Everybody's scrambling to get their iPad competitors out. Most recently, we heard what Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had to say about his comany's plans. Research in Motion (RIM) will apparently have its iPad competitor out in a few short months.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports the BlackBerry maker intends to have one out in November. Hugo Miller writes:

The device will have roughly the same dimensions as the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch diagonal screen, said the two people who wouldn’t be identified because the plans haven’t been made public. The device will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology that will allow people to connect to the Internet through their BlackBerry smartphones, the two people said.

Will it be called the BlackPad? As Mobile Crunch pointed out this week, RIM has purchased the BlackPad.com domain.

iPad sales have been impressive, to say the least. However, it has yet to really be faced with competition, and that will soon change. The iPad-like tablet market is going to get flooded with new products and choices for consumers, and there is no doubt that some of them will be much more competitive with pricing. This is one thing that has helped Android grow (which is powering its own iPad competitors).

As the holiday season arrives, it looks like the iPad isn't going to be the only one getting looked at by consumers.

Twitter has begun rolling out a "Suggestions for You" feature that helps users find people to follow. You may be familiar with a similar feature on Facebook.

"With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests. The trouble is finding all of them," the company says.

Twitter's suggestions utilize algorithms based on factors like people you follow and the people they follow. The suggestions can be found on Twitter.com and the "Find People" section. Of course you can click "follow" to follow those Twitter suggests for you. If you're not interested, you can click "hide" and they won't show you that suggestion again.

Twitter is also launching a feature that shows you "similar" users when you view other people's accounts. Both new features will be available in third-party apps, as Twitter is launching an API.

If you don't mind a shameless plug, I might suggest just using Twellow to find people of interest by category or location. If you're looking to find interesting people to follow, that can help big time, and you can look for people yourself rather than relying on who Twitter thinks you’d be interested in. Mashable included it in its top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience as one of two in the discovery category.

It’s a tough question, especially in a bad economy.

The question really begs another question – what is your goal for your site?

If you are operating it as a real business where you hope to either supplement your current income or rely on it as your sole source of income – then you need to be prepared to invest in search (it’s often the foundation of your marketing and a consistent source of regular traffic).

You can invest time or money and in most cases, you usually need to invest both.

I think there is someone out there spreading some erroneous information about starting a business online.  There is a lot of the “build it and they will come” mentality – in other words throw up a site and voila insta-business!

While in many ways, it is easier to do business online because you don’t need to set up physical stores and have a lot of the issues you have with brick and mortars, it is by no means a “sure thing” – you still have to work for your success.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t start an online business -  I am just saying if you expect your business to grow and treat you well, then you need to treat it like a serious business.

So, yes, it will be necessary for you to invest both time and money into generating traffic.

So back to the question at hand – how much should you spend on SEO?

You need to crunch some numbers and see how many visitors it takes to get a sale and how much a sale is worth to you to really fine-tune your budget – especially if PPC is part of your plans (so many people waste money on PPC that isn’t converting – spend wisely or it can suck you dry!)

For organic SEO you will find everything from $19.99 mass submission (avoid like the plague, you may as well burn your $19.99) to tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Most small to medium sized businesses spend between $300 – $800 per month, although I’ve also heard people say numbers a little higher, like $500 – $1500 per month is the norm.  So somewhere in that range is what you should expect to pay for quality SEO work.

It always amazes me that people are annoyed they have to pay for SEO.  People will pay for a doctor or a mechanic, or even a web designer but they seem to resent having to pay for SEO.  If you have the time and knowledge, then by all means, don’t pay anyone, do it yourself.  However if you don’t have the time or knowledge, it’s a valid, and important expense and not something you should begrudge.  Driving traffic to your site is the foundation and not the area you want to go cheap.

I’m jussayin…think about your goals and think about what you are prepared to do to get there.

Facebook has put a lot of people on edge about privacy in recent months, and while some of it may be legitimate concern, a lot of the discussion is simply getting blown out of proportion.

