Google Brings Location Search History to Mobile Browsers

We've talked before about some of the tools Google has made available in order to help bridge the gap between the time you spend working on your computer and time spent on your smartphone. There's stuff like Chrome to Phone, for example, which lets you access information your pulled-up while browsing from your PC while later on a mobile device. Today the company has a tweak along those lines to introduce to its mobile site, letting you easily access information on places you've researched from your smartphone.

If you've got Google's Web History enabled, letting it keep track of your queries, it's now going to pay special attention to the details on any physical places you end up searching for. Later on, when you pull up Google on your phone's browser, you'll be able to review those locations through a new "Recent" icon. Unlike Chrome to Phone, there's no special software to install on either side of this equation; you just need to be logged-in to Google on your phone with the same credentials you use on your PC.

For now, the new feature works on Google's Android browser and with Mobile Safari on iOS.

One Year Later: How Google Panda Changed Our Business

Editor’s note: Matt Moog is the founder and CEO of Viewpoints.com.
Google Panda strikes
February 24, 2011 was a day that will live in infamy for the team here at Viewpoints. That was the day of the Google Panda update. Up until that point we had enjoyed four years of consistent traffic growth to Viewpoints.com. We managed to double traffic each year and had just reached 2.7 million unique users. We had heard that Google was planning to update its algorithm to penalize content and link farms and were excited about the bump we might get as a result. Turns out we were in for a bit of a surprise.
Viewpoints takes it on the chin
You see, Viewpoints is a consumer reviews and product ranking web site. We have 600,000 reviews of 100,000 products contributed by more than 250,000 members. We have had more than 70 million visits to the site since we launched in late 2007. All of our content is original and we always viewed all of our practices as the “right way” to do things. Apparently Google felt differently because we lost 50% of organic search traffic overnight as a result of the Panda update.
And tries some quick fixes
As the days passed and we sorted out all of the comments from Matt Cutts and industry pundits and watched the Google blog as anxiously as the faithful await the plumes of smoke from the Vatican to figure out what we could do to get back in the good graces of the Google crawler. Was it our ad density? Was it speed of our site? Did we not have the right authoritative back links? Was it that some of our reviews were short and Google was penalizing sites with ”thin content”?
The truth of the matter was that it could have been any and all of these. Although we had hundreds of thousands of great reviews, we had probably let some slip through that did not deserve to be published. And we had not paid enough attention to speed, ad density or other hall marks of a good user experience. So we set out to fix our Google problem but at the same time, we resolved to think bigger and longer term and use this opportunity to create a better user experience, regardless of what Google was looking for.
So now you can judge the results for yourself. We have spent the last 12 months as a team of 25+ professionals reinventing Viewpoints. From March to June we removed 40% of the ads across the site. We improved the speed of the site by 3x. We moderated out 80,000+ reviews that did not meet minimum quality standards. Unfortunately these changes had only a nominal impact on traffic. So we decided it was time for a more radical approach.
Time to make serious long-term changes
After making the changes listed above and 90 days after Google’s Panda update, our team decided to devote six months to a total overhaul of the Viewpoints.com user experience. This was not just a visual redesign but a soup-to-nuts, top-to-bottom overhaul. We ended up making 30 major changes to the user experience. This entire effort was basically a bet the company decision. It had been four years since we first launched and the reality is that the world had changed. It was time to question even some of the most fundamental assumptions.
Content Quality – addressing the perception of “thin” content
In addition to eliminating 80,000 reviews that did not meet our new quality standards we also decided to eliminate stand alone review pages for all but the longest reviews. This one decision removed 600,000 pages from the site. We also decided to treat very short reviews differently. A new minimum threshold was established for when a review would become publicly accessible. If you want to review a product and say “It’s awesome!” that’s fine, we just don’t think your two word review helps other consumers enough to warrant publication. We also made the tough decision to exit more than 300 review categories that had more than 90,000 reviews. We decided strategically to focus on product reviews and retire hundreds of non product review categories such as hotels, restaurants and movies. All of these decisions to improve content quality together eliminated 20% of all reviews and completely eliminated short review pages in favor of very comprehensive product pages.
We don’t know if Google will notice, but we do feel that we have addressed the issue of “thin” content the best that we can.
Site Credibility
In addition to eliminating “thin content” we also focused on the overall credibility of a site. Google suggested that site owners need to put themselves in the shoes of users and ask the question “Would I trust this site with a health issue or my credit card?”
For Viewpoints, this meant cleaning up the content as outlined above as a first step, but it was also time for a redesign that was cleaner, simpler and better conveyed the credibility, quality and overall helpfulness of the site. In addition to eliminating 40% of the ads on the site, we also stripped out 15+ features that were clouding the core value proposition of consumer reviews and product rankings. For example, we made the decision to stop giving scores to products that did not have enough reviews. And we made it clear when members had connected their account to Facebook to demonstrate an extra layer of authenticity of the reviewer. You can see the following screen shots for some examples of the old design and the new.
OLD SEARCH RESULTS

