Alert Blog Reviews

Leave it to Eric Schmidt to stir up a hornet’s nest more often than not. Of course, he is a favorite target of everyone since he is the CEO of the most recognizable brand on the planet. Whether by design or not though, he is often saying something or other that is getting people in a tizzy. Admittedly, it takes A LOT less these days to get people into this state and that is one of the downsides of this new digital age. Despite the sensitivity threshold being much lower when Schmidt appears to downplay the notion of online privacy, there will be blood. As cnet reports Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the latest Silicon Valley CEO to draw ire after suggesting that folks seeking privacy might not want to look to the Internet to find it. “I think judgment matters,” Schmidt said, appearing on CNBC . “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines–including Google–do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.” What has really drawn attention to this whole thing is the point of view of Mozilla . It has gotten under Mozilla’s skin so badly the suggestion is even made to go to bing because their privacy policy is better. Talk about biting the hand that feeds. Yikes. maybe this whole Chrome thing is making Mozilla a little more adversarial. “That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy,” Mozilla Director of Community Development Asa Dotzler said on his personal blog, referring to the CNBC comments. “There is no ambiguity, no ‘out of context’ here. Watch the video.” Watch the video? What a great idea! Isn’t it interesting that this whole discussion is brought up on the heels of Google’s widening of the personalization of search results to everyone? In essence, that means that the vast majority of people will be completely unaware of the amount of data that Google is gathering on them anyway. Privacy is for the opt-out crowd only! Ok, Pilgrims, is privacy something that we should expect online or has that gone the way of the dinosaur. If you do expect it, to what level do you expect it? Let us know your private thoughts in this very public forum .

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Google and Privacy: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

In case you’ve been . . . I don’t know, asleep for the last two years, you probably realize that the Internet is changing the way people get their news. Newspapers are having a notoriously hard time adapting . But Google, in partnership with the New York Times and the Washington Post, is trying to change that—and change the way we use news on the Internet (and, from the sounds of it, possibly the Internet altogether). The result is a more dynamic news page called a “ Living Story .” At the top of the page, there’s a short summary of the whole story to date. Below that, they have a timeline of headlines, then all individual stories on a given topic on one page, sorting them in reverse chronological order (or filtered as you choose from the left-hand pane). To indicate individual stories’ importance, the summary of the story is longer or shorter (or omitted). The full text of the story is accessible on the page. The page “remembers” what stories you’ve visited and whether you’ve been there before, and hides or grays out things you’ve already read. And naturally, email and RSS updates are available. Of course, Living Stories only work for stories that . . . you know, “live.” In their video, Google uses the war in Afghanistan page and the health care reform page as examples—stories that have some new related headline every day. (Note that both the Post and the Times each have a page for each story, so there are two health care reform living stories, etc.) The left-hand navigation allows you to filter stories by location/subtopic (preselected), story/data type, importance and chronological order. Although I do like the format, I’m not as impressed as I wanted to be with the implementation. (Probably has to do with the fact that the first coverage I saw led with a quote about how “pages” are a false paradigm for the web and we should be so over them by now.) The reality is that it’s just AJAX. The organization is better for learning about the long-term view of a story. And it’s nice to know when checking up on a familiar story that you won’t reread something accidentally. For day-to-day news, though, unless you only want to track every story on a certain topic, it’s probably not the best way to remain informed about world affairs. What do you think? Are Living Stories a revolution to online news? Will they be the wave of the future?

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Google Changing Online News with “Living Stories”

Just days after unveiling a streamlined, cleaner homepage (so much for the magic 28 words ), Google unveils a stripped-down version of YouTube pages , too. Called Feather and now in beta , the new layout removes much of the clutter (or features, depending on how you see it) from YouTube’s typical video viewing page. You’d probably assume that the first thing to go would be the comments—the one part of YouTube 99% of us could probably do without. But you’d be wrong. They still display the ten most recent comments (not to be confused with the “top ten” rated comments, as Download Squad reported). Also missing from the pared-down version: Sharing options under the video Playlist options under the video Statistics and data (and its menu) Video responses Embed custom options More from this user More related videos More comments Comment ratings Post comment box If you’re looking for a way to simply watch videos, Feather may be a great option for you. However, if you want to socialize or explore on YouTube, you’re better off with the current layout. What do you think? Do you prefer Feather or plain YouTube?

