SEO Web Design | Website Design and Development SEO SEM SMM
Google is full of fun easter eggs hidden within search queries. Remember the barrel roll? Here’s one more that’s been discovered, just in time for the holiday season.
Type ‘let it snow’ in search, and you’ll see snowflakes falling down the page. The first hit is the Christmas carol ‘let it snow’ by Dean Martin (which we’ve embedded below). Eventually your search results page will cloud over.
Here’s a list of some of our favorite easter eggs over the year. Enjoy!
Google is full of fun easter eggs hidden within search queries. Remember the barrel roll? Here’s one more that’s been discovered, just in time for the holiday season.
Type ‘let it snow’ in search, and you’ll see snowflakes falling down the page. The first hit is the Christmas carol ‘let it snow’ by Dean Martin (which we’ve embedded below). Eventually your search results page will cloud over and the search button turns into a defrost button to clear out the clouds.
Here’s a list of some of our favorite easter eggs over the year. Enjoy!
We’ve been wondering exactly what Google Schemer is for some time now. Google has just officially launched Schemer, a new activity recommendations portal that allows people to ‘discover new things to do.’ Schemer basically helps people discover and share things to do in the offline world. Activities, or schemes, are recommended to you based on your location and interests.
From Google’s announcement of Schemer: Whether it’s exploring a new city, checking out a friend’s movie recommendation, or just finding new activities for your weekends, Schemer lets you discover new things to do, share schemes with friends, and make the most of your day.
There also seems to be a social component built around activities. You can find things to do, save ‘schemes for later’ and let friends know you are interested in specific schemes. The entire platform seems to be built around google+ as well.
Schemer will also record all your schemes in your list of accomplishments and other schemers will be able to learn from your experiences. Over time, Schemer will recommend new schemes tailored to your interests and help you do the things you want to do.
At launch, Google has teamed up with a number of media properties for schemes including Bravo, Entertainment Weeklym GeekDad / GeekMom, Idealist, IGN, Lifehacker, National Geographic, Outside, Parenting.com, Real Simple, Rolling Stone, Southern Living, Time Out, Thrillist, US Department of the Interior and Google-owned Zagat.
We’ll update this post if we scrounge up some invites.
Checkout Google’s video about Schemer below.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt just took the stage at the Le Web conference to chat about Android, the search giant’s expansion and more. When he was asked about why the search engine hadn’t acquired any French companies, Schmidt jokingly commented on stage that Google was now buying around one company day.
That’s clearly a lot of companies to purchase even for a company with deep pockets like Google. So our intrepid reporter Alexia Tsotsis ran backstage to confirm this, where Schmidt told her on the record that Google was actually acquiring around one company per week. “But why do you never announce them?” she asked him. “We don’t have to,” he said.
As revealed in October, this year Google has spent $1.4 billion on 57 acquisitions this year. So yes, with 52 weeks in a year, that sounds about right. Of course, Google has been particularly aggressive with its acquisitions this year, especially in the mobile, social, and search areas. We’ll have to see if the search giant will continue its acquisitive strategy in 2012, or scale back.
All jokes aside, with $43 billion in cash, clearly the company has room to up the ante and start buying a company per day.
SEO firm BrightEdge is reporting that 61 percent of world’s top 100 brands have already created Google+ pages. As we reported last week, Google launched “Pages” for Google+ to allows brands, products, companies, businesses, and organizations to build their very own tailored Google+ presence.
Channeling Facebook Pages, Google+ Pages offers brands and businesses a similar experience to that of individual Google+, in that brands can place people into Circles to share content with that select group, launch video hangouts to have face-to-face conversations with their customers, and it all works through the site’s mobile app (you can read our in-depth comparison of Google+ and Facebook Pages here).
For basis of comparison, 94 percent of the Top 100 brands have a presence on Facebook. BrightEdge says that only 12 percent of the brands that created these pages displayed a link to them on their home page. About 53 percent of the Top 100 brands display a link on their home page to their Facebook page. And brands appear to be having mixed success at building social networks around their Google+ presence. In fact, Google had the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 65,000 fans.
