Like buying crap? All the time? Now it’s a lot easier if you have an iPhone, because Amazon has put out a nice app that allows users to shop from anywhere.

Stuck in traffic and want a fondue set? Just download the app and voila, you’re melting cheese in a few days. Undoubtedly this will fix the cratering economy.
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Gambling is legal in the United Kingdom, but Google had a policy of not allowing any of the many online and cornershop gambling companies in Britain to advertise on Google.

But with Google’s stock struggle to maintain its lofty heights right now, Google has decided to reverse course and will now allow the likes of Ladbrokes, William Hill, and Betfair to buy ads on Google. And, as anyone who has ever been to Europe can tell you: gambling companies spend a ton of money on ads, and Google is going to rake in a boatload of cash from this decision.
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Twitter, or microblogging in general, has massive potential in quickly and efficiently dispersing important information. In fact, the recent earthquake in China was discovered by Tweeters a full half hour before any of the mainstream American news channels or websites picked it up.

Corporate Tweeting has met with mixed results. Notably, big bad Comcast has set up a pretty amazing Twitter campaign, responding to just about anybody who utters the word “comcast” on Twitter, with something helpful or at the very least consoling. And it makes a lot of sense, because Twitter users by nature spread word of mouth and are tech-savvy. More importantly, companies can monitor Twitter if something bad is going down and get right on it.
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While Yahoo’s stock languishes in territory that must make Jerry Yang want to toss his cookies, they are still coming up with new and useful little tricks that will help bring in new traffic to their lagging search engine.

As Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land reports today, one of them was just launched. Yahoo’s cheap gas shortcut works like this: simply search for gas price(s) + city/zip code, or cheap gas + city/zip code, and Yahoo will send you to a shortcut that shows the lowest gas prices for the city you inquired about, along with a map showing pushpins of the location.
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Spore, the new evolution game from Sims creator Will Wright, has been widely anticipated, critically acclaimed, and utterly panned by users for its DRM that only allows for a total of three installations for each game purchased. Spore buyers know that after that first install, there are only two left.

So what are gamers resorting too? BitTorrent, of course. As of Thursday, Spore had been downloaded 170,000 times. While that is not unusual for a big time game, this has been in the space of about ten days. No game has ever been shared more quickly to more people than Spore.
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Is the album dead? An article in Ars Technica suggests many artists believe it is dying, and the biggest culprit behind its demise is iTunes.

Some bands sort of have this coming. They make one or two good songs and then fill in the rest of the album with a string of throwaways. But for other band that strive to create a complete and cohesive album, they are feeling somewhat annoyed by the change in habits.

Apple doesn’t allow artists to sell albums only on their system. An artist can sell all their songs, but not as one package–it has to be a la carte.
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The technology behind Google Suggest is nothing new. It’s been available on the Google Toolbar for some time, as well as through Firefox, YouTube, and the iPhone. Rivals like Yahoo! and Live Search have also had it on their homepage for quite awhile now. But finally, Google has added it to their homepage.

Reviews are mixed. Some say the technology is not as advanced as Yahoo’s, others say Live Search is better, and still others think Firefox’s plugins are better. None of this matters much when it comes to marketing. The fact is that now Google has its suggest feature, it becomes extremely important to explore the possible implications for search engine optimization.
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A small electronic antenna testing outfit in Sweden has revealed there is little to no difference between the antennae of iPhones and other phones, like the Nokia N73. In spite of many complaints of iPhones having fewer reception bars and some lost calls, the tests showed the iPhone’s antenna is as strong as other phones.

Case closed, right? Many are attributing the complaints about the iPhone to the fact that they were rolled out at such a high volume and with such fanfare that every small problem has been amplified, especially due to the often high-profile nature of the user base.
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CitySquares.com, a localized search engine that started in Boston and has made its way throughout New England and to New York, is the fastest growing search engine on the web, according to Quantcast. And there’s good reason for it: it’s an excellent service and could be a harbinger of things to come, particularly when it comes to mobile search.

The site has grown steadily after its launch in 2005, now featuring over 1.5 million businesses in the Northeast. It’s really a handy site. For example, I can narrow New York down to Brooklyn, narrow Brooklyn down to my old neighborhood, Greenpoint, and search for restaurants, nightclubs, bars, businesses, and just about anything else.
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In June, Microsoft launched their own 404 widget that replaced a typical 404 screen with one that includes a list of possible matches and the ability to search further within the site with Live Search. Microsoft’s claim at that time was that between 2% and 10% of all searches lead to an error page. Yikes.

Now Google has followed suit with their enhanced 404 widget that pretty much does the same thing as Microsoft’s, but with Google as the search engine instead of Live Search. The widget is unstyled and allows site owners to edit the CSS as they like it.
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