Posts tagged they
Google Won’t Pause New Privacy Policy – Should They Have To?
Feb 3rd
Google refuses to bend to EU regulators, who have asked the company to hold off on rolling out their new privacy policy. In the U.S., Google responded to a letter and attended a closed-door privacy briefing with members of Congress.
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Infographics: Why They Fail For Link Building
Jan 24th
We’ve all seen them: too much of them. They filter through our Twitter stream, pop up in our News Feed, and infiltrate our search results. My dear friends, we are in infographic overload, and if we don’t do something now, it may be too late for us all. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against [...]
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They Did It: Google Personalizes Search & It Is Not Evil
Jan 10th
Google has “shipped the Google part” of Google+, and everything went better than expected. Today, Google launches Personal Results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, new features of its core search product that mark the real beginning of Google’s social search era. Google search now has two modes: global and personalized. Personal search results show content from your Google+ network, and global search results appear as though you’re logged out of Google+.
If you’re like me, you’ve dreaded this day. Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going to mess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But the new Google unveiled today leaves the user in control. “Search, plus Your World,” Google has called it. It’s two kinds of search, and they’re separate. If you don’t want Google+-flavored results, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized search altogether.
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Personal Results
When you’re in personal mode, you can now see your own stuff and stuff shared with you on Google+, even if it’s not a public post. This includes photos, Google+ posts and shared links. Personal mode still shows global Web results, but it mixes those in with the social results Google thinks are most relevant. Personalized results are marked with a blue person icon.
At the top, where you’re used to seeing the number of search results, you’ll now see how many personal results and overall results turned up from your query. If you click the number of personal results, it will show you personal results only, taking out the global results. Flipping between personalized and global results takes one click. Both modes are available in Web search and image search.
Even when you search in personal mode, Google wants to show you the most relevant result at the top, even if its not from Google+. Prior to today’s update, this wasn’t happening reliably. The source of my concerns about Google+ was the prominence of Google+ results in search when outside Web results were more relevant. In the example slide Google showed to me, a search for “49ers” produced 49ers.com as the top result in personal mode, followed by Google+ posts.
The San Francisco 49ers do not have a Google+ page. I asked Google Fellow Ben Gomes whether that would be the top result if they did. He said the global result would be more relevant, and if the administrator of the Google+ page linked it with the website, that would be even more accurate. “It’s an algorithm,” Gomes reminded me. “It’s not perfect, but we’re tuning it to provide the most relevant results for our users.”
If you don’t buy it, or if a particular search doesn’t personalize the way you’d like, just click the little Earth icon, and you get normal, global search results.
Of course, this mode will still privilege content posted to Google+ ahead of other social networks. Your friends’ Google+ photos will take precedence here over their Instagram photos. But now that we can turn off personalization completely, it doesn’t feel like Google is foisting Google+ content on us as much anymore.
Profiles In Search
Searching the Web for people is hard, especially for common names. Today’s update pulls Google+ profiles into personal search along with content from around the Web associated with that person. This way, Google can use your social signals to figure out which Ben Smith is the one you know.
My top concern for this feature was that Google+ pages would always appear ahead of personal websites. If that happened, users would no longer be able to control what came up when others Googled them. Here’s how Google talked me down: First of all, just switch to global mode and boom. No more social stuff.
But furthermore, these Google+ profile results aren’t totally walled off to Google+ content. The link for the person is to Google+, but the snippet displays the most important content from that person below, whether it’s on Google+ or not. This is what the links and authorship section of the Google+ profile are for. If you want your Twitter feed or your blog to be highlighted in Google searches for you, just add them to your Google+ profile, and they’ll show up prominently.
People And Pages
The third feature of today’s update is the most Google+-focused and least exciting, and you’ll definitely notice it. On the right sidebar of some searches, there will be a “People and Pages on Google+” box. The example Google shows is a search for “music,” which displays the Google+ pages for Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg in the right sidebar.