But other consumer brand stalwarts like Coke, McDonalds and Verizon had only dozens of fans (but have millions of Facebook fans). In fact, a review of Facebook and Google+ properties for all 100 brands showed a collective total of almost 300 million Facebook fans for these top brands, compared to approximately 148,000 Google+ followers for these same brands.
Of course, in Google search, Google+ brand pages seem to be performing well. The BrightEdge analysis showed Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results.
Only one Top 100 global brand, Marlboro, has no social media presence on either Facebook or Google+. And Microsoft and General Electric are the two largest brands that have a Facebook page but no Google+ presence.
Clearly, it’s still early for brand interaction and Google+. Yesterday, Google announced a pilot program that will allow businesses and brands to manage their Google+ Pages using a number of third-party applications, including Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue. These integrations should help brands further their presence on Google+ and increase engagement.
For background, BrightEdge’s SaaS allows marketers prioritize SEO campaigns based on forecasted revenue, execute coordinated SEO strategies across their entire company and tie everything to clearly defined business metrics. The product also comes with reporting tools that lets large enterprise analyze how their organic search performance stacks up against that of their competitors, and how it can be improved over time. Since launching to the public in 2010, BrightEdge has gained a significant clientele, including seven of the top ten Fortune 1000 retailers. Other customers include Symantec and VMware. BrightEdge has raised $6.5 million in venture funding.
SEO firm BrightEdge is reporting that 61 percent of world’s top 100 brands have already created Google+ pages. As we reported last week, Google launched “Pages” for Google+ to allows brands, products, companies, businesses, and organizations to build their very own tailored Google+ presence.
Channeling Facebook Pages, Google+ Pages offers brands and businesses a similar experience to that of individual Google+, in that brands can place people into Circles to share content with that select group, launch video hangouts to have face-to-face conversations with their customers, and it all works through the site’s mobile app (you can read our in-depth comparison of Google+ and Facebook Pages here).
For basis of comparison, 94 percent of the Top 100 brands have a presence on Facebook. BrightEdge says that only 12 percent of the brands that created these pages displayed a link to them on their home page. About 53 percent of the Top 100 brands display a link on their home page to their Facebook page. And brands appear to be having mixed success at building social networks around their Google+ presence. In fact, Google had the largest fan contingent of any brand on Google+, having attracted more than 65,000 fans.
But other consumer brand stalwarts like Coke, McDonalds and Verizon had only dozens of fans (but have millions of Facebook fans). In fact, a review of Facebook and Google+ properties for all 100 brands showed a collective total of almost 300 million Facebook fans for these top brands, compared to approximately 148,000 Google+ followers for these same brands.
Of course, in Google search, Google+ brand pages seem to be performing well. The BrightEdge analysis showed Google+ pages on average appeared in the top 12 Google search results for the corresponding brand, while the brand’s Facebook pages on average appeared in the top 13 or 14 listed results.
Only one Top 100 global brand, Marlboro, has no social media presence on either Facebook or Google+. And Microsoft and General Electric are the two largest brands that have a Facebook page but no Google+ presence.
Clearly, it’s still early for brand interaction and Google+. Yesterday, Google announced a pilot program that will allow businesses and brands to manage their Google+ Pages using a number of third-party applications, including Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue. These integrations should help brands further their presence on Google+ and increase engagement.
For background, BrightEdge’s SaaS allows marketers prioritize SEO campaigns based on forecasted revenue, execute coordinated SEO strategies across their entire company and tie everything to clearly defined business metrics. The product also comes with reporting tools that lets large enterprise analyze how their organic search performance stacks up against that of their competitors, and how it can be improved over time. Since launching to the public in 2010, BrightEdge has gained a significant clientele, including seven of the top ten Fortune 1000 retailers. Other customers include Symantec and VMware. BrightEdge has raised $6.5 million in venture funding.
