Last week Google changed the Local Business Center to Google Places, and along with that change came some new features for local businesses. We looked at those here.

Among those changes was the addition of Google’s tag advertising. For $25 a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for things like coupons, photos, and other select features.  They don’t affect the rank of search results, but they give customers more information and may prove beneficial.

Google promised that while the offering was starting out in a limited number of cities, that number would be expanding. The expansion process is underway. Google has now announced the addition of 11 new cities.

The new cities are: San Jose, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco and Mountain View.

"You’ll notice that we’ve added Mountain View, CA to the list of cities participating in the trial," says Product Manager Shalini Agarwal. "Because we are still tweaking the product a bit, we thought we’d make it available in our hometown so we can get quick feedback as we work on new features."

Businesses in the available cities can sign up for Tags from their Google Places accounts.

In a couple weeks, Google says it will launch a new tag type: "post to your Place Page". This will be a freeform text field that will let business owners highlight custom messages announcing sales or events.

The company did not indicate when more cities will become available, but I would expect the feature to make regular expansions in the not-too-distant future.

I’ve seen a lot of angst over the past week about Facebook’s moves to open up your data to other applications.

To really understand how huge these changes are I had to get away from Silicon Valley and come and hang out with the geeks in Kinneret, Israel where famous VC Yossi Vardi is throwing an exclusive camp for geeks and successful business innovators.

To be sure, there is some fear and even a bit of hatred here of Facebook. Let’s detail that fear and hate:

1. Facebook has broken an invisible privacy contract with its users. Most of the geeks here say they expected Facebook to be about sharing photos, videos, and thoughts with friends and family. But now their previously private data is showing up on Yelp, Pandora, and Spotify. That wasn’t expected by the users, so has generated quite a bit of discussion here.
2. Facebook is very quickly painting the web with little like buttons and other social widgets. One CEO I talked with, who asked me to keep his name and company name out of this article but who runs one of the top 50 websites according to Comscore and Compete.com, told me his company will add Facebook’s likes next week. He’s not the only one saying that. My prediction that 30 of the top 100 Websites would incorporate Facebook’s likes in the first few months might turn out to be very low, based on what I’m hearing in Israel. But that does worry geeks here who are seeing that Facebook is very quickly getting their fingers (and branding) into a very large chunk of the web.
3. I’m sharing a room with one of Yahoo’s search strategists here at Kinnernet and, while he wasn’t able to tell me what direction Yahoo is going in, it’s clear that Facebook has disrupted his thinking of where the world is going. If Yahoo is feeling the disruption imagine what it must be like over at Google! Facebook is studying metadata from all these likes and other behavior of ours and I believe is preparing new kinds of search and discovery services. Facebook doesn’t need to “kill” Google to have quite an effect, either. They just need to put a box around Google which would keep Google from growing. What happens when Google can’t grow the way it wants to? Flat stock prices and loss of ability to hire the best employees that comes with it. Google is the new Microsoft, the geeks here say.
4. The geeks here say that it is clear that Facebook is becoming a dramatically more important, and larger, company than they expected. So, now, new business plans are being changed to account for Facebook’s new power and stance in the world.

So, why is it too late to regulate Facebook?

Well, first of all, what can government do?

1. They can force Facebook to switch its defaults on its new Instant Personalization program, which is already being used by Yelp and Pandora (you can see which music I listen to, for instance, on Pandora, and that feature got turned on automatically. The government could force Facebook to turn that feature off by default and make me “opt in” for you to see my Pandora music.
2. They could fine Facebook for its behavior.
3. They could call Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress and call him nasty names.

But what else could the government do? I don’t see too many options. Do you?

So, why is it too late to regulate Facebook?

1. The damage is done. Well, let’s assume they made them switch Instant Personalization to opt in. Who cares? The damage is done. My Pandora already has all your music shared with me. Most Facebook members won’t change their privacy settings from what they already are. So, old users will keep sharing their music and only new members will be asked to opt in to these new privacy-sharing features.
2. The regulation will come too slowly. Government never moves fast. Even when it’s motivated. So Zuckerberg has at least a few months to aggregate his power before Government slaps him on the hand. Government is not going to be able to prevent that top 50 website from putting Facebook’s new features into its service. Government will not keep me from using Pandora.
3. The regulation will come after we get used to new privacy landscape. Already I’m finding I’m getting used to the fact that you all can see my data and that I can see yours. So, if Government comes along and tries to regulate that it will get pushback from me. Why? Well, I actually like the new Pandora features. I’m finding a ton of cool music because Zuckerberg forced you to give up some of your privacy. So what that I can see that you like Kenny G? Users will get addicted to these new features and they won’t take kindly to some government jerk taking away these new features.
4. Giving Zuckerberg a fine will not change Facebook’s behavior. If anything it will just push him to monetize these features more aggressively in order to pay the fine. Just wait until Cocacola icons show up next to all those Facebook like buttons. Government taxation, which really is what fines are, might have a negative effect long term.

