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Google spends millions to battle privacy concerns

Gerard — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:56:33 +0000

This is strange. Google in the US is spending tens of millions on a print and outdoor advertising campaign to alleviate privacy concerns. Google, advertising in print? Times have changed.
The ‘Good to Know’ campaign offers tips and advice to people on what data they should share with Google and other websites and social networks.
The new campaign is most likely in response to concerns about its new ‘Search plus Your World’ feature on its search engine. The new feature has caused a fair amount of public anxiety stateside as people realise their information, photos and updates from their Google+ account may now be easily found on Google search.
Search plus Your World blends Google+ information with Google search results, much in the same way people’s Facebook updates are blended with search results on Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
As with any new Google feature that involves ‘private’ information, there is bound to be opposition and public scrutiny. Google’s previous social network, Buzz, failed because Google didn’t respond quickly enough to users’ privacy concerns. Google later admitted it had violated its own privacy policies when it introduced Buzz.
The multi-million dollar ‘Good to Know’ ad campaign is also being rolled out at a time when Google is facing increasing regulatory battles in the US.

Why Google is poised to dominate the Planet of the Apps

Mark — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:36:31 +0000

Most people associate apps with Apple. Apple apps. The Appstore. Apple invented the app with the launch of the iPhone … etc. etc. However, Apple’s operating system for the iPhone and iPad may not be the most interesting when it comes to apps. Apple apps (iOS apps) are notoriously difficult to get launched on the Appstore. You’d almost need a full cavity search before you can get an app on the Appstore. Also, there are way too many of them (over half a billion at this stage), and all the cool kids are working on Android anyway.
So, not only are all the cool kids working on Android, but the Android operating system is now the fastest growing mobile and tablet platform in the world.
Google, by the way, owns the Android operating sytem and should be satisfied with its progress.
However, until now, Android was a bit of a ‘wild west’ experience. It’s open source. There are no harsh laws when it comes to content. To use a blunt simile – Android is the 60s and Apple’s iOS is the 80s. Android’s counter revolution is now pitted against Apple’s straight-laced, prim, almost Victorian walled garden.
Google, ironically, is playing the hippy while Apple plays at being Reagan. Google recently launched Android Design, a guide of sorts, one that is “committed to helping you design amazing apps that people love”. Hippy talk.

Kill all hippies
But for all the hippy talk, Google is on a winner. Its latest Android operating system, the ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ (stupid name but all the rest are taken up) focuses on three core goals: “enchant me; simplify my life; and make me amazing”.
More hippy talk, but Google is no hippy. (Well, it’s a hippy with the heart of Genghis Khan and the drive of Stalin.) It plans not just to own the web, to rule the web, but also to make the most money from the web.
Many have sneered at its attempt to challenge Facebook with Google+. Those that sneer are wrong. Google not only owns Android, the soon to be de-facto app operating system on the planet, it also owns the world’s best search engine and it is waiting in the wings to ‘Hoover’ up all those tired and jaded Facebookers who first logged in five years ago. It’s about to offer social media users an alternative. And we all know how fickle young people (14-30) are when it comes to deciding where the coolest place to hang out is, don’t we? Just ask MySpace.
Google has also just stolen Apple’s mantra. CEO Eric Schmidt recently said the new model for Android should be “cleaner, pristine, and [with] more [to] spare”. Google and Android, he said, wants to attract “people with great taste”.
Now that Steve Jobs is gone, Google sees its chance … and it’s not letting go. It wants to beat Apple, it wants to kill the iPhone and the iPad and it wants to have more Android apps than Apple apps. All it needs now is a Messiah to re-brand Android and convince people Apple isn’t cool anymore.
That’s the hard part.

Has Google damaged Google search?

