London, England (CNN) — Real-time is a top 10 Web trend for 2010, I proposed in this column last week. Now the stage is set: Google this week launched real-time search, bringing live updates from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more into a scrolling pane in your Google search results.

How will the real-time trend evolve in 2010? Rapidly, no doubt. Why will it sweep the Web? Because it fuels our insatiable info-addiction.

Why real-time?

What’s driving this real-time trend anyway? In large part, lowered barriers to content creation: Posting a 140-character update to Twitter is so effortless that Web users are becoming conditioned to create.

They’ve learned to expect a response, too: The immediate feedback provided by Facebook comments and Twitter replies is an incentive to make continued contributions.

But the real answer may be in our heads. These technologies are literally addictive, says psychologist Susan Weinschenk, fueling a “dopamine-induced loop” of seeking behavior and instantaneous reward.

New email! Unread Tweets! New comment on your blog post! Each new alert is like Pavlov ringing a bell.

Real-time search

If this new paradigm stimulates our seeking behavior, it follows that search is central to the real-time Web. Before Google entered the fray, OneRiot and Collecta stood out among real-time search engines.

The reigning champion of real-time search, however, is Twitter Search, which provides instant updates whenever new Tweets are posted. “108 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see them,” implores a message below the search box. Enter the topic du jour here and you’ll no doubt find yourself in one of Weinschenk’s dopamine-induced loops.

This thirst for the new and novel is by no means limited to search, however: It looks set to pervade the entire Web in 2010. Let’s look at a few more examples. Continue reading →

This video I stumbled upon when searching for Web Trends for 2010. The video is hosted on CNN here is the link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/12/09/data.doctors.seg.02.cnn

NORWALK, Conn., Dec 09, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Marketing Drive is pleased to welcome Bill Wiechers as VP/Creative Director for their Chicago location and Joe Kantrowitz as Creative Director based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

In his previous position as VP/Creative Director for DraftFCB Chicago, Bill developed retail communications and promotions for some of the world’s top marketers: GlaxoSmithKline, Kmart, Motorola and the United States Postal Service. With over 15 years of marketing experience, and several highly-acclaimed industry awards such as an Echo, POPAI and Reggie under his belt, he will lead Marketing Drive Chicago’s creative department. “Bill fills a vital role for our Chicago team and will be instrumental in developing effective creative solutions for our clients that successfully integrate all disciplines of the marketing mix,” said Gene Chmiel, Chief Creative Officer, Marketing Drive. Continue reading →

We are living in an exciting time for consumers. Never before has it been so easy and empowering to shop and gather information. Instead of reading newspaper or magazines, we search Google, blogs, and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Instead of buying in store, we complete our transaction, from research to purchase, online. Continue reading →

Everywhere you turn, it seems Google has a new offering. But how serious are these attempts to own your computer?

Google is rich, with a market cap of $183 billion — that’s billion with a “b” — already 71 percent the value of its much more established archrival Microsoft. With those resources, Google has created more and more software products in an attempt to build a sustainable business outside of the search-based ads that account for most of its revenue — and be the center of your computing universe. Continue reading →

Google is making huge strides in embedding its web experience into phones, and the minds of high end mobile users, but China remains its biggest challenge. There, China Mobile adopted Android with one hand, but then changed almost every aspect of it to create its own branded user experience and store. And the country’s leading search engine provider, Baidu, is also proving a thorn in the US firm’s side. Continue reading →

Search engines constantly look for new signals they can use to improve the quality of the results they provide to users. Ultimately, user satisfaction is a critical component in retaining or increasing their market share, especially over the long term. Let’s explore some of these new potential signals and the way search engines evaluate and make decisions to use a new signal.

Back in the days of AltaVista, search engines were keyword-centric. These were the days when spammers loaded meta tags with large number of keywords, and also used invisible text to jack up the perceived relevance and value of a search page. Continue reading →

Google Caffeine is the name given to Google’s “Next Generation” search engine, which it will use to rank and index all the pages on the wonderful world wide web. According to all indications, this is not just another one of Google’s infamous Updates, but a major “Overhaul” of its index and algorithm, the complex formula and calculations Google uses to rank all web pages, including yours. Continue reading →

This is the BOSCH commercial that worked hand-in-hand with my banner ad campaigns that I showcased earlier. Video after the jump. Continue reading →

Know your customer is advertising’s prime directive. Yet in the evolving digital age knowing your customer is harder and harder to do even tough we have many more ways to monitor, watch, listen, react, interact and measure customer behavior.

The newest evidence of the gap between customer and advertiser perceptions comes from a survey of 1015 advertisers and 4546 customers conduced in June by Harris Interactive using the LinkedIn Research Network to qualify and access both panels. The study found that while advertisers are increasing their use of digital advertising at the expense of print and broadcast media, they are not necessarily increasing their insight into or understanding of customers by using interactive channels. Continue reading →