WebProNews

Tag: Search

  • Google Runs 20,000 Search Experiments A Year, Here’s The Process Diagramed

    We posted a video Google uploaded this week of a Matt Cutts presentation from late January at a webmaster conference in Korea. Here it is again, in case you missed it:

    There’s a interesting section of his talk, in which he notes that Google runs over 20,000 search experiments a year. We know Google makes hundreds of changes to its algorithm each year, but Cutts sheds a little more light on the process Google goes when making a change. Here’s one of the slides he showed demonstrating the process a change goes through from the idea stage to the launch stage:

    Google Idea

    “So these are numbers from 2009, but the proportions, the rough percentages, are about the same,” says Cutts. “We would try out anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 ideas. Of that, many more thousand, 8,549, we would send to these blind side-by-sides, and then a smaller fraction of that actually get sent out to real users and to see whether users tend to click on the newer results or tend to click on the older results. And the final number changes that we launched last year was 585.”

    If you have the time, check out the full 45-minute presentation.

  • Google’s Matt Cutts: I Was Worried We’d Be Crushed By Altavista

    Google posted a video this week of a presentation from Matt Cutts at the 2012 Korea Webmaster Conference. He talks a bit about “the evolution of search”.

    He starts off talking about Yahoo in the early days, which he says is “a little strange” to call a search engine, “because Yahoo started out as a hand-compiled list of links. So, an individual person would decide what category to put things in, and they would decide whether it deserved to be in a certain category or not. The problem with that is that it doesn’t scale very well. You need to find a search engine that can work across the breadth of the entire web, or else it isn’t going to be as useful for every kind of query that people get.”

    The whole first section is really a history lesson in search, but it’s interesting to hear him talk about his early days with Google.

    “Whenever I joined Google, we were a start-up, so there was less than 100 people, whenever I joined Google,” he said. “And at the time, I was worried that we would be crushed by Altavista. Google was a tiny company. Altavista was a huge company. But Google has something that the other search engines at that time did not do. We looked at the links pointing to web pages.”

    He later said, “I remember whenever I started out at Google, I went and I talked to another company. And they had a list of results that they called featured, and they had a list that they called partnered. And I said, ‘What’s the difference between a featured result and a partner result?’ And the company said, there’s no difference at all. Everything is paid for. And that didn’t seem fair at the time.”

    “I’m proud that even to this day, you can’t pay to get a higher ranking on Google,” he said.

    It’s a 45-minute-long presentation, so you may want to check it out if you have a bit of time to kill.

  • Can Google+ Rival Facebook?

    As you may know (especially if you’re a Google+ user), Google+ got its first major redesign this week. There’s a pretty healthy mix of likes and dislikes among users, but one thing remains clear: the Google/Facebook competition isn’t dying down. Add to that the fact that Facebook just acquired Instagram for $1 billion while it aims to increase its mobile focus.

    Interestingly, Google VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, revealed that Google+ has over 170 million users. This number refers to the amount of people who have activated a Google+ account. The stat came just a week after CEO Larry Page said Google+ had 100 million active users, which reflected the stat dropped by Gundotra last month at SXSW. That, Gundotra explained, was referring to users who used Google+ within 30 days of using another Google service. Either way, considering that it’s not even a year old, it’s not bad, if you ask me.

    Page discussed Google+ during the company’s earnings call on Thursday. He said we should think about Google+ in terms of two parts: the “social spine” and the “social destination.” Google+, he said, is “truly at the heart of our efforts.” That’s where the “social spine” part comes in. This, as best as I can tell, is just another way of saying “social layer,” which Google has frequently referred to Google+ as. That’s where the integration with other Google products comes in. It’s essentially a layer over the bigger Google product (all of Google, for all intents and purposes), which connects you with other people and aids in the personalization of your experience across all of the “bigger Google’s” features (other Google products like Gmail, YouTube, Docs, Reader, etc.).

    You’re using just one Google, Page said, “not a series of disconnected products.”

    It was nice finally hearing Page say that, as it’s exactly the way I’ve been trying to write about Google+ for as long as it’s existed (really even before – remember when we were still calling it “Google Me”?).

    Mashable’s Todd Wasserman asks if Google+ is the third largest social network with 170 million users (with Facebook at somewhere around 850 million, Twitter at 500 million and LinkedIn at 150 million). He rattles off a bunch of stats from various measurement firms:

    ComScore reports that Google+ had 23.1 million active users in March, compared to 158.9 million for Facebook, 40.3 million for Twitter and 37.4 million for LinkedIn. In the U.S., at least, Google+ is closer to Tumblr (21.8 million) and Pinterest (18.7 million) than those others. ComScore doesn’t provide global figures, but data compiled by Website-Monitoring in early February found that about 31% of Google+ users are based in the U.S.

    Meanwhile, monthly visit data compiled by ExperianHitwise estimates that Google+ received 61 million U.S. visits in March, a nice jump over February, but still well behind Facebook (7 billion), Twitter (182 million), Pinterest (104 milllion), LinkedIn (86 million) and Tagged (72 million.)

    As a side note, one incredibly interesting aspect of all of this, at least to me, is that while Google gets the advantage of being Google and having all of its various products, Twitter doesn’t have that, and still has 500 million (this is, according to Twopcharts in February). Seems like a pretty legit contender to me, should Facebook lose steam in MySpace-like fashion at some point.

    If you can count the “social spine” part of Google+, it has the potential to be even bigger than Facebook. Google is already using it in search results. Here’s comScore’s latest search market numbers:

    comScore March 2012 Search Rankings

    Notice that Facebook isn’t a factor there. You think they might want to make their own search engine?

    Think about Gmail. Hard numbers on users are hard to come by, but I promise you, it has a lot of users. Consider that Google contacts info is now synced into Google+ too. Even if you don’t use “Google+,” I bet there’s a good chance you have some Google contacts, if you use Gmail. Interestingly enough, Facebook is pushing email more now.

    And then there’s YouTube.

    “Today, YouTube has over 800 million monthly users uploading over an hour of video per second,” Page said in his letter last week. That’s getting pretty close to Facebook in numbers right there. No, they’re not all actively using the “social destination” part of Google+, but does it really matter? It’s the “social spine” part, which goes across all of Google that Google must be mostly concerned with. And as long as Google continues to find more useful integrations, Google+ should grow.

    Google is pushing YouTube growth harder than it ever has. It’s making moves to get major content and high quality, original content in front of users. The recent homepage redesign is huge for this too. Now, they’ve expanded the Partner Program.

    Page didn’t reveal any new numbers about the “social destination” part, disappointing listeners of the earnings call, but the message he is trying to send is clear. It’s not about that. The social destination, what most people think of as Google+, is another way of keeping users engaged with Google products, and can help push more data to Google, but whether people are going to the Google+ stream all the time does not make or break Google+, because it’s the “social spine” of Google itself that is far more significant.

    Google+ is not going to be another Google Buzz or Google Wave, simply because it is simply ingrained into the larger Google. So, while it looks like Google+ (the social destination) may not be able to rival Facebook, Google (with a “social spine”) might be a different story. Google, even without the social spine, is already up there.

    Don’t think for a second that any of this is lost on Facebook. Facebook has seen this coming for far longer than Google+ has been out. It’s why Facebook decided it needs email, and why it’s not too far fetched to speculate that Facebook will make a significant move into search.

  • Microsoft /Yahoo Search Alliance Nearly Final In UK, Ireland, France

    In February, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they were expanding their “search alliance” in the UK, France and Ireland. Today, they announced they’re about to enter the final stage of its implementation in these countries, and will start combining Bing and Yahoo search audiences on the Microsoft adCenter platform.

    The ad transition officially begins on April 18.

