Online heavy-hitters Google, Facebook, Twitter, AOL (Engadget’s parent company) and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have have struck an alliance aimed at ridding nasty advertising “from all corners of the web.” Stemming from the existing StopBadware group that began in 2006, the group will develop policies, build a platform for identifying scofflaws and share trends with government and law enforcement. For its part, Google curbed 130 million ads promoting counterfeit articles, malware and worse in 2011, but said baddies would normally move their shady businesses to another corner of the internet. Thus, the aim of this new league is to aid players across the web with its super resources in a bid to stop the knavery, no matter where it tries to hide.
Facebook, Google, Twitter spearhead Ads Integrity Alliance to thwart villainous ads originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In what may be a watershed moment for in-home entertainment, both Kansas and Missouri have given Google permission to provide video services to Kansas City residents as a part of its Google Fiber project. Missouri’s Public Service Commission gave Big G the thumbs up on March 1st, and Kansas’ Corporation Commission followed suit last Friday, meaning Google now has the green light to provide video services to residents on either side of the state line. Of course, the folks in Mountain View haven’t committed to taking down the cable companies just yet, but these approvals put the necessary franchise licensing in place for them to do so if they choose. Comcast, Cox, Time Warner… your newest competitor has arrived.
[Thanks, Jerry]
Google gets go ahead to provide video services to all Kansas City residents originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It pays to be mobile, if you want to reach the last-minute planners. According to Google 62% of restaurant related searches on Valentine’s Day were from “high end mobile devices or tablets.”
Something to think about for restaurants or other businesses that don’t have mobile-friendly sites.
Sponsor
The volume of searches for restaurants was up drastically between 7th of February and Valentine’s day, from all devices. Google says that desktop searches spiked by 142%, tablet searches by 135%, and by 359% on mobile devices. Google’s results look at “popular chain restaurants,” so it’s unclear how that relates to local favorites. For example, Google probably isn’t catching searches for information on Mango’s Peruvian Cuisine or Prime 1000 here in St. Louis.
Google, of course, is hoping to convince restaurateurs that they should be doing mobile advertising. “If you weren’t advertising on mobile, you missed an opportunity to reach nearly two-thirds of consumers looking to find a restaurant.”
But it’s also a cue to restaurateurs that they should have sites that are mobile friendly. Hint: Flash-heavy sites and Flash-only sites need to die. Ideally, any restaurant worth its salt (sorry) should have a mobile site with the following:
Menu
Hours
Phone number
Address / directions
Mobile-friendly reservation system
Restaurants without those things may still do decent business, but I suspect that the restaurants without mobile-friendly sites missed out on at least some customers.
More Mobile Mushiness
Restaurants weren’t the only things that mobile users were searching for. Google also outlined the difference in mobile searches for “flower-related terms” in California. Searches grew by 227% from February 7th through 14th. Google says that users were 560% more likely to click to call or get directions from an ad on Valentine’s day.
The results here shouldn't be much of a surprise to anybody. At least, I find that they mirror my own experience in terms of using my phone to find restaurants and for shopping, though not so much the last-minuteness for Valentine's Day. If you want to take advantage of last-minute planners (and remember, Valentine's Day comes but once a year – but there are anniversaries and birthdays every day…), get your mobile game on.
By now, you may have already checked to see what kind of person Google thinks you are (if you’re a female Mashable reporter, Google apparently assumes you’re a middle-aged man). Google’s new, unified privacy policy can show you that, as well as how much we pay for the free services that provide Google with that data.
Yes, Google+ and Gmail are all free, but we pay for those services in a currency of personal information. Privacy firm Reputation.com says your personal info could be worth anywhere from $50 to $5,000 per year to market researchers and advertisers.
Google says it doesn’t and won’t give advertisers your information; it uses your info to target what it estimates to be more relevant ads that it has already sold.
SEE ALSO: Google’s Privacy Update: What You Need to Know
Social networks, similarly, rely on users’ private information to make money too. “Their entire market cap is related to how much data is being collected and used,” Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, told SmartMoney.
It’s official. A study released by Google yesterday shows that mobile devices, and smart phones in particular, are now the dominant means of Internet connectivity in five key global markets. More »