Room to start the process.
2. Look over each tab and choose what you want your room to look like, the permissions you want to grant visitors, and whether you'd like to play music in your room.

The Register reported today that Google Docs disappeared in the cloud computing stratosphere, leaving users hoping for a house call from the Google guys. No word yet on the outage on the official Google Docs blog.

Cade Metz noted that Google's Docs and Spreadsheets disappeared today for close to an hour, proving that the world's largest search engine is a long way from perfecting the art of online business applications.

Metz said many businesses paid good money to look at this screen, which appeared from about 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at least to customers in Silicon Valley.

The Register quoted a less-than-thrilled Google Apps Premiere customer, San Francisco-based open source outfit MuleSource. The company pays Google for the use of Docs and Spreadsheets, and it describes the experience as a game of chance.

"As businesses look to move their systems and applications into cloud-based services, we expect them to work minimally as well as if we ran them ourselves," Mule Source CEO Dave Rosenberg tells us. "With Google Apps, we are at the point of taking bets to see if the services will actually be up."

We're not sure the phrase "When clouds die" is part of the official Google server error message.

Ex-Googler Kate Burns has been tapped by social networking site Bebo to head up their European operations, according to the Guardian. Burns previously was Google's managing director for the UK. She also helped launch DoubleClick and AltaVista in the UK.

Bebo was recently acquired by AOL for $850 million. The site boasts 40 million members worldwide. AOL's Platform-A recently announced a guaranteed CPM for Bebo developers. Platform-A was the largest ad network in March.

Also in March, Microsoft announced a data portability with 5 social networks, including Bebo. However, AOL joined Google's OpenSocial initiative in May.

Google owns a 5% stake in AOL, and was recently given permission to unload the stock, though it has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, rumor of a possible Yahoo-AOL merger have reared its (ugly?) head again, but today reports are suggesting any deal would not be completed in July. Yahoo's shareholder meeting is August 1.

Microsoft has announced a new search advertising partnership with Rodale's roster of health sites. The agreement is exclusive and includes sites like MensHealth.com, WomensHealthmag.com, Prevention.com, RunnersWorld.com and Bicycling.com.

"Rodale is the authoritative source for trusted content in health, fitness and wellness around the world and on the Web, and we are pleased to provide our advertisers greater access to this valuable audience segment," said Scott Howe, vice president of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. "The inclusion of Rodale in our lineup of syndicated advertising partners is a strong indicator that we're continuing to gain significant traction with our advertising platform and further complements our vertical expertise in health, finance, travel, autos and entertainment."

Related Reading:

Paid Search Advertising Drives Microsoft Bid for Yahoo
Microsoft Changing Trademark Policy For PPC Advertising
Microsoft Committed to Advertising Success
Digg Goes with Microsoft for Ads
Microsoft Invests $240 Million In Facebook

Online couponing is up 56% from last year, likely due to high gas prices and a weak economy, according to Hitwise data reported by CouponCabin.com. The coupon company says it has experienced 35% growth over last summer.

"As consumers become more and more conscious of saving money, they're exploring new ways to cut costs without giving up too much of what they love, which includes shopping," said Scott Kluth, founder and president of CouponCabin.com.

CouponCabin also gave the following tips for online shopping:

• Be Safe -- Only Shop at Secure Websites: Secure websites are definable by a yellow padlock in the status bar. By shopping at a secure website, it ensures hackers are unable to obtain any of the shopper's personal information.
• Save On Shipping -- Search for Discounted or Free Shipping Coupons: Sites like CouponCabin.com have entire sections dedicated strictly to coupons for discounted or free shipping.
• Let The Sales Find You: Register for e-newsletters to stay constantly informed of sales and discounts.
• Stack For More Savings: Stacking is an online shopping trick that allows shoppers to use multiple coupons at once, providing extra savings. If there are two promotional code boxes, make sure to use two different coupon codes to maximize savings.
• Shop For The Things You Want: Check listings for coupon codes that pertain to specific items you are interested in. Sites like CouponCabin.com have a link for "favorite deals," which allows shoppers to browse by category to view products with discount codes that may peak their interest.

Have you used online couponing? Share your experience in the comments.

Related Reading:
Do E-Mail Coupons Really Work?
Google Adds Printable Coupons to Local Listings
Yahoo! Partners with Coupon Inc. for Mobile Coupons

The Beijing Olympic Committee has chosen mInfo as the official search provider for the mobile version of the 2008 Olympics web site. mInfo currently provides mobile search services to 600 million wireless subscribers in China. Pull-advertising is also a major mobile offering of the Shanghai-based company.

