The new policy aims to provide a single reference point for users and gives Google greater powers to share data more easily across its application.

While users can still edit their privacy preferences, what this essentially means is that Google can tailor your online experience based on the interests you’ve shared in Google+, Gmail and Youtube. So you might start seeing ads popping up that relate to a subject you’ve emailed someone about.

This doesn’t mean that Google has sold your information to advertisers; it still insists that your personal data is secure within the Google network, but it gives Google the ability to target ads to exactly what you might be looking for at a particular time.

Google will also be able to suggest search terms for you based on your recent activity and can predict what you might be looking for by monitoring what you look at and comment on and build a profile around this.

Even better than this though, by combining the various Google services, the user experience will become even more intuitive until it begins to act like a virtual PA. The example Google gives in its FAQs is: ‘we can tell you that you’ll be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and the local traffic conditions.’ Pretty cool huh?

Of course there is always the usual suspicion when a company changes its privacy policy and Google has been clear that the only way to opt out is to close your account. But at the same time Google isn’t here just to provide us with a wonderful tool completely free of strings, this update will give it an even greater insight which will significantly increase its advertising revenue.

Google is being clear about how the new policy works and what to do if you don’t like the changes, but overall the feedback is pretty positive. For most people though the change seems a natural development and makes managing the different applications a whole lot easier.

Google has outlined the changes in it’s policies pages and has included some FAQs that explain the implications for users.

Written by Felice Ayling

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Post tags: google, Social Media, usability

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Episode 58
Ciaran speaks to Simon O’Kane from Huddle, a UK collaborative cloud computing service that is changing the way teams collaborate and work together on their business documents. We explore the ethos behind Huddle, and Simon shares with us news out today on Huddle’s latest offering.

Try Huddle yourself with a 2 week free trial at
http://www.huddle.com

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Post tags: Digital Marketing Podcast

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The update is causing quite a stir for a variety of different reasons. There is a fair amount of negativity about the new layout with many complaining it is messy and difficult to understand, preferring the more simple layout of the current profile page. Facebook has helpfully provided a short film telling us their thinking behind the recent change.

For others, they feel the information displayed in the timeline doesn’t appear to have any real synergy to it, with much of the highlighted portions appearing to be irrelevant next to other more important information about an individual.

But far outstripping that is concern around users ability to search back in time and theoretically find every post ever entered by the profile owner. In the past it would have been difficult to find anything past a certain post as it would disappear from view after time. This made sense as it most posts are a reflection of the here and now and hold no real relevance out of context.

Of course, most of us have posted something at some point that we’d rather not be reminded of, or related to an event or past relationship that we’ve all but wiped from our memories and do we really want those now popping up for the world to see? Probably not.

But having installed the timeline myself, and having checked out those of my friends who’ve already opted for it, I have yet to see anything that looks like it’s been dredged up from the dungeons of my Facebook past. In fact, everything is just as I remember it from my old profile.

Of course if I wanted to spend a few hours scrolling back through my history I can, but it only seems to point to the main events, such as moving jobs, or adding new friends. And because Facebook has linked my timeline with my school and college dates I now have timepoints logged from before Facebook even existed which I find quite a nice touch.

Of course this feature does play very nicely into our more voyeuristic tendencies and allows us to engage in a little light Facebook stalking which has been the basis of a few criticisms I’ve seen. But this is surely more to do with human benhaviour than Facebook’s decision to change its product.

I have to admit the new layout will take some getting used to but I’m not sure Facebook deserves the bashing it’s currently getting.

If you want to get Facebook Timeline before the rollout then visit the Introducing Timeline page and chose ‘Get timeline’

Written by Felice Ayling

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Post tags: facebook, Social Media

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Major brands and noted media figureheads have spoken openly either in support or condemning the bills which are designed to tackle head on the issues around online piracy.

We all know that internet piracy is rife and it’s a hard battle for those responsible for policing such content, and that it’s a very concern for the music and publishing industry. But are the proposed laws really going to outlaw such a widespread issue? And even if they do, are these the kind of laws we want to live by where innocence rather than guilt has to be proven.

On face value, the powers granted by the new bill appear reasonable. Sites caught streaming unlicensed material on a regular basis face prosecution, and those who support this activity could be shut down. This includes sites or services that link to other sites that break copyright laws. Makes sense?

But looking closely it appears that there is no burden of proof on services that chose to block suspect sites from its users. This leaves the process open to abuse from sites choosing to block competitors on the weakest of evidence. It allows and almost actively encourages a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach which has more than a few organisations pretty riled.

For a site like Google, they could potentially be responsible for ensuring that any site accused of piracy is blocked from their search results, otherwise they could end up falling into the aiding and abetting category and could face being shut down. And as the laws would cover foreign content, Google would need to ensure these measures were implemented worldwide regardless of the location of the user.

