Google to Launch Cloud-based Music Service

Despite not having the backing from major music labels, Google has decided to launch its own cloud-based music service.

The service will work by allowing users to upload music to the cloud so they can stream it via an internet connection meaning they can listen to it anywhere.

At the time of the report, Google advised that they planned to announce the plans of the service at their San Francisco Google I/O conference for developers which was to be run on the 10^th and 11^th May.

Back in march, Amazon released their own Cloud Player which allowed users to access their music via Android apps and the web.  Google’s music service will act in pretty much the same way by acting as a remote ‘locker’ for music access.

The odd thing about this is that Google are going to launch without the support of any major record labels.  Whilst a cloud based service doesn’t always need additional licences from the record labels, Google could be restricted in what features can be added to the service.

Skype is in demand but not from members or users.

Discussions are at the beginning and being totally specific is going to be difficult, but according to reports from good sources, Skype is hot property. There have been no public releases to its members or to the public; however you might not have to wait for long.

A partnership deal for Skype is not something that has been talked about before. This time the reports involve giant businesses. Google and Facebook are considering separate bids to get their hands on the video conferencing service.

If you were Skype what would you do (assuming that the bids were identical)? Would you take the Facebook partnership and combine the instant chat with the additional feature of running live video connection as well or the Google bid and generate more members and more business users using your services.

As we know from previous blogs, Skype has a lot of members, but the percentage of members that actually pay for Skype services is very low. This poor revenue stream may not be solved with a Facebook partnership – it could increase the number of members but not the percentage of paying members. On the other hand Google with the PPC and SEO services that are very business related, could boost revenue when offering conference video calling features to a business audience.

This deal could be very important to both parties (Google and Facebook) particularly as Google is losing ground against Bing and Facebook could continue its domination of the social network. Google could also integrate the Skype services onto its Google Android Phones as well.

As mentioned this is an early report, so we will have to wait and see. In the meant time what, would you do?

You may have the content right, perfect images and a great customer journey on your site, but is it quick enough?

Google has bolted a speed gauge onto its ranking indicator, so how will this affect your site and your ranking position on Google? Well, the speed gauge is going to measure the time that a landing page takes to load, this speed measure is called site speed or page load time. The clock will start when a visitor lands on the page and will stop when the page has fully completed loading.

This speed indicator was discussed last year and Google stated that it would be included into its ranking indicator. Now however, this discussion has turned into practice and the page load time is being incorporated into searches. For many businesses this inclusion of speed will not be an issue, because a quick loading page makes the visitor experience a lot better.

If your landing page is slow, all will not be lost.  You will not free fall down the rankings and Google will alter the ranking of one site per two hundred. How much of a penalty the new speed gauge will produce in terms of ranking is not known.

You might think that this new measure is a bit harsh but it’s all geared essentially towards rewarding websites that provide the best service. Also you can just force your way to the top of the rank without considering the visitors experience.

On the occasional websites that you come across, they are very slow which can be annoying, but with patience you find the product that you want and decide to make an order.  During the order process you are left hanging for a page to load and that patience runs out and you start the search all over again. This is what Google wants to eradicate as it comes under pressure from Bing.

BlackBerry exchange Google for Bing…

After being on stage at the annual RIM BlackBerry show, Microsoft announced that Bing will be providing the search facilities on Blackberry devices. This will then be a new partnership for Microsoft, with the aim to help people make better decisions with Bing on Blackberry Devices, while boosting handset sales.

The partnership will include Bing as the default search provider for the search app and the browser. However, it is unclear at this point which of the blackberry devices will be defaulted to Bing. It might be the new Blackberry Bond and also the Blackberry Playbook that is due for release soon.

This is good news for some and not so good for others. The benefits are for Microsoft and their Bing search, hopefully this will boost handset sales for blackberry.  The biggest loser in this deal is Google; as they where the default search provider on the Blackberry handsets.

Bing has been in this position before, in terms of having their search facility exclusively on a produced handset. Also, you may remember that deal that was pending between Microsoft and Nokia, which did sound very similar to the Blackberry and Bing arrangement. Perhaps Microsoft is planning a worldwide domination to be the default search providers of mobiles and Smartphone’s.

