Kanye, Swayze, Others Propel Google News to Record Week in UK
Google News had a record week in the UK last week. Hitwise attributes this largely to a big week for celebrity news.
Google Adds Heavily Requested Features to Analytics API
Google has released some new features for the Google Analytics API, including event tracking, navigational data, and increased filter length. The company says these features were prioritized based on feedback from users, with event tracking being the most requested feature.
Event tracking allows users to measure the number of user interactions with a site. You can track things like the total number of times a white paper is downloaded, the length of time it takes to load a video, the number of validation errors users get when filling out a form, etc.
Blogger Gives Commenters Faces
Blogger has extended the comments feature it annoucned last year, which lets users embed comments and the commenting form below blog posts. The feature has been extended to display profile images next to comments that blog visitors write.
Google Makes Book Search an Option
Google has added Book Search to its Search Options. In case you haven’t been closely following everything Google has launched this year (and that is quite a bit), these options are presented to searchers at the top of the results page when they perform a search. I think the feature can be quite useful, but I often wonder how many people actually think to use it, or even know that it’s there.
Google CEO Skeptical About Charging For Online Content
Google CEO, Eric Schmidt has added his voice to the debate about charging for online news content.
Speaking via video link with British broadcasting executives, Schmidt said there is so much free content online that many publishers would not succeed if they put their content behind a pay- wall.
Google Unleashes DoubleClick Ad Exchange
Google has announced the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which it refers to as a real-time marketplace for helping online publishers and ad networks/agencies buy and sell display ad space. Prices in the marketplace are set in a real-time auction.
Google says it has three principles for its approach to display advertising:
Yahoo “Might Be Open” To Letting Google On Homepage
The Yahoo search experience might at some point change in a very surprising way. That Bing may take over, we’ve come to accept. But at least one high-ranking Yahoo employee thinks Google could get a shot, too.
Let’s talk about said employee for a moment. Burke Culligan is the senior director of product planning and strategy over Yahoo’s front page and My Yahoo, so he’s in a good position to discuss significant adjustments. Also, Culligan’s worked for Yahoo since October of 2005, so it’s not like he’s some newbie who doesn’t know the score.
Google And Yahoo Offer Best Mobile Experience
With 2 million mobile Web domains, 31 percent of consumers now browse the mobile Web at lest once a month, with news, search and weather being the most popular destinations, according to a new report by the Yankee Group.
The report found that most mobile sites still fail to offer satisfactory experiences, earning an average score of 52 on a scale of 1 to 100.
Google Books Opens Door To On-Demand Printing
Few people would argue that computer monitors – no matter how big and how nice – are suitable for displaying entire books. Even if the text looks okay, monitors still can’t be carried into the kitchen or held above your head on a recliner. So it may interest readers (along with critics of the Google Books settlement) to know that Google has provided On Demand Books access to its library.
Facebook Has Hit The ‘Cash Positive’ Mark
Facebook is still growing. They’re now at 300 million members—you know, roughly the population of the US. But unlike the US, Facebook has also entered the world of “free cash flow positive.”