Presumably, some of the placements in this sidebar will be natural suggestions, like the ‘Suggestions’ box on Google+ itself. But it’s also ripe for paid promotions. This feels more like an ad spot than a user feature, but that’s Google’s business, after all. As long as Britney Spears can’t pay to appear in my main search results, I’ll tolerate sidebar ads as I always do on free Web services.
Security, Transparency and Control
“This is your data,” Ben Gomes says. The new features bring an unprecedented amount of personal information in to Google search (when you’re in personal mode), so today’s update comes with new controls to set users’ minds at ease. Signed-in users now get SSL search by default, as was announced in October. You also can block or un-circle unwanted Google+ users right from search.
But most importantly, for those who don’t want any part of this social search business, users can turn it off temporarily and even opt out entirely. On every search, this toggle lets you switch between personalized and global results. There’s no more inconvenient need to log out to see more objective search results.
And just as it has in the past with other conspicuous search features like Instant Search, Google allows users to deactivate social search entirely from search settings.
So, Is Google+ Still Going To Mess Up The Internet?
After my rant last week, I bet you’re expecting me to quickly disable social search and breathe a sigh of relief. But I’m not. The toggle feature is something I did not expect. I thought Google was going to force us to use Google+ by making it a part of every search, as it was until today. But now, since it’s so easy to flip back and forth, I can test to see which mode is more useful. I expect that social search will be better in some cases and worse in others. It’s great to have the option.
I don’t think Google is out of the woods. The instructions teaching users about these features are pretty clear, but people get set in their ways on the Web, and it’s hard to change them. Some users freak out when Google changes even little, teeny things about search, and some Google+ overhauls of existing services have caused major backlashes.
But today’s “Search, plus Your World” update actually softens the impact of Google+ on search. Google+ content is better integrated with outside stuff now, and, of course, it’s optional, even for logged-in users. There are still problems with the state of Google search, but none of them are as dire as they were a week ago.
Now that Google users have control over the level of personalization, I don’t think Google+ will mess up the Internet anymore. Social SEO will not take over, because natural search results still matter. My fear last week was that anyone who wanted to use Google would be forced to use Google+. Today’s update shows good faith. Google has given its users control.
What do you think of the new Google? Will you use personalized search results? Sound off in the comments.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Can Your SEO Clients Recognize Success When They See It? – Search Engine Journal
Jan 9th
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Can Your SEO Clients Recognize Success When They See It?
Search Engine Journal We've all worked with a skittish SEO client before—the one that has been burned by a black hat firm in the past or doesn't really believe in the value of SEO—and they are often the most challenging client an SEO provider can work with. … |
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Can Your SEO Clients Recognize Success When They See It?
Jan 9th
We’ve all worked with a skittish SEO client before—the one that has been burned by a black hat firm in the past or doesn’t really believe in the value of SEO—and they are often the most challenging client an SEO provider can work with. How do you prove your value to someone who doesn’t really [...]
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Optimize Facebook Open Graph Tags: They Are the 50%
Jan 3rd
In my previous post on ensuring your open graph tags were properly set up, I stressed the importance of having these tags in place so as marketers we can stay in control of the message we send to our audiences. I suggested that a simple solution would be to have your open graph tags reference [...]
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View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
seo.co.uk Owners Deny They Purchased Domain For £3.75 Million – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Jan 1st
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seo.co.uk Owners Deny They Purchased Domain For £3.75 Million
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) Hitesh Patel and Vadym Gurevych of Bullseye Media LTD have been fielding questions over the last 30 days on the purchase price of their recently acquired domain name: seo.co.uk. Both have denied the rumored sale price of £3.75 million. … |
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Google Augmented Reality Glasses Could Come Soon, What Would They Mean?
Dec 19th
Would you look at the world through Google Glasses? If you did, what would you see? That may be an option soon, if a reliable report today that the company is in “late prototype stages” on just such a product, proves accurate.
