Bing in the news? Hey MS, pay me and Ill write nice things about you too! – Monday June 15th Roundup

Well, we’re over the hump on our power user post. Excitingly it out performed any other article by 7000% (according to GA). The tweets are still pouring in too. Ahh well, it was fun while it lasted, maybe we can get in a round up or two down the line.

This week, I’m complaining about the New York Post, and an article that sent my ‘payola’ senses tingling. Weve also got a null hypothesis for page rank calculation, talk about the power of traditional media, and why not to follow people on twitter.

• I am firmly in the minority in this, I am sure. However I just love dense content rich articles that I have to read over several times. Call it a holdover from my days as a philosophy student. BPWrap apparently does to with its incredibly rich “PageRank Calculation – Null Hypothesis”. They present a “null hypothesis” (that is, a null to what everyone else is saying) that explains recent changes in pagerank and the exclusion of nofollow.
• On the opposite end of the marketing field, Twistedimage has an article on the power of traditional mass media. Why should you care? The article states it perfectly: “It’s the traditional mass media audience that is going to grow the new media audience in the future.”

• Rumor has it that Google is toying with number portability, so you can use your current phone number with Google Voice. Now Google, can you release this service to work in Canada? Pretty please?
• I’ve never thought that highly of The New York Post, but I do even less now. They’re running with the headline FEAR GRIPS GOOGLE (yes, in allcaps. Apparently they haven’t been reading my post on subject lines). The article starts stating that Sergey Brin is “rattled” by the launch of Bing, ordering “urgent upgrades” to Google, attack Google’s usability (huh?), refuse to refer to Bing as anything but a “decision engine” (what does that even mean?) and end with a sales pitch. If, as the article states, “Microsoft launched Bing two weeks ago with a massive marketing budget that sources say ranged between $80 million and $100 million”, then I have to ask how much of this went to the Post?

• This week I came across Johnon.com, who is citing Googles top ten GA myths with even more skepticism than I did. Like I said the myths don’t seem to be “real” myths, instead they seem to be GA marketing points. Instead he lists 10 real GA myths, including what it means to call GA “free”.
• Eric Peterson and Nedstat.com have released a new white paper called “The Truth about Mobile Analytics”. I haven’t gotten through it yet, but his work is always informative.

• Kim Krause Berg is at it again with her melange of usability and SEO knowledge. This time she’s talking about how to do successful web strategy planning, including thinking about SEO and strategy as part of the user experience.

• Grokdotcom.com is running with one of “those” articles. You know the type, those ones that seem to be a how to on how t odo something, but end up just being a bunch of tips and things you can try. Well, this oens actually pretty good, giving all sorts of info on how to optimize your conversion rate(s).
• E-consultancy has a one of my favorite top ten lists: 10 reasons why NOT to follow people on twitter. Funny, in an odd, dry way.