InternetGoogle's Performics problem (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Companies that provide services for improving Web sites' search-engine rankings and running effective search-engine ad campaigns have a new competitor: Google.

San Francisco - Companies that provide services for improving Web sites' search-engine rankings and running effective search-engine ad campaigns have a new competitor: Google. Bundled in the DoubleClick acquisition came Performics, which provides search-engine marketing (SEM) and search-engine optimization (SEO) services. This has created concern for SEM and SEO service providers, which now face Google, a key partner, also as a rival. "It puts us in the awkward position of competing with Google's own [SEM/SEO] agency for client accounts," said Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing, an SEO and SEM firm. Over the past seven years, as Google's popularity with advertisers and end-users has boomed, so has the SEM and SEO business. Marketers began spending significant amounts to advertise on search engines, primarily Google, and they realized that they needed help from SEM firms to design, fine-tune, and track the effectiveness of those campaigns. At the same time, those marketers recognized that they also had to make sure that their companies' Web sites ranked well on search engines when users entered keywords relevant to their businesses, which is what SEO service providers specialize in. Before the DoubleClick acquisition, SEM and SEO firms saw themselves as providers of complementary services to Google, but now that Performics is part of Google, things have changed. For... [ Read more on www.yahoo.com ]

InternetCollabNet offers on-demand project management (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - CollabNet Monday is announcing CollabNet OnDemand, which provides online access to the company???s integrated project management and collaboration platform for distributed software development.

InternetThe Web's best free stuff (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Free: It's the magic word for an ever-expanding wealth of downloadable software and online services. Free doesn't necessarily mean good, however, and hunting for freebies can mean sifting through a lot of junk.