Online holiday shopping reached record levels in 2010. And e-commerce spending is up this year. All signs point to consumers spending even more online this holiday season. I sat down with executives from Google, eBay, PayPal and ShopKick to discuss the trends that are expected to emerge in the e-commerce space over the next few months. They center around mobile, tablets, and deals.
PayPal has more than doubled its mobile payments volume since the 2010 holiday shopping season, and we haven’t even hit the thick of this year’s rush. eBay is projecting $5 billion in mobile payments volume in 2010 and this number could increase in the next few months. And Google projects that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving and one of the biggest shopping days of the year) will come from mobile devices. Tablet devices are now a part of the online shopping experience and retailers are taking note. Clearly, all signs point to the fact that this could be the breakout year for mobile shopping.
Mobile, Mobile, Mobile
All of the companies I spoke to unanimously agreed that this would be the year of mobile for the holiday shopping season. Steve Yankovich, head of eBay’s mobile business operations and development, says he expects this to be the biggest year for mobile sales for eBay yet. eBay has said that the company expects to see $5 billion in gross merchandise volume in 2011, and this will be partly buoyed by a strong mobile presence in November and December.
PayPal’s Senior Director for Mobile, Laura Chambers, echoes Yankovich’s forecasts and says that merchants are even preparing for the onslaught of traffic to their mobile sites. A number of big retailers, such as Armani Exchange, Guess and The Limited have recently put PayPal’s mobile express checkout as an option for payments on their mobile sites as a way to help the conversion process. “We are seeing strong investments by online retailers for mobile shopping this year,” she says.
Chambers says that last year, the peak day for mobile payments for PayPal was December 12, with $4.7 million in mobile payments volume. Now PayPal is seeing $10 million in mobile payments per day, and we haven’t even officially hit the holiday shopping period. Clearly, the mobile payments numbers could even triple from last year to this year.
While many consumers may shop on mobile for their holiday purchases, the usage of product search, barcode scanning, and other informative apps will also play a big part in this year’s mobile shopping. eBay’s RedLaser barcode scanning apps have seen scans go up 50 percent over the past year. If you aren’t familiar with how it works, RedLaser will scan the barcode of a physical product and show you where you can buy it on eBay’s properties and where it is available in local store locations around you (via Milo) and for how much. The app has been updated with PayPal functionality so that users can actually buy the product directly from the app.
Another shopping app developer who has high hopes for mobile this holiday season is ShopKick. Co-founder Cyriac Roeding says that this year will be the year of mobile for physical shopping. For background, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy’s, Best Buy or Target.
Roeding explains that the cell phone is the only interactive platform you carry with you in a physical store, and retailers are looking to use the platform to help drive transactions. Clearly, a mobile rewards app that offers in-store discounts can help do this. “The internet has caused brick and mortar retailers more trouble than benefit over the past fifteen years. Now retailers are catching on to how the internet can help retailers—that’s where mobile comes in.”
Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management for Google Commerce, tells me that the search giant is seeing a growing number of users are making buying decisions using their mobile phone. “We are definitely seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time,” he says. “But users are also using their mobile phone to search for products and find local availability.”
Samat says that Google has seen a 200 percent growth in mobile product search usage and Google Shopper app downloads over the past year. Shopper, which is available for iOS and Android, allows you to find product prices, reviews, specs, local inventory of products at nearby stores, and more.
As we mentioned above, Google is forecasting that 15 percent of total search on Black Friday. will come from mobile. “There’s no doubt that users are now making buying decisions using their mobile phone,” says Samat. “And we are seeing m-commerce conversions growing and becoming bigger over time.”
Tablets
As tablets have grown to be the go-to browsing device, the iPad, and other devices are also becoming a way to shop. And retailers are catching on to this trend. According to a National Retail Federation study, 20 percent of retailers have invested in tablet device apps this holiday season.