So, what can be done about Facebook? I don’t see what we can do about Facebook. Not enough people have changed their behaviors due to these changes. I’m watching and these features are VERY popular. Even here in Israel, far from the hype bubble of Silicon Valley, all the geeks I talked with are impressed with the new features and many are already implementing them. No one sees Facebook as less powerful or less interesting today than two weeks ago. Even with a few of my geeky friends saying they deleted their accounts from Facebook my feed there is actually moving faster lately and my items are getting more engagement, which shows that not many geeks changed their behavior away from Facebook.

Zuckerberg just played chicken with our privacy and it sure looks like he won based on what I’m hearing here in Israel.

What do you think?

Comments

Facebook made some of the biggest news of the week with the anouncements from its developer conference, as far as online business goes, but Google had some significant news about local search that may have taken a backseat, but should not be ignored.

The Google Local Business Center is now called Google Places, as the company aims to rebrand the product around the Place Pages it introduced last fall. Place Pages are the pages for business listings that are found in Google local searches. They contain relevant information about a business from various places on the web, such as reviews and images, as well as other info the business puts up after claiming their listing.

Is Google’s rebranded local business center a step in the right direction? Tell us what you think.

Google Places, the company says, is "just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local."

New features that come along with the name change include:

1. Service areas - Businesses who travel can show the geographic areas that they cover. Those without a storefront can make their address private.

2. Advertising with Tags – For 25 bucks a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for thins like coupons, photos, and other select features.  They don’t affect the rank of search results, but they give customers more information and may prove beneficial. You can expect Google to increase the number of cities where this option is available.

3. Business photo shoots – Businesses (again, in certain cities) can request a free photo shoot from Google to have the interior of their business photographed and added to their Place Page. We’ve seen Google do this in the past. Now we know what they’re doing (learn more here). You can upload your own photos as well.

4. Customized QR Codes – Google is providing customized QR codes from the Google Places Dashboard. The code will take customers to your place page, and can be used on business cards and other marketing materials. Customers can scan them with their smartphones.

5. More Favorite Places - Remember Google’s "Favorite Places" program in which the company sent brick and mortars window decals with QR codes? They’re sending them out to 50,000 more businesses in the U.S.

Google also gives businesses using Google Places info they haven’t been able to see in the past, like who’s searching for them, how they’re finding them, and where they’re coming from. This is through the dashboard, as explained in the following clip:

"One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward," says Google Maps, Earth, and Local VP John Hanke.

The standard rules still apply to Google Places. Every listing must have a mailing address and there can’t be more than one listing per physical location. Even doctors with multiple practices and services that cover multiple towns shouldn’t have two listings. Google recommends in these cases that businesses use the description or categories to explain the different services offered. Google’s quality guidelines can be found here, and may be helpful to businesses with questions about their listings.

Back when Google first launched Place Pages, we asked if Google would eliminate the need for small business websites(at least brick and mortars). As Google improves this and Facebook continues to provide more opportunities for businesses, I’ll pose the question once again. To be clear, I’m not ready to give up on the website yet, but with the tools that are becoming available to businesses, do you think it is imperative to have a website these days? Share your thoughts.

Google continues down its path of acquisitions, as it has now scooped up the mysterious tech startup Agnilux. It’s mysterious because there is very little information about it on the web, and even publications like the New York Times have had a hard time uncovering much information about it.

It has been revealed, however, that Agnilux was founded by former employees of P.A. Semi, the chip manufacturer that Apple acquired a couple years ago, which produced chips for the iPhone and iPad. Some of P.A. Semi stayed with Apple, and others went off on their own and formed Agnilux, as the story goes.

This Google/Apple competition story just gets more and more interesting. Nobody knows exactly what Google’s plan is with Agnilux, or even what Agnilux does exactly, although the New York Times recently got word from a former P.A. Semi employee that Agnilux was working on "some kind of server, and that the company has a partnership with Cisco."

Agnilux has people who have worked at P.A. Semi, Apple, Cisco, IBM, TiVo, Real Networks, Boeing, and various other tech companies, according to varioud LinkedIn profiles listed under the company. 

Google has been giving out generic statements like: "We’re pleased to welcome the Agnilux team to Google, but we don’t have any additional information to share right now." At least that confirms the news is real. "

The Google/Apple story is is one of a friendship gone sour. MG Siegler has a pretty good recap of it up until now. Essentially, it boils down to competition in smartphones, mobile advertising, and soon to be tablets/netbooks. "Who knows, maybe this move was a response to Apple snatching away RJ Pittman, Google’s director of product management," he says.

Either way, the gloves are pretty much off at this point, and it’s going to be very interesting to see where Google is going with this acquisition, and what Apple’s next move will be.

