Amazon Associates is a top affilate program. Twitter is a bona fide marketing tool. Put them together and you have Amazitter, a new iPhone app that lets you post Amazon affiliate links right through your iPhone to generate sales.

It's pretty simple – buy the app for $.99, enter your Twitter ID and password and your Associates ID and you're ready to go. Click the "az" icon on the bottom left of the app and start searching Amazon for products. Once you find one you like, click on the listing then click the "t" icon at the bottom of your iPhone screen. You will see a product description along with a bit.ly link. You can add to the description if you want, then hit "Post" on the top right of your screen. It's then posted to your Twitter account. The link contains your Associates ID, so once clicked, any item purchased is credited to your Associates account.

According to Amazitter, the Twitter ID and Amazon ID are stored locally on your device – they do not have access to that information. Also, the Twitter info is sent securely through the Twitter API.

As far as analytics, you can access the bit.ly data through your own account by searching your Twitter username. Amazitter also plans to include bit.ly account support in the near future so you can login directly through your Amazitter app to track performance. And through your Amazon Associates account you can track any sales through the Orders Report.

In our test, we found a product, changed the description and posted to Twitter in under 2 minutes – not a bad way to generate some revenue and update your Twitter account on the fly.

Last week, rumors swirled that Google would launch a new music search. Earlier today, Greg Jarboe covered Hitwise data examining how important music is to search.

Now, we’ve gotten confirmation that the rumors are true and data don’t lie. Google is, indeed, rolling out a new music search. This update will roll out over the next day to all U.S. users.

Why the focus on music? Google says two out of the top ten searches in the U.S., according to Insights for Search.

When you get the update, you’ll be able to sample music directly in the search results. Google is partnering with MySpace (which owns iLike) and Lala to provide the samples. You can search via artist, song title or even small parts of lyrics you remember.

Google is also partnering with Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody. You’ll see links to these sites where you can discover new music.

Here’s a screenshot per the Official Google Blog:

Google has announced the release of Google Social Search; promising to bring the most relevant results to your queries by indexing the content submissions of your "social circle." Here's the quick version of how it works:

When you search on Google (through Google Labs) you can select "Social" from the "Show options" link on the top left of the page. This will present results from your social connections that are integrated with your Google account; Reader, Picasa, Blogs, Twitter, Gmail Chat and FriendFeed. So, if you include your Twitter profile on your Google account (more on that in a minute), you will get relevant results from the content submitted by all those you follow on Twitter. In addition, to round out your "extended social circle," you will get results from the followers of those you follow. Mixed with those results will be mentions of your search query in the blogs you follow through Reader, related photos on Picasa, and so on; down to any network you belong to and your contacts within that netowork – as long as they are included in your Google Profile. On the surface, it sounds pretty useful. And for some, it will be. But don't get too excited yet.

Think this will make a big impact on how consumers find your brand? Think again. Sure, millions of consumers have Gmail accounts. But it's a safe bet that a very small percentage of those users have a Google Profile set up, much less take advantage of Google Reader. That number likely continues to shrink for the number of those users who write blogs, and use Twitter or FriendFeed.

Try this – log out of Google then do a random search. Do you readily see the option to build a Google profile? Have you ever seen a complete Google rookie try to set up (much less understand) Google Reader, Twitter, FriendFeed or anything of that likeness? I'm reminded of a common saying in the industry; If you can't explain it to your Grandmother, you're doing it wrong … or something to that effect. Go ahead and ask 10 random people over your next lunch hour if they've ever used Twitter, FriendFeed or Google Reader. The point is, we're dealing with a small segment of the consumer population.

What's missing from all the buzz on Google Social Search?

Facebook.

Make no mistake, Google and Facebook are at war – that's what this expirement is really about. Social Search is Google's early answer to Facebook Search and the countless connections being made and information being shared through Facebook. This is a war for the very social fabric of the Internet. Facebook (with likely millions more users than registered Google Profile users) will reveal social search in a way that's not limited to information from Google Profiles, but will include Google products – because Facebook doesn't limit anything that users want to share with their online network. Blogs can be included through Networked Blogs, Twitter can be integrated, photos can be shared and tagged, movies can be recommended … there are even apps for most of that. Facebook has created a hub for social activity that's remarkably easy to use, which is why the age demographic keeps rising. Google is attempting to build a way to patch together a very fragmented social scene – it all has the feeling of a reeling empire trying to corral it's loyal subjects before an all-out desertion.

Google Social Search is not easy. In fact, it's quite confusing. Also, if you want to take advantage of Google Social Search, be prepared to limit yourself to one Google profile and its contacts. At this time, you cannot merge profiles – for those of you who have mulitple Gmail addresses or profiles for multiple reasons … like me.

Finally, understand that this should serve as a major red flag to those who don't quite yet grasp that everything you publish online is public domain unless you explicitly protect it. Think about it like this: If I use Google Social Search, I might get results from your Twitter account (or Digg submission, or Flickr account, etc.) even though you have no idea who I am. It could be that I follow someone on Twitter who you follow … one of those 1,000 people you follow in hopes of gaining more followers yourself. Your online network just expanded to all registered Google users … whether you like it or not. Be careful what you say – Google is listening … and indexing.

