Privacy on the internet is a hot topic these days, and an issue that won’t go away any time soon. What with SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and anything else you can think of, we’re set to see a host of sites changing their privacy policies.
Google is one of the first to do this. Believe it or not, the search engine has over 60 privacy policies because of the many products and features it offers. What it has done now is condense all of them into one single policy document that will take effect on March 1st. Here are the most important points:
Google collects information about you in two ways. Either you give it when you sign up for a Google account, or it collects it when you use its services. In the latter case, this refers to the websites you visit, how you interact with ads, what device you’re using, where you are, and what you’ve Googled.
This information is then used by Google to improve its products and deliver more relevant content. It tailors search results and ads and records communications between you and it, or keeps a record of your language preferences.
You can review and update your personal information by editing your ad preferences, adjusting how your profile appears to others, controlling how your information is shared, or removing it altogether.
You will still have to give consent for Google to share your information with anyone outside the company. The exceptions are if your account is managed for you by a domain administrator like Google Apps, or if there are legal reasons your information must be shared with a third party.
Here’s a tidy summary of the policy from the horse’s mouth.
Interesting signals coming from a Venezuelan blog, where it states that the gossips around Google’s music service are pretty much getting alive. What could this mean for the quite successful services like iTunes or Spotify?
Without speculating too much on these rumors, the blog also uploaded some very interesting screens from the interface. Which make these more plausible as well.
The authors of the story, found on TechnoDroidVe, claimed that while using a HTC Inspire during their visit at the Android Market, they were able to get access to this unreleased version. With realizing that these images where probably not mend to be seen, they made screens of it and spread it on the web. Continue reading »
Recently Google officially launched their Google+ Brand Pages, opening up the playground for brands and businesses. You’ve unmistakably seen brands react to this by quickly creating their own Google+ page.
The long awaited feature provides brands the opportunity to connect with their audience. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said ”Google is creating their own little version of Facebook”. Is Google really simply doing a copy paste job? Moreover, do CMO’s need to take this opportunity to monetize Google+ and connect with their audience?
Participating on a channel requires well thought out strategies and objectives. This is exactly the reason to join the party or stay out of it. So why should companies care about Google+ Brand Pages?
The first thing to take notice of Google+ Brand Pages are different from Facebook’s. So if you were thinking of doing the same thing on Google+ as on Facebook, think again!
Google+ has just announced Google+ pages, which is exactly what you think it is – pages for businesses on Google’s social network (just like Facebook’s version). And it’s easily done, too – here’s how to create your own.
1. Choose an accessible Gmail account. It will be much easier if you use an account that’s accessible by multiple members of your marketing team, and use that to create your page. Unlike Facebook, you’re not yet allowed to have more than one admin on a Google+ page.
2. Create the page! Just follow the wizard when you’re logged in to Google+ and you can’t go wrong. The first step is to classify your page: choose from local business, brand, company, etc. Then fill in your basic information, page name, website, and you’re off.
3. Customise your public profile. This involves adding a tagline, image, and tailoring your page’s appearance. Again, just follow the wizard – it’s really easy. You can now share updates and use Google+ as your page.
4. Promote your page. Google+ will now prompt you to promote your page. Share some valuable content so that users will add you to their circles. React and respond to your fans, and most importantly – optimise your page for lead generation.
Newstalk and Google are to host an interactive presidential debate on 24th October, that will be live streamed on YouTube as well as being broadcast over the radio.
The 90-minute debate will feature all seven candidates and will be the last to take place before polling day on the 27th. But that’s not the best part – whilst Damien Kiberd will be moderating, the questions posed to the candidates will be submitted and voted on by members of the public.
Listeners can upload their questions to Newstalk’s YouTube channel, where the most popular are currently on show, and vote for which ones should be asked in the debate. There will also be live online feedback from viewers and listeners via Google+ hangouts video interaction and analysis of reactions to each candidate’s responses.
Natasha Sachs, who is co-ordinating Google’s operations for the debate, said “It has been 14 years since the last presidential election, and in that time advances in technology has made it possible for Irish voters to engage directly with the presidential candidates online. We’re proud to help facilitate the opportunity for voters to have their voices heard,”
Tune in at 12:00 on the 24th and see what happens.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts known to man, are now available online as high resolution images, courtesy of Google and the Israel Museum.
The project, which was launched on Monday, will feature text-searchable images of the five Israeli scrolls that date back to the time of the birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Explanatory videos and information are also integrated.
The 1,200 megapixel images are 200 times higher in resolution than a standard camera and were taken with UV-protected flash tubes at a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second to avoid damaging the manuscripts.