"mInfo is extremely honored to have been chosen by BOCOG to take on the important responsibility of powering search for the official mobile site of the 2008 Olympics," said mInfo CEO Alvin Wang Graylin. "We are proud to be able to contribute to this historic event. The release of this service is particularly satisfying to mInfo, as our Chengdu development team was the core group behind its development, and had to overcome extraordinary challenges to release the service on time, given the devastation caused by the recent earthquakes in the region."

Related Reading:
China Real Estate Search Engine Launches in English Before Beijing Olympics
Google, Baidu, Sohu Search Engines Spanked by People's Republic of China

AdGooroo has released second quarter search advertising results, and Google's client base is down 6.4% from the previous quarter. Google also declined 8.5% year-over-year.

Things were far worse for MSN. Their client base dropped a whopping 20% from Q1. The decline contributed to a 6.7% drop year-over-year. The decrease is not really a surprese since Microsoft has essentially admitted how bad their search is in their attempt to acquire Yahoo, and their successful acquisitions of FAST and Powerset.

Meanwhile, Yahoo could use some good news right now, and the AdGooroo data delivers. Yahoo saw a slight increase in its advertiser base at 0.03% over last quarter, and up 9.8% over last year.

Here's a chart with all the data goodness:

AdGooroo also reported data on the number of ads per keyword. Globally, the number of ads per keyword declined across Google, Yahoo, and MSN. When just looking at the U.S., however, Yahoo and Google held steady while Microsoft saw a decline.

More data for the math junkies:

What do you think of these numbers? Let us know in the comments.

Twitter, the social media sensation, is rumored to buy Summize, the Twitter search engine.

Summize is widely considered to be the best search engine for Twitter conversations.

Of course there are skeptics about the acquisition given that it was reported in TechCrunch:

The Social Times:

"Want a good way to build a popular blog? Make up a story! According to “the sources” of what appears to be a high school student, Summize is being acquired by Twitter. Mike Arrington’s verification model for this source? Why a FriendFeed post from Jason Calacanis of course! Mike Arrington has confirmation that the two companies were talking but no acquisition confirmation.

Hat tip to Josh Chandler for breaking the news.

Yesterday, we looked at building the business case for going to SES San Jose. Today, let’s tackle optimizing your schedule for Search Engine Strategies San Jose.

For arguments sake, let’s say that you’ll be bringing four members of your team to the SES conference and SEM training. One is an SES newbie, another is an SEO specialist, a third is a PPC specialist, and the fourth is an SEM veteran.

Which Search Engine Strategies conference sessions and search engine marketing training workshops should each one attend – to ensure that your business gets the biggest bang for its bucks?

As I mentioned yesterday in yesterday’s post, “Building the business case for going to SES San Jose,” almost 88% of the content at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008 will be brand new! So, how can anyone presume to know which sessions to recommend to someone else?

That’s a fair point, so you may want to glance at the conference at a glance yourself before deciding which tracks are right for you.

But, I’ve attended 28 SES conferences since the spring of 2002. And I’ve learned that the key to getting the right member of your team into the right session is to see who is speaking as well as to read what the session is about.

For example, on Tuesday, Aug. 19, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., the Orion Keynote Panel, Technical & Information Giants, will be moderated by Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, and Mike Grehan, Global KDM Officer, Acronym Media. The speakers include:
• Matt Cutts, Software Engineer Guru, Google;
• Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land;
• Tim Westergren, Founder, Pandora;
• Robert Scoble, Managing Director, FastCompany.TV; and
• Kirsten Mangers, Co-Founder & CEO, WebVisible.

According to the session description, these search engine marketing industry giants will “discuss how the past will shape our future and attempt to answer some of the biggest questions in search. What are the most important changes in the space that you should be aware of? How will the decisions made today affect our marketing and communication efforts in the future?”

While it’s never been held before, I strongly encourage you to attend this session. In fact, run, don’t walk, if you want to get a good seat.

In other cases, you’ll want your team to split up to cover as much of the four-day SEM conference as possible. To help you get started, here is an optimized schedule of Search Engine Strategies San Jose for an SES newbie, an SEO specialist, a PPC specialist, and an SEM veteran.

Day 1 - Monday, August 18, 2008

9:00am-9:30am
Whole Team: Conference Welcome & Orientation

9:45am-11:00am
SES Newbie: Search Industry Update
SEO Specialist: Universal & Blended Search
PPC Specialist: More Customers, Fewer Costs - Why Marketing to the 'Long Tail' Makes Sense
SEM Veteran: Mobile SEO: Death of the “.mobi”

11:15am-12:30pm
SES Newbie: The Next Wave for Online Video
SEO Specialist: Igniting Viral Campaigns
PPC Specialist: Giving Credit Where It's Due: Which Campaign Sold What?
SEM Veteran: Semantic Search: How Will It Change Our Lives?

