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Google Updates Privacy Policy Settings

By Andrew Redfern @ 25th January 2012 3:12 pm Google

Search engine giants Google have rolled out a brand new, streamlined privacy policy across all of its products and services.

The search engine had previously had a massive 60 individual privacy policies, for each of its multimedia services. On 1st March, all of these policies will be combined into one shared policy that will cover Google services such as Google Search, Gmail, YouTube and Google+.

The main changes will apply to users with Google accounts, and it is claimed that the united privacy policy will enable Google to provide its users with more relevant search results, and will allow advertisers to find their customers more easily.

Google has a number of services, including everything from email, video uploading and social networking, and of course the search engine where it all began.

Alma Whitten, director of privacy, product and engineering for Google, said: “we’re rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it in a more readable way.”

Google has been heavily criticised in the past for the way in which it handles and shares user data. In its previous attempt at a social networking platform, Buzz, Google had unwittingly revealed each user’s most emailed contacts to other account holders.

The Federal Trade Commission has since come to an agreement with Google that will prevent it from unlawfully using personal information and sharing a user’s data without their permission.

Google Dissolves Slide to Focus on Google+

By Andrew Redfern @ 27th August 2011 11:35 am Google

Google will kill Slide, the social networking company acquired in 2008, in order to focus greater effort on Google+.

Slide, the social apps company will be dissolved and most of its employees redirected to other Google positions. As a result, Slide founder and Google vice president Max Levchin will leave the company.

A Google spokesperson said “Max has decided to leave Slide and Google to pursue other opportunities, and we wish him the best. Most of the team from Slide will remain at Google to work on other opportunities.”

Google will discontinue the majority of Slide applications, barring social contest site prizes.org.

After selling PayPal to eBay in 2005, Levchin founded Slide and at its peak the company lead the way for social networking with apps like FunWall, Fortune Cookie and Super Poke; before rivals such as Zynga stole much of its limelight and weakened its influence.

The company was acquired by Google in 2008, as part of its attempt to combat Facebook in the social networking stakes.

Since then Slide has operated as an independent entity and released apps like Disco and prizes.org without gaining mainstream attention. Slide has been sacrificed as Larry Page attempts to streamline Google operations and place all of his eggs in the Google+ basket.

It seems Page isn’t afraid to admit defeat and cut unsuccessful projects before they become a drag on the company. It will be interesting to see what Levchin does next.

Google+ iPhone App Shoots to Top of iTunes

By Andrew Redfern @ 23rd July 2011 8:25 am Google

It seems that there is quite some demand for Google’s new social networking site, as their recently launched iPhone app for Google+ was released this week and almost immediately rose to the top of the iTunes chart.

Google’s newest social media venture was launched around three weeks ago, along with an app designed for Android phones, and so it was only a matter of time before an iOS version of the app was released.

The iPhone app is all but identical to its Android counterpart, giving users all of Google+’s vital features, including “Huddles” group chat, “Circles” for grouping your Google+ friends together, and the “Stream” of updates from people in your Circles.

Within hours of launching the iOS app, Google+ released an update for the app, which addressed teething bug in the original app. The update included easier photo attachment to posts, blocking unwanted Huddle messages, and fixes for minor bugs.

The Google+ iOS app is currently only available for iPhones running 3.1 or higher versions of the iOS software, although Punit Soni, head of mobile development for Google+, has promised that there will be corresponding apps available for the iPad and iPod Touch very soon.

Punit Soni said of the update: “When we launched, the App Store started serving a previous test version of the App which didn’t have the stability and fixes that the latest version had. It started serving the correct version a little later.”

Currently, Google+ can only be accessed by invite only, although whispers are abound that it will be made available to all towards the end of this month.

Google Open to Integration with Other Social Media for Google+

By Andrew Redfern @ 9th July 2011 5:38 pm Google

Google has announced that it is open for forming a partnership with social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to integrate with their own recently-launched social networking site, Google+.

Speaking about Google’s new social network site during a media conference in Idaho, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that the search engine giant would “love to have deeper integration with Twitter and Facebook.”

Former CEO Schmidt, who now oversees government affairs at Google, said that the initial response to Google’s new social media platform was positive, with internet users clamouring for “invitations” to try out Google+.

Schmidt also added that there was plenty of room for several social networking sites to co-exist, and that Google was “open” to forming a partnership with the existing sites.

However, he also explained that the company had recently been unable to renew its search deal with Twitter, while talks to allow Google+ users to import their Facebook contacts had also broken down.

One nation which has failed to embrace the new Google social network is China, who Google have had a long-standing and public dispute with. It has been revealed that China blocked access to the Google+ platform almost as soon as it was launched.

Speaking about China’s relationship with Google, Schmidt said: “We tell the Chinese what we know… and then they publicly deny their role. That’s all I have to say about that.”

