Posts About ‘News’

Million Euro Google and Heineken deal shows new business directions for Google

google-heineken-make-deal

The Financial Times last week announced that Google and Heineken have struck a million dollar deal. The beer-giant and the search giant will become ad partners.

The deal will mean Heineken will be advertising on different Google properties like YouTube and Mobile ads. The most important part of the deal however is going the other way around: Heineken gets Google’s data.

Heineken will be getting access to databases from Google. They will be able to extract data about the preferences of those watching the ads on Google properties: “where they shop, or what other words they search for on Google.” (more…)

Google’s social network is here, we saw the signals, but will it succeed?

Google+-logo

It’s been buzzing for months, is Google going for the Facebook attack? Are they going to build a new Social Network? And last night they finally did. And even though it looks like a Facebook rip off at first, it really isn’t.

But if it will become successful remains to be seen. The first comments around the web have been different. Some like it, some hate it. I still have to make up my mind, but wanted to share the first thoughts and views on it. (more…)

Google Now Warning WordPress Users They Need To Update

update-alert-2

If you own a WordPress website and you haven’t updated your WordPress version lately you might be getting a warning soon. And no, this is not the warning you get when you open the WordPress CMS, it is a warning from Google.

Last week the first people started noticing that Google had sent them a message within Google Webmaster Tools saying they should update their WordPress versions. I myself today got an e-mail from GWT saying one of my sites needs an update. (more…)

New Google Tests Suggest Change Come Fast

Google-buttons-gone

Again some new Google tests have been found ‘in the wild’. The tests again are focused on the design. This time the changes came from around the globe, not just the US, which suggests they might be more than ‘just’ tests and that we could be seeing these changes go through a lot quicker than you might expect.

The biggest changes to the design in the tests which came out were the drop of the “I’m feeling lucky” button and the grey area on top and on the left in the text from the sidebar and a blue search icon. Some changes have been seen before which also is an indication that Google is getting more serious with this. (more…)

Facebook connection ends trial and possibly sends juror to jail

facebook-jail

A remarkable story in Manchester shows that nothing can be done secretly on Social Networks, or more specifically Facebook, anymore. A female juror will probably be going to jail herself instead of the defendant because she friended the defendant on Facebook.

The juror is now charged with contempt which could mean she could go to jail for a maximum of two years. Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, seems to be tempted to make a statement that a line has crossed, not only for the juror at trial, but for every juror out there. (more…)

UPDATE: Did Google kill the option for Non-logged in users to clear their web history?

Google-gears-button

A very interesting find by one of our regular readers Brandon Moreau, who before did two guestposts for us. It seems as if Google has, without telling anybody, turned off the possibility to turn off your search history personalization for those who are not logged in.

As you may know Google tracks you. Based on your web- and or search history (depending on the level of personalization you allow Google to go) Google serves you personalized results. This means that you will most probably see different results, or a different order of results, than your next door neighbor or even the colleague sitting next to you. Since late 2009 Google decided to turn this on for everybody, including those who are not logged in to any Google account (SEL reported on it here). Something every SEO has to keep in mind.

You have however always been able to turn this feature off. You can still do this when you are logged in, but when you are not logged in this possibility is now gone. (more…)

UK most Facebook users in Europe, Monaco biggest penetration

facebook-europe

Europe is a weird continent sometimes. Every country has its own rules and regulations, every country has its own culture and every country has its own way of using the web. Socialbakers did a small research into Facebook users and country population data in Europe. They found that almost everyone in Monaco for example has a Facebook account.

The numbers show that %-wise Monaco has the biggest penetration of Facebook users with no less than 95.47% penetration to population. That is a lot! You have to keep in mind though that the exact number of Facebook users in Monaco is not high. The small country has got 29,200 actual users. Compare that to the UK which has 29,789,040 Facebook users and Moncaco looks like peanuts. (more…)

Yandex goes public at $25.00 per share

nasdaq-yandex

Google doesn’t take them seriously, but many in the East of Europe and the countries below Russia certainly do. And for a reason, they are growing rapidly and making new functionalities and taking new steps all the time. Who? Well Yandex off course.

Yandex earlier announced it was going public and today announced the pricing of its initial public offering. 52,174,088 Class A ordinary shares will be available for $25.00 per share. The Class A ordinary shares will begin trading today on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “YNDX”. (more…)

“Social Search” goes world wide

_Social Search_ goes world wide - Google, News, Social search - State of Search

Google has announced that it is taking its social search functionality global. This means that now also people outside of the US will get more and more socially integrated search results. This goes from the “shared this” functionality to specific blogs, flickr account and other social media from within your social circle.

Social search results in other languages and on other domains are mixed throughout the Google results page based on their relevance. The results will (for now) only be shown to those logged into their gmail-accounts. (more…)

‘Majestic Million’ ranks the top 1 million websites based on links: co.cc wins

Majestic-Badge

There was a time when tools were simply tools and once you would have made them that would be it. Updates would hardly be made. In this time in which things go faster and faster tools tend to send out updates monthly or even weekly. Majestic SEO for example has been evolving a lot since they started, and with success. The tool to use when you are looking to dive into backlinks has now released its latest feature: Majestic Million.

Majestic Million is a list of all the websites you can imagine, based on the number of back links they have. You can then specify which sites you want to see in a list and you can off course see where your own site is ranked. (more…)

Facebook Behind Whisper Campaign Against Google

hand-knife.jpg (215×208)

Earlier this week I reported about a “whisper campaign” which had been set up against Google by PR Company Burson-Marsteller, trying to get media outlets to report about privacy issues around Google’s social circle and Gmail. The whisper campaign backfired at Burson-Marsteller when the story came out on USA Today.

At that time the client which had hired Burson-Marsteller to set up the campaign was unknown. We immediately thought of companies like Microsoft, Apple or Facebook. But Burson-Marsteller was smart enough to mention them too in their e-mails as being companies who were dancing around on thin ice when it comes to privacy matters. Now is revealed, and confirmed, that it was indeed Facebook that had hired Burson-Marsteller. The reason? Google tried to use Facebook data for their search results. (more…)

PR-Company Supposedly Started Whisper Campaign Against Google

whisper

The world of PR is a strange one. Some might think it is nothing more than sending out a few press releases. It however is a lot more than that. And it also has a dark side to it. PR agencies also are very well versed in lobbying. Trying to get politicians to vote a specific way or trying to get journalists to write about a specific topic. Now that sometimes can get into a grey area. Because the ways to get people to vote or write in a specific direction differ very much.

PR company Burson-Marsteller doesn’t have the best name in the market when it comes to campaigns like this. And it now seems as if they tried to ‘nail’ Google on privacy matters using a so called “whisper campaign” (Wikipedia: “a method of persuasion in which damaging rumors or innuendo are spread about the target”). They tried to get several top media outlets in the US to write news stories and editorials about how Google was invading privacy from Americans using their Social Circle features. (more…)

Page 20 of 23« First...10...17181920212223