AOL is shutting down its blogging product, AOL Journals. Google wants Journal users to head on over to Blogger to keep their journaling spirit alive. So, they've created a migration tool to help you port your AOL Journals postings over to a new Blogger blog. You'll want to hurry. AOL Journals says goodbye this Friday, October 31. For details, check out the Blogger blog .

Popular professional social networking site LinkedIn is rolling out its new search platform. Like most major releases, it will only be available to a small percentage at first.

Major hat tip to TechCrunch for sharing with the world a way to link to a certain time point within a video on YouTube. Take for example this video of a clip from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ If you wanted to share the link but have the video start 56 seconds in where the film cuts away from Ginger Rogers in the Senate Gallery to Jimmy Stewart's character speaking and barely standing as part of a filibuster,

hakia is jumping on the personalized search page bandwagon with My hakia .

The first phone with Google's new mobile platform Android was released last week on Tmobile . Unlike the iPhone, Android will be seen on more devices and more carriers in months and years to come. But Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says Android isn't quite ready to carry the Sprint name on a device - not yet anyway. He says that Sprint will carry an Android phone in the future, but the platform needs work. It might be tempting to suggest that the struggling Sprint should hop on board.

There was much buzz over the weekend about a military report suggesting the popular mass Instant Messaging tool Twitter could be used by terrorists. They cited as an example the protestors at the Republican National Convention using Twitter to inform about police actions and movement. In that case, Twitter becomes a better counterterrorism tool than it does the next training exercise for Hamas and Al Quaida.

Microsoft announced its earnings for the fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2008. For them, it's the first quarter of their fiscal year, while other companies go with the traditional calendar and call it their third quarter. Their net income increased by 2%. This was due largely in part to XBox360, a gaming console which recently received a price slash. It has been widely noted that Microsoft has a bunch of cash on hand,

AzoogleAds , a division of Epic Advertising, today announced the beta launch of an iPhone publisher reporting platform, iMobilePublisher. The platform will be available as an iPhone and iPod Touch application. Users will be able to payment history, leads, stats, clicks and effective CPCs. Publishers will also be able to sort by offers and a variety of date ranges, with a user-interface that can display data in graphical format.

As SERP listings and functionality changes, there are still two types of listings that have weathered the storm and are still attainable for marketers: traditional organic listings and paid search listings. In today's SEM agency issues column, " The Organic and Paid Balancing Act ," William Flaiz explains that by making sure your site stays above the fold in these two outlets, you can maximize your controllable visibility.

Location awareness - the concept that a device knows exactly where it is - is changing the way mobile search works. Search applications are being developed to tap into this capability and serve more locally relevant content. In today's vertical search column, " The Future of Online Ads: Location, Location, Location ," local search expert Michael Boland discusses this trend,

E-commerce applications for Web sites can take thousands of hours to build, and require patience and determination on the part of the organization. As with large-scale Web site designs and redesigns, putting search engine optimization off until after the fact can be a costly mistake. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, " SEO During E-Commerce Application Development ," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson look at what it takes to make an application SEO-friendly vs.

Google's AdWords API team has released version 13 of the open source tool. The update includes the following: New geotargeting options Active campaign and ad group retrieval Campaign budget suggestions Quality-based bid and quality score support Mobile Image Ad support Easier MCC account hierarchy retrieval MCC Alerts support Search volume data returned in KeywordToolService Minimum bids no longer supported For more on the updates,

LinkedIn has launched a new survey feature that will enable its members to conduct market research. LinkedIn is an online social network built around business and careers and has 30 million members. "LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face," said Dan Shapero, Director of Business Services, LinkedIn . "Because of the public and self-policing nature of LinkedIn,

New data released by Rubicon Consulting shows that online reviews are second only to word of mouth when it comes to influencing consumer purchasing decisions. Here's other key points from the survey: The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals. It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer. Website categories that get the most daily usage are search, social communities like MySpace and Facebook,

Chinese search engine Baidu saw a whopping 91% increase in the third quarter of 2008. The search engine had been seeing explosive growth leading up to the Beijing Olympics, which occurred during the third quarter. Baidu expects profits in the fourth quarter to be around 80-85%. In the second quarter, Baidu's profits increased by 87% . Here's the full press release: Baidu Announces Third Quarter 2008 Results Wednesday October 22, 5:00 pm ET BEIJING, Oct.

Click Forensics has released click fraud data for the third quarter of 2008. Overall, click fraud declined slightly. And by slightly, I mean barely noticeable. The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.0% for Q3 2008, down from 16.2% reported for both Q2 2008 and Q3 2007. The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements on search engine content networks was 27.1 percent, down from 27.6% in Q2 2008 and 28.1% in Q3 2007. Traffic from botnets was responsible for 27.

A new video sharing site for internet marketers has launched. It's called IMBroadcast and it's pretty impressive. You can lurk and browse videos or join and upload videos of your own. Videos range from casual advice about keyword tools to raps about social media . The design of the site is clean and extremely user-friendly. Check out IMBroadcast and then come back and leave comments about your first impressions of the site.

Here's a couple of updates that you Blogger bloggers should be happy to learn about. The first is the ability to post directly from a new Blogger widget in iGoogle . Here's what it looks like: The second is the ability to allow comments directly from a blog post's page , to which I scream HALLELUJAH. If you've ever commented on a Blogger blog post, you know you have to go to a separate page. But now,

Earlier this year, Yahoo acquired the Inquisitor plugin , which is a search suggestion plugin for Safari. A few months later they updated it , but it still remained for the Safari browser. Now, the plugin is available for Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. Included with the release are algorithm enhancements, and IE users will get a bookmark-based retrieval feature. Writing on the Yahoo Search blog , Ariel Seidman says "Beyond these enhancements, the focus of Inquisitor,

Just in time for a weakening economy and the holiday retail season, Google will begin rolling out 7 new features to Analytics over the coming weeks. The new updates are enterprise level features that Google will now be offering for free. First up is an integration with AdSense . This one will be rolled out over several months, so if you don't see it for a while, you'll know why. You'll be able to view AdSense performance based on page and referring site. Plus,