    “Next week, we begin to shift ad serving for Yahoo! Search over to Microsoft Advertising adCenter,” says Microsoft’s Cedric Chambraz. “This means that adCenter ads will gradually be displayed on Yahoo! Search result pages in the UK, France and Ireland. This process will begin as early as the 18th of April and is expected to conclude during the last week of the month when 100% of the Yahoo! traffic will be made available in adCenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts will go in read-only mode.”

    “As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and impressions in that account begin to increase, you’ll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account,” he adds. “It is thus important to continue managing your campaigns across both platforms throughout this transition phase, in order to avoid missing out on any potential clicks. To help you prepare, I wanted to share the following guidance to assist you through this transition.”

    There’s a “transition portal” in the adCenter tab when you sign into your Yahoo account, which you can use to complete the transition, which the companies are urging you to do sooner rather than later, if you’re in one of these countries.

    The companies also suggest increasing your adCenter budget (go figure) to prepare for increased traffic, once Yahoo search traffic starts to flood adCenter.

    According to Microsoft, Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be getting the search alliance treatment in the coming months.

  • Google Cost Per Click: Larry Page “Very Bullish” On Mobile

    Google released its Q1 earnings report today. Average cost-per-click, the company reported (which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of Network members), decreased 12% over the first quarter of 2011 and 6% over the fourth quarter of 2011.

    This has been an area of concern for shareholders, with Google’s mobile business doing well, but with the revenue from mobile ads not being able to keep up. Things will change, however, if you believe what CEO Larry Page had to say during the company’s earnings call.

    He said to think of it as there being “so much upside”. Mobile is exploding in query growth, he said, adding that the formats are just adapting a lot from a “relatively crude base.”

    “Right now, they don’t monetize well,” he said, comparing it to search in the early 2000s.

    People always spend most of their efforts on the major source of traffic, which is desktop, he said. But over time, he said, that will reverse. Over time, CPCs may actually get better,” he said. “We’re very bullish.”

    He added that Google is making lots of investments in that area, such as Google Offers and Google Wallet.

    He said we just haven’t seen the focus on it, and that Google is moving toward more focus on it. “I’m very, very bullish on that,” he reiterated.

    Page also noted during the call that we’ll see more and more integrations of Google products with one another. It’s “definitely a big area of focus,” he said.

    That’s right in line with everything we’ve been seeing from Google lately.

  • The New Google+ Is Only The Beginning

    The New Google+ Is Only The Beginning

    Google launched a big redesign of Google+ on Wednesday. It’s in the process of rolling it out over the next few days. A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews, “The new version of Google+ will gradually start rolling out to all Google+ users globally this morning.”

    Do you like the new Google+ design? Is it an improvement over the previous version? Tell us what you think.

    “We think you’ll find it easier to use and nicer to look at, but most importantly, it accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google,” says Vic Gundotra, one of the main brains behind Google+, in a post on Google+ itself.

    The most noticeable change is the navigation, which is now on the left-hand side and can be manipulated by the user. You can move apps around to the order you want them in, hover over apps to see options, and show/hide apps by moving them to the “more” section.

    “Taken together, these powers make it easier to access your favorites, and to adjust your preferences over time,” Gundotra says on the Google blog. “We’ve also built the ribbon with the future in mind, giving us an obvious (and clutter-free) space for The Next Big Feature, and The Feature After That. So stay tuned.”

    Here’s what it looks like and a couple of videos Google posted, demoing the new layout:

    New Google Plus design

    The “What’s Hot” section has become part of a greater “Explore” section, which also points you to Google+ trends, and lets you view “ripples” on various posts in the stream (granted, it already did this).

    Google Plus Explore section

    There’s more emphasis on Hangouts. There’s a dedicated page just for Hangouts, including a list of invitations from people in your circles, easy access to every public/on air hangout, and what Google describes as “a rotating billboard of popular hangouts, pro tips and other items you don’t want to miss.”

    For webmasters, developers, and those in marketing and/or in publishing, Google itself hosts a lot of useful hangouts that you will probably be able to find in this section. In fact, this feature could be huge for content discoverability and make Google+ a great deal more useful for video content alone. I’d look for future YouTube integrations in this department.

    Google Plus Hangouts Page

    Photography is another majar area of focus, and with good reason. Google presents the photo upgrades along with conversation upgrades, and that makes a great deal of sense. As you probably know, Facebook just bought Instagram, which is as much a social network as a photo app. Instagram (as well as Flickr and others over the years) have proven that conversation goes hand in hand with photography. It’s for this reason that Google+ has already been so popular among photographers, though the integration of PIcasa Web Albums and the instant upload feature have probably helped too.

    Photos are an incredibly important part of social media, and certainly are strategically for the companies operating the social networks. Photos attract users, and they attract those users’ friends. It’s a simple as that. The better photo experience a user gets, the more likely they are to continue using that service, and showing their photos to said friends (and family), thereby promoting that service.

    So, the new features in this department, are: full bleed photos and videos, a stream of “conversation cards” and an “activity drawer” highlighting the community around your content, as Google puts it.

    What Do Users Think Of The Redesign?

    Some reactions from Google+:

    Dylan Casey says: “New Google+ looks great. Solves the mess at the top. BTW, where is ‘my’ Google Bar?”

    Cesar Gemelli says, “Maybe this #newgoogleplus will increase my productivity…”

    Ben Umpleby says, “Ahhh, pretty new facelift, #newgoogleplus. Let’s see if this becomes any more fun than before. I got kind of tired of the drab look of the previous version.”

    Not everyone loves it, of course.

    Holly Melton says, “Not loving that the #newgoogleplus pushes everything to the left side of my screen…”

    Isriya Paireepairit writes, “Please consider my proposal with the #newgoogleplus space utilization problem. You will see the space is wasted badly. In the world of widescreen laptop with short height, vertical content display space is expensive. My screen is 1280×800 and you want to allow me using only ~27% of my screen?”

    He shows the following image to demonstrate his point:

    wasted google plus space

    It’s interesting to see the reactions on Twitter, given that not all Twitters are Google+ users. I was surprised at how many positive things were being said, in proportion to the negative things I was coming across. We often talk about Facebook being a major rival to Google, but we’ve also talked about Twitter as a competitor in the past as well, and Twitter has just as much to lose as Facebook, in terms of where users are spending their time, so it’s worth noting that Google is impressing a number of Twitter users.

    Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think this translates to people saying, “OK, forget Twitter, I’m only using Google+ now,” or “Finally, I can stop using Facebook. Google+ has better navigation.” I’m just saying, the more Google can do to impress users of rival services, the better chance they have of capturing more of those users’ time using the web, which really means they have more opportunities to get ads or other Google services in front of them.

    @purplelime
    Sam    The layout of Google+ always bothered me before to the extent it didn’t make me want to use it. I very much approve of the new design. 1 minute ago via Twitter for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @iklash
    Kailash Gyawali     Google+ is getting a redesign and the idea looks cool http://t.co/zKfpjDOX #gplus #GooglePlus 2 minutes ago via Twitter for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @trevormelanson
    Trevor Melanson    Say what you will about Google+, but its new look is the best of the bunch. 3 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @belindaang
    Belinda Ang    Suddenly Google+ looks really cool 3 minutes ago via iTweet.net ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @JoyceTanner1
    Joyce Tanner    Google+ Rolls Out New Look lesson is really learned http://t.co/omnR9DI9 4 minutes ago via Mobile Web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @julesvern97
    Julie R. Neidlinger    In the last five minutes, Google+ just changed. Stuff I wrote yesterday about it is now outdated. Nice. 6 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Update: I’ve seen a lot more of the negative feedback trickling in since this piece was first written. A lot more people seem to be taking issue with Google’s use of space, and with the design having too much white space. It has even led to the Google+ trend #usesforwhitespace.