Let’s assume that both Microsoft deals happen and are completed as expected, what might happen to the market share of Google against Bing? What is known is that Bing is growing fractionally month on month, 2011 has started very well for Bing. This slow but consistent pace is worrying for Google, as it has been stated if Bing’s growth was erratic it would show that its decline just as quick as it grows. Unfortunately that is not the case which is why it could be very damaging for Google.

Specifically in the mobile search, Google have a strong hold on the Android and the iPhone devices, but if Apple that make the iPhone decided to change the default search provider, Google would be in a lot of trouble and would lose a lot of crucial market share. Having said that, Microsoft and Apple are not on best of pals anyway, so the chances are remote that these two businesses will come together.

Google is not helping itself in a number of areas because of the changes that have been made to its search results and the algorithms.  Add Bing’s increasing fortunes and we could be in for an entertaining online battle for search facilities.

What ways can I include useful content on my website, without cluttering it?

Perhaps the site that you have put together has the content that matches search engines requirements and even the visitors but not yours. So making any changes will effectively be undoing all you efforts.

You may be developing a good page rank, but there are hundreds of ways to improve a site and get it noticed. Making the site bigger is one way; putting more pages on with appropriate content will start new rankings.

Having said that, why is content so important? Google works on words, it reads them and determines the relevance of the site, and this is called indexing. So, the more information that is visible to a search engine the better, this will improve your chances to be targeting against more terms.

Each page will therefore acquire its own rank, the more pages the better the content that a search engine will recognise more.

So back to the original question – What ways can I include useful content on my website, without cluttering it?

You may have noticed that many sites have a blog or a news section. This is all about up to date content that is constantly being added. The more appropriate content that is added the better as this will improve the website and make it more receptive to an internet search.

Many sites put blogs or new updates on a fresh new webpage. This then opens the door to incorporate links across the website (ideally to what you want them to see or buy).

The blog content needs to be relevant but also varied so that it brings a wider audience. A blend of company news and industry news is a good place to start.

Another addition to a website that also promotes good ranking and content is a FAQ page. You may think that the FAQ is for visitors that may have a question; you may think that the FAQ is just to the customer so they can get an answer about delivery times or ways to pay. This is content again, that is both beneficial to the visitor and your site.

With the FAQ make sure that they have a positive outcome and always point towards the money pages of your site.

Always try and stay away from adding a page for the sake of doing so. This may deter visitors and they move away from the site altogether. Keep all the pages on your radar and keep the pages flowing. New rankings are not as beneficial as your main search terms, so don’t compromise those. Even updating the content and getting them re-indexed will improve the site performance so make sure that the site is with the trends.

Google’s Android mobile operating system assists Intel

Intel is the largest computer chip manufacturer and it has decided to run Google’s Android software on its tablet computers. The operating system that will be installed is called Honeycombe and Google state that it is specifically for tablet computers, originating from its very successful mobile version.

Intel has also confirmed that many of their processor chips will also be included into many Smartphone’s. This market has in the past not been a core business area as it has struggled behind its competitors including AMD.

Intel’s first quarter revenues are up by 29% – which is all down to the connections with Google, Windows, and Nokia. This is despite the slight erratic supply from Japan since the recent earthquake and tsunami.

Mr Otellini is the chief executive at Intel and he said: “results in the first quarter are outstanding. If the pace continues we will be looking at a 20% growth.”

Research shows that there is an increasing demand for computer chips to be installed into our PCs, tables and Smartphone’s. This will have a profound effect on the computer chip business.

Many top manufacturers (Dell, HP, and Samsung) had to halt their production of computers in the first quarter while the Intel chips landed at their production buildings.

Google release their Panda update in the UK

Google have stated that the second phase of their Panda Update is now landing in all areas of the UK. Confused?

This update was rolled out in the US just over a month ago. The update was an algorithm change and it was created to help searchers find high quality websites in their results. The US launch did receive a lot of positive feedback. This feedback came from both website owners and searchers.

So, the update promotes the better website essentially and demotes the poor, possible spammy sites. A benefit for the better quality sites as their visibility and SERPs will be improved.

Google are impressed with the results initially as they are now able to highlight the sites that are poor quality.

Quality content is rewarded and might make you a King!

