I had a chance to catch up with Matt Cutts and Vanessa Fox last week at the Las Vegas Pubcon. We talked about a variety of things – from the hacking of someone’s out of version WordPress blog to the recent PageRank updates at Google. One of the more recent and perhaps lesser-publicized changes we discussed however was Google’s recent decision to change the way they handle content on subdomains. You can find our video interview on the Murdok Video blog incidentally.
Google Street View Explores 8 More Cities
Google Street View hasn’t gotten too many of my minutes, but I’m more than ready to admit that it’s a neat program. And it’s just gotten bigger and better with the addition of 8 more cities.
Gordon Brown Asks Google, Others To Assist Poor
All things being equal, who would you ask for money: the insanely rich or the average citizen? Most people would go to the first group, and in doing so, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has knocked at Google’s door.
A Holiday Treat from Google & Yahoo
Both Google and Yahoo! have decided to provide website owners with a "holiday season treat" by updating their respective search results (SERPs) – simultaneously!
Both the major search engines have been executing some algorithm changes causing the usual ranking turmoil for webmasters and site owners over the last week.
Google News Improves Timeliness, Context
News that’s not timely barely matters; news that’s not presented in context is irresponsible. Now, by changing the way it tracks updates and local coverage, Google News hopes to address both these issues.
UNICEF, OLPC, Google Start “Our Stories”
Not every would-be storyteller has access to a major publisher; some, in fact, have close to nothing. So Google, One Laptop per Child, and UNICEF have launched a new project called “Our Stories” in an effort to get their accounts out there.
Cool Little Google Reader Feature
This is a cool “little” feature in the latest version of Google Reader. if you subscribe to multiple people’s Shared Items’ blogs (I call that a link blog) it won’t send you duplicate items anymore, but will show you how many people actually linked to it. That’s a KILLER feature. But, what’s next?
Google Code Opens Cool Chart API
Generating a chart for a web page is as simple as passing some variables to Google in an HTTP request.
Google Chart API Released
Google released a chart generator service they are calling the Google Chart API. Usage is quite straightforward: you link to an image in the form of a parameterized URL, e.g. (line break added)
Google’s Gray Areas Get Shadier
Google has projected an image of corporate spotlessness over the years that is becoming increasingly, well, spotted. The company has grown up, you could say, and has lost much of its innocence down the pockets of shareholders, while its idealistic founders pursue more amusing things than evil, or its lesser cousins.