Google: Unified Privacy Policy and TOS
Google updates and unifies its different privacy policies and TOS: Sure it’s evil? http://eicker.at/GooglePrivacyPolicy
Tagged: Search RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Gerrit Eicker
-
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus: 90 Million Sleepers?
Google: Plus now has 90 million users globally. – Stats indicate it’s a bunch of Sleepers; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusSleepers
-
Gerrit Eicker
Google: “‘Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year. Full year revenue was up 29%, and our quarterly revenue blew past the $10 billion mark for the first time,’ said Larry Page, CEO of Google. ‘I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services. I’m very excited about what we can do in 2012 – there are tremendous opportunities to help users and grow our business.’”
Batelle: “You getting that? The lead quote had to do with Google+, pretty much, not the company’s earnings, which ended up being a miss (Google is blaming fluctuations in foreign currency for much of that, and I have no idea whether that’s true, false, or silly). – But here’s my question: When is Google going to release actual engagement numbers for Google+? Because in the end, that’s all that really matters. … But can you get those folks to engage, deeply? That’d be a real win, and one I’d give full credit to Google for executing. After all, it’s one thing to get the horse to water…another to have it pull up a chair and share a few stories with friends. … Er….so you’re saying the folks who use Google+ use *Google* a lot. That’s not surprising – most of them came to Google+ because they were already using Google a lot. But what about minutes per month using Google+? I’m guessing if Google had good news on that particular front, they’d be trumpeting it in a more direct fashion.”
TC: “Does Google+ Really Have 60% Daily Engagement? Probably Not – Google+ has lots of skeptics out there (and I’ll go on the record that I’m not one of them and actually really like the product). This kind of stuff just isn’t helping it to win those skeptics over. When it comes to user numbers, saying ‘we have 90 million users’ doesn’t mean much. What matters is daily engagement. Lots of apps claim they have a million downloads on iOS, for example, but that doesn’t mean they have a million active users (or even 10,000 for all we know). Google would really help itself here if it clarified these numbers but the company would prefer to keep things vague instead, it seems.”
ATD: “I tried all sorts of nice ways to persuade Google spokespeople to clarify what exactly that means in terms of active users of the Google+ service. They told me that the text of Page’s remarks and an accompanying post by Google’s head of social, Vic Gundotra, spell it out exactly. – That is to say: Over 60 percent of Google+ users use Google products on a daily basis. Over 80 percent of Google+ users use Google products every week. … The unspoken reference here is that Facebook has said for years that half of its active user count is composed of people who log in on a daily basis. (I can’t remember a time when Facebook ever gave out a registered user count. Those hundreds of millions of people you hear them talk about all log in at least once a month.) – So nope, no apples to apples to see here.“
-
Gerrit Eicker
Search Plus
Constine: There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search Plus; http://eicker.at/SearchPlus
-
Gerrit Eicker
Constine, TC: “Sharks Circle Around Google Search+: EPIC Cries Antitrust, Twitter Provides Evidence – There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search+… EPIC believes that by surfacing in search results the private content shared with a user by their friends, Search+ may violate privacy. I personally don’t buy that argument. Yes, it’s a bit shocking to see private content in Google Search results where we’ve come to expect only public content. However, private content isn’t exposed to anyone that couldn’t already see it, so I think EPIC is fear mongering around privacy. … The issue is that Google has the data to surface its competitors in People and Pages, but doesn’t. Hey, maybe this is all a clever ploy to bring antitrust scrutiny to Facebook’s deal with Microsoft’s Bing to sour its IPO.”
Eldon, TC: “Google+ Search = A Way To Call The Feds In On IPO-Bound Facebook (?) – Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to get my head around why Google has force-integrated its Google+ social network into its main search feed at the expense of leading social services like Facebook and Twitter. The situation seems like an antitrust case waiting to happen, because Google could easily choose to feature the publicly available content from its social rivals in the same way it is showing its own product within its market-dominating search engine. It just hasn’t. … There could be a grand strategy for provoking the US government to investigate the market shares of search and social products as a single issue, in a way that puts Facebook on the defensive, especially as it looks to go public. … The big catch to this idea, at least for now, is that when you consider Bing’s relatively weak market share, and the lack of effect Facebook has had on it, it’s unclear if the Justice Department will take this sort of issue seriously. Facebook may be the Google of the future, but Google is the Google of the present. And maybe Google is just trying to see what it can get away with ahead of what we can expect to be habitually slow federal interest in whatever moves it makes.”
