Local business review site, Insider Pages, has launched Doctor Finder, a new tool aimed at making it easier to find medical specialists based on a variety of criteria.

WebProNews spoke with Eric Peacock, General Manager, Insider Pages about the new Doctor Finder tool.

Peacock said the Web has made it increasingly easy to find recommendations for things like restaurants and hair salons, but it has largely failed at making it easy to choose a doctor.

"To make an informed choice you really need to have at least three types of information in addition to basic data on the doctor’s specialty and address. The three things are: insurance accepted by that doctor, patient reviews, and objective, third-party validation of the doctor’s credentials and record (e.g. Doctor is free of malpractice or sanctions against their record)," said Peacock.   

"The fact is, people probably spend more time picking out a flat screen TV than they do a doctor because it’s been so difficult to find the information you need about a doctor in one place. As a result, most people end up on their health insurance website and settle with picking a doctor based on how close the physician is to their office or home.  They don’t necessarily get patient reviews or know anything about the doctor."

Peacock said Insider Pages wanted to put medical information in one place and make it searchable using Doctor Finder.

. "So now, for example, if you want to find a board certified, female ob/gyn that accepts Blue Cross, has a clean record and is within two miles of your office – you can do that search in a few seconds using the Doctor Finder," said Peacock.

Peacock said the advantage to using Doctor Finder over a search engine like Google, is it’s a more specialized type of local search.

"Most of our health related traffic comes from people who have started their search on Google but ended up on Insider Pages because they want to be able to use a finer filter for narrowing down the list of potential doctors," said Peacock.

"Google doesn’t specialize in helping you find a doctor based on filters like health insurance, gender, patient rating, proximity to your home or office, track record and the like."

Through a partnership with HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings organization, Insider Pages offers users access to 1.2 million patient ratings and 15 data points on more than 800,000 doctors.

Google has launched the Google Analytics App Gallery, which includes 32 apps so far.

"All Google Analytics customers have access to a worldwide network of Google Certified Partners (formerly known as Google Analytics Authorized Consultants)," says Trevor Claiborne of the Google Analytics Team. "And now the ecosystem is growing further with developers who are creating a variety of applications on the Google Analytics platform."

Among the apps in the gallery are ones that let you work with analytics data in an Excel spreadsheet, and one that automatically implements Google Analytics across a WordPress site.

Developers can find more information here about how to publish apps in the gallery.

Google also announced it will be making a new set of AdWords reports available in Google Analytics over the coming weeks.

"These reports expand significantly on the AdWords reports you currently see in your account," says Claiborne. "For example, you can break out your AdWords traffic by actual search query, match type, distribution network, and many other AdWords attributes. We’ve added reports for day parting, placements, and destination URLs."

Developers can access AdWords info with the Google Analytics APIs, which Google says makes it much easier to combine AdWords and Analytics data for analysis and automation.

In addition to these announcements, AdWords Search Funnels are now available for all AdWords accounts.

Never mind its experiments with snippets and the occasional free-but-old-or-odd novel; sometime this summer, Google is going to become a proper (digital) bookseller.  A strategic partner development manager at the company said today that it will go into business by launching a site called Google Editions.

Chris Palma spoke at Random House’s offices in Manhattan, which is one indicator of how important this development may be.  Another is the title of the event: "The Book on Google: Is the Future of Publishing in the Cloud?"

Anyway, Jessica E. Vascellaro and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reported afterward that Google will try to establish deals with publishers, and then, "Google says its new service . . . will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book-search service."  Which should put Google into competition with Amazon and Apple.

What’s more, Google will let lots of other companies in on the game, as Vascellaro and Trachtenberg said it’ll "also allow book retailers – even independent shops – to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue."

Look for Google Editions to be unveiled in late June or early July.

Chrome did pretty well in April, according to the latest stats from Net Applications, increasing its market share by 0.60 percent.  And now, to perhaps speed the browser’s adoption even more, Google’s unveiled what it promises is the fastest beta version of Chrome to date.

"Today’s new beta release incorporates one of Chrome’s most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release," a post on the Google Chrome Blog boasted.

The new beta includes some fresh features, too, like the option to sync browser preferences, plus Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop capabilities.