Apple posted record non-holiday-quarter earnings this week.

The Google Local Business Center is now called Google Places, as the company aims to rebrand the product around the Place Pages it introduced last fall. Place Pages are the pages for business listings that are found in Google local searches. They contain relevant information about a business from various places on the web, such as reviews and images, as well as other info the business puts up after claiming their listing.

Is Google’s rebranded local business center a step in the right direction? Tell us what you think.

Google Places, the company says, is "just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local."

New features that come along with the name change include:

1. Service areas - Businesses who travel can show the geographic areas that they cover. Those without a storefront can make their address private.

2. Advertising with Tags – For 25 bucks a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for thins like coupons, photos, and other select features.  They don’t affect the rank of search results, but they give customers more information and may prove beneficial. You can expect Google to increase the number of cities where this option is available.

3. Business photo shoots – Businesses (again, in certain cities) can request a free photo shoot from Google to have the interior of their business photographed and added to their Place Page. We’ve seen Google do this in the past. Now we know what they’re doing (learn more here). You can upload your own photos as well.

4. Customized QR Codes – Google is providing customized QR codes from the Google Places Dashboard. The code will take customers to your place page, and can be used on business cards and other marketing materials. Customers can scan them with their smartphones.

5. More Favorite Places - Remember Google’s "Favorite Places" program in which the company sent brick and mortars window decals with QR codes? They’re sending them out to 50,000 more businesses in the U.S.

Google also gives businesses using Google Places info they haven’t been able to see in the past, like who’s searching for them, how they’re finding them, and where they’re coming from. This is through the dashboard, as explained in the following clip:

"One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward," says Google Maps, Earth, and Local VP John Hanke.

The standard rules still apply to Google Places. Every listing must have a mailing address and there can’t be more than one listing per physical location. Even doctors with multiple practices and services that cover multiple towns shouldn’t have two listings. Google recommends in these cases that businesses use the description or categories to explain the different services offered. Google’s quality guidelines can be found here, and may be helpful to businesses with questions about their listings.

Back when Google first launched Place Pages, we asked if Google would eliminate the need for small business websites(at least brick and mortars). As Google improves this and Facebook continues to provide more opportunities for businesses, I’ll pose the question once again. To be clear, I’m not ready to give up on the website yet, but with the tools that are becoming available to businesses, do you think it is imperative to have a website these days? Share your thoughts.

Google has launched a new Labs project called Google Follow Finder. It’s designed to help you expand your Twitter network.

To use Google Follow Finder, you can enter your Twitter account name and see a list of people Google thinks you might be interested in following (our own Twellow has a helpful suggestion feature too). Google’s tool will also let you enter other people’s Twitter names and get suggestions based on that.

"If you see someone you want to follow, just click ‘Follow on Twitter,’ log in, and they’ll be added to your following list in Twitter," explains Associate Product Manager Aaron Wise. "This integration is based on Twitter’s new @anywhere frameworks, which make it easy for any site to add Twitter functionality. We’re using the frameworks to provide dynamic information about Twitter accounts and one-click following."

It’s quite interesting that Google is this into getting you to expand your Twitter network, when you might think they would be more interested in getting you to use Buzz. But since your Twitter network can be integrated into your Buzz account, it’s probably just as well, for the sake of Buzz use.

This is the second Twitter-related announcement to come from Google today – the first being the replay feature in Google’s real-time search, which archives tweets and lets you browse them on a timeline.

On a related note, the @anywhere platform from Twitter is now available for anyone to use. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone talks about this on the company blog.

Google has launched a new search option that allows users to look at an archive of tweets on any given topic in a timeline format. Users can essentially "replay" the public Twitter conversation in th order in which it each piece occurred.

To utilize the feature, users can go to "show options" on a search results page, and select "updates". There’s a chart at the top of the page that lets you select the year, month, or day, or click any point to view tweets from that time period.

"With the advent of blogs and micro-blogs, there’s a constant online conversation about breaking news, people and places — some famous and some local," says Dylan Casey, Google’s Product Manager for Real-Time Search. "Tweets and other short-form updates create a history of commentary that can provide valuable insights into what’s happened and how people have reacted. We want to give you a way to search across this information and make it useful."

The chart also lets you see how much Twitter activity took place around that topic at any given time. Naturally, you’re more likely to get more information during these spikes.

"By replaying tweets, you can explore any topic that people have discussed on Twitter," says Casey. "Want to know how the news broke about health care legislation in Congress, what people were saying about Justice Paul Stevens’ retirement or what people were tweeting during your own marathon run? These are the kinds of things you can explore with the new updates mode."

"All of us are just beginning to understand the many ways real-time information and short-form web content will be useful in the future, and we think being able to make use of historical information is an important part of that," he adds.