NEW SEARCH RESULTS

OLD PRODUCT PAGE

NEW PRODUCT PAGE

Product Intelligence
So we have addressed content quality, site architecture and site credibility. But were we adding enough value to distinguish ourselves in a crowded market? Good question! While we firmly believe that getting the basics right (quality, credibility, ease of use etc) is the key to a great consumer reviews user experience, it became clear to us that there was another important way we could distinguish the Viewpoints user experience. We saw an opportunity to occupy the white space between expert reviews that make clear buy recommendations and the mass of consumer reviews which gave great consumer feedback but did not always help give a clear and concise buy recommendation.
We call this “Product Intelligence – for the consumer by the consumer“. We have spent a significant amount of time and resources developing scoring and ranking algorithms to smartly rank products against each other so that shoppers know what product to buy.
Diversification
As much as these changes were done to improve the user experience and in turn improve our rankings with Google, we also explicitly wanted to optimize mobile and social as two new channels that can be a new source of growing traffic to help us build our audience. The changes we made in these areas were very significant. The specific changes will be detailed in a later post.
Conclusion
So, that is how Google’s Panda update changed our business. It drove us to improve the quality of content, improve the credibility and trust of our experience and invest in Product Intelligence as a distinct point of difference in the market.
We don’t know how Google is going to respond to these changes but the important thing to note is that every change we made improved the experience for the user. So as disappointed as we were with the outcome of Panda, we will admit that it forced us to think harder about our business, about adding more value to the end user, and perhaps most importantly, take our game to another level. Game on.

Google’s Plan To Compete With Apple’s Multi-Platform Siri? Google “Assistant”

The tech world woke up today to reports of an imminent Apple TV, as Apple works to solidify deals with content providers. The rumored television product could indeed be ground-breaking, not just for television, but for computing as a whole. We’re hearing exactly what Nick Bilton reported earlier this year, that Apple is going to integrate Siri into Apple TV as well as other iOS devices.
In fact a multi-platform Siri could be unveiled as early as next week, when Apple announces the iPad 3.
Hardcore right? Well our friends over in Mountain View, never ones to miss out on an opportunity to compete, have come up with their own answer to Siri, Google ‘Assistant’ (earlier reports had it pegged as ‘Majel,‘ I have no idea whether that name was scrapped but do know that ‘Assistant’ is not a part of GoogleX as Majel was).
Google has had the in-house voice technology for ages — it hired Mike Cohen, the guy who started Nuance. But ‘Assistant’ is set to go beyond Siri in many ways, most importantly in that the search company will retain complete control of all the layers involved.
The project, helmed by the Android team with the involvement of search engineer Amit Singhal, has three parts according to a source.
1) Get the world’s knowledge into a format a computer can understand.
2) Create a personalization layer — Experiments like Google +1 and Google+ are Google’s way of gathering data on precisely how people interact with content.
3) Build a mobile, voice-centered “Do engine” (‘Assistant’) that’s less about returning search results and more about accomplishing real-life goals.
Unlike Apple with Siri, Google is planning on extending this service to developers so they can build novel things. Imagine the possibilities for apps, websites, etc interested in hooking into ‘Assistant’?
From what I know, Google has now set its ambitions beyond social and is focused wholeheartedly on building this “Do engine,” or goal oriented search: 2011 was the year of social for Google. 2012 is the year of ‘Assistant.’
According to one source, Google higher-ups plan on unveiling the ‘Assistant’ product by the fourth quarter of 2012, though they themselves are uncertain. Because our details are sparse for now, the fact that we might be missing a huge piece of this puzzle is also a possibility.

Chrome Beta for Android Hacked, Works On More Devices

If you've got an Android-powered tablet or smartphone and haven't been able to install the new Google Chrome Beta, you're in luck!

XDA-Developer lenny_kano has put together an .apk that should let you run the browser on any device running on an ARM v7 or higher chip -- so long as you're also running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

If you are, and you'd like to try out Chrome Beta, head over to this thread on XDA-Developers, download the .apk, and side-load it onto your device. Enjoy!

Google Updates Trio of Apps: Wallet, Authenticator, Google+

Google is celebrating Leap Day with a few minor updates to some of its Android apps, delivering new versions of Wallet, Google+, and Authenticator to the Android Market today.