Google tells Businesses not to join Google+…yet

By Andrew Redfern @ 8th July 2011 12:29 pm Google

If you’re a business looking to pounce on the latest massive social media outlet, Google+, you’d do well to heed the latest warning from the Google camp.
The search engine giant has revealed that it is currently developing a Google+ experience specifically for businesses and asks brands who are interested in using the site to hold on and not create their Google+ profiles just yet.

Product Manager Christian Oestlien broke the news in a Google+ post and accompanying YouTube video. Oestlien explained that the Google+ team were working on a unique Google+ platform for businesses which would include extensive analytics and the ability to connect to other Google products such as AdWords, reasoning that “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands”.

The news comes a little late for a number of prominent brands. Ford, Breaking News, and web news outlet Mashable are among a number of companies who already use the site. But Oestlien assures us that good things come to those who wait.

“The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses,” he says. “We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.”

The Google+ business user platform is not expected to be introduced until later in the year, but a prototype is expected to launch in the meantime, in order to trial the brand orientated profiles with “a few marketing partners”. This experiment will take place within a matter of months and companies can even apply to take part, within a Google Spreadsheet, accessible via the original post.

If you’re among the many non-user early birds, it is not clear as to whether or not Google+ will shut down your profile completely or attempt to augment it somehow. What is sure is that you won’t be catching the word, just yet.

Remarkably, Google+ isn’t the first social network to experience a seemingly unexpected influx of brand-based involvement. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Google Buzz were all invaded by big businesses and that Google+ would be the same shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Perhaps the only surprise is that the Google+ team hadn’t predicted as much and prepared and optimised Google+ experience for businesses from the outset.
For now, the message from Google+ is to exercise some patience and wait until your company can benefit from a dedicated brand-orientated experience. Until then, this new pool of internet-dwelling consumers will remain an untapped resource.

The business & commercial presence will be key to how the +1 buttons are used. If the Google+ system remains a network of friends and family then the commercial networking opportunities stemming from your pages being +1ed will be limited. If however Google+ has a LinkedIn style business niche aspect to it then it could well become a vital tool in promoting your site towards your key target audience. Whilst all this ignores the SEO implications of how the +1 votes will be incorporated into the Google Algorithm it will still be an extremely important issue for the take-up of this latest Google innovation

Content is Key to a Successful SEO Campaign

By Andrew Redfern @ 6th July 2011 8:20 am Google

Everybody wants their website to show up on the first page of an internet search but for that to be possible, you’d need one hell of a big page. Search engines are designed to present their results in order of the pages’ relevance to the search criteria and their quality, based on a number of factors.

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, refers to a range of techniques designed to ensure that your site demands as much of the search engine’s attention as possible. Because you could offer the best product or service in your field, but if nobody can see your site, they’re unlikely to ever know it.

One of the most important facts to get your head around when trying to optimise your site is the power of the written word. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, but search engines don’t see pictures, so we’d take the thousand words every time.

Of course it’s not quite as simple as that.

If you’re selling bikes, there’s no point transcribing ‘War and Peace’ over your homepage. The key is to feature plenty of text that’s relevant to the searches you’re hoping to feature on. In this example, that would mean featuring words like ‘bike’, ‘bikes’ or ‘bicycle’ for the search engine crawlers to pick up on.

A beautiful image of a shiny, new bike might look great, but the search engines simply won’t know that it’s there.

That’s why when designing your site, it’s crucial to remember to include plenty of relevant text based information. The search engine spiders can crawl through text, but not Flash or images.

Search Engine News : Microsoft to renew link with Baidu

By Andrew Redfern @ 5th July 2011 11:53 am Google

In a statement issued on Monday Microsoft and Chinese language search giant Baidu have announced partnership in the Chinese search sector.

Baidu is by far the biggest web company in China and will link-up with Microsoft’s Bing search engine to provide results for English-language searches. This means that English search queries entered to Baidu will be directed to a Bing search results page.

Baidu dominates search in China with more than 75% of the market and saw profits double last year. Google by comparrison is struggling to establish itself in the Chinese market. It clocks in with 20% of the market and has fallen fall out state regulators on several occasions.

Microsoft’s deal will neatly sidestep suich problems because control of the searched for query will still remain firmly with Baidu with Bing effectively operating under Baidu’s control.

Quoted on the BBC’s Technology pages Dong Xu, an analyst with Analysys International, said “The co-operation between Baidu and Microsoft will further strengthen Baidu’s dominance in China’s search engine market, and will also make Google’s business in China more difficult”

This move will add further pressure on Google’s Chinese operation with many analysts already seeing a retreat from sector from the a company that is the undisputed king of the search sector.

China has proved an impossible nut to crack for Google (with the exception of Hong Kong). In other markets such as Singapore and Japan Google has gained market share but it seems that entrenched local search engines such as Baidu and Yandex in Russia can still hold out against it’s dominance of the search engine market.

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