1:30pm-2:30pm
Whole Team: Orion Keynote Panel: How Much Search is Enough?

2:45pm-4:00pm
SES Newbie: Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO)
SEO Specialist: Storyteller Marketing: How the Art of Storytelling Matches Up With the Business of Marketing
PPC Specialist: Everything But Google: Alternative Search Advertising Options
SEM Veteran: Enterprise Search: Running Your Own Search Engine

4:30pm-5:30pm
Whole Team: Opening Keynote Presentation
Lee Siegel, Author of “Against the Machine”

Day 2 - Tuesday, August 19, 2008

9:00am-10:00am
Whole Team: Morning Keynote
Satya Nadella, Senior VP, Search, Portal & Advertising Platform Group, Microsoft

10:00am-11:00am
Whole Team: Expo Hall Grand Opening

11:00am-12:15pm
SES Newbie: Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
SEO Specialist: Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
PPC Specialist: Landing Page Testing & Tuning
SEM Veteran: Shopping Search Tactics

1:30pm-2:30pm
Whole Team: Orion Keynote Panel:: Technical & Information Giants

4:00pm-5:15pm
SES Newbie: Search Advertising 101
SEO Specialist: Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by Numbers
PPC Specialist: Landing Page Utopia: Expert Roundtable
SEM Veteran: Research Online, Purchase Offline

5:15pm-6:30pm
Whole Team: Networking Cocktail Reception

7:00pm-11:00pm
Whole Team: Google Dance
Buses depart for the Google Campus from 6:30pm

Day 3 - Wednesday, August 20, 2008

9:00am-10:00am
Whole Team: Special Session

10:30am-11:45am
SES Newbie: Building a Search Friendly Site
SEO Specialist: SEO Through Blogs & Feeds
PPC Specialist: Ads in a Quality Score World
SEM Veteran: Getting Vertical Search Right

1:00pm-2:15pm
SES Newbie: Link Building Basics
SEO Specialist: News Search SEO
PPC Specialist: Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues
SEM Veteran: Searcher Behavior Research Update

2:45pm-4:00pm
SES Newbie: Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations
SEO Specialist: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
PPC Specialist: War of the Search Worlds: Unifying Your Global Search Marketing Program
SEM Veteran: SEO Rehab & Intervention

4:15pm-5:30pm
SES Newbie: Maximizing SEO Returns With User Generated Content
SEO Specialist: Dealing With New Technologies
PPC Specialist: Advanced Paid Search Techniques
SEM Veteran: Black Hat, White Hat: Playing Dirty With SEO

5:30pm-7:00pm
Whole Team: Domain Auction

7:00pm-11:00pm
Whole Team: SearchBash
Just blocks from the Convention Center from 7:00pm till late!

Day 4 - Thursday, August 21, 2008

9:00am-10:00am
Whole Team: Morning Keynote
Chip Heath, Author of “Made to Stick”

10:15am-11:15am
SES Newbie: The Business Case for SEO Content Development: Turning Words Into Action!
SEO Specialist: How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department To Get Stuff Done
PPC Specialist: Effective Contextual Search Management
SEM Veteran: Site Clinic

11:30am-12:30pm
SES Newbie: Fast, Free & Easy Tools to Get You Going
SEO Specialist: Trademark Issues: What SEMs Should Know
PPC Specialist: Creating a Cohesive Search Strategy Across Multiple Business Units
SEM Veteran: Site Clinic

1:30pm-2:30pm
SES Newbie: How to Choose a Search Vendor
SEO Specialist: Best Kept Secrets to Search
PPC Specialist: Post Click Marketing - Converting Search Engine Traffic
SEM Veteran: Affiliate & Search Marketing Square Off

2:45pm-3:45pm
SES Newbie: Organic Listings Forum
SEO Specialist: In House SEO: Lessons Learned & Victories Won
PPC Specialist: Search Advertising Tools
SEM Veteran: Site Clinic

Yes, I know that I included special events like the Google Dance in the schedule above. But, trust me on this: You’ll learn as much talking to the Google guys and girls at the Google campus as you will by attending any of the conference sessions listed above.

Before you register, take a hard look at sending some of your people to the SEM and SEO training workshops on the day following the conference. They are designed to provide in-depth training in a small class setting.

You may want to send your SES newbie, SEO specialist, and PPC specialist to one or two of these half-day workshops.