It’s no surprise that the supporters and critics are divided into two very separate camps, the majority of those in favour of the bill being made up of those industries which lose the most from online piracy, and critics being those with most to lose.

Twitter is most clearly in the opposing camp and who can blame them? If a user posts a link to unlawful content it has the potential to put Twitter at risk of being shut down.

Obviously we would hope the enforcement of these laws would be on a case by case basis but essentially the power would be there to take extreme measures against some of the biggest sites in the world. No wonder it has gotten more than a few people a bit upset.

Several major brands are planning to publicly protest against the two bills this Wednesday. Wikipedia is planning a total blackout for 24 hours and Google is planning a change to its homepage as a protest (not quite as grand a gesture for them).

I’m not convinced the new laws will achieve much in the fight against piracy, I’d imagine the majority of those sites which stream large quantities of pirated content do their best to stay off the radar of anyone even remotely official. And aren’t these sites the ones that are truly at the heart of the rising issues? The bills will really only affect those sites who try to sideline copyright costs every now and then or those who do it as a genuine mistake.

And for those who seek to access this kind of content on the web, I doubt they do so through Google search or via Twitter. I don’t mean to belittle the efforts of those clearly more experienced and wiser than me but for all the new powers outlined in the bills, there is still no real strategy for locating the main culprits and enforcing these laws effectively.

And as for the protests, there may be flurry of comment flying around social networks during the blackout but I’d give it two days before it’s old news. I’ll wait to see if I’m proved wrong.

Written by Felice Ayling

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Post tags: google, privacy

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Daniel and Ciaran explore some of the commonest Search Engine Optimization Myths commonly peddled by sales people trying to sell you SEO services. Find out what not to fall for, and what to look for in an SEO agency worth it’s salt.

Subscribe in iTunes

How to get in Touch:

daniel@targetinternet.com

http://www.twitter.com/danielrowles

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Marketing-Podcast-2785308

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http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-digital-marketing-podcast/id373596600

Daniel’s Bio/a>

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Since Google+ launched there have been a fair amount of general wonderings as to where its social platform was going and what value it was bringing to users. We all struggled a little to see what it was bringing to our already cluttered online lives but we should have known Google had a plan worth waiting for.

And here it is! Social search! According to Google’s blog, as well as the standard search ‘You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to… all from one search box.’

Once the update is rolled out over the next few days you will start to see search results from your personal networks, particularly from Google+.

New results will cover three main categories; Personal Results, Profiles in Search and People and Pages.

Personal Results will show results that only you can see as they will be pulled from our current contacts and networks.
Profiles in Search will help you to find people who are looking for. The autocomplete feature will try to predict who you are looking for and take you straight to their profile.
People and Pages will point you at people who are talking about the query you’ve entered, with a nifty new link to add them to your circles right away.

Google has dubbed this new collection as ‘Search plus Your World’ and this lovely little clip explains what it’s all about.

All of this suddenly gives users a very good reason to sign up to Google+ and for those us already using it we’ll be keen to expand our networks as quickly as possible.

This also adds weight to Google’s recent decision to encrypt searches made by signed in users. The additional security will be fundamental to ensuring personal data isn’t shared accidentally.

All in all this is a really interesting move by Google who must right now be feeling pretty pleased with themselves. They’ve kept this under wraps and borne the sneers and sniggers at its social offering from the likes of Twitter and Facebook who dismissed Google as a small time player. Cue evil genius laugh……

Well done Google!

Anyone interested in adding me to their circles?

Written by Felice Ayling

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Post tags: google, Search, Social Media

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The second largest site on the global web, 60 Million Logged in users every day, YouTube continues to rule the waves in in online video. Daniel and Ciaran share some of the channels recent successes and new features and discuss how you can make use of them boost your online digital marketing campaigns. Under discussion are how YouTube boost Ads that people love, How you can advertise alongside premium content, Online video Consumption patterns, YouTube’s ‘Skip This’ ad button and how it helps ROI, and Jamal Edwards, and his success with SBTV ( although just how successful he has been is still under debate between Ciaran and Daniel)

Check out the Youtube Dashboard for latest viewing trends

http://www.youtube.com/trendsdashboard

Compare your performance with industry norms through Google instream video benchmark analysis

http://www.google.com/adwords/watchthisspace/tools/in-stream-video/

Subscribe in iTunes

How to get in Touch:

daniel@targetinternet.com

http://www.twitter.com/danielrowles

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Marketing-Podcast-2785308

http://www.facebook.com/digitalmarketingpodcast

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-digital-marketing-podcast/id373596600

Daniel’s Bio/a>

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Post tags: Video, youtube

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You’d have to be living in a cave to have missed the story that Google has ‘demoted’ one of its own following some less than honest online marketing tactics.