Google Wallet finds itself getting the most significant updates of the trio, but we're still mainly in bugfix territory here. A couple changes have been introduced to how the app handles address input, letting you using a longer address or a PO Box when setting up a prepaid card. Reward cards linked to the app should now see improvements with keeping their data synced-up. Most of us struggle to find one smartphone on which we can run Wallet, but for those of you with multiple NFC-capable phones, this release will better handle sharing your account on more than one handset.

Google Authenticator, letting your use your phone to securely log in to your Google account on public terminals, gets some unspecified bug fixes, but seeing as the whole point of this app is security, we'd treat this release with a little more seriousness than your standard bugfix update. To that end, Google+ also gets some minor, unspecified bug fixes, along with improvements to app stability.

All three Google apps are currently available in the Android Market.

Google Updates Chrome for Android, Brings Speed Improvements

The newly-released Chrome for Android is already a fast, capable browser, even if it is technically still a beta release. After launching earlier this month, the browser now finds itself on the receiving end of a new update, but Google hasn't published any changelog to accompany it. Just what's new in the latest version of Chrome?

Probably the most noticeable change to occur in this update has to do with browser speed and responsiveness. The web-browsing experience should altogether feel a bit smoother, and benchmarks confirm the improvement.

Chrome should also start demonstrating smarter behavior when parsing links. Instead of trying to do everything in-browser, the browser is now better about giving you the opportunity to open links through associated apps. It's supposedly not quite all the way there yet, but it's an improvement over the initial release.

Not all the news surrounding this update has been positive. A number of users are turning to Android Market reviews to voice their frustration with the updated Chrome now trying to tell them that they're not running a supported version of Android, despite being on Ice Cream Sandwich. The problem may be related to custom ROMs like CyanogenMod 9, so if you're running such software, you may wish to hold off on updating Chrome until Google gets this glitch fixed.

Google to Enter Tablet Market With 7-Incher To Challenge Amazon?

A recent report suggests the search giant may release a 7-inch tablet later on this year, a device that would compete (size and price-wise) in the same class as Amazon's Kindle Fire. Analysts at Display Search claim that Google's potential tablet will feature a 7-inch display, 1280 x 800 resolution and should enter production in April, with 1.5 million planned for initial production. It is also expected that the tablet will run on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and will be priced around $199.

Now, analysts have been proven wrong before but, given the fact that Mountain View already has a Nexus smartphone line-up, it would be normal to follow-up with "pure Android" tablets. Would you pick one up?

Google to Launch TV Service

Google is looking to get into the paid TV business.
The company filed an application last week to provide video service to residents of Kansas City, Mo., according to The Wall Street Journal. If approved, the service could launch as soon as a month from now, according to the article, which cites a “media executive currently involved in negotiations to license channels to the service.” Offerings in the video package would include live TV as well as on-demand and online access to TV channels, according to the report, which was based on an earlier article by The New York Post.
The source told the WSJ that Google plans to look beyond the Kansas City market and into other areas where Verizon’s Fiber Optic Services (FIOS). Controlling the pipes to TV subscribers would offer Google a new revenue stream.
Reps from Google could not be reached for comment.
The Kansas City application coincides with another request to put a satellite antenna farm near the company’s data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That addition could allow Google to receive movies and TV shows that could be bundled with a new Internet service in Kansas City that promises to be up to 100 times faster than the average Internet connection.
Google chose Kansas City for its ultra-fast service last March. Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., beat out about 1,000 other municipalities for that honor. That fiber-optic-based Internet service is expected to go live there this summer.
This isn’t the first time that Google’s ambitious plans for TV service have been exposed. The Wall Street Journal also reported in November that Google was in talks with Disney, Time Warner and Discovery Communications about providing content for its fiber-optic based video service in those cities.

Google Heads-Up Display Glasses Are Coming by the End of 2012 [REPORT]

Google plans to launch glasses with a heads-up display by the end of 2012, the New York Times reports citing sources familiar with the matter.
The glasses, who were previously rumored to have a front-facing camera with flash and a voice input interface, will be Android based, sources say.
They will include a display, mere inches from the wearer’s eye, streaming real-time info about your surroundings, similar to the various augmented reality applications we’ve seen on smartphones.
The data will be fetched through a 3G/4G data connection, and the glasses will retrieve information about their surroundings through GPS and several sensors.
The glasses will cost “around the price of current smartphones,” sources say. While definitely not very precise – current smartphones cost anywhere from $150 to $600 – this price range shows that Google intends the glasses as a product for the mass market.
Will these glasses be something you need as opposed to want? We doubt it – we haven’t seen a must-have augmented reality application yet, although we have seen some very cool ones in the past.
AR heads-up display glasses, however, are the stuff sci-fi dreams are made of, and it’s a product we’d definitely like to see in the real world – even if they make us look like total geeks.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Jason McDermott.
[via New York Times]