Day 5 - Friday, August 22, 2008

8:00am-12:00pm
SES Newbie: Successful SEO: The Essential Elements - Part 1
SEO Specialist: Optimizing for Universal Search
PPC Specialist: Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness

12:00pm-1:00pm
Whole Team: Lunch Break

1:00pm-5:00pm
SES Newbie: Successful SEO: The Essential Elements - Part 2
SEO Specialist: Search Engine Marketing Metrics and Myths
PPC Specialist: Making Pay Per Click Pay - Best Practices in Pay Per Click Advertising

If you optimize your schedule for SES San Jose, then you will increase the likelihood that your team will return with more than enough new search engine marketing opportunities, better search engine optimization techniques, and different pay-per-click advertising options to provide your organization with a very healthy return on its investment.

See you there.

For many small businesses, commercial transactions don't take place on the Web. Anything that you'd traditionally look for in the print yellow pages becomes a local search on the Internet. In today's small business search engine marketing column, "Local Search for Little Biz," Carrie Hill shows small business owners that there are steps they can take to influence many of the factors that positively affect local search rankings.

» Full story

Furthering your brand through social media, press release optimization, paid search, and directory placement will "naturally" get you more recognition from the search engines. But these methods aren't paid links...or are they? In today's organic search engine optimization column, "What are Good Links, Anymore?," Mark Jackson tries to make sense of the paid links debate, and determine what is and isn't a paid link.

» Full story

As many of your know I am a big fan of both Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer. But these excellent tools, along with Google Webmaster Tools are treated by most people as individual single-purpose applications.

There are tremendous synergies possible when you combine them in innovative ways. For the first time, the product teams for each one are stepping out of their respective silos and putting on a joint webinar about how to get the most out of combining them.

More info on the The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer webinar (July 8th, 9-10am PDT)

I strongly urge everyone to listen in…

The 'state-of-the art' day care facilities at Google have increased their pricing to around what it costs to go to some community colleges, according to the New York Times. While the free food, refreshments and candy, once looked upon as a great perk by many outsiders considering a Google job, now seem to be considered pampering by co-founder Sergey Brin, NYT reports.

Though a Google spokesperson denied it, several people who attended a T.G.I.F. meeting in June claim Brin said "he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” NYT stated.

Hey Sergey, you keep these people at their desks longer - or is it productivity or new thoughts outside the box are not coming as rapidly as in the past? Maybe the $72 million a year spent on food is cutting into Sergey's private income, and he does not want child care to take even more.

Given stock prices are a long way from the $700 highs of last year, it should now not fall on the non-millionaire employees to make up the short fall.

Seems to me this approach is a lot like the minimum bid increases that saw the regular advertiser pay for Google's efforts to stop arbitragers - they were so profitable Google continued this with implementation of Quality Scores to keep minimum bids and have all new advertisers pay premiums starting out their accounts.

Working at Google was once almost an extension of living with your parents, but now it seems dad is starting to charge rent.

Google is assuring users of its Analytics product that their data is protected. Apparently, the recent announcements of Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner had some web site owners concerned about how much data sharing was going on among the various offerings.

Brett Crosby from the Google Analytics team went to the blog to allay fears:

Google Analytics doesn't share individual, site-level information with Google Trends for Websites or Google Ad Planner. These products gather data from multiple sources, then check the data against anonymous, aggregate, industry benchmarking data within Google Analytics. This helps Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner calibrate category data and correct for under- or over-reporting in certain verticals. The benchmarking data comes from Google Analytics customers who've chosen to share their data in aggregate.

This isn't the first time fears over data collected by Google Analytics have popped up. But not everyone is worried.

When I spoke with Crosby last month, he told me that for every person who expresses fears over data collection in Analytics, there is another who wants to know why more isn't being done with the data. He told me that Analytics works hard to strike a balance for people of both viewpoints, allowing those who want to share in the hopes of developing deep integrations with other Google products the ability to do so.

Of course, there's only so far you can take integration. Google Analytics does not affect a site's rankings in Google's search results.

Yahoo has responded to the letter Carl Icahn issued this morning. Here's the statement

Yahoo!'s Board of Directors continues to stand ready to enter into negotiations with Microsoft Corporation for an acquisition of Yahoo!. Indeed, as recently as June, Yahoo!'s independent directors and management approached Steve Ballmer about just such a transaction, only to be told that Microsoft was no longer interested even in the price range which they had previously proposed. Now Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Icahn have teamed up in an apparent effort to force Yahoo! into selling to Microsoft its Search business at a price to be determined in a future "negotiation" between Mr. Icahn's directors and Microsoft's management. We feel very strongly that this would not lead to an outcome that would be in the best interests of Yahoo!'s stockholders. If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo!, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately. And if Mr. Icahn has an actual plan for Yahoo! beyond hoping that Microsoft might actually consummate a deal which they have repeatedly walked away from, we would be very interested in hearing it.