Coldewey, TC: “There has been a great quantity of vitriol corroding the social web over the last few days, a reaction to Google’s decision to optionally integrate Google+ features into their search. … Google is a datavore. All it wants to do is collect data, organize it, and then deliver it to people, peppered with ads and the occasional sales commission. Viewed from this perspective, the new social search is simple – innocuous. The biggest crime Google has committed is giving it such a cumbrous name. … A search that is ostensibly social-focused should be pulling information primarily from Facebook and Twitter, right? I agree. Yet it doesn’t. And people’s accusing fingers jumped up to point at Google, though the problem isn’t Google’s. … What rich data does Facebook share? What deep search does Twitter permit? Google can’t produce something it doesn’t have, and what it does produce isn’t destructive to search – and if it were so, it can be turned off with a click. … There’s nothing controversial about competition. Google has started a new service that gives social data prominent placement. Ironically, the fact that people are complaining that it is not integrative enough (as opposed to Twitter and Facebook initiatives, which are often not integrative at all, and sometimes deliberately exclusive) testifies to Google’s adherence to their promise of even-handedness. … I think it falls outside that area, which to me begs the question, but no doubt the discussion will continue, and Google’s actions will have repercussions further down the line.”
SEL: “Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s ‘Search Plus’ Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy – By having a dominant position in search, Google might ultimately be responsible for going above-and-beyond to include competitors. That’s part of what the current anti-trust investigations into Google are all about. One complaint over today’s move – though likely mostly about privacy – is already being readied. – Google’s job as a search engine is to direct searchers to the most relevant information on the web, not just to information that Google may have an interest in. – These suggestions would be better if they included other services, and that’s the standard Google’s search results should aim for, returning the best. … If You’re Not On Google+, You’re Not A Suggestion… Why Google+ Is A Must-Have For Marketers… Is there anyone out there who still wants to say that being on Google+ doesn’t matter? Anyone? Because when being on Google+ means that you potentially can have your Google+ page leap to the top in those sidebar results, Google+ matters. It matters more than ever before. … It’s not Google’s job to be sticking it to anyone with its search results. Those results are supposed to be showing what are the most relevant things for searchers out there. That’s how Google wins. That’s how Google sticks it to competitors, by not trying to play favorites in those results, nor by trying to punish people through them.”
RWW: “Will Bing Get A Boost Thanks To Google’s Your Way? – All of this could play well for Bing. Since 2009, the number three search engine has had a partnership with Twitter similar to the one that lapsed with Google last summer. Since the Google agreement expired, it is now easier to find tweets in Bing via realtime searches than it is in Google. At the time of the breakup in July, it was unclear which side walked away, but Bing was quick to renew its ties with Twitter and strike a similar deal with Facebook. … The fallout from search isn’t the only reason why Bing may get a boost this year. The company has improved integration of Bing with Xbox and Kinect, which helps Microsoft grab a younger demographic when gamers move their search activity online from their consoles. Bing has also been working to improve its mobile offerings, releasing a much-imtpoved Bing app for Android and iOS5. – But perhaps the biggest indication that Bing is worth paying attention to came from Google itself, when it paid $900 million to Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox for the next three years.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Search Plus
Google Search goes Plus Your World: personal search adds Google Plus, global doesn’t; http://eicker.at/GoogleSearchPlus
-
Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Search, plus Your World – Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. … We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features: Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts-both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community. – Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World. Search is simply better with your world in it, and we’re just getting started. … When it comes to security and privacy, we set a high bar for Search plus Your World. Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection. That’s part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signed-in users last year. … We named our company after the mathematical number googol as an aspiration toward indexing the countless answers on webpages, but that’s only part of the picture. The other part is people, and that’s what Search plus Your World is all about.”
SEL: “Google’s search results are undergoing their most radical transformation ever, as a new ‘Search Plus Your World’ format begins rolling out today. It finds both content that’s been shared with you privately along with matches from the public web, all mixed into a single set of listings. … The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems. – However, Search Plus Your World may cause some privacy worries, as private content may appear as if it is exposed publicly [it is not]. It might also cause concern by making private content more visible to friends and family than those sharing may have initially intended. … ‘The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful,’ said Amit Singhal, who oversees Google’s ranking algorithms, when I talked with him about the new features. … Search Plus Your World doesn’t cover content on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or Flickr. Or any social network or place where content might be shared to a more limited audience. Currently, ‘Search Plus Your World’ would be better described as ‘Search Plus Google+’ … As said, the ability to search for private content on Google+ isn’t new. However, I wonder if having it integrated into Google’s search results itself might cause some surprises and issues for both Google and its users. … Don’t like the idea of personalized search? Disappointingly, Google didn’t go the opt-in route. Instead, you have to deliberately opt-out. … Personalized Is The New ‘Normal’ … Overall, I like the integration that allows for searching through private and public material. As I’ve said, I think many people will find it useful. – I do think there are some additional privacy controls that could be added, in particular, the ability for people to opt their content out of being found through search, if they want. … Yes, there are things that Facebook or Twitter might not allow, not without Google cutting deals or agreeing to terms it may not want to.”
