theEword | Search Engine Optimisation Blog

theEweekly Wrap: Reefs, royalty and rude pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Google Sea View

We will soon be able to explore the seabed around the Great Barrier Reef, thanks to a major new project involving Google. The Catlin Seaview Survey is a scientific expedition to monitor the impact of climate change on the reef, set to commence in September 2012. However, as well as scientific data, the divers will be using specially adapted cameras - inspired by the eyes of sharks - to capture images of life under the waves. It is thought that over 50,000 photographs will be taken, then stitched together to create a 360 degree underwater world.

Google will then use its Panoramio programme to link the photographs to the relevant locations on Google Earth and Google Maps, so the images could in fact be explored in a similar way to Street View. There will be a dedicated YouTube channel for video footage captured, while the scientists will also be hosting live underwater Hangouts via Google+. The project's science advisor Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said: "For the first time in history, we have the technology available to broadcast the findings of the expedition through Google. Millions of people will be able to experience the life, the science and the magic that exists under the surface of our oceans."

Crowning glory

Electronics manufacturer Samsung has revealed that its televisions and AV products have been given a royal seal of approval. The Queen Royal Warrant – according to the monarchy's website, "granted to people or companies who have regularly supplied goods or services for a minimum of five consecutive years to The Queen" – is a tradition that dates back to medieval times, but Samsung is the first AV/TV provider to receive the honour. The title formally allows the company to use the royal coat of arms and the words 'by appointment', which it plans to do on its UK headquarters building in Surrey, its stores, website and catalogues.

To deserve the accolade, Samsung has provided "around 100 premium TVs and AV products to the royal family" since becoming the official supplier in 2006. The South Korea-based company is one of 800 that currently hold warrants from a member of the royal family, and will hold the honour for five years. In other news, the Samsung Galaxy S II Smartphone – powered by Android – has sold an astonishing 20 million units in the ten months since it was launched. Of course, it still has a long way to go to catch up with the astronomical Apple sales figures, and it has not been revealed what kind of smartphone the Queen uses.

Nipples are a no-no

A former Facebook moderator has leaked the list of guidelines that photos posted on the social network must adhere to. Amine Derkaoui was an employee at a Moroccan outsourcing company, who was being paid $1 per hour to trawl through any photos that had been 'flagged' by users. Workers would then use the seventeen-page Abuse Standards Violations manual to decide whether the image should be taken down or not – the document that Derkaoui leaked to Gawker.com. Some of the more controversial guidelines include:

No 'naked butt cracks', female nipples or nipple bulges (even when breastfeeding), no 'camel toes'
No images of unconscious drunken people, but pictures depicting cannabis use and paraphernalia are fine
Crushed heads and limbs, blood and deep flesh wounds are fine – as long as the 'insides' aren't showing.

A Facebook spokesperson commented: "In an effort to quickly and efficiently process the millions of reports we receive every day, we have found it helpful to contract third parties to provide precursory classification of a small proportion of reported content."

Mobile web or Responsive Web Design?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Au) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Same goal, different method

A boom in mobile technology in recent years means that the internet can now be accessed from a wide range of different devices, from computers to smartphones to tablet devices. As a result, the development of mobile websites has become necessary to ensure that content is optimised for viewing via different mediums.

In 2010, prominent web designer and developer Ethan Marcotte suggested the concept of Responsive Web Design (RWD), to achieve the same goal as mobile websites using an alternative method. RWD is the use of a single fluid grid-based layout that allows it to respond to the size of the display of a device, catering for the needs of the user no matter how they access the website. Since Marcotte's proposal, the idea has gathered momentum and 2012 is expected to see a growing trend in this field among designers and developers.

There are many arguments both for and against RWD. On the positive side, it saves development time because there is only one set of HTML code; and in design terms, there is no need to create a separate mobile website, avoiding multiple sets of extensions and amendments whenever changes are required.

Content-driven websites pose a challenge

Potential problems include the differing functions and user experiences of smartphones and tablet devices when compared with desktop computers and laptops. It is also important to consider that many websites are very content-driven and feature lots of text and images. The latter can take a long time to load and aren't ideal for mobile devices, as mobile users tend to want quick, precise information. It is therefore better if content is condensed for small devices.

Many companies already favour the mobile web – and, following investment in this, it is unlikely that they will be willing to switch to RWD. However, there are examples of websites which use RWD very effectively. The success of an RWD website can be measured by looking at its intended purpose – to be accessible to users across a range of different screens and devices – and see how well it performs. For example, the layout of the Boston Globe website translates well into a linear format. The navigation changes into a drop-down menu to save space, while sections and articles fall neatly into a logical order, producing an accessible user experience.

The advantages and disadvantages of RWD compared with the mobile web suggest that a wise solution may be to use the advantages of both. For example, using the mobile web's ability to optimise content and use smaller image file sizes; and RWD's fluid grid, which allows content to adapt to the device on which it is viewed. The internet is in a constant state of change, and even if RWD isn't used in its entirety, designers and developers are increasingly likely to adopt its principles into their work.

Chris Au

[Screen capture (top): Ethan Marcotte's Responsive Web Design from abookapart.com.]

theEweekly Wrap: Contacts, complaints and crooks

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Contacts copycats

It emerged this week that the contacts and address books of smartphone users may have been copied and shared without their knowledge. When an app invites users to 'find friends' or similar, it searches their contact list, but it seems some do not ask permission to access this data, while many in fact copy and store this data on their servers. Singapore app developer Arun Thampi first noticed the problem last week, relating to the Path social network app, but it has since emerged that apps including Instagram, Foursquare and Twitter have all been guilty of the same practice.

The issue has so far only been reported in iOS apps for the iPhone, prompting two US congresspersons to write to Apple CEO Tim Cook. A statement was later issued by the company warning: "Apps that collect or transmit a user's contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines", and "any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release". Path has since issued an apology, while Twitter has promised to ask for explicit permission in future versions of its app, including changing the wording to 'upload' or 'import' instead of the current 'scan'.

Doctor Google

Google announced on Monday that it is updating its algorithm to improve results for searches relating to health, illnesses and symptoms. The official blog post revealed that Google will soon suggest results for illnesses and conditions if a user searches for symptoms. Chief health strategist Roni Zeiger explained: "The list is generated by our algorithms that analyze data from pages across the web and surface the health conditions that appear to be related to your search", although "the list is not authored by doctors and of course is not advice from medical experts".

The algorithm update is designed to shorten the journey from symptoms to possible causes, but will not affect searches that may be informational. Search Engine Land gave the example that a term like 'chest pain' would display these suggested diagnoses, while searching for 'heart attack' would still provide informational results. It seems the change is yet to roll out in the UK, and it remains to be seen whether suggestions will be customised based on the profile and web history of logged-in users.

Crowd-sourced justice

German police are using social media to help track down wanted criminals. A pilot scheme was conducted in Hanover last year named Fahndung via Facebook, where police posted Photofit images of suspects on their Facebook page, and asked their 99,000+ friends to help with the manhunt. The scheme led to eight arrests in Hanover, and eventually helped solve six criminal investigations. Furthermore, posting stills from CCTV footage has helped locate two missing persons. When controversy arose surrounding data being stored on Facebook's US servers, Hanover police began posting links to their own site instead.

The success of the scheme has led to the state of Lower Saxony announcing it intends to officially adopt the rather controversial methods. Minister of the Interior Uwe Schünemann told Zeit Online: "A police force that is modern and geared to the future cannot avoid social networks" (translation). The Next Web reported that the states of Berlin and Brandenburg are also considering implementing a similar scheme. However, German authorities are notoriously strict on privacy and data protection. Google Street View caused uproar, while Facebook facial recognition tagging was heavily criticised; meanwhile, one German state banned the Facebook Like button.

The usual suspects: Predictable Google results

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:01:00 +0000

Visibility is everything

A recent study has revealed that internet encyclopedia Wikipedia appears on the first page of results for 99 per cent of Google searches. While this is an extreme case, it is not the only website to be a familiar sight on search engine results pages (SERPs). Facebook, LinkedIn, 192.com, FreeIndex and Google's own products could all be considered part of this category, to some extent.

Does this mean that the availability of high rankings is limited? For every spot nabbed by a dominant 'all-encompassing' website, that means one less place available for specific brands to battle over.

In the infinite tangle of information that is the online world, visibility is everything. It represents both practical success and perceived success – which are equally important in the world of business.

