Archive for December, 2011
New Social Network unveiled by Microsoft
Social Media is getting crowded and now it’s Microsoft’s time to introduce their social network So.cl. This is not their attempt to compete with Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.
It is a network that is aimed at helping students interested in social media. Microsoft calls it a “a research experiment for students focused on combining web browsing, search, and social networking for the purposes of learning.”
The Search functions of So.cl is powered by Bing’s API and encourages students to create rich web contents visually. While you search the links are shared automatically when there are other students looking for the same thing. A feature called “Video Party” let you search and you can make a note of movies which you can watch together with friends.
So.cl is only available to students of information and design schools in Syracuse University, Newyork University and University of Washington. It also provides the opportunity for the students to create customized social tool for their own community.
FAQ part of So.cl reads “We hope to encourage students to reimagine how our everyday communication and learning tools can be improved, by researching, learning and sharing in their everyday lives.”
Read FUSE Labs blog to know more about it.
Google+ Brand Pages Showing in Search Results
Out of world’s top 100 brands,77 have Google+ brand page.According to Bright Edge there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of fans adding their favorite brands to their circles and this amounts to 222,000 fans.
There are 300 million fans for the same brand on Facebook compared to 148,000 on Google +. Brands like IBM,Vodafone and Google have a Google+ page but not an official Facebook page.
The social and search channel gap in Google is closing up as Google is embedding popular product with it’s dominant search marketing position. The brands need to address both channels and it’s now their choice to extend their social presence from Facebook to Google+.
Brands are now offering incentives to include one of their pages as part of their search and social strategy such as the inclusion of Google+ pages in primary search results.There has also been a speculation around this move that it could lead google to anti trust woes.
Including Google+ pages in the search results is a smart move by Google and a recent survey found that Google,Yahoo contributes 34 percent of Facebook fan page referrals.A few questions like whether this could abuse Google’s dominant position in the market if it still contributes further remains to seen.
Sponsored Stories in Facebook coming to News Feed
Sponsored Stories will be rolled out by Facebook in the news feed. From January ads will be rolled out which allows the brand to reach friends of users who have interacted with their pages.A like or comment is enough for the brands to interact with the users.
Users will be able to see sponsored stories in the news feed about people or friends they are connected to. Sponsored stories of pages which users are not a fan or friend will not be visible for the users.
Facebook spokeperson Annie Ta told “We want to be really thoughtful about this, so we’ll have a lot of rate limits in place. We hope to show people no more than one Sponsored Story in their News Feeds per day and we’ll clearly label the story. They’ll also be of the same size and treatment as other stories in News Feed.”
Sponsored Story Feed will soon be available in the ticker which appears in the upper right hand part of the site. There was no information about the brands that would be part of the roll out.The price of the news feed ad units was also not determined.Sponsored stories in the news feed will not be extended to mobile
Author Stats added to Webmaster Tools
A new report named “Author Stats” has been introduced by Google recently. Google search results page will contain how often your page is showing up and this will be available under section called “labs” in Webmaster tools. When the content is associated with the Google,the impressions and clicks of the stories will be shown.
In case if you find any issues,you can mail them at authorship-pilot@google.com. More by link has also been added in the search results by Google
New Shiny API in Google Analytics
New features have been unrolling in Google Analytics since August when version 3 was launched.Google Analytics was in need of a new API and now developers have delivered it.
Data Export API has now been replaced by Google Analytics Core Reporting API which is right now the hot cake for Google Analytics Developers. The current Analytics API is both the continuation of the previous API and not to mention the Javascript Client Library which is currently in Alpha.
The two versions that are currently available in Core Reporting API are Version 2.4 and Version 3.0. The latter version contains new libraries for languages like PHP, Ruby and Python whereas former version is legacy release to maintain compatibility with the previous versions.
Significant changes are available in version 3.0 PAPI starting with authentication through the OAuth 2.0 format, but also in the use of JSON(Javascript for Object Notation) format for data output and absolutely no backwards compatibility with the previous version 2.3. The API team recommends the developers to migrate to 3.0 version.
If custom apps or interfaces are developed using 2.3 API,it needs to be updated within 6 months. Data Export API,XML requests and configuration will not be available at that time.
JSON(Javascript Object Notation) will be replacing XML as the preferred format for returning data.The new features will continue to roll out in 2012 as announced by Google and developers will be working on the API to make the new features more accessible.
Schemer Project and Activity Finder launched by Google
Content sharing tool has been introduced by Google which helps about finding new things in the real world.The new project allows the visitors to share,create and track progress for goals, activities and adventures.
Google has launched the project on a invite only basis and it would be a real world activity sharing site. Check this introduction part in Schemer Google+ page.
Whether it’s exploring a new city, checking out a friend’s movie recommendations, or just finding new activities for your weekends, Schemer lets you discover new things to do, share schemes with friends, and make the most of your day.
