We search a wide variety of stuff on the web. It could range from definitions, images to maps and sometimes, even the most widely used search engine in the world may not be able to answer all our queries. No wait, or is there a problem with our search skills or knowledge? (You’ll know the [...] Read more »
Google Snags Microsoft Kinect Developer
Last year, Google invested in Zynga and Ngmoco, acquired Slide and Jambool, and unveiled games intended for the Chrome Web Store in rapid succession. Now, the search giant may be ready to take another game-related step, as it’s hired Kinect developer Johnny Chung Lee to join a special projects group. Additional details are scarce. Indeed, [...] Read more »
Tasks That Should Be On Your Local Search Shortlist
Recently, I have been talking about local Internet marketing and the rapid developments in the area. Well, as we start 2011, there is a strange sound in the local Internet marketing space—silence. There is a temporary lull in the frantic pace of change and innovation in the Google local search results. Whether you are a [...] Read more »
Think Google PageRank Doesn’t Matter? Think Again.
It looks like Google wants you to think PR doesn’t matter, but don’t let them fool you! For more than a decade now, Google has been trying to retrieve this metric from the radar of webmasters. That Google has stopped pushing regular updates to their toolbar is one more step in the strategy to convince [...] Read more »
Google Adds Nearby Shops to U.K. Product Search
Google has announced a new feature for online shoppers and merchants in the U.K., called Nearby Shops. The feature is already available in Google’s U.S. Product Search, and was rolled out in the U.K. on Wednesday. Consumers searching for items on Google Products are now shown a map that indicates the locations of nearby stores [...] Read more »
Sort Google Results By Reading Level
A Google Web Search product manager announced a new Google search filter for reading level on the Google Web Search Help Forum. "Sometimes you may want to limit your search results to a specific reading level," the company explains. "For instance, a junior high school teacher looking for content for her students or a second-language [...] Read more »
What if Facebook Goes Search While Google Struggles to Go Social?
Facebook and Google don’t much acknowledge that they’re direct competitors, though there’s no question that in many ways they are. Eric Schmidt recently said Bing was it’s main competitor, and Mark Zuckerberg said its new messaging system isn’t an email killer and that "Gmail is a really good product." It’s true that Bing poses a [...] Read more »
Google and Facebook in Cold War
Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site has caused Google several sleepless nights. Do a search on Google and you will realize that most opinions favor Facebook taking over the digital world. Even social media thought-leader, Brian Solis thinks the same. Today, ‘social’ is the way to go. Facebook is strongly believed to be able [...] Read more »
Search and Social Media: Who Can You Trust?
The New York Times published a very interesting (and very long) article over the holiday break that raises a lot of questions about Google and search in general. I’ll let you read the 8-page story yourself if you want all the details, but what it boils down to is that Google doesn’t always point you [...] Read more »
The First Thanksgiving with Google Goggles [VIDEO]
Google brings us back to the very first Thanksgiving and shows us how cool it could be if Google Goggles was available back then. This video is part of Google’s Demo Slam project, which aims to promote creativity and charisma in technology demonstration. Anyone can create a demonstration and get rated on the Demo Slam [...] Read more »
Google Aids Borders With Local Availability Tool
Early this week, Borders announced a new version of its website on which users could (sometimes) employ Google Books to preview a novel. Now, the two organizations are building on that relationship, as would-be Borders shoppers should be able use Google Product Search to determine whether a local store has a given piece of merchandise [...] Read more »
Google Cooks Up a New Recipe for Local Search
The engineers at Google have recently been throwing a lot of new ingredients into local search, working to improve both user experience and merchant visibility. This week’s announcement of a new local recommendation engine called Hotpot is the latest culmination of those efforts. Hotpot is an extension of Google Places, the local search… [[ This [...] Read more »
Google Site Search Pricing Changes
A complicated pricing structure does few people any favors. Businesses just risk annoying or alienating potential customers who don’t feel like pulling out three spreadsheets and a graphing calculator in order to predict their bill. So it may be a good thing that Google Site Search gained a simpler pricing structure today. A post on [...] Read more »
Implications of Google Instant Previews, Mobile Commerce Insight
Google Instant Preview is one of the bigger changes to Google's search results pages in recent history. We discuss the new feature and what it means to website owners. Also, we look at some highlights from a new mobile commerce study by the E-Tailing Group, who measured reactions from a set of mystery shoppers when [...] Read more »
Google’s Place Search Could Be a Local Favorite
Local search is currently one of the fiercest battlegrounds on the Web, which means we can expect nothing less from Google than its best shot. That’s exactly what it fired this week with the unveiling of Place Search, the new feature from Google Places – formerly the Google Local Business Center. Place Search is rolling [...] Read more »