Microsoft’s Clash With Google Over Privacy Settings May Be Part of a Larger Problem

Google’s policies are once again under scrutiny as Microsoft and others have caught the company circumventing users’ privacy settings to track them with cookies. But Google representatives have pointed out that they are not alone.
It all started with Apple’s Safari Web browser. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and other advertising companies have been using a special code to trick Safari into bypassing users’ privacy settings to monitor their activities online. Stanford grad student Jonathan Mayer first spotted the code. A follow-up investigation by WSJ advisor Ashkan Soltani revealed that the Google tracking code had been installed on a test computer through ads on 22 of the top 100 websites and that the code was also installed on an iPhone browser through ads on 23 sites. (Once the Journal contacted the company about the matter, Google disabled the code.)
When Microsoft heard that Google had circumvented user privacy settings on Safari, they wondered if Google was also bypassing users’ privacy preferences on Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer corporate vice president Dean Hachamovitch wrote in a blog post, “We’ve discovered the answer is yes: Google is employing similar methods to get around the default privacy protections in IE and track IE users with cookies.”
The real issue, according to a blog post by TAP, is that the default setting Microsoft created to block third-party cookies has a bug. As a result, many companies – including Facebook – have been able to get around the requirement for third parties to summarize their privacy policies and offer users a way to opt out of sharing their personal data. The protocol for writing compact policies (CP), as defined by the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), has not been widely implemented since it was first created in 2002 by the World Wide Web Consortium.
A Facebook representative told ZDNet, “While we would like to be able to express our cookie policy in a format that a browser could read, P3P was developed 5 years ago and is not effective in describing the practices of a modern social networking service and platform. Instead, we have posted a public notice describing our practices that is consistent with Section 3.2 of P3P. We have reached out directly to Microsoft in hopes of developing additional solutions and we would welcome the opportunity to work with W3 to update P3P to account for the advances in social networking and the web since 2007.”
Google’s response to Microsoft’s complaints said more or less the same thing. “Today the Microsoft policy is widely non-operational,” Google wrote. “A 2010 research report indicated that over 11,000 websites were not issuing valid P3P policies as requested by Microsoft.”
The complexity of the issue begs the question, is there an easier way to handle this? According to Jonathan Mayer, there is. He and fellow Stanford researcher Arvid Narayanan are currently working on Do Not Track, a policy proposal that would allow users to opt out of being tracked across all third-party sites, much like the Do Not Call Registry.
If it goes through, would you sign up?
Image by Gunnar Pippel via Shutterstock

