Peter Kim is a Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation.  He blogs about social computing and marketing at Being Peter Kim.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been curating a list of social media marketing examples.  The list started with 100 examples (including 35+ from Mashable) and has since tripled in size with the participation of over a hundred contributors with examples from companies around the world.

We could probably come up with 3,000 examples instead of 300 - but the current set already gives us a pretty good sample to think about.  One takeaway: for now, those neurotic about missing “what’s next” can relax a bit.  Consumers still use a broader set of social tools than corporations, but new categories of tools aren’t emerging rapidly today, giving brands a chance to catch up.  It’s time to master the last big thing while you have a chance to catch a breath.

As corporate adoption emerges, there’s nothing wrong with learning lessons from others and making them your own.  Start by making sure you have all of your bases covered with the major tools.  In other words, copy and paste the items below, then fill in the blanks with your own company-driven effort.

Here’s a framework of 22 tools to consider with notable brand examples:

1. Blogs (Johnson & Johnson, Delta Air Lines)

2. Bookmarking/Tagging (Adobe, Kodak)

3. Brand monitoring (Dell, MINI)

4. Content aggregation (Alltop, EMC)

5. Crowdsourcing/Voting (Oracle, Starbucks)

6. Discussion boards and forums (IBM, Mountain Dew)

7. Events and meetups (Molson, Pampers)

8. Mashups (Fidelity Investments, Nike)

9. Microblogging (method, Whole Foods)

10. Online video (Eukanuba, Home Depot)

11. Organization and staffing (Ford, Pepsi)

12. Outreach programs (Nokia, Yum Brands)

13. Photosharing (Rubbermaid, UK Government)

14. Podcasting (Ericsson, McDonalds)

15. Presentation sharing (CapGemini, Daimler AG)

16. Public Relations - social media releases (Avon, Intel)

17. Ratings and reviews (Loblaws, TurboTax)

18. Social networks: applications, fan pages, groups, and personalities (British Airways, Saturn)

19. Sponsorships (Coca-Cola, Whirlpool)

20. Virtual worlds (National Geographic, Toyota)

21. Widgets (Southwest Airlines, Target)

22. Wikis (Second Life, T-Mobile Sidekick)

And use this username check tool to see if your brands/preferred handles are still available.

I haven’t found a single company doing all of these today. Forget divining a big, meaningful business objective before getting started - you’ll end up in analysis paralysis. Just make sure you’re making an existing business function better and get started.  Today.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, cmcderm1

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Social Media Marketing Summit is Almost HereAttend SMX Social Media Marketing: Mashable Readers Save 15%Hear Chris Brogan Speak at the New Marketing SummitAffiliate Summit Social Media 2008 is in Two WeeksHear Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott at the Inbound Marketing SummitTicket Giveaway to SMX Social Media in Long Beach, CASocial App Development from our Partner, SolutionSet

Source:Mashable!

This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services.

There’s no shortage of startups hoping to be the next Google – or at least (for the ones with humility) trying to grab a small slice of the search engine pie. This year’s loudest debut was probably Cuil, which saw huge interest upon launch but has since gone quiet. Powerset, a search engine that lets users query using “natural language” was scooped up by Microsoft before it had much of a chance to prove itself.

In addition to the big names, there are hundreds of search engines designed for specific verticals like real estate and travel, as well as tools like Mahalo and Wikia that use human manpower to improve their results. Which are doing the best job at innovating in search? Make your nominations using the widget below:

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—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Enter the Search Engine Marketing Scholarship ContestLexxe - Natural Language Search EngineAsk.com Partners with Blinkx for Video SearchCodase: The Source Code Search EngineMicrosoft Live Search to Become Default on HP ComputersYahoo to Update Search IndexQuintura Signs with Blinkx

Google on Thursday announced that it has used its Gears Geolocation API to make searching for businesses and locales in your area easier on Windows Mobile devices.

According to the company, Search with My Location approximates your location based on Cell ID technology already employed by Google Maps and returns businesses in that area. If you’re looking to find the best Italian restaurants in your area, you can input “Italian restaurants” into the Search field, and it will return a list of Italian restaurants around your location. But it goes beyond businesses and restaurants. Google said that if you want to know the forecast where you are, simply type in “weather” and it will return the weather for your area.Source:TechCrunch

iPhone use in the epicenter of the technology world is on the rise, according to research released by Meraki Thursday.

