HOME / Posts Tagged: Google
YouTube adds Contacts and Private Chat features
Every app/platform in today’s world should have every feature possible so since you already have contacts/friends/connections in Facebook/Twitter/Google+/etc, you might as well have them in YouTube as well. And since you have contacts, you need to have chat, otherwise, what’s the point? So in case there was some debate about whether YouTube was a social [Continue reading]
Thank you Internet: the best order of watching Star Wars
1 part crowd-sourced Q&A (the sci-fi StackExchange site) and 1 part Google’s Knowledge Graph (a database of answers and indexed data based on semantic search concepts) to get an instant result on my critical search: “correct order of watching Star Wars” In case you wonder, here’s what the Internet has decided for my life in [Continue reading]
Google’s Boolean Logic Doodle: what does it mean?
If you were stuck on Google’s homepage today trying to understand what the doodle is about, here’s the meaning of each combination. In each case, the “x” and “y” circles of the lowercase “g” letter are hidden or shown according to the highlighted operation as if you were do a search on two terms (“x” [Continue reading]
How to add authorship information for Facebook, Pinterest and Google on your blog
Authorship markup for sites used to be an exciting term back when Google was using it in the search results but has since faded back as Google decided that it’s not for everyone. Now it may make a come back as Facebook is now using it to help you get more followers and at the [Continue reading]
Shared circles murdered, Collections born: Upping the game for G+ curators
Crazy thought: maybe Google didn’t like (in the end) the ease of massively sharing hundreds of people’s profiles to thousands other people. Maybe that served the purpose of many people being happy to have thousands of followers (and thus be happy to be on Google+). Maybe they found out that it doesn’t improve overall post [Continue reading]
Pomodoros with Eggscellent + Google Calendar + IFTTT + Beeminder
File this under #lazysunday (I should be working) #justbecauseIcan (I’m not sure I’m going to use it) #addicted2automation (no explanation necessary) :) Here’s a recipe for beeminding1 pomodoros2 if you use Eggscellent3 1) Download Eggscellent4 2) Open Google Calendar 3) Create a new calendar named “Eggscellent” 4) Open the OSX Calendar and add your Google [Continue reading]
Google’s war on URLs continues
Google announced a change it has been testing for some time: replacing the URL in search results with the breadcrumbs of the page. Ironically, Google’s announcement is titled “Better presentation of URLs in search results”. To help mobile searchers understand your website better when we show it in the mobile search results, today we’re updating [Continue reading]
Who will see your Google+ posts?
A great flowchart by Philipp Steuer on which users will actually see your posts. h/t Tim Grimes
Timer “app” in Google’s search box
Another episode of the continuing series “Google prefers to give you answers rather than direct you to a site that has the answer”. Type “timer X minutes” to get a timer app with stop/reset buttons and an alarm sound in your search results. h/t +Travis Wise
Facebook gets lazy, wants us to do it’s indexing for them
// Around the same time that Google+ is introducing features like automated tagging of posts and your photos can being searchable by their content, Facebook wants us to go a through a menu interface and state what we’re doing from a choice of options. Of course this all comes down to advertising (as Slate pointed [Continue reading]
Social media cross-posting with Friends+me
// I’ve recently posted about Fotostat (http://bit.ly/g-fotostat ) , a new service for cross-posting within several social networks, with focus on images. I have been using it with great success for a site I manage. But if your main network is Google+, you are out of luck, because Google has only given write access through the G+ API to selected third-party [Continue reading]
Look, I have a notification about… something
// The badge icon says I have a notification in the #Google+ app. So I open it, and click app’s notifications counter. And I see this. Some (specified) people did something but it doesn’t tell me what. Some other people whose names are mentioned did something else (or perhaps the same action) in probably another [Continue reading]
Quora, a Google+ blogging alternative?
// I generally detest article headlines that pose questions rather than provide a definite position, but I’m undecided on this one.Recently, #Quora upgraded their Boards feature, renaming the Blogs. The standard features include: – a quora.com subdomain of your choice – set a title, logo/avatar image and #blog description – choice of set of basic [Continue reading]
Google Reader is dead, long live Feedly
// As I was writing (http://bit.ly/YvRWmi) when the #GoogleReader death was announced, the race is on for a new king of #RSS readers. Of the 4 that I tried the last 2 days, here’s the outcome: – The Old Reader: imported everything (but only current copies of the feeds, not the Google #Reader archive (which has [Continue reading]
Google Reader's death is an opportunity, but for who?