For example, websites which have achieved a high-ranking position in search results are statistically far more likely to be visited by internet users. Whether or not these sites manage to retain visitors, encourage repeat visits and convert page views to sales is another matter – but stumbling on to a website in the first place is indisputably the key to the entire process.

Meanwhile, in perception terms, people remember the brands they see the most – just as in traditional advertising – and often grow to trust them. This alone can result in more direct searches, visits and transactions.

Not all Wiki pages are truly useful

The revelation about Wikipedia came from analytics agency Intelligent Positioning, which used a random noun generator to search for a thousand different keywords via Google. A Wikipedia page appeared in 99 per cent of all page one results; 96 per cent of top five results; and 56 per cent of number one results.

Intelligent Positioning's ensuing analysis raises some important questions about this level of dominance, with particular reference to Google's high esteem for fresh and unique content.

"We know that Wikipedia is a vast site with millions of pages and thousands of editors offering unique vital content on multitudes of subject matters," it states. "But should Wikipedia be the de-facto resource for pretty much all subjects? Surely some pages are riding on the back of other quality pages or perhaps lazy references to the site from businesses and bloggers across the internet."

As noted here, Wikipedia can often be very useful, producing the answers that a searcher is seeking. However, the SEO authority it has gained for its great pages is no doubt bumping up the rankings of its poor ones, thereby pushing down more specific websites which may be more relevant or informative.

Liane Baddeley

[Screen capture: Intelligent Positioning.]

theEweekly Wrap: Groupon, journalists and job losses

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Groupon loss

Group voucher company Groupon has revealed its first set of results since going public in November 2011. Unfortunately, the results for the last quarter show a net loss of $42.7m (£27m). Only 33 million Groupons were purchased during that time, which - along with extortionate tax expenses - was the company's excuse for the poor performance. Meanwhile, the net loss for 2011 as a whole was revealed to be $350.8 (£221.5m), despite total revenue jumping by over 400 per cent to £1bn. Following the announcement, shares in the company fell 13 per cent to £13.50, almost as low as their sale price for the initial public offering.

The IPO in November was a high point for the company, with shares selling high, and total company value soaring to £11.4bn in the process - triple the £3.8bn that Google offered for the company in December 2010. It remains to be seen how the company will be valued following the disappointing financial results and drop in share price. In contrast, analysts estimate that the impending Facebook IPO could value the company at £48 to £63bn. There is a downside for CEO Mark Zuckerberg though - because he will earn an estimated £3.8bn from the 120 million shares set to be floated, he could face the largest tax bill in US history.

Look before you tweet

UK media giants have this week clamped down on staff Twitter use. On Tuesday, reporters at Sky News were warned not to retweet any information or breaking news from rival journalists or sources. The change has been introduced because of the possibility that such information could be wrong. They were also advised to "always pass breaking news lines to the news desk before posting them on social media networks" - the reason being that in the past, the Sky Twitter feed has reported different information to other Sky platforms, or the news desk has had to learn the details of a story from Twitter.

The BBC followed suit on Wednesday with a blog post advising correspondents, reporters and producers on best practice. It said "when they have some breaking news, an exclusive or any kind of urgent update on a story, they must get written copy into our newsroom system as quickly as possible". Fortunately, BBC journalists are equipped with a technology that allows simultaneous tweeting and newsroom transmission, so instant breaking news and live-tweeting ongoing stories is still possible. Within reason, of course - the BBC was criticised in 2011 for using unattributed photos from Twitter in its coverage of the summer riots.

Nokia down but not out

Finnish mobile manufacturer Nokia announced on Wednesday that another 4000 jobs were being lost. The 2300 in Hungary, 1000 in Finland and 700 in Mexico are in addition to the 4000 Nokia employees in Denmark and the UK who lost their jobs in April 2011. This signifies the end of the company's European manufacturing line, with the 4000 basic assembly jobs being outsourced to contractors in Asia.

The company's latest phone is the Nokia Lumia, a Windows 7 phone developed in collaboration with Microsoft, which has sold 1.3 million units since November. On Monday, The Next Web revealed that the two companies were giving free handsets to developers in the Czech Republic, in an attempt to stir up interest and kickstart the app market there. Furthermore, StatCounter recently unveiled stats showing 40 per cent of the world's mobile web browsing is done on Nokia handsets, beating iPhones and Samsungs to the top spot. So it seems that despite job losses across the globe, Nokia is still not what you'd call 'struggling'.

theEweekly Wrap: Firefox, fallouts & Foursquare hatred

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Frost) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Infuriating Firefox

Another day, another Firefox. Or so it seems at the moment as the Mozilla Foundation has rolled out yet another version of its browser. This week, we had the dubious pleasure of welcoming Firefox 10 to the office. Since Firefox 9 only reared its head on 20 December 2011, the new arrival shows there's still no end in sight for Mozilla's rapid release cycle. It's hard to believe we were all using Firefox 3 until March 2011.

Incredibly, we've now had seven new versions of Firefox in ten months – or one every six weeks. The latest incarnation doesn't appear to be much different from the last, with most of the changes restricted to back-end stuff.

One thing that appears unchanged, however, is the outpouring of complaints from the business community. Employees of many large companies have already voiced their displeasure on web forums; it can take months for some businesses to upgrade the browser on thousands of computers, but the alternative is using an outdated product that contains bugs and is potentially even vulnerable to hacking. For smaller businesses, meanwhile, there's just the irritation of not being able to use all the add-ons built by third-party developers who don't have the time or inclination to upgrade every six weeks.

Google rebuffs Microsoft

Google has hit back at Microsoft after an extraordinary public spat between the two technology giants. It all started when Microsoft published a post on the Official Microsoft Blog, subtly titled Gone Google? Got Concerns? We Have Alternatives?, in which they helpfully suggest that Hotmail, Bing, Office 365 and Internet Explorer are perfect for disillusioned Google users. Microsoft has also taken out a series of ads in major newspapers explaining why Google users should be disillusioned in the first place.

However, Google isn't taking this lying down and has responded in kind with a post on the Google Public Policy Blog. It picks out five specific allegations made by Microsoft (and two from other companies), and counters them one by one. These answer questions such as whether Google reads your emails, whether Google Apps have been certified for use by the US government and whether Google is making it harder for users to edit privacy settings.

Betsy Masiello, policy manager at Google, ended the post in less-than-conciliatory fashion: "We've always believed the facts should inform our marketing – and that it's best to focus on our users rather than negative attacks on other companies. Onwards!"

Who Gives A Tweet?

Ever felt like there's too much noise on Twitter? You're not alone. In fact, a new study run jointly by Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Tech and MIT suggests just one in three tweets are worth reading. This is the headline finding from a fascinating research project into Twitter etiquette, which centres on a website built by the research team called Who Gives a Tweet?

On the website, Twitter users who agreed to anonymously rate the tweets of people they follow were given feedback on their own messages. Some 1,443 people took up the challenge, reviewing a grand total of 43,738 tweets. What emerged from the study was that just 36 per cent of tweets were liked by users, while 39 per cent generated no strong opinion either way and 25 per cent – a quarter! – were actively disliked.

The researchers also offered tips to improve your own Twitter accounts based on the research. This covered all the usual suspects – things like keeping messages short, providing context to links and limiting use of hashtags. However, our favourite tip is simply labelled 'Keep it to yourself' and reads: "The clichéd 'sandwich' tweets about pedestrian, personal details were largely disliked. Reviewers reserved a special hatred for Foursquare location check-ins."

Facebook criminals – should social media police access?

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:20:00 +0000

The blame game

There have been numerous recent headlines about jailed criminals accessing Facebook and similar social media tools to communicate with the outside world – most notably to threaten or taunt victims and their families.

Now, this is obviously an abhorrent practice. It's unlikely you'll find many people disagreeing with that.

The issue gets a bit more complicated, however, when you start to look at who is to blame and who should be taking responsibility.

Whenever Facebook gets entangled in a controversial issue, the primary pictures plastered across newspapers and digital publications tend to be those of the famous website's brand image – resulting in an unfortunate synchronicity with negative events. Detractors of social media are quick to revel in this as the latest sign that Facebook is just as evil as they have suspected all along.