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YouTube Strips Down, Too

News flash! Google makes a lot of cash on paid search ads. Phew. I couldn’t keep that ‘news’ in any longer. We are so used to that element of Google and the online space that it is really just viewed as a fact of life and not much else thought is given to it unless you are a PPC ‘guru’ (fyi – if you actually use that terminology to describe yourself (others doing it TO you doesn’t count) just know that people laugh at you behind your back). You buy the ads, people click on them and then you try to figure out if they bought something as a result. Based on the success of this model you would think that the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ mentality would hold sway at a place like Google. Fortunately, it doesn’t. I say fortunately because there is not a lot business products and / or models that have maintained their leadership position by not changing and evolving (remember IBM’s Big Blue train wreck due to not paying attention?). As a result Google is making some adjustments to their paid ads presentation. The official Google blog tells us . Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information. For example, if you want to learn a magic trick, a video showing you how to perform the trick is likely the best result. So over the past few years, we’ve blended videos, images, maps and more into the search results on Google.com. It also makes sense to provide you with richer types of information in the ads. If you’re looking to buy your mom a new handbag for the holidays, for instance, you might want to see pictures, prices, the addresses of boutiques in your area and a map of how to get there — all within the ad. To provide a better search ads experience, we’ve been developing and testing a variety of new ad formats. These formats are focused on giving you the information you need, while retaining what you love about Google advertising: that the ads are relevant and useful. Hard to argue with that thinking. Here are the examples given on the blog for the new variety of ads you may be seeing. Video in the ad More Links in the ad Maps and directions in ads Images and pricing in ads Chain store locations in ads Comparison ads The post closes with a nice summation from Susan Wojcicki, VP, Product Management While we experiment with new formats, we’ll remain loyal to our core principle : that getting the right ad to the right person at the right time matters. As we continue to think up innovative ways to give you the information you want, you’re likely to see even more ad formats until we pinpoint the most useful, relevant and engaging ones. We’ll keep trying new things until we discover the “perfect” ads that improve your overall search experience. All I have to say to these ads and the thought behind it is ‘well done’. Who needs Rupert Murdoch anyway (Did I just type that? My bad.) Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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These Are NOT Your Grandfather’s Google Search Ads

Google announced that closed captioning is coming to YouTube . Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know it was already there in many videos where the creators took the time to add the subtitles for the hearing- or speaker-impaired. But now, for selected participating partners (mainly universities), YouTube itself will be adding the captions. The captions will be machine generated and automatically timed to match the video (and still be readable, I hope). Just like any dictation program, I suppose, they’ll listen to the audio from the clips and transcribe it. Now, normally, you know I’d be in there making fun of all the hilarious errors a machine makes when transcribing the participating partners’ clips (because, hey, even humans don’t always do a good job of captioning)—but as I write this, they’re actually not doing it yet. Sigh. Google rightly points out that this will enhance search within YouTube. Previously, only the accompanying text of a video would be searchable; now the actual content of the video would be indexable as well. Google has actually been indexing the content of selected videos’ audio for over a year through its GAudi project . However, even after the elections of last year, they continue to focus on political news only in that project. Also, the new automatic caption timing feature will make it easier to manually caption videos, for nonparticipating partners. You know, the rest of us. What do you think? Are you excited for captions on videos from partners like Duke (IN YOUR FACE, FRANK AND ANDY—welcome to basketball season!)? via

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Closed Captioning Brought to You by YouTube

Facebook just keeps chuggin’ along doesn’t it? While everyone talks about the latest in this or that, the next greatest innovation in the next greatest thing since sliced bread and all the other fixings that go with Internet marketing and social media hype Facebook just gets results. Sure there are the occasional misfires on how they handle making changes in policies but in the end there is little or no effect on a few pretty important factors: the number of people actively using the tool AND the increasing number of people coming on board. One of the results of this continued growth and maturation is the fact that Facebook is now the third most popular place to view video on the web as reported by cnet based on the latest Nielsen VideoCensus numbers. Considering how much video is ingested by Internet users, that is saying something that is actually pretty astounding. Here’s a pretty chart for you While not a threat to YouTube (it’s actually a bump to YouTube since much of the video is from there to begin with) Facebook is basically cleaning the clock of major media outlets on pure volume of vides viewed. Now what is not considered in these numbers are the types of video viewed. Many folks on Facebook are not there for hard news so if the content of these videos was sliced and diced I am sure these numbers would look different. For Internet marketers that targeting will mean more about where dollars are spent than just shear volume. Nonetheless, Facebook is becoming more and more of a force while avoiding the drama of other Internet players like Google, Yahoo et al. The numbers speak for themselves. According to Nielsen, the “total time spent viewing video on Facebook” grew by 1,840 percent year over year. The number of unique viewers grew 548 percent over the same period. Total streams increased by 987 percent year over year. “Facebook’s rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site’s evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal,” Nielsen Vice President of Media Analytics Jon Gibs said. “Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online.” Enjoy your weekend watching video. We know Facebook will love it.

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Facebook Is a Video Powerhouse As Well

It’s going to be a whole year before consumers get their hands on Google’s Chrome OS, but developers were given early access to the project , so they can prepare for the launch. There’s not much "marketing" in this announcement, but it’s Google and it’s big, so we thought you’d like to know about it. Those with a passing interest will find the video below to sufficient to explain what’s coming: Those that want more details can head over to TechCrunch . Those that want to the details from the perspective of a Google employee should head to Matt Cutts’ blog . That’s all!

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Google Chrome OS; Taking the “P” Out of Your Current POS Computer