Bing finally crack the 30% search market share in the United States

For the first time, Bing has exceeded 30% of the search market share in the United States.  It could be argued that this is partly down to their coalition with Yahoo.

Bing commanded a 28.48% search share in January.  However, in February that increased by 5% to 30.1% according to Experian Hitwise.

Whilst the coalition may have had a bearing on the increase, both Bing and Yahoo search traffic increased.  Yahoo increased from 14.99% to 15.69% while Bingo went from 13.49% up to 14.32%.

Whilst this may get the attention of Google, they don’t have too much to worry about yet.  Despite their market share slipping from 66.69% to 64.42% they still hold double the market of Bing and Yahoo.

In order to try and compete with Google, Bing joined forces with Yahoo in July 2009.  The alliance saw Bing run Yahoo’s search engine.

The coalition was permitted by the US Department of Justice and the European Commission in February 2010.

Do you use online videos in your marketing campaign?

You may or may not know that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. YouTube over took Yahoo in August 2008 for the number 2 spot.

Brining you up-to-date, YouTube is owned by Google but this has had no influence on the figures, YouTube has almost 20% of the US search market and it contributes to 30% of Googles owned sites search total.

Despite not being known as a search engine, there is evidence that people are researching and looking for information through this search feature. Plus, there are thousands of users optimising their videos to be listed under the natural listing results. This then opens the door for international exposure and a great method to promote brand identity at a very minimal cost.

That’s the theory, and the practice is very good as well. Research shows that during November 2010, 34.7 million UK internet users watched 6 Billion videos. On average there are 6 videos watched per session. These stats also include content from the BBC and VEVO. This user engagement is seen as a growing market, this market in the future will include more high definition videos.

These high definition clips will be accompanied by business videos as they incorporate video marketing into their marketing budgets. Brand identity will be the big winner as businesses reach out to a massive social following. Video is a very social medium, so management teams will have a difficult job blending the marketing message into a social audience.

Back in the day, YouTube was perhaps a website that you would click around in your social time. However, there will be more marketing campaigns showing with its current content.  While clicking around, stats also show that users will leave a comment on the site about the video that we have just watched. The comment ratio is about 1 in 3, 1 comment per 3 clips watched. So, these comments then start to form a blog or forum.

Perhaps making a video for your brand or even a special promotion does not fit in the existing marketing budget; there is also on YouTube the option to advertise on posted videos. The evidence, 23 million users in the UK watched 5.3 million video ads during November. If a video is not possible, a spot of video advertising might be.

The key point is that video marketing is growing and is likely to keep growing; video demand is a large social requirement. With the right video or advert banner, you will be able to see the rewards of the social nature of video.

Google Hotpot; will it work?

Have you ever searched in the internet for a bar or a restaurant and the comments or feedback that is given about that particular place or business is from people that you have never heard of. Who are these people? They could be fake or just made up people. Perhaps you did a Google search for a hotel, after choosing a hotel from the results list the ad also contained comments about the hotel from recent guests – can you trust these comments?

According to Google, this is all going to change. The reviews that are left are only from people that you know and can trust, this is called Google Hotpot.

Google Hotpot was announced in November and is designed to share comments and recommendations with your friends. The process begins by rating the places that you have been to, then adding your friends that would make accurate comments and opinions about the places that they have been to. So, you will then log into the Google HotPot and you want an Indian restaurant in town, assuming that a friend has been and commented about their visit to the same restaurant, you will also see that comment and make a decision to go to it or not.

Since then, Google have advanced the system again. When you are logged into your Google Account and you perform a search, if any of your friends have made comments you can choose to only see those results in the results list. Perfect – feedback on a venue, event or perhaps a local bar from a friend not some unknown person, but will it work in the real word against the likes of Facebook or MySpace.

The plan is that Google will use this method to develop a sharing network that will be included in to the Google search.  Could this be the beginnings of a social network? They already have Buzz which is still on the launch pad compared to Facebook, but will HotPot be joining Buzz with a similar disappointing outcome.

The fact that a proper comment is then on the search is really good. This will prevent fake messages and clear the comment sections for only the right content.

Despite this there are pages on Facebook for most Businesses and Places that you can ‘like’ and receive regular updates about. So how will the Google Hotpot fair, or is this a crafty way to mix social networking with its established search engine?