Applying controls

This sentiment is further affirmed by comments such as the following, by Jean Taylor of Families Fighting For Justice, quoted in The Telegraph: "These perpetrators should not be able to have access to mobile phones in prison. They are getting away with torturing their victims. The social networking sites should police this much more closely!"

Most people – even some jailed individuals, one might expect – are likely to sympathise to some degree with the first two sentences, especially coming from a campaign group with a valid message. However, the third implies that social media platforms should somehow be controlling criminals' freedoms.

Should this really be part of the remit of social media? It seems a rather large burden to place on internet companies when we already have a criminal justice system which is meant to be doing precisely that. If mobile phones are successfully smuggled into jails, no doubt Her Majesty's Prison Service is presumably locked in an ongoing battle to stop the practice – one upon which social media could have little bearing.

It's one thing for Facebook and its contemporaries to remove offensive content and block inappropriate users when they are reported – which is a practice it already engages in – but to filter out all past and present perpetrators of any kind of criminal behaviour is something else entirely.

If police struggle to keep crime and antisocial behaviour off the streets, it's a tall order to expect the internet to enforce a virtual clean sweep.

Liane Baddeley

theEweekly Wrap: Data, Dotcom and @#~^&)£;

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:55:00 +0000

O2 owns up

It was revealed on Tuesday that mobile network O2 was accidentally sharing user data. A technical problem caused users' phone numbers to be shown to the owners of the websites they visited. This data disclosure is thought to have been taking place since 10 January 2012. There was a social media outcry following its discovery by customer Lewis Peckover, and the glitch was fixed on Wednesday. In a statement O2 said: "We have seen the report published this morning suggesting the potential for disclosure of customers' mobile phone numbers to website owners. We investigated, identified and fixed it this afternoon. We would like to apologise for the concern we have caused."

O2 hastened to explain that usually, phone number are only shared when "absolutely required by trusted partners who work with us on age verification, premium content billing, such as for downloads, and O2's own services". However, during the two weeks where the disclosure was taking place, phone numbers of any 3G users could have been accessible to all site owners. The concern is that site owners will still have those numbers in their server logs, and could utilise them for aggressive mobile marketing campaigns, SMS spam or even fraud. O2 is now co-operating with the Information Commissioner's office and Ofcom to investigate the extent of data disclosure.

Megaupload behind bars

The weekend was dominated by news that popular file sharing site Megaupload had been seized and shut down by the US Department of Justice. Criminal cases were brought against founder Kim Dotcom and three other executives, while the company's substantial assets were frozen. This legal action was founded on the site's infringement of copyright; however, questions have been raised as to how the US DoJ could shut down a site based in Hong Kong, run by Germans living in New Zealand, and all without a trial. Although the shutdown took place just hours after the widespread SOPA/PIPA protest blackout, it was actually the 2008 PRO-IP law that allowed the DoJ to shut down Megaupload.

This week, hacktivist group Anonymous entered the fray by launching Denial of Service attacks on the DoJ, FBI and other US government sites in retaliation. Meanwhile in New Zealand, Kim Dotcom was denied bail on Monday. It was revealed that shotguns and a panic room were discovered at the NZ$30m mansion Dotcom was renting in Auckland, while NZ$17m of assets were seized. The raid was timed to coincide with Dotcom's birthday celebrations, so some of his guests could also be arrested. Megaupload executives Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato were granted bail yesterday, while Mathias Ortmann is awaiting a hearing. The FBI wants to extradite all four so they can face trial in the US for racketeering, money laundering and three counts of copyright infringement.

Google learns punctuation

Google has begun generating search results for punctuation marks and other non-alphabet characters. The phenomenon was first noticed by Alex Chitu in the Google Operating System blog, with the search index now containing results for a full stop, comma, per cent sign, hash, currency signs, brackets, pluses, minuses, equals and @. A question mark or asterisk still return no results.

At first, it appears that this Google algorithm update works by substituting the punctuation mark for its name, and searching for that; for example, the top result for [:] is the Wikipedia page for the intestines, while the results for ['] and [apostrophe] are identical. However, in other instances it appears that this isn't the case, as the results for the character and the name are different. The change also has some interesting implications for SEO, as it could affect companies that use punctuation in their brand name or keywords - although Google will have to explain how it works first. Marks & Spencer is already inadvertently in 3rd place for [&], while the NSPCC ranks highly for [.] following their campaign using the words 'full stop'. Sadly, the band !!! remains unGoogleable.

theEweekly Wrap: Sharing, SOPA and Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Apps for life

Facebook hosted a press event in San Francisco on Wednesday where it unveiled 60 new apps that enhance the new Timeline and Ticker layout. These apps are based on the extended Open Graph and Gestures platforms, which enable 'frictionless' sharing of activities in the user's online life, not just 'Likes' and 'shares'; developers can now build apps using any action or verb they like. Facebook's director of platform products Carl Sjogreen added: "We think that thousands of applications will be built on this platform in the coming weeks and months."

Open Graph first launched in September, with apps available that allow users to share their activities, including news apps that post which articles you read, and the Spotify app that includes Listen With. The 60 apps launched this week include eBay, TripAdvisor, Foodspotting, Pinterest (fashion and lifestyle pinboard), Runkeeper, Rotten Tomatoes (film reviews), Monster (job search), Foursquare and Ticketmaster.

Blackout support

Facebook did not join in the widespread blackout on Wednesday protesting the SOPA and PIPA legislation in the US. However, founder Mark Zuckerberg used his personal Facebook profile on Wednesday to proclaim: "Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet". The post received 3,000 Likes in 60 seconds, 75,000 in ten minutes, and by yesterday was approaching half a million. It's no wonder Facebook didn't join the blackout, as TheNextWeb calculated that the company would have lost around $11.7m (£7.6m) in revenue, predominantly from advertising.

It was also calculated that Google would have lost $100m (£64.8m) by shutting down for the day. Instead, the search giant placed a black banner over its logo, with a link to an anti-PIPA/SOPA petition which collected around 4.5 million signatures in one day. Google's Pierre Far also advised site owners on the best way to blackout their site without affecting their rankings or hurting SEO. Furthermore, he revealed on Google+ that the GoogleBot was configured to "crawl at a much lower rate" on Wednesday to avoid participating websites being affected. As reported in last week's Wrap, many Google head honchos including Sergey Brin and Matt Cutts have vehemently protested the bill. If it passes, search engines will be forced to remove all references to offending sites from their indexes.

Jobs doll withdrawn

Plans to sell a realistic figurine of the late Steve Jobs have been scrapped after objections from Apple lawyers and the founder's family. Chinese company In Icons was already taking orders for the foot-tall doll, which boasted incredibly lifelike features, poseable limbs and various accessories. The doll wears jeans and a black turtleneck, and can be seen on the In Icons website in a variety of classic Steve Jobs poses, surrounded by inspirational quotes. Customers who pre-ordered the $99.99 (£65) doll will be receiving a full refund.

An announcement on the company website on Sunday revealed: "Unfortunately we have received immense pressure from the lawyers of Apple and Steve Jobs family. [...]Though we still believe that we have not overstepped any legal boundaries, we have decided to completely stop the offer, production and sale of the Steve Jobs figurine out of our heartfelt sensitivity to the feelings of the Jobs family." It remains unclear whether this pressure was in fact a threat of legal action from Apple. In Icons founder Tandy Cheung made it clear there were no replica Apple products sold with the figurine, and added: "There is no copyright protection for a normal person. Steve Jobs is not a product - so I don't think Apple has the copyright of him."

Google News and SEO practices

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:13:00 +0000

Conflicting priorities

Many people regularly use Google News to access information about current affairs from a myriad of different angles. Meanwhile, many publications and businesses ask that their news stories are included – but a large proportion of these submissions end in rejection.

Like Google’s mainstream search, Google News has evolved to stay one step ahead of the so-called 'black hat' purveyors of search engine optimisation (SEO) – avoiding tricks such as keyword-heavy content that has little or no value to readers, despite being styled as news. However, in its stringency, Google News has become notoriously difficult for genuine news providers and well-behaved SEO practitioners to penetrate.

This is frustrating for those working hard to meet the Google News quality guidelines without success, especially as the platform features websites of poorer quality which were accepted before the tightening of its criteria.

What do readers like about Google News, anyway?

Google News turns traditional media consumption on its head by being topic-led rather than publication-led, which is useful when seeking a balanced perspective of the day's top stories. It was devised by Dr Krishna Bharat following extensive news coverage of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, to view headlines from numerous sources simultaneously and thereby make common points easily discernable.