What Every Successful Small-Business Website Needs

Having a website is a must, if you want to establish and build a successful business—large or small.
Creating the perfect website isn’t an exact science, but a few guiding principles will help you attract and retain an audience of loyal customers and clients.
To find out how to make your website stand out, we spoke with Ron Wright and Tony Escobar. Wright has helped businesses build a solid Web presence since 1998 at Accentix. Escobar is a 25-year-old entrepreneur who helped launch AMTG Solutions to provide web services to small businesses.
Escobar says you need to make your business stand out and get your visitors to act. Refining your website in a few key ways helps you present the best product to your online clientele.
Quality content
Content is the most important foundational element of any small-business website.
If you're selling a product or service, offer enough information about that product or service that prospective customers understand what it is. They should also be enticed to buy it, based on the function you describe or the need your product satisfies.
“The whole point of the website is to get visitors to contact the company, make a purchase or visit your location,” Escobar says, and that hinges on its content. “A good site provides users the exact content the company wants them to act on.”
All the text on your site must be written well. If writing isn't your thing, Wright suggests leaving it to a professional by contracting out the work to a freelance copy writer. It might seem like a big up-front cost, but it's actually an important investment to make.
Clear vision of the audience
Without a keen awareness of who your ideal customers are, it's hard to properly tailor your content and website to appeal to them.
Small-business owners often don't narrow their focus enough.
“I always try to counsel my clients to consider who the visitor is and then give that visitor a clear path on what to do next,” Wright says. That’s hard to do if you’re targeting too broad an audience.
Keywords
It's important to understand what search terms and keywords drive visitors to your site. That way, you know which words to use when you describe your products or services to maximize page traffic.
Google, for example, uses a keyword-based algorithm to rank search results. There are tools to help you understand whether you're taking proper steps to capitalize on that.
You can advertise your business on Google using Google AdWords. It has a feature that helps you find out if your keyword choices are on-point or off the mark. Additionally, analytics software like Google Analytics allows you to see which search terms and other Web pages steer people to your site.
By taking stock of that data and regularly monitoring it, you can build comprehensive strategies that will help search results tip in your favor.
A clean, readable look
Aesthetics are subjective, Wright and Escobar agree, but designing a website according to your own tastes is a big mistake. Instead, keep these few guidelines in mind.
First, be professional and have a look to match. You want people to take your company seriously? Then invest in a site that looks legitimate. Unless you're a savvy site-builder, hire a consultant. Your website is the image you're sharing with a whole world of potential customers. Make it good.
"Any hint of being outdated or having an unpleasant design can be a major turnoff for prospects," Escobar says. "After all, small businesses are not alone, they have to compete with the guy next door. The company that provides the best first impression usually gets the sale."
Second, don't overwhelm. Lots of graphical additions and colorful sections on your site looks messy and confusing. Keep a streamlined approach and focus on simplicity.
Simple navigation
A comprehensive (but to-the-point) sidebar that displays each of your pages' offerings is the easiest way to shepherd visitors to the various parts of your site without frustrating them.
Keep it simple and straightforward, Escobar says. For example, say "About" instead of "About Our Office" to avoid clutter and confusion.
About your company
The autobiographical section of your website, the About tab, is a crucial trust-builder and attention-grabber.
This page should never be generic, Wright says. It's a history of your company that details who you are and what you do, written in a tone that matches your company's culture. Include personal bios of your top management staff. That gives a sense of transparency and openness to what you do and fosters connection with prospective customers.
"People are not as concerned with what you do as who you are," Wright says, noting that the About sections of a website are among the most-read.
Contact us any way you want
Contact information tells your customers you are reachable and at their service, whenever they might need you.
Don't be shy about listing ways to get in touch across platforms and devices, Wright says. It gives the best impression of accessibility and engagement when you offer e-mail, phone, mail and social media options.
Escobar suggests going a step further and including contact information at the footer of each individual page, where visitors are accustomed to finding general information.
Social media integration
Building in social media, like your Twitter and Facebook feeds, to your website helps boost your engagement on those platforms and allows you to more easily keep in touch with your customer base, Escobar says.
He suggests adding social icons in the main navigation bar and in the page footers.

Google Fixes Wallet Security Hole

Google officially announced that it has “restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the Wallet.” Additionally, the company “issued a fix that prevents an existing prepaid card from being re-provisioned to another user.”
These improvements in the update above come hot on the heels of exploits discovered recently related to Google Wallet. The easiest among them was to clear the app’s data under settings; once done, the application was asking for a new PIN but Google prepaid card information was remembered.
Now that you’re safe once again, let us know whether you have any doubts in using the offering (knowing that the brute-force method is still present, though requiring root access).

Google+ Launches “What’s Hot” Volume Slider[+VIDEO]

Scott Zuccarino from Google has just posted about a new feature on Google+ that lets you “control how many ‘What’s hot’ posts appear in your main stream on Google+”,The What’s hot post is a post that shows you what’s being shared like crazy around the world — which is why some people may not want to see it too often in their news feed.  It’s a smart way of blending news at large with personal news, which seems to be Google’s positioning of Google+ in general.

The feature will look like a volume slider and will be rolling out in the next few days.  It will be very similar to the existing volume sliders that let you control the blend of feed information from your various circles.  It was just a hop step to use this feature to also blend in the amount of “What’s Hot” information streaming in, too, Check out Scott’s post over on Google+.
Take a look at more information about “What’s Hot” in the video below :

4 Ways to Boost Your SEO With Google+

If you use Google regularly — and who doesn’t? — you’ve probably noticed that the company has been using various ways to coerce you to join Google+, its incipient social network. The plugs have been pretty overt and include a call-to-action on Google’s homepage and automatic G+ registration for new Gmail accounts.For businesses, the sell has been more subtle. Since Google integrated Google+ results into search under its Google Plus Your World initiative in January, the word has gotten out that lack of a Google+ presence could affect organic search results. The upshot: If you don’t have a Google+ page, your placement for various search terms will suffer.
Companies that specialize in search engine optimization are used to rapid change, but this is something different. These days, if you want to get better search results, you have to know a thing or two about social media marketing. So, Google has, in effect, given you two headaches for the price of one. Another way to look at it is that Google has given you a free opportunity to boost your SEO and get a leg up on competitors who don’t know what Google+ is. “If you’re a first mover on this, you’re going to capture more visibility,” says Rob Garner, vice president of strategy for digital marketing agency iCrossing. “This is kind of a gift in a lot of ways.”

