Twitter Letting You Edit Tweets Would Be Crazy, Right?

Facebook finally let you do it a few months ago – why not Twitter? Rumor has it that Twitter may be working on a feature that would allow you to edit your tweets after the fact – you know, after they’ve already been retweeted in the world’s largest pool of disinformation.
Ok – that would, unequivocally, be one of the craziest things ever. Is it likely to happen? Well, we have some conflicting reports.
The whole rumor started with Matthew Keys, writing for The Desk. Here’s what he had to say, quoting three sources familiar with the matter:
 
                              

Once a user publishes a tweet, an “edit” feature will be present for a limited amount of time (Twitter is still currently working out the length of time the feature would be available). The feature would allow a user to make “slight changes” to the contents of a tweet, such a removing a word, correcting a typo or adding one or two additional words.
An edit could only be performed once per tweet. Once the edit is made, it would be immediately visible on that user’s Twitter feed. The edit would also show up on the feed of anyone who re-published the tweet using Twitter’s built-in “re-tweet” feature.

Apart from the limitations on editing windows and number of edits, Keys also says that Twitter is working on an algorithm that would be able to determine whether or not the general intent of the tweet had been altered by the edit and act appropriately – I guess to catch a scenario where some user completely alters the meaning of a tweet with a very small edit.
Adding an “e” to an “I LOVE RAP” tweet or something.
Apparently, this has been a “top priority” at Twitter for months.
Or has it?
Jennifer Van Grove over at CNET is saying the exact opposite. Quoting sources familiar with the matter, she says that Twitter is not actively exploring a post-edit feature.
And here’s what Wired writer Mat Honan had to say:
Ok. Let’s talk this out. Even with limits on have many characters a user could edit after the fact and a small window for making the edit, users would have the ability to completely alter tweets. Oh, President Jack Smith is not dead? Wait, President Jack Smith is dead. That’s a pretty small edit and a pretty big shift in meaning.
And it’s all of the retweets that make this idea sound kooky. If an edited tweet did in fact also change on everyone’s timeline who retweeted it – wow. Just think about the implications of this. You think misinformation travels fast on Twitter now? Holy shit.
An algorithm to catch tweets that have been maliciously altered? Ok, sounds good. It also sounds hard.
The only way I can see this not causing a boatload of trouble is if Twitter somehow marked any edited tweet or retweet with the equivalent of crime scene tape. “EDITED EDITED EDITED” pasted across the tweet in giant, yellow letters. You think a little icon in the corner that says “edited” is going to catch the eye of a Twitter population ready to crucify someone for some crazy tweet?
For now, I think it’s best to just stick to deleting erroneous tweets or tweeting a follow-up correction. But who knows? Twitter may actually be thinking about this. It’s not like they haven’t done some crazy stuff before – I mean, just last week they tried to make it so you couldn’t really block another user.

About Josh Wolford
Josh Wolford is a Writer for WebProNews. He likes beer, Sriracha and movies that make him feel weird afterward. 
Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/twitter-letting-you-edit-tweets-would-be-crazy-right-2013-12

Does Facebook Need a ‘Sympathize’ Button?

                                  
Sometimes, a “like” doesn’t really mean “like” – or it least it’s not supposed to come across like that. When you posted that your dog Roscoe died and that you were going to miss him forever, because he was such a little snugglebums – I wanted to like it. I wanted to like it because I like you, and I liked your dog, and I like the fact that we live in a world where someone can show such an unadulterated love for another creature.
But I didn’t like it, because I was afraid that you’d think I was liking the fact that your dog died. So I kept scrolling. Too bad – these awkward moments exist and there’s nothing we can do about them.
Or is there? What if there was a way to express support on Facebook without making it sound like you enjoy someone’s misery?
According to one Facebook software engineer, this could happen. Maybe, Possibly. In the future. At some point.
Speaking at a recent event, Dan Muriello said that a “sympathize” button was recently developed at a Facebook hackathon. Here’s how it worked – basically, any status that was written alongside a negative emotion (you know, the little “feeling sad” or “feeling depressed” emoticons that Facebook unveiled earlier this year) would see the “like” button replaced with a “sympathize” button,
That way, I wouldn’t have to “like” the fact that your boyfriend cheated on you but you’re dedicated to moving on. I could show support and “sympathize.”
Come to think of it, maybe a “support” button would be even better.
Although the hack was well received, you shouldn’t expect to see it pop up any time soon.
“It would be, ‘five people sympathize with this,’ instead of ‘five people ‘like’ this,’” said Muriello. “Which of course a lot of people were – and still are – very excited about. But we made a decision that it was not exactly the right time to launch that product. Yet.”
Likelihood of seeing a “sympathize” button any time soon? Not very high – but I’ll guarantee you it has a better chance than a “dislike” button. That’s never going to happen. Seriously.

About Josh Wolford
Josh Wolford is a Writer for WebProNews. He likes beer, Sriracha and movies that make him feel weird afterward.