The feature is in the process of rolling out. It will be available around the world in the next few days. If you can’t wait, you can check it out here.

Last year, we saw the emergence of the technology PubSubHubbub, which provides real-time notifications to subscribers of content when there is new content or updates being made. There has recently been talk about Google developing a system that would use this technology it its indexing process.

Do you want your content indexed instantly? Share your thoughts.

In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts spoke with WebProNews about this, among other things:

"Maybe some small site, you might only find a chance to crawl its pages once a week, but if that site is blogging like every 20 minutes, boom , you hit the submit button, and the search engines can find out about it," explained Cutts.

"Now the tension is that more spammers would use this as well, so you can’t just say, ‘I’m gonna index everything that everybody pushes to me.’ So finding the right balance there is tricky, but the potential is really, really exciting," he said.

"You can definitely imagine the reputable blogs getting very fast updates – the ones that we think are trustworthy, and then over time, maybe ramping that up, so that more and more people have the ability to do…just like, instant indexing," he says.

And here we see another way Google may end up looking at the trust factor, with regards to ranking.

Can We Learn from How Google Does Real-Time Search?

Liz Gannes at GigaOm recapped a few things Google senior product manager Dylan Casey said at SMX last month:

Casey said perhaps the most complex project in real time is to determine when to trigger the appearance of real-time results in search results. "We have huge internal debates on: Is this a good answer to this question, or are we just creating a tool for low-quality content?" he said.

Casey spent some effort justifying Google paying to include Twitter’s real-time firehose of tweets, saying it was an intensive technical integration on both sides, and that tweets are a fundamentally different form of communication due to the restrictions of their form. For example, Google has developed a ‘complex system’ for removing users’ public tweets that are later deleted or marked private.

Earlier this year, Amit Singhal, who has led development of real-time search at Google talked about how Google ranks tweets. According to him, Google ranks tweets by followers to an extent, but it’s not just about how many followers you get. It’s about how reputable those followers are.

Singhal likens the system to the well-known Google system of link popularity. Getting good links from reputable sources helps your content in Google, so having followers with that same kind of authority theoretically helps your tweets rank in Google’s real-time search.

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

Now Google’s current real-time search product is separate from the whole PubSubHubbub-based system that isn’t in place yet, but Matt’s comments about blogs being trustworthy, indicates to me that trust is going to be key in being able to push content to Google’s index in real-time. So, I wonder if a similar strategy to how Google ranks its current real-time and Twitter results will be employed in determining this kind of trust.

Does This Mean If You’re Not Trusted You Won’t Get Indexed?

"PuSH wouldn’t likely replace crawling, in fact a crawl would be needed to discover PuSH feeds to subscribe to, but the real-time format would be used to augment Google’s existing index," says Marshall Kirkpatrick, who spoke in a session on the real-time web at SXSW, which also included Google’s Brett Slatkin, one of the guys responsible for PuSH (he’s in the following video explaining the technology in simple terms).

Lots of sites out there already have PuSH technology in place. For example, WordPress and Typepad blogs have the ability to "PuSH" their content. That’s a lot of content itself. A lot of user-generated content, and that means the potential for spam is huge, which is why the trust factor is so important.

If PuSh is to be heavily utilized by the search engines, and you want your content indexed as quickly as possible, you’re going to want to do what you can to build community trust and a solid reputation. One more reason to engage in meticulous online reputation management, put out great content, and engage with the community.

Do you want to see Google index the web in real-time? Discuss here.

Last year, we saw the emergence of the technology PubSubHubbub, which provides real-time notifications to subscribers of content when there is new content or updates being made. There has recently been talk about Google developing a system that would use this technology it its indexing process.

Do you want your content indexed instantly? Share your thoughts.

In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts spoke with WebProNews about this, among other things:

"Maybe some small site, you might only find a chance to crawl its pages once a week, but if that site is blogging like every 20 minutes, boom , you hit the submit button, and the search engines can find out about it," explained Cutts.

"Now the tension is that more spammers would use this as well, so you can’t just say, ‘I’m gonna index everything that everybody pushes to me.’ So finding the right balance there is tricky, but the potential is really, really exciting," he said.

"You can definitely imagine the reputable blogs getting very fast updates – the ones that we think are trustworthy, and then over time, maybe ramping that up, so that more and more people have the ability to do…just like, instant indexing," he says.

And here we see another way Google may end up looking at the trust factor, with regards to ranking.

Can We Learn from How Google Does Real-Time Search?

Liz Gannes at GigaOm recapped a few things Google senior product manager Dylan Casey said at SMX last month:

Casey said perhaps the most complex project in real time is to determine when to trigger the appearance of real-time results in search results. "We have huge internal debates on: Is this a good answer to this question, or are we just creating a tool for low-quality content?" he said.

