Amazon's just-announced deal acquire all of Zappos.com stock in a transaction worth more than $800 million will fuse two enormous Internet companies. But even more fascinating than the deal's size is the huge difference between the companies' cultures and brands. On the one hand, Amazon is the undisputed leader in online retail sales and a major technology innovator (See: Kindle, cloud services). However, speaking as a journalist,

We are in the final round of voting for the Bing Home Page Photo Contest ! Thousands of amazing photos have been submitted and voted for, which has made it very difficult to limit ourselves to only 8 finalists. During the selection process we looked for photos that would draw people in, tell a story and make you want to find out more. And of course, they had to work within the confines of the page and that adhere to the official guidelines .

I just spotted this while performing a search for location names in Google. It seems to be something Google are testing at the moment to display images alongside a Google Maps listing for organic queries on location names. I've noticed it for quite a few searches so far: Oxford London New York Sydney There's just a few, I quite like it - helps to brighten up the search results a bit! © SEOptimise . Signup for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter and follow us on Twitter !

Google released (or I should say re-released) a new product earlier this year for paid search results called the "Video Plus Box".  This is an interesting opportunity for advertisers who focus less on an absolute conversion and have more interest in the branding and awareness possibilities that search holds . It also makes sense for advertisers who have a strong visual component to their product or pitch â?"  film and television promotion comes to mind.

Amazon.com is partnering with the University of Michigan to reprint 400,000 titles that are no longer under copyright protection or are out of print. Amazon's BookSurge unit will print and bind the books in soft cover and they will be available on the site for $10 to $45 depending on the length. Paul N. Courant "This agreement means that titles that have been generally unavailable for a century or more will be able to go back into print, one copy at a time," said Paul N.

Bing is giving away 7 backpacks with $500 Visa cash cards in a new back-to-school contest. It begins tomorrow and you need to be following @bingcashback on Twitter to win. Each day, a trivia question about Bing Cashback will be asked via the Twitter account. Those who respond within an hour with the correct answer will be entered into a drawing to win one of the 7 backpacks. I must admit, when I read the title of the blog post, Fill a Backpack with Bing Cashback ,

I love Amazon. I love Zappos. I love how they compete against each other. That's why I'm kind of disappointed that Amazon is acquiring Zappos. It would be like Duke acquiring UNC or the Red Sox acquiring the Yankees. Alright, alright, here's the details. Amazon is buying Zappos for 10 million AMZN stock, which is currently worth around $807 million. Also, Amazon is providing Zappos employees with $40 million in cash and restricted stock units. Cha-freaking-ching. Don't worry,

We'll leave it to you whether or not Facebook's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, deserves the label "visionary." But in a recent interview, 25-year-old Zuckerberg revealed that he is indeed considering what'll happen a long ways down the road. For starters, Zuckerberg was able to give a reasonably thought-out answer when Dan Lyons asked him where Facebook will be in five years. He talked about focusing on Facebook Platform to "make other sites more social.

Fred Vogelstein, the writer who painted Facebook as a competitive threat to Google last month in Wired, has written another long piece for the magazine that is sure to open eyes, or at the least, raise some eyebrows. When I read the headline " Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google ? Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google?" this week, I expected a profile on Christine Varney,

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent an email to Zappos employees today informing them that Amazon is becoming the only shareholder of Zappos stock. The following video from Jeff Bezos was also posted on the Zappos Blog : Here is a sample of what Hsieh said in the email : Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say "Amazon acquires Zappos" or "Zappos sells to Amazon". While those headlines are technically correct,