Posts tagged view
Czech Republic Gives Google Green Light To Resume Street View
Feb 3rd
After more than two years, and a few important concessions from Google, the Czech Republic is letting the company resume its Street View service. As Czech Position reports, Google has agreed to several conditions put forth by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection: Google will take photos…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
How To Use The AdWords Search Term View To Optimize Keywords & Negatives
Feb 3rd
Optimizing Keywords and Negatives is a task I recommend to my clients that they do regularly. In this How To, I will include some real-world experience along with the basics of how to use the AdWords Search Term View to optimize keywords and negatives. What Is Search Terms View? The AdWords Search…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Spool Lets You View Video, Even When You’re Offline [Beta Invites]
Jan 30th
Services like Read It Later and Instapaper have developed huge followings from people who want to quickly set aside content for when they have more time, or to access it offline.
Now, along comes Spool, which promises to do much of the same link saving as Read It Later and Instapaper, with the added perk of being able to do the same with video. We’ve been playing around with Spool, which remains in invite-only mode, for the past several days and found that it works (mostly) as advertised.
We also have invites available for those of you who want to try Spool out but don’t want to wait around for an invite of your own.
Sponsor
CEO and co-founder Avichal Garg said he and co-founder Curtis Spencer came up with the idea when they noticed there was no guarantee they’d be able to pull up content on their phone, or be able to access the same bits of content across multiple devices.
Garg and Spencer are calling the technology behind the service SpoolBot, which Garg described as an artificial intelligence and computer vision engine. By residing on a server, SpoolBot can essentially translate content on a Web page into a format your device can understand. Garg said it was also good at keeping pace with changes on the sites where content is culled.
“What we wanted for ourselves was a simple way to have our favorite content always available, without worrying about which device I’m on (my Android phone vs. my iPad), where I am (inside, outside, home, work), or what kind of media it is (text, pdf, video),” Garg said in an email. “With one click you can save content from any of your devices, and that content shows up on all of your other devices too, is available offline, and is converted into a format that will work for you. So you don’t need to worry about Flash and you don’t need to worry about whether your phone has a PDF reader.”
The one exception to that assertion that I found after a weekend of accessing a wide range of content in New York City’s, mostly WiFi-free subway system on my iPhone, iPad and laptop were YouTube videos, which can only be accessed with an Internet connection because of licensing agreements. As an aside, it also seemed as if YouTube videos accessed through Spool had more advertisements than when the same video was accessed straight through YouTubes site, and it was trickier to skip over ads using Spool than it is on YouTube.
I also didn’t like that I couldn’t tag videos and content or organize it into lists: my only choices were Unread, Read, Favorites and Archived. Garg assured me that adding some sort of organization and classification system was on the firm’s to-do list and should be available within the next few weeks.
Saving material on Spool was, for the most part, easy. A Google Chrome extension allowed me to save videos and other content with one click. Setting up the widget on other devices was slightly more time-consuming.
Spool also connects to DropBox, allowing you to save content in a folder on DropBox and then have it automatically saved on your Spool. Users can also push content to Facebook from the Android app, the webapp, and the Chrome browser extension, with plans to add the feature to the Firefox extension and iOS app.
Users cannot, however, push content to Twitter. “We used to let users Tweet out from within the app. We’ve removed this feature because very few users used it,” Garg said. “We’re going to
soon launch a feature to let users tweet links at us and we’ll put those URLs into Spool.”
Spool will remain it’s beta, invite-only phase at least until the Spring. ReadWriteWeb readers, however, can try Spool out without waiting for an invite.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Daily Wrap: Pinterest from a Male Point of View and More
Jan 5th
Dave Copeland gives you a guy’s opinion on Pinterest. This and more in today’s Daily Wrap.
Sometimes it’s difficult to catch every story that hits tech media in a day, so we wrap up some of the most talked about stories. We give you a daily recap of what you missed in the ReadWriteWeb Community, including a link to some of the most popular discussions in our offsite communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ as well.
Sponsor
A Guy’s Guide To Pinterest
Pinterest users are more likely to be female, but today ReadWriteWeb writer, Dave Copeland, decided to venture into the visually oriented social bookmarking site to give you a man’s point of view. From signing up to actually pinning some items, take a look at his first thoughts about the site.
From the comments:
Jeff Downer — “I suppose that women being the early adopters of Pinterest says something about women and visual stimulus. It must indicate something about men’s brains being different than women’s.
What that may be I’ll leave to smarter and wiser folks than me.”