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/does-facebook-need-a-sympathize-button-2013-12

Bing Updates Its iOS, Android Apps

                                  
One of the best things about Bing is how its homepage is updated with a new picture every day. One day, you have an image of a polar bear frolicking in the snow and next you have an interactive haunted house that references all the best horror films of the past four decades. Now Bing is bringing its constantly changing homepage to mobile.
Bing announced today that its mobile apps for Android, iPhone and iPad have been updated with an option to make the daily Bing homepage image your lock screen image. As it does on Bing, the lock screen image would change everyday with Bing.
So, how do you use this feature? On Android, it’s quite simple really. All you have to do is hit the arrow button at the bottom of the screen. Here’s what it looks like:
                                          
                                             
If you want to do the same on iOS, it’s a little more complicated. First, you’ll need to sign into your Microsoft account. From there, tap the same button that you see above. This will walk through the process of setting up your SkyDrive folder to save the images for later use. Finally, go to settings -> Wallpapers & Brightness -> Choose Wallpaper to set the saved image as your background.
While an update focused solely on images would certainly be worth of an entire blog post, Bing wants you to know that it’s also added a new sync feature. When using the Bing app, you can now sync your bookmarks and saved images to your Microsoft ID. This will allow you to access said bookmarks and images across any of the Bing apps on Android and iOS.
You can grab the new Bing app today for Android, iPad and iPhone.

About Zach Walton
Zach Walton is a Writer for WebProNews. He specializes in gaming and technology.
Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/bing-updates-its-ios-android-apps-2013-12

Google Trends Becomes More Intelligent

Google has introduced new topic reports in Google Trends aimed at giving users smarter information about the search queries they are seeking.
Google gives the examples of “rice” and “Gwyneth Paltrow”. With the new reports, it can distinguish between rice (the food) and Rice University, and it can include common misspellings of Paltrow’s name as part of the report for that query.
When the user starts typing in the search box, it will include topic predictions (which will come in handy for examples like “rice”).
  

 

“In addition to helping with ambiguous search terms like ‘rice,’ the new feature also automates counting many different searches that probably mean the same thing,” explains Google software engineer Gil Ran. “So, when you measure interest in ‘Gwyneth Paltrow (Actress)’ our algorithms count many other searches that mean the same thing ‘Gweneth Paltrow,’ ‘Gwen Paltro,’ etc. As our systems improve, we may even count searches like ‘Lead actress in Iron Man.’ This can be particularly useful for topics that are commonly searched with misspellings and in different languages.”
A Google web search won’t even return a Paltrow answer for the “lead actress in Iron Man” just yet.
The topic reports are currently in beta, so they’re a work in progress. There are already over 700,000 unique topics available, however. You can look at the data globally or by country. You can only do it for seven countries so far: Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, UK, and US.
Google has not yet updated its Zeitgeist site for 2013, which shows the top trends of the year. Yahoo, Bing and Ask have each shared their lists.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-trends-becomes-more-intelligent-2013-12

Is This A Promise Google Should Be Breaking? Google rethinks banner ads in search results

Brands may soon be getting even more love from Google as the company is reportedly testing big banner-style imagery on ads on brand-specific search results pages.
Do you think these visually-branded ads on search results pages would improve the search experience? 

                           


Search Engine Land has confirmed with Google that the test is legit, but is only a small test in the U.S. There’s no telling if this will amount to an actual feature. Google conducts 20,000 of search experiments every year.
Google reportedly told Synrgy that the experiment was only happening with about 30 advertisers and showing for less than 5% of queries. They also learned that only the banner itself is an add, while all the sitelinks are just part of the organic results.
If it does become a wide-reaching feature, however, it obviously adds a tremendous amount of branding to the search results page. If it does expand to an available ad format, it will be interesting to see if it stays limited to brand-specific queries. As we’ve been seeing, Google has been giving brands some extra visibility even on generic queries.
In some cases, they’re recommending specific brands with the “see results about” feature when the users enters generic queries. Here’s an example showing a search for “travel insurance,” which suggests you search for the top advertiser on the page.
But back to the banner-style ads in question. Google is taking some flack in the press for going back on a promise it made years ago. Google said this in 2005:
There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.
I think this probably qualifies as a graphical doodad on a search results page, so it would seem that “ever” was a bit of a stretch. That said, the above quote was made in context with a partnership between Google and AOL when they announced a global advertising deal. The statement was also made by Marissa Mayer, who is obviously now at Yahoo.
Google had invested $1 billion for a 5% stake in AOL, and expanded a strategic alliance to make more of AOL’s content available to Google users. The companies had first partnered three years before that. Google would continue to provide search technology to AOL, and the AOL Marketplace was created with white labeling of Google’s ad tech, enabling AOL to sell search ads directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties. It also extended display ads throughout Google’s network and made AOL’s content “more accessible to Google web crawlers.”
You can see the full announcement here.
What Mayer was saying in the post, which was aimed to clear up “misconceptions” about the partnership was that the deal would not result in Google putting banner ads on its search results. And it didn’t.
But things have changed a lot with Google in the past eight years. Google doesn’t even have the same CEO anymore.
Still, she did say “ever.”
But again, it’s just a small test. Who knows if it will even become anything more?
In related news, Google added ad extensions as a ranking factor in Ad Rank, while also giving Ad Rank itself more weight.


About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-results-for-brands-may-be-getting-a-lot-more-branding-2013-10

Now Google Ad Extensions Will Have A Direct Impact On Rank

You now have another reason to use ad extensions on your AdWords ads. Google revealed that it is now taking them into account in Ad Rank, which determines the ordering of ads on search results pages.
Ad extensions already made ads more useful to consumers by giving them reasons to click or interact (as with call extensions). That’s precisely why Google is using them in ranking. After all, the more useful the better, right?
Historically, Google has only taken max CPC bid and Quality Score into account with Ad Rank. The expected impact of the ad extensions and formats that you use will be used as a third ranking factor. If two competing ads have the same bid and quality score, the extension factor could be the tie breaker.