// So #Google is killing Google Reader, messing with the image they have been building for years that "Google can do everything for everyone". #Reader has been the definitive #web-based #RSS reader service for years. That said the race is one for it’s replacement. And things are not looking good in terms of instantly responding [Continue reading]
The Ultimate Browser Detection Fail
// So here’s a screenshot from #Google #Nexus , running Google’s #Android browser, showing a page on a Google service (Google Groups). We notice two things happening: 1) Google’s page can’t identify Google’s browser correctly and instead mistake it for #Safari2) Google engineers can’t (or wont?) make a page of relatively simple (in terms of [Continue reading]
Cross-network social media engagement analysis
// Did that sound complex enough? :) Statistics and trying to do comparisons can often be misleading as just seeing the numbers below can prove. The numbers are from a test +Wil Wheaton did: he asked people on #Facebook and #Google + to following a list to his blog as a test on how much traffic [Continue reading]
History: G+ Activity Log for the rest of the Web
// I recently wrote http://bit.ly/Vx6wiE asking for a #Google+ activity log, a page where you could see all the posts you +1ed or commented on. The problem is, if someone doesn’t interact with the post after you, you can’t easily find it. It turns out something like this is on the works. +Shamil Weerakoon pointed me to [Continue reading]
Your most popular G+ photos
// A lovely use of the #Google+ #API : Go to http://www.googleplussuomi.com/thumbs.php?id=109098983561044225374 and replace the ID number with the number of your profile (you can figure out by going to your profile and seeing the address of the page). You will get your (public) photos sorted by popularity!Via +Klaus Herrmann and +Jeff Sullivan. Created by +Jari Huomo
Google adding synonyms and intent in the search for the perfect match
// For some time now, #Google has not been taking your searches… literally. Your keywords will of course be used but Google will also add in the mix the correct spelling of the words you used (if you made an error) as well as synonyms or related words (think "cat" when you search for "pet") [Continue reading]
G+ statistics via Webmaster Tools Author Stats
// I had previously http://bit.ly/W8U6r2 written about adding your #author information in your content so that your name can show up next to Google search engine results of your website and #Google+ posts. What I hadn’t included though is that Google’s #WebmasterTools have a "Author stats" report with traffic #statistics of the pages that Google has [Continue reading]
Romney Self-Googlebombed!
// Apparently if you search on #Google images for "completely wrong" you get tons of photos of Mitt Romney. It’s not an old-style #googlebomb but just a regular search engine… feature. This result comes probably from Romney’s recent statement that he was "completely wrong" on his characterizations of 47% of americans… Google search link: http://bit.ly/VQqLGtLink to [Continue reading]
What the Plus! Free for 6 5 hours!
+Guy Kawasaki teamed up with +Samsung USA to offer his new book on #Google + What the Plus! as a free PDF download. What the Plus! is a collection of articles on making the best out of G+ Get it here http://yousend.it/whYuAr (the link will expire in about 5 hours, after that you can find [Continue reading]
Social Media tracking with ThinkUp
There are various solutions (with varying paying options) if you want to monitor your #social network efforts but there is also an open-source solution. +ThinkUp, led by +Gina Trapani, is a web application that can provide you statistics on your #Facebook , #Twitter and #Google + accounts and pages. Included are likes, reshares and responses [Continue reading]
Microsoft: Google.com is malware site
Mark this as #fail of the week: Google.com was marked as a #malware distributing site by Microsoft Security Essentials program due to a buggy update. #Google was labeled as a “severe” threat due to being infected with the Blackhole Exploit Kit – a nasty sounding exploit developed in Russia that allows hackers to target Windows [Continue reading]
You can now play doctor with Google
In it’s quest to serve you the most accurate (ads and) information that you are looking for, Google will now match searches for illness symptoms with the actual disease you might suffer from. A search "abdominal pain on my right side" will provide a top-of-search-results box with possible situations such as appendicitis, ovarian cyst and [Continue reading]
Improve your SEO with XML Sitemaps
One process often suggested to improve your search engine rankings are creating your #sitemap in XML format and submitting to search engines. #Google and #Bing are among the search engines that support the format. But a simple dump of every single page on your site might not be the best way to go about it. [Continue reading]
Add your author information in search results
#Google is quickly adding social elements in search, you might have seen that can see who shared a page directly on the #search results page. But you can now add your own author information (name and photo) when a page of yours shows up in search results. Here’s how to do it: 1. Link your [Continue reading]
Google changes Sitelinks, top search result spot gets more important
Google is changing Sitelinks, the links below a search result with access to other pages of the same site. Changes include: – Sitelinks are now full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text. – Links have increased from a maximum of 8 links to 12, revealing more about the websites you are [Continue reading]
Rain or shine, see the weather in Google Maps
It’s strange but after my recent post on maps I keep finding new advances on the issue. Google today announced a weather layer for Google Maps. Whether you’re organizing a trip overseas or a picnic at a local park, knowing the weather forecast is a crucial part of the planning process. Today, we’re adding a [Continue reading]