Was 2007 the year you wanted to learn how to kiss, crochet, skateboard, flirt or meditate? You’re not alone. Once again Google has compiled their fascinating annual lists of statistics to show us what has been on the mind of the global connected community, with their 2007 Year-End Google Zeitgeist pages.
The boys and girls at Google have spent many hours mining billions of search queries to read the group consciousness of Internet users over the past 12-month period and it seems we’re still wanting the definition of love, searching for God, (er, and someone called ‘Buckethead’) and wanting to know what autism, emo and bluetooth are, but were too scared to ask…
The fastest rising search words in order, globally, are reportedly:
1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin
The last one is an interactive online game for little kids, which indicates that hardcore Internet users are younger than ever before.
The list also shows the rise and fall of searches for gadgets, celebrities, news and sports events and diet and fitness crazes.
So if you feel like you’re on the outside looking in, head on over to Google Zeitgeist and get with the program.
And in case you wondered, Buckethead is an American singer / songwriter who performs with a KFC bucket on his head.
No, seriously.
Rivals Microsoft and Google are at loggerheads again, this time over perceived ‘copyrighting’ infringements.
An attack has been launched by Microsoft on the super-search engine Google’s book-scanning service, which is in direct competition to their own project, Live Search Books.
Whilst Microsoft claims to adhere strictly to regulations by only allowing users to access publications where the copyright is no longer in effect, they accuse Google of contravening the law by allowing copyright-protected materials to be viewed on their site.They compound this accusation by adding that such action cuts into publishers’ profits.
Google, while preparing to scan literally millions of books and publications from around the world, making them available to their users, defends their actions. They claim to be working within the international copyright parameters.
Google’s chief legal officer, Mr. David Drummond, said, “The result has been more exposure and in many cases, more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content.”
Microsoft lawyer Mr. Thomas Rubin cited YouTube, purchase by Google last year, as a perfect example of the way in which Google operated with blatant infringement of copyrighting laws.
Many experts are of the opinion that this attack is just a continuation of the ongoing rivalry between the two Internet giants.
President George W Bush signed a law on Tuesday which allows for the creation of an online database for tracking government spending - within certain parameters.
The idea behind the new legislation is to create greater transparency and accountability between government and taxpayers.
Bush explained: “Information on earmarks will no longer be hidden deep in the pages of a federal budget bill, but just a few clicks away. This legislation will give the American people a new tool to hold their government accountable for spending decisions. When those decisions are made in broad daylight, they will be wiser and they will be more restrained.”
The signing ceremony was held in the Old Executive Office Building alongside the White House in Washington DC. Also present were lawmakers and Internet bloggers who had taken part on the process of getting the new law through Congress. There was some delay caused by certain Senate members but with the assistance of and pressure from the bloggers the bill was finally advanced.
The Web site will go live by 1 January 2008, and will list federal grants and contracts for over $25,000. Around $1 trillion in government spending will be tracked on the database. Restrictions will be placed on those classified for national security reasons.
The site is specifically targeted at the man and woman in the street who would like to know how their tax is being spent but are not familiar with the budget processes.
As Bush elaborated, “The Web site will allow our citizens to go online, type in the name of any company, association, or state or locality and find out exactly what grants and contracts they’ve been awarded. By allowing Americans to Google their tax dollars, this new law will help taxpayers demand greater fiscal discipline.”
Just in from Bigmouthmedia comes a report that Google Sitemaps, recently re-branded as Google Webmaster Central, has implemented a fantastic new feature, letting you decide just how often Google crawls your site!
5 Values are available, ranging from Fastest to Slowest. It needs to be kept in mind that the faster values use the most bandwidth so don’t miscalculate when choosing.
However this innovation is still in the trial stages still, so don’t be surprised if you can’t locate it on your Google Sitemaps account just yet.
Spokesperson for Google Sitemaps explains:
“We are testing an alpha version of our new tool with a small percentage of webmasters who use Sitemaps. You should leave this control at the Normal setting unless you are having trouble with the speed at which Googlebot is crawling your server.
Simply select the rate at which you would like the Googlebot to crawl your server and click save. During this stage of testing, we will evaluate requests to determine the best way of using this data and providing this tool to everyone.”
The purpose behind Google Sitemaps is to provide a control panel for webmasters, offering statistics on searches, revealing crawling errors and allowing the submission of sitemaps which enable Google to locate their pages faster.
The Googleplex Offices are renowned for the whiteboards that line the office walls. This is where the Google employees get to express themselves and write up ideas and thoughts – a kind of creative thinking outlet for the whole office!
One of the ideas which came up on the boards recently was the screening of Google advertisements on cinema movie screens, sponsoring the film costs thus enabling the public to view movies for free.
The idea sounds interesting, but is it practical?
A key component in marketing is targeting the ad to the right market. With Google covering such a broad spectrum of information used by consumers from all walks of life, so this aspect may be do-able.
Keeping track of the effectiveness of advertisements screened during movies is a lot more difficult than tracking online ads. This is why only certain sectors utilise big screen ads, which are also harder to track than billboards, radio and television when it comes to effectiveness. This hesitance to break into big screen advertising could carry through into movie-screened Google ads.
Bearing in mind that in many countries product and service advertising already make up a good 30 minutes of pre-main feature ads, along with trailers, it doesn’t seem as if Google has anything different to offer in this field.
I feel that Google are right in wanting to branch out and not keep all their ‘eggs in one basket’ when it comes to advertising.
However big-screen advertising is not a new or fresh idea and already has certain limitations over and above the ones discussed in this article.
I don’t feel that what is being suggested meets the requirements of a new line of advertising.
Back to the whiteboard, guys!