In a widely anticipated move to counter Microsoft’s entrance into the on-demand application space, Google and Salesforce have teamed up on a global partnership and announced “Salesforce Group Addition featuring Google AdWords” today.  This jointly developed product will allow a connection between Google AdWords accounts and Salesforce accounts, offering smoother integration and linkage between AdWords and Google accounts.  This first release of a co-developed product is targeted at SMB’s who may already be customers of SalesForce but haven’t hooked AdWords and Salesforce together.

The buzz on the Internet has been speculating that Google and Salesforce would join forces, but many thought it might be more than just a simple integration between SF and AdWords.  Microsoft has been making a strong push into the hosted-apps space with their Live platform, and is expected to move forward with a strategy to offer it’s Dynamics software suite as a hosted application.  This would be a direct competitor to Salesforce.   With Google pushing it’s “Apps” platform, a merger between Google and Salesforce seemed like a natural fit, in part to stave off the looming threat from Microsoft as well as to diversify it’s revenue streams.

First steps in partnerships are often much less glamorous than most would like.  Many were expecting a larger initial engagement between Google and Salesforce right out of the chute and today’s announcement is more evolutionary than revolutionary, but it’s likely to get more intense moving forward.

Salesforce.com, Google Launch SMB Tool via [PCWorld.com]

Not to be outdone by MapQuest’s new bigger, badder, API, today Google has released a refresh of it’s popular online mapping application, but with a three dimensional twist. Google Maps now features “Street View“, which offers street-level photography in select cities. So far San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Miami, and New York are the only cities available.

Navigation within Street View is, as usual, intuitive and straightforward. Though some of the street view pics aren’t contiguous - some views feature clear, sunny days while others are overcast and dreary - the general feeling of the service is very cohesive and fluid. Resolution is outstanding for most pictures, allowing for remarkable detail when zooming in.

For most users, Street View will be a unique addition to an already solid online mapping service. As the service expands, expect to see additional metro areas added quickly. They may already have the photos acquired and are simply easing in to a full-scale major metro rollout (remember the Gmail beta?).

Google Maps

comScore has released its latest search engine rankings for April 2007. Not surprising, Google continues it’s march towards search dominance, moving up 1.4% from the previous month to 49.7% of all US internet searches.
Both Yahoo and Microsoft’s search sites declined slightly, as did Ask’s rankings. It will be interesting to see how Ask’s numbers move (up or down) as they move forward with their “algorithm” advertising campaign here in the US.

comScore Releases April U.S. Search Engine Rankings via [www.comscore.com]

Speculation came to a halt today as the Internet rumor mill reports Google is officially buying FeedBurner.  Sources close to the deal say that Google will pay $100 million for the RSS feed management service.

This is the latest acquisition in a recent buying spree for the search engine giant.  With their recent acquisitions of YouTube and DoubleClick (and they already have Blogger in their treasure chest),  this is yet another signal that Google is positioning themselves to have an advertising presence in both established and emerging web channels, even if the emerging channels have yet to garner the attention of the general Internet population at large.

$100 Million Payday For FeedBurner via [TechCrunch]

Yesterday Google announced its Universal Search initiative, which integrates search results from all of Google’s web properties and projects into the main search results page of Google.com. Instead of only seeing text-based search engine results or having to go to the separate portals for image, news, or video search, users will now be seeing the most relevant results for a search query regardless of its format. So, searching on Steve Jobs will not only bring up the most valid text-based search results, but you’ll also see images, news snippets, and video - all embedded within the standard search results listings.

Lots of feedback on the announcement throughout the Internet. We’ll be following up with further posts of the ramifications of Universal Search later.

As with any major upgrade of a software package or online service, people are bound to ask “Is this merely evolution or a revolution”? We hear it about Microsoft products all the time, but now the question is firmly pointed at Google’s re-release of its popular (and free) web analytics platform - Google Analytics.

If you’re familiar with the traditional GA interface it’s clear that the first major change is in the way the data is presented. Gone are the hard, tree-like menu structures. Instead, the console now sports a familiar Web 2.0-type theme - drag and drop functionality, interactive menus and widgets, and cleaner spacing.

The second major change is….wait….just a sec….oh yeah. That’s about it.

What? No drum rolls? No fanfares?

Sorry folks. This one is more evolution than revolution.

There are those who would argue the interface overhaul represents enough of a change to qualify this upgrade as a revolution rather than a simple evolution of the service, and to some degree there is credence in that statement. Cleary, Google spent some serious time thinking about how to make the GA experience a much more fulfilling and informative one, and to that end they’ve succeeded. Although it takes a little getting used to, there are some handy upgrades available that make traversing web data easier and more intuitive.

However, when all the gloss, glitz, and glamour is removed, what’s left? Underneath the Ajax, Flash, and softer font faces lies the same basic tool - a wonderfully powerful web analytics platform that does a fantastic job of tracking ankle-high and knee-deep analytics information, but unfortunately that’s about it.

At the heart of GA lies the Urchin core - and robust as it is, it’s still not the home-run web marketers were hoping for. Improving the user experience of looking at data is very helpful, but it’s still the same data we’ve been looking at for a long time.

Google’s getting a lot of headlines these days - and they should. They’re out in front, taking their lumps as they work through the difficult task of convincing traditional media outlets to buy in to the fundamental premise of the original digital money making machine.

The Google TV Advertising effort ties in to a partnership with EchoStar, and despite it’s an invitation only venture (at this point), we would like to say thanks.

Thank you Google TV.  We don’t know if your latest terrestrial adventure is going to work, but you’re breaking down digital barriers for the rest of us.  Bravo.