Gerard — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:04:06 +0000

This week Google, the world’s most-used search engine, deeply integrated its new social network Google+ into its search results. The idea is to deliver more ‘personalised results’ but these results are pulled mainly from Google services like Google+, YouTube and Blogger. So exactly how ‘personalised’ are the results and is the bias towards Google+ compromising its search results?
While you can opt out of receiving social results when searching on Google, most people don’t want to have to opt out, and most will be unaware that this option is available.
For years, Google has invested in and finely honed its search engine to become faster and more relevant. Google’s attempt to battle Facebook and Twitter for social search results may seem like a necessary thing to do for its own future, however, the majority of people use Google because it has always been the most relevant search engine out there.
By changing the way Google works in an effort to battle Facebook, Google may have done the unthinkable – it may have made its search engine worse.

Is this Google’s weapon to challenge Facebook?

Mark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:03:23 +0000

When Google launched its latest social network Google+, it received a mixed response – some thought it was okay, some hated it. Indeed, many ‘seasoned’ social media professionals were quick to dismiss it straight away and say it was too little, too late and Facebook owned the social networking world. Period. However, after many Facebook face lifts and overhauls and the rise of Twitter, Google+ is still growing.
When Google launched Gmail, it too received a very tepid welcome from the digital community. Now look at it. And what about Google’s Chrome browser? When it launched people were skeptical, why did the world need another browser. Weren’t Firefox and Safari and Internet Explorer doing a good enough job? Now look at it.
Dismissing Google+ is silly for many reasons. Firstly, it’s a Google product and one than continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in support and development. Secondly, Google is very good at launching a service, getting a muted response, and then building that service into a world-beater over time.
The latest development that should worry execs at Facebook and Twitter is a weapon called ‘Search Plus Your World’. Google is banking on the fact that many people like personalised search results: “Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results,” says the firm on its blog.
Why would Facebook be concerned about this? Well, since personalised content from Google+ is included in searches but not content from Facebook and Twitter, Google is loudly prompting people to switch over to Google+.
What’s more, it puts Facebook and Twitter in a very difficult position. Google says it will include content from Facebook and Twitter in its searches but they won’t allow Google to do so. If they allow their content to be included in Google searches, Google will make money from their content. If they don’t allow this, Google will continue to promote personalised search information from Google+, making it a very viable alternative to both Facebook and Twitter for people (and brands) who regularly use social networks.
Watch this space.

Read more: Twitter calls Google’s update ‘bad for the internet’.

New Google Maps game

Emma — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:33:47 +0000

Here’s a nice idea from Google, a game based on Google Maps. The game is based on WebGL and will be available from Google+Games from February. The game is designed to get more people interacting with Google+ as well as showing off the new ‘indoors view’ feature on Google Maps. Pretty cool stuff.

Search giants collaborate to change the web

Gerard — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:35:22 +0000

The way people are searching online has changed so dramatically, in such a short space of time, that even the search giants have been slow to realise the ground is moving beneath them. However, now the three largest search engines have announced a new collaboration, called schema.org, that will show website owners and web developers how to markup their websites, using a common set of schema, to be better read by the search engines.
The by-product of this significant collaboration will be a changing of the way all websites should be created. It will transform the way the web evolves.
“We’ve come together with other search engines to support a common set of schema, just as we came together to support a common standard for Sitemaps in 2006. With schema.org, site owners can improve how their sites appear in search results not only on Google, but on Bing, Yahoo! and potentially other search engines as well in the future,” said Google on its blog.
The 100 or so new types of markups will soon change the way most web pages are designed. This is big news. Bigger in many respects that a new cloud solution from Apple (remember MobileMe?). The new schema will also change the search marketing and SEO industries – change everything about them.
“We want to enable publishers to give us hints about what things they are describing on their sites. Rather than rely solely on machine learning and other AI techniques, we asked ‘what if we could enable publishers to have a single schema they could use to describe their sites that all search engines could understand?’” says Bing. “We see this as a major step forward for the web, simplification for webmasters and richer more informative search results for consumers.”