In case you’re wondering how Google determines “expected impact,” it considers relevance, CTR, and prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page.
Additionally, Google has increased the importance of Ad Rank itself for determining whether an ad should be displayed with with extensions and formats. Google says you might need to increase your Quality Score, bid or both for extensions and formats to appear.
“In each auction, we’ll generally show your highest performing and most useful combination of extensions and formats among those eligible,” explains Google software engineer Chris Roat. “So there’s no need to try to guess which extensions will help improve your clickthrough rate the most.”
“You may see lower or higher average CPCs in your account,” adds Roat. “You may see lower CPCs if your extensions and formats are highly relevant, and we expect a large positive performance impact relative to other competitors in the auction. In other cases, you may see higher CPCs because of an improvement in ad position or increased competition from other ads with a high expected impact from formats.”
The changes only affect ads that appear on Google search (for now).


About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/now-google-ad-extensions-will-have-a-direct-impact-on-rank-2013-10

Google Chrome To Support Windows XP Until 2015

Are you still using Windows XP? If so, you should probably upgrade already. Microsoft will be taking if off of life support soon, and Google isn’t giving it much longer.
Google announced today that it intends to support Chrome for Windows XP up through April 2015. That means Google will continue to provide security updates to the Windows XP version of Chrome up through that date. After that, you’re on your own.
Funny enough, Google will continue to support the Windows XP version of Chrome for a year after Microsoft drops support for the operating system. Microsoft said back in April of this year that it would drop extended support for the 12-year-old operating system in April 2014. While having Google support Chrome for one more year is certainly nice, it still won’t protect you from the massive amounts of malware that security researchers expect will hit Windows XP next April.

So, why is Google supporting Chrome even when Windows XP itself will become a hive of malware and exploits? It’s all about taking care of Chrome users, especially those in enterprise, during the transition period to newer versions of Windows:

We recognize that hundreds of millions of users, including a good chunk of current Chrome users, still rely on XP. Moreover, many organizations still run dozens or even hundreds of applications on XP and may have trouble migrating. Our goal is to support Chrome for XP users during this transition process. Most importantly, Chrome on XP will still be automatically updated with the latest security fixes to protect against malware and phishing attacks.

Google is right when it says that organizations will have trouble migrating to Windows 7 and Windows 8. That’s why Microsoft recently announced that it was teaming up with HP to help businesses make the move. The two will not only offer new hardware, but they’ll also offer consultation services and planning staff to help make the move as painless as possible.
Even if it takes a year to finally make the transition to Windows 7 or 8, you can at least rest easy knowing that you have a friend in Google. You’re just not going to find a friend anywhere else until you upgrade.


About Zach Walton
Zach Walton is a Writer for WebProNews. He specializes in gaming and technology. 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-chrome-to-support-windows-xp-until-2015-2013-10

Google Maps Gets Directions For Multiple Destinations, Reservations, Upcoming Events

Google announced today that it is adding directions for multiple destinations to the new Google Maps preview, which has been available for the past three months. The feature is rolling out today.
Apparently this has been one of the most requested features since Google launched the preview, when the previously available feature went away.

“Whether you’re running weekend errands or planning a cross-country tour, you can plot multiple destinations for your trip with ease – now available for driving, walking and biking directions,” says product manager Florian Goerisch. “Once you’ve chosen a starting point, click ‘+’ and add stops to your route by typing in the search box or clicking on the map.”
Google is also adding the ability to see flight, hotel and restaurant reservations to Google Maps, as well as upcoming events.
“Similar to Google Search, find your flight, hotel, and restaurant reservations faster right in Maps,” says Goerisch. “Just search for your departing airport or dining destination, and we’ll instantly show your upcoming plans. Having all your stuff in one place makes it easier to manage your appointment details and plan your commute. This info is available when you’re signed into Google, and only you can see it.”
This is available on Android and iPhone, and is currently rolling out.
And now when you search for venues in Google Maps, you’ll see lists of upcoming events, like so:
 
This is currently live.
Images: Google

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003

Resource:  http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-gets-directions-for-multiple-destinations-reservations-upcoming-events-2013-10

Google Penguin Update 2.1 Has Launched

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Google’s Matt Cutts announced late on Friday that Penguin 2.1 was launching, affecting roughly 1% of searches “to a noticeable degree.” This is the first official Penguin announcement we’ve seen since Google revealed its initial Penguin revamp, with 2.0 in May.

