Google+ Pages for brands launched early today, with a select group of launch partners. Later in the day, G+ Pages were opened up to everyone. ReadWriteWeb, among others, immediately created a Page. I took point on developing RWW's one and afterwards I was curious to see what other brands had done. While it's very early days, it was clear to me what works and what doesn't in Google+ Pages for brands.
Today Google+ launched Pages for brands and organizations. We don't know yet how brands will use Google+ Pages. But it's a good bet that they will be conversational, given the traction that Google+ has shown with topic-based communities.
We've dived right in and created a Google+ Page for ReadWriteWeb. Our brand is for engaged technologists to discover and discuss what's next on the Web, so we hope to get to know our community better in Google+. Circle RWW to explore the future with us!
Searchmetrics has measured the impact of last week's "freshness" updates to Google's search ranking algorithm, which affected around 35% of all searches. By measuring SEO visibility, Searchmetrics found that a clear category of sites gained prominence as a result of the update, while the few sites that lost are all over the map.
Sites that benefited from the update tend to be content sites and brand sites with frequent updates. Many are news sites, but others are travel sites or other consumer sites. The sites that lost in this update are more of a grab bag. Many of them are government websites or less time-sensitive news organizations.
Google has launched Pages for brands and businesses, creating a new type of profile analogous to Facebook's fan pages. Pages show a verified account symbol as well as a new, square icon, both at the top and on a 'Share this page' button on the left sidebar. It also has a blue 'Create a Google+ page' button. The +1 button is prominently displayed below the profile picture. Following a page adds it to a circle, just like a personal profile.
Brand pages are one of the most anticipated Google+ features, and Google has been pulling down branded profiles in the meantime. Today's launch initially only added pages for select partners, in addition to the major Google properties. Visiting plus.google.com/pages/create showed a faded preview of what's to come, but it merely says, "Please check back soon." As of around 1:00 p.m. Pacific time, Google+ reported that all users can now create pages.
Google has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a customized job search engine for returning military veterans on the National Resource Directory (NRD) website. Starting today, veterans can use the site to search over 500,000 job openings nationwide.
The site uses Google's custom search engine technology, looking for Schema.org's JobPosting markup across job listing sites to identify jobs committed to veterans. Employers only have to add the JobPosting markup to their site to be crawled and listed in the NRD. Supporting organizations can also add the search box widget to their websites.
Apple had a great month in the new app department, mostly spurred by the release of the iPhone 4S and all the iOS5-based applications that developers have been working on throughout the summer. Android also had an interesting month for new apps but the real intriguing flood will come whenever Ice Cream Sandwich becomes widely adopted and, finally, we can start adding real Android tablets apps to our apps of the month column. Check out the selections for October 2011 below. We again brought back the updates portion of the column, with a list at the bottom of important app updates users should be aware of. Check it out below.
The list, as always, is a bit subjective so please let us know in the comments if we missed an app or you have found one that you cannot live without.
Google announced a big change to its search ranking algorithm today that affected around 35% of searches. It now makes an effort to determine when a query should return more up-to-date, "fresher" search results, before more established but older links. For example, if you search for "olympics," you're likely to be looking for information about the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics, rather than older or more general information. Google search is now fine-tuned to make that assumption.
With Google+ indexed in Web search and providing real-time search data, Google now has strong signals for timeliness and relevance. By tweaking search algorithms on one side and gathering social data on the other, Google is working towards a clearer of picture of what's happening on the Web this instant.
Google unveiled two new official Chrome and IE browser plug-ins this morning that make it easy to take the Google+ social network with you wherever you go around the web.
One plug-in adds a +1 button to your browser, making it easy to share a page you're visiting publicly or just with a particular circle of contacts. The other adds the same red numbered notification badge to your browser that Google+ users see when they are on a Google property. These are smart additions that will help with user engagement and retention over time.
Today Google announced an Android app for Google Offers, its daily deal site. This new app notifies you of offers that match your interests. You can purchase them quickly from your Android phone.
This is another step forward in the mobile daily deals space for Google Offers, which debuted in June of this year. It brings Google Offers into closer competition with Groupon's Groupon Now, a real-time, on-demand app that offers limited-time deals at nearby locations, and LivingSocial's mobile app for iPhone and Android.
Today's beta release of Chrome enables users to sync different accounts across multiple computers. This allows more than one person to sign into Chrome on a shared computer and have access to all their browser data. It also enables one person to have different Chrome profiles with different email addresses, e.g. work and personal, that can all be accessed from any computer by logging in.
Chrome currently syncs bookmarks, extensions, passwords and other personalized settings to the user's Google account. Signing into Chrome from anywhere, on any computer, will bring up the user's browser, just like at home. But the current stable release only allows one account. Today's beta makes it possible to use multiple Chrome accounts on any copy of the browser.