More Must Read Stories:
New Chrome Will Pre-Load Web Pages Before You Hit Enter
Google Chrome released a new beta version today that takes the insurgent browser’s instant and predictive features even further. The Instant Pages feature that pre-loads Web pages in the background as you search has been expanded to the omnibox, Chrome’s combination address and search bar. If you’re typing in a site you visit all the time, and the address auto-completes, Chrome will begin pre-rendering the page, reducing load time. (more)
7 Ways to Love Blog Comments Again HOT TOPIC
Comments on blogs, what are they good for? Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but you know there’s a lot of potential in taking the democratization of publishing to the next level and letting people comment on your blog-written comments on the world. (more)
Why Tumblr Fan Mail Will Beat Facebook Messages & Twitter DMs
Tumblr just announced a new private messaging feature called Fan Mail. It’s a more personal means that’s not email, which requires you to know your favorite blogger’s email address (do you?) or the handwritten form of the 20th century, snail mail. That leaves two social network-y means of contact: Facebook private messages and Twitter direct messages. Depending on the blogger’s comfort level, however, they may not make Facebook messages on profile pages an option. Similarly, not every blogger follows fans back on Twitter. (more)
Hackers Steal 45,000 Facebook Passwords & Logins
A rampant worm by the name of Ramnit has stolen login and password information for 45,000 Facebook users, mostly in the UK and France. Prowling the 800-million-strong social network, the worm eats user names, passwords and browser cookies. It also acts as a backdoor, meaning a hacker can attack any computer that has already been infected. According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, Ramnit infects Windows executables, Microsoft Office and HTML files. The Ramnit worm initially transformed into financial malware in August 2011, according to reports from Trusteer. (more)
Death By Smartphone: How Mobile Photography Helped Kill Kodak
Well, it’s official. After years of struggling, photographic services giant Kodak is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, which was long known for selling film and other photography-related products, had tried everything from branching out into more modern offerings to using its trove of patents to sue others. Alas, the times have caught up with Kodak. (more)
Find Out Where Your Legislators Stand On SOPA, PIPA
There are plenty of websites – not to mention several apps – that will help you figure out where certain companies stand on the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts. What has been harder to track is how lawmakers who haven’t co-sponsored the bill stand on the divisive issues, or how campaign contributions may influence their decisions when the measures finally come up for a vote. (more)
Betting Big on the Future of HTML5, Financial Times Buys Dev Shop
In a demonstration of its confidence in the future of HTML5, business newspaper The Financial Times has acquired the development firm that built its mobile Web app. London-based Assanka was purchased by the FT for unnamed sum of money. (more)
What is Really New About the Cloud?
Billions of words have been written about “the cloud” and its benefits, implications, and challenges. Hundreds of vendors have sprung up or re-positioned themselves as cloud companies, and there is a vast amount of real business change underway. However, I have seen very little that explains for the layperson what is actually new about the cloud that makes it so interesting and important. (more)
More than 66% of Users Have Upgraded to iOS 5
A lot is made of Android platform device updates. Is your phone going to be getting Ice Cream Sandwich? According to the latest numbers, Gingerbread is the dominant version of Android in the wild, with version 2.2 Frozen Yogurt still on more than 30% of all devices. What about Apple? iOS 5 has been available for about three months. How many users have upgraded their phones to the newest platform? (more)
Keep up with ReadWriteWeb by subscribing to our RSS feed or email newsletter. You can also follow ReadWriteWeb across the web on Google+, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Another View on The Consequences of BYOD
Dec 26th
Saying “‘Bring Your Own Device’ is an IT “trend” is like saying peanut butter in school lunches is a trend.
It’s not a trend, but it’s a well-established practice that’s been going on for years.
A decade ago, my then-employer didn’t offer me a laptop, despite the amount of travel required for the job (a lot), and despite the fact that laptops were business staples even back then. No: they gave me a desktop, forcing me to tote 3.5-inch discs with me wherever I went, and leaving me subject to the whims of both the machine that awaited me at my destination and its owner’s goodwill. My solution to this craziness was to buy a laptop with my own money. And even then, I had to hide it. I couldn’t ask for IT support, and even if I could persuade someone in the IT department to enable me to connect to enterprise applications, they swore me to secrecy!
Sponsor
Fast forward to today, and connecting our own devices to enterprise applications is simply how business is done. Is this reality a consequence of the Millenials entering the workforce, the big box stores popping up on every corner, or the ubiquity of iTunes and app stores for Apple and Android? Perhaps. But we certainly can’t call it a trend, because that horse is never going back in the barn.