With this in mind, Google debuted Catalogs in August, an app for tablet devices that includes 200 catalogs from major brands including Anthropologie, Bare Escentuals, Bergdorf Goodman, Crate and Barrel, L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Sundance, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma.
The app is more than just a browsing experience. When consumers find an item they’d like to purchase, they can tap to find it in a store nearby or tap “Buy on Website” to visit the merchant online.
Google’s Samat says that “the tablet is the ultimate leanback experience and we see that playing a big role in holiday shopping as a replacement for the mail order catalogs you used to browse through.”
PayPal calls it ‘couch commerce’ and believes that tablet commerce will have a record year. PayPal recently reported that consumers who own both a tablet and a smartphone are significantly more likely (63%) to indicate increased overall spending on mobile purchases, versus owners of smartphones only (29%). Owners of both a tablet and a smartphone buy nearly twice as often as those who only have smartphones and more than 40% of dual owners made more than 20 mobile purchases over the past year, compared to only 12% of smartphone-only owners.
Forrester just released a report predicting a 15 percent increase in online shopping sales this year to nearly $60 billion, partly due to the increase in consumer-use of tablet computers for shopping.
Beyond Black Friday And Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are historically the top-high-grossing online shopping days during the holiday season. But execs expect to see high volumes of online shopping on other days thanks to an increase in mobile shopping and deals.
Yankovitch tells me that eBay expects revenue numbers to be well over numbers that eBay saw last year for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but expects to see more activity at times when people aren’t traditionally shopping.
The day of Thanksgiving is one of those days, says Chambers. Because people will have their phone everywhere (including at the table), consumers are expected to make purchases on the fly, especially on Thanksgiving evening. In fact, PayPal is predicting that after dinner on Thanksgiving Day will be the first mobile shopping spike this holiday season.
Another popular day has been the second Sunday in December, which is one of the last days where people feel confident that items will be shipped in times for the holiday. And Chambers says across the board, Sunday is the biggest day for mobile shopping generally.
Deals
There’s no doubt that deals, coupons and discounts will be a large part of the online holiday shopping experience, especially with the current state of the economy. According to the recent Forrester report, 58 percent of Americans say they are more price-conscious today than they were a year ago and nearly half believe they find better values online.
“I really expect consumers to be deal hunting this season,” explains Chambers. She says that PayPal, which has historically offered special deals for the holiday shopping season, will be bulking up on more consumer deals this holiday season.
Samat says that Google has always seen a spike for queries like deals, coupons, and sales during the holiday time and fully expects to see an increase this year. “The consumer desire for a better deal will help give certain product decision tools a big bump,” he explains. “People may take more time this year to find the best possible price.”
Deals could also include lucrative holiday shipping offers. In 2010, 45 of the top 50 online retailers offered some sort of promotional deal between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, most of which were a type of shipping promotion. And in 2011, Shop.org anticipates that a record 92.5% of online retailers will offer free shipping and not just as a Cyber Monday promotion.
Clearly, there’s plenty of optimism from retailers, and tech companies regarding online spending and shopping this holiday season. And this holiday season is somewhat unique considering the big bet that retailers are making on newer technologies, such as mobile, geo-location, tablets, local product search and more. The big question is how consumers will react to and engage with these technologies over the next several weeks. It could be a very mobile Christmas.
Kleiner Perkins has just announced that search giant Google has joined the venture firm’s sFund as a strategic partner. Kleiner unveiled the sFund last year $250 million fund dedicated to what partner John Doerr calls the Third Wave. The fund is organized around investing social startups in all industries – consumer, enterprise, health and mobile.
Back in October of 2010, Zynga, Comcast, Allen & Co., Liberty Media, Amazon and Facebook all joined as investors and strategic partners. The $250 million fund makes investments ranging from $100,000 to $100 million, and is led by Kleiner partner Bing Gordon.