    The “More Beautiful Google”

    With the announcement, the theme of Google+ as a social layer to the larger Google is continued, with an emphasis on how the company is working to create a “simpler, more beautiful Google”.

    This is in large part, at least on the PR end of things, what Google’s recent privacy policy change was all about. It simply allows Google to more easily share data from Google service to Google service, as it relates to the user. In other words, it can use what you’ve done on YouTube to make your Google+ experience better, or vice versa, for example. Likewise for search.

    Gundotra says at the end of the announcement, “By focusing on you, the people you care about, and the stuff you’re into, we’re going to continue upgrading all the features you already know and love—from Search and Maps to Gmail and YouTube.” Emphasis added.

    It shouldn’t be a surprise that Google is looking for further integrations, and they no doubt have plenty of ideas up their sleeve already, but it’s noteworthy that he mentions search in particular right there. Earlier this year, Google launched Search Plus Your World, a new personalized way of delivering search results to users. While not exclusively Google+-based, there was a heavy emphasis on Google+ activity and profiles in search results.

    The glaring holes in the experience were the lack of Twitter and Facebook data, which both companies complained about in their own ways. It seemed Google was giving preferential treatment to Google+, while sacrificing relevancy of results in some cases. It does seem, however, that Google has eased up on that a bit. A recent algorithm change announced by the company indicates they’re getting better at delivering relevant profiles, and based on some of the examples I’ve come across, I can’t deny that this is the case. It does seem better than it was.

    But how can Google+ be used in search more effectively? Clearly, Google is not done integrating it in there.

    “With Google+, we’re building a seamless and consistent social layer across Google,” the Google spokesperson tells us. “A critical piece of this layer is a design that scales to our future needs. Today’s foundational changes let us move even faster — toward a simpler, more beautiful Google,” the spokesperson says. “We’re just getting started.”

    Google+ User Activity

    In Gundotra’s announcement, he says more than 170 million people have upgraded to Google+. Last month at SXSW, he indicated there are 100 million actives. Larry Page reaffirmed that number last week in a letter to investors. Does that mean that roughly 70 million are inactive with Google+ itself? We posed that question to Google, but no response on that one. I guess we’ll have to take that as a yes, unless 70 million people have become more active in the past week or so.

    The good news, for Google, is that the actives outweigh the inactives, although Google’s description of what it considers an active user has been a topic of debate in itself. It’s someone who has used Google+ within 30 days of another Google service. That doesn’t mean people that are looking through their Google+ stream and engaging in conversations every day. It’s unclear whether the number includes people who have instant upload turned on, which simply uploads a photo to Google+ every time they take a picture with their phone.

    I see a lot of people questioning how big Google+ really is, but I do know that a lot of the people who do use it, use it a lot. I have nearly 1,400 people in my Circles. That’s people that I follow. It’s not an enormous number, but it’s a lot of people, and I see a great deal of activity and conversation every time I look at my stream. Perhaps even more noteworthy – I see a lot of compelling content. A lot of great photos and videos. A lot of stuff worth sharing.

    In the end, it doesn’t really matter if every user is using the actual Google+ stream or Google+ hangouts on a daily basis. As Google has presented it time and time again, it’s a social layer. Google doesn’t need you to use these specific features all the time. Google is using this to make everything it does more social, and more importantly (to Google, and potentially to advertisers), more personalized. According to Page, there are already over 120 integrations of Google+.

    Google will hold its earnings call on Thursday, and the new Google+ will no doubt come up in the conversation. It will be interesting to see what Larry Page and Co. have to say about the further progression of Google.

    Google is going to keep Google+ifying everything. We want to know if you think this is a good thing or a bad thing. Tell us in the comments.

  • Ad Targeting With Google About To Get Better With Near Match Types?

    Update: Google finally returned our request for comment, only to say, “We actually haven’t announced anything on this and don’t have any more info to share at this time-we frequently beta test new features with agency partners.”

    Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM Search, wrote a piece for AdAge, saying that Google is about to push “near match” ad targeting from beta to mainstream. There is virtually no other discussion about this feature currently happening, as far as I can tell.

    We reached out to Google, who readily responded to questions about the new Google+ redesign (though vague in their answers as usual), but they have so far been silent on questions related to Near Match.

    “The beta, Near Match, is designed to ‘enable you to safely extend the reach of your Exact and Phrase Match keywords to cover plural, misspelling, close rewrite, abbreviation and acronym variants only,’” explains Copeland. “In previewing the beta for advertisers, Google has suggested a 6.5% increase in click volume and a 9.8% increase in impression volume. Appealing for marketers, but at what cost? We know that digital auctions and publisher revenue thrive, in part, due to a lack of data to inform smarter bidding.”

    There was a bit of discussion about the “near exact” and “near phrase” match types back in November, which would reportedly be offered alongside of broad, broad match modified, phrase and exact. Agenda21’s head of PPC, Matt Holland, wrote at the time, “From the 14th November Google will be running this new beta test match types that will slightly broaden the reach of Exact and Phrase match keywords with syntactic variants including; plurals, misspells, acronyms and abbreviations but not synonyms. The idea being that this will be for advertisers who wish to increase their coverage and volume on Exact and Phrase match keywords and help them find incremental traffic with minimum effort.”

    J. Prentice Parton spotted this several days ago:

    You can tell that advertisers are already getting excited about it:

    @scottassoc
    Joseph Scott    With #Google creating Near Match, could this be the end to Broad Match as we know it? #AdWords http://t.co/soE8xF8N 3 hours ago via LinkedIn ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    According to Copeland, Google is “changing the game” as it prepares to reports its earnings on Thursday, following a report in January, which disappointed shareholders with an 8% decrease in CPCs. We talked about this earlier this week, as there seems to be concern about mobile becoming a revenue problem for Google, as the CPCs aren’t increasing enough to keep up with the mobile clicks.

    Google will release its Q1 earnings report on Thursday. Between CPCs and the new Google+, there should be plenty to talk about. I’m hoping Project Glass is brought up at least once. Of course there’s plenty of ad revenue opportunities there:

  • Google Finance Adds TPE, CNSX Realtime Quotes

    Google announced the addition of realtime quotes from Canada and Taiwan to Google Finance today.

    “Here at Google, we get excited by bringing our users relevant information at blazing speeds. So, why would we want to make users wait 15 minutes to see what trades are being made?” writes engineer Mark Schmit on the Google Finance blog. “Instead, we’re continuing to expand our real-time coverage and are very pleased to announce the launch of two more real-time exchanges.”

    Those would be the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TPE) and the Canadian National Stock Exchange (CNSX). Here’s the full list of exchanges Google Finance now proivdes info for. Many of them are realtime while others have different increments:

    Gogole finance

    Google Finance also provides info for North America, Europe and Asia. Likewise for the following indexes:

    Google finance indexes

    Google says it will be looking to add more info at a later date, which from the “check back soon” wording used in the announcement, could be in the near term.

    I guess this all falls under the blanket of increased direct answers in Google search results the company has been talking about.

  • Google Update Suspected By Webmasters Losing Traffic

    While unconfirmed, it is possible that Google rolled out a semi-major update over the past weekend, as Webmasters have taken to the forums to complain about loss in traffic.

    Barry Schwartz points to one WebmasterWorld thread in particular, in which a bunch of webmasters seem to think Google has indeed made a significant change.

    The person who started the thread says some webmasters are experiencing a 30-40% drop in traffic. Another user says they saw a 30-40% drop for a ten-year-old “authority site”.