---

1. Get a Google+ Page

 

Unwrapping Google’s gift is pretty easy: Just set up a Google+ account for your business. The company held off on letting brands onto Google+ for a few months, but at this point, the setup is fairly turnkey and even allows for multiple administrators. (You can actually start the process now, before you finish this article by clicking here.)

---

2. Get In As Many People’s Circles as Possible

This part is a bit trickier. The quickest way to get the ball rolling is to put as many people inside your circles as possible. It also helps if those people are in the same industry, so you should include your rivals (you could even make a “competitors” circle), industry gadflies and, if you have a storefront or rely on local customers, people in your community.
There’s nothing you can do to make other people put your business in their circles, but making people in your segment aware that your page exists is a good idea. Erin Everhart, director of web and social media for 352 Media Group, a digital marketing agency, says you should put your Google+ page on your email signature, on your business card and above the fold on your homepage.
Don’t get desperate, though. Buying Google+ fans is a bad idea, Everhart says, because it might get picked up by Google’s search algorithm and result in a lower search profile.

---

3. Stuff Your Page with As Many Keywords as Possible, But Do It Organically

 

As with step 2, there’s a tempting way to cheat — just fill your page with all your relevant keywords — but you should avoid it since you might run afoul of Google. So, instead of randomly or egregiously larding your page with such terms, do it organically. Write posts that include the keywords, but don’t write them specifically for SEO reasons.
Garner says it’s also a good idea to time your posts in the best possible way. In other words, think like a publisher. For instance, during the Super Bowl, if you wrote an interesting post about the halftime show just after it started, you might get traffic and attention from people searching the term. (Garner calls this effect “velocity.” )
Another trick is to use Sparks, a Google+ feature that automatically loads videos and articles found on the Internet to your stream. If you set keyword searches in Sparks, which is an option under the search window, you will be able to see who else is using the term and what they’re saying about it, which could help you craft more relevant posts.

---

4. Use the +1 Button 

We haven’t heard much about the +1 button since Google introduced it last year as a competitor to the Facebook Like. Yet you may have noticed that you’re seeing more and more profiles of your Google+ friends coming up in searches. That’s because if you +1 a lot of things, particularly things that are relevant to your industry, your image or logo will increase its visibility as well.
Though common sense would dictate that there’s little downside to clicking on a free button, research has shown that there’s a lot of upside, too. A Dutch company called SEO Effect found that getting 72 people to +1 its page resulted in a 20% lift in click-through rates.
Will all this improve your SEO? While it seems likely, the experts just don’t know yet. After all, the integration between Google search and Google+ is still very new. Nevertheless, there’s a strong case to be made for making the most out of Google+. With 100 million users and the full support of Google, only a federal investigation (always a possibility) can stall Google+’s growth. As a business owner, you may not like the fact that Google seems to be offering you little choice but to join Google+, but just like you couldn’t create a credible SEO strategy without considering Google, you now have to also take Google+ into account.

Google+’s David Glazer To App Developers: ‘I Want Someone To Build a Deck of Cards’

Google+ is still virgin territory for  games and other social applications. At the Inside Social Apps 2012 conference this week, Inside Network’s Justin Smith sat down with Google+ director of engineering David Glazer to talk about what developers can expect from the platform.

Glazer said the company is testing Google+ in three phases: “One, create a great user experience,” he said. “Two, use relationships and identity to activate other Google products. Three, then do that for anyone else who wants to take advantage of that.”
Right now Google is testing the waters with publishers who use the +1 button to recommend and share content.  Said Glazer, “That’s one of the areas that has been getting traction for us.”
There are also a handful of celebrities and news organizations that are previewing Google Hangouts. ”I think the Hangouts API is going to allow people to build a whole new category of applications,” Glazer said.
When asked about these other categories, Glazer mentioned location-based apps and something more basic: “I want someone to build a deck of cards,” he said. “If you and I are sitting here and we had a deck of cards and 10 minutes to kill, that’s it, you don’t need anything else. [As a developer] assume you have a couple people hanging out around an object. People are pretty good at entertaining themselves.”
For the moment, game APIs are still are invite-only. “We didn’t want to get developers on board and then change the rules on them when we have a new policy or a new mechanism,” said Glazer.
Google is also taking the user’s preference into consideration.  ”Before we launched the first few games, we saw equal amounts of anticipation from the community – ‘gee, I hope they allow games’ and ‘I hope they never allow games,’” said Glazer. “We listened to both sides because they’re both legitimate feedback.” Basically, the activity streams will be separated in a way that game activity is hidden for those who aren’t interested and visible for those who are.
This sounds like the opposite of Facebook’s plans for games. In a panel discussion on Wednesday, Carl Sjogreen, Facebook’s director of product management said, “We want to move to a model where, fundamentally, the integration point in the app is to take the action and add it to Facebook in a structured way.”
At the same time, access to a player’s identity and social connections will play a large part in distributing Google+ throughout the network. Said Glazer, “The obvious insight is that people care about other people, so that should be baked into what you do while you’re online.”
A similar philosophy applies to developing apps for mobile devices like the Android and the Kindle Fire. “Mobile is obviously growing faster than the rest of the web,” said Glazer. “Therefore I think Google+ will see a lot of traction on mobile devices.”
But the devices are just means to an end. “We think about any new feature in the product and think about the mobile web, desktop, native application,” Glazer said. “We’re aiming for capabilities across all of them.”
Platform monetization was built for both comfort and speed. “The only time people notice it is when something goes wrong,” said Glazer. The games will be available both in Google+ and on the Chrome Web Store, and the Google wallet makes paying for the products more like using PayPal.
Brand pages aren’t a priority right now, but in terms of advertising, “Google is perfectly happy to help people use ad money to reach their audience,” said Glazer. “We’re pretty good at that.”