Penguin 2.1 launching today. Affects ~1% of searches to a noticeable degree. More info on Penguin: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html …

2:20 AM - 5 Oct 2013

Penguin 2.0 was the biggest tweak to Penguin since the update initially launched in April of last year, which was why it was called 2.0 despite the update getting several refreshes in between.
Cutts said this about Penguin 2.0 back when it rolled out: “So this one is a little more comprehensive than Penguin 1.0, and we expect it to go a little bit deeper, and have a little bit more of an impact than the original version of Penguin.”
Penguin 2.0 was said to affect 2.3% of queries with previous data refreshes only impacting 0.1% and 0.3%. The initial Penguin update affected 3.1%. While this latest version (2.1) may not be as big as 2.0 or the original, the 1% of queries affected still represents a significantly larger query set than the other past minor refreshes.
Hat tip to Danny Sullivan for the numbers. The folks over at Search Engine Land, by the way, have been keeping a list of version numbers for these updates, which differs from Google’s actual numbers, so if you’ve been going by those, Danny sorts out the confusion for you.
Penguin, of course, is designed to attack webspam. Here’s what Google said about it in the initial launch:
The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.
As you can see, Penguin is still part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003

Resource:  http://www.webpronews.com/google-penguin-update-2-1-has-launched-2013-10

Sometimes Google’s Knowledge Graph Highlights Brands For Generic Queries

Earlier, we posted an article asking if users can trust the information they see in Google’s Knowledge Graph, discussing errors Google has made. The trustworthiness is important for these results in particular, given that this is the stuff Google is highlighting as “knowledge,” and presumably giving people actual answers to their queries, rather than making them have to dig through third-party results to find them.
A reader named Jason made an interesting comment: “It appears that the knowledge graph is giving large brands an unfair advantage by displaying them for generic terms. One such example is when you do a search for a generic term such as travel insurance. It currently brings up a bio for an individual company, Travel Guard.”
Sure enough, I performed that query, and got the same result, and as you can see, Travel Guard is also the top advertiser on this page. It’s also the top organic result.

The traditional ads are all marked as such, but this shows no indication that it is a sponsored result. Google’s Knowledge Graph just thinks that if you are searching for “travel insurance” there’s a very good chance you were talking about Travel Guard. You probably didn’t care about any other provider (though if you do, you can find them further down in the organic results.
Regardless of whether or not this has anything to do with the fact that the brand is an advertiser, there is a perfectly good Wikipedia entry for the term “travel insurance, which provides a non-biased, non-branded result. Considering that Google often draws from WIkipedia for Knowledge Graph results, it’s a little odd that that it wouldn’t go that route on a query like this.
I tried out some other generic keywords. I found a similar result for “online betting”. This time there aren’t any sponsored results, but there is a “see results about” box for BetOnline, a privately held company.
Why single this company out for one of these boxes? It’s not even the top organic result in this case. And wouldn’t it make more sense to show the “online gambling” Wikipedia entry that it is listed under BetOnline in the organic results (especially considering that much of the Knowledge Graph info draws from Wikipedia, and when you actually click over to the BetOnline results, you’re presented with a “knowledge panel” for BetOnline, pointing to its Wikipedia page)?
The ‘buy” results are quite interesting, as there are Knowledge Graph entries for Best Buy and Rakuten.com Shopping. These are the first two organic results as well, followed by Apple’s iPhone page, curiously, then the dictionary definition of the word buy. And look who the sponsored result is (hint: it’s Rakuten.com)
I couldn’t get a Best Buy ad to show for the query, but they are an advertiser, as you can see on the “buy electronics” query:
If you want to “buy” something, you must be looking for one of these two retailers, right? Certainly not Amazon or even Google Shopping.
Also interesting on the “buy” example is the “in-depth articles” section, which points to an article from Bloomberg Businessweek from 2006 about Best Buy’s Senior Director of Multichannel Order Management, one from Wired about Best Buy, and one from The Verge about “every thing you need to know” about buying a camera.
“These results are ranked algorithmically based on many signals that look for high-quality, in-depth content,” said Google when it launched the in-depth articles. We don’t know much more about how these are picked.
Also worth noting is that whatever algorithm Google uses to show related searches doesn’t appear to deem Best Buy or Rakuten.com related enough to include in the list.
To be fair, I don’t know who’s just searching for “buy” on Google and expecting to find anything helpful, but it’s interesting to see what Google thinks people want.
A search for “cheap flights” brings up a “see results about” box for CheapFlights, a company that operates a family of travel sites. This one makes a little more sense since its name is the same as the query. It shows that it was smart to name itself after such a sought after generic query. It also shows up as the top organic result, just below Google’s own Flight Search box. I guess there is still some power to those exact match domains.
Despite the similarity between the company’s name and the query, (the company doesn’t have a space, and the query did), is it fair to give this brand an extra boost over its competitors, given that it’s such a generic term? Google could just not have one of these boxes at all. It’s not like they have them on every query, and it’s not like searchers won’t be able to find CheapFlights.com when it’s the top organic result anyway.
When you click to see results about CheapFlights, the company, you get a Knowledge Panel, once again pointing to its Wikipedia entry, which Wikipedia itself says is written like an advertisement.
I didn’t immediately come across any other glaring examples of branded results like these, though I would guess there are plenty of others, given how little time it took to find these, but I do have a few other observations I feel like pointing out.
When you search for the generic keyword “rent,” for example, the organic results are all over the place. They include things like the Wikipedia entry for the musical, rent.com (for apartments), the IMDb page for the movie version of Rent, some local real estate rental results, and the dictionary definition of rent.
Clearly, Google has no idea what the user is talking about, which is typically where the Knowledge Graph shines. It helps you let Google know which thing you are actually looking for via these “see results about” boxes. In this case, however, the Knowledge Graph only assumes I’m either talking about the musical (which it lists as a book for some reason, while pointing to a page about the actual musical) or the film. No mention of actual rentals, like some of the results you find in the organic results.
Why not distinguish between different meanings for “rent” with Knowledge Graph so people can get the right results? Same goes for the the query “AFL”. This shows no Knowledge Graph results whatsoever, but it has organic results for a variety of different options, such as AFLAC stock, the Australian Football League, Arena Football League, American Federation of Labor, AFLGlobal, etc. Wouldn’t the Knowledge Graph differentiation make a lot of sense on a query like this?
Granted, Google is continuing to expand Knowledge Graph results, so there is no reason to think it won’t have them on a query like this in the future. Still, Google does provide Knowledge Graph results distinguishing between different meanings of NRL:
We’ve reached out to Google for comment/clarification about why brands sometimes appear in Knowledge Graph boxes for generic terms, and will update accordingly.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. 