    “One of my sites was hit on the 23rd.. others (ww members) the 30th… now you guys on the 6th. This update is hitting people in waves on a Thursday / Friday but it doesn’t affect everyone at once. The update appears to be isolated to a selected group each time,” says forum member petehall. “Wonder how long it takes for a Panda refresh to complete, as this seems to be the main connection with the 23rd of March.”

    That is indeed the day Google tweeted:

    @google
    A Googler    Panda refresh rolling out now. Only ~1.6% of queries noticeably affected. Background on Panda: http://t.co/Z7dDS6qc 16 days ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Other forum members chimed in to express similar issues in traffic drops.

    Here are the changes Google made in March (at least the ones they have disclosed to the public). Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a while to see what all Google has done in April.

    We’ve reached out to Google to inquire about an update over the weekend, and will update accordingly, though I don’t expect much more than a “we make changes every day” kind of response.

  • Chandler Bing Dances On Bing Logo

    Chandler Bing Dances On Bing Logo

    If you use Tumblr, you’ve seen plenty of animated GIFs, no doubt. You’ve also seen plenty of Tumblrs dedicated to silly things. There is often overlap between these two scenarios, as is the case with the Chandler Dances On Things blog.

    When perusing the GIFs and coming across the obligatory Bing logo entry, I felt compelled to share it with our search industry enthusiast readers. It’s stupid. I know. Yet, there is still something disturbingly entertaining about watching Chandler Bing dance on things.

    Chandler Bing dances on Bing

    On the actual Tumbler page, you may also find him dancing on the the Pope, Rick Santorum’s finger, Nyan Cat, the Queen, and of course the Tumblr logo (among other things).

    Tumblr recently increased its animated GIF size limit, encouraging things like this, so don’t only thank the creator of this particular Tumblr blog. Thanks Tumblr.

    What do you think? Does this beat today’s Google Doodle?

    Source: Chandler Dances On Things. Hat tip to Uproxx.

  • Google Earnings This Week: Will Mobile Be A Problem?

    There is concern among investors that Google is generating too many mobile ad clicks, but not enough revenue from them. Google will release its earnings report this week, and it seems Wall Street isn’t sure how much improvement to expect in that department.

    Google CFO Patrick Pichette said in an earnings call in January (transcript via SeekingAlpha), “Our aggregate cost of click growth was down 8% year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. Remember, too, that this is an aggregate number, which includes both google.com and our AdSense properties. On this, it’s important to look at CPCs and clicks together.”

    Mobile costs per click are often lower than desktop CPCs, which is what has investors and analysts worried.

    The Wall Street Journal brings up the topic ahead of this week’s earnings release, and mentions a Marin Software report, which showed the percentage of clicks Google gets from mobile search ads will grow to 25%, with prices remaining lower than their desktop counterparts. “Increased demand is a good thing for Google, but it also means the company must make up for declining prices with more volume,” the Journal’s John Letzing assesses.

    It’s clear that Google is passionate about mobile. Google CEO Larry Page put out a letter to investors last week, in which he described Google’s focus and sense of direction. He talked about a lot of things, including mobile.

    “Android is on fire, and the pace of mobile innovation has never been greater,” Page said in the letter. “Over 850,000 devices are activated daily through a network of 55 manufacturers and more than 300 carriers. Android is a tremendous example of the power of partnership, and it just gets better with each version. The latest update, Ice Cream Sandwich, has a beautiful interface that adapts to the form of the device. Whether it’s on a phone or tablet, the software works seamlessly.”

    Meanwhile, Google is pushing heavily for sites to “Go Mo” (mo means mobile).

    Later in the letter, Page said, “We understand the need to balance our short- and longer-term needs because our revenue is the engine that funds all our innovation. But over time, our emerging high-usage products will likely generate significant new revenue streams for Google as well as for our partners, just as search does today. For example, we’re seeing a hugely positive revenue impact from mobile advertising, which grew to a run rate of over $2.5 billion by the third quarter of 2011—two and a half times more than at the same point in 2010. Our goal is long-term growth in revenue and absolute profit—so we invest aggressively in future innovation while tightly managing our short-term costs.”

    That explains that right?

    Still, it doesn’t mean the quarter will necessarily be where investors want it to be. We’ll find out on Thursday.

    Increasing mobile device usage doesn’t only concern Google. Rival Facebook, for example, cited mobile use among its key risk factors in an IPO filing earlier this year. With the IPO expected in May (on the NASDAQ), Facebook has been doing plenty of its own work trying to create a better mobile experience for its users.

    Clearly, Google has a significant lead in terms of mobile integrations (and ads) in mobile, over Facebook, simply by having Android and Motorola Mobility. And if these two companies compete on more and more fronts, as many think they are likely to do, strong mobile showings are going to be imperative.

  • Eadweard J. Muybridge Google Doodle Recalls “The Horse In Motion”

    Today, Google celebrates the birthday of Eadweard Muybridge, the British photographer who is thought to be one of the most important figures in the beginning of motion pictures.

    Born April 9th, 1830, today would be he 182nd birthday.

    Muybridge began his photography career as a landscape and architectural photographer, and he became successful in San Francisco in the 1860s. In 1873, after gaining some level of fame for his landscape work in the U.S. West, he was tapped to photograph the Modoc War, an U.S. Army campaign against Indians in the West.

    His breakthrough work in motion capturing came in the late 1870’s with the famous “Sallie Gardner at a Gallop” or “The Horse in Motion,” as it’s more commonly called. This early example of videography was prompted by a simply question from the former Governor of California Leland Stanford, who called into question the fact that all four of a horse’s hooves were simultaneously off the ground mid-trot.

    Check out his early photos set to motion below:

    And it’s “The Horse in Motion” that’s the inspiration behind today’s Google Doodle. It’s playable, and when activated comes to life with the images of the famous horse galloping in every frame. Of course, the Google logo has to be present somewhere within the Doodle, and it is in a truly minimalistic way. It’s a great Doodle, probably one of the best in some time. Check it out below (music added in video, the Doodle doesn’t have sound):

  • Should Google Favor Google+ More Or Less In Search Results?

    In a letter to investors this week, Google CEO Larry Page expressed Google’s goal to create “a beautifully simple experience across Google”. That’s what the company’s controversial privacy policy change is all about. It’s about tying all of Google’s products together as one Google.

    Should data from the various Google services you use be integrated with one another? Tell us what you think.

    “Think about basic actions like sharing or recommendations,” wrote Page. “When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends. Google+ makes sharing super easy by creating a social layer across all our products so users connect with the people who matter to them.”

    “When you sign up for Google+, you can use Circles to group people into different categories, such as ‘Friends,’ ‘Family,’ or ‘Rocket Scientists,’ and then engage with them just like in real life,” he continued. “You can recommend great news articles, websites, and videos to specific Circles, or share photos with ‘Family’ straight from your Android device. And the photos are even uploaded for you automatically! To follow people with shared interests, such as photography, just add them to your Circles. And you can share your own ideas with the world, or a smaller group, via the Google+ Stream and have others respond.”

    “It’s still early days, and we have a long way to go,” he noted. “But these are tremendously important changes, and with over 120 Google+ integrations to date (including Google Search, YouTube and Android), we are on the right track. Well over 100 million users are active on Google+, and we’re seeing a positive impact across the Web, with Google users being able to recommend search results and videos they like—a goal we’ve had ever since we started the company.”

    Now imagine that Google+ had over 800 million users like Facebook. You might be surprised to know that in some ways it already does.

    Google’s Vic Gundotra recently explained that Google counts active users as users who sign into Google+ and use another Google product within a month. Google may not be up to the 800 million mark in that regard (though they’re an 1/8 of the way there apparently – not bad for less than a year), but if Google+ is really just a social layer over Google products, you have to consider that Google has a lot more users than that. YouTube itself, in fact, has over 800 million.