RWW: “If you’re like me, you’ve dreaded this day. Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going to mess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But the new Google unveiled today leaves the user in control. ‘Search, plus Your World,’ Google has called it. It’s two kinds of search, and they’re separate. If you don’t want Google+-flavored results, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized search altogether. … Even when you search in personal mode, Google wants to show you the most relevant result at the top, even if its not from Google+. Prior to today’s update, this wasn’t happening reliably. The source of my concerns about Google+ was the prominence of Google+ results in search when outside Web results were more relevant. … Of course, this mode will still privilege content posted to Google+ ahead of other social networks. … But today’s ‘Search, plus Your World’ update actually softens the impact of Google+ on search. Google+ content is better integrated with outside stuff now, and, of course, it’s optional, even for logged-in users. There are still problems with the state of Google search, but none of them are as dire as they were a week ago. – Now that Google users have control over the level of personalization, I don’t think Google+ will mess up the Internet anymore. Social SEO will not take over, because natural search results still matter. My fear last week was that anyone who wanted to use Google would be forced to use Google+. Today’s update shows good faith. Google has given its users control.”
GigaOM: “Google+ just got a new killer app: search – Google has begun to integrate Google+ posts, pages and profiles into its Google.com search results. The move is meant to personalize search, and offers some interesting opportunities for content discovery – but first and foremost, it’s gonna be a big boost for Google+ itself. … The new Google+ search integration comes with a kind of on-off switch, making it possible to switch back and forth between the classic Google view of the world and a more personalized version. Users who opt for the personal approach will get to see relevant posts from the people they have added to their circles as well as pages from brands and celebrities relevant to their search results. … I’ve long argued that Hangouts are a kind of killer app for Google+. With the launch of personalized search, the service just got a new killer app.”
TC: “What most alarms me about today’s ‘Google Search Plus Your World’ announcement is how it will distort name searches. When I Google someone’s name, I’m typically looking for a Wikipedia entry, their Twitter account, a personal website, or an author page on their blog. … I know getting people to sign up for Google+ is crucial to tying people’s behavior across Google products to their identity to power ad targeting. But seriously Google, best-in-class search is why we love you. Is it really worth sacrificing your integrity to drive signups?”
VB: “Twitter is not happy with Google’s new social search features. So unhappy, in fact, that the company is calling it a ‘bad day for the Internet’ and media overall. ‘We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone,’ the company said in a statement. ‘We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.’ … One Google spokesperson told VentureBeat: ‘For years now we’ve been working with our social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your friends and social connections, no matter what site that content is on. However, Google does not have access to crawl all the information on some sites, so it’s not possible for us to surface all that content. Google also doesn’t have access to the social graph information from some sites, so it’s not possible to help you find information from those people you’re connected to.’”
GigaOM: “Is adding Google+ to search a red flag for regulators? – Neither side has said why the arrangement with Twitter came to an end (sources say the company wanted a lot more money in return for its data), but today’s note about unfair competition suggests the two won’t be working together any time soon – and the odds of Facebook suddenly wanting to make its data available seem equally remote. But as others have pointed out, Google is being somewhat disingenuous when it says it can’t get information from Twitter, since all tweets and profile info (unless explicitly hidden by a user) is available to be crawled and indexed by anyone, including Google.”
TC: “But Twitter does have a point: people trust Google to serve up the most timely, relevant information possible. And without Twitter’s data, it’s going to have a hard time doing that. Of course, Google probably already has its own answer to this drafted, and I suspect it reads something like, ‘if Twitter wants people to find tweets in Google, they can open up their API.’ I’m reaching out to them for their official response now. – Update: Google just posted this response to its official Google+ Page: ‘We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.’”
RWW: “Sure they’re concerned. Is it true, though? It’s not like Twitter’s own search tools are that helpful; Google is still the best Twitter search tool there is. It recently acquired Julpan, a social search company, so maybe Twitter has a better idea. But if you search for content that’s on Twitter, Google will find it. If Twitter wants full-featured integration into Google search, that’s up to them. I’m sure Google would be delighted to oblige. – Nothing about today’s update makes things worse for Google’s competitors in Google results. If anything, it just means they have more work to do.“
-
webwerkstatt
Google ist still no.1 and they will keep their position for years. Twitter is only a short message service and an integration would be great for them
-
Gerrit Eicker
Well, I suppose Twitter wouldn’t be Twitter if it’d be “only a short message service”, but that’s just my 2 cents. – But I’m with you regarding the question who’s got to deliver: it’s Twitter, not Google. Twitter will have to decide if they want money or attention…
-
Gerrit Eicker
Local Business
Pew: The Internet is the source that people most rely on for material about local businesses; http://eicker.at/LocalBusiness
-
Gerrit Eicker
Pew: “Where people get information about restaurants and other local businesses – The internet is the source that people most rely on for material about the local business scene and search engines are particularly valued. Newspapers and word of mouth also rank high as sources. … The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from January 12 to 25, 2011, among a sample of 2,251 adults, age 18 and older.”