You've probably read about the infamous "leaked" list of user names this week, that a security researcher shared in a torrent. A bunch of companies have reportedly been downloading the info leading to some unnecessary paranoia. Our own IT department took a look at that torrent, and there's really nothing to get freaked out about. It just contains data that's already public (170,879,858 URLs by our count), as the "leaker" Ron Bowes told BBC News.

The biggest file is called facebook-urls.txt. The top of the file looks like this (with "xxxxx" representing the unique number associated with the accounts):

http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxxx

Eventually, once you get past the dashes, they start looking like this (where the "xxxx" represents people's names):

http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxx-xxx-xxx/100001172054083
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx/100000816806409
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx/643427473

"So you could figure out somebody's name from the profile URL, but that's really about it,” our IT manager says. "Anything else, you'd have to actually go to the URL and crawl it."

And of course, these people are already in the Facebook Directory anyway, as Bowes noted. There's no other information.

From the README file included in the torrent, here are the list of all the files:

Filname                            Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
facebook.rb                     The script used to generate these files (v1)
facebook.nse                    The script that will be used for the second pass (v2)
facebook-urls                   The full URLs to every profile
facebook-names-original         All names, including duplicates
facebook-names-unique           All names, no duplicates
facebook-names-withcount        All names, no duplicates but with a count
facebook-firstnames-withcount   All first names (with count)
facebook-lastnames-withcount    All last names (with count)
facebook-f.last-withcount       All first initial last name (with count)
facebook-first.l-withcount      All first name last initial (with count)

Bowes said that collecting the data was in no way irresponsible and likened it to a telephone directory. On top of that, there's not any info to distinguish people with the same names apart from one another.

Facebook has also confirmed that the info in the list was already freely available online, and that "no private data is available or has been compromised."

This article from the Telegraph claims that the torrent contains info like profile pictures, lists of friends, etc. Our team says that's not true and that you'd have to re-crawl the profile URL in order to get that data.

The bottom line is that the info in the torrent is public info, just like any other personal info that is published publicly on the web that's out there for Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other crawler to index. Essentially, all that's really in the torrent is big list of URLs. Whoa!

The companies downloading the torrent for whatever purposes they have in mind, would probably be better served to just look at the directory. Facebook has a lot more users than 170,879,858.

People who keep up with tech news have probably noticed that Google makes acquisitions on a regular basis.  Meanwhile, reports concerning Microsoft buys are rare.  But that isn't necessarily a sign of some media bias; Microsoft confirmed today that the companies it sold in the past year were worth more than the companies it acquired.

Microsoft filed its Form 10-K report with the SEC this morning, and about two-thirds of the way through, shared that interesting fact.  A big hat tip goes to Todd Bishop for spotting it.

Specifically, Microsoft stated, "During fiscal year 2010, we acquired five entities for total consideration of $267 million, substantially all of which was paid in cash."

Then the company finished, "During this period, we also sold three entities for total consideration of $600 million, including Razorfish in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010."

That speaks to a very different approach to doing business than the one that's helped make Google successful.  Although we should note this one is arguably working all right for Microsoft, considering the record quarter it reported earlier this month.

This could be a "to each his own" scenario, then.  Or not.  That's because, unfortunately for Microsoft, its stock has fallen 0.88 percent today (which is more than both the Dow and Nasdaq), while Google's stock has risen 0.27 percent.

OneRiot says it has made some changes that will "propel the company to the future faster." The changes they're referring to are that Kimbal Musk, formerly CEO, is now the Chairman of the company, while Tobias Peggs (formerly President in charge of Strategy, Sales, Distribution and Marketing) is now CEO.

Citing, a list of accomplishments that includes the launches of OneRiot itself, its APIs, its ad platform, its Trending Topics Engine, integration with Facebook's Open Graph, and the fact that its on pace to serve 1 billion ad impressions a month, OneRiot's Jennifer Hodges says, "As it’s clear to see, OneRiot emerged as the authority on realtime search and is now hurtling along a highway towards monetizing the wider realtime and social web. It’s time to crank that up another gear, and really go for it."