According to the company, which is creating Free the Net, a free wireless network in San Francisco, it has witnessed a significant uptick in iPhone usage as it continues to roll out its service. Of the 150,000 devices that have used Free the Net, the iPhone accounts for nearly 20 percent. At its lowest point months ago, the iPhone accounted for just 6 percent of all the devices connecting the network.Source:TechCrunch
Louis Monier, Cuill’s VP Product, quietly resigned from the newly launched search engine last week, we’ve heard from a reliable source.

This is a big blow to the troubled search engine - Monier was recruited away from Google a year ago, where he was working on advanced search products. Prior to Google he was the head of search at eBay and was the cofounder and CTO of AltaVista. He is widely considered to be the father of Internet search.

Yahoo has highlighted a few more implementations of BOSS, the search API it launched in early July that allows third party websites to incorporate Yahoo search functionality seamlessly into their sites.

This is the second time Yahoo has showcased the fruits of BOSS developers. In early August, Yahoo drew attention to 4HourSearch, the Cuil knock-off formerly known as Yuil; PlayerSearch, a sports-focused search engine; Newsline, a tool for plotting news items on a timeline; and Tianamo, a 3D search visualization tool for Windows machines with Java installed.

Now we’re presented with three more implementations: 123People, askBOSS, and BuildaSearch.

“I don’t know what spawned it, but when Cuil attempts to index a site, it does so by completely hammering it with traffic,” the tipster wrote. “So much, that it completely brings the site down. We’re 24 hours into this “index” of the site, and I’ve had to restrict traffic to the site down to 2 packets per second, while discarding the rest, or otherwise it makes the site unusable.”

The Admin Zone forums are abuzz over Cuil’s overzealous method for indexing. Countless posters on the site have said that their websites have been brought down because of the Twiceler robot and one user said it “leeched enormous amounts of bandwidth — nearly 2GB this month until it was blocked. It visited nearly 70,000 times!”

Aseem Kishore is the lead blogger for Online-Tech-Tips, a technology blog covering a wide variety of topics including how-to tips, software reviews, and the latest tech news.

With the recent debut of Cuil, the most hyped search engine release since Google itself, we have seen that hype does not necessarily mean a better product. Cuil has taught us a few things fast: good marketing can do wonders for a product or service, bigger index does not mean better results, and the desire for a new and different search engine is strong.

Even with its disappointing results and server outages, Cuil managed to get a whopping 50 million searches on its opening day, according to the site. That’s a lot. Yes, it may not last for more than a month or two, but it certainly has caught the attention of Google, which has been utterly dominating the search market for years.

The excitement surrounding Cuil shows just how willing people are to find a new search competitor. Whether it is because people think Google has too much clout or because people simply want better search results, it is clear that if there is ever a better search engine than Google, it will become popular very fast.

However, competing with Google is no easy task. With their constant tweaks to their search algorithm, added features/enhancements like integrated YouTube and Google News items in search results, and immense network of advertisers and publishers, a new search is going to have to bring more than just a bigger index to the table.

Here’s what I think it will take for a new search engine to truly compete with the likes of Google, Yahoo, and MSN:

1. Far better search results

I say “far better” because even if there comes a search engine that can produce exactly the same results as Google, I still will not switch. Why should I? If the results are slightly better, I still won’t switch. Why? Google will tweak their algorithm and deliver the same, if not better, results within a short time.

If a search engine is to take a large portion of the market share, it needs to do something that no other search engine can do right now. If it takes me five minutes and three different queries to find what I am looking for on Google, then a search engine that takes two minutes and one query to find that same information will make me want to switch.

Whether it be a completely different display of search results, like Cuil, or an algorithm that can better understand my query, the key to the success of any search engine is finding the most useful information as fast as possible.

For example, if I search “convert PDF to word free” in Google, I still get many results for commercial software products that just happen to have those words along with “free trial” or “free download.” It simply cannot figure out that those sites are actually selling software and only allowing free trial downloads. If a search engine could figure that out and give me the same results like Google for all of my other searches, I might consider switching.

2. Test, Test, Test

I don’t understand why so many people start search engines and don’t look at their own search results. Why would Cuil, which was created by ex-Googlers, release a search engine that returns “No results found” for many queries that every other search engine returns results for?

Or how come when I search “show me the money,” I get only one result that mentions Tom Cruise or Jerry Maguire, and that too is some blog article that is mostly criticizing actors for being greedy? I search Google and get a YouTube video of the scene and a Wikipedia article on Jerry Maguire.