Pew: “People looking for information about local restaurants and other businesses say they rely on the internet, especially search engines, ahead of any other source. – Newspapers, both printed copies and the websites of newspaper companies, run second behind the internet as the source that people rely on for news and information about local businesses, including restaurants and bars. – And word of mouth, particularly among non-internet users, is also an important source of information about local businesses. … 51% turn to the internet, including: search engines (38% rely on them), specialty websites (17% rely on them), social media (3% rely on social networking sites or Twitter) … People who seek out information and news about local businesses and restaurants are a diverse and somewhat upscale group. As distinct populations, they are more likely to live in relatively well-off households – those earning $75,000 or more – and have college educations. – In addition, the 55% of adults who get information about restaurants, bars, and clubs are more likely to be women, young adults, urban, and technology adopters. – The 60% of adults who get information about other local businesses are also more likely to be tech users.”
Pew: “The 55% of all adults who get information about restaurants, bars, and clubs are disproportionately young, female, tech adaptive and upscale in educational attainment, urban. … Those who get news and information about local restaurants, bars, and clubs are also likely to be avid local news consumers who enjoy following the local scene, pay for local news in some form, and use multiple platforms to get the local information. … Those who are heavy local news junkies are considerably more likely than others to get material about local restaurants. We asked people about their use of 14 different kinds of sources to get local news and their frequency of using those platforms. When it comes to restaurant information, 71% of those who used at least six platforms monthly got news and information about local restaurants, compared with 34% of those who relied on just one or two sources.”
Pew: “Those who get information about local businesses that are not tied to eating or socializing are a diverse and somewhat upscale group. Those who get this information are more likely to have college or advanced degrees, live in relatively high-earning households, use the internet and own cell phones. They are not distinct by gender or race and ethnicity. … They are also likely to be local news and information junkies. Those who get news and information from at least six different local news platforms monthly are considerably more likely than others to get material about local businesses. … Those mobile consumers were also more likely than others to get material about local businesses: 65% of mobile local news consumers got information about local businesses, compared with 55% of others.”
Gerrit Eicker
StumbleUpon Relaunch
StumbleUpon relaunches its brand and website, prepares for going international; http://eicker.at/StumbleUponRelaunch
-
Gerrit Eicker
StumbleUpon: “We’ve made some changes so it’s now easier than ever to Stumble and explore new and interesting things from every corner of the Web. Stumble more with a simpler and easier to use StumbleUpon.com and StumbleBar. Explore more with Channels from your favorite sites, people and brands. Find more using our Explore Box: type a word or phrase and see amazing Stumbles. – Follow Channels and uncover content from sites, people and brands that you already like while you’re Stumbling. – Find More with the Explore Box: Type a word or phrase and see amazing Stumbles related to whatever you’re interested in. – We’ve moved some stuff around so it’s easier to find your way around the things you’ve Liked and to discover even more.”
GigaOM: “StumbleUpon has undergone a major makeover. … It’s the largest and most comprehensive branding and redesign initiative StumbleUpon has made in the company’s history… The redesign is aimed at bringing StumbleUpon’s more granular features – such as the newly-implemented ability to Stumble according to specific interests – to the surface… Essentially, it’s designed to make StumbleUpon more ‘sticky’ than ever. … In all it’s a good move for StumbleUpon, and it’s one that seems long overdue. Once you compare the new look of the site to the old version, you realize how much was hidden under the surface.”
RWW: “StumbleUpon is the inverse of a Google Web search. Instead of typing in a keyword and searching for relevant links within that search, StumbleUpon asks the user to define the parameters by selecting a topic, and then voting the content up or down. Using the Explore Box, users can type in an interest that’s more specific than one of the many comprehensive topic options. It gives a list of related interests, which broadens the breadth of topics to stumble. Over time the user develops an interest profile specific to them. … StumbleUpon is a prime example of the read/write web. Why? Because the user literally writes their own ‘taste graph’ by signaling to the service what interests they want to follow. In the e-commerce space, eBay acquired recommendation engine Hunch to do just that – serve up more relevant content to users.”
