“Google has always collected information. That hasn’t changed,” Opsahl said. “But information that was once siloed will now be co-mingled.”
Google’s new policy replaces more than 60 existing product-specific privacy documents, for services including Gmail , YouTube and Google Docs. Google says the unified terms will provide better search results and serve up ads that are more likely to be of interest. By combining your history across products, it will have more data to work with.
Ghostery sees the invisible web - tags, web bugs, pixels and beacons. Ghostery tracks the trackers and gives you a roll-call of the ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers, and other companies interested in your activity.
I’ve often said that the best use of Twitter is as a broadcast medium. You should be creating a ton of interesting content and sharing it with your followers. To that end I’ve done a bunch of research on how to optimize the clickthrough rate (CTR) of the links you’re tweeting.
From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog today:
We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.
So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.
Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.
From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog today:
We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.
So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.
Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.
Watch as John Scalzi's 13-year-old daughter sees an LP record for the first time.
This is... This is... What? What?! This is huge! This is like ten CDs in one. How many songs does it have on it?
I believe the record in question is from Jonathan Coulton. (via ★mathowie)
Apple revolutionizes stuff. It's practically conventional wisdom in the tech world that, even if they're not first in the game or necessarily even the best, the Cupertino-based giant has a tendency to make a noticeable impact. They didn't invent the MP3 player, smartphone or tablet, but they sure have redefined all of those products. Even if this tendency is strong, it's not necessarily always how things play out. For an example, look no further than the Apple TV.
Today, the company set their sights on textbooks, an industry Steve Jobs himself described as being "ripe for digital destruction." True as that may be, is what Apple planning to do in the space really all that disruptive?
Google+ may be the newcomer in social media, but it can no longer be dismissed. And don’t take my word for it. Chris Brogan claims Google+ “changes EVERYTHING.” In a recent article, he cites two factors as being game-changers:
“Search is probably the biggest reason it changes everything. Second, a very wealthy company (Google) is pushing Plus to be a very powerful effort to change the way we share information on the web. They’ve spent money on commercials during many mainstream events, and they’ve changed up many of their disparate applications and processes to point harder toward Google+. They’ve really quickly moved towards building a social backplane that is a lot more functional than any other social network.”
Sure, having a website for your business serves a practical need: to draw net-surfing users to your product or service. However, it’s also much more than slapping on a run of the mill two-column template and calling it a day. Nothing kills an online buzz like a poorly designed or drastically outdated website. Dry and boring default templates, broken assets, confusing pages and invasive widgets do nothing but harm a page’s style, which in turn reflects poorly on the company.
2012 is heralding a new wave of innovative web technologies and design, and a page that stays in step with these trends is bound to pique interest and lower your bounce rate. Even more, a well done and on-trend website remains effective well after the year is over, reeling users in with thoughtful design and building a design-conscious and taste-making reputation. Keep these tips in mind when you clean up your company’s website, and stay ahead of the curve for the new year.
Earlier this week Google announced that search is going “social,” so that what you find when you do a Google search will be influenced by what your friends on Google+ are saying. In a blog post, Google said that it’s “transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” In addition to putting your friends posts and pictures front and center in search (subject to the privacy options they chose when the posted it), Google now presents search results based on what your friends are saying. So, if your Google+ friends like a certain restaurant, its more likely to come up higher on a search. And if you search for a person and that person has a Google profile, that’s what’s likely to pop up.
If you're not on Google+ and need help getting started, let us at Blue Zoo Creative know.
Google's Search, plus your world (also known as SPYW) technology, a social approach to search that injects content from users' Google+ posts and Picasa photos into users' search results, has ruffled feathers in the Internet sector like no product since Google Buzz. While Buzz, Google’s failed social search effort, rubbed people the wrong way for exposing their Gmail contacts to other people, this personal search initiative is controversial for different reasons. On the privacy front, the service is not opt-in, which is a problem for privacy groups even though search results are tailored to each individual. However, not only are results HTTPS encrypted but Google has also made sure to mark personal results with specific designations used on Google+, including brandings for Public, Limited or Only you. More seriously, SPYW fails to aggregate content from Facebook and Twitter in the search results. This is proving to be a huge problem for Google critics who have accused the company of engaging in antitrust practices. Of course, this approach isn't without some rationale and its own back story, which eWEEK gladly supplies here in this slide show.
There has been a huge maelstrom about Google integrating Google+ into its search links. And it all misses the point.
Twitter and others are complaining that Google is throwing its massive 65 percent plus market share weight around and quashing smaller competitors. The reason Twitter and others are so threatened is that the pattern of shared links within Google+ provides a decent enough indicator as to what links are interesting. What's important is what's trending, and algorithms can get a sense of that with just a subset of everything that's getting shared on the Web.
The most interesting aspect of Google's move, however, is its tacit acknowledgement that its stalwart search links are largely irrelevant and might as well be replaced with social results. Google search results are essentially gamed results produced by search optimizers.
If you're not on Google+ and need help getting started, let us at Blue Zoo Creative know.
The new Google “Search Plus Your World” feature — which I’m now simply calling “Search Plus” — has just gone live for me. Huge debate erupted yesterday over whether it somehow favors Google+. I can see now that it clearly does, even more than I thought. Here’s a closer look at the changes, including how they turn Google+ into an essential social network for any search marketer.
Even Signed Out, Google+ Suggestions Offered
This is a search for music:
I got these results even though I was not signed into Google. In fact, I was in “incognito” mode in Google Chrome, which means as far as Google is concerned, I’m a brand new searcher it has never seen before: no Google+ account, no personalization of any type that should be happening beyond language and geography.
One of the more interesting paragraphs is about halfway down: "If You’re Not On Google+, You’re Not A Suggestion"
Google is adding the ability to search for personal results, including images in Picasa and Google+ posts. The green arrow points to the Personal Search icon for blended Web and personal results. The red arrow shows where the number of personal results is indicated. And the yellow arrow shows the personal image results.
(Credit: Google)Google is making search even more personal--mostly by making it even easier to scan for information and photos in Google+ and Picasa.
If I want to find out more information, for example, about Miranda July's quirky new film "The Future," I can go to Google.com and see the usual Web results. But with Google's new "Search plus Your World" feature, I can also see "personal results" that will show me what people I know have said about it. If anyone in my Google+ circles has posted on the topic, their contributions will appear in the results. Any related images friends have posted in Picasa would show up as well...
If you're not on Google+ and need help getting started, let us at Blue Zoo Creative know.
I need to delete my Rusty Shakleford account
There has been a lot of noise in tech circles about the upset Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos pulled off over the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday night. Tebow's 80-yard pass on the first play of overtime ended up generating 9,420 tweets per second -- the most ever for a sporting event and the third most of all-time.
People tend to get excited every time one of these records fall - already in 2012, the second and third most tweeted about events of all time have been recorded (the start of the New Year in Japan weighed in at 16,127 tweets per second and crashed Twitter's servers). But as I watch stories about each record falling, I can hear the words of my very first editor at the very first newspaper I worked at.
"So what?"
Now we know Google’s master-plan for integrating Google+ ever more deeply into the Google ecosystem: Pour the whole thing into Google search. Starting today, Google+ members, and to a lesser extent others who are signed into Google, will be able to search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph. That’s right; Google+ circles, photos, posts and more will be integrated into search in ways other social platforms can only dream about.
Google calls the search update “ “Search plus Your World.” Jack Menzel, product management director of search, explained that now Google+ members will be able to “search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.”
Google calls this access to “your web.” So instead of all the public information that is already available to everyone searching via Google, so you can see information that you posted into Google’s new social network and on some of Google’s other services like Picasa Web...
I wonder how this will skew the results to those who are tech savvy. The people who are primarily on Google+ right now are early adopters and tech enthusiasts. Will my Mom get search results that are too advanced for her if she's in on of my Google+ circles?
Bob (not his real name) owns a busy, independent retail sports equipment business. His customers range in age from under 20s to those over 70. His loyal customers have brought him a good deal of repeat business and referrals during the 25 years he has owned his store. The customers like the staff and get along well with them.
What Bob does not know is that some of his customers actually like his staff better than they like him. Sure, he knows his stuff, but the staff are eager to interact with customers. They spend time talking to the customers and getting to know them. Bob is too busy to spend more than a minimum amount of time with each customer. He thinks his staff are wasting time if they spend too long chatting with customers, when they could be stocking shelves, tidying up or cleaning. To Bob, a transaction with a customer means he has a relationship with them. Bob does not understand the value of building relationships (beyond transactions) with his customers and getting to know them.
That can be bad news for any entrepreneur, but when the staff are active social media users and the business owner is not, it can spell disaster...
Twitter brand pages launched last month need to work hard to engage the user to be successful, according to an eye track study released Wednesday.
SimpleUsability studied four of the 21 brand pages that went live last month. While Twitter had previously allowed promoted tweets and corporate pages, but the brand pages launched in December more closely resemble brand pages on Google+ and Facebook with space for company logos and taglines, as well as space to embed videos and other media.
While some initially heralded Twitter brand pages as a "game changer," that scenario may not play out. One of the major problems facing brand pages, as noted in the SimpleUsability study, is that once someone starts following a Twitter account or brand page, there is usually no reason for them to return to the page as all of the new and relevant information will show up as tweets in the followers own timeline.
By Cindy King
Published January 2, 2012
How will social media impact businesses in 2012?
We sought expert opinions from a wide range of pros you’re likely familiar with.
We are grateful for the dozens of social media professionals who have written over 600 articles for us since we started Social Media Examiner in October 2009.
To give you a glimpse of what we can expect in the next 12 months, we decided to tap their knowledge and expertise. Here are their predictions of where social media is headed in the next 12 months.
I still think Google+ will be a tech focused niche this year though.