An English translation is provided and the scripts even show up in Google search queries. We challenge you to find anything older than them online. View the images for yourself here.
Google has purchased Motorola Mobility, the phone manufacturer’s smartphone business, for $12.5 billion. The deal represents Google’s biggest challenge yet to Apple, as the deal will mean a major boost for Google Android in the smartphone market.
It’s Google’s biggest acquisition to date and makes experts’ predictions that half of the world’s smartphones will use Android software by the end of 2012 all the more realistic.
Motorola set up Mobility as a separate business in January. It produces the Motorola Droid and Defy, as well as tablet computers and set-top boxes. Although the deal is subject to US regulatory approval, the companies expect to have completed the takeover by late 2011 or early 2012.
As part of the deal, Google has acquired Motorola Mobility’s 17,000 patents. Google’s Android software will also be free for other manufacturers (such as Samsung and HTC) to use, as they plan to run Motorola Mobility as an entirely separate business.
Google + has met it’s first wave of major criticism after it deliberately deleted a large number of user accounts.
The social network has a ‘common name’ policy, designed to prevent fake profiles being created and to fight spam. At the end of July they began enforcing the policy and suspended what they deemed to be fake profiles.
While most of the accounts were indeed fake profiles, several were legitimate users – including William Shatner, who was kicked off for saying hello to everyone. His account was shortly reinstated once the mistake was realised.
As a response to the growing dissatisfaction Google have annouced a number of changes it intends to implement, including – giving users more warning and more time to comply with the common name policy, improving the sign-up process, and exploring better ways to support nicknames, maiden names and pseudonyms.
If you don’t feel like poking, messaging, posting, tagging, linking or questioning your friends via Facebook anymore, they’ve just added yet another feature – video chatting.
The newest feature was announced at the same that Google+ was launched, and is arguably an effort to compete with the new social network and draw attention away from it at the same time. It was developed in partnership with Skype, the leading free video chat service.
There’s been a good deal of criticism about this new feature. Many have said that they could and probably should have implemented it some time ago : video chat has been available on countless chat apps for years.
However, equally as many people are saying that the implementation of Facebook video chat has been done extremely well. All users have to do is install a small applet – if they try to call someone who doesn’t have the software, it automatically prompts them too. The usual chat box has been redesigned and given a much more prominent place.
How to does Facebook’s video chat service measure up to Google+ hangouts? Not at all, say the experts. With the latter you can chat to up to ten people at once, and it focusses on whoever it speaking at the time. Users can simultaneously watch videos together too. None of this is possible on Facebook’s chat – yet.
As Facebook chat still has some developing to do, and Google+ still has some growing to do, it remains to be seen who will win out in the end. The only thing anyone can say for definite is that this war will go on for a long time.
Google+ is the latest social network to hit the web and has so far received a huge amount of attention online, both good, bad and indifferent. Want to know what all the fuss is all about? Then read this quick guide by our UK training partners Nixon McInnes (summarised below).
What is Google+ ?
It’s basically Facebook, but Google style. The main difference is that it allows users to share updates, photos, links etc. with many different groups of people (called ‘circles’) without the need to agree to be their friend first. Users can create different circles for different groups, for example, work colleagues, friends, family, etc.
+Sparks
This is the search feature of the site that makes recommendations for content that may be suitable for you based on the interests you enter. It includes blog posts, articles and videos from across the web. It’s more of a ‘recommendation engine’ than a search engine and will tie in with the ‘Google +1’ button.
+Hangouts
A unique feature of Google+, Hangouts enables users to have a group video chat. It switches camera based on who’s talking and also allows several people to watch a YouTube video simultaneously while seeing each other’s reactions at the same time.
+Mobile
Google+ also offers instant photo uploads. With permission it automatically adds your pictures to a private album in the cloud so they’re available at any time from any device. There’s also +Huddle, a group messaging experience that lets everyone in your circle know what’s going on.
Google+ vs. Facebook
Pros: You don’t have to agree to be friends with someone to see their updates. The ‘circles’ concept is much more developed than Facebook’s Groups feature.
Cons: Your updates are not off-limits to search engines. The interface is nearly identical to Facebook (although this is only a con if you dislike the latter).
Should we take notice?
There has certainly been a lot of buzz about it and there is potential for further development. There is no obvious way for businesses to use Google+ yet, which could be an obstacle to its success. The biggest challenge they face, however, will be getting more ‘normal’ people to use it so that they can really compete.
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topic these days, and an issue that won’t go away any time soon. What with SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and anything else you can think of, we’re set to see a host of sites changing their privacy policies.