Forbes: “One big reason for the changes and simplifying of the website is to make it easier for StumbleUpon to expand internationally, which is one of the company’s major priorities in 2012. StumbleUpon has more than 20 million registered users and is adding more than 1 million per month, but the majority of its users are currently in the U.S. The company wants to address that. … StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay in 2007 and bought back two years later by founders and venture investors.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Agent Rank
An algorithm based reputation system and digital signature: the Google Agent Rank; http://eicker.at/GoogleAgentRank
-
Gerrit Eicker
SEL: “Google’s Agent Rank Patent Application – The method of ranking based upon reputation scores is described in an analogy based upon PageRank. There’s also some discussion of an alternative possibility of using a seed group of trusted agents to endorse other content. Agents whose content receives consistently strong endorsements might gain reputation under that method. In either implementation, the agent’s reputation ultimately depends on the quality of the content which they sign. … The use of digital signatures enables the reputation system to link reputations with individual agents, and adjust the relative rankings based on all of the content each agent chooses to associate himself or herself with, no matter where the content may be located. That could even include content that isn’t on the internet. … This is a very different way of providing rankings for pages, based upon the reputations of agents who may have interacted with, and digitally signed content on those pages.”
SbtS: “Are You Trusted by Google? – Are you a robot? A spammer? A sock puppet? A trusted author and content developer? A trusted agent in the eyes of Google? … In a whitepaper from last year, Reputation Systems for Open Collaboration, Bo Adler of Fujitsu Labs of America, Ian Pyey of CloudFlare, Inc., and Luca de Alfaro and Ashutosh Kulshreshtha from Google describe two different collaborative reputation systems that they worked on. One of them is a WikiTrust reputation system for Wikipedia authors and content, and the other is the Crowdsensus reputation system for Google Maps editors. – Both systems are interesting, and as the authors note, both fulfill very different needs in very different ways. … I’ve written about Google’s Agent Rank here a few times recently, and Google published a new Agent Rank continuation patent application last week which expands upon one aspect of the patent filing within its claims section. … [T]he newest version of this patent is transformed to focus upon this aspect of Agent Rank. It introduces the concept of ‘trusted agents,’ who might endorse content items created by others. … Are reputation or user rank scores influencing rankings in search results at present? Chances are that they may be in the future, if they aren’t now. – How does one become a ‘trusted agent?’”
SEOmoz: “Building The Implicit Social Graph – Google Plus is Google’s latest attempt at building an explicit social graph that they control, but Google has been building out an implicit social graph for quite some time. This graph is still relatively naive compared to the maturity of the link graph, but search engines continue to develop this graph. Since it is already directly influencing rankings, and its value will increase, it’s important to understand how this type of social graph is being built. In this post, I’ll look at some of the methods for building the social graph, as well as looking at explicit vs. implicit social graphs. … One of the limitations of building an implicit social graph is that you don’t have the data to test against to confirm the predictions and relationships that graph discovers. It still has to depend on the data made public, but is limited by relationships that are held private [aka Facebook]. Google Plus, among other things, creates a massive set of explicit social graph data, which can be used for machine learning and accuracy checking. … Even with publicly available, and privately available, explicit social data, there is still a strong incentive to build out the implicit graph. The explicit graph can be used to make improvements upon this graph. The implicit graph is one area where Google has a significant advantage over Facebook. – It’s no secret that the social graph appears to be the next evolution with increasing uses of social factors, social elements in search, and mechanisms that will lead into AgentRank/AuthorRank, which will tie directly into the implicit social graph.”
ComLUV: “Google Agent Rank and its Impact on Blogging – For many users and businesses Google is the Internet. People don’t search for things anymore, they Google them. The silly sounding brand name has permeated almost every aspect of the Internet and is growing daily. One new twist Google may be adding to the mix is something they call Agent Rank. … Agent Rank has the potential to be an incredible boon to bloggers of any topic or vertical. Trusted writers will not only bring their great material with them to a new project, they will bring a built-in trust boost in Google to whatever site they are working for. … If an author can be confident that their Agent Rank could bring about better Google rankings then they can approach projects with a new value proposition. … When or if Agent Rank will be implemented is unknown. Google recently released an addendum to their Google Profiles they call Authorship. … It is unknown if this is an early attempt to roll out Agent Rank in some form, but it is clearly related to the patent and has some value even in its current state.”