People still turn to particular publications for specific features or writers, but Google News gives a quick overview of everything else – and sometimes alerts people to the kind of article they wouldn't usually go looking for. It is disheartening, however, to search for a news topic and be served with contrived, shallow content ruled by self-promoting organisations. This is exactly what Google News's application process seeks to shun.

And from an SEO perspective?

It’s no secret that Google is the world's most popular website, with 153.4m monthly visitors and a 91.28% search engine market share in the UK (Nielsen, December 2011; Experian Hitwise, January 2012). Visibility in its search results is indisputably vital to the success of websites and therefore the fortunes of many organisations.

Okay, so that's Google as a whole, not the News element. But any regular visitor will know that results for its subsections – which also include Images, Videos and Maps – often appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). Each subsection also has a large and dedicated number of direct users. Finally, the technical SEO benefits of links from Google News are significant and can boost a website's rankings.

Being rejected by Google News

Google is open about what it wants to see when assessing Google News submissions, but less so when it comes to reasons for rejecting them. Several businesses have taken to forums to express their dismay at having carefully considered these requirements, only to be refused with a vague answer.

In October 2011, the staff of US horror film news website Terrorflicks posted on Google’s help pages: "We are very frustrated as to what we're doing that would get us denied. We work very hard to produce high quality news and we limit our ads. We do not copy content and we make sure we edit every article. We have around 10-15 writers, a developer and two editors. Our success depends on getting into Google News. If we can't get in then we might as well shut down the site."

How DO you get into Google News?

As evidenced by the former point, Google's guidelines do not provide a perfect formula. Interpretations of 'quality' and 'unique content' differ wildly; and some businesses simply may not realise how obvious their promotional content is.

Search guru website SEOMoz offers some additional Google News submission tips, which go into detail about topical content and commentary on stories. You can't guarantee inclusion, but you can give yourself the best chance by behaving like a quality news source – making your content current, frequent, relevant, dynamic and truly appealing.

So, there you have it: If you want a spot in Google News, think about it from the reader’s point of view – and don’t take shortcuts. If you fear your output has the distinct air of Google 'bait' about it, instead of featuring real stories, Google’s selecting editors will probably think so too.

Liane Baddeley

theEweekly Wrap: Tickets, tirades and trade shows

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Pay Per Con

It emerged this week that Google has been running PPC ads for London Olympics ticket scammers. A listener named Liz contacted the BBC 5 Live Investigates radio show, complaining that she had been conned out of £750 by a company called LiveOlympicTickets, after clicking the uppermost PPC ad on Google. Even if the tickets were real, unofficial resale of Olympic tickets is illegal; the Metropolitan Police had asked Google over a week previously to remove all ads for LiveOlympicTickets, but to no avail.

BBC researchers also found that as well as many ticket scams, PPC ads could be found for fake ID cards, fake passports and buying cannabis online. All these ads were removed by Google as soon as the BBC contacted them. A spokesperson for the search giant pointed out that AdWords is an automated system, and therefore "we are not responsible for, nor are we able to monitor the actions of each company". Google has previously been heavily penalised for illegal ads, and criticised for profiting from illegal activities even if ads are later removed.

Dark days

Social news and sharing site reddit has announced it will be blacked out in protest at controversial new US legislation, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The impending bills are controversial because, if passed, many believe they would be tantamount to censorship; copyright owners and the US Department of Justice would be able to remove user-created content from all over the internet, including Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and reddit. An official blog post on Tuesday revealed that for twelve hours on January 18th, the site will show a "simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action".

Reddit taking a stand against PIPA and SOPA has prompted others to join the cause. Hacktivists Anonymous will be joining the 12-hour blackout, Wordpress has posted a call to arms, and Jimmy Wales is considering blacking out Wikipedia if users agree with the protest. Other high profile figures who are against the legislation include Twitter's Evan Williams, Google's Matt Cutts and Sergey Brin, media magnate Arianna Huffington, and MC Hammer. The bills will be discussed in the Senate from January 24th 2012.

CES 2012

The annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is drawing to a close today in Las Vegas. For years, CES has been the must-see event for technology investors, journalists and bloggers wanting to find out what gadgets will be launching over the coming year. As usual, the 2012 event saw a few novelty items: 3D printers, a touch screen Android camera, smart products for the home, an eye-controlled laptop, and a robot unveiled and demonstrated by none other than Justin Bieber.

Meanwhile, the more traditional offerings from tech giants were very impressive. Ultrabooks, tablets and smartphones were the order of the week, with big names like Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft and Intel vying for attention - Apple, as usual, was absent. Intel in particular attracted media interest for its Ultrabooks, powering models by Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer and Asus, and showcased on stage by will.i.am (pictured), formerly of the Black Eyed Peas and now Intel's director of creative innovation. Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered the opening keynote on Monday, promising Windows 8 would be launching soon, and hinting at more work with smartphone manufacturers in the near future; nothing very surprising. It was also announced that this is the company's last appearance at CES for the foreseeable future.

theEweekly Wrap: Patents, PayPal and pretenders

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:55:00 +0000

Patent spending

Google has acquired more IBM patents in a continuing purchasing drive. Around 200 patents have been bought by the search giant, in addition to the 2,000 it has reportedly acquired from IBM over the past few months. The spending spree will allow Google to use the patented ideas to develop new innovations (the traditional use of patents), but could also relate to existing Google technologies. This would help the company withstand the current barrage of copyright infringement accusations blighting the smartphone and tablet market.

One particularly interesting patent that has changed hands involves "Using semantic networks to develop a social network"; it remains to be seen what this is, and what it means for Google's social network Google+.

Google's patent grab made tech headlines in August 2011, when the company failed to buy a cache of old Novell and Nortel patents and accused Apple and Microsoft of joining forces to outbid Google. However, less than a fortnight later it acquired Motorola Mobility, along with several thousand Motorola patents.

Yahoo's new Pal

Yahoo confirmed on Wednesday that it had appointed a new CEO - Scott Thompson, former president at PayPal. Prior to his presidency, he was PayPal's senior vice-president and chief technology officer, so was instrumental in the company's rapid growth. Yahoo has been without a chief executive since Carol Bartz was fired over the phone in September, after failing to turn around the ailing company's fortunes.

Chairman of the Yahoo board Roy Bostock commented: "Scott brings to Yahoo a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo. The search committee and the entire board concluded that he is the right leader to grow the core business and deliver increased value for our shareholders." The company is clearly hoping Thompson can bring his golden touch to Yahoo; its 2011 UK search engine market share dropped to just 2.44 per cent.

Wendi woes

Twitter has unverified a spoof account that claimed to be that of Wendi Deng Murdoch. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch started an account on 31 December 2011, so when someone claiming to be his wife Wendi began tweeting the next day, it seemed plausible. The @wendi_deng account was verified on Monday night, while a News International spokesperson reportedly told the BBC that the account was genuine.

The account was officially verified with a blue tick for over 24 hours. After it was unverified, the account admitted: "Hello Twitter. As News International has finally come to their senses, it's time to confirm that yes, this is a fake account. I'm not Wendi." Verification was launched over two years ago to help celebrities who use the service create official accounts; however, the mistake suggests a rather lax process, while the account owner has claimed that Twitter never made contact with them before or after the blue tick appeared. The anonymous individual - who has said only that they are not a comedy writer, not a journalist and not Jonnie Marbles of the pie-throwing incident - still has over 8,000 followers. The real Rupert Murdoch has not commented on the incident.

Meet the team – Manchester Masters placement Ashlea Cartledge

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Frost) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Gaining work experience is now essential for any graduate wanting to get ahead with their career. We caught up with our new Manchester Masters student - Ashlea Cartledge to see how she was finding her first few days at theEword.

After graduating last year, I like many other graduates was still undecided about which career path I wanted to take. I have always had an interest in everything digital but I knew I was not equipped with enough experience to land the job of my dreams. When I heard about the Manchester Masters I knew instantly that it would be a great opportunity to gain the experience and skills I needed to follow my desired career.

What is the Manchester Masters?

The Manchester Masters was created to give graduates the knowledge and experience that is needed to kick-start their career. It provides ten successful students with the opportunity to work within 4 top marketing, advertising and PR companies across Manchester, providing a variety of experiences in just 12 months, while also studying for an MSc in Business.