How Are the Airlines Using Google+? [Infographic]

At a recent Socialize event in Toronto, a few panelists pointed out that people may be looking at Google+ the wrong way.  While most are trying to categorize it as a social network, the speaker felt that Google+ couldn’t miss because it was just a way of strengthening social SEO, and as the years pass, it will become more and more vital for companies to use it to improve their SEO anyway, and eventually this will draw people to Google+ through Google search.
I feel that this idea is spreading through businesses pretty fast, and seeing as how starting a basic Google+ business profile has almost zero risk and a very low cost, we’re seeing companies get into the space quick.  The latest?  Airlines.
In this infographic fromt eh folks over at simpliflying, we see that there are now 70 airlines with brand pages on G+ and most pages are making brand related posts on the network.  A good 34% have blank news feeds.  This means that while the airlines are engaging the network, they still don’t know how to use it.  The most popular airlines using the service are volaris, jetBlue (love these guys) and CEBU Pacific (the makers of that rockin’ viral video).
Check the infographic below for more information.

Coca-Cola to Host Google+ Hangout Next Week

In another vote of confidence from Corporate America for Google+, Coca-Cola is planning to launch a Hangout on the network next week.
Coke’s Hangout, scheduled for 2 p.m. EST, will feature company archivists Ted Ryan and Jamal Booker taking questions from the Coca-Cola Archives. The Archives have been featured on CNBC and Bloomberg TV as well as in Coke’s Virtual Online Museum, but it is not open to the public and the company has never hosted an event there.
Ryan says the talk, scheduled to run 30 to 45 minutes, will include a look at some Olympics memorabilia and a document showing Coca-Cola’s original patent award in 1887. It will not, however, be scripted. Content will be mostly determined by participants’ questions.
Coke announced the Hangout on its Google+ Page as well as via its Coca-Cola Archives Facebook Page and Twitter feed. The first eight people to log onto the talk will each be one of the nine people others see in the Hangout. (As with all Google+ Hangouts, only nine feeds at a time can be seen; the rest of the people who participate watch the action.)
Google opened Google+ up to brand pages in early November. Since then, more than 3.5 million users have put brands in their circles, according to researcher Simply Measured. Coke, meanwhile, has the sixth largest brand page, in terms of “circlers,” according to the researcher, with about 326,000. Though that’s a far cry from Coke’s Facebook fan base, which numbers close to 39 million.
Michael Donnelly, director of worldwide interactive marketing for Coca-Cola, says he’s optimistic about Google+’s growth. “From a social perspective, we want to be where our consumers are,” he says. Donnelly says that other ideas for Hangouts are analyst talks with investor relations and panels with teens.
Though Cadbury U.K. claims to have been the first brand to host a Google+ Hangout, on Feb. 9, others, including President Obama and the Muppets have also hosted (separate) Hangouts recently.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Steve Snodgrass