Google: “Today we’re beginning to support authorship markup – a way to connect authors with their content on the web. We’re experimenting with using this data to help people find content from great authors in our search results. – We now support markup that enables websites to publicly link within their site from content to author pages. … The markup uses existing standards such as HTML5 (rel=”author”) and XFN (rel=”me”) to enable search engines and other web services to identify works by the same author across the web. If you’re already doing structured data markup using microdata from schema.org, we’ll interpret that authorship information as well. … We know that great content comes from great authors, and we’re looking closely at ways this markup could help us highlight authors and rank search results.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Maps Indoors
Google Maps starts mapping the indoors: detailed floor plans, Maps 6.0 for Android only; http://eicker.at/GoogleMapsIndoors
-
Gerrit Eicker
Google: “‘Where am I?’ and ‘What’s around me?’ are two questions that cartographers, and Google Maps, strive to answer. … And now, Google Maps for Android enables you to figure out where you are and see where you might want to go when you’re indoors. … When you’re inside an airport, shopping mall or retail store, a common way to figure out where you are is to look for a freestanding map directory or ask an employee for help. Starting today, with the release of Google Maps 6.0 for Android, that directory is brought to the palm of your hands, helping you determine where you are, what floor you’re on, and where to go indoors. … Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. … We’ve initially partnered with some of the largest retailers, airports and transit stations in the U.S. and Japan…”
SEL: “Google is essentially using the same techniques (WiFi and cell tower triangulation) to locate people indoors that it uses outside. Outside GPS is also available, but it doesn’t work inside buildings. Google has apparently made some modifications of its approach to render interior location very precisely but it’s not using sensors or any new technology. … During my call with Google I started spinning out various scenarios for these maps going forward: product inventory information, integration with interior photography, ads and deals and so on. Of course Google wouldn’t say anything about any of that.”
TC: “The initial version of the indoors maps is missing a couple of obvious features. For one, search doesn’t yet work with it – so while you’ll be able to scroll around a map to find a restroom or the shoe department, you can’t just start typing. Likewise, there aren’t any turn-by-turn directions (which may sound silly, but would actually be very useful in, say, a large train station or airport). These seem like logical candidates for future releases, though. … Today’s launch includes participation from many major airports, as well as some big-name retailers like IKEA (which has mapped out all of its stores) and The Home Depot. Of course, Google can’t work directly with each and every indoor venue, so it’s also launching a self-serve tool that will allow store owners to upload floor plans and/or blueprints of their venues. The tool also includes a feature that will help map GPS coordinates to interior of the store.”
RWW: “This is a key move for Google’s mobile business, which up until now could only take you to the front door of the place for which you were searching. Google Maps on the desktop recently got 3D photo tours of small locations, an extension of Street View, but this is a bigger step. When Google Maps goes inside, Google can take you all the way from searching for something to holding it in your hand, advertising and data-gathering all the way. … Interestingly, Bing Maps got interior mapping on its mobile Web version this August, but it didn’t make much of a splash.”
Gerrit Eicker
Google Search
Google: Another look under the hood of search – the evolution of Google Search; http://eicker.at/GoogleSearch
-
Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Over the past few years, we’ve released a series of blog posts to share the methodology and process behind our search ranking, evaluation and algorithmic changes. Just last month, Ben Gomes, Matt Cutts and I participated in a Churchill Club event where we discussed how search works and where we believe it’s headed in the future. – Beyond our talk and various blog posts, we wanted to give people an even deeper look inside search, so we put together a short video that gives you a sense of the work that goes into the changes and improvements we make to Google almost every day. While an improvement to the algorithm may start with a creative idea, it always goes through a process of rigorous scientific testing. Simply put: if the data from our experiments doesn’t show that we’re helping users, we won’t launch the change. … In the world of search, we’re always striving to deliver the answers you’re looking for. After all, we know you have a choice of a search engine every time you open a browser. As the Internet becomes bigger, richer and more interactive it means that we have to work that much harder to ensure we’re unearthing and displaying the best results for you.”
Google: “Following up on our video on how we make improvements to search, we wanted to share with you a short history of the evolution of search, highlighting some of the most important milestones from the past decade-and a taste of what’s coming next. – Our goal is to get you to the answer you’re looking for faster and faster, creating a nearly seamless connection between your questions and the information you seek. For those of you looking to deepen your understanding of how search has evolved, this video highlights some important trends like universal results, quick answers and the future of search. – For more information, go to Google.com/insidesearch”
SEL: “Google released a short video today highlighting some of its key milestones in search over the past decade. It’s both a fun blast from the past and a worthwhile reminder of how much things have changed over the years. The video is also a nice follow-on to the look under the hood of search that Google released in August.”
TC: “One anecdote centers on the attacks of September 11: in the wake of the attacks, many people were searching for ‘New York Twin Towers’ and related queries as they attempted to get the latest news – only to find that Google’s index didn’t have any relevant news stories because it was weeks old (Danny Sullivan has written more about this failure). Google’s quick-fix was to post links to relevant news articles on its homepage, and its stumble eventually led to the launch of Google News.”
ATD: “So, what would be a hard query that Google wants to answer in the future? Complex questions that take reasoning, says Google Fellow Amit Singhal. ‘In my ideal world, I would be able to walk up to a computer and say, ‘Hey, what is the best time for me to sow seeds in India, given that monsoon was early this year?’‘ Singhal says in the video.”