The Wow factor is clear – but what would fashionable cloud (connected) glasses really mean? How might they change what it means to be human and to live in this world? Make no mistake, they certainly could have a deep impact for those who wear them – and possibly for those who are seen through them as well. There’s no better time than now to begin considering it all. The best way to start is to recognize those who have already begun before us; in this case science fiction author Vernor Vinge is a key source of illumination.
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Above: TV Glasses
Hints and Clues
Hot in the news today is a report from Nick Bilton of the New York Times that Google is developing wearable computers in the secret Google X Lab that Bilton wrote about last month. That prompted Google specialist Seth Weintraub, now at Fortune and formerly of Computerworld, to call the news “an open secret among some in the Google community.”
Weintraub asserts the following based on his previous reporting and one unnamed source he cites today:
[Google is] “in late prototype stages of wearable glasses that look similar to thick-rimmed glasses that ‘normal people’ wear. However, these provide a display with a heads up computer interface. There are a few buttons on the arms of the glasses, but otherwise, they could be mistaken for normal glasses.
“…In addition, we have heard that this device is not an ‘Android peripheral’ as the NYT stated. According to our source, it communicates directly with the Cloud over IP.
“…We do not have a release date for this new device, but we know that Google Co-founder Sergey Brin is closely associated with the project and it will be Google-branded hardware.”
From battery power to proper contextual understanding of a user’s location to price to form factor – there are a lot of problems that Google is going to have to solve beyond the imagery and signal reception. Cellular devices are now so small and so cheap that connectivity is probably one of the easier problems the secret team is working on.
What Could it Mean?
The how-and-wow is certainly interesting, but questions of use cases and implications are important too.
Sci-fi authors and artists have been talking about this future for years.
New media choreographer Johannes Birringer has said he looks forward to a future where cloud glasses can be used in art “to enhance and enrich the performer and audience experience with the media.”
Mike Kuniavsky, co-founder of smart connected device design firm ThingM, invokes science fiction writer Vernor Vinge’s ideas when it comes to widespread Heads Up Displays:
“I think that [Vinge's] idea of consensual imaging among belief circles is interesting. I consider it a kind of physical manifestation of software skinning, mixed with ideas shared among members of a social-network (as a blogroll is, for example).
The implications of this both excite and scare me: it would be totally cool to overlay a trusted source’s view of a given scene on mine, but I feel people already ignore the complexity of reality too much and tend to live on parallel planes that exclude ideas that challenge theirs.
I don’t want Orrin Hatch’s world skin (though I’d try it on to see what it looks like), and I don’t think he wants mine.”
Above: Pixel Pour, street art installation by Kelly Goeller, via Near Future Laboratory
Architect and urban futurist Dr. Cindy Frewen Wuellner references Vinge as well in imagining how devices like this could change the way people experience the cities they traverse.
“The social city..where IRL [In Real Life] meets virtual, means people/you are the manipulators. The dumb city gets smart and social. The explosion of mobile phones brings the internet into the streets.
“Augmented realities give maps, twitter, sensors, and layers of information. It’s transformational. NYC phantom city tour, don’t miss that. Heads up display like Vinge’s Rainbows End. For architecture and cities, the implications are huge.”
Urban Futures, Language of #Architecture: How will you change 21st c #cities?
“Ways of revealing the linkages between 1st Life actions and consequences can be made sensible in ways that have been previously impossible. “
Artist and mobile technologist Julian Bleecker riffs on Vinge’s talk five years ago at the Austin Game Conference.
Bleecker imagines a truly meaningful augmentation of reality…
Ways of revealing the linkages between 1st Life actions and consequences can be made sensible in ways that have been previously impossible.
New forms of networked interaction, participation & engagement that are not just about lightweight atoms & bits, RSS, and WoW raids, but about heavyweight action, the consequences of supra-atomic activities such as driving cars that are too big.
If I could have a heads up display akin to what WoW heavyweights have, but indicative of the relationships amongst a whole matrix of parameters that relate to my 1st Life actions..now that would be really significant.”