Casey spent some effort justifying Google paying to include Twitter’s real-time firehose of tweets, saying it was an intensive technical integration on both sides, and that tweets are a fundamentally different form of communication due to the restrictions of their form. For example, Google has developed a ‘complex system’ for removing users’ public tweets that are later deleted or marked private.

Earlier this year, Amit Singhal, who has led development of real-time search at Google talked about how Google ranks tweets. According to him, Google ranks tweets by followers to an extent, but it’s not just about how many followers you get. It’s about how reputable those followers are.

Singhal likens the system to the well-known Google system of link popularity. Getting good links from reputable sources helps your content in Google, so having followers with that same kind of authority theoretically helps your tweets rank in Google’s real-time search.

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

Now Google’s current real-time search product is separate from the whole PubSubHubbub-based system that isn’t in place yet, but Matt’s comments about blogs being trustworthy, indicates to me that trust is going to be key in being able to push content to Google’s index in real-time. So, I wonder if a similar strategy to how Google ranks its current real-time and Twitter results will be employed in determining this kind of trust.

Does This Mean If You’re Not Trusted You Won’t Get Indexed?

"PuSH wouldn’t likely replace crawling, in fact a crawl would be needed to discover PuSH feeds to subscribe to, but the real-time format would be used to augment Google’s existing index," says Marshall Kirkpatrick, who spoke in a session on the real-time web at SXSW, which also included Google’s Brett Slatkin, one of the guys responsible for PuSH (he’s in the following video explaining the technology in simple terms).

Lots of sites out there already have PuSH technology in place. For example, WordPress and Typepad blogs have the ability to "PuSH" their content. That’s a lot of content itself. A lot of user-generated content, and that means the potential for spam is huge, which is why the trust factor is so important.

If PuSh is to be heavily utilized by the search engines, and you want your content indexed as quickly as possible, you’re going to want to do what you can to build community trust and a solid reputation. One more reason to engage in meticulous online reputation management, put out great content, and engage with the community.

Do you want to see Google index the web in real-time? Discuss here.

Update: Stay tuned to live.webpronews.com for an exclusive interview ith Peter Norvig, Google’s Director or Research.

Google’s director of research Peter Norvig is talking at SMX West at 9:15 AM PST / 12:15 PM EST, and I will be liveblogging it below. Watch the video live at our new site live.webpronews.com (it will also be available there archived later if you don’t have time to watch it as it happens).

Liveblogging begins…

12:09 : Should start in a few minutes…please forgive any typos as they come

12:15 Danny Sullivan says keynote will be in just a moment.

12:16: Executive Editor of Search Engline Land Chris Sherman, Danny Sullivan, and Norvig on stage.

12:17: Norvig built shopping tool that became Yahoo Shopping…author…philosopher…world record holder (palindrome)…various introductory tidbits about Norvig….rocket scientist…performer (nutcracker performance)

12:21: Peter to show interesting things Google Research is working on…

12:22: 15 minutes for this portion, he says…after the chile earthquake, they put out a person finder, already did one for Haiti. took an hour to customize and get it out…ties in with earthquake data, after shocks..

powermeter, built by someone else, google built software that you can put in your house and monitor power you use each day. people can cut consumption by 20%…

Earth Engine – app that works over earth data and shows deforestation/rain forest…overlay for Google Earth…comes up with differentiation to see where deforestation occurs…

Street View – where no car has gone before – trike, snowmobile, up in Whistler and other spots.

User photos in street view…

12:24 Image Swirl – image recognition software…made it into regular search product. click "similar images" on any images…based on color/shape

web scale imaage annotations – taken set of images and queries that trigger images and match them up…dolphin/translations of dolphin…all words match same types of pictures….

annoyed by captchas…theyr’e getting harder and people make more mistakes….using imag rotation…rather than type in words, we’ll show picture. you rotate it back to straight up. easy to do but difficult for computers…

Google Googles – app that runs on phone with camera. take a picture of landmark, business card (create contact), product, tells you what it is..

Video scene carving – you have a pic and you want to squish it down to smaller aspect ratio – done work where you can in one frame you can make things look better…

access to lots of data they’d like to share with academic community – jobs running in our clusters – here’s list of jobs. how much memory they took, etc.

app inventor for android – introductory program devleopjment environment to teach people how to program on phones….phones more personal than PCs for younger users….more excited about doing it for the phone…

12:28Speech recognition…

12:28 Translating phone. don’t have it yet, but have the pieces…translations up to 62 languages…voice is slower to roll out.. working on languages as they go….

Low-resource MT: Yiddish…not a lot of written text…the text that is is hard to identifiy…much is actually hebrew…can be hard to tell.

