SEO
Google’s Youtube enhanced to include "click-to-buy" feature
With YouTube,Google has become a dominant player in online video,which is an emerging field.Though YouTube had gained popularity,it is yet to find success in the financial area.Making financial popularity its aim,Google provides internet users opportunity to buy songs and games in videos that they watch in YouTube.
Net users who are interested in buying a song featured in a video can click on a location which directs them to either Amazon.com or Apple’s iTunes store.From this location,the tracks can be downloaded for a fee. Through this ecommerce ad on format for YouTube, they get a share of the revenue for every transaction that is made.Presently music is available only from EMI and Universal Music Group for “click to buy.”
In future,Google is hoping to include other companies and also other varieties of content including film, print and television. If this project is successful, it would help counter YouTube’s image as a haven for copyright infringement which is damaging the entertainment industry.
Mail Goggles helps in preventing email regrets
Gmail, Google’s free e-mail service, added a new feature to the service called “Mail Goggles“. This feature gives one the ability to double-check if you are sure that you want to send an e-mail message, specially late at night.This feature can be very helpful in avoiding to send hasty e-mails either in your profession or personal life.
This is how it works.One needs to solve a few quick and simple maths problems before actually sending a mail.If you have succeeded in these calculations,then Google assures that you are in a sober state to send the mail.
To enable Goggles, Gmail users need to click the “Settings” link at the top of a Gmail page.From here,we need to go to “Labs” section. Here,we can add settings to include on which days and times,this feature needs to be enabled.
So lets admit we all need some extra help at times before sending mails..and Goggles is there for us.
Mozilla releases the new add-on Geode
Mozilla Labs, plans to announce a plug-in called Geode which gives the Firefox Web browser a better ability to understand and utilize geographic information on the Web. Doug Turner,in one of the blogs had said this about Geode, “a Firefox add-on that understands location, enabling enriched, personalized, and localized content.”
Today, the real estate term ‘location, location, location’ is very much applicable to the Web.This is due to the fact that “where you are” is equally important as the information you’re seeking.Mozilla’s Geode, a Firefox geolocation add-on is one which will enable localized content.At this stage, the details of geode have not been disclosed much,but this is what is explained in one of the blogs “With Geode, a user who is looking for restaurants while they are out of town will be able to load up their favorite review site and find suggestions a couple blocks away and plot directions there.” This is more relevant for GPS-enabled mobile platforms that utilise location-specific information in order to simplify the method in which people access and share content on a regular basis.
Release of BrowseRank from Microsoft
Microsoft ,in order to compete with Google’s pagerank has recently released the details of BrowseRank, its new browsing algorithm .The browserank algorithm calculates based on how often and for how long users visit the site. This is different from Google’s pagerank,which is measured based on the links to and from a page.Through this strategy,Microsoft feels,more Internet users ,instead of web developers would have control over page relevancy.
In the search engine arena,Microsoft is a distant third, with yahoo in the second place and the search king Google,as usual occuping the top position.Microsoft , which is dominating the computer industry, is in an unfamiliar third position when it comes to the field of search engines. As reported in one of our previous SEO news blog,Google has a share of 70% of all US searches,with yahoo occuping 20% share and MSN with a mere five and a half percent. For now ,good luck to Microsoft for all their efforts to compete with the Search King Google.
Relaunch of Google’s Blog Search with memetracker
With its own memetracker, Google has relaunched Google Blog Search. Memetrackers help in identifying the latest trends on blogs.They take content from the latest blogs and aggregate them to ensure that browsing is much easier for everyone. For the net users, this is the best way to access the latest news.
Google Blog Search might have really struggle to maintain its popularity against the popular memetrackers.. One major competitor is Techmeme, which covers Tech News.The other competitor is the site Memeorandum, the sister concern of Techmeme ,which covers political news.
Google’s new page lists several topics like Politics,Technology, World,Business,Entertainment etc. The most popular topics contains several blogs written about that subject,which allows the users for easy navigation.One very interesting factor is the graph when we access a specific topic.This graph provides information as to the timings when the blogs were posted related to this topic.
Google is always on the top for creating popular consumer tools, but it’s too early to conclude whether the new Google Blog Search will be a favourite among net users. Checkout http://blogsearch.google.com.
Tenth birthday celebrations for Google
The vice president of search products and product engineering at Google,Marissa Mayer, told in a blog posting that the birthday logo includes a celebration of the company’s anniversary as well as an opportunity to trace back to Google’s tradition.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page had attended the infamous Burning Man Festival in 1998.To inform their colleagues they had included Burning Man image into the Google logo.Eventually the logo became a tradition at this Search Engine giant company, and the company celebrates special events by inventing new logos.
Hacking of websites expanding widely
The targets of hackers have become legitimate websites.This is due to the fact that more people are becoming extremely proficient in web browsing as well as downloading several softwares.
David Freer,Symantec’s vice president for consumer business in Asia-Pacific and Japan reported in one of the websites that the greatest threat today is that legitimate Web Sites are being hacked .He reported that not just the users’ PC, instead the entire platform of Web is emerging as the favourite platform for security attacks.
An observation by Norton has revealed that the attackers focus area is usually Websites with flaws.Norton also reported that just 4% of the vulnerabilities for the latter half of 2007 were patched by March 2008.Freer observed that everyday there were around 10,000 unique attacking domains.
New advertising platform (APT) for yahoo
The platform APT which has been under development for atleast around 2 years has been rolled out today.This is intended to project the way digitals ads are placed across the web.The main intention of Yahoo’s APT is to improve its average financial performances. and obtain a greater share of the Internet advertising revenue.
APT, which is an automated platform, links advertisers, agencies who sell ads as well as website owners. It consists of several tools which gives advertisers the opportunity to display the locations where ads need to appear, which category of web surfers will view the ads etc.As a result, APT provides the platform to do business very effectively.
For more information on APT,checkout the website http://apt.yahoo.com/
Google’s Android Software to cover broader arenas
The debut of the first phone using Google’s Android Software will be unveiled today.The first device to run Google’s operating system is a mobile from the Taiwanese firm HTC called the “Dream”.However some Android partners have revealed that the Android Software will be used for several other areas than just the mobile.
John Bruggerman,the chief marketing officer at Wind River Systems,a Google ally who is involved in customizing phones to use Android Software said that in future Android will be used in devices used in automobiles or those devices that are used in homes.He mentioned that it was expected that TV’s,set top boxes and even cars might be using this software .He conveyed that we might be witnessing the ubiquitous presence of Android by the year 2009.
Well, if the Android software branches into new areas,this would pose a major threat to other competitors in the same arena.
Search lead results from Comscore
The recent report from the research firm Comscore revealed that Google’s share of the search market grew to around two thirds of
The monthly report of Comscore revealed that Google’s search share increased from 61.95% to 63% in August.The rivals Yahoo and Microsoft though have slided down in their search performances.Yahoo’s search market decreased from 20.5% in July to 19.6% over the month of August.Microsoft claimed the third position with a market share of 8.3% which has decreased from 8.9% in July. Ask Network occupied the fourth position with a share of 4.8%, increasing from around 4.5% in July.The fifth position was occupied by AOL with 4.3%, slightly gaining from 4.2% in July.
View the research results of Comscore in a tabular format:
