Google’s Still Not Buying Twitter
Likely, Boomtown’s Kara Swisher gets tired of being the TechCrunch Google-rumor-debunker. Maybe not. She seemed to enjoy reminding readers about the Michael Arrington grapevines sprouting out tales of Google buying Digg and Bebo, neither of which ever happened. This time it’s Twitter.
Is Gmail Google’s Real Social Network?
The Past
Google’s email service Gmail was launched to the public five years ago this week. Back then, the service turned the web email industry on its ear by offering an entire gigabyte of storage to users who were lucky enough to receive an invite. Small potatoes now, but that was a nice chunk of storage from an email service back then.
Give Customers a Way to Interact or They’ll Go Elsewhere
Netpop Research recently released a report on social media use by consumers who have broadband Internet connections. The report indicates that the majority (76%) of broadband users are active contributors to social media.
Tap Tap Revenge Most Popular iPhone App
Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge was the most popular iPhone application in the Apple App Store in February, with 32 percent of users installing the game, according to the comScore Apple App Store Report.
"It’s impressive that a game like Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge can attract a higher penetration among Apple app users than apps for larger and more established brands," said Brian Jurutka, vice president, comScore.
Online Ads Need to Be More Engaging
A study from McPheters & Company in co-operation with Condé Nast and CBS Vision found that magazines and TV ads are more effective than online ads. The study looked at 30-second TV ads, full-page 4-color magazine ads, and Internet banner ads in standard sizes.
They used eye-tracking software to determine the circumstances for when online ads were actually seen by participants. Highlights of the study include:
Hulu Improves Search Feature
Hulu announced some improvements to its search functionality today. For one, they have added some shortcuts to the autocomplete feature.
Previously, the autocomplete suggestions would just take a user to the regular search results, but now, the shortcuts offer other options like going straight to the latest episode (for current shows), or the show page (for all shows).
Murdoch Says Newspapers Must Charge For Online Content
News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that newspapers must find a way to charge for online content to make up for declining ad revenue.
"People are used to reading everything on the net for free, and that’s going to have to change," Murdoch told attendees at the annual Cable Show event in Washington, D.C.
Murdoch cited The New York Times as an example, saying it has a "very, very good Web site." He said he did not believe the paper would make any money online unless it changes its current business model.
Frugality Is Bad For You
What you need to know as a marketer and businessperson is that people generally aren’t rational creatures, and because of that it’s relatively simple to get them to give you their money. What you need to know as a rational, responsible human is that people are always scheming to get your money and you should make it harder for them to do it.
Ah, conundrums.
Google Helps Promote Indian Elections
India’s 15th general election is fast approaching, and Google’s determined to help anyone wanting to either participate in or monitor the event. The search giant launched the Google India Elections Centre in both English and Hindi to facilitate the spread of information.
Internationalizing Without Duplicate Content Worries
The SMX Confernece was in Sydney Australia last week, and one topic discussed by representatives of both Google and Yahoo was that of duplicate content filtering across international domains. Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz notes that while the subject has been discussed in the past, many people including experts in the field have been in the dark.