Who cares how big your index is, how fancy things look, or how fast results are delivered, can you give me better results than Google every single time or not? Cuil gives much better results on some queries and nothing on others… not good enough.

3. Make it customizable

One of the major drawbacks to Google is the fact that now that it is so huge, it’s very difficult to make large scale changes, such as a complete redesign of the search results page. Doing so could lead to a huge decrease in click-through rates for its ads, which in turn would lead to a big loss in revenue. Google has to be very careful about every change and that gives any startup a huge advantage.

The next search engine should be customizable. If you like your results displayed as 10 blue links, then you should have the option of keeping it that way. If you want them displayed in a column format like Cuil, it should be there. Or maybe there will be something new where results scroll across horizontally or vertically! Whatever the case may be, the more options a user has for viewing search results, the better.

Microsoft, according to a recent email from Steve Ballmer, is going to “introduce new approaches that move beyond a white page with 10 blue links to provide customers with a customized view of their world.” Whether Microsoft will be able to do it or not remains to be seen, but a customizable search engine is something that can compete with Google.

4. Be more modest

Hype is great, but it’s only great in markets that don’t exist or that are not fully mature. If you’re coming into the search engine world, you’re going up against three of the largest companies in the world with thousands of people working on search technology that have been doing it for decades now. Don’t tell me you’re going to surpass them all in a few months.

Maybe so, but let others build the hype for you once they see what you can do. I highly doubt any new search engine didn’t become popular because it didn’t get enough media attention. They simply weren’t as good. And like I said before, even if they were slightly better, it’s not good enough.

One example is Firefox. Firefox is a great Web browser and many think it’s better than Internet Explorer, yet it only has a small share of the browser market. It’s been growing slowly and steadily, but once there is such a dominant player that’s been around for so long, people tend to stick with what they are used to, even if the new player is better.

5. Make room for advertisers

Whether we like it or not, every search engine wants more of the search traffic share because they want to advertise to millions and billions of people. If a search engine is able to provide more relevant advertisements or provide easier access to advertising services, it could possibly divert traffic from Google.

Creating a large ad network seems to be just as necessary in order to succeed. Of course, gaining a large amount of traffic first will automatically bring this about, but it’s good to keep it in mind and build it into the system from the beginning. The easier it is to monetize all that traffic, the more people will jump on the bandwagon.

6. Be innovative

In the end, don’t just give us better search results. Give us better search results with new features, better privacy, more controls, nicer interface, more customization, better ads, and less secrecy. And preferably, give it to us all at once.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Startup Search Launches Web 2.0 DirectoryinSuggest: Recommendations Based On Favorite Sites [The Startup Review]Report: Microsoft to Acquire Powerset Natural Language Search for $100M+Lycos On the Auction BlocCongoo - Premium Content Search EngineEnter the Search Engine Marketing Scholarship ContestQuintura Gets Funded

Earlier this week a new search engine launched to the world. The name of the engine is Cuil (pronounced Cool) and there are great reviews on Search Engine Land and GigaOm. Danny from Search Engine Land notes that Cuil is pushing four main features of the search engine: Big web index, Unique relevance algorithm, Unique results display and Privacy.

I’ve created a short video below to discuss why Cuil is like toilet paper. The bottom line is that when you come out of the gate and immediately challenge the absolute leader, it’s a mistake. In addition, Google has absolute loyalty and to get average consumers to switch when they are loyal to a product or brand is very, very difficult. Making it even more difficult is that Google is free, so a lower-cost product pitch won’t work either. What Cuil should have done was only speak about their features and let the users and the search industry decide if it’s better than Google. So far it seems Cuil is the un-cool.

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There’s a reason a lot of us would rather take a few trips to the dumpster or the end of the driveway in order to get rid of our stuff–sometimes selling it online can be a hassle. But if you knew that you were also encouraging a green lifestyle by participating in a consignment system, would you put in a bit of extra effort? Gazelle, a site that lets you resell your electronics, aims to simplify the classifieds system by creating an environment that doesn’t require person-to-person sales.

Instead of just throwing away your electronics, you can resell them and earn some cash, in turn recycling by allowing someone else to reuse your items. Gazelle actually buys your items, and acts something like a pawn shop for your electronic gadgets. The service includes an online calculator which will estimate the value of your products based on the information you provide. For those items that no longer have market value, they can merely be recycled instead of resold.

