Lately, Google has had a global focus. Recently, they gave tips on developing a multi-lingual site . Now, they're enabling cross-language search in Google News. Users most likely to notice the change reside in countries where there are few online news resources or where multiple languages are traditionally spoken. Despite the heavy influx of people from Spanish-speaking countries, Google says US users will primarily see English. So will users from the UK. However,

Hyper-local search site CitySquares.com is the fastest growing search site, according to Quantcast. Launched in 2005, focusing on Boston, CitySquares opened up to more locations this past June. Now the site features 1.5 million businesses in New York City, eastern New York State and all of New England. Since the switch, traffic has increased by 1500%. If you're an SEO or SEM in the New England/New York area,

IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, has completed the spinoff of four companies : HSN, Inc. )HSNi(, Interval Leisure Group, Inc. )ILG(, Ticketmaster and Tree.com. For every one share of IAC common stock held on August 11, 2008, the record date for the spin-off, or bought in the due bill period, holders received one-fifth of a share of common stock of each of HSNi, ILG and Ticketmaster, and one-thirtieth of a share of common stock of Tree.com.

As U.S. workers continue to check out the Olympics online during the work week, Yahoo is beating the competition in drawing eyes to its Olympic content. But if your in management, don't freak out. Peak time for your employees' daily Olympic fix is lunch time. Check out this data from Nielsen Online. Now, if you'll excuse me, the gold medal match for women's soccer is about to begin - US versus Brazil. Should be a good one!

So much was taking place on Day 3 of SES San Jose 2008, even attendees needed to use news and blog search engines to keep up with more than 75 articles and posts coming out of the SEM conference & expo . Here are the top stories that represent just the tip of the iceberg: Report: Bill Gates Remains Tied To Search Doug Caverly of WebProNews reports, "The latest Nielsen stats put Microsoft's share of the search market at an unimpressive 11.9 percent.

There were more than 70 news articles and blog posts on Day 2 of SES San Jose 2008 . And that doesn't include the video interviews from Day 1 which are being posted as we speak. Here are the some of top stories for those of those of you trying to glimpse the highlights - when you really need to be here to get the full impact of the conference. Is Microsoft's Vision of Search Enough to Catch Google? Rob Hof of BusinessWeek writes,

American Airlines today began offering in-flight internet access on select flights. For $12.95, passengers flying Boeing 767-200 aircraft on non-stop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami can browse to their heart's desire. The mobile broadband service is called Gogo and is provided by Aircell. Passengers can access the internet once the plane has reached 10,000 feet.

When it comes to local advertising , the best conversions come from local media sites, such as newspaper and tv station sites, according to a new report from the Online Publishers Association )OPA(. Local media sites see a higher percentage of visitors taking actions on local ads compared to a user review site or a portal. Local Newspaper Site: 46% Local Television Site: 44% Local Magazine Site: 42% User Review Site: 39% Portal: 37% 2,

SearchIgnite has announced the release of the next generation of its media optimization tool. The updates featured in Version 3.0 are: Full multi-channel media tracking and reporting: Track and report on paid search, display, paid inclusion, organic search, e-mail and more to better understand the consumer sales funnel and properly attribute online media channels that lead to a sale.

Google has released a major update to Website Optimizer, which contains new features that will have users breathing a sigh of relief. First up, you can now disable combinations that just aren't working out for you. Dubbed "Experiment Pruning," the feature allows users to eliminate combinations that are poorly performing or just don't make sense for your campaign.

Richard Stokes, the founder of search marketing firm AdGooroo, has announced the publication of his new book, Mastering Search Advertising â€" How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords . In the book, Stokes walks through the basics of setting up a PPC campaign and uses graphs and case studies to demonstrate successful marketing strategies.

Want to search Google for results that don't include sites under the Google umbrella? Try Google Minus Google . The site shows YouTube -less, Knol -less, and Blogger-less results. The site was started by Finnish blogger Timo Paloheimo, who was inspired by an article in the New York Times asking the question, Is Google a Media Company? Paloheimo claims he received 3,000 visits the very first day. via NYT Related Reading: Is Google Becoming a Portal?

Over the weekend, Microsoft rolled out an update to adCenter. The update released new credit card options for users. One of the changes has to do with paying your adCenter bill. Now you can pay an outstanding balance anytime - not just during the regular monthly payment. Another change has to do unused credit cards. You're now able to remove credit cards that you're not using for adCenter payments. Last but not least,

Earlier this year, Yahoo launched a content discovery and voting site that it dubbed Yahoo Buzz . The content was only collected from select publishers. Now, that all has changed. Last night, Yahoo opened up Buzz to all publishers. Kind of like Technorati, you can now submit your site content as well as place Buzz buttons on your site. Yahoo says sites saw their traffic soar as a result of being Buzzed. The site has already seed 5 million members,

Friendster has today announced the deployment of the OpenSocial API. Friendster is encouraging developers to make use of the API to reach its 75 million members. Google launched OpenSocial, a set of APIs, last fall . Earlier this month, Friendster named Richard Kimber, former regional managing director of South Asia for Google, as its new CEO . "With widespread support throughout the industry, OpenSocial has become a de facto standard for developers of social applications.

WebTrends estimates that $4.5 million will be wasted in search advertising this year. That's why they're launching a new service: Ad Director. Debuting at SES San Jose , Ad Director uses self-learning technology to optimize millions of combinations of keywords, landing pages and ads across the major search networks. WebTrends says that companies using the solution have seen their return on ad spend increase an average of 44 percent.

The Web Analytics Association has announced the addition of Yahoo's Dennis Mortensen to their board of directors . Mortensen is Director of Data for the Sunnyvale search engine, arriving there from IndexTools, which was acquired by Yahoo earlier this year . He will serve through 2010. WAA Chairman Jim Sterne said, "Dennis Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Web Analytics industry, having worked in the field of internet analysis and statistics since 1996.

With students everywhere preparing to go back to school, now is a good time to )re(visit SEO's foundational principles. In today's Au Natural column, " Search Engine Optimization: Back to Basics ," Mark Jackson is teaching SEO 101, and class is now in session.

If you're a small business owner, it can be difficult to juggle your responsibilities. In today's small business SEM column, " SEM Success In 10 Minutes A Day ," Carrie Hill gives you 10 search marketing tips that take just 10 minutes a day or less.

There have already been more than 65 news articles and blog posts from SES San Jose 2008 â€" and it's just Day 1 of the conference. Looking through the event coverage, here are the top stories for those of you who are trying to keep up with the latest news and developments. SES San Jose: Kevin Ryan WebProNews spoke with Kevin Ryan at SES San Jose 2008! Watch the first video of the conference.