    Now consider that Facebook is working on its own search engine. It may only be internal (at least at first), but at 800 million users, even that in itself is enough to potentially take some searches away from Google. In a recent article on this subject, I wrote:

    I’ve long maintained that the biggest threat to Google’s search market share is likely not the threat of a single competitor, but the diversification of search in general. People are using more apps than ever (from more devices than ever), and just don’t have to rely on Google (or other traditional search engines) for access to content the way they used to. Take Twitter search, for example, which has become the go-to destination for finding quick info on events and topics in real time. When was the last time you turned to Google’s realtime search feature? It’s been a while, because it’s been MIA since Google’s partnership with Twitter expired last year. Sometimes a Twitter search is simply more relevant than a Google search for new information, despite Google’s increased efforts in freshness.

    One Googler told me he thought this paragraph was “dead-on”.

    Even if Facebook doesn’t come out with an actual web search engine in the style of Google or Bing, significant improvements to Facebook search (with the right marketing behind it) could chip away a nice chunk of searches that would otherwise go to Google.

    But, before we get too far off base here, the point is that Facebook as a whole is a direct competitor to Google as a whole. If you look at it from this perspective (which seems to be the way Google looks at it), search is just a feature. Facebook certainly favors Facebook results in Facebook searches. Web searches are only added on at the end via Bing.

    “Activity on the Google+ Stream itself is increasing too,” said Page. “We’re excited about the tremendous speed with which some people have amassed over one million followers, as well as the depth of the discussions taking place among happy, passionate users—all evidence that we’re generating genuine engagement. When I post publicly I get a ton of high quality comments, which makes me happy and encourages me to keep posting. I strongly encourage all of you to follow me on Google+—I love having this new way to communicate and share with all of you!”

    In a different portion of his letter called, “next-generation search,” Page basically discussed Search Plus Your World, and a bit about delivering more direct answers in results. Search Plus Your World, if you’re unfamiliar, is the personalization that Google launched earlier this year, which initially put a great deal more emphasis on Google+ content in search results.

    It still does this, but Google seems to have toned it down a bit. At one point, Google was ranking Mark Zuckerberg’s Google+ Page over his public Facebook profile, which made no sense in terms of relevancy. Google was also ranking the WWE’s Google+ page over its Twitter account, even though the Twitter account was much more popular.

    In both of these cases, the Google+ Pages are no longer outranking their more relevant counterparts, with SPYW toggled on or off. This may or may not be a direct result of a recent algorithm change. Earlier this week, Google posted its monthly list of algorithm changes. One of the things on the list was:

    Better indexing of profile pages. [launch codename “Prof-2”] This change improves the comprehensiveness of public profile pages in our index from more than two-hundred social sites.

    Plus, as another Googler recently told us, “Search plus Your World builds upon existing search features such as Social Search, personalized search, and authorship,” some of which Google has had in place for much longer. “You will continue to see existing Social Search features including +1s and content shared by your connections on Google+ and other sites. We’ll continue to look at your Google+ profile to see other content you’ve published online and linked to your profile.”

    So what makes one profile more relevant than another? That’s a tricky question that Google is likely to continue to struggle with. It’s not always as easy as the Facebook CEO and his Facebook profile vs. his Google profile. It’s not necessarily as simple as which one has more followers either. The WWE’s Twitter account may have more followers than its Google+ account, but if you don’t use Twitter and you use Google+, the latter is most likely more relevant to you.

    Google will likely continue to struggle with relevance vs. social/personalization. It must be hard to grow a social network when you have to promote a rival social network’s content ahead of the content from the one you’re trying to build. Facebook doesn’t have that problem. You wouldn’t go to Facebook and complain if you searched for “Larry Page” and it delivered you a Facebook Page for Larry Page rather than his Google+ profile.

    So, as Google has already established itself for years as a web search engine, it faces some major hurdles in this chess match with Facebook that Facebook may not have to worry about, and even if both companies are headed to similar futures (at least in the social and search space), they come from very different backgrounds. They’re both working to the middle of one spectrum from opposite sides – Google from search moving towards social, and Facebook vice versa.

    Facebook, at least has the social data to begin with, and is able to partner with another major search engine in Bing, along the way.

    From Page’s letter, it is clear that Google is still more focused on search than on social as the overall strategy, with social simply being a means to improve search. But if Google+ is its social strategy, and Google is already favoring Google+ less in its search results, can Google win this battle? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google Search Behavior Linked to GDP

    Google Search Behavior Linked to GDP

    Internet users from countries with a higher per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are more likely to search for information about the future than information about the past, a quantitative analysis of Google search queries has shown. The findings suggest there may be a link between online behavior and real-world economic indicators.

    “The Internet is becoming ever more deeply interwoven into the fabric of global society”, said Helen Susannah Moat, research associate in UCL’s Department of Mathematics and one of the authors of the study.

    “Our use of this gigantic information resource is generating huge amounts of data on our current interests and concerns. We were interested in whether we could find cross-country differences in basic online search behavior which could be linked to real world indicators of socio-economic wellbeing, such as per capita GDP,” said Moat.

    The team of four behind the results, Tobias Preis, Helen Susannah Moat, H. Eugene Stanley and Steven R. Bishop, examined Google search queries made by Internet users in 45 different countries in 2010, to calculate the ratio of the volume of searches for the coming year (‘2011’) to the volume of searches for the previous year (‘2009’), which they call the ‘future orientation index’. The research team retrieved search volume data by accessing the Google Trends website, and analysed more than 45 billion search queries carried out worldwide. They compared the future orientation index to the per capita GDP of each country and found a strong tendency for countries in which Google users enquire more about the future to exhibit a higher GDP.

    “We see two leading explanations for this relationship between search activity and GDP”, said UCL visiting researcher Tobias Preis, also based at Boston University. “Firstly, these findings may reflect international differences in attention to the future and the past, where a focus on the future supports economic success. Secondly, these findings may reflect international differences in the type of information sought online, perhaps due to economic influences on available Internet infrastructure”, said Preis.

    As use of the Internet and other technological systems grow, increasingly large amounts of data are being generated, the empirical analysis of which can provide insights into real-world social phenomena, from influenza epidemics to stock market trading volumes.

  • Google+ Has Over 120 Integrations Throughout Google Products

    Google CEO Larry Page put out a lengthy letter to investors today. In talking about Google+, he mentioned that there are over 120 Google+ integrations (I assume this means internally with other Google products). Unfortunately, he doesn’t list them all.

    “It’s still early days, and we have a long way to go,” Page says in the letter. “But these are tremendously important changes, and with over 120 Google+ integrations to date (including Google Search, YouTube and Android), we are on the right track. Well over 100 million users are active on Google+, and we’re seeing a positive impact across the Web, with Google users being able to recommend search results and videos they like—a goal we’ve had ever since we started the company.”

    I doubt we’ll see Google+ integration slow down much. With Google’s privacy policies consolidated, it should make it easier for Google to integrate all of its products with one another in more ways. This includes YouTube, which is getting a great deal of focus these days, in terms of new channels, original content and partnerships.

    My guess is that we’ll start seeing a lot more integration of Google+ (which is really just Google for all intents and purposes) externally as well. The new Hangouts API, for example, will no doubt inspire a fair amount of creativity from developers.

    Some of Google+‘s integrations have received some criticism – namely Search Plus Your World. A lot of people weren’t thrilled with Google favoring Google+ too much in search results, though a recent algorithm change may have directly affected that. They don’t seem to be favoring Google+ as much as they were.

    Either way, it’s clear that search is still a major focus for Google, with social being portrayed as a means of improving it.