The changes, unfortunately, also include letting some workers go. "Now, being agile also necessitates making some tough decisions too, if they are the right thing for the company right now," says Hodges. "Unfortunately, today, we have had to let a handful of well respected colleagues go. This is a pragmatic decision based on a strategically focused go-forward plan for the company. It’s in no way a reflection of the talent of the people concerned. One of the folks moving on is Robert Reich, our co-founder. Robert has had immeasurable influence on the OneRiot vision and product - helping us get to where we are today. We’re sure that whatever he turns to next will be equally as visionary, and we wish him well."

OneRiot says Peggs will work closely with Ron Benson (VP Engineering) and Merle Waterman (CFO) to drive the day-to-day business operations. The plan includes the monetization of the realtime web.

Microsoft is pissed that Yahoo Japan is going with Google rather than Bing. In fact, the company is reportedly moving to block the deal from going through.

Jay Yarow at Silicon Alley Insider provides the following statement from a company rep: "We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google’s deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal."

According to Yarow, Microsoft estimates that Google and Yahoo joining forces in Japan would give the companies 98% of the Japanese search market.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Yahoo Japan is turning to Google to power search engine listings. Naturally, with the highly publicized deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, this raised more than a few eyebrows, including Microsoft's.

The decision was ultimately not Yahoo's choice, however, as they actually do not control the majority of Yahoo Japan. SoftBankCorp, a Japanese ISP and cell phone provider controls 40% to Yahoo's 35%.

eWeek recently shared some words from both Microsoft and Google on the matter. Basically, Microsoft has called it anti-competitive, and Google has said it isn't. Google maintains that it will only license Yahoo Japan ad technology, rather than supplying ads.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's "Search Alliance" with Yahoo is already starting to take effect. Last week, Yahoo announced that it has begun testing organic and paid search listings from Microsoft, with up to 25% of its U.S. search traffic seeing Bing and adCenter results.

The company said it will be integrating Microsoft's mobile organic and paid listings in the U.S. and Canada in the coming months, and anticipates that U.S. and Canada organic listings in both the desktop and mobile versions of its search will be fully powered by Microsoft as early as August or September.

So-called content farms draw a lot of criticism for a supposed lack of quality and some consider them a threat to quality on the web in general. We're talking about entities like Demand Media, Associated Content, the new AOL, etc. (the definition of the term content farm itself is also debated).

I would argue that content quality is not in jeopardy. Hear me out. For one, while these sites may or may not produce a large amount of sub-par content, that's not to say that they don't have quality content too. There's no question that quantity is the driving force behind these sites, but quantity in content producers (AKA: the writers, video producers) also means a wider range of minds contributing. There is good among the bad. It's a mix.

Furthermore, as competition among these content farms heats up (and you can bet that will increase), quality is going go play more of a role in setting one apart from the next. Low-quality content will inspire higher quality competition. If a how-to article on roofing isn't adequate, someone will want to trump it with a better one. Users will flock to the higher quality pieces when the lower quality ones don't meet their requirements. If those pieces do meet their requirements, how low quality are they really? Quality is in the eye of the beholder. If the reader/viewer doesn't like what they see, they'll look elsewhere.

Richard MacManus spoke with Howcast Chief Product Officer Sanjay Raman. Here's an excerpt from that article:

Who is the top YouTube provider, measured by views? You guessed it, Demand Media. This is because it produces far more video content per month than Howcast (Demand competes directly with Howcast with its property eHow). While Sanjay Raman didn't have exact figures, he estimated that Demand Media produces about 10 times more videos every month than Howcast. However he implied that this resulted in lower quality videos.

"Demand Media takes tasks and makes them smaller than they need to be," said Raman.

He also claimed that Howcast's playbacks per video are higher than Demand Media's. Howcast averages 44-50,000 playbacks per video, he told me, whereas Demand is around 7,000 per video.