Even though a invite is needed,Google provided links will get you into Schemer.Search for the activities based on keywords, interest,location or category.Check out recent and popular posts.
You can mark the schemes you have done,track the schemes and even share your plans.Within a few clicks you can able create,label and describe the scheme of your own
You can also hare the content via Google + or through mail.You can also connect with other schemers via Google +
Graphing Capabilities added to Google Search Results
Google search bar has now turned into a graphing calculator. When a mathematical function has been entered on Google,the search result will now contain an interactive graph of the of the function that is entered into the search bar.
Everything from a single geometric function such as sin(x) and wild set of equations can be entered in the search bar. More than one equation can be graphed at once.
It also allows the searcher to pan around on, zoom in , zoom out and gets point-by-point information from the graph.Both mathematical symbols and standard language are accepted. According to Google blog “Google graph technology is capable of mapping out of trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic and their compositions”.
Google has been working on many different things that really pulls people in.High school students would love this new feature from Google to solve their mathematical questions. What do you think of this new feature from Google?
44 percent of Advertising Market owned by Google
In the last five years,the Internet ad market of the of Google have risen almost 10 percent from 44.1 percent in 2010 making it the leader of online advertising. In the global search market Google has been dominating with 85 percent and their competitors(Yahoo,Microsoft and AOL) have slipped nearly to 13.8 percent according to the survey from ZenithOptimedia.
Market share of Portals
Their acquisitions DoubleClick and YouTube had also played important role in Google’s market share. From 0.6 percent in 2006 and 3.1 percent in 2010, market share of Facebook has also grown considerably and they will surpass Microsoft by the end of the year.
Atleast till the end of year 2014 there will be sustained growth in global ad spend predicted by ZenithOptiMedia. They have also predicted that between the years 2011 and 2014, 58 percentage of ad revenue will come from emerging markets such as China,Russia and Indonesia.
Paid Search accounts for almost half of the adspend in the internet advertising segment at 15.7 percent a year and move to mobile where costs are lower will have some impact on the growth. Display will continue to trail the paid search by 2014,taking 22.6 and 25.6 respectively.
10 developing markets will contribute to 48 percent of global ad expenditure over the next three years with Brazil,Russia, India an China contributing 33 percent. For the total ad spend, China and Brazil are the only two developing countries in the list.
Peer-to-Peer Search Engine Introduced by YaCy
A German search company Yacy has released a peer-to-peer search engine that uses networked systems to index the web and deliver the results has been brought into being by Free Software Foudnation of Europe.
An attempt has been made to match the breadth and power of Google’s Index. Every individual who downloads and runs the YaCY is helping to power searches and build indexes.
ll the searches are encrypted and no user information is stored,this is one important part regarding the privacy.Project Leader of YaCy Micheal Christen says “Search isthe vital link between us and the information we’re looking for. For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies, and compromise our privacy in the process.”
It works in the same technique as torrent and the information storehouse of all the systems on the netowork are being used to conduct the search and keep the database together.Even when the user is not actively browsing,the site the visitors are not automatically added ot the index.There are totally 600 pages on the network that have indexed 1.4 billion pages of content.
“YaCy isn’t a challenge to Google, and is a long way from becoming one. It’s not even intended to challenge Google.” says Karsten Gerloff,President of Free Software Foundation of Europe.
There are some unique advantages in Yacy where no central server na fail and there is no central instance that can decide can filter the results to some people.An innovative system has been introduced by YaCy that benefits both users and businesses.Increasing information stability and privacy will be decided if peer-to-peer concept succeeds in the coming days.
YouTube Insight replaced by YouTube Analytics
YouTube Insight will be replaced by Youtube Analytics and this was announced by product manager Ted Hamilton in Youtube blog. In way Youtube analytics is going to be different from Insight.Lets look at the new features of Youtube analytics
1. The key information is displayed quickly which allows the users to easily access detailed information.
2. The statistics are more detailed for the precise understanding of the content and audience.
3. The new audience retention report even provides how far the viewers are watching through the video.
Insight,a free tool from Youtube was released in March 2008 which allowed anyone with a Youtube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they uploaded to the site.
Insight also offered information on how popular a video is in a geographic location and how popular they were in that category of all video in that market in a certain period of time. Life Cycle of the uploaded videos can also be seen in Insight offering information on how long it took for a video to gain popularity.
Several features were added to Youtube since then and in the year 2008,Discovery tab was added which elaborated how viewers found a video in Youtube.Is is through searching in Google or reveiving a link from website or email you can get to know of it.
Demographics and Hotspots tab were later added in the year which displayed view count of information age group and gender.Community tab was added in the year 2009, that showed how many times a video had been shared,rated and commented. The new analytics from YouTube has been one of the best gifts for marketers this season.