It seems possible that the people behind other browsers will have to go back to the drawing board – or just weep – as a result.  IE already lost 0.70 percent of market share between March and April, according to Net Applications.  Opera slipped a little, too.  And Firefox, Safari, and Opera Mini gained a bit of market share, but not as much as they did between February and March.

Finally, for your viewing enjoyment, here’s a video involving potato guns, paint, a pirate ship, and a mock lightning strike that relates to the new beta’s speed.

Google’s practice of channeling its revenues through Ireland is getting the company into trouble yet again.  This time, onlookers in Australia have taken note, and although no government officials have become involved, people are definitely unhappy that Google may be shirking its tax obligations.

Here’s the thing: Ireland offers a lower corporate tax rate than most other places in the world.  So Google set up its EU headquarters in Ireland, and can save money by letting Ireland tax all sorts of revenue, regardless of its point of origin.

This approach necessarily deprives other countries of funds, though.  Accountants and politicians in the UK have calculated that Google avoided paying their government $160 million in 2007 and $725 million in 2008, in fact.

And now folks in Australia are performing similar calculations.  Julian Lee observed today, "Despite its near total dominance of the search advertising market, Google does not make one red cent through advertising, according to its latest set of accounts.  Instead Google Australia, which analysts estimates makes about $700 million a year from Australian advertisers, is a mere ’service provider’ that makes about a sixth of that collecting fees from its head office and a subsidiary in Ireland."

As a result, Google only paid $714,457 in taxes in Australia last year, and Australians might well like to see a bigger piece of the pie.

YouTube still claims to be the second largest search engine in the world. Just think about that for a minute. If you produce online video and it’s not on YouTube, you’re probably missing out on a great deal of potential viewers. If you’re not producing video at all, you’re missing out a lot of searches.

Do you consider YouTube important to search marketing? Let us know.

However, just uploading content to YouTube is not going to be enough. Like with any other form of search engine, content needs to be optimized to be found. At SXSW in Austin back in March, WebProNews spoke with Margaret Gould Stewart, who leads YouTube’s user experience team. She talked about some reasons a lot of content producers are missing out on some tremendous opportunities when they use the world’s most popular online video site.

"When you’re building a sustained audience, you have to continually create great content that connects with your audience," says Stewart. "I think the secondary part is understanding your audience – understanding who you want to reach, and proactively cultivating a relationship with the people in your audience. And on YouTube that means not just creating great content and uploading it to the site, but actively building your subscriber base, so that you can be in direct and regular interaction and conversation with those people."

"We find that video producers who are really active in the conversation, whether it’s comments or uploading ‘how this video was made’- you know, kind of the behind-the-scenes – people are really fascinated by that stuff, and we see some our most successful partners really having that, again, kind of ongoing conversation – not an arm’s length relationship to the audience, but very engaged," she adds.

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"We sometimes see content producers not investing enough time in attaching great meta data to their content, because like I said, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and we all know that for Google, it’s important to think seriously about search engine optimization, because you can have the great content, and ideally the cream will float to the top, but there’s definitely things you can do to help yourself along, right?"

"Good clear, direct titling of your content, putting the right kinds of tags…because the fact is initially when content goes viral, people may discover it through search engines, or embed it in blogs, but then it reaches that really exciting word-of-mouth status, where I just may mention it to you person-to-person, and then what most people do is just go to YouTube.com and they search for it," she continues. "So if you’re not indexed well in the search engine because you haven’t attached great meta data to your content, you’re going to miss out on that audience."

"The other thing that is really important is enabling embedding," notes Stewart. "It’s probably the number one most important thing, because what we see in videos that become very popular, very quickly and take on that kind of life of its own, a lot of that initial traffic in the first 48 hours happens actually off-site."

Note: This actually plays to a point I made about Twitter embeds as well.

If you want more success from your online video endeavors, read 35 Ways to Improve Your Online Video Performance, and Tips For Ranking Higher On and With YouTube, which features an interview with YouTube Product Manager Matt Liu. If real-time, live video is your thing, check out 8 Tips for Real-Time Video Blogging.

By the way, YouTube is renting movies now, and while it’s not exactly taking over Netflix at this point, I would expect this to grow significantly and get more people spending more time at YouTube, where there is a YouTube search box very close by, and relevant related video suggestions served to viewers constantly.