Google Wants a 2.25% Cut of Every iPhone Sale

Looking to earn back some of the $12.5 billion it’s spending to buy Motorola Mobility, Google sent a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers looking for a maximum 2.25% cut of sales for phones that use Motorola’s technology, including Apple‘s iPhone.
The letter, which went out to the IEEE on Wednesday, outlines Google’s position on Motorola patents if and when the proposed takeover is executed. (Reports say it could happen next week.) Most striking was Google’s insistence on continuing to enforce a 2.25% fee on iPhones based on the model’s use of Motorola patents.
Google’s stance comes about two weeks after Motorola Mobility filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing on its technology patents. Motorola’s complaint, filed in a Florida federal court, concerns patents for the iPhone 4S and Apple’s iCloud service.
Patents has proved to be a key issue for Google and likely a primary impetus for the Motorola Mobility acquisition. That bid came after a very public spat this summer between Google, Apple and Microsoft over patents.
Google fired the first salvo in early August by using its Official Blog to kvetch about an “organized campaign by Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.” The post, by David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, went on to accuse Apple and Microsoft for being “in bed together” in an attempt to hurt Google’s business via patent claims.
Though Apple stayed above the fray, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith took to Twitter to point out that Microsoft had invited Google to jointly bid on patents from Novell. Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s lead of corporate communications, also posted a letter from Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, refusing Microsoft’s invitation regarding the Novell patents.

The iPhone 4S looks and feels exactly like the iPhone 4.

The most important new feature of the iPhone 4S is Siri, a voice-controlled "Intelligent Assistant" that can complete tasks based on natural language. Ask it what the weather is like today and it will respond with details.

Google Celebrates Charles Dickens’s 200th Birthday

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 200th birthday of writer Charles Dickens.
Born on Feb. 7 1812 in Landport, England, Charles John Huffam Dickens grew up in tough, working-class conditions. At age 12, after his father was thrown into a debtors’ prison, he was forced to work at a blacking factory.
This experience later influenced many of his famous novels, including Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations.
Starting his career as a journalist, Dickens eventually started writing literary prose, which was published in monthly installments before being released as books.
His realistic portray of England’s lower-class life made him one of the greatest Victorian novelists and one of the most recognizable names in literature.
Dickens was also a philanthropist; together with Angela Burdett Coutts he founded the Urania Cottage, a home for “fallen” women, helping them learn to read and write.
Dickens died from the consequences of a stroke in his home on June 8, 1870. His last words were, reportedly, “Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.”

Quand Microsoft s'en prend à Google via une publicité

Microsoft n’a jamais eu la langue dans sa poche. Et profite de la tempête médiatique et de la polémique provoquée par les modifications que Google a effectuées sur sa politique de confidentialité.

Redmond a en effet cru bon d’en profiter pour faire la promotion de ses propres services. L’éditeur américain s’est donc payé des publicités en pleine page dans plusieurs prestigieux journaux US, comme le New York Times ou le Wall Street Journal. Objectif : expliquer qu’il existe des alternatives – celles de Microsoft – si l’on n’est plus satisfait des services de Google. Et la charge est sévère :

« Google est en train de faire des changements impopulaires sur leurs produits les plus populaires. Ces changements, enveloppés dans des termes comme "transparence", "simplicité" et "consistance" sont en réalité destinés à une seule chose : faciliter à Google la connexion entre tout ce que vous cherchez, envoyez, dites ou regardez pendant que vous utilisez l’un de leurs services. »

Microsoft écrit ensuite en gras son idée force : « Chaque donnée que Google collecte et connecte à votre personne augmente votre valeur auprès des annonceurs. » A côté, un petit dessin montre trois silhouettes d’individus avec le signe du dollar dans le crâne. Le message est clair ! 

Hotmail contre Gmail

Redmond se défend toutefois de critiquer trop rudement le business de la publicité ciblée. Et pour cause : Microsoft y a aussi recours ! « Il n’y a rien de mal à vouloir améliorer la qualité d’un produit publicitaire. Mais cet effort doit être compensé pour coller aux besoins et intérêts des utilisateurs »,  explique ainsi son annonce, avant de proposer des services en ligne de Microsoft pour remplacer ceux de Google.

« Rejoignez les centaines de millions de gens qui apprécient ne pas avoir à s’inquiéter de voir le contenu de leurs mails privés utilisés pour leur servir des publicités », indique la pub pour vanter le webmail de Microsoft, par exemple. Idem pour Office 365, opposé à Google Documents, et Internet Explorer, évidemment opposé à Chrome.

« Nous prenons une approche différente : nous travaillons à ce que vous restiez en sécurité en ligne, à vous donner le contrôle sur vos données, et à vous offrir le choix de sauvegarder vos informations sur votre disque dur, sur le cloud, ou les deux », écrit par ailleurs Frank Shaw, vice-président de Microsoft, dans un billet écrit pour l’occasion.

Une méthode si agressive est-elle la bonne ? Microsoft a en tout cas fait les fonds de tiroir pour enfoncer le clou : la firme a aussi rendu publique une vidéo qui avait déjà leaké l’année dernière. Imaginée pour promouvoir le lancement d'Office 365, Gmail Man critique la curiosité de Google, dont les robots « lisent » les mails des utilisateurs de son webmail.