In other words, Bleecker imagines the Cloud Glasses not displaying imaginary visions – but making things that have always been real, visible.
It’s hard to imagine a more valiant calling for Augmented Reality than that.
No doubt most people will use their Google Cloud Glasses to play Angry Birds in an empty room (better that than Farmville!), or will wear them while wearing nothing else, but that’s not the reason why any of these technologies are built and they don’t represent any kind of limit to what’s possible.
You may not want to visit StopHumanTraffic.com with your Cloud Glasses and your location turned on, but there are a whole lot of things good and bad that go on in the very same streets we all walk down every day that we don’t see.
We may see the price of speed and altitude-displaying Heads Up Ski Goggles drop over time and it’s not hard to imagine tourists wearing glasses given to them by visitors bureaus in major cities around the world.
But a SOPA’d future could also prohibit looking at copyrighted materials through your Cloud Glasses. There might have to be a splintered web that Cloud Glasses tie into in order to view things outside official channels. What would be on each side of that line? It’s provocative to consider. Here comes the future, ready or not.
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Facebook Financials Leaked: They Need a Strong Fourth Quarter
Dec 16th
Although it is common knowledge that Facebook has over 800 million users and is the most popular social network in the world, the company is typically quiet regarding its financials. However, a “well-placed mole” recently provided news sources with access to Facebook’s classified financial information. The leaked financial data revealed that Facebook has total assets [...]
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Where Are They Now? RWW’s Most Promising Companies Since 2004
Dec 7th
Earlier this week, as part of our annual Year in Review series, we announced our Most Promising Company for 2012. It’s an honor bestowed on a startup that we think shows the most promise for the coming year. We chose appMobi this year because of its HTML-based mobile development platform, which is tapping into a potentially huge trend.
We’ve been doing Most Promising Company for 8 years now, starting with Feedburner way back in 2004. So we thought it’d be interesting to look back on the previous 7 years and find out which those companies lived up to their promise.
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Most Promising of 2004: Feedburner
At the end of 2004, the first year that ReadWriteWeb chose a Most Promising Company, we selected RSS management startup Feedburner. Remember this was before the second wave of the Web kicked in, commonly called Web 2.0. At that time there was a lot of experimentation happening around RSS and blogging, but not a lot of money in the market. I described Feedburner back then as a startup “which burst onto the scene in 2004 with the one essential service that bloggers were missing – a way to track RSS statistics.”
Screenshot circa February 2006
It turned out I was right on the money with that pick. Two and a half years later, in June 2007, Feedburner was acquired by Google for about $100 million. What’s more, Feedburner founding CEO, Dick Costolo, is currently CEO of Twitter. I have fond memories of Costolo replying to my customer support emails all through during 2004 – seemingly minutes after I emailed (and I lived in an odd timezone)! That dedication to customer support, probably rivaled only by Craig Newmark, I believe was a big part of Feedburner and Costolo’s success.
As at the end of 2011, Feedburner continues to chug along – although nowadays it’s a fairly boring infrastructure service for Google, rather than the hot tech it was back in 2004.
Most Promising of 2005: Memeorandum & Digg
At the end of 2005, Yahoo! was our Best BigCo. Yes, that’s how much times have changed. As Most Promising of 2005, I couldn’t decide between two new media services: Memeorandum (which later became Techmeme) and Digg. Both fit my description of the Web scene at the end of 2005: “There’s a real need for search services that can not only aggregate the vast amount of content on the Web – but effectively filter and organize that content based on individual preferences.”
Techmeme in 2011 is still a small company, but has consolidated its position as the leading tech news aggregator. Digg has had a rollercoaster ride over the years. It hasn’t yet fulfilled its potential, but there’s still time and it remains one of the leading social news services.
Most Promising of 2006: Sharpcast
The Consumer Cloud has been one of the biggest growth markets of 2011 and Sharpcast was one of the very earliest startups to tackle it. I wrote at the end of 2006 that Sharpcast “is solving a big problem (syncing data across Web, desktop and other devices) and also is an integral part of many different trends that will be popular in 2007 and beyond – mobile, rich media, a world of multiple devices, and more.”