Read more from Google, here: http://bit.ly/mgKoCu

Google adds Boost as Tags are binned

Emma — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:45:19 +0000

Last year Google introduced the ‘tag’, a little yellow marker that allowed businesses to rent for a flat fee each month to highlight themselves on Google Maps. Google has just announced that it is dropping the tag.
While tens of thousands of businesses used [and paid for] the tags, Google said it was just a trial and it has decided to “shift our efforts toward other present and future product offerings for local businesses, and will be discontinuing this trial”.
Google is keenly aware of the money to be made from local and hyper-local advertising, but this is the second hyper-local ‘trial’ that’s been discontinued. The ‘Hotspot’ local recommendation service also bit the dust recently.
Next up for Google’s local marketing programme is a service called ‘Google Boost’. It’s aimed at small businesses (again) and lets them create ads from within their Google Places accounts. The ads include links to the business’ Places page, a star rating and a blue pin to pinpoint its location on Google Maps.
A blue pin is nicer than a yellow marker, don’t you think?

SEO and PR solution for Irish tech exporters

Stephen — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:13:08 +0000

Ronnie Simpson and Peter Dodds

A new digital marketing service for technology and business-to-business (B2B) exporters has been launched.
Simpson Financial & Technology PR and search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist New Century Media can provide an international digital marketing service for exporters covering online PR and SEO.
“Over 90% of B2B buyers search online first. The fact is that international buyers, partners and investors are out there looking for you. The goal now is to be on the first two pages of that Google search,” says Ronnie Simpson.
Peter Dodds, founder of New Century Media and former senior media buyer for Ogilvy & Mather and Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) in the UK and Australia, says the aim of the service is to combine the best of search engine optimisation and online PR to drive the websites of Irish exporters up the search engine rankings.
“Effective SEO these days is highly labour intensive and needs to be continuous but we are able to offer a solution at keen rates out of Dublin because we manage the strategy and implementation in Ireland but outsource the number crunching to a specialist SEO partner in India,” said Dodds.

Omnicom’s digital deals deliver precision

Emma — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:24:54 +0000

Jonathan Nelson

The advertising world has just become much more ‘accurate’. Global advertising firm Omnicom will now have access to consumer data supplied by Microsoft, Yahoo! And AOL. The planning arms of the ad firm, PHD and OMD, have gained the ability to deliver highly-targeted ad campaigns based on consumers’ gender, age and location.
The new partnerships follow Omnicon’s similar deal with Google last July. As part of that deal Omnicom bought millions of dollars worth of display ads for its clients on Google sites in return for precise information regarding the effectiveness of each ad campaign.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Jonathan Nelson, chief executive at Omnicom Digital said, “We are already spending hundreds of millions of dollars with all of these four companies, but now we can spend it more efficiently and effectively”.
Omnicom is the world’s second biggest ad firm after WPP. It has ambitious digital growth plans and reported annual profits of $827 million in 2009.

Heystaks aims to lead new era of search

Emma — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:43:17 +0000

HeyStaks Technologies (www.heystaks.com), the NovaUCD social web-search start-up, has launched its initial products in the US market.
The launch took place earlier this week at the annual DEMO Spring 2011 conference held in Palm Desert, California.
The worldwide DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new product innovations. For 20 years DEMO has earned a reputation for identifying new innovations that are most likely to disrupt the markets they serve.
Search engines have not evolved much since Google changed the world. However, algorithmic solutions are still driving search and content farms are becoming a serious nuisance to searchers, and no meaningful social search solutions have been introduced.
HeyStaks is a social web search service that allows people to collaborate anonymously with friends and others of like minded interest as they search.
Speaking in California, Jonathan Dillon, CEO, HeyStaks said, “Just as Google reshaped the world of search by paying attention to the links between pages, we believe that our social connections have the potential to usher in the new era of search,” He added, “HeyStaks helps both consumer and enterprise searchers to get the right information at the right time, across all search engines, and helps us all become more productive searchers.”
With HeyStaks users can create ‘search staks’, collections of the best web pages from a group of users on a particular topic. These ‘staks’ can be made public and easily shared with colleagues and friends via email, Twitter, etc., or kept private or shared on an invite-only basis.