Punctuation/capitalization – in transcribed speech –

12:30: Sound understanding – not a product but is in development. you should be able to go to youtube and say you want something that soundsl like a rooster and get it..takes sonogram picture of sound overtime…applies image processing algorighms..turns sound into picture…

Google Squared – Building database of attrributes…

Clustering – analysis of words within a context…

attribute exraction – recognize cluster for basic foods…

12:31 Browser size…may be applicable for optimizing clients’ sites…puts overlay over page to see what percentage of people can see certain aspects of page.

A lot of this stuff has been talked about before (including here at WPN)…

12:32 In conclusion, quotes Yogi Berra "you can observe a lot by watching…" That’s what Google is trying to do…

12:33: Sherman says most people aware of Google’s 20% time policy…asks other ways they approach research.

Norvig says anybody can go out and start a project on their own…they can go to friends and get help working on it…when they’re not busy working on their own, unless they like your project better…then Google reviews it and sees how far it can go..infrastructure makes it easy for people to do experiments…when Google evaluates it, they’re not looking at powerpoint slides, they’re looking at  a demo…

12:35 Demo will have a lot of ragged edges, but it will run at full scale…

12:36 At Google we want to build the tools so when you start out experimenting, you want to run it over the full web or the full dataset…

Some people are on loan to product groups…they jump in and out…some start out as research projects…PHDs running around with pagers all over the place trying to keep the system running and push it forward…

12:38: Sherman asks how he decides between short term/long term projects: Says pushing very hard toward doing something useful. the good theoretical things will be driven by that…

12:39: Danny asks whats the biggest things to come out of the 20% time:  Says depends on who you ask…because it’s so informal, different people have different opinions….gmail/adsense?…..both came out of playing around, but creator doesn’t think they were 20% time because they became 100% time…but Norvig thinks the came OUT of 20% time…

12:41: Machine translation did internally, than recruited a team to develop it further…

12:42: Founder involvement? They want to understand what’s going on. 2 roles: setting long range direction and trying to evaluate as many projects as possible. they’re just as hands on as they’ve always been…to them, their life hasn’t changed very much…for the rest, life has changed, because the interval is a lot longer…

12:42 Danny asks if they have 20% projects…no…does Norvig? Yes he’s looking at education search…different than short term searching….

12:43: Research facilities all over world….you want to have experts in local languages/local cultures….get translations right. type of search products for different countries…culture….aspect of needing more engineers and they’re spread out…would like to have more people working in one place.

12:46 Real-time/social search – challenge to quickly understand new relevance signals, sherman asks…one thing that is still overhyped is PAGERANK…Google has made this clear in the past…Google never felt that it was such a big factor…always looked at all available data. Combining every available signal and try to figure out the best way to combine them. infrastructure makes it possible to do real-time….they’ve had an evolution with that…indexing used to be once a month (you remember the dance)….then they went to daily…then they went to hourly, and larry was really pushing back and saying hourly’s not good enough. the team said if you want it this year, it’s the best we can do…eventually he gave in…call it the 600 second index.

12:49: Is it time to change the name of PageRank? "I think that’s right," Norvig says. Says they need some better branding…

12:50 Caffeine: in one data center stilll…testing and it’d doing "very very well" will be rolling out soon to other data centers…doesn’t know exact timing….
 
12:51 Signals/ranking – any you could share besides links? in a lot of cases, you can say google’s manufacturing links (local seach)…we try to say ‘this is a business, this is referring to something else…" book scanning…books don’t have hyperlinks, but they do have bibliographies….build links that way…community interested in trying to find right keywords/synonyms, etc. trying to help do things like that…

Division between focus on core search vs. advertising vs other products? yes, fundamental distinction…don’t want them to interfere with each other…shouldn’t mix…share some of core tech…using google file system, table infrastucture, etc. teams are working separately trying to keep things distinct.

More work put into core search vs. ads? don’t know in terms of total numbers…different types of challenges…those are the real core…most effort of the company will be focused on those….other products peripheral…boundary of new stuff…

recognizing a business off of their name…more understanding of concept of "me" or of a "company"? starting to get there…getting closer…google squared, you can ask for companies and see CEO, headquarters, revenue, etc. still alittle buggy and will keep improving…if you want right answers. you do have to understand these things…want to support these types of queries…show me these companies and rank them by revenue. unless there’s a page that does that, you’re on your own right now. google wants to do this kind of thing with you. you tell them more about how you want it, and they’ll help you build that table…

speech recognition a hard problem 20 years ago, says sherman…solved now pretty much…what kind of problems like that are there now? norvig responds….vision is the big problem now. speech/translation now able to apply…they work well…you gather more data and experience…same standard model, but we’ve gotten better at it… if you improve a percent or two every year, you’re in good shape in 20 years…vision…and video images….a challenge…in terms of computational issues…so much more data involved in a video than in a text file…being able to push that through your system…and it’s just messier..trying to parse a picture up into objects and understand what’s doing what and how they’re moving and what that means….words are nice because you can differentiate them. it’s easier. the objects are harder.

