Google Explains How Their Search, Ads & Apps Work
Google is trying to show the public how transparent they are, especially since the EU antitrust investigation. First, the Google European Public Policy blog had a post from Matt Cutts on Google’s transparency. And now I see Google has made a landing page at google.com/howgoogleworks.
The new landing page has three videos on [...]
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Google Adds Public Data Search Tool To Labs
Google has announced a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer that’s now available in Google Labs. The tool is a follow-up of sorts to last year’s announcement that a limited amount of public data would be used in response to certain Google.com search results.
The Data Explorer tool includes data from the original three sources [...]
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Now Use Written Gestures to Search Android Phone
It’s getting closer to the moment of truth for me and this kind of “news” gets me a little closer to making the move on going with an Android device. I know the days are numbered for my BlackBerry. That’s a foregone conclusion. I guess I am the customer that is being most fought over between Apple and any Android device (hence Google for all intents and purposes). I want out of my Blackberry Storm sooner than later but I am still debating whether to wait out the contract to go with an iPhone (it’s a year away) or commit to an Android device ….. now.
Google today introduced the ability to search on an Android device using 2.0 or higher using written gestures. Pretty slick. The Google Mobile Blog tells some more.
As mobile phones become increasingly powerful and can store more data, we’ve introduced new methods of search to get you to your content faster, such as search suggestions or search by voice. But sometimes, typing to get to the right search suggestion takes too long, and you may be in a quiet environment where speaking a query is inappropriate. Today we’re pleased to announce Gesture Search, a new Google Labs application for Android-powered devices running Android 2.0 or above in the US. Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.
This ability alone is not enough to make me switch but the speed with which Google is progressing with functionality and specific Google centric changes is making many pay close attention. Add to that the Apple v. HTC (indirectly Google) alleged patent infringement case and it look like the Android is going to be a real competitor and Apple knows it.
I am not taking sides in the Apple v Google war because I use both of them to do much of my work. I am, however, trying to figure out how I can get the most out of each because there are benefits to both. Right now, though, I need Google more than I need Apple so maybe this isn’t such a tough decision after all.
While I am at a crossroads of sorts as a mobile user where are you with regard to marketing in this space? Do marketers need to take sides or do they truly need to ride the fence and look to appease both groups? Or am I completely wrong in assuming that the Android market will ever challenge the iPhone dominance?
How do you see this?
Google Getting Even More Personal–Starred Results
For once, an advance in Google personalized search I actually like. They’re adding the same stars we’re so used to in Google Reader and Gmail to personalized search results. The starred results let you mark favorite sites to show up at the top of future posts—and it doesn’t appear to affect the rankings of the rest of the organic results.
As Google puts it:
With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl].
The stars are replacing an old feature in personalized search: SearchWiki. Says Google, “In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results.” (Which probably isn’t to say they actually disliked reranking sites, but just that they didn’t do it very much. Seriously, it just wasn’t super useful.)
Any SearchWiki notations you made will be saved in your Google Account. If you want to continue to make notations in SERPs, Google recommends Sidewiki, its browser-based, publicly-edited sidebar wiki for commentary launched back in September. Last we heard, Sidewiki hadn’t really taken off—maybe this is Google’s push to create new, passionate users.
The stars are all set to go and will be rolling out for all signed-in users in the next few days. So far, there’s no indication starred Google Reader items will have any relationship with this effort beyond the passing similarity.
One big drawback for marketers, of course, is that every step forward in personal search may mean we’re less likely to be able to rank a site universally—or even tell if our site is showing up for most signed-in users. Plus, we may have to sign out to get the “neutral” results for reporting (although if you’re starring a client’s competitor in your SERPs, “sumbuddy’s doin it wrong”).
What do you think? Do you like the idea of stars and the simpler interface to mark sites you’d want to see in SERPs again? Or do you worry about personalized search affecting marketing? Would you like to see your Google Reader starred items showing up for relevant searches?
Google Adds “Nearby” Local Search To Options Panel
Google has expanded the choices in its Search Options panel with today’s announcement of a tool to refine searches by location.
After doing a search and opening the “Show Options” panel, you’ll see a new link labeled “nearby.”
Clicking that link leads to a few refinement options: You can use the default location Google has for you, [...]
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Google’s Real Time Search Now Shows Facebook Pages Status
While everyone is concerned about just how Google will eventually take over the world and implant chips in everyone so they can search for your real time position at any time in real time for real information (do you get the sarcasm here?) there is one area where Google is not going to do as well as the competition (read: bing). That is real time search results for Facebook.