When applying for the course I carried out research to see which companies were partnered with the scheme to give myself an idea of the types of placements I might have. theEword was one I was instantly impressed with - their digital services seemed perfectly matched with what I was already interested in. Once I made it onto the course (while mentioning numerous times that I wanted them as one of my placements) I was finally told that I would be going to theEword on my second placement!

Looking forward to life at theEword

After being at my previous placement, Mediacom North, for the past 3 months I have gained some insight into agency life and also into the world of SEO and I hope that throughout my time at theEword I will be able to expand on this and learn so much more.

Although it is only my second day I have been very impressed by how committed each of the team is and how well structured and organised the company is. I am confident that the next 3 months will be exciting and insightful.

theEweekly Wrap: Firefox, fakers and festivities

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Foxy searchers

It was announced this week that the search deal between Mozilla and Google has been renewed for at least another three years. The original three-year deal expired at the end of November 2011. As Mozilla announced in an official blog post, "Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world". The financial terms of this "mutually beneficial revenue agreement" were not revealed. However, Mozilla revealed in October 2011 that 98 per cent of its total 2010 revenue came from search partners, and 84 per cent (£64.8 million) came from Google alone.

Firefox and Chrome boast a combined global browser market share of 50.9 per cent. This gives Google an advantage over Bing, which is the default search engine for Internet Explorer, with 40.6 per cent market share. To add insult to injury, a recent study found that there are 117 million Bing searches per month for the term 'Google', suggesting many users are bypassing their default search engine.

A tale of two Zuckerbergs

Mark Zuckerberg has been selling Likes through a company called Like Store, prompting Facebook to threaten legal action. This is not, of course, the founder of the social network; rather an Israeli entrepreneur who has changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg. The pretender formerly known as Rotem Guez was sent a cease and desist notice in September 2011 for selling Likes, which violates Facebook's terms of service. On December 7th, he officially changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg; the name now appears on his ID and passport, and according to his website www.markzuckerbergofficial.com, "will likely be his legal name for the rest of his natural life".

The 32-year-old father of two seems to have changed his name as a publicity stunt. He told ABC news: "I just thought it would be funny when they sue Mark Zuckerberg [...] The hope is to grow the company, we like to do funny things". He has also set up a Twitter account and Facebook fan page (with around 5,000 likes) with the title 'I'm Mark Zuckerberg'. All the trouble seems to have started back in January 2011, when Facebook shut down an account belonging to Guez and he sued them in return. However, it's hard to see where his antagonism stems from as the original account was reportedly under the name - you've guessed it - Mark Zuckerberg.

Deck the SERPs

Google has been getting into the festive spirit this week with a new Easter egg. Google Easter eggs are effects that appear on the SERPs when a certain search term is entered, as popularised by Do A Barrel Roll in November 2011. Currently, entering 'let it snow' will cause snow to fall from the top of the screen, while the results are gradually obscured by frost. Furthermore, any search term that includes 'Christmas', 'Xmas' or 'Santa' causes a row of Google-coloured baubles to appear just under the search box.

Google has also launched the Ho Ho Hotline, allowing Gmail users to send each other personalised video messages delivered by a cartoon Santa. Meanwhile, on the big night you can track Santa's journey using Google Maps and Google World. The project is the unlikely brainchild of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), and lets children see the sleigh flying across the world in real time, with 3D images collected by "radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets". NORAD Santa began over 50 years ago, when a Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Children were accidentally put through to NORAD Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, who began giving them Santa's current location on the radar.

theEweekly Wrap: Digital, dragons and disasters

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Online nation

The UK communications regulator Ofcom has published a report revealing the full extent of our digital engagement. The International Communications Market Report shows that in many areas, the UK is one the most engaged of the 17 countries surveyed. We spend an average of 746 minutes (12.5 hours) per week online, which puts us in third place after Germany and the US. E-commerce was worth £1000 per person in 2010, while 79 per cent of Brits have visited a social networking site. Smartphone ownership has doubled to 46 per cent of the population, leading to a large number of people using their mobiles to access games, news, social media and apps. The UK is also the country with the highest proportion of online advertising spend at 29 per cent of the total.

However, we're not leading in everything; our likelihood to make Skype calls, download podcasts and music or listen to the radio is lower than other countries such as Italy and France. Meanwhile, the UK is lagging behind the US and Japan when it comes to superfast broadband. Although 59 per cent of households had access to a superfast service by June 2011, just four per cent actually subscribed. Ofcom speculated that the 4G spectrum auction in late 2012 could mean an incredibly fast mobile broadband offering at some point in 2013.

Skywin

Cult video game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been crowned Game of the Year at the prestigious Spike Video Game Awards in California last weekend. The dragon-slaying adventure for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 was also named best role-playing game, while developers Bethesda Game Studios won Studio of the Year. In the UK, retailers offering discounts on Skyrim saw the game overtake Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to top the multiformat gaming charts. However, it's unlikely to match up to the success of CoD, which on Tuesday became the fastest-ever entertainment product to make a billion dollars, just 16 days after general release.

Despite Skyrim's cult following, plenty of criticism has been directed at it. Players have noticed dragons flying backwards and other glitches, while the huge save file has reportedly slowed down the gameplay and graphics for some. Bethesda has said they plan to address this issue of memory and 'lag' with a software update. Another criticism - or rather, backhanded compliment - was offered by Wired's Geek Dad blog in that the game is damaging the economy: "Skyrim is incredible. The game's world is so big and there are so many quests to complete that those millions of dollars in sales are being nullified by players' lost productivity and lack of economic participation in the real world."

Mapping a disaster

Google has announced the completion of a project to photograph 44,000km of Japan's roads following the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March 2011. The images will appear on Google Street View, allowing users to get a 360-degree street-level view of damage in the worst-hit areas. As well as replacing the existing Street View images for north east Japan, the new photographs will appear alongside the old ones in a 'before and after' maps project, titled Memories for the Future (www.miraikioku.com). Members of the public will be invited to post their own photos and videos as part of the project.

Street View senior product manager Kei Kawai said: "We hope this particular digital archiving project will be useful to researchers and scientists who study the effects of natural disasters. We also believe that the imagery is a useful tool for anyone around the world who wants to better understand the extent of the damage." Simultaneously, Google has introduced a time stamp to all images, providing users with some idea of how relevant the image is - apparently, this was "the most requested Street View feature for the last few years".

User trust essential to successful evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:54:00 +0000

Shortly after our recent blog post about Google's mysterious fiddling about with its search function, the company announced some significant changes to its interface, which will see the top navigation bar removed completely and a new dropdown navigation menu take its place.

This perhaps explains why some features seemed to be switching off and on again at random during November 2011 – though didn't cast any light on why Google chose to experiment in such a visible way without explaining its actions.

The speculation and irritation that occurred as a result of the latter highlighted the significance of familiarity and intuition within our favourite internet services. The kind of tiny changes that some people perceive as minutiae can cause huge ripples in the comfort zone of someone who uses the internet intensively on a daily basis, whether for research, marketing or even social or personal connections.

Google's new navigation design will give it a much more personal focus, including increased prominence for Google+ – almost making it feel like a social network and search engine rolled into one, for those logged in.

Google has clearly been doing something right in the last decade, based on its meteoric rise and enormous market share. Arguably, a large part of this is the brand's minimal, straightforward approach. Web browser Google Chrome, in particular, appears to be thriving due to its uncluttered focus on speed and convenience.

This simplicity, however, is also what renders any changes so momentous.

Behind the scenes it is a different story, as the digital marketing industry fights to keep up with continual changes in algorithms and results selection processes – but the mainstream searcher usually sees little of this.

Brand identity

Some companies, on the other hand, wear their continual evolution on their sleeve. Facebook is one such brand – being complex and transient in nature, yet very accessible – and the news headlines that it generates don't seem to do its popularity much harm.

The social media website famously encounters intense criticism whenever it alters features, with users campaigning to restore previous formats. In September of this year, the Daily Mail reported that Facebook's news feed algorithm update had succeeded in 'goading its 750 million users into a fury'.

The report continued: "On Facebook's official blog, more than 7,000 users have offered comments on the new 'update' to the news service – many of them furious rants in capitals – and a mere 1,800 users have 'Liked' the service."

