We Know What Goo(gle) Did Last Summer
Like Sting and the Police sang in the 80s, every move Google makes, every breath Google takes, we’ll be watching it, like a stalker hiding in the bushes with a replica pistol. Consider this a warning, Google. We just want to be close to you. If you don’t remove that restraining order we might do something that we can’t take back….
Here’s our report detailing their most recent movements:
Google outlines its vision for display advertising
Over the coming weeks, Google will be detailing its plans for the future of online advertising on their official blog. Since it acquired DoubleClick, an online advertising technology provider, two years ago, it has been making regular additions and changes to their advertising features. Most recently, it released DoubleClick for Publishers, which looks like it’s an online app for managing ads for site owners and content publishers.
It’s pretty nitty gritty stuff. If you’re really into advertising you’ll want to check the fine print.
SafeSearch Lock now stops people seeing smut in 39 countries
Google SafeSearch is a feature of Google which destroys the fundamental use of the internet (finding free smut) with just the click of a button. SafeSearch Lock was introduced last November and added password protection to the ‘service’. Last week, Google rolled out the feature in 39 different languages, so now you can’t see porn in Suomi either. Thanks Google. Don’t you think it’s a bit rich being told what we shouldn’t see from a company called Go-Ogle?
Google adds HTML5 support to rich snippets
Google has been pushing Rich Snippets (who is he? see here) for a while now, in an effort to make search a bit more context sensitive. They announced last week that Richard Snippets would now support the fifth iteration of HTML (How To Make Love version 5), imaginatively called HTML5, as well as the previously supported microformats and RDFa (Right! Don’t Fight, argonauts). HTML5 has been touted as the Hot New Thing for this year, so this is probably good news.
Google Apps are getting bigger and more-er
Cloud computing, a drunk once told me, is the future. So much so that Google is making its own OS that will be built entirely around the web and online apps. In preparation for this, Google has been pretty busy with its existing apps in recent months. Here’s a quick rundown of stuff its done:
- Quick window-opening in Gmail (it did take quite a long time before)
- Six new apps have graduated out of Google Labs (with a useless degree in sociology)
- There are some crazy new additions to Google Calendar, including pretty little pictures you can stick to appointments
- They’ve released an Apps Scripts Gallery, which is kind of like an SDK for Google apps, only not really
And last – kind of a big one – there’s now an Apps Marketplace for Google Apps (remember back in 2008, before words like ‘app’ and ‘market’ would go together? It was a simpler time.) You’ll be able to get a heap of different sort of ‘cloud-based’ apps from here, mostly from third-party developers, so you don’t have to use Google’s own apps, which is nice.
Other News
We found out this week that the exact shade of blue that Bing (Microsoft’s annoyingly titled search engine) uses for its links is apparently worth $80 billion and has been painstakingly researched to find which colour people like clicking on most. Just so you know, its #0044CC. And Google’s is #2200CC. Or – if you like – light blue and, um, darker blue.
Bonus News!
Someone has made a sculpture of Steve Jobs’ head out of cheese.
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On September 1st, Apple launched Ping, an iTunes powered “social network for music” to an mix of genuine excitement, apathy and confusion. Does this service offer anything new to the integration of music with social media? We take a look at Jobs’s new endeavour.
