A Week in Digital
16th July
Beware of Google Business Photos Scam
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022558.html
In April, Google relaunched the Google Local Business Center as Google Places and one part of that relaunch was the release of a FREE Google Business Photo program.
The Business Photo program lets you include pictures of your business in Google Maps, done by Google.
The key points, as Google said are:
- It’s free! Just apply to have Google take photographs
- Show off your business to new customers around the world
- Enhance your Place Page to stand out above the competition.
But some people are trying to take advantage of those unaware of it being free.
A Google Places Help thread has one business owner saying that he was contacted by someone saying they are with Google offering this as a paid service.
He said:
I got a call from Mr. Stephen Lezert with Google saying that they would like to come to our restaurant next week and take videos for the vertual tour on Google. He said that it would be a good way for our customers to see our restaurant and it will increase our business. He said that there would be one time fee of 489.00. Is it true that your company is actually asking your customers to pay that amount of money to provide the vertural tour of our business. We got this phone calls from two different men in two days. I am not sure if this is a scam that they will take our money and it would be never posted on Google. Please advise if this deal is actually offered by your company officially.
16th July
Google News update adds (gasp!) human choices
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jul/16/google-news-redesign
Despite proudly claiming in 2002 that “This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page”, Google has rolled out a teaser for its new Editors’ Pick section to its Google News site – featuring the selections of real human editors, outside of Google, selecting their special stories. Presently the current partners include The Washington Post, Newsday, Reuters, and Slate.
Officially, Google says: “At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a very small experiment in Google News called Editors’ Picks. For this limited test, we’re allowing a small set of publishers to promote their original news articles through the Editors’ Picks section.”
Even so, that means humans choosing news - not the normal Google News approach at all. So does this signal a change for how the site is run? Senior manager Chris Gaither of Google News was cautious in his response “I wouldn’t read too much into this small experiment in terms of what it signals for the future”.
Google has been upgrading its news site over the past few months, with an overhauled design (still to come to the UK site) which has taken into account user feedback, and Fast Flip, for quickly browsing through stories on multiple sites. (There’s not much evidence that Fast Flip has taken off though: it may be consigned to the same box marked “not used by many” as Google Wave.)
The BBC has also recently redesigned its website for the first time since 2003, showing that the competition for news portals is hotting up.
Having the eye and ear for picking out a good news story is impossible to implement into an algorithm. The current Google News algorithm searches the internet to find newly-published stories on major sites and uses past trends to predict future hot stories. But the algorithm can’t tell whether a single item is important, relevant or even interesting; that only emerges when others follow its lead. Adding the human element might help uncover those stories that are presently missed by the machines at the early stage.
18th July
Facebook Will Celebrate 500 Million Users Next Week this week!
http://mashable.com/2010/07/17/facebook-500-million/
Facebook will finally reach the impressive 500 million user milestone sometime this coming week. To celebrate, it’ll launch “Facebook Stories,” a visual memorial to all the ways the social network has changed people’s lives.
Facebook has already posted a form through which you can submit your own story. If your story becomes popular — that is, if it gets more “Likes” than most — it could be featured among other popular stories.
Facebook reached 400 million users five months ago. This time last year, it had just reached 200 million, and eight months before that it was at just 100 million
16th July
Barbie ’signs up’ to Foursquare
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7894530/Barbie-signs-up-to-Foursquare.html
Barbie, the Mattel-manufactured doll, ‘has joined’ Foursquare, the location-based social network, in a bid to promote her new in-built video camera.
The latest model of the doll, Barbie Video girl, doubles up as a video camera and comes with video editing software. Mattel are using the service to promote the new doll by launching a ‘scavenger hunt’ across the US.
The idea is that Barbie Video girl is going on a tour across the US to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York on her ‘summer travels’.
‘She’ will use Foursquare to post clues as to her whereabouts, as well as Twitter, and ask her followers to complete on-location tasks.
Mattel’s street team will then be available to hand out a Barbie Video Girl to one winner in each city.
Last week, Foursquare signed up its two millionth user, three months after securing its first million ‘Foursquarers’. It is now valued at $95 million, post a recent $20 million cash investment.