However, the website's membership is still on the rise – now standing at over 800 million. This indicates that while Facebook's changes upset users in the short term, the majority do accept them and move on, as the company steadfastly stands by its developments. Its design has been in a constant state of flux since its creation in 2004.

Facebook is also very focused on interaction and debate, being a public forum for information sharing. Google, meanwhile, is more authoritative, operating primarily to serve users with the results they want without any discussion.

In an industry where new initiatives launch every day and users are often fickle, users want to trust a brand. This applies not only to its corporate morals, but also to its dependability to provide what they want – and to being open and clear about what it is doing and why.

Liane Baddeley

theEweekly Wrap: Crackdowns, CTRs and copycat app stores

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Frost) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

In support of social

The government's claim that social media helped organise the riots in Manchester and elsewhere has been refuted by academics from the University of Manchester. An analysis of more than 2.6 million riot-related tweets for Reading the Riots - an investigation by the Guardian and the London School of Economics - has concluded that Twitter at least was not to blame. The findings are likely to prove embarrassing for prime minister David Cameron, who even went so far as to suggest at the time that the government could shut down social media sites to "stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality".

Professor Rob Procter of the University of Manchester, who led the academic team running the research, commented: "Politicians and commentators were quick to claim that social media played an important role in inciting and organising riots, calling for sites such as Twitter to be closed should events of this nature happen again. But our study has found no evidence of significance in the available data that would justify such a course of action in respect to Twitter."

Interestingly, the research also named the top 10 Twitter users during the riots, based on @ mentions. Manchester's very own @gmpolice squeaked in at number 10 with 8,904 mentions - although that's still a fair distance behind riot response coordinators @riotcleanup (40,960), Guardian reporter @paullewis (30,031) and - err - @piersmorgan (20,412).

Click through ruckus

If there's one thing that divides SEO people, it's Bing. Search marketers are sharply divided about whether it's even worth bothering with Bing, given that Google accounts for more than nine out of ten searches in the UK. One thing that usually counts in Bing's favour is higher click-through-rates (CTRs). However, a new study from US agency Slingshot SEO suggests that even that advantage isn't a given. A Tale of Two Studies: Google vs Bing Click-Through Rate found that the average CTR for the number one position on natural Google search results stands at 18.2 per cent, while for Bing it's just 9.7 per cent.

CTRs typically differ considerably depending on various factors, such as whether the searcher is looking to buy or simply to find out more information. Nevertheless, the overall message is clear - a top listing in Google will generate an awful lot more visits than a top listing in Bing.

As if that wasn't bad enough for Bing, the researchers also made another discovery. Every month, approximately 117 million people search for 'google' in Bing.

Microsoftware

Microsoft has announced plans for a new app store on its forthcoming operating system, in a move that bears an uncanny resemblance to developments over at Apple. The company plans to offer a 'Windows Store' on its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, just under a year after Apple introduced an app store for OS X.

For the majority of apps built on the platform, developers will receive 70 per cent of the revenue generated with Microsoft taking the remaining 30 per cent - exactly the same split as on the App Store. However, if an app hits the magic number of $25,000 (£16,000), developers get to keep 80 per cent from that point on.

In an official Microsoft blog post, Ted Dworkin, partner program manager for the Windows Store, said: "We intend to offer the industry's best terms, so that the best apps make developers a lot more money on Windows than on any other platform." Platforms like the App Store, for example.

theEweekly Wrap: Spotify apps, bars and e-books

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Google erases the bar

Google has announced that its redesign of the search engine interface is about to enter its second phase. The official blog post on Tuesday revealed: "Instead of the horizontal black bar at the top of the page, you'll now find links to your services in a new drop-down Google menu nested under the Google logo". This means links to Maps, Images, Gmail, News and so on will in effect be hidden in the drop-down, leaving just a basic search bar that Google calls "beautifully simple and intuitive".

The only feature that will become more prominent in the new design will be Google+. The user's profile picture, notifications and a big Share button are the only things on the bar apart from the search box, while Google+ is the first link in the drop-down menu, underlining Google's current emphasis on the new social layer. It has been a mere six months since the last redesign - introducing the black navigation bar at the top of the homepage - was rolled out. The news comes hot on the heels of changes to the Google navigation that were noticed by forum users in November; it was unclear at the time whether it was a bug or an experiment.

Spotify gets apps

Music streaming service Spotify has launched the Spotify Platform. This allows third party developers to build and distribute apps that will work within the Spotify desktop music player. The announcement on Wednesday said the Platform "opens up a new world of possibilities", and will "add many more layers of music enjoyment". The launch was celebrated with a press conference in New York, where the company has just set up new headquarters.

Some of the 16 free Spotify apps launched so far include reviews and playlists curated by publications such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, recommendations from Last.fm, TuneWiki for real-time scrolling song lyrics, and Songkick's gig finder app. The Guardian has also launched an app where you can listen to an album or single while reading a review of it, add your own star rating and share it. This is part of the Guardian's 'digital first' strategy launched in June, which has seen the introduction of a Twitter tag bot and the Guardian Facebook app - which, it was announced this week, has been installed by 4 million users and is generating a million extra page impressions per day.

Books they can't burn

One of the e-book's most vehement critics has allowed his novel to be published in the format this week. Ray Bradbury wrote Farenheit 451 in 1953, portraying a future where books are sprayed with fuel and burned to preserve the ignorance of the general population. The 91-year-old author had previously stated that e-books and e-readers "smell like burned fuel". In 2010, he told Yahoo to "go to hell" when the company asked to publish a digital version of the novel, while his opinion of modern technology in general is equally negative: "We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines."

However, as his publishing contract with Simon & Schuster had to be renegotiated, Bradbury's agent Michael Congdon realised digital publication was the only option: "We explained the situation to him that a new contract wouldn't be possible without e-book rights [...] He understood and gave us the right to go ahead." The e-book costs $9.99 for the Kindle or Nook in the US, while the UK publisher HarperCollins is still 'in talks' with Congdon. Whatever reservations Bradbury may have, many are pointing out that digitising books could prevent the dystopian future he envisaged ever coming to pass.

Google search changes – bug or experiment?

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:08:00 +0000

If you're a keen Google user, you may have noticed something different about it recently. For a couple of weeks, the search facility between its different sections – Web, News, Maps, etc. – stopped being connected via its top navigation bar. But was this an error, or a deliberate experiment? And how have users reacted?

From the beginning, several frustrated discussions unfolded across Google's help forums, but Google itself has not yet released an official statement*.

We're all rather familiar with the basic idea. Typing a search term into Google – for example, 'Manchester restaurants' – reveals the web search results for that term. But then, historically, if the user clicked on 'Maps' or 'News' along the top of the page, specific results would display for the same search term. However, this changed during November 2011, 'resetting' the search in some sections.

The route to Maps has now been restored – but News remains disconnected*.

Okay, so Google's fiddled with a few things. Why is that such a big deal?

Two main points have mystified users:

Inconsistency. The function has worked for some sections while not working for others.

Lack of resolution. If it is an error, why has a technical giant like Google taken so long to sort it out? And if it is an intentional change, why not confirm it?

Mixed messages

The issue seems to have started on Friday, 11 November, when a user named 'redsoxers' took to Google's help forums with a post entitled 'Google Search Broken'. Several people followed suit.

On 16 November, a Google employee known as 'Sarah_Me' replied with: "Thanks for your details in reporting. This is a known issue now that we are working to fix."

By 19 November, a different message was emerging from the Google camp – this time from 'Erik AS', who said: "We're constantly running experiments and making changes to the interface of Google products to improve the user experience."

Both were marked as 'best answer' in their forum threads, despite gaining more negative responses than positive in the helpful answer response system.

There is what Google terms a 'workaround' – which is that the same search query can be activated in different sections using the navigation bar on the left-hand side instead. However, this doesn't take account of users' historical Google search habits – ones which they are especially unlikely to break if the old way is still partly functional, as noted with regard to Images; and now Maps.

It is also not likely to reassure businesses who rely on Google traffic to search results such as their Places listings, often found via Maps – which was disconnected for half of November. When users don't get what they want when acting by habit, they may not bother trying again.

As recently as 27 November, user 'jlouderb' posted: "I'm no Bing fan, but Bing keeps the search term and my search habits are so ingrained I'm off there for a bit. PLEASE PUT IT BACK GOOGLE!"

The root of the problem is that change in any form creates anxiety, especially when it happens to something that people regard as integral to their lives.