Considering the list of initial partners, it was actually surprising that Google didn’t participate at launch considering the company’s own social ambitions. It’s unclear how much Google invested in the sFund to become a strategic partner.
As part of the partnership, Facebook, Amazon, Google and the other partners help provide sFund companies with “special support and networking opportunities.” Previous sFund companies include Lockerz, Erly, Klout, Path, Flipboad, Rent The Runway, Spotify, Square and Cafebots. So far, 16 companies have been funded by the sFund. We’re told that Katango, which was acquired by Google yesterday, is actually the first exit of the sFund.
Google has acquired Apture, a startup that brings instantaneous search to content on the web, we’ve confirmed with both companies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Launched in 2008, Apture has raised $4.6 million from Beau Vrolyk, Paul Maritz, Steve Taylor, Clearstone Venture Partners
Co-founded by Tristan Harris and Can Sar, Apture developes ‘Apture Highlights,’ a browser extension that aims to plug the “search leak” that the company says is taking place with content on the web. Apture highlights a search leak as when a users is reading content, wants more information about a keyword or phrase and then opens another browser tab to search for the information on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The downside for the content publisher is that the user disengages with the actual content by leaving the page.
Apture Highlights allows you to highlight any word or phrase on a page and instantly bring up search results in a window. The startup brings results from 60-plus sources including YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google and more for extra context around content. The browser add-on is available for Chrome, Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers. In fact, more than a billion pages a month are enhanced with Apture, says Harris.
Apture’s business model also offered publishers a white-label version of Apture Highlights, which is being used by Scribd, The Financial Times, Reuters, Economist.com, ScientificAmerican, BleacherReport.com, and Times of India. Publisher simply insert a line of Javascript code, and readers can then access an HTML-based overlay that acts like a minitiature browser that enables readers to find and explore related multimedia content without leaving the original page.
The virtue of using the technology for publishers is that content sites are increasing their search volume and site page views by driving traffic to related articles for every search. Consumers actually stay on a publisher page with Apture two to three times longer than without the plug-in.
The company also recently launched HotSpots, which allows Apture to populate hyperlinks on the fly on any page on the web. Publishers have to add one line of code and hyperlinks will appear for readers without publishers having to link. The links point to Apture overlays which give a range of data to a reader without them having to leave the page: Wikipedia, CrunchBase, search results, maps, etc.
In an interview today, Harris explained that when he started the company back in 2007, he felt that there was an incredible opportunity within the medium of the web to find contextual information to help you understand what you are looking at on a webpage. Harris wanted Apture to become part of the ‘fabric of the web’.
But in the past few years, Harris says that he realizes that the browseritself is part of the medium that will shape how information is really accessible. “You can’t talk about making information accessible without talking about the web browser,” he explains.
With that thought in mind, when Google approached Harris and the company over the past few months with an acquisition offer, the integration made sense. Combined with google’s own mission of making information accesible, “the Chrome platform has 200 active million users a month and that’s a huge scale that Apture’s technology could reach,” says Harris.
Google says of the acquisition, “We were impressed by the Apture team’s approach to enhancing the web browser experience, and we think their expertise will complement the Chrome team’s efforts in this area.”
The Apture team, which is composed of ten employees, will be joining the Google Chrome team improve user experience. Google says that Apture’s plug-ins and white-label technology will be shut down within next month or so.
Harris says, “We’re bringing all things we’ve been doing and a lot more to the Chrome team. With the growth of Chrome as a browser, it’s clear why this acquisition make so much sense, and who else would you want to partner with to the change-up fabric of the internet? We’re going to make browsing much more than it’s ever been and it’s really exciting.”
For Google, this is also a bit of a talent acquisition as well. Harris previously worked in the user interface engineering world of Apple, where he has two pending patents. He helped build the first ad server for Wikia, was also a Mayfield Fellow with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and dropped out of the Stanford Computer Science Masters program to start Apture. Sar is also on a leave of absence from the Stanford Computer Science PhD program and has published several academic papers in Operating Systems and Security, and is the author of several pending patents.
