Google Fined in France For Abusing Dominant Position

Things are not really going Google’s way in the first weeks of January so it seems. At least, if you look at the outside perspective of things. From the inside they did some pretty nifty things with the launch of Search Plus Your World for example.

From the outside however we have seen complaints about privacy, complaints about abusing their own products to push their own products and many other little hick ups which led us to think Google might be trying to kill themselves.

In the series of ‘ouch that hurts a little’ Google can add another to the list. A ruling Tuesday in a Paris court found Google guilty of abusing the dominant position of Google Maps. … Continue Reading

E-Bay Combines Search, Social, Personal and Mobile in One App: Visual Search

Imagine this: You are looking for a second hand car and you spot a type of car you like on the streets. What do you do? You might write down the type of the car, go home and look it up. You then might be able to find it on E-Bay.

Or… you take a picture of that car and hit search and find it on E-Bay. Pretty smart, right? Great search engine who did that! But it is not Google or Bing taking the next step in visual search, it is the auction site itself who thought of this idea. Their newest version of the Motors iPhone app does just that. … Continue Reading

Your Influence (and Klout Score) is Worth Money

As you may know I am not a big fan of Klout or the services like Klout. Simply because it in most cases gives people the wrong impression of influence. You can be an influencer with a low Klout score or you can seem to be an influencer because you may have a high Klout score while in fact nobody cares about your opinion.

Still it is inevitable that we have to deal with services like this, because it is how we try to get a grip on the whole ‘influence’ matter. Because influence and authority will matter. We’ve seen it with Search Plus Your World. The more influence you have the more visible you get to be, so you need to be as visibile as possible. And your influence is going to be worth money. Lots of it. And Klout is one of the first to actually show us that. … Continue Reading

Google+ Now Available For Teenagers

Bradley Horowitz, Vice President Product Management Google+, has announced that teenagers are now allowed to sign up for the network. This means that Google+ is now open to a whole new group of potential users because before this announcement you’ve had to be at least 18 in order to join.

In most countries you now have to be at least 13 to use the service. In some countries the minimum age is higher, in the Netherlands for example it’s 16 and in Spain and South Korea 14. These are now the same requirements Facebook has when it comes to age regulations. … Continue Reading

Google Confirms Panda Update 3.2: A “Data Refresh”

SEO’s have been noticing fluctuations again over the past week or so, suggesting that another Panda Update might be around the corner. Today Google has confirmed to SearchEngineland they indeed have done a new ‘Panda Update’, which is numbered as being Panda Update 3.2.

Searchengineland says Google has confirmed that they have done a ‘data refresh’ about a week ago. This means that there were not made any algorithmic changes, just another run through by Google, a so called ‘minor update’.

The last Panda Update was from last November and that was also a minor update. Google did the last bigger update in October.

Larry Page Tells Employees: Understand Search Plus Your World or Leave

Google launch of Search Plus Your World now two weeks ago (how time flies) has lead to a lot of discussion on different levels. There is the “do we want to get this much personalized?” question, there is the FTC “is Google favoring their own products too much” question and there is a privacy question floating around, but most of all its the “Has Google turned Evil?” question.

The mantra which used to define Google, ‘do no evil’ seems to have turned against them on the public opinion, or at least that of the tech industry. That could really hurt Google as a brand, but there is one other area in which Google could be hurting: the employees. Are the happy with Google changes? And what if they’re not, does that matter? One thing is clear for them it’s: follow the leader (Page) or leave. … Continue Reading

Google Adds Nicknames to Google+ (Not Pseudonyms!)

When Google first launched Google+ there was a lot of rumor about the ‘real name policy’ which Google uses. You are only allowed to sign up to Google+ (and now to all Google products at once) with your real identity. Using a pseudonym is not allowed.

Google now launches a new feature to Google+ which will allow users to add a nickname to their Google Profile. Note though that the nickname is not the same as a pseudonym. Setting up an anonymous Google+ account will still not be possible. … Continue Reading

A New Push For Google+, Is Google Going After Quora?

Ok, I won’t be repeating it too much, but it is true. Google is pushing Google+ in every possible way they can. Google+ is the center of attention for Google, and they will try anything to get people to use the service.

Since last week Google has found a new way of getting peoples attention towards Plus, with an interesting side effect: it might threaten services like Quora. … Continue Reading

Google Closing Social Graph Won’t Affect Google+ Social Connections

There are many products developed or bought at Google. Most of the products come from the famous 20 percent time at Google. Some of them actually become separate successful products, like GMail for example. Others are mostly meant to be part of a ‘bigger’ project, like for example Urchin, which was meant to be the installable version of Google Analytics and played a huge part in the development of that product.

But sometimes these products lose their use and at that point Google wants to ‘clean them up’. Last week Google announced the ‘death’ of no less than six products, including Urchin and the Social Graph API. That is not needed anymore with Google’s other social identifying tools. … Continue Reading