    That 100 million number, by the way, is in line with what Google’s Vic Gundotra said at SXSW recently. Google isn’t counting Google+ users simply as just those who are spending a lot of time using Google+ itself. It counts users who sign into Google+, and use another Google product within a month. Presumably, this includes Gmail, YouTube, a signed in Google search (complete with Search Plus Your World), Google Reader, etc. Under this philosophy, he said Google+ has 100 million “30-day active” users.

    Are there any Google+ integrations in particular that you like? Dislike? Let us know in the comments.

  • Larry Page Talks A Lot More About Search Than Social In New Letter

    In case you were thinking Google is more concerned with social than it is with search these days, perhaps Larry Page’s 2012 Update from the CEO will change your mind. You can find the word “social” used once. You can find the word “search” 23 times (OK, to be fair, Google+ is mentioned 10 times).

    Under the heading “Next-Generation Search,” Page says that understanding identity and relationships can help Google improve search.

    “Today, most search results are generic, so two strangers sitting next to each other in a café will get very similar answers,” he says. “Yet everyone’s life experiences are unique. We are all knowledgeable about different things; we have different interests and our preferences—for music, food, vacations, sports, movies, TV shows, and especially people—vary enormously.”

    “Imagine how much better search would be if we added… you,” he adds. “Say you’ve been studying computer science for awhile like me, then the information you need won’t be that helpful to a relative novice and vice versa. If you’re searching for a particular person, you want the results for that person—not everyone else with the same name. These are hard problems to solve without knowing your identity, your interests, or the people you care about.”

    From the sound of it, he basically considers Search Plus Your World, next-generation search.

    He does say, “But this kind of next-generation search in which Google understands real-world entities—things, not strings—will help improve our results in exciting new ways. It’s about building genuine knowledge into our search engine.”

    That sounds more along the lines of the whole expansion of direct answers discussed in a recent Wall Street Journal report, which we dissected here.

    In fact, under another heading – “Taking Actions” – Page talks about how Google puts weather results right on the page, rather than just linking to weather sites. It’s this type of thing, by the way, that some sites aren’t incredibly fond of, and which could ultimately mean less traffic to more sites as Google expands this kind of result.

    He then mentions the ITA Software acquisition, which has been very upsetting to some of Google’s competitors in travel search.

    From there, he segues into Android (over 850K devices activated daily, 55 manufacturers and 300 carriers) and mobile search (with a little Google Wallet sprinkled in).

    “Getting from needs to actions lightning fast is especially important on smaller devices like mobile phones, where screen size is limited and context really matters,” says Page. “That’s why I’m so excited about Android. Take Google Maps, one of our best-loved services. With it, you can search for something, perhaps the nearest bookstore, find it, and be shown the way straight there. And you can now turn your phone into a wallet using… Google Wallet. So you can tap, pay, and save while you shop. No more claiming you left your credit card at home when your friend asks you to pay for lunch!”

    The letter gives you a sense of what Google is really trying to do in tying all of its products together (which is reflected in the big, controversial privacy policy update).

  • Larry Page Posts Huge Letter About Google’s Direction

    Google CEO Larry Page has posted a new update on the company’s focus in a nice, lengthy letter on the Google Investor Relations page.

    On Google+,Page writes:

    [I]t’s been just over a year since I became CEO again. Instead of our usual Founders’ Letter, I wanted to do something different and give you an update on what we are focused on. Top of my priority list has been creating a simpler, more intuitive experience across all our products so users get exactly what they need, right when they want it. While we will always have improvements to make, I am excited about our progress and the opportunities in front of Google today.

    In the letter, Page talks about Google+, Google Search, various devices, the company’s long-term focus, privacy, Googlers, and innovation.

    For now, here’s the letter in its entirety. We’re going to come back to some separate points in separate articles.

    Letter begins:

    2012 Update from the CEO

    Velocity, execution and focus

    Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people’s lives and, hopefully, the world.  And in the decade-plus that’s followed, we’ve been constantly delighted by the ways in which people have used our technology—such as making an artificial limb using old designs discovered online.

    But we’re always impatient to do better for our users.  Excellence matters, and technology advances so fast that the potential for improvement is tremendous. So, since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution, and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world.  Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up.

    Last April, I began by reorganizing the management team around our core products to improve responsibility and accountability across Google.  I also kicked off a big clean-up.  Google has so many opportunities that, unless we make some hard choices, we end up spreading ourselves too thin and don’t have the impact we want. So we have closed or combined over 30 products, including projects like Knol and Sidewiki. In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look.

    A beautifully simple experience across Google

    Creating a simpler, more intuitive experience across Google has been another important focus. I have always believed that technology should do the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers! That means making our products work together seamlessly. People shouldn’t have to navigate Google to get stuff done. It should just happen. As Sergey said in the memorable way only he can, “We’ve let a thousand flowers bloom; now we want to put together a coherent bouquet.”

    Think about basic actions like sharing or recommendations. When you find a great article, you want to share that knowledge with people who will find it interesting, too. If you see a great movie, you want to recommend it to friends. Google+ makes sharing super easy by creating a social layer across all our products so users connect with the people who matter to them.

    When you sign up for Google+, you can use Circles to group people into different categories, such as “Friends,” “Family,” or “Rocket Scientists,” and then engage with them just like in real life. You can recommend great news articles, websites, and videos to specific Circles, or share photos with “Family” straight from your Android device. And the photos are even uploaded for you automatically! To follow people with shared interests, such as photography, just add them to your Circles. And you can share your own ideas with the world, or a smaller group, via the Google+ Stream and have others respond.

    It’s still early days, and we have a long way to go. But these are tremendously important changes, and with over 120 Google+ integrations to date (including Google Search, YouTube and Android), we are on the right track. Well over 100 million users are active on Google+, and we’re seeing a positive impact across the Web, with Google users being able to recommend search results and videos they like—a goal we’ve had ever since we started the company.

    Activity on the Google+ Stream itself is increasing too. We’re excited about the tremendous speed with which some people have amassed over one million followers, as well as the depth of the discussions taking place among happy, passionate users—all evidence that we’re generating genuine engagement. When I post publicly I get a ton of high quality comments, which makes me happy and encourages me to keep posting. I strongly encourage all of you to follow me on Google+—I love having this new way to communicate and share with all of you!

    Next-generation search

    Understanding identity and relationships can also help us improve search. Today, most search results are generic, so two strangers sitting next to each other in a café will get very similar answers. Yet everyone’s life experiences are unique. We are all knowledgeable about different things; we have different interests and our preferences—for music, food, vacations, sports, movies, TV shows, and especially people—vary enormously.

    Imagine how much better search would be if we added… you. Say you’ve been studying computer science for awhile like me, then the information you need won’t be that helpful to a relative novice and vice versa. If you’re searching for a particular person, you want the results for that person—not everyone else with the same name. These are hard problems to solve without knowing your identity, your interests, or the people you care about.

    We have an old-time Googler called Ben Smith, who is a good friend of mine. It turns out that he isn’t the only Ben Smith in the world! Today, it’s tough for Google to find the right Ben for me. Many people share only their public profiles, not their posts, photos, or connections. And privacy considerations certainly limit the information that can be shared between platforms—even if the third parties hosting it were willing to work with Google, which hasn’t always been the case.

    Google+ helps solve this problem for us because it enables Google to understand people and their connections. So when I search for Ben Smith, I get the real Ben Smith (for me), right there in my search box, complete with his picture. Previously, the search box would just have had the series of letters I had typed, with no real understanding that I was looking for a unique person. This is a huge and important change, and there’s a ton more work to do.  But this kind of next-generation search in which Google understands real-world entities—things, not strings—will help improve our results in exciting new ways. It’s about building genuine knowledge into our search engine.

