Google has just announced a number of new features for Google Analytics, including more powerful reporting capabilities, greater customization options and a new “intelligence engine” that Google says can help search marketers drive smarter data insights. Here’s a rundown of the new features, and why they’re important.

Analytics intelligence

Google Analytics new “intelligence engine” comes with default alerts that will show you interesting trends in the data: it surfaces insights. Exactly how the algorithm that does this works is not clear, but it certainly takes into consideration many variables, in a very Googly manner. This can be a great way to start your day looking for insights—a kind of a conversation initiator for web analysts.

If you’re one of the many who already received their Google Wave invites, you are probably exploring the new Google communication tool right now. Or you might be just like me, who occasionally visit http://wave.google.com to check if anything exciting has come up on my Google Wave account.  But like Twitter, logging to Google Wave via the web browser can become quite tedious. Fortunately, a new desktop client for Google Wave has just came out, and it’s called the Waveboard.

Waveboard is a Mac OS X desktop client that practically mimics the Google Wave environment on the web minus the use of the Safari, Firefox or Chromium browser.

There’s a way in which the just-released iPhone version of Wolfram Alpha makes more sense than the web version. The web version suggests a Google-like general search engine, which it is not; it’s a “computational” or “fact engine” with a more limited range of use cases. It does what it does well — offer a range of data, calculations and statistics often in a graphical form — but often there are also no results or no directly relevant results for general or conventional search queries.

There seems to be an explosion of “real-time” search engines on the PC. The space is very new, still fairly open and in my opinion the tools and sites are not yet all that useful. Almost exactly the same can be said of “augmented reality” (AR) in mobile.

From almost nothing about six months ago, there’s now an explosion of AR apps for Android and the iPhone. They’re cool, they’re novel but most of them are not that useful as a practical matter.

MapQuest has a couple of big announcements this week. First up, their new GeoRSS Embeddable Maps allow web publishers to add maps to their sites that feature locations they wish to share. Let’s say you have a blog about coffee. Perhaps you create a map sharing your favorite local coffee shops.

The GeoRSS Embeddable Maps work with online services that provide a feed of location data. Such services include sites like Flickr, Yelp, Brightkite or When.com.

Next up is a new iPhone app. The app features voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions. The app also optimizes routes, taking into account things like traffic and construction.

In “Location-Based Services: Discovering Old and New Paths,” we looked at a few mobile startups that are blurring the boundaries of mobile local search. In a nutshell, these represent a move from local search as we know it online (“what” and “where”) to mobility and automatic discovery of nearby items and events.

One company mentioned, but deserving of a closer look, is Copenhagen, Denmark-based mobilepeople. After seven years of building mobile apps for major local media publishers in Europe and the U.S., it’s evolving to what it calls “mobile discovery 2.0.”

I recently had the opportunity to interview Sara Holoubek, Consultant, Columnist & SEMPO President regarding what’s next in the mobile space. Here is the interview transcript below:

What mobile channels are available to search marketers and which show the most promise?

The primary means of reaching the mobile search audience are a) on-deck search within a carrier’s content portal, b) off-deck search on any major engine as accessible through a mobile device, c) mobile advertising, which includes text-based paid search ads, display, site sponsorship and interstitials, and d) mobile applications.

Google has introduced the Google Merchant Center, designed to replace Google Base for submitting products to the search engine.

Google says that Merchant Center provides a better-optimized experience for product listings. The Merchant Center interface is similar to Base and uses the same account info. Just sign into Merchant Center with your Google Base account and you’ll see your feeds, items, FTP settings, etc.

Non-product items still use Google Base. If you the same account for Merchant Center (for products) and Base (for non-products), Google says you’ll need to reset your FTP settings in Google Base.

Aside from the integrating Google Local Mobile Search with Desktop Search, Google is also introducing another new feature to make its mobile seach more useful. This time its on the Search Suggest feature which now syncs from the desktop web search to the mobile phone search.

What this new feature does is to synchronize your desktop search history with mobile search history. This feature applies to Android phone, iPhone and Palm OS-powered devices.

To use the feature, you must log in to your Google account before you do your search on your computer via Google.com. Google will then save your search history and bring it up when you sign in to your account using your mobile phone.

If you create something so bad that it goes viral, is it a public relations disaster or a video marketing triumph?

That’s the question that journalists and bloggers are asking after watching HostingYourParty, which tells you how to host a Microsoft Windows 7 House Party.

Microsoft is putting a Tupperware-style twist on the upcoming Windows 7 rollout — launching a new initiative to encourage thousands of employees, partners and technology enthusiasts to throw parties in their homes and communities to demonstrate and help spread the word about its new operating system.

Did you really think that Microsoft would just roll over and take Google’s ‘effort’ to make Internet Explorer adopt to the changing web technology by releasing the Google Chrome Frame? Well, clearly Microsoft will not let this pass and allow Google to play with IE for the advancement Google’s own agenda. So Microsoft is discouraging IE users not to install Chrome Frame arguing that it will make Internet Explorer less secure.

A Microsoft representative who spoke with Ars Technica said:

Google has just announced the availability of the API of its Sites service. Of course we all know that such API would render Google Sites to work easily with other third-party tools. And this would also enable you to switch easily from Google Sites to another software without affecting the data you create in Google Sites.

According to Google, the Google Sites API will have the following uses.

• Update Google Sites from 3rd party applications – e.g. your sales team’s Google Sites pages can update automatically when new leads are added to your CRM system.

Most desktop search applications are advertised as “time savers” as they don’t require to open a browser which is not true actually because they still open a browser after you hit “search”. So that’s not the reason I’d use them. Instead, I’d take a look at other features the tools offer.

These additional features may include quicker access to search operators or combining several search engines, etc. So here’s a quick overview of desktop Google search tools that offer some extra goodies as well:

In the ongoing saga that is why Google Voice doesn’t have an app in the iTunes app store, Google’s perspective has been published publicly on the FCC website (pdf). Originally, portions of the letter were to remain confidential, but after Freedom of Information Act filings, it has been made public.

With the publishing, we’re learning that Google told the FCC that Apple did indeed reject the Google Voice and Google Latitude applications. Apple has maintained that they did not reject the apps.

The reason for the Google Voice app rejection was that the app duplicated core dialer functionality of the iPhone.

I’ve had the opportunity to check out by SEO Automatic’s iPhone app by Scott Hendison of Search Commander, Inc. The app is the full version of SEO Automatic, an SEO site audit tool, just made for the iPhone. The only difference is the descriptions and recommendations is slightly less verbose to fit it on a mobile window.

The app is lightning fast and analyzes your site in just a few seconds, despite it’s screen that says “This may take a minute or two.” It immediately gives you an overview of notable issues, issues worth reviewing, and stuff you are doing correctly. SEO Automatic gives great advice.

With all those lots and lots of FireFox SEO extensions I’ve been sharing, I’ve always felt guilty for encouraging you to overload your browsers.

Most of the plugins I’ve been reviewing are helpful (though I am not using all of them naturally and surely you might have picked only those that seemed useful) but installing many addons will ultimately result in a slow browser and hence lower productivity.

Therefore this time I’ve decided to share a little hack to speed up your FireFox: SpeedyFox (currently Windows only)

Boost Firefox startup in up to 3 times!
Speed-up browsing history
Quicker operation with cookies