Posts About ‘culture’

What Were the Burning Questions of May 2012?

what-does-my-name-mean

This month’s blog is all about questions. The Internet has revolutionised the way we find information but crucially it has also dramatically altered the way we ask questions. Nobody enjoys feeling ignorant – but the beauty of the search bar is that it will never judge you for the gaps in your knowledge! This means people are perfectly comfortable asking Google a question which they wouldn’t dare ask even their closest friends or family.

What this does is create a fascinating insight into what the population is really thinking. There were over 2.5 million unique questions of Who, What, Why, Where, When and How typed into search engines in the UK in May 2012, below are the ten most searched for. (more…)

State of Search radioshow – episode 6: E-Bay, Twitter ads, site speed and more

This week the guest on the show is Dennis Goedegebuure. He is ‘a dutchman in San Jose’, working as SEO at E-Bay. He worked for E-Bay in the Netherlands and made the move to the US four years ago.

In the first part we discussed the background an SEO needs. A college degree is not necessary for working at an agency, working at a company like E-Bay however you probably will need that degree to grow within the company. Also the discussion goes on about how and if you can teach SEO.

In the second part Roy and Dennis discussed some E-Bay and Marktplaats issues like the frames issue with Marktplaats and the way a big company works with media and external statements. Also Twitter Ads, sitespeed and more was discussed. One interesting part (in the final part) was the way you adress people you work with in the US compared to Europe.

The shownotes are below, all the links can also be found in the special delicious feed. (more…)

Google Italy ruling might very well turn out to be a blessing

Last week three Googlers in Italy were convicted to a suspended sentence after they had failed to respond quickly to an uploaded video on Youtube over a year ago which showed Italian youngsters harassing a young boy with Down Syndrom. The response around the web immediately was one of disbelieve. How could Google-employees be sentenced for something they weren’t even directly involved in? Some even came to the conclusion that the ruling was a disaster for the freedom of the web. This could change the web once and for all.

They could be right on the fact that this will change things. However, the ruling in Italy can also turn out to be a blessing in disguise. As I pointed out earlier Google is running into some cultural issues in Europe (and also China by the way). They now see that Europeans have a different take on some things than Americans do. Privacy is a big example of that. If you know Europeans the privacy-issues which now seem to be popping up every week will not come as a surprise. the New York Times analyses the problem very well. They see the clash between European privacy-demands and the US freedom of speech demands.

The fact that Googlers now are sentenced could very well trigger something which will be crucial for the future of the internet: a worldwide consensus on how the rules on the internet will have to work. (more…)

Google can only become friends with Europe if starts thinking like a European

Google is by far the largest search engine in Europe. With an average market share of 95% there is no competitor for the search giant. The competitors will however be looking at the latest developments in Europe with some specific interest. Google after all, is having a hard time in Europe.

So what is going on? Google has been under fire in Europe much in the last year. Not just recently, but ever since they launched Streetview in Europe there have been many small fires which Google had to put out. In more than one country. There were Streetview issues in the UK, Switzerland, Denmark and France. The Germans were claiming Analytics might be illegal and the bookscan-deal caused uproars in several European countries with France leading the way.

The latest fires Google has to put out are in Italy, where three Googlers were convicted to a suspended sentence of six months in jail, and Brussels, where Google faces another antitrust claim from three European companies. (more…)