RWW: “4 Big Trends in the Evolution of Google Search … Univeral Search – Google’s introduction of universal search in 2007 was the beginning of a trend away from separating Web search results by type and toward putting it all in one place. … Google Goes Mobile and Local – Before long, Google was deep into the business of local commerce. With the rise of Android, Google had an end-to-end business of finding location-based results for local businesses, restaurants and destinations. … Google Search and Time – Google has changed the impact of time on search, as well as place. It has tweaked the way timeliness of content appears in search multiple times, and its latest update calculates when a search is probably looking for recent results rather than historical ones. … Google+: Google’s New Identity – Identity is the final piece of the puzzle. Google has personalized results for a while using Web history and sharing data. But with the launch of Google+, Google has introduced a form of social SEO. Social activity is now a fundamental part of how search results appear for users logged into Google’s ubiquitous Web services.“
Gerrit Eicker
Easy Marketing is a Myth
Easy marketing is: spam, with no entry barriers, temporary, an escalation of force – expensive; http://eicker.at/EasyMarketing
Gerrit Eicker 09:29 on 26. January 2012 Permalink |
Google: “In just over a month we will make some changes to our privacy policies and Google Terms of Service. This stuff matters, so we wanted to explain what’s changing, why and what these changes mean for users. – First, our privacy policies. Despite trimming our policies in 2010, we still have more than 70 (yes, you read right … 70) privacy documents covering all of our different products. This approach is somewhat complicated. It’s also at odds with our efforts to integrate our different products more closely so that we can create a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google. … While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy. – Regulators globally have been calling for shorter, simpler privacy policies – and having one policy covering many different products is now fairly standard across the web. … The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. … Second, the Google Terms of Service-terms you agree to when you use our products. As with our privacy policies, we’ve rewritten them so they’re easier to read. We’ve also cut down the total number, so many of our products are now covered by our new main Google Terms of Service. … Finally, what we’re not changing. We remain committed to data liberation, so if you want to take your information elsewhere you can. We don’t sell your personal information, nor do we share it externally without your permission except in very limited circumstances like a valid court order. We try hard to be transparent about the information we collect, and to give you meaningful choices about how it is used… We believe this new, simpler policy will make it easier for people to understand our privacy practices as well as enable Google to improve the services we offer.”
Google: “One policy, one Google experience – We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google. – This stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service now. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012. … Our new policy reflects our desire to create a simple product experience that does what you need, when you want it to. … If you’re signed into Google, we can do things like suggest search queries – or tailor your search results – based on the interests you’ve expressed in Google+, Gmail, and YouTube. … By remembering the contact information of the people you want to share with, we make it easy for you to share in any Google product or service with minimal clicks and errors.”
Google, Privacy Policy Preview: “As you use our services, we want you to be clear how we’re using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy. – Our Privacy Policy explains: What information we collect and why we collect it. How we use that information. The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.”
Google, TOS: “Our Services are very diverse, so sometimes additional terms or product requirements (including age requirements) may apply. Additional terms will be available with the relevant Services, and those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those Services. … You may need a Google Account in order to use some of our Services. … Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours. – When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.”
GigaOM: “It certainly makes for a more personal experience – and really just confirms the direction Google has been heading in for a while – but it’s not necessarily a more-welcome experience. Personalizing someone’s search experience is potentially great, but potentially problematic if another user on the same device sees results they were never supposed to see. – That said, Google is making the right decision in announcing the changes up front and so publicly highlighting what the changes will be. … Google and Facebook, of course, are in a slightly different situation than are most other web companies. Both companies have settled with the FTC around charges of privacy violations, and among the settlement terms for both is that they can no longer misrepresent their privacy claims. So expect to this trend of privacy transparency – even as the sites continue to overhaul their platforms – to continue for at least the next 20 years.”
TC: “The main change, say Google, is that if you are signed into your Google account, Google will combine user info across its products to better serve account holders. As Google says: In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. – This is exemplified, says Google, in its more personalized search product that debuted recently, and received major criticism. You’ll see Google+ posts and data in your search results, and allows for the seamless transfer of data in between other services, including Docs, Calender, Gmail and more, says Google.”
pC: “The announcement is a bit puzzling given that so much of Google is integrated already. Indeed, the company has been taking flack for weeks after forcing users to opt-in to Search Plus Your World, a feature that displays personalized search results replete with friends, photos and so on. – So why the major announcement? In a word, YouTube. – While Google’s core products are already bundled into its search results (if a user is logged in), the popular video sharing site is not. … For Google users, this means that the personalized search results will likely become more personal still with the inclusion of video. … This policy may not only represent a way to fend-off antitrust hawks but, in the long term, a potential competitive advantage for Google.”
eWeek: “Google is changing its privacy policies around Google+, streamlining identity services and paring the terms of service. The move makes opting out hard, which will raise regulatory flags. … Google’s streamlining comes as regulators in the United States and Europe have criticized Google, Facebook and other Web service providers for offering long-winded and legally gnarled privacy protocols. … The Federal Trade Commission, already looking into Google’s search business practices and which had previously ordered Google to submit to 20 years of audits after breaching user privacy with its Google Buzz feature, will certainly take notice. … Increased personalization across Google Web services will also help improve Google’s ad targeting. Google downplays this benefit, but it is a major reason why it is changing its privacy policies; it wants to refine its ad-serving features to boost relevance for each of its 1 billion search users.”
