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Best of the Internetz 14

Google gets +1

In a direct move to combat Facebook’s “like” button, Google have introduced the “+1” button. The button will appear on articles, websites, etc for you to click and give your “public stamp of approval” towards. While I love the idea of “+1” as it taps into an already well-used terminology and acts as more of a indication of agreement, be it good or bad, rather than the positivity of a “like”, when I stop to think about it, the possibilities that come with this (if it takes off) are actually quite worrying. Let’s not beat around the bush here, Google already know everything about your internet habits. But what they don’t properly understand is the sentiment around your habits. By introducing this button, every time you click +1 Google will be able to build up a more accurate profile of you in order to better target ads and search results to you. More so though, this is actually a really smart move by Google. As the US prepares to introduce a “do not track” option for web browsing, Google will need other ways to play big brother…and this is it. Let’s just hope they remember their tagline is “don’t be evil”.

Get more info here:

Facebook announces profiles can become pages

If you are one of the many confused brands out there that is struggling to manage a business page when people keep trying to friend your profile page instead, you’ll be happy to know some changes are coming. Profiles were set up to operate for people only, however as pages became more popular for brands, many companies were setting up profiles for their employees to work from to manage the brand. The double up of pages vs profiles confused users and many were friending and fanning both, resulting in information overload. Now businesses who have built up a big friend base don’t have to worry about losing them and can convert their profile into a page and administer the page via a business account. I’m still investigating whether profiles can be merged with existing pages – fingers crossed! Stay tuned.

Amazon Music and Cloud

Best known as book sellers, Amazon have moved into music. Better still though, Amazon have launched a cloud service so you can stream your music from anywhere. You can upload 5GB of music for free and an extra 1GB for $1 per gig. It will be interesting to see how this picks up. As the first major player to offer this functionality, they will surely make huge inroads, but as they are not known for their music, will people think to use them? And is Apple just letting them go as a test before they launch their own category smashing product? Regardless, cloud music is the next big step for the music industry and one I can’t wait for!

Best of the Internetz 13

Ok, well this week is shaping up to be a bit of a Google edition, so forgive the apparent favouritism, it’s not intended but there has been some interesting things going on over there.

Google goes Gaga

In an interview dubbed “one of the most watchable pieces of tech-related content ever produced”, Lady Gaga popped into the Google offices for a 73 minute chat. Taking questions from fans via Twitter and YouTube, Gaga surprised and delighted throughout the live stream. Following the questions raised in last week’s Rebecca Black post about the validity of internet famous popstars, Gaga discussed how YouTube is in fact a “star marker” and Google’s role to help you find out more about your heroes once you know what you like. It’s not surprising that Gaga is one of the most searched stars/terms on Google, so there was actually a purpose to her making an appearance at the tech company. Check out the following video which sums up the impact of Gaga:

or watch the full interview here:

Paid Search adds video

Just when you thought you were search experts (thanks to Dom), Google goes and upgrades it again. Just launched in the US is a new “Media Ads” format, which includes a small video that expands when clicked. Initially this will only be available for movies, but I’m sure it won’t be long until you see commercials or the next “viral” hit make an appearance too.

Google Analytics is getting a makeover

If you use Google Analytics, get ready for a new dashboard. It’s going to be more customisable and you can have multiple dashboards so if you have a few people looking at the same analytics account, you can set the various dashboards to suit the needs and priorities of each user.

And in non-Google news…

Crowdsourcing event of the week

Coca Cola have joined forces with Maroon 5 to write and record a new song in 24 hours with the help of their fans. The session was streamed live and allowed fans to submit comments, potential lyrics and pictures to help inspire the band. The event generated a lot of buzz across social networks, achieving the objective of “fostering social discussion” the campaign set out to do. The finished song will be available for free download on April 1 from http://www.mycoke.com/htmls/CokeMusic. While you’re there you can also watch videos from the event if Maroon 5 take your fancy (no judgement)!

Slam Champs

Technology can be confusing and overwhelming and let’s face it, we already feel like we’re in over our head, without trying to get our head around the myriad of new tools getting released constantly. But what if it didn’t have to be so confusing? What if watching a tech video could be entertaining? Enter Google Demo Slam.

This isn’t new, in fact winners have already been announced but I still rate this initiative highly. For those of you unfamiliar, the premise is you pick a Google product, get together a few friends if you so wish, then make a video about how you use that product.

A great example in how to get people using your products, how to spread word of mouth, how to entertain and all the while, building your brand’s reputation for innovation. Suddenly I’m thinking ‘Impossible is Nothing’ should be Google’s tagline.

Toy Story 3

The marketing team for Toy Story 3 have definitely been kicking some goals lately. First we saw tickets to the film be sold via Facebook in groups of up to 80 at a time in a first for this use of the social media giant. 

Now they have joined forces with the other major player - Google. Featuring the voices of our beloved characters searching themselves, it’s a fun way of bringing them into real life, making it a win-win for the film and the search engine.