Google has announced that Facebook Pages status updates have started to be included in real time search results. This is added to their addition of Twitter and MySpace info to search results as well. Where Google is not going to be effective, though, is Facebook and Venture Beat’s Digital Beat tells us why
The key thing to remember, however, is that Google has much more limited access to Facebook’s real-time data than its competitor, Bing. Microsoft has deeper ties to the social network, as an investor in Facebook and as a search provider for the site. Microsoft has the ability to index public status updates, while Google’s access is limited to updates from Pages, which are vehicles for marketing rather than personal content.
While this may be seen as a disadvantage by some, I don’t necessarily see it that way. I go to a search engine to get information about different subjects of interest, products, business data and general entertainment. Honestly, I don’t want to see personal Facebook updates in any search engine. It’s just creepy. I think that updates from Facebook Pages, however, can be of help and it doesn’t have any creepiness factor to it. It’s marketing information for the most part so that can only get as weird as everyday marketing can get. No harm there.
Now, I know that this is just my opinion so it would be good to hear from others. Considering all the flak that Facebook has received about privacy should personal updates be included in search results for bing since many are likely still clueless about just how much of their information is public? Do you want to see that information?
Google Advertises Chrome … On Bing!
It’s not unusual for other search engines like Yahoo, Bing or Ask to advertise on Google. But I’ve never seen Google run an ad on another search engine until now.
I did a search this evening on Bing for Google Chrome. To my surprise, there was an ad right at the top of the page advertising [...]
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Google: An Elephant Dancing Ballet
What really goes on inside Google? Wired magazine’s Stephen Levy takes a peek inside the world’s most popular search engine. While most of what he saw will come as no surprise to people who’ve been in search at least a year or two, we do get a glimpse of some of the mechanisms the company uses to keep ahead of the competition.
Google really does strive to be all things to all people. They want to—and have to—”answer” questions asked in thought fragments, interpret meaning from snippets of sense and return relevant results. So how do they do it, while serving billions of queries? The same way a lot of us have to do things at work: meetings.
For real.
Meetings are usually the antithesis of productivity, but naturally, at Google, that paradigm is turned on its head (or so it sounds—I’m sure they sit through many unproductive meetings, too). At a weekly Search Quality Launch Meeting, a team of engineers examine search results before and after little tweaks to the engine.
These little tweaks are constantly being tested by Google’s employees, quality testers—and you. Says Levy:
There are so many changes to measure that Google has discarded the traditional scientific nostrum that only one experiment should be conducted at a time. “On most Google queries, you’re actually in multiple control or experimental groups simultaneously,” says search quality engineer Patrick Riley. Then he corrects himself. “Essentially,” he says, “all the queries are involved in some test.” In other words, just about every time you search on Google, you’re a lab rat.
Levy also looks at “bi-gram breakage” improvements—i.e. when Google figured out that “new york” is a unit and “new york times” is a distinct unit—as well as earlier improvements like synonyms and early semantic search cues.
It’s good that a behemoth like Google is light enough on its feet to continually try to improve. If they rested on their laurels, they would have become obsolete years ago.
But my favorite part of the article was one of the comments. Despite Levy’s note at the beginning that Facebook, Twitter and Yelp point toward the disparate, fragmented future of search, and the fact that it’s actually possible to get off the Google-Aid, essentially, the commentator bemoaned our fate as Google will become our one and only choice for virtually all our Internet information needs.
The commentator included a link to his blog—hosted on Blogspot. (At least he noted that he likes Google 
!)
What do you think? Is Google-vergence inevitable? Are they doing enough to innovate? Do you see the little improvements?
Xerox Sues Google & Yahoo Over Search Patent. Copy That!
Google, Yahoo Sued by Xerox Over Search Query Patents Bloomberg reports Xerox has sued Google and Yahoo over search patents Xerox holds.
Xerox says one patent automatically generate a query based on keyword searches, where Google’s AdWords & AdSense and Yahoo’s Search Marketing, YPN and other products allegedly infringe on. Another patent Xerox [...]
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How To Search Google Buzz
Looking to find something on Google Buzz? Ironically, for a product from Google, searching Buzz seems to have a lot that can be improved. Below, some tips I’ve pulled together.
Buzz Search From Google
Buzz has its own search box, as you’ll find at the top of the page. But doing a search using this built-in tool [...]
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