This Week In Search: July 15

Social Media is the core focus this week with lots of articles about Google+ and Harry Potter. In search news, Bing increases their market share. Spotify is coming to the U.S. and QR codes are showing up in odd places.

Google+ All Day, All Night

Google+ already has 10 million users and has been clogging up blogs all over the internet. The fastest growing social network is planning to start testing business pages. Businesses that want to be included in the testing must fill out an application form by 6pm today.

NY Times discusses why Google+ improves on Facebook and Search Engine Watch shows why Google+ can’t lift a finger to Facebook.

When is the iOS Google+ app coming out? Well looks like Apple is intentionally delaying the launch.

Bing Making A Move

Bing has reached an all-time high for market share in ‘core search’ and ‘explicit search’ the last month. However, the results from comScore reveal that Bing is not taking market share from Google because Google has actually made its own gains in ‘core search’ and maintained its share with ‘explicit search’. Take a look at the stats.

New Music Streaming Service: Spotify

Spotify comes from Europe and lands in the U.S. this week with all four major labels on board. It will start off as a free service with the option for users to pay a small fee for an ad free experience. The CCO of Spotify, Ken Parks, says “Spotify is simply a better experience” than other music streaming services such as Pandora and Grooveshark. Unfortunately, this service is not in available in Canada, hopefully that changes soon.

It All Ends…

Leading up to the final Harry Potter film, Warner Bros really kicked up their social media campaign. Anything and everything Harry Potter could be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Livestream.com where hardcore fans could watch the red carpet premiere. The final film was already going to be a king at the box office, even without this surge in social media, but it will be interesting to see the full impact of the campaign.

“Expecto Patronum!” Whatever that means.

Tombstones Adding Technology

Last week we saw a QR code tattooed on a man, which brings people to an animation of the tattoo. This week a QR code has been added a tombstone, which leads visitors to a tribute website. The plan is to update the website with pictures and stories throughout the year.

The man who built the tombstone is seeing this as a new business venture.