Is YouTube a significant part of your marketing strategy? Comment here.

Google has launched a new feature for its Conversion Optimizer tool for AdWords. It’s called Target CPA Bidding, and lets advertisers set a bid that reflects the average amount they’d like to pay for a conversion, as opposed to the maximum they’re willing to pay for it.

"We launched Conversion Optimizer in 2007 as a tool to improve your campaign ROI," says Emily Williams of Google’s InsideAdWords crew. "Conversion Optimizer analyzes your conversion tracking data and automatically adjusts your bids for each auction. Over the past few years, we’ve been pleased to hear from a number of you that you’ve seen significant ROI improvements after implementing Conversion Optimizer. In fact, analysis indicates that, on average, those of you who use the tool experience a 21% increase in conversions along with a 14% decrease in CPA."

That analysis is based on Conversion Optimizer campaign performance over a year’s time, with a control set of campaigns.

"This latest update to Conversion Optimizer was made in response to your feedback," says Williams. "We’ve heard from many of you that you’re more accustomed to thinking in terms of a target or average CPA when it comes to managing your online advertising (as opposed to the Max CPA bids which the tool has historically required). We hope that having the additional Target CPA bidding option will make it even easier for you to boost your AdWords ROI."

To use the new Target CPA bidding feature, advertisers can go to the settings tab in their account, and go to "Focus on Conversions". From there, just click Advanced Options. Conversion Optimizer itself is only available for campaigns using conversion tracking, and have received at least 15 conversions over the last 30 days.

Four and a half years ago, Google lost the right to use the term "Gmail" in the UK due to a trademark dispute, and ever since, "Google Mail" is what its email service has been called in the region.  Only now, Google’s finally ditching the two-word moniker and going back to good old Gmail.

A little background info: Independent International Investment Research first objected to Google’s use of "Gmail" because it offered a G-mail service of its own.  And Independent International Investment Research wanted $500,000 per year, plus "the same amount in advertising credits," in exchange for standing aside.

Unfortunately, no one’s talking about whatever sort of settlement Google’s reached with the company.  Google Software Engineer Greg Bullock was happy to explain the ramifications on the Gmail Blog, though.

Bullock wrote late yesterday, "If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you’ll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you’re also free to stick with @googlemail.com.  And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address."

This should make things slightly more convenient for users and decrease the chance of typos occurring, considering that Bullock stated, "Since ‘gmail’ is 50% fewer characters than ‘googlemail,’ we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day."

For whatever it’s worth, Bullock also claimed, "At about 217 microjoules per keystroke, that’s about the energy of 20 bonbons saved every day!"

Last week Google changed its Google Advertising Professionals (GAP) program to the Google AdWords Certification program, and introduced a new badge for AdWords Certified Partners. Now Google is making a similar change with its Analytics Authorized Consultant program.

Partners in the program are now being called Google Analytics Certified Partners, and also have a new badge that looks very much like the one AdWords partners get. The company says it’s part of an effort to produce consistent naming and badging for all Google product partner programs.

Analytics Authorized Consultant benefits include (I assume this doen’t change outside of the naming):

• The "Google Analytics Authorized Consultant" logo and designation
• Possible client referrals from Google sales teams
• Elevated technical support for Google Analytics
• Listing on the Google Analytics Partner page
• Invitation to attend annual GAAC summit at Google offices
• Access to exclusive GAAC web forum to share ideas and technical tips with Google and other GAACs

"If you are looking for help with your Google Analytics account, look for companies that display this Google Analytics Certified Partners logo," says Eva Woo of Google’s Analytics Team. "Companies displaying this logo have met our rigorous requirements demonstrating a level of expertise, agreed to our terms and conditions, and have proven experience to work with you."

"Yes, we’ve made them jump through hoops because it’s important that we vet the best to service you," adds Woo. "We don’t take it lightly because optimizing your Google Analytics account is serious business. So, whether it’s a quick consultation, help with an implementation or tracking a campaign, or long term support or training – look for companies that display the new logo."

Google lists the its certified partners here.
 

Although Google still hasn’t shared many details concerning how much money YouTube is or isn’t raking in, there’s good reason to believe the site’s doing just fine.  A relatively high-ranking Googler indicated in an interview that the number of entities using display ads is up by about 1,000 percent on a year-over-year basis.

