Creative SEO News UK, Search Engine Optimisation & Search Marketing News » news

Google Launch Fast.Forward, a Marketing Innovation and Information Resource

Creative SEO — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:45:44 +0000

Google have partnered with the Wharton School to launch a brand new resource for Marketers to share and learn about the ever changing world of Marketing. The site is called Fast.Forward and is based as a YouTube channel. It features hundreds of valuable and informative videos from some of the world’s top marketing academics and leading experts including Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Lauder Professor at the Wharton School, Jerry Wind, Nancy Hill, CEO of AAAA.

“As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren’t doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world.

To address some of these questions, we have partnered with The Wharton School to launch our Fast.Forward. Channel on YouTube, which highlights insightful perspectives from industry experts and academics on how marketers can stay ahead in the changing landscape. (You might have seen a similar site launched by our UK marketing team in partnership with London Business School earlier this year.)” Taken from the Google Biz Blog.

This is a great source of information which will only improve over time and is well worth a visit.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Google News Adds Suggested Search to News Search box.

Creative SEO — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:11:00 +0000

Google Suggest is a simple yet powerful service which suggests a list of popular keywords, when inputting characters for a keyword search, within a search input box. As more characters are added the suggested search terms are refined to offer more relevant list of keywords based on the additional characters. This is not new technology and is currently being used as part of the Google Toolbar. What is new is the introduction of the service within the Google News website.

Google have adjusted the algorithm to feature only news related keywords and terms. The new feature is available in multiple Google News Languages including; English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

Article By Creative SEO UK

Google Docs Launch Translation Tool: Multi Language Document Sharing.

Creative SEO — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:49:59 +0000

Google Docs has today launched an amazing new translation tool, now you can share Google Docs between 42 different languages and automatically translate the content.

Google Documents has fast become the world’s leading online document sharing solution, the simple and familiar to use service offers a whole suite of tools for the consumer and business user.

Google have integrated there Google Translates technology into the Google Docs. In the Tools Menu you can now select “translate document”, you will then be asked to choose a language. Not only will this service translate your existing document it will also create a new translated version which will be saved as a new document. This gives you the versatility to create multiple saved versions of the same document in different languages.

Google has acknowledged that the format and layout of translated documents will remain the same, only the text will change. Google is also rumoured to be in the process of updating the user interface of Google Docs to compete with Microsoft Office’s new web based productivity suite.

Article by Creative SEO

Commercial Twitter Accounts with Premium services and Business Tools to be launched.

Creative SEO — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:29:46 +0000

Twitter is preparing to launch commercial accounts designed specifically for business users, could this be the long awaited introduction of Twitters new Revenue generation model and what services will be available on premium business accounts?

Twitter, the Micro-Blogging phenomenon, has grown to massive proportions over the last 12 months. Real Time search has become a key new player in online marketing and Twitter continues to pioneer the technology. It seems that Twitter was looking to establish the micro-blogging service with high user levels and popularity before considering the introduction of an advertising model to start generating revenue. The introduction of Business Tools and Premium accounts is the first sign of Commercial Monetization of the business.

During an interview with VentureBeat, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone is reported to have discussed the first phase of rolling out commercial accounts and the introduction of business-orientated applications, API’s, which would add a “commercial layer” to the social network. Biz Stone said:

“Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it.”
“But we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

Last month some important Twitter documents were leaked to the public, they included detailed information and concepts about the monetization of Twitter which included; search ads, integrated Adsense, sponsored tweets and an analytics suite of tools. Twitter also announced the launch last week of a new Twitter Geo-tagging feature which will allow users to configure their Twitter account to display their exact Tweeting location. It’s evident that the new Twitter premium accounts will be extremely feature rich, it’s still unclear when the new service will be launched as no formal launch date has been released.

Article by Creative SEO

Twitter add Geo-Tagging, Tweets searchable by location, Local Community Twitter.

Creative SEO — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:00:42 +0000

Twitter is the king of social media, a micro-blogging wonder that has swept the world leaving even the most ardent sceptic interested in how such a simple concept has become so addictive to such a large number of online users. Twitter has now acknowledged the launch of a new Geo-Tagging feature that will allow accounts to be filtered by location. Is this the beginning of a more community based Twitter experience? Could Twitter communities be based around local areas?

Twitter is adding an easy to use Geo-Tagging option to all Twitter accounts. Users will be able to update their location via an API. Developers will be able to tag latitude and longitude coordinates to all posts allowing real time, location based blogging.
“We’re gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information. “ Wrote Biz Stone on the Twitter Blog.

I think what is particularly exciting is the possibility of generating real time opinion based content, which is not only current and user generated but also is based on a location. Imagine the possibilities, trending public opinion based on location, country and subject, simply amazing. The main issue is Privacy. Twitter have addressed this with the option to enable the service from within the user settings and all accounts will have the service turned off by default.

Potentially Twitter could bring back the voice of local communities, a modern day equivalent of a town meeting place. We have lost a key element of social living which made the UK great, maybe social networking could potentially reintroduce the concept of localised communities?

We will have to wait and see what amazing mobile applications are launched on the back of this new service. You have to wonder, will Google Latitude come into the equation and is this the first sign of a Twitter Google collaboration? We will have to see, but the prospects are very exciting.

Article by Creative SEO

Google Updates Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Reader and Books!

Creative SEO — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:08:43 +0000

Google has been busy updating its services this week, Google Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Google Reader and Google Books have all been updated as part of Google’s continued development. So the big question is, “What’s New?” Here’s a brief overview.

Google Maps has added Picasa photos to Street view. As long as the image has been Geo-tagged Google will include it in Street View.