Economist: “Some of this is welcome and arguably long overdue. Too many web firms have a smorgasbord of privacy documents laden with legal jargon that appear deliberately designed to deter people from reading them. If Google’s new master policy is more accessible and concise than its existing plethora of notices – and preserves the safeguards embedded in them – then it will be a great improvement over the status quo. – But the search firm’s plan to expand the ways in which it can use data provided by someone signed into a service such as Gmail, its e-mail service, or YouTube, its video-streaming site, is likely to provoke heated debate. … Critics fret that this is a departure from its traditional habit of giving people power over their data (for instance, by letting them extract it easily from Google if they want to as part of the firm’s “data liberation” initiative).”
Gizmodo: “Google’s Broken Promise: The End of ‘Don’t Be Evil’ – This has been long coming. Google’s privacy policies have been shifting towards sharing data across services, and away from data compartmentalization for some time. It’s been consistently de-anonymizing you, initially requiring real names with Plus, for example, and then tying your Plus account to your Gmail account. But this is an entirely new level of sharing. And given all of the negative feedback that it had with Google+ privacy issues, it’s especially troubling that it would take actions that further erode users’ privacy. … So why are we calling this evil? Because Google changed the rules that it defined itself. Google built its reputation, and its multi-billion dollar business, on the promise of its ‘don’t be evil’ philosophy. That’s been largely interpreted as meaning that Google will always put its users first, an interpretation that Google has cultivated and encouraged. … This crosses that line. It eliminates that fine-grained control, and means that things you could do in relative anonymity today, will be explicitly associated with your name, your face, your phone number come March 1st. If you use Google’s services, you have to agree to this new privacy policy. Yet a real concern for various privacy concerns would recognize that I might not want Google associating two pieces of personal information.”
TC: “You Call That Evil? – There’s a nice little insider quarrel going on over Google’s just-announced privacy policy changes. A number of sites and commentators have let their fingers jump up mechanically in accusatory fashion. Google, caught red-handed being evil! – Here, I think, is a time when the word ‘bias’ is actually warranted. Everyone wants so badly for Google to do something truly evil (instead of just questionable or inconvenient) that their perceptions of Google actions are actually being affected. … What about not being able to opt out? What is it people want to opt out of exactly? The new, simplified privacy policy? What would you opt into instead – the older policy? Being tracked per-site instead of by account? Perhaps you would you like to opt into pre-Timeline Facebook as well? Maybe you’d like to opt out of Apple’s restrictions on selling your iBooks? How, specifically, are people being harmed by the new policy, and in what way can they be demonstrated to have less privacy than under the old system, under which the exact same data and behaviors were recorded, analyzed, and packaged? Google is not collecting more information, they are not selling new information, they are not changing anything but the level at which the data is collated before you are anonymized into an ad group (baseball, travel, Boston, gadgets) and exposed to ads targeted to your general type of consumer. – And of course, you can opt out of the part worth opting out of: ‘Opt out if you prefer ads not to be based on interests and demographics.‘ … The worst one can say about this change is that it causes yet more overlap between Google services that people may not have requested. If you call that evil, you’ve forgotten what evil looks like.”
Forbes: “Internet Freak-out Over Google’s New Privacy Policy Proves Again That No One Actually Reads Privacy Policies – What’s changing is not Google’s privacy policies but its practices. By combining information from across all of its services, Google will be able to better target users with ads, offer more innovative features, and, importantly for Google, better compete with Facebook. … I hate to tell you all, but Google already knew all these things about you – to get a sense of how much Google knows about you, check out the Dashboard – and already had permission to combine that info, they’re just now actually going to do that. And kudos to them for being so explicit about that.”
GigaOM: “The bottom line is that whether you see Google’s new privacy policy as evil or not depends on what you think the company’s purpose is: Is it to help users find information that is relevant to them? If so, then pooling information is probably good. But if Google’s potential distortion of that purpose with its personalized search and favoritism towards Google+ results has you suspicious about its motives, then it might look a little evil. In the end, you have to answer the question: ‘Does Google have my best interests at heart?’“