    Taking actions

    In the early days of Google you would type in a query, we’d return ten blue links, and you would move on fairly happily. Today you want more. If you search for “weather san francisco”, chances are you want… the weather in San Francisco right there on the results page, not another click or two away. So that’s what we now provide. In fact, before you’ve even finished typing “weather” into the search box we give you the weather because we’ve learned that’s most likely what you’re looking for.

    Truly great search is all about turning your needs into actions in the blink of an eye. There is a huge amount of data in the world that isn’t publicly available today.  Showing it in our results involves deep partnerships across different industries in many countries. It’s very similar to the work we did to get Google Maps off the ground.

    Last year, for example, we welcomed ITA Software to the Google family. They have strong relationships with the airline industry, and using that data we can now provide more relevant results for travel queries. This means that if you search for “flights from chicago to los angeles”, you get a list of the most relevant flights with prices, and you can book directly with the airline—or click on an ad for an online travel agency. We’re also experimenting with a feature called Hotel Finder, which enables you to compare prices and book a hotel room right from the results page. It’s all about speeding things up so users can get on with the things that matter in their lives.

    From desktop to mobiles and tablets, oh my

    Getting from needs to actions lightning fast is especially important on smaller devices like mobile phones, where screen size is limited and context really matters.  That’s why I’m so excited about Android. Take Google Maps, one of our best-loved services.  With it, you can search for something, perhaps the nearest bookstore, find it, and be shown the way straight there.  And you can now turn your phone into a wallet using… Google Wallet.  So you can tap, pay, and save while you shop.  No more claiming you left your credit card at home when your friend asks you to pay for lunch!

    It wasn’t always that easy. I remember first meeting Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, back in 2004. At the time, developing apps for mobile devices was incredibly painful. We had a closet full of over 100 phones, and we were building our software pretty much one device at a time. Andy believed that aligning standards around an open source operating system would drive innovation across the mobile industry. At the time, most people thought he was nuts.

    Fast forward to today. Android is on fire, and the pace of mobile innovation has never been greater. Over 850,000 devices are activated daily through a network of 55 manufacturers and more than 300 carriers. Android is a tremendous example of the power of partnership, and it just gets better with each version. The latest update, Ice Cream Sandwich, has a beautiful interface that adapts to the form of the device.  Whether it’s on a phone or tablet, the software works seamlessly.

    As devices multiply and usage changes (many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine), it becomes more and more important to ensure that people can access all of their stuff anywhere.  Constant downloading is a terrible experience, so I am excited about products like Gmail and Google Docs that work well across Android and desktop. With Chrome now recently available on Android, switching devices becomes painless, too, because all of your tabs are just there across your desktop and Android.  You can even click the back button on a different device, and it just works! And with Google Play, movies, books, apps, and games are all accessible from the Web or an Android device—no cables, downloading, or syncing required. I think there is a theme here!

    In August, we announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, a company that bet big on Android very early on. We are excited about the opportunities to build great devices capitalizing on the tremendous success and growth of Android and Motorola’s long history of technological innovation. But it’s important to reiterate that openness and investment by many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success. So we look forward to working with all of them in the future to deliver outstanding user experiences. Android was built as an open ecosystem, and we have no plans to change that.

    Long-term focus

    We have always tried to concentrate on the long term, and to place bets on technology we believe will have a significant impact over time. It’s hard to imagine now, but when we started Google most people thought search was a solved problem and that there was no money to be made apart from some banner advertising.  We felt the exact opposite: that search quality was very poor, and that awesome user experiences would clearly make money.

    Today it feels like we’re watching the same movie in slow motion over again. We have tremendous new products that were seen as crazy at launch yet now have phenomenal usage. They easily pass the toothbrush test: they are important enough that millions of people use them at least once or twice a day. Take Chrome, for example. In 2008, people asked whether the world really needed another browser. Today Chrome has over 200 million users and is growing fast, thanks to its speed, simplicity, and security. If you don’t use Chrome, just try it out, you’ll never go back! I promise it won’t take too long to install, and if it does you probably need a new computer.

    We are seeing phenomenal usage of our Web-based applications, too. When we launched Gmail in 2004, most people thought webmail was a toy, but its accessibility—all your email from anywhere, on any device—and insane storage have made it a winner with more than 350 million people. And our enterprise customers love it too. Over 5,000 new businesses and educational establishments now sign up every day.

    In 2006, when Google acquired YouTube, we faced a lot of skepticism. Today, YouTube has over 800 million monthly users uploading over an hour of video per second. It enables an activist in Syria to broadcast globally or a young star to build an entertainment network from scratch. YouTube channels have real potential to entertain and educate, as well as to help organize all the amazing videos that are available. So I’m excited we have a new effort working with media powerhouses such as Jay-Z, the Wall Street Journal, and Disney to create channels that appeal to every interest.

    People rightly ask how we’ll make money from these big bets. We understand the need to balance our short- and longer-term needs because our revenue is the engine that funds all our innovation. But over time, our emerging high-usage products will likely generate significant new revenue streams for Google as well as for our partners, just as search does today. For example, we’re seeing a hugely positive revenue impact from mobile advertising, which grew to a run rate of over $2.5 billion by the third quarter of 2011—two and a half times more than at the same point in 2010. Our goal is long-term growth in revenue and absolute profit—so we invest aggressively in future innovation while tightly managing our short-term costs.

    Love and trust

    We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind. We’re lucky to have a very direct relationship with our users, which creates a strong incentive for us to do the right thing. For every magic moment we create—like the ability to drop a photo into Google and search by image—we have a very happy user.  And when our products don’t work or we make mistakes, it’s easy for users to go elsewhere because our competition is only a click away.

    Users place a lot of trust in Google when they store data, like emails and documents, on our systems. And we need to be responsible stewards of that information. It’s why we invest a lot of effort in security and related tools for users, like 2-step verification and encryption, which help prevent unauthorized access to information. The recent changes we made to our privacy policies generated a lot of interest. But they will enable us to create a much better, more intuitive experience across Google—our key focus for the year.

    We have always believed that it’s possible to make money without being evil. In fact, healthy revenue is essential if we are to change the world through innovation, and hire (and retain) great people. As a child I remember reading about Nikola Tesla, a genius whose impact was severely limited by his failure to make money from his inventions. It was a good lesson. Today, most of our revenue comes from advertising. We take pains to make sure that users know when something is paid for, and we work hard to make these advertisements relevant for users.  Better ads are better for everyone—better information or offers for users, growth for businesses, and increased revenue for publishers to fund better content.

    Over one million businesses now use Google’s advertising products and we’re delighted with the ways in which we have helped other companies (both large and small) succeed. I recently heard about a Thai dressmaker whose store was destroyed by floods. To start rebuilding her business, she invested $5 a day in Google AdWords and doubled her revenue. Today over 80 percent of her orders come from the Web. Taylor’s Bike Shop in Utah, a family-run store, saw increase in sales of over 50 percent when they started using AdWords. Today they maintain a staff of eight people on a steady basis.

    At the heart of our business model has always been the belief that we’re better off if we can create a larger pie for our partners. We started with AdSense, and Google has paid out over $30 billion to support content on the Web since its launch over a decade ago. That is a mighty big check (actually lots of smaller checks!) and I’m delighted we’ve been able to support our partners with that much resource. The same is true for our newer technologies like DoubleClick for online publishers and AdMob for mobile developers. YouTube also generates healthy revenue for Google and our content partners—in fact, partner ad revenue has more than doubled for the fourth year in a row. One thing I’ve learned is that if you keep doubling things, it really adds up fast!