It seems Chrome decided to boost the profile of the browser by hiring an external agency to produce some video content as part of a wider marketing campaign.

Sounds pretty simple? Unfortunately, the agencies used methods that didn’t exactly meet Google’s usually high standards of conduct and landed them both in a bit of hot water.

Although most of the activity appeared above board and focused on guiding users to specific video content via blogs and forums, it appeared that this was achieved by paying bloggers to ‘review’ the web browser, something which Google states is clearly outside of its quality guidance.

As it believes in rewarding quality content, having products promoted by what should be an independent source is a vital part of how Google judges what is and isn’t useful to us as users. And so any interference with this process is bound to cause some controversy.

The upshot of this violation is that Google have penalised the Google Chrome site by dropping its page rank and demoting it in the search rankings. This means that Google Chrome is no longer appearing on the first page of search results and will continue to lag for the next 60 days, at which point it will be able to apply to Google to reconsider the levy against it.

This is Google sticking to the rules and making a very public example of a high profile site. It’s clear there’s no room for error in Google’s world and any violation of its quality guidance will not go unpunished, even if this means hurting one of their own.

Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam gave the following statement:

‘Even though the intent of the campaign was to get people to watch videos–not link to Google–and even though we only found a single sponsored post that actually linked to Google’s Chrome page and passed PageRank, that’s still a violation of our quality guidelines. 

In response, the webspam team has taken manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome for at least 60 days. After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would. During the 60 days, the PageRank of www.google.com/chrome will also be lowered to reflect the fact that we also won’t trust outgoing links from that page.’

Opinion has been split between praising Google’s actions and questioning the effectiveness. On the surface it appears that the action was indeed justified and necessary, showing that Google will apply it’s principles to anyone who dares to cross them regardless of whether the actions were carried out by a third party.

However, I can’t help but be a little sceptical about all this. For one thing, removing Chrome from the first page of search results doesn’t really achieve anything. It’s now not ranking for its most popular search terms, but given these are terms such as ‘Chrome’ or ‘Chrome browser’, the impact will be on the user who now has to look harder to find what they’re looking for. If the user is actually looking for Chrome then it’s unlikely they’ll be put off finding the site just because it doesn’t appear at the top of the results. This doesn’t hurt Chrome, it inconveniences the user.

Did everyone else spot that the top paid result for the terms ‘Chrome’, ‘Google chrome’ and ‘browser’ is an ad for Google Chrome? Hmmm……

This also makes Google look incredibly rigid in its application of the guidelines. While it’s important to demonstrate a zero tolerance approach to those deliberately flouting the rules, allowing room for genuine error and working with websites to support them in getting the best out of their campaigns while delivering them in a way that works for Google must be the ideal scenario.

This action against Chrome looks to me more like a publicity stunt which has only served to increase online discussion about the web browser and make Google appear inflexible and unapproachable. Instead of patting itself on the back for implementing its rules so consistently, surely this must highlight the need to be more willing to allow room for genuine mistakes to be made and learnt from.

You can read the full statement from Matt Cutts on Google’s blog.

 Written by Felice Ayling

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Post tags: best practice, google, online reputation management

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Daniel and Ciaran talk through the new features in Google Analytics to help you get ready for Google turning off the old layout and reports version of the service early in 2012. In this episode we explore:- Event Tracking, Real Time Reporting, Visitor Flow and Goal Flow Visualization, Multi channel Funnels and Attribution, Mobile reporting, Custom Dashboards, Encrypted Search, Keyword Clouds, and how to link GA to your Google Webmaster Tools.

Econsultancy.com

http://econsultancy.com/uk

Google Conversion University

http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity

Also… be sure to check out the Google Analytics video. We posted it recently on our Google plus and Facebook pages. It will make you smile.

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How to get in Touch:

daniel@targetinternet.com

http://www.twitter.com/danielrowles

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Marketing-Podcast-2785308

http://www.facebook.com/digitalmarketingpodcast

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-digital-marketing-podcast/id373596600

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Post tags: analytics, Digital Marketing Podcast, tools

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Fresh from the Google@Manchester event in December, Daniel and Ciaran talk through some of the Buzz and revelations unveiled at this flagship UK  Google event. We talk through  Google’s Mobile strategy, Google Plus and its significant importance, Google Plus Pages for business, touch on connected TV’s and their future, and reveal 2 new buzz phrases that we think you will be hearing a lot of soon.

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How to get in Touch:

daniel@targetinternet.com

http://www.twitter.com/danielrowles

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Marketing-Podcast-2785308

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http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-digital-marketing-podcast/id373596600

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Post tags: analytics, google, google plus, ice cream sandwich

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