1:01 Email overload solutions, asks Danny? -an intern last summer working on that…they do have some experimental things they’ll be rolling out…prioritization and tools for helping with that…watch for that. still playing with it. another thing – is email really the right tool? for me, one reason is email is bad, is i’m on all these legacy mailing lists i don’t really need to be on. maybe just slashing all of that down and starting over will help. if the new model is wave or buzz or twitter or something else, i don’t know what the right ansewr is, but sometimes starting over is the right step. I STILL USE EMAIL MORE he says (than wave)….

1:03: Teams using wave a lot? Yes, some are…people still trying to figure out where it works, and I think we’re at a confusing point…so many tools now. you have to start something new…just within the company…

Liveblogging ends…

Check out live.webpronews.com for archived footage of the keynote, and coming up, WebProNews will have an exclusive interview with Peter Norvig.

Update: In case there is any confusion, Google will not be taking Buzz out of Gmail. The company issued this statement after some confusion in the blogosphere:

No, we’re not planning to remove Buzz from Gmail. Among some of the features we’re considering is building a standalone Buzz experience in addition to the one in Gmail at some point in the future.

Original Article: There’s no question that Google Buzz has been the topic of the week. Google took the tech and social media industries by storm as it launched its new social media product.

Already, Buzz has shown a great deal of potential, but it has also created more than a few problems and concerns. Privacy has been the key concern. The most heavily publicized and perhaps most illustrative example of this can be found in this story from a woman who was automatically connected with her abusive ex-husband. Her post begins…

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother.

My abusive ex-husband…

Google is evidently reconsidering its strategy for Buzz. Google is rolling out additional privacy adjustments to Buzz, reportedly in response to this woman’s post. People you block in Buzz still show up as following you in Google Reader and there has been no ability to block people from Google Reader, but Google is working on changing both of these. Google has issued a statement to this effect.Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan reports that Google is considering a version of Buzz that would be independent from Gmail:

“It’s clear that interest in Buzz may extend beyond the current Gmail base, and we’re open to serving that community,” said Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Product Marketing, when I spoke to him about some Buzz issues at the TED Conference.

“We think that Buzz within Gmail is a great experience, and we’ll keep offering that as well,” Horowitz said.

Google Buzz may have gotten off to kind of a rocky start in some aspects, but many others have paid the service plenty of praise. Google said as it was announced that it was only the first version, and they were counting on user feedback to help them improve it. At least they appear to be making good on that.

There’s no question that Google Buzz has been the topic of the week. Google took the tech and social media industries by storm as it launched its new social media product.

Already, Buzz has shown a great deal of potential, but it has also created more than a few problems and concerns. Privacy has been the key concern. The most heavily publicized and perhaps most illustrative example of this can be found in this story from a woman who was automatically connected with her abusive ex-husband. Her post begins…

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother.

My abusive ex-husband…

Google is evidently reconsidering its strategy for Buzz. Google is rolling out additional privacy adjustments to Buzz, reportedly in response to this woman’s post. People you block in Buzz still show up as following you in Google Reader and there has been no ability to block people from Google Reader, but Google is working on changing both of these. Google has issued a statement to this effect.Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan reports that Google is considering a version of Buzz that would be independent from Gmail:

“It’s clear that interest in Buzz may extend beyond the current Gmail base, and we’re open to serving that community,” said Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Product Marketing, when I spoke to him about some Buzz issues at the TED Conference.

“We think that Buzz within Gmail is a great experience, and we’ll keep offering that as well,” Horowitz said.

Google Buzz may have gotten off to kind of a rocky start in some aspects, but many others have paid the service plenty of praise. Google said as it was announced that it was only the first version, and they were counting on user feedback to help them improve it. At least they appear to be making good on that.

There’s no question that Google Buzz has been the topic of the week. Google took the tech and social media industries by storm as it launched its new social media product.

Already, Buzz has shown a great deal of potential, but it has also created more than a few problems and concerns. Privacy has been the key concern. The most heavily publicized and perhaps most illustrative example of this can be found in this story from a woman who was automatically connected with her abusive ex-husband. Her post begins…

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother.

My abusive ex-husband…

Google is evidently reconsidering its strategy for Buzz. Google is rolling out additional privacy adjustments to Buzz, reportedly in response to this woman’s post. People you block in Buzz still show up as following you in Google Reader and there has been no ability to block people from Google Reader, but Google is working on changing both of these. Google has issued a statement to this effect.Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan reports that Google is considering a version of Buzz that would be independent from Gmail:

“It’s clear that interest in Buzz may extend beyond the current Gmail base, and we’re open to serving that community,” said Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Product Marketing, when I spoke to him about some Buzz issues at the TED Conference.

“We think that Buzz within Gmail is a great experience, and we’ll keep offering that as well,” Horowitz said.

