Google UK Chief Speaks Of Focus On Mobile, Social

In nine days' time, Google will report its