This Week is History

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Has the business world ever been so grateful to say TGIF?

We all know when Wall Street sneezes that much of the world catches a cold. This week it was much more than a sneeze; more like the flu. What does this mean to the tech sector and small to midsize businesses?

Here's just a few consequences:

- Mobile handset makers stand to take a big hit, especially RIM, Blackberry's parent company. Think about it; who are some of the heaviest "crackberry" users. Exactly; the financial market folks who are facing up to 40,000 layoffs in their industry. That's a lot of cancelled Blackberry accounts.

- More importantly, who finances the venture capitalists who finance so many startups? Hint: it starts with a Lehman and ends in Brothers; not to mention the other major financial houses in crisis.

In search of...

ComScore has releasd it's rankings report for the top search engines for the month of August. No surprises; Google still reigns supreme with a record 63% market share of Internet searches. Yahoo sits at number two with just over 19%. MSN trails in at number three around 8%.

Nuggets to chew on:

- Search engines drive about 48% of traffic to sites. Clearly, search engine opimitization is important. But for businesses throwing thousands of dollars at SEO consultanting firms, you might want to consider throwing some of that money into a more aggressive link back strategy.

- That same August report shows just under twelve billion searches worldwide in just that one month. Let's do the math. Twelve billion searchs; 48% of traffic driven to sites; that's a lot of traffic being driven around the Internet. How are they finding you?

Tidbits to watch for next week:

- Google is expected to unveil its long-rumored "Google Phone" on Tuesday. More accurately, the Google "Android" phone is expected to sell at the same price point as the new iPhone 3G starting at $199 (with a service plan). It will cost $399 without committing to a plan.

- Yahoo is expected to launch what is desribed as a major overhaul of its home page on Thursday.

- The Wall Street Journal will be launching a new social networking site on Tuesday. Think Facebook for financial types. All those people getting laid off on Wall Street will have plenty of time to network on the new site. Sounds like a great place to artificially run up stocks through rumors and hype. I hope the SEC is keeping an eye on this one. Was that my outside voice, again?

Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987.