People trust Google to return the results they are looking for in a way that they are comfortable with – and when that is altered without explanation, it can be very unsettling.

[*At the time of publication.]

Liane Baddeley

theEweekly Wrap: Sarah Palin, COD and Onions

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:55:00 +0000

The power of suggestion

The Ballymascanlon Hotel defamation case was resolved out of court this week on undisclosed terms. The Irish hotel brought a defamation lawsuit against Google in June 2011 for allowing the word 'receivership' to appear in Autocomplete suggestions, implying the business was in trouble. TheJournal.ie reported that a payment was not made, and Google has not agreed to remove any terms from Autocomplete. Google released a statement commenting: "Google does not manually select these terms, and all of the millions of queries shown in Autocomplete have been typed previously by other Google users."

Just as one controversy appears to be resolved, another has surfaced. The Washington Post reported this week that searching for 'Is Sarah Palin retired?' would return the result 'Did you mean: Is Sarah Palin retarded?'. The suggested correction was removed on Tuesday, although it and several similar options still appear in the Autocomplete results. Google is famed for its Easter eggs and search pranks, which have in the past included manipulation of search results, but the company denied any part in this particular suggestion.

COD in the Commons

A debate in the House of Commons has arisen this week over the popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Labour MP Keith Vaz has tabled a motion condemning the game, saying he is "deeply concerned" about the violent content. His aim is to persuade the British Board of Film Classification to take "further precautions" with Call of Duty and similar games. Vaz has been campaigning against violence in video games since February 2004, when the murder of a teenage boy was linked to a violent game. Police later dismissed this claim.

Following Vaz's motion against Call of Duty, MP Tom Watson came to the game's defence. He added an amendment to the motion, drawing attention to the fact that the BBFC had given the game an 18 rating, and had ruled that the controversial London Underground mission "bore no resemblance" to the July 7th 2005 terrorist attacks. He added: "There may be disturbing or unsettling content in that game, but adults should have the choice as to whether they want to play those sorts of games or not." Only 9 MPs have so far backed Vaz's concerns.

Amazon-onymous

An unlikely use was found for the Amazon Cloud service this week, as a bridge to a secret network. The Onion Router (Tor) Project is a non-profit organisation that aims to create an anonymous layer to the internet, allowing private communication and browsing that cannot be tracked. It will do this by "bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world".

Now, developers working on the Tor Project have urged these volunteers to set up relays in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, using the anonymous bandwidth it provides to set up bridges to the network, that will "improve the safety and speed at which users can access the Internet". Tor hopes its service will be of use to those interested in confidentiality, including the military and business strategists, as well as activists who want to avoid censorship; it receives much of its funding from the US government. Amazon has not commented on this potential use for its Cloud.

theEweekly Wrap: Rush hour, Orange and Google X

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Broadband demand

A study from comparison site Uswitch has revealed the peak times for broadband usage in the UK. The so-called broadband rush hour occurs between 7pm and 9pm, after most people get home from work. The time of lowest usage is between 2am and 3am. The study revealed that broadband speeds during rush hour are 35 per cent lower than the off-peak level, meaning many users could believe their broadband runs slower than it actually does.

This drop is more pronounced in some areas, with Weston-super-Mare and Evesham in Worcestershire enduring speeds more than 60 per cent slower in the evenings. The problem was particularly bad in rural areas, where the average speed is lower to begin with. The BBC reported that "from April next year providers will no longer be able to advertise maximum speeds for net packages unless 10% of customers receive them", under new rules from the Committee of Advertising Practice. Earlier this year, Virgin Media's 'Stop the Broadband Con' advertising campaign was stopped by the ASA for making "comparisons with identifiable competitors".

Orange aims low

Orange has partnered with Alcatel One Touch to launch three new mobile devices aimed at the developing world, said to be the first smartphones for under €100. The 908F has a full touch screen and will cost around £85; the 813F looks a little like a BlackBerry and will cost around £50; finally, the 585F (pictured) is a fully functioning smartphone with Qwerty keyboard for a stunning £34. The phones will be available in 2011 and early 2012 in Armenia, Botswana, Cameroon, France, Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Mauritius, Moldova, Niger, Poland, Reunion, Romania, Senegal, Spain, Tunisia and Uganda - countries that have thus far seen limited smartphone uptake.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of these new devices is deep Facebook integration, including a big blue F button on each of the handsets. Furthermore, while Orange is rolling out bargain monthly calls and data plans to go with the phones, connecting with Facebook will be free and unlimited. As Mashable pointed out, this "positions Facebook as the de facto portal and lifeline to messaging, information and community" for a market of potentially millions of people. Yves Maitre, senior VP of mobile multimedia and devices at Orange, said: "We feel strongly that it is Orange's role to enable customers to enjoy a digitally rich, connected life."

The other Google Labs

Sources at Google have apparently confirmed that the company has a secret development lab, referred to as Google X. The New York Times published a special report this week detailing the special facility in California's Bay Area, with several spokespeople - who of course wanted to remain anonymous - detailing the weird and wonderful experiments taking place within. The lab's engineers are researching a list of "100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas"; rumours include elevators to outer space, robot avatars, and kitchen appliances remotely controlled via the web.

The NYT also reported that the Google self-driving car (pictured with Brin, Page and Schmidt), born in the Google X labs and unveiled in 2010, could soon be manufactured on a commercial scale. Earlier this year the online Google Labs was shut down, much to the chagrin of the tech world. However, if these reports are true, it seems the fabled 20 per cent time is still being put to good use.

Google+ Pages – can they crack the business profile challenge?

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:43:00 +0000

A few months after Google+ first appeared for individuals, its Pages for businesses have arrived. Some brands, such as fashion house Burberry and car manufacturer Toyota, have dived straight in – whereas others are being more cautious and hanging back to see how well it works.

It is easy to understand why the latter group may do this. Businesses which have taken the time to create and maintain accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn could probably all list ways in which they'd like them to improve – so they want to know whether Google+ is worth diverting their existing social media resources. Some just don't want the extra hassle.

The form of companies' online presences inhabits a wide spectrum. In 2011, some type of internet identity is taken for granted. Every brand has one (aside from, perhaps, that cluttered, dusty little shop in every town which sells a strange mix of hardware, fishing nets and discount toiletries. It's a fair bet they haven't bothered).

In the old days of internet marketing, it was a simple case of having a company website – a reference point to establish official information and aid sales. People quickly realised that as well as providing a reassuring sense of legitimacy for consumers who already know your company exists, a website can also be an excellent magnet for digital passing trade. Hello, SEO.

This more assertive approach has evolved to include interactivity. Business people who used to rely on their annual print advert in Yellow Pages now recognise that they are also likely to find an audience via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, allowing them to converse and respond to fast-changing priorities.

'Public identity and presence'

So, what does the latest business profile tool, Google+ Pages, bring to the table?

The company's own description states: "Google+ Pages provides businesses, products, brands and organisations with a public identity and presence on Google+."

Companies can present information about their services and share images, links and videos with Google+ users who follow them. This process seems to work smoothly, despite depending on circles of people switching to Google+ when Facebook is already so ingrained in their lives.

But what about the 'public' bit? Most companies will wonder whether it also helps market the business outside the world of Google+.

One of the more interesting developments is Direct Connect. This will mean that once a business has created a Google+ Page, searchers will be able to find it by typing '+company name' into Google, making a link to the page appear immediately via predictive search (see image, below). Clicking on this will lead directly to the page. It is currently being trialled using a small selection of brands.

However, as many people still habitually rely on traditional search results pages, this might be a little unreliable. It also assumes the user already has an inclination towards finding the company, so mostly helps well-known brands.

Lack of joined-up thinking

Indeed, there are several aspects of Google+ Pages that don't work quite the way you might expect.

Large companies are likely to have several employees who need to be involved in maintaining online profiles – and yet Google+ Pages are managed from singular personal accounts. Competitions and promotions are prohibited. This seems to indicate that Google+ Pages is aimed at smaller, independent companies – but it doesn't really seem very well-devised for those, either.

A friend of mine who runs his own business is a little confused. Having created the page through his personal Google+ profile, he had trouble finding it again – which, for a marketing tool, is not a good start. A week after its inception, it doesn't appear in Google's standard search results and it isn't possible to create a bespoke URL. These are disadvantages compared with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

There is also no apparent connection to Google Places or Google Analytics – which is strange, as these two features are already extremely popular with businesses. Wouldn't it make sense for Google+ Pages to be designed to appeal to these existing customers?