This notion comes from Barry Salzman, Head of Media and Platforms, Americas at Google, and there’s not much room for misinterpretation.  Salzman spoke to Brian Womack, and Womack was able to report afterward that Google "boosted the number of advertisers using display ads on its YouTube video site 10-fold in the past year."

That’s a pretty impressive growth rate.  Indeed, it sounds possible that YouTube’s attracted more advertisers than it can handle (at least without plastering ads all over the place), which would mean that Google may be able to charge whatever it likes for display ads.

That state of affairs would obviously be beneficial for Google and its investors.  Plus, if Google’s turning away companies, it would help ensure that YouTube users are only exposed to the most relevant, interesting ads.

So perhaps YouTube’s struck a good balance between making money and not annoying users.  We’ll be sure to inspect Google’s next earnings report for more evidence on this front.

Two wind farms in North Dakota now enjoy the support of a certain search giant.  Google announced this afternoon that it’s invested $38.8 million in the farms, and believe it or not, this may be a move that both environmentalists and investors can get behind.

In a post on the Official Google Blog, Rick Needham, whose title of "Green Business Operators Manager" itself speaks to striking a balance between environmental and financial concerns, explained, "[W]e’re aiming to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy – in a way that makes good business sense, too."

Needham also stated, "[W]e’ve been looking at investments in renewable energy projects, like the one we just signed, that can accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects."

And concerned parties should know it’s not like Google had to get rid of any employees in order to accommodate this investment; the company’s first-quarter earnings report revealed it had $26.5 billion more or less lying around as of March 31st.

One more for-the-record item: for the moment, at least, Google won’t be using either of the wind farms to power any of its data centers.

Apple announced that it has already sold over a million iPads. The millionth device was sold on Friday, which was the day the 3G version was launched, and only 28 days after the first ones were introduced on April 3.

In addition to the million plus devices sold, users have also downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million eBooks.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement: "One million iPads in 28 days–that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with the iPhone. Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers."

Clearly the success of the iPhone played a huge role in the demand for the iPad. Competition for the device is just around the corner though, and it will be interesting to see how the demand keeps up as devices from others penetrate the market.

Google, which is widely being considered among Apples’ chief competitors at this point, is making move after move to position itself as a prime rival. Some of the acquisitions from the company that are likely to contribute to this include: Agnilux, LabPixies, Plink, and most recently 3D desktop maker BumpTop. Apple is making its own acquisitions as well. A couple recent ones include: Siri and Intrinsity.

Apple of course launched its iAds product recently, based on its acquisition of Quattro Wireless, after losing out to Google on AdMob. Google’s AdMob acquisition is not looking good however, as reports suggest the FTC may reject it.

Apple’s announcement says that developers have created over 5,000 new apps for the iPad, which take advantage of the device’s multi-touch user interface, large screen, and graphics, though the device will of course run other App Store apps.

Google announced today that AdWords for Mobile is now fully available, after being revealed a few weeks ago.

"AdWords for mobile gives you a quick overview of how your account is performing and allows you to easily make select changes to your keywords and campaigns," explains Miles Johnson of Google’s Inside AdWords crew.

The following video shows how it works:

It also lets you keep track of key account developments by showing you the alerts and filters you’ve set up for the keywords and campaigns. "If you discover a problem that needs immediate attention, you can adjust keyword bids, change campaign budgets, and enable, pause, or delete campaigns and keywords –all directly from your phone," says Google.

Google considers AdWords for Mobile one of its "Ad Innovations." This is a site the company set up for advertisers to see the newer things it is doing with regards to online advertising. Other projects featured here include: remarketing, search funnels, click to call phone extensions, ad extensions, new ad models, YouTube video targeting, YouTube Insights, and others.

Twitter has released its first official application for Android 2.1 and Google will be open sourcing the code in the app soon. 

Twitter for Android app features a share button in your favorite applications for sharing links and images via Twitter.

The Twitter Blog provides more details. "Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone. Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar."

"We had a great time working with the Android team and are thrilled that Google will be open sourcing the code used in this app in the near future. We look forward to the amazing experiences developers will create using Twitter APIs in their upcoming Android apps."