Resource:  http://www.webpronews.com/sometimes-googles-knowledge-graph-highlights-brands-for-generic-queries-2013-10

Hummingbird Is Google’s Biggest Algorithm Change In 12 Years

Let’s get one thing straight right up front. Hummingbird is not a new algorithm update like Panda or Penguin. It’s a new algorithm. Panda and Penguin are parts of the bigger algorithm. Hummingbird is the actual bigger algorithm. Google has been around for fifteen years now, and Hummingbird is apparently the biggest thing they’ve done to the algorithm in twelve.

Do you think Hummingbird is going to have a significant impact on your ability to rank in search results? For better or for worse? Let us know what you think in the comments.
The good news for webmasters who fear being struck down by any major changes that Google makes to its algorithm is that it launched a month ago, so if you weren’t hit by it Panda/Penguin style (there haven’t been many complaints), you probably don’t need to worry much about it. At least not in the immediate term.

Google announced the algorithm update at a press event on Thursday along with some other interface and Knowledge Graph tweaks. After that ended we learned that Hummingbird was described as the biggest Google algorithm change since Caffeine, and that it is designed to let Google quickly parse entire questions and complex queries and return relevant answers, as opposed to looking at queries on a keyword-by-keyword basis.
For all intents and purposes, Google is apparently trying to do what it does with its own Knowledge Graph with the rest of the the web. Your web. The web made up of your websites and everyone else’s. At least that’s what it sounds like. Hummingbird is to help Google understand your webpages the way it understands the data in its Knowledge Graph. We’ll see how that goes.
Longtime search industry reporter Danny Sullivan was at the event, and spoke with Google’s Amit Singhal and Ben Gomes afterwards. He got to talk to them a little bit more about Hummingbird. From this, we learn that Google calls the algorithm “Hummingbird” because it’s “precise and fast”. Singhal also reportedly told Sullivan that it hasn’t been since 2001 that the algorithm was “so dramatically rewritten” (Sullivan’s words).
“Hummingbird should better focus on the meaning behind the words,” Sullivan reports. “It may better understand the actual location of your home, if you’ve shared that with Google. It might understand that ‘place’ means you want a brick-and-mortar store. It might get that ‘iPhone 5s’ is a particular type of electronic device carried by certain stores. Knowing all these meanings may help Google go beyond just finding pages with matching words.”
“In particular, Google said that Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words,” he adds. “The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words…Hummingbird is designed to apply the meaning technology to billions of pages from across the web, in addition to Knowledge Graph facts, which may bring back better results.”
So from the sound of it, this is really just an extension of Google’s ongoing strategy to become less dependent on keywords, which does have implications for SEO, and while webmasters may not have to worry about a major drop-off in rankings like with updates like Panda or Penguin, this could be more of an ongoing struggle for those competing to get on search results pages.
It’s probably going to be more important than ever to give Google as much information about your site as possible, so that it “understands” it. I would imagine that Google will continue to give webmasters new tools to help with this over time. For now, according to Google (per Sullivan’s report), you don’t need to worry about anything, and Google’s normal SEO guidance remains the same.
“Not content with taking away the little keyword data we had left this week, Google has again surprised the online marketing industry with a brand new algorithm,” says Econsultancy’s Graham Charlton.
This is in reference to Google’s move to make the default search experience encrypted for all users, which means that all of the search terms these users use will show up as “not provided” in Google Analytics. Google also recently killed the popular Keyword Tool.
It’s clear that keywords are becoming less and less important to search engine ranking success as Google gets smarter at figuring out what things mean, both on the query side of things and on the webpage side of things. Luckily, Hummingbird presumably still consists of over 200 different signals that webmasters can potentially take advantage of to gain a competitive edge.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Resource:  http://www.webpronews.com/hummingbird-is-googles-biggest-algorithm-change-in-12-years-2013-09

Google Launches New Inbox For Gmail

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Google unveiled a new inbox for Gmail on both desktop and mobile today, saying it “puts you back in control” thanks to “simple” and “easy” organization.
It separates your incoming messages into categories by tabs: Primary, Social, Promotions and Updates.
“On the desktop, the new inbox groups your mail into categories which appear as different tabs,” explains Itamar Gilad, Product Manager. “You simply choose which categories you want and voilà! Your inbox is organized in a way that lets you see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when.”
“You can easily customize the new inbox – select the tabs you want from all five to none, drag-and-drop to move messages between tabs, set certain senders to always appear in a particular tab and star messages so that they also appear in the Primary tab,” says Gilad.
The Gmail apps for iPhone, iPad and Android (4.0+) will show you the Primary mail when you open the app, and you can navigate to other tabs to see the rest.
If you don’t like the new style, you can switch off all optional tabs, and go back to classic view.
The new inbox is rolling out across desktop and mobile apps over the course of the next few weeks. If you want to try it sooner, you can click “Configure Inbox” when it appears in your settings.
Email marketers who have had difficulties reaching Gmail users since Google launched the “priority inbox” have some new stuff to take into account.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

Resource:http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-new-inbox-for-gmail-2013-05

Google+ Gets 41 New Features, Including Stream Redesign [Google I/O 2013]

At Google I/O 2013, Google announced that Google+ was going to get 41 new features in the coming year. Those new features will be added to three key areas – stream, hangouts and photos.