Yet, there’s been a hard backlash to this new reality. In the last 18 months, many corporate IT departments seem to have decided against letting employees use their own devices for business applications. Reasons likely include ease of systems management, ease of device management, cost of desktop support, potential security risks, and/or stress on internal systems not designed for uncontrolled access. So instead of offering employees direct connections to corporate email, they roll out webmail clients. (And don’t even think about asking IT for a direct connection to shared files and applications.)
Users have for the most part responded by going their own way. “Fine,” they’ve said, “we’ll just use Box.net instead, move all our stuff to the cloud, and do our collaborating there – and we’ll use our Gmail addresses to do it.”
Paul is VP, Product & Solutions Marketing, Axway. The company sells managed file transfer and business integration tools.
And much like a grizzly bear that backs away when the hunter flaps his arms, corporate IT departments have cowered. “What have we done?” they are asking themselves, “now we’re worse off than before we intervened!” But in many organizations, this IT retreat is too little, too late. Because not only are users infuriated over IT’s high-handed intervention, but also IT’s uncompromising stance toward the “consumerized” business experience we’ve all grown accustomed to and want to continue to pursue.
IT has learned the hard way that if they don’t come through, users will simply find a way to work the way they want to. So now more IT shops are learning to be more proactive about providing tools that empower workers to get their jobs done in a way that meets their usability expectations while supporting the security and productivity interests of the organization.
That’s the backlash to the backlash.
And it’s taught us that telling users what tools they can and cannot use is only going to lead to an entire cadre of employees turning to their own laptops and iPads to get things done, and sending and saving data off the radar.
And that kind of shadow IT infrastructure is something we definitely don’t want.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Got Opinion but No Camera? Illustrate Your Point of View with Xtranormal
Dec 20th
Can you create a YouTube video to influence public opinion without a video camera? Well, four new animated videos use Xtranormal Movie Maker, which lets you to turn anything you type into a fully-animated CG movie, to promote a point of view.
Fo…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Google Brings Japan’s Tsunami Damage to Street View
Dec 17th
Google has released a compilation of StreetView images that cover 44,000 kilometers of the region devastated by Japan’s March 11th tsunami and earthquake. Users can view before and after footage as if they were right there, standing on the streets…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Volunia Search Engine: A ‘Radical New View’ of Search
Nov 26th
Volunia, an Italy-based search engine, is preparing for its early beta stages. It promises to be a “radical new view” of search, and is being spearheaded by famed technology thinker Massimo Marchiori, PC World reported.
A New Search Concept from…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
gShift Labs Offers Online SEO Scoring Tool to Provide a High-Level View of an … – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Nov 9th
|
gShift Labs Offers Online SEO Scoring Tool to Provide a High-Level View of an …
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) gShift Labs, the creator of patent-pending Search Engine Optimization (SEO) software that gives marketers control over their organic search campaigns, today announced the release of an online SEO scoring tool, gShift Score™. … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Google Business View: Street View Moves Inside
Oct 31st
Google recently launched a new program that will allow popular businesses to add interior imagery to their Google Place page. The Business Photos program, which will provide Google users with 360 degree views of business interiors, will allow potential customers to “virtually visit” the interior of participating businesses.
A Google spokesperson told BBC the following of the new program:
“Building on the Google Art Project, which took Street View technology inside 17 acclaimed museums, this project is another creative implementation of Street View technology, to help businesses as they build their online presence. We hope to enable businesses to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out through professional, high-quality imagery.”
The interior Business Photo feature will use the same cameras and photographic method that the Street View project has utilized and will allow Google users to pan 360 degrees around the finished image. Although there is speculation that the 360 degree imagery may make a business vulnerable to criminal activity, Google has stated that the images will not capture anything different than a customer would see in real life.
Since Google will not take or post pictures without a business first filling out an application and consenting, it is difficult to make the argument that these interior business shots are a privacy risk. In addition to only adding businesses that have requested inclusion, Google is blurring out the faces of people who appear in the images.
However, once Google photographs a business, Google owns the images and can use the images however they choose. Although a business owner can request that Google remove the images at a later date, the contract does not require that Google comply with this request.
At this time, the Business Photos program is only available to small businesses and is unavailable to big-brand chains, hospitals, and lawyers. The program, which will initially focus on popular restaurants, shops, and gyms, is being rolled out in London, Paris, and select cities within the US, Australia and Japan.
[Sources Include: Google Lat Long Blog, Google Places, & BBC]
Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal
View full post on Search Engine Journal