Case in point.

Now, that's also not to say that all of Demand Media's content is low quality, though many will be quick to tell you that it is. The company has already made moves this year aimed at increasing quality. See the following articles for a few examples:

- Demand Media Aims to Sort Out eHow Content Confusion

- Demand Media Adds New "Talent & Expert Network" to Content Mix

- MerchantCircle, Demand Media Provide New Local Search Opportunities

DM is still adjusting to a new model that it has become the poster child for. There may be a lot of work to do, and just how much it improves remains to be seen. That said, increased competition in this space is likely to fuel increased quality, and if not, the users will go elsewhere. Bounce rates will increase. Someone else will get the traffic.

Furthermore, search engines will continue to compete to deliver the best results, and people will be more inclined to share higher quality articles. That should provide further motivation.

What do you think? Comment here.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has launched a free app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad called Explorer.

The Explorer app uses Wi-Fi to act as an "indoor GPS" within the museum, pinpointing a user's location and offering turn-by-turn directions through more than 500,000 square feet that features 45 permanent exhibition halls, theaters, restrooms, cafs, and museum shops.

The Explorer is also an educational resource that provides visitors with additional information on more than 140 specimens and objects on display, including such iconic exhibits as the blue whale and the Tyrannosaurus rex. The Explorer features customized tours, a fossil treasure hunt, and social media links for posting to Facebook and Twitter.

The Explorer runs on the museum's free Wi-Fi network. Users will be able to download the app to their own iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or to borrow one of more than 350 devices the Museum is making available at no charge.

 "We wanted to put the latest mobile technology in visitors' hands and provide them with an app that works not only as a personal navigation system but also gives an exciting look at our collections from anywhere in the world, connecting to social networks through email, Twitter, and Facebook," said Linda Perry-Lube, senior vice president and chief digital officer at the Museum.

"The task of building a system capable of mapping visitors' locations inside of the Museum was monumental and has laid the groundwork for future development. Explorer sets the standard for a new type of Museum experience in the digital age."

 

Facebook's new Questions product, launched in beta earlier this week, has a great deal of potential for answering the questions of half a billion people (the most recent number of Facebook users reported by the company).

Will you use Facebook Questions to seek answers? Let us know.

As competition between Facebook and Google over Internet user time and attention continues to increase, this may be yet another area where Facebook has a bit of leverage over the search giant. Q&A is becoming a big area of focus throughout the industry with many smaller players fighting for a piece of the pie (not that all of the players are small).

Google has Aardvark, which it has yet to really do anything incredibly significant with (at least related to Google search). Yahoo, of course, has Yahoo Answers. Ask just reinvented itself with a focus on community and web-driven Q&A. That's just a few examples. Facebook has a major advantage, however, with that half a billion users, and the simple fact that many of those users spend a great deal of time using Facebook.

Facebook Questions data could be very useful to search engines and their users, if the product itself lives up to its own potential, but it remains to be seen if Facebook will be willing to share that information. The company is already notorious for being stingy with its data, from the open web perspective, despite its own "open" graph initiative.

Facebook told Search Engine Land that it doesn't have plans to give search engines access to its questions and answers, though they didn't rule out future consideration. The decision could be an important one strategically for the company in the future, particularly as Google continues to move toward trying to steal some of Facebook's thunder (the key word there being "trying"...I should mention this notion has been downplayed by the company).

Microsoft has to be pretty interested as well, as it is frequently looking for new ways to compete with Google and it already provides Facebook with its own web search results.

Q&A is becoming an increasingly interesting segment of the search industry, and one where there is distinct possibility of shaking up Google's share, thanks to an increasing number of players, the diversification of how people actually do their searching/information gathering, and blossoming mobile application ecosystems.

Facebook, Google, and increasingly Bing all have their places in these ecosystems, and Facebook Questions could conceivably play a powerful role in tipping x amount of searches in one direction or another.

Do you see Facebook Questions as a potential disruption to the search industry? Share your thoughts in the comments.