The first major change is an entire upheaval of the Google+ stream on desktop from a single column to a multi-column design. Some photos and videos will take up multiple columns while smaller stories will take up one out of three columns.
Google is also introducing a new feature called related hashtags. In short, it tags stories based on contextual clues from photos and posts. One example is a photo of the Eifel Tower being tagged #eifeltower based solely on Google’s image algorithm recognizing the subject of the photo.
For Hangouts, Google is introducing an app called Hangouts that’s separate from Google+. It’s kind of like Facebook Messenger, but with all of the sharing and video chat capabilities found in Google+ Hangouts. Google says that those participating in the Hangout app will feel like they’re in the same room together.
Photos on Google+ will be adopting a new philosophy of “Your darkroom is a datacenter.” In other words, photographers on Google+ will be able to utilize Google’s cloud technology to make highlighting and sorting photos easier. The latter is especially impressive as Google+ can now automatically sort photos by landmark, human presence, aesthetics and other indicators. Photos will also be getting auto-enhance – a new application that automatically applies image enhancements without having to use complicated software like Photoshop.
The final feature is called “auto-awesome.” One of its applications is called motion – it will take photos that are taken in burst mode and turn them into animated .gifs. The motion application is only one of five new features comprising the auto-awesome feature. Some other auto-awesome features include HDR and auto-collage.
Most of these new features, including the new stream, will be rolling out to Google+ this afternoon.

About Zach Walton
Zach Walton is a Writer for WebProNews. He specializes in gaming and technology. Follow him on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Google+ +Zach Walton

View all posts by Zach Walton → 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-gets-41-new-features-including-stream-redesign-google-io-2013-2013-05

Google Maps Is Reportedly About To Look Like This

Alex Chitu at Google Operating System has shared a couple of screenshots of what it says is the new Google Maps interface. It’s no small redesign:
Chitu hints that we could see the new look unveiled at Google I/O next week. Google does apparently have a three-hour keynote lined up.

It’s hard to say for certain just how authentic these screenshots are, as Chitu appears to be the only source (though he thanks a Florian K.). Chitu has a pretty credible track record of Google coverage though, and is always conscientious to point out when new Google features are simply tests. His post makes him seem pretty confident that this is the real deal. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Chris Velazco at TechCrunch makes a couple of good points, like for one, that the design seems to fall in line with other Google products of late – the “cards” look in particular. Also Google has had a history of recent product leaks.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on  on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-maps-is-reportedly-about-to-look-like-this-2013-05

WordPress’ Share Of The World’s Top Blogs Increases

The majority of the world’s top 100 blogs are using WordPress, according to a new report from Pingdom, and the content management system’s share of these blogs is on the rise.
According to the firm, 52% of these blogs are using WordPress, up from 48% a year ago.
To come up with the top blogs, Pingdom looked to Technorati, which is famous for its annual State of the Blogosphere report, which has transformed into the “Digital Influence Report“. It’s worth noting that Pingdom was only able to identify the platform in use by 94 out of 100 sites.

As you can see, the next largest piece of the pie comes from custom systems, followed by Drupal, N/A, Gawker, BlogSmith, Movable Type, TypePad, Blogger, Ceros, Joomla, and Tumblr.
Considering Tumblr’s rising popularity in recent months, it’s interesting to see it carry such a small percentage here (1 site).
TypePad has increased from two sites to four sites, while Movable Type decreased from seven to four. Drupal dropped by one site. Google’s Blogger gained one site, reaching three.
Here’s the list of blogs, and which platform each uses:

Top 100 blogs and their blog platforms – complete list

Technorati ranking	Site	Platform
1	www.huffingtonpost.com	Movable Type
2	www.tmz.com	Ceros
3	mashable.com	Custom
4	www.techcrunch.com	WordPress
5	www.gothamist.com	Movable Type
6	www.mediaite.com	WordPress
7	www.theverge.com	Custom
8	www.gawker.com	Gawker
9	arstechnica.com	WordPress
10	www.buzzfeed.com	Custom
11	jezebel.com	Gawker
13	bits.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
14	www.infowars.com	WordPress
15	laughingsquid.com	WordPress
16	theonion.com	Custom
17	www.theblaze.com	WordPress
18	hotair.com	WordPress
19	www.joystiq.com	Blogsmith
20	www.zerohedge.com	Drupal
21	www.scotusblog.com	WordPress
22	www.engadget.com	Blogsmith
23	googleblog.blogspot.com	Blogger
24	krugman.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
25	www.eurogamer.net	N/A
26	www.deadline.com	WordPress
27	politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com	WordPress
28	www.boingboing.net	WordPress
29	thenextweb.com	WordPress
30	www.deadspin.com	Gawker
31	9to5mac.com	WordPress
32	funnyordie.com	N/A
33	www.towleroad.com	TypePad
34	www.wired.com/wiredscience	WordPress
35	www.neatorama.com	Custom
36	www.neowin.net	Custom
37	www.businessinsider.com	Custom
38	www.macrumors.com	WordPress
39	www.slashgear.com	WordPress
40	thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
41	americanthinker.com	Movable Type
42	www.redstate.com	WordPress
43	bleacherreport.com	Custom
44	mlbtraderumors.com	TypePad
45	www.sbnation.com	Custom
46	artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
47	thisisnthappiness.com	Tumblr
48	marginalrevolution.com	WordPress
49	ycorpblog.com	N/A
50	blog.us.playstation.com	WordPress
51	blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/	WordPress
52	www.extremetech.com	WordPress
53	www.dailykos.com	N/A
54	townhall.com	Custom
55	www.wired.com/threatlevel	WordPress
56	eurekalert.org	Custom
57	www.tor.com	Joomla
58	americablog.com	WordPress
59	sethgodin.typepad.com	TypePad
60	www.whitehouse.gov/blog	Drupal
61	www.autoblog.com	Blogsmith
62	thebiglead.com	WordPress
63	joemygod.blogspot.com	Blogger
64	www.refinery29.com	N/A
65	flavorwire.com	WordPress
67	blog.twitter.com	Drupal
68	rightwingwatch.org	Drupal
69	www.tuaw.com	BlogSmith
70	thisiscolossal.com	WordPress
71	www.dlisted.com	Drupal
72	www.comicbookmovie.com	Custom
73	inquisitr.com	WordPress
74	economix.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
75	www.geekologie.com	N/A
76	www.geekosystem.com	WordPress
77	thelede.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
78	opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com	WordPress
79	directorblue.blogspot.com	Blogger
80	www.bleedingcool.com	WordPress
81	www.bostonherald.com/sports	Drupal
82	www.kottke.org	Movable Type
83	economistsviews.typepad.com	TypePad
84	blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/	WordPress
85	consequenceofsound.net	WordPress
86	www.cinemablend.com	Custom
87	www.wired.com/dangerroom	WordPress
88	wattsupwiththat.com	WordPress
89	www.geek.com	WordPress
90	consumerist.com	WordPress
91	www.popsugar.com	Drupal
92	www.celebitchy.com	WordPress
93	trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com	WordPress
94	www.siliconera.com	WordPress
95	www.nakedcapitalism.com	WordPress
96	www.mediabistro.com/galleycat	WordPress
97	www.ubergizmo.com	WordPress
98	hip2save.com	WordPress
99	animalnewyork.com	WordPress
100	phandroid.com	WordPres

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

 Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/wordpress-share-of-the-worlds-top-blogs-increases-2013-05 

 

How Much Would You Pay For Google Glass? Most Say $200

In its current state, Google Glass is incredibly expensive. Those who signed up for the Google Glass Explorers program last year had to fork over $1,500 to get a crack at the device. The price will come down when it’s made available to consumers next year, but a new survey suggests that the price will have to come down a lot before consumers bite.
Last week, TrendBlog posed a question to its audience – “How much are you willing to pay for Google Glass?” The respondents were given a wide variety of price options ranging from below $100 to more than $2,000. The end result found that most were willing to pay near the bottom of the price spectrum.
Overall, 48 percent of respondents would pay between $200 to $300 for Google Glass when it launches next year. Going lower or higher than that causes interest to drop dramatically with only 13 percent willing to pay less than $100 with only one percent willing to pay between $1,200 and $2,000. Unsurprisingly, nobody would pay more than $2,000.

How Much Are People Willing To Pay For Google Glass by trendblog.net
Pricing is incredibly important, especially when it comes to consumer electronics. Microsoft has learned this lesson the hard way as Windows 8 PCs have failed to take off partly due to the high cost. Apple was able to sell high priced electronics because it was able to convince consumers that its products contained exceptional software value. Google will have to do the same if Google Glass is priced above $300.

About Zach Walton
Zach Walton is a Writer for WebProNews. He specializes in gaming and technology. Follow him on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Google+ +Zach Walton

View all posts by Zach Walton → 

 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/how-much-would-you-pay-for-google-glass-most-say-200-2013-05

Google Cracks Down On Short-Term Loan Ads

Google has reportedly cracked down on payday loan services using AdWords, which are in violation of its policies and government regulations.
TheDrum.com reports (via Search Engine Land) that Google has pulled all Moneysupermarket ads as part of the crackdown, which is the result of increasing government pressure on Google.
The publication shares a statement from a Google spokeswoman, who said, “We have a set of policies which govern what ads we do and do not allow on Google. We have strict policies for those advertising short term loans, and make it very clear that advertisers need to comply with local regulations and be transparent about their fees, implications of non-payment and collection practices. If we discover sites that are breaking this policy we will take appropriate action.”
Here’s what Google says about short-term loans in its AdWords policies:
Short-term loans are defined as secured or non-secured loans with a duration of 60 days or less. Google doesn’t allow websites for short-term loans that don’t include all of the information below (includes lenders, lead generators, and aggregators of short-term loans):

• Legitimate contact information or physical address (P.O. box addresses are not acceptable)
• Compliance with other state or local regulations related to short-term loans
• Prominent disclosure of the following on the landing page, meaning that it’s shown in the same font type, size, and color as the base text on the landing page and presented in a way that is clear and conspicuous to users:
  • APR
  • Implications of non-payment, including the following:
    • Financial implications (whether fees are charged and/or interest rates are raised)
    • Collection practices
    • Potential impact to users’ credit score
    • Renewal policy information, including if the renewal is automatic and if there are fees associated with the renewal
    Aggregators/lead generators may provide sample implications from their network to satisfy the above requirements. Implications of non-payment should be grouped together in one location on the landing page.