“Millions of people already rely on Picasa Web Albums to share their photographs with friends and the internet community. Now, their public geo-tagged photos will help Google Maps users to get a better impression of a geographic place, especially for areas where we may not have any Panoramio photos,” Daniel Cotting, software engineer, Google Zurich, wrote on Google’s Lat Long Blog.

“We’ve selected these photos by looking for geo-tagged public images in Picasa Web Albums. We apply face detection to screen out images with identifiable individuals and image matching so that we’re including the most relevant photographs.”

Google AdSense is conducting email interviews to find out exactly what it’s publishers want. Google are obviously keen to understand more about the needs and requirements of their publishers in light of the new Bing Yahoo search deal. Bing and Yahoo pose a potential threat to Google and customer feedback will help Google to improve the service further. Adsense has also launched a Beta Category Filter system for English Language feed ads.

YouTube recently ran a 1,024 recipe multivariate experiment using Google’s Website Optimizer. The results were fantastic, a 15.7% increase in new account signup based on minor changes to the site layout and text.

Google Reader has introduced a new sharing option allowing you to share content with Twitter and Facebook.

Google books have added a Creative Commons license option for its partners, to protect published content.

Article by Creative SEO

Google is building a replacement Google File System, to power New Google Caffeine

Creative SEO — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:19:07 +0000

Google’s massive growth and success have seen its existing infrastructure groan under the strain of its expansion. The Google File system is a bit like an operating system on a computer, we can see it but it powers everything Google does. The existing Google File System or GFS, was never built to run such a large system, new upgrades have seen code updates and bolt-on’s which are far from efficient. The new update of the GFS will be test driven as part of the new Google Search Engine update called Caffeine. And from what we have seen Caffeine is fast, really fast, in fact 100% faster than the Google Search Engine.

In an interview with the Association of Computer Machinery, Google’s Sean Quinlan, GFS tech leader for two years, explained that ten years on from its launch and the Google File System was still doing things they never dreamed were possible.

“Its staying power has been nothing short of remarkable given that Google’s operations have scaled orders of magnitude beyond anything the system had been designed to handle, while the application mix Google currently supports is not one that anyone could have possibly imagined back in the late 90s,” said Quinlan.

The GFS was never designed to work with Gmail or YouTube, it was designed for batch-orientated applications for web crawling and indexing. When it was first launched Google was purely a search engine and searching and indexing the web was its main priority. YouTube and Gmail are now working on the system, but they are using excessive resources and non efficient processes. The new version of the file system will tackle these issues and will be custom built to replace its predecessor.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Facebook Real Time Status Search to challenge Google, but what about Privacy?

Creative SEO — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:53:04 +0000

Facebook have announced the launch of a new search facility which will allow users to search the last 30days of Real Time status updates for users who have public profiles.

“You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.” Taken from the Facebook blog.

Facebooks existing search is terrible and the news of a new real time search facility will be a great addition to the service and open Facebook to new opportunities. Our biggest concern is the content of the status updates. Unlike Twitter, Facebook is a very personal service; users tend to be a lot more open and personal with their individual status comments. With Twitter you are aware that you are Tweeting to your selected audience, it feels a lot more public, but with Facebook a user could be under the misconception that they were only Tweeting to their immediate friends, especially if the user has not correctly updated their privacy setting. This could result in personal status updates being publicly viewed. Obviously this is an existing issue with the service as it stands now, but a new search could massively increase this problem, bringing unwanted exposure to unknowing Facebook users.

Real Time search is a great addition to Facebook and we are really keen to test the service as soon as it’s available.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Google Unveils Secret Project, New Faster Google Coming Soon called Caffeine.

Creative SEO — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:47:13 +0000

Google has unveiled a new secret project which is set to rock the very bedrock of the search engine marketplace.

The new Google upgrade, which was announced on Monday, will be part of Google’s ongoing development to maintain their industry leading online presence. Google Insiders have code named the new search engine as “Caffeine”. The company have opened up access to the new platform to developers.

The design of the new Google remains the same, but what is more important is the behind the scenes technology which has promised radical changes providing users with much more relevant results.

“For the past several months a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search,” taken from Google Blog.

“It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”

Caffeine is set to allow Google to provide more relevant information to its users, improving the user experience, indexing and crawl rates without loss of quality.

Matt Cutts Writes in his blog. “I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months, I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward.”

This new move to update Google comes hot on the heels of the launch of Microsoft’s Bing search engine and the Yahoo, Microsoft Partnership. Both Twitter and Facebook are now becoming involved in search and scientific new boy, Wolfram Alpha, is also a potential threat to Google’s dominance. It’s important for Google to keep doing what it’s doing so well, maintain its existing user experience while improving and developing functionality and result quality. This will help to maintain its existing users and attract new users from its competitors. Click here to test drive the new Google.

Article by Creative SEO

New Advertising Platform on Digg Launches in Beta

Creative SEO — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:46:01 +0000

Digg are to commence rolling out an early beta version of a new advertising platform. The new advertisements will only be available to view by a select number of users as part of an initial trial.

Ads will appear within the submitted content results of Digg and will be very clearly marked as sponsored advertising. What is particularly interesting is the bidding model which has been adopted as part of the trial. Advertisers will be charged a cost for each time an ad is clicked, cpc basis, but unusually ad placement will be dictated by user popularity.

Unpopular ads will appeal lower in the list and will pay more for their position and popular ads will display higher in the list but will cost the advertiser less money. This is quite an unusual approach and we are quite eager to see this working in practise. We will be particularly interested in how a new ad is positioned, within the ad listings, by an existing advertiser and how a new advertiser is positioned, within the ad listings, when first joining the campaign? We would hope that a long term advertising relationship with Digg would also bring a loyalty bonus to the advertiser, but as yet these details are not available.

Article by Matt Blay – Creative SEO UK