I'm sure that you've heard the buzz about real-time search launched by Google... and good work guys! I looked into the real-time search options from Mashable's original post and realised that when I Googled "Phailanx" (the name of this blog incase you hadn't noticed!), my realtime tweets were appearing  despite a limited pilot on the functionality - I'm obviously taking that as a personal compliment from Google.

The real-time functionality adds a completely different dimension to how users can search, especially on the way in which they look for opinions, reviews and customer feedback/opinion. The ability to now showcase user communication via search becomes an important factor in corporate communication, reputation and commercialisation. With 28% of Shoppers saying that Social Media has influenced holiday purchases, real-time search instantly lifts the need for businesses to maximise social media marketing. Encouraging consumers to discuss brands is going to be a massive contribution to increasing conversions online, so businesses must get as much conversation going as possible. Just remember this basic rule:

Customer engagement + Simplicity = Success online

Related links:

• Mashable's full post on Google real-time search
• Follow Phailanx on Twitter

Over the past few years, High street retailers have been conquering online only retailers with regards to levels of traffic despite online retailers have the higher performance levels. However, this year online retailers are on the up - this time last year, high street retailers had 25% more traffic than online only retailers. In 2009, Online retailers have closed this gap to 18% which is a massive leap forward that is starting to start to blur the line on digital brand equity vs high street presence.

Ref: www.hitwise.com

It looks as though online retailers (being more specialised in online sales) have been focussing their digital efforts to maximise communication and marketing tools such as Social Media, online customer service and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Related links:

• Hitwise report/blog post
• Improve your e-commerce performance

RSS is something that most people either love or hate. For those that love blogs, the RSS feed allows people to keep up-to-date very easily but is it for everyone? When RSS came into fruition, my outlook on RSS was an "alternative" to email updates; to give your users another option if they didn't like emails. This would hopefully maximise your user expereince by giving them multiple entry points to your website. RSS would give the opportunity to allow your users to be very reactive with your goods and services as a basic communication tool. 

I've never been an RSS addict but I did get hooked to a few commercial RSS feeds which allowed me to keep up with limited offers from retailers. My RSS activity apart from that is very spontaneous and a recent report from Forrester has suggested that I am not alone. Only 9% of Adult internet users are using RSS readers on a monthly basis (research undertaken in the US), 2% lower than 2008.

So is it worthwhile using RSS?
In my opinion, absolutely. 9% may sound low, but it is still a substantial amount of people. There are also added SEO benefits with RSS with the number of inbound links that can be achieved. Further Search Marketing outlines some effective ways to make RSS stretch online with directories and making it work effectively.

For the small amount of work, it seems very worthwhile due to the potential gains.

Related links:

• Forrester research with E-Consultancy 
• Using RSS for SEO (Further Search Marketing)