Google has different policies for Japan, Singapore, the UK and the US. These can all be found here.
Advertisers who have had their accounts suspended are advised to review the guidelines, remove all unacceptable content from ad text and their websites, provide users with accurate info about business, products and services, ensure that their sites contain all info required by state and local lawas, and be transparent about the products or services being promoted.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

Resource:  http://www.webpronews.com/google-cracks-down-on-short-term-loan-ads-2013-04

Google’s New ValueTrack Parameters Go Live

Last month, Google announced new ValueTrack parameters for Enhanced Campaigns for advertisers using keyword level URLs. Today, the company announced that they’re now live and ready to be applied to campaigns.
“These features will help you achieve your conversion and ROI goals, and make the upgrade to enhanced campaigns easier by directing users to a device-specific landing page at the keyword level [and aligning performance reporting with device groupings used in enhanced campaigns," says AdWords senior product manager Karen Yao.
Specifically, Google has added the {ifnotmobile:[value]} parameter, which lets you replace [value] with the text that will show up in your URL when the user clicks the ad from a computer or tablet. They’re changing the parameter {ifmobile:[value]}, which will now insert the specified value into the URL only when the user clicks from a mobile device.
Google shares some examples for using these parameters in a blog post here.
If you still need to learn more about upgrading to Enhanced Campaigns, Google has a guide available

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/googles-new-valuetrack-parameters-go-live-2013-04

Companies Can Announce Important Info on Social Media, Rules SEC After Reed Hastings Investigation

The Securities and Exchange Commission has clarified its rules on Regulation Fair Disclosure, saying that public companies can use social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter to announce key company information – just so long as the investors are made aware which social media accounts may be posting such information beforehand.
“The SEC’s report of investigation confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites,” says the SEC.
The SEC didn’t recognize company websites as proper disclosure channels until 2008.
“One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information,” said George Canellos, Acting Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news.”
This ruling stems from an SEC investigation into the Facebook activities of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Back in December of 2012, Hastings ran afoul of the SEC when he made a post on Facebook announcing that the company had topped 1 billion hours of streaming per month.
The SEC claimed the post violated Regulation FD, as the disclosure didn’t appear in an official filing or a press release. Hastings had not disclosed to investors that he would be using his Facebook page to report important information.
Just a couple of months ago, Hastings made it clear that he wouldn’t be backing down on this, as he felt that he did nothing wrong.
“I wasn’t setting out to set an example. I was sharing something to these 200,000 people,” Hastings said. “I’m not going to back down and say it’s inappropriate. I think it’s perfectly fine. Sometimes you’re just the example that triggers the debate.”
In clarifying these rules the SEC has also cleared Hastings, saying that they recognize that there had been market uncertainly about Regulation FD and social media. Thus the need for the clarifications.
“The report of investigation explains that although every case must be evaluated on its own facts, disclosure of material, nonpublic information on the personal social media site of an individual corporate officer — without advance notice to investors that the site may be used for this purpose — is unlikely to qualify as an acceptable method of disclosure under the securities laws. Personal social media sites of individuals employed by a public company would not ordinarily be assumed to be channels through which the company would disclose material corporate information.”
So, Reed Hastings and others like him can avoid all the hoopla if they simply make it clear to investors that their Facebook or Twitter profiles will be used for divulging key information. As long as that fact is known, companies, CEOs, COOs, or whoever have the right to post investor relations materials on social sites.

About Josh Wolford
Josh Wolford is a Writer for WebProNews. He likes beer, Sriracha and movies that make him feel weird afterward. Mostly beer. Follow him on Twitter: @joshgwolf Google+: Joshua Wolford StumbleUpon: joshgwolf

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Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/companies-can-announce-important-info-on-social-media-rules-sec-after-reed-hastings-investigation-2013-04

Google Analytics Real Time Reports Get Even Better

The real-time feature is probably the best thing Google has done for Google Analytics in a long time, at least for publishers like us. Now the feature is getting even better.
Google announced some improvements to its real-time reports, including the ability to analyze Events in real-time, breakdown real-time by Desktop/Tablet/Mobile traffic, create shortcuts to your favorite real-time segments, and compare real-time filtered data against overall real-time data.
“With the real-time events report, you can now not only see the top events as they occur but also filter on particular event categories (and actions),” the Google Analytics team notes in a blog post. “Additionally, you can see whether particular segments of visitors trigger different events and debug your events deployment in real time.”
“If you are trying to see what events a particular segment of visitors generate, that is easy as well,” Google adds. “Any filters you set up in any part of real-time are preserved in the Events report. For example, in the above screengrab we have set up a filter here to see what events are triggered from visitors coming via organic search.”
The breakdown by Desktop/Tablet/Mobile feature is going to be an interesting one to watch, and will give publishers a better sense of their current audience at any given second.

About Chris Crum
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

View all posts by Chris Crum → 

Resource: http://www.webpronews.com/google-analytics-real-time-reports-get-even-better-2013-03