    All that said, we recognize that we don’t get everything right—and that the changes we make, like our recent visual refresh, can initially upset some users (even if they later come to love them). But we don’t operate in a static industry, and technology changes so fast that we need to innovate and iterate. Of course, when we do make mistakes we try to fix them as quickly as possible and, if necessary, change the way we do things to prevent problems from arising again. And we work hard to explain what we are doing—and why—because with size comes responsibility.

    Googlers

    People are a crucial part of Google’s long-term success, since companies are no greater than the efforts and ingenuity of their employees. Our goal is to hire the best at every level and keep them.  In our experience your working environment is enormously important because people want to feel part of a family in the office, just as they do at home. So we invest in great food, high quality medical care, gyms, and other fitness facilities, as well as cool workspaces that bring people together.

    Most important of all, however, we believe that work should be challenging. People are more motivated and have more fun when they work on important projects. Take Google Translate, which we started eight years ago and now enables anyone to translate text in an instant between any two of 64 languages—including Hindi, Arabic and Chinese. That’s actually 4032 different pairs of languages you can translate! In fact, by combining it with our voice recognition technology, we’ve turned mobile phones into pocket translators for millions of users globally. When you work on projects of this magnitude, it’s impossible not to wake up excited about work; the chance to make a difference is the greatest motivation anyone can have.

    Happiness is a healthy disregard for the impossible

    When I was a student at the University of Michigan, I went on a summer leadership course. The slogan was “a healthy disregard for the impossible,” and it’s an idea that has stayed with me ever since. It may sound nuts, but I’ve found that it’s easier to make progress on mega-ambitious goals than on less risky projects. Few people are crazy enough to try, and the best people always want to work on the biggest challenges. We’ve also found that “failed” ambitious projects often yield other dividends. Believe it or not, the technological innovation behind AdSense, which, as I mentioned earlier, has paid out over $30 billion to partners, was the result of a “failed” more ambitious project to understand the Web. The team failed at understanding the Web, mostly, I think, because they were distracted by their work making advertisements amazingly relevant.

    Last year, the Google+ team decided to integrate multi-person video into their efforts. They had a small committed team that was crazy enough to believe this was possible, and Google+ Hangouts was born. You can now video chat with anyone, anywhere, even from the Great Barrier Reef. It was the same with driverless cars, which we started on in 2008. Today we have driven over 200,000 miles, and Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, recently took a drive in one of them. So the one-sentence summary of how to change the world… work on something that is uncomfortably exciting!

    Today the opportunities are greater than ever. Things we used to think were magic, we now take for granted: the ability to get a map instantly, to find information quickly and easily, to choose any video from millions on YouTube rather than just a few TV channels. People are buying more devices and using them more because technology is playing an increasingly important role in our lives. I believe that by producing innovative technology products that touch people deeply, we will enable you to do truly amazing things that change the world.  t’s a very exciting time to be at Google, and I take the responsibility I have to all of you very seriously.

    Larry Page, CEO

  • Yandex Beats Google To A Free Cloud Storage Service

    Yandex dominates the search market in Russia, garnering 60+% of all searches in the country. In Februrary, they launched new social features for search, nabbing Twitter access. And just last month, the company was added to the NASDAQ Internet Index. Although Yandex has been a big player locally for awhile, it’s clear that they are now becoming a bigger player in the global market.

    Today, they’re taking another step with the unveiling of Yandex.Disk, a cloud service that offers 10 GB of free storage. Like any cloud service (Dropbox, SkyDrive, iCloud), any files that are uploaded to your locker are accessible from anywhere that’s internet-connected – across multiple devices.

    “Yandex.Disk is a cloud service, a virtual folder that can be safely used for file storage. If your personal computer or laptop catches a virus or breaks down, your files will be safely stored on Yandex.Disk. Currently, Yandex.Disk is integrated with Yandex.Mail, and we have plans to link it with other services offered by Yandex,” says Anton Zabannykh, head of Personalized Services at Yandex.

    Right now, Yandex.Disk is invitation only and only available in Russian. There is already an English site up, however, where they let us know that an English version is “coming soon.”

    Search giants launching cloud storage services…where have I heard about that recently? Ah yes, those guys over at Google. They’re rumored to be prepping for the launch of their own such service pretty soon. Last week, Google Drive was spotted in the wild sporting 5 GB free storage. The latest reports set the release to occur this month, but the exact date is unknown.

    But one thing is clear: the cloud storage market is beginning to get crowded, and Yandex just beat Google to the punch.

  • Google: If You Care About Your Standing in Search, Don’t Wait Out Penalties

    As previously reported, webmasters with links from paid blog networks that Google recently de-indexed have been receiving letters from Google Webmaster Tools.

    Google’s John Mueller talked a little about such letters and the reconsideration process in a Google Groups thread that you might find interesting (Another good find from the Google Forums by Barry Schwartz).

    “While we have just recently started sending out these messages, they may apply to issues that were already known (and affecting your site’s standing in our search results) for a while,” said Mueller. “If you receive a message like this, and you wish to resolve those issues, then I’d always submit a reconsideration request after having done so. In some cases, you may not be able to resolve all of the issues – if that’s the case, then it’s important to us that you document your efforts (you might even link to a Google Docs file if needed). It’s important to our team that it’s clear that you have taken significant effort to resolve all of the problems in that area, and that they can trust that these kinds of issues will not come back in the future.”

    “In situations where an algorithmic adjustment might have been made, you’re still welcome to submit a reconsideration request. It doesn’t cause any problems to do that, so especially if you’re unsure, submitting one is a good way to be certain,” he says. “Regarding the age of the unnatural links, I’d work to have them all removed, regardless of the age. For instance, in the general case where a site has been buying links for 2 years, it would be a good idea to go back that far.”

    He goes on to say that you should try to wait a penalty out if you’re serious about your site’s standing in search. “These are generally not issues that expire after a few days, they can affect your site’s standing for quite some time,” he says.

    Google’s own Chrome landing page recently had a 60-day penalty, which may have even hurt the web browser’s market share.

  • LinkedIn Gets New Group Search Features

    LinkedIn announced the launch of some new features for its Group Search designed to make it easier to find the “right professional conversations”. The social network currently has over 1.2 million groups in a wide variety of fields.

    “As we’ve grown, it’s become even more important for us to help you find and engage with the topics you care about most,” says LinkedIn’s Brad Mauney.

    “First, instead of relying on the title and description of the group, we give you the best results based on how well your search matches the conversations taking place,” he explains. “We also show your connections who may be in that group, which makes it easier for you to find groups that really matter to you.”

    LinkedIn Group Search

    Another major improvement comes with the filtering options, which now include the ability to filter by network, categories and language.

    LinkedIn seems to be focusing more on finding relevant content these days. Last week, they also announced the launch of some updates to the People You May Know feature, including algorithmic improvements and a new design.

  • Google Is Being More Careful With Your Password

    Google put out its monthly list of algorithm changes today. There were 50 changes in all, though technically not every single one of them is related to the Google algorithm.

    There was an interesting changes listed related to users’ passwords. Google says:

    Better handling of password changes. Our general approach is that when you change passwords, you’ll be signed out from your account on all machines. This change ensures that changing your password more consistently signs your account out of Search, everywhere.

    Given all of the hubbub over Google privacy lately (mainly due to the company’s consolidation of it policies into one main one), this is probably a welcome change for many users. Granted, it’s probably significantly overdue.

    Privacy has actually been a huge focal point of Google’s lately, even beyond those policy changes. Here are a bunch of videos of privacy discussion taken from Google’s Big Tent events.

    The company has indicated it will add a “Do Not Track” button to Chrome, in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s recent report on consumer privacy.

    Interestingly enough, a Googler posted results to a survey this week indicating that “nobody wants to be tracked online“.

    Last month, Google expanded encrypted search as the default mode for signed in users on a worldwide basis.