Part of Second Rotation Inc., Gazelle features a few new upgrades that will hopefully make the overall process of selling and recycling electronic items simpler. New navigation capabilities have been layered into the Gazelle site so users can easily find the items they’d like to sell and begin the process from there. The estimate calculator has also been improved, displaying the value of items over time. Now you’ll be able to better determine when an optimal time to sell your used products will be. The Gazelle upgrades also feature more Web 2.0 aspects, which merely introduce more transparency into the selling process, giving users more control by offering more insight to the data it collects for the purpose of determining things like product value, etc.

Whether you’d like to become more active in the reuse and recycle process, or you’d just like to offload your stuff for a fixed price, Web-based consignment service, Gazelle is hoping to lure you in one way or another. Through its partnerships with other companies and electronic goods stores, Gazelle turns a profit from the gadgets and items you sold for cash, but its upgrades really seek to better utilize its existing Web presence for the purpose of gaining a broader user base through simplified mechanisms.

If you used the SecondRotation site in the past year or so, you’ll recall that its bare bones appearance did little to steal market share from alternative sites on looks alone, though the service itself has proven to be quite useful. The new look and improved process will certainly make Gazelle more attractive to the average consumer and will allow Second Rotation Inc. to further its reach.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Social News: MingleNow, iBloks, FanNationShare the Joy and Cheers of the World iPhone 3G Release via Qik EventsDigg V3 Leaves BetaYouTube Launches Valentines Day PromoYouTube Germany LaunchesFamster Launches Famster IMMomJunction, Another “MySpace for Moms”, Raises $1.5 Million

Source:Mashable!

I’ve got a theory: no one can create a better search engine than Google, simply because Google does not only search websites, but - through its domination of the market - the entire web bends to Google’s will because every web site wants to be positioned well on Google. Therefore, any competitor that may arise - however large its index, however good its algorithms - can only hope to be nearly as good as Google. Being the best search engine in the world today literally means being Google, and it’s hard to beat Google at that.

The theory is wild and far-fetched, I know, but the dozens of general purpose search engines that came my way during the last couple of years have been a far cry from Google. So, I’m merely trying to create a theory based on observational facts.

Enter Cuil, a very serious competitor, packed with ex-Googlers (Tom Costello and Anna Patterson are the backbone of Cuil, and they’ve both worked at Google), and claiming to have the largest index of websites - 120 billion - in the world.

It doesn’t end there: Cuil pulls pretty much every trick in the book. Big claims about the biggest index, privacy concerns (IP addresses of users aren’t saved, making it impossible for a third party to request it from them), semi-semantic approach (Cuil’s engine recognizes the relations between certain words on a web site, which helps it rank pages better). Hell, they even pulled the energy-saving trick: the front page of Cuil is completely black, in contrast to Google’s eye-poking whiteness.

The search results are organized drastically different from Google’s, and I give credit to Cuil for trying something new here. Instead of the standard long list of results, you get results with much longer, instantly visible descriptions, organized into two or three columns. For every search you’ll be offered a choice of additional categories which should help you narrow it down. For certain searches, this works great, and the categories really help; for others, you’re just going to waste time clicking as you won’t get any additional meaningful results for most.

Which brings us to the main thing: the quality of search. Let me say right of the bat that Cuil is not better than Google. It’s solid, but not better, and based on my limited testing, I’d even go so far to say that it’s not even that close. A search for “Mashable” yielded solid results, with mashable.com being the first one, but others were mostly links to articles. Google, on the other hand, intelligently put Mashable’s Twitter account and our social network, my.mashable.com, in the top 10.

Another thing I like to try when I test out new search engines is simply type in some piece of my hardware, perhaps even incorrectly, to see if I’ll get drivers, manuals, and similar useful information. I do it because Google is so unbelievably awesome at it, that I can’t imagine anyone topping them in this area. Searching Cuil for “DFI Nforce 4” was extremely disappointing, as it yielded zero results. Google, on the other hand, gave me the official DFI site, plus a bunch of reviews, all related to the actual product I was interested in. No contest there.

In fact, the more I tried, the more I was convinced that Google is, quite simply, a vastly better search engine. This is unfair, I know: Cuil is a very new product, and Google has been around for quite a while. But, unfortunately, my theory from the first paragraph still stands. I’ll be happy to revisit Cuil after it ages a bit, but right now it’s only a solid try.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Google Releases Custom Search Business EditionGoogle Blog Search Semi-Launched in ChinaGoogle Product Search Not as FroogleGoogle Reader Gets Search!Google Search Now on Windows Mobiles, TooFun Things To Do With Google Blog Search BetaWeren’t Google Ads Already Live on MySpace?