It seems unlikely that a historically inventive global giant such as Google could have overlooked such obvious options. This suggests that either there is a reason they haven't been included, or they plan to bring them in once they see how successful the initial take-up is.

If it's the latter, Google is in danger of neglecting the notion that web users like quick results.

Liane Baddeley

theEweekly Wrap: Google+ Pages, Flash and Angry Birds

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Frost) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Google+5 months= Pages

Almost five months after the beta launch of its new social network, Google has finally got round to introducing Google+ Pages. No-one's quite sure what took them so long, but what is certain is that businesses are at last able to set up official accounts on Google+. It wasn't that long ago that Google was actively deleting profiles that had been set up by companies to gain a foothold on the platform, so this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Predictably, there have already been a number of complaints about how the Google+ Pages have been implemented. These range from simple things such as the lack of multi-user functionality and the inability to create user-friendly URLs (you can find Google's page at https://plus.google.com/116899029375914044550/posts) to more fundamental questions such as what companies should actually be posting on there in the first place.

Flash in the pan

Adobe has conceded defeat in its bid to make Flash the dominant platform for watching videos on mobiles. In an official Adobe blog post, the company revealed that it would no longer develop Flash Player to be compatible with new mobile device configurations, such as those with the latest chipsets, browsers or operating systems. Explaining the u-turn, Adobe stated that because HTML5 is now universally compatible with the major mobile devices, it has become "the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms".

Arguably, the company never recovered from its very public spat with Apple. Flash has always been barred from iPhones and iPads, with late CEO Steve Jobs famously writing an open letter criticising Flash as unreliable and an unnecessary drain on battery life. When Microsoft then followed suit, overlooking the platform for its browser on the new Windows 8, the writing was on the wall.

Angry Birds on Fire

Angry Birds will be one of thousands of apps available on the new Kindle Fire. Amazon has unveiled a long list of launch partners for its flagship tablet, including Angry Birds maker Rovio Mobile, EA, Zynga, Gameloft and PopCap. The tablet will also feature a range of social apps (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and media streaming apps (Netflix, Rhapsody and Pandora).

The Kindle Fire is widely seen as Amazon's attempt to tackle the iPad head-on. Whereas previous Kindles have been marketed primarily as e-book readers, the Kindle Fire is being promoted as a device for enjoying videos, songs and games. Given all that, the addition of the most celebrated gaming app of all time may turn out to be a shrewd move.

theEweekly Wrap: AOL, bugs and Christmas shopping

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Hand) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Can ads save AOL?

AOL has announced its earnings for Q3 2011, and seems to be faring better than expected. The total revenue of $532 million (£333m) has decreased 6 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2010, but is still well above what most analysts predicted. The same goes for Q3 net loss, at £1.6m the situation may not be as bad as many had feared, especially as AOL invested around £81m in buying back shares after their stock hit an all-time low in August. Chief executive Tim Armstrong described the quarter as "the lowest rate of decline in five years".

Most surprising however is the revelation that AOL experienced an 8 per cent surge in ad revenues compared to the same period in 2010, earning almost £200 million in three months. Of course, in the past 12 months AOL acquired the Huffington Post and TechCrunch, both of which would conceivably boost display ad income, despite there being no improvement in traffic. The company has also recently been linked to a potential buyout of ailing search engine Yahoo, although Armstrong told AllThingsD on Wednesday: "When I think about our company and where our future is, it's really as an independent entity."

Gfail

Google released their long-awaited Gmail app for iOS this week, only for it to be withdrawn a few hours later. The app would have allowed iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners to access Gmail through a native app rather than through their browser, but displayed an error message when launched. The @Gmail Twitter account revealed: "The iOS app we launched today contained a bug with notifications. We have pulled the app to fix the problem. Sorry we messed up."

The online version of Gmail has also undergone a makeover this week. Improvements have been made to the search function and navigation, while conversation threads have been streamlined and now feature profile pictures, creating the feel of a messenger rather than an email client. The general look can be customised with HD themes, while there are new layout density options of comfortable, cosy or compact. Users will be offered the switch over the next few days, but both versions will be available for a while yet.

London's browsing

26 new wi-fi hotspots are being launched in central London to provide free browsing. Mobile manufacturer Nokia has teamed up with Spectrum Interactive to switch on the hotspots, which are located on old phone boxes around London's main retail areas, including Oxford Street. The free wi-fi will be available until the end of the year, although the company could extend the free service in 2012 if successful. Access will be unlimited with speeds of 1Mbps, and users will be able to use Nokia's map to find their nearest hotspot to improve their wi-fi reception. It is thought the project is an attempt to generate interest in the new Nokia Lumia handsets.

TheNextWeb speculated that the free wi-fi could make Christmas shopping in London less of a nightmare: "Like something you see in-store? Tap into the free WiFi and buy there and then, bypassing any horrendous queues." Of course, this advantage will only be available if the retailer has a mobile site; according to research from Virgin Media Business published this week, that's a huge 61 per cent of Oxford Street's flagship stores.

An uneasy partnership: Social media in business... and in the workplace

noreply@blogger.com (Liane Baddeley) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:27:00 +0000

Online conduct of employees

In its infancy, social media was most certainly not regarded as a business matter. Like use of personal email accounts, it was often viewed by employers as merely a trivial pastime for timewasters; a furtive way for office minions to enjoy jokes and express some individuality.

However, recent years have seen a shift towards harnessing the powers of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and their contemporaries for professional gain. Businesses which formerly found satisfaction in drawing a nice thick line between colourful internet use and the workplace have been forced to rethink their approaches, as the medium has emerged as a potentially powerful marketing tool.

Many companies are struggling to get to grips with what this actually means, particularly in terms of how to manage the flow of information. One of the biggest battles has become the online conduct of employees – a multi-faceted issue if ever there was one.

Blurring the line between personal and professional in the information communications world has always been a headache for employers. Until the 1990s, concerns were dominated by excessive breaks, misusing the office phone to catch up on gossip and private information spilling out in the pub.

Then, suddenly, inappropriate email chain letters (aka 'forwards') and online chats began to make employers realise just how frighteningly boundless the internet could be. Indiscretions which would formerly have been brushed under the carpet became immediate and documented – and sometimes even public.

Should businesses be more 'grown up'?

Arguably, there are three main areas of concern for businesses when it comes to the online conduct of employees:

1) Leaking of sensitive information with troublesome legal or financial consequences.
2) Potential reputation damage when an employee publishes something embarrassing or possibly defamatory.
3) Waste of company resources by shirking work in favour of personal tasks.

The first means that even in today's super-connected world, there are businesses which don't allow any use whatsoever of internet services on their premises, while employees are governed by strict regulations concerning public conduct.

The second has led to several public furores in recent years, caused by a myriad of daft actions, from teachers criticising pupils on Facebook to coffee shop baristas posting comedy songs about their jobs on YouTube. Outside work, a company cannot directly control what an employee publishes online, meaning it is left to the judgement of each individual. It also raises the thorny issue of defamation versus freedom of expression, which predates social media and still extends far beyond its realm.

The third concern may be seen as the most trivial, but probably affects more workers than the previous two points combined. Email and other internet applications are essential to the daily running of many businesses and it is not necessarily productive to block certain websites, particularly if employees are encouraged to use social media platforms for marketing purposes.

The crux of the matter comes down to conduct within the workplace and how 'downtime' is viewed. Should employees be trusted to check their personal emails and social media updates without it interfering with their productivity – just as they might take five minutes to make a cup of tea, chat to a colleague about their weekend or grab a breath of fresh air?

Many feel that this approach promotes a more 'grown up' workplace, with increased morale – thus encouraging workers to produce better results.

Others, however, may feel that all personal use of ICT is a waste of precious working minutes and should not be tolerated. This can be difficult to enforce, as independent thought does have a pesky habit of seeping out.

In any case, a clear, concise company policy is essential, along with a concerted effort to ensure that every member of staff has read and understood it. Regular, open discussions with workers may also help to keep abreast of difficult issues which arise. Such measures are unlikely to prevent all problems, but if employees are actively encouraged to think twice before posting – and are completing a satisfactory amount of work, regardless of how their time is managed – then surely it's a good start.

Liane Baddeley