All around, the acquisition is a win for Google. It was only a matter of time before a web giant like Google or Facebook snapped up the startup, and it doesn’t hurt to add a number of talented developers and engineers as well.
Google has acquired Apture, a startup that brings instantaneous search to content on the web, we’ve confirmed with both companies. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Launched in 2008, Apture has raised $4.6 million from Beau Vrolyk, Paul Maritz, Steve Taylor, Clearstone Venture Partners
Co-founded by Tristan Harris and Can Sar, Apture developes ‘Apture Highlights,’ a browser extension that aims to plug the “search leak” that the company says is taking place with content on the web. Apture highlights a search leak as when a users is reading content, wants more information about a keyword or phrase and then opens another browser tab to search for the information on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The downside for the content publisher is that the user disengages with the actual content by leaving the page.
Apture Highlights allows you to highlight any word or phrase on a page and instantly bring up search results in a window. The startup brings results from 60-plus sources including YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google and more for extra context around content. The browser add-on is available for Chrome, Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers. In fact, more than a billion pages a month are enhanced with Apture, says Harris.
Apture’s business model also offered publishers a white-label version of Apture Highlights, which is being used by Scribd, The Financial Times, Reuters, Economist.com, ScientificAmerican, BleacherReport.com, and Times of India. Publisher simply insert a line of Javascript code, and readers can then access an HTML-based overlay that acts like a minitiature browser that enables readers to find and explore related multimedia content without leaving the original page.
The virtue of using the technology for publishers is that content sites are increasing their search volume and site page views by driving traffic to related articles for every search. Consumers actually stay on a publisher page with Apture two to three times longer than without the plug-in.
The company also recently launched HotSpots, which allows Apture to populate hyperlinks on the fly on any page on the web. Publishers have to add one line of code and hyperlinks will appear for readers without publishers having to link. The links point to Apture overlays which give a range of data to a reader without them having to leave the page: Wikipedia, CrunchBase, search results, maps, etc.
In an interview today, Harris explained that when he started the company back in 2007, he felt that there was an incredible opportunity within the medium of the web to find contextual information to help you understand what you are looking at on a webpage. Harris wanted Apture to become part of the ‘fabric of the web’.
But in the past few years, Harris says that he realizes that the browseritself is part of the medium that will shape how information is really accessible. “You can’t talk about making information accessible without talking about the web browser,” he explains.
With that thought in mind, when Google approached Harris and the company over the past few months with an acquisition offer, the integration made sense. Combined with google’s own mission of making information accesible, “the Chrome platform has 200 active million users a month and that’s a huge scale that Apture’s technology could reach,” says Harris.
Google says of the acquisition, “We were impressed by the Apture team’s approach to enhancing the web browser experience, and we think their expertise will complement the Chrome team’s efforts in this area.”
The Apture team, which is composed of ten employees, will be joining the Google Chrome team improve user experience. Google says that Apture’s plug-ins and white-label technology will be shut down within next month or so.
Harris says, “We’re bringing all things we’ve been doing and a lot more to the Chrome team. With the growth of Chrome as a browser, it’s clear why this acquisition make so much sense, and who else would you want to partner with to the change-up fabric of the internet? We’re going to make browsing much more than it’s ever been and it’s really exciting.”
For Google, this is also a bit of a talent acquisition as well. Harris previously worked in the user interface engineering world of Apple, where he has two pending patents. He helped build the first ad server for Wikia, was also a Mayfield Fellow with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and dropped out of the Stanford Computer Science Masters program to start Apture. Sar is also on a leave of absence from the Stanford Computer Science PhD program and has published several academic papers in Operating Systems and Security, and is the author of several pending patents.
All around, the acquisition is a win for Google. It was only a matter of time before a web giant like Google or Facebook snapped up the startup, and it doesn’t hurt to add a number of talented developers and engineers as well.
Connect With Cheryl