Google is celebrating the third birthday of Custom Search with many updates. Here they are:

Custom Search Themes – Now you can customize the look of Custom Search on your site with themes, which can be tweaked for color, font, background and feature adjustments.

Custom Search Skin on Wikipedia – On the flip side, you can contextualize your Wikipedia experience with a Custom Search skin. When enabled, the Custom Search skin provides Google contextualized search throughout Wikipedia. Learn more about the Custom Search skin for Wikipedia here.

Structured Custom Search – Going back to Custom Search for your site, there are three new structured custom search updates. You can add Thumbnails and Actions to the Custom Search Elements, which allows metadata markups. You can also now restrict search results using metadata attributes. And there’s a new Rich Snippets Preview tool.

CNN has released a redesign of their website and it is substantial. And when a property as valuable and recognizable as CNN.com undergoes a major overhaul, you can bet plenty of thought went into it.

The new design appears focused on two factors that often are at odds with each other – 1) suggesting content for users to read and encouraging clicks, and 2) helping readers find content they want. Also, you will see that the site is much cleaner and easier to scan without sacrificing content – not an easy task. To help with this effort, in part, text size has been reduced in favor of more white space and better organization. While readers with less-than-ideal vision might find this change difficult to cope with, it does offer an information-packed page without feeling overwhelmed.

Let's examine the CNN redesign in a little more detail and expose some good tips for Web professionals and designers. Below are five observations and what we can learn from them. Below that are screen captures of the old and new CNN.com to help illustrate.

1. Branding is everything. What stands out most on the new page? Red. Over the years CNN has become known for their red logo. However, they have now gone to using "CNN Red" as an entire branding mechanism in itself. It's bold, and looks authoritative. Closer attention to the logo shows that not only is it centered on the page (it's impossible to ignore when the page opens) but they dropped the ".com" – now it's just "CNN." This is worthy of some attention and might even spark some debate for your business. CNN is making a statement here; they are more than just another website, they are a leading, globally respected news source who need not remind users that they are "on the Web."

   Should you consider a similar step for your site? That depends. If you are a pure online presence, billing it as such with "YourBusiness.com" makes more sense than just "Your Business." After all, the point to drive home with users is that you are an online business. However, if you have brick and mortar locations, or other offline branding channels (such as a print publication or physical product) dropping the ".com" has its merits. For one, it signals that you are a major, respected brand and not just another website or affiliate.

2. Navigation is key. Another not-so-subtle change is that navigation elements are prominently displayed at the top of the page. Before, navigation links were small and obscure – a reader's eye was drawn to just about every other element than the navigation. Now, you immediately see the option to get straight to what you want. At the same time, the strong images, "Highlights" and "Latest news" directs readers toward discovery. It's a very nice balance that is incredibly user-friendly.
3. Community is driving interaction. Of course, it helps that the image in the center of the page is a raging inferno, but you'll notice that the most prominent portion of the page comes from iReport – CNN's community-driven news source. Also notice the "Newspulse" section on the bottom right. These stories are displayed according to readers' interests. Users can filter through all the stories on the website using this feature.

   What you won't see on the home page are links to CNN's Twitter or Facebook account – these are reserved for interior pages. While it's tough to recommend that you omit your business' social links from your home page, it's interesting that CNN took this route. It almost suggests to readers, CNN.com is your main destination for news and information, not Facebook or Twitter. Is this an effort to control content or simply a way to reduce clutter? Either way, it's a little reminder that our websites are the key to our success. Yes, you want to establish a presence on other websites and networks, but you want your users on your site.

4. Advertising is on even ground with content. Even if it's only one ad, the Lexus ad on the new page shares top billing with the rest of the eye-catching elements of the page. On the old site, the feature story's image was most prominent, then "Video." While video is nice, it takes attention away from the ad ('AD' in the screen capture below.) Advertising still drives revenue and keeps websites afloat. Keep this in mind when designing your page – advertisers will.
5. Below the fold is not an afterthought. Below the fold (the portion of the site a user must scroll down to see), CNN's home page features a new, four-column layout as opposed to the old sometimes-two-, sometimes-three-column option. It holds a ton of information, but is airy and elegant, well-organized and well-balanced. The "Editor's choice" section allows for some light browsing while the other categories let the user dive deeper into categories with a quick scan.

   Now look at the old CNN.com below the fold. In comparison, it's hectic. It's difficult to know where to look, white space is not evenly distributed, and There simply is not nearly as much "usable" information. In short, it looks thrown together. See the difference by scrolling down the page at CNN.com, and this CNN.com from July 31, 2008.

   Keep this in mind with your own website. If you're lucky enough to get users to scroll down your site, don't turn them off as they explore.

   Altogether, the new CNN.com focuses on usability and the delivery of a large amount of information in an easy-to-digest format. Web users have plenty of options from which to get their news, so CNN decided it was time to freshen up. They seem to have accomplished this task while staying true to their mission.

Also read: The LA Times' User-Centric Redesign