Google Buzz may have gotten off to kind of a rocky start in some aspects, but many others have paid the service plenty of praise. Google said as it was announced that it was only the first version, and they were counting on user feedback to help them improve it. At least they appear to be making good on that.

Super Bowl 2010 will be forever remembered for a few things: New Orleans winning their first championship, Peyton Manning’s locker room walk-of-shame and Google running their first Super Bowl commercial.

Editors Note: WebProNews interviewed CEA, the first company featured in Google’s commercial (there were 15+ featured). Even though they were only seen for a split second, you’ll be shocked by how much their traffic increased and it’s impact on their marketing plans.

While doing the interview Gina Lind, CEA‘s Director of Marketing Communications, summed up their appearance in Google’s Parisian Love commercial, "To be featured in the first couple seconds of an ad for a top brand like Google during the Super Bowl… is a marketer’s dream!"

Be sure to read the full in-depth interview below.

Would you believe being barely seen in a Super Bowl commercial would greatly increase your site traffic? Tell us what you think.

Google’s "Parisian Love" commercial ran during the 3rd quarter of the game and instantly became one of the game’s most discussed commercials. Overall, it was fairly simplistic; it featured a series of Google searches that told a cutesy little love story (just in time for Valentines Day).

The brilliance behind it’s simplicity was that each search showcased a different Google search feature: query suggestions, did you mean, Maps, language translation, web definitions, flight tracking and Google’s overall ease of use. Google managed to show off all these features without making the commercial feel cluttered… quite the achievement.

It’s common knowledge that advertising during the Super Bowl isn’t cheap. This year a 30 second spot would set you back around $3.01 million. So for around $3 million Google was seen by the largest audience in the history of television, was able to show off a ton of features and even gave some ‘collateral’ publicity to some lucky companies.

We contacted the study abroad company featured in the commercial, CEA Global Education -  GoWithCEA.com, and asked them some questions about their Super Bowl experience.

WebProNews: The Google ad, Parisian Love, was uploaded to YouTube on November 19, 2009, were you aware of its existence?

CEA: No, prior to Super Bowl Sunday, we were not aware the Google ad existed or uploaded to YouTube.

WPN: So, Google never contacted CEA and asked permission?

CEA: Google did not contact CEA to request permission; however, we are not surprised that CEA appeared at the top of the page listing, as SEO is an integral part of our marketing strategy.

WPN: Did CEA see a spike of traffic after the Super Bowl commercial aired?

CEA: CEA experienced a spike in traffic almost immediately.  As you know, the spot aired late Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning, our number of page views had increased sharply. By the end of the day, we saw nearly a five-fold increase in site traffic, especially our Paris program page, which was featured in the ad.

WPN: We saw that CEA created a video response to the Parisian Love ad… tell us about that.

CEA: Our Graphic Designer and Web Specialist had the idea Monday morning to create a response video to the Google ad. Director of Marketing Communications, Gina Lind, quickly pulled the staff together to help, not an easy feat as CEA is at the height of its application season for Summer and Fall 2010 study abroad programs.

WPN: CEA has also uploaded "A Study Abroad Love Story", was this inspired by the Google commercial? Tell us about it.

CEA: Our Project Manager remembered we had featured a true love story in a 2006 CEA Newsletter and helped to track the couple down today in Oshkosh, Wisc. Our content manager called the couple and they graciously agreed to share their story for our blog and video. Imagine our amazement when we discovered the couple’s happy announcement that, like the couple in the Google ad, they were expecting their first child!

WPN: We saw where both CEA and StudyAbroad.com shared some congratulatory tweets (1, 2). How big was this for both companies?

CEA: The study abroad community is a small, but passionate field of higher education professionals who are committed to helping students explore the world and connect with other cultures. Congratulations from any of our peers and colleagues is both heart-warming and rewarding for our staff and faculty, who work so hard both in the U.S. and abroad. At CEA, we really are a family, so we can’t help but feel proud of colleagues and the good fortune the couple and former CEA students, Kate and Allan, have had.

WebProNews would like to thank CEA for taking the time to answer our questions.

Another interesting thing about the commercial we ran across while watching the commercial (for about the 50th time) was how much Google had cleaned up their results page for the commercial. Take a look at the screenshots below; you’ll notice what we’re talking about.

It looks as though Google has removed the advanced search link, AdWords ads, and the grouped results for the top result, more than likely just to clean up the page for the commercial. But take a closer look at results page numbers, located at the top right corner; we’ve circled them above. There is a discrepancy with the two SERP numbers, to the tune of around 99,000,000 but numerous factors could be at play. What do you think could’ve caused this?

Google’s Parisian Love commercial will slowly start to fade into commercial oblivion, only returning for those annual “best commercials” shows. However, I doubt CEA will be forgetting the power of SEO, Google, the Super Bowl and a little luck anytime soon. What more could any marketer ask for?