Screenshot circa October 2006
I definitely got the trends spot on (the iPhone was announced just a couple of weeks after I wrote that; and I had no inside knowledge of what Steve Jobs was about to unveil!). Sharpcast is now known as SugarSync and its sync platform is one of the leading services in the Consumer Cloud market. It has admittedly been eclipsed by Dropbox, which launched later in 2007. But SugarSync is a well-respected and popular solution.
Most Promising of 2007: the open source movement
In 2007, we went on a different tack and named “the open source movement” as most promising. We defined this as “a loose-knit group that aims to make a huge impact by tying all Web companies together.” Examples included Mozilla’s Firefox web browser and Google’s Android Mobile OS here, its open-source mobile operating system that was announced in November 2007.
The success of Android is the best example of how successful open source has been since 2007. Android is growing faster than iOS at this point and Google’s decision to make it open source has been well and truly vindicated. Through Android, Google now has a strong presence on many of the leading smartphones of 2011 (the iPhone obviously not included). Also the majority of today’s startups build on free or very inexpensive tools that are often open source, such as WordPress and MySQL.
It’s not all rosy for open source. Firefox has lost ground thanks to Google’s proprietary Chrome browser. Also the leading social network of this era, Facebook, is essentially a walled garden. But overall, open source has been a huge part of the Web over the past few years.
Most Promising of 2008: Brightkite
In 2008, location data became an emerging trend. One of the early companies to introduce the concept of “check-ins” was Brightkite. Foursquare later popularized this, but Foursquare wasn’t founded until 2009. Brightkite had the opportunity to dominate this emerging market and perhaps even become a fully blown mobile social network.
Brightkite circa October 2008
Unfortunately for Brightkite, it failed to take advantage of its first-mover advantage. However I think the choice was the right one at the time, because Foursquare went on to prove that mobile check-ins was a big market. Brightkite was eventually acquired in April 2009 by another mobile social network, Limbo.
Most Promising of 2009: Aardvark
Aardvark was the first of a new generation of Q&A services that tapped into the Social Web. It was acquired by Google for $50 million in February 2010, so it certainly lived up to its promise for the site’s founders and investors. For users, however, Aardvark eventually slipped into oblivion. It was shuttered by Google in September 2011.
Aardvark was a very clever service. You could ask Aardvark any question, and it would attempt to find a person in your extended social circle who knew about that topic and was available to answer at that moment. It’s a shame Google shut it down. Nowadays, Quora is the leading Q&A service.
Most Promising of 2010: SimpleGeo
Last year we chose a geolocation company called SimpleGeo as our Most Promising. Location was a big trend of 2010, with Foursquare, Facebook, Google and others having developed successful products using location data. The idea behind SimpleGeo was to be a platform for others to utilize location data.
SimpleGeo was acquired at the end of October this year by mobile services company UrbanAirship. It didn’t really live up to its promise.
Conclusion
Four of our picks ended up being acquired, the most successful of which was Feedburner. Two, Brightkite and Aardvark, were acquired before they really proved themselves. Foursquare picked up where Brightkite left off and ultimately became a huge success. Quora took the mantle of leading Q&A service from Aardvark, although it remains a niche market. As for SimpleGeo, it simply couldn’t find a viable market.
Another three of our picks continue to plug away as independent companies: Techmeme, Digg and Sharpcast.
Looking back on these picks, I believe we got the trends right on – and before they became popular. Most of the companies we picked got either a great acquisition outcome or they continue to be leaders in their field. Alas, we didn’t pick any startups that went on to become BigCos – like a Facebook back in 2004 or a Twitter in 2006. But that’s half the fun of making these predictions, to see if you can pick a future success story while they are very early stage.
Think you can do better? Give us your pick for Most Promising for 2012. We chose appMobi, how about you?
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