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Verification Badge Program from Google Plus
In the above video Google + team member Wen-Ai Yu speaks about the verification program.The entire program aims to assure that “the people who you are adding to a circle is really who they claim to be”.
Editor’s Picks in Google News
Google News readers in the United States would have noticed the new feature in the right hand column called “Editor Picks” which displays the original content that publishers have chosen from their publications. This has been the new change from Google adding variety to their presence of stories and multimedia on Google News.
The “Editor’s Picks” displays the best content that includes local and national publishers of news organizations. Unlike Google News which relies on algorithms, Editors Picks are provided by the publishers and not by the Google. A set of Publisher Feeds of popular newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian are available . The feeds displayed are chosen based on a variety of factors including your news preferences.
The “Editors Picks” were experimented last year itself and based on the recent experiment there has been a positive response from the readers and publishers. Google also encourages news organizations which are interested to contact their help center to get started.
Google Introduces Hotel Search
Google on Thursday have introduced a tool for searching hotels and it has joined the list of sites like Kayak, Expedia and Hotels.com. The new hotel finder search is in the early stages of development and is available only in the United States.With the help of ‘Hotel Search’ it allows people search hotels in various cities,save those interest them and book reservations
There are talks that Google may change the way of existing search results when it enters new business.Google has clearly said that it does not practice favoritism for websites but gives the user the best result whether or not it is a Google Service.
Sites like Expedia and Hotels.com provide Google with price and availability information.Google also links to hotel’s own website.The hotel price ads,as Google calls them, also show up on Google maps and main search engine.
Google shows whether a price is a good deal or more than most hotels in the area. It also provides the users to save hotels they like to shortlist. Hotelfinder shows information,photos,customer reviews and star ratings from Google places.
Google has planned to invest more money in travel search search tools so let’s wait and see what more they are going to introduce .
Credit Cards for Adwords Customers
Google has some good news for the Adwords advertisers and the news is that it is offering credit cards with low interest rate.The credit card comes with a no annual fee and will be issued by MasterCard with a 8.99 annual percentage rate.
The card will be used by the customers to buy AdWords ads alone. The card will benefit small and medium businesses as they can able to increase their sales with ad campaigns even when they don’t have sufficient funds. Claire Johnson,vice president of Online Sales at Google says “they are resource-constrained and they are often cash flow-strapped. Many of them are trying to grow a business without the kind of means that, say, your classic company has”.
The benefits of the card will vary depending upon the cardholder and Google hasn’t disclosed to whom it plans to offer the card.Chosen customers should get an invitation from Google to start using the card.
Let us know what you readers feel about this Google’s credit offer and let us wait how it works out.
Google Withdraws Toolbar for Firefox
Google’s famous toolbar for Firefox will not be available from Firefox 5 onwards. Google toolbar for Firefox has been a very popular addon for most of the users .Google has been making a lot of changes in the recent past and it has been killing some projects and services and most notably Google Labs.
As Google has it’s own browser Firefox is definitely not it’s priority anymore. The user’s were not happy by this move from Google which was clearly evident from user’s comments in Google Blog
Multiple Calls in Gmail at the same time
We all would be well aware of the old multiple line phones with all the buttons across the bottom. Now in Google’s Gmail we can access to more than one line at a time.
The news from the official Gmail Blog states that the new multi-call capability will let the user to pick another call at the same time and put the current caller on hold. The thing is that there is no music to entertain the first caller.
You will receive a notification on the current call and then it’s up to you whether you’re going to answer it or not. Through out this year US and Canada calls using the Gmail phone will be free and all these features work with Gmail’s phone, voice and video calls.
New URL shortener from Google
A new URL shortener g.co has been unveiled by Google that will link to only Google products and websites.
The earlier URL shortener goo.gl, was launched in the year 2009 and unlike the current URL shortener it can be used for any link on the web via the Google toolbar whereas g.co will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.
Google has been using goo.gl URL shortner for all it’s products until now and they clearly want to eliminate the confusion where it leads to.Apart from Google ,twitter also has it’s own URL shortener to improve the links shared on it’s secured platform
Is Google+ female dominated?
It’s hard to believe that Google+,the new social networking site from Google is not a male dominated network. Statistics reveal that Google+ is about to reach 10million users and 33percent of users as of July 14th are female.
The methodology Allen from Ancestory.com in estimating Google+ statistics varies from other Google+ data sources. The data from US Census Bureau is being compared with Google+ users. By comparing surname popularity in the U.S. with the number of users on Google+ with each surname, he can guesstimate the percentage of the U.S. population that signed up for Google+. We’re not sure how census data can be applied to gender, especially on a social network, but we’ve reached out to Allen for additional information on how his data was composited.
The marketing services from Google has put on a lot of emphasis for women which implies that women are prime target for Google+
Google+ has totally a different interface and I think that users will find time to get adapted to it with especially facebook making a lot of changes.
Yahoo mail revamped, integrates more features
In order to survive and be a competitive player in the market Yahoo mail underwent significant changes. The new features includes a redesigned email format, an option to update Facebook and Twitter account via yahoomail platform and above all double faster service with 100 megabytes attachment capabilities. The ‘makeover’ also consist of better chatting ability with dear ones who are logged into Facebook and also improved Junk mail controls. These overhauls are mainly to get modernized with the current trends where people spend more time Social media and also due to the rivals’ constant up gradation. Though once upon a time Yahoo was much larger than its rival Google, for the past several months they are losing the grip. According to Comscore research report, yahoo faces a drop out in its subscribers whereas Gmail had grown to 220 million with 24% increased subscribers on to their credit. Russia’s most popular search engine Yandex will be offering shares double of Google’s earning.
Bing becoming more “social” with their search results
With the rapport with Facebook, Microsoft will be producing results from your friend’s circle; ie, more “Likes” in their search results. It is true that we prefer comments, advises from our buddies and also are likely to believe what they say rather what others say. With that assumption and also considering some favourable research results about “Friend effect” Bing announced on their blog “We are bringing the collective IQ of the Web together with the opinions of the people you trust the most, to bring the “Friend effect” to search”. Starting today users will get personalized search results based on the opinions of their friends by simply signing into Facebook.
This new feature of Bing will make it easier for you to view what your friends “like” across the web. This feature is quite interesting since we always wish to get advice/opinions before buying or taking a decision. But one very important fact is that you and your friends should make a big list of things of what you like so as to provide apt results for your friends also. In case, if none of your friends haven’t commented about the particular thing you are searching for, then Input from the collective IQ can enable search to become a discovery tool, allowing you to benefit from the connections, inferences and “likes” of it. Bing shows also popular content, including trendy topics, articles and Facebook fan pages, from sites across the web. The above mentioned are a few about this new “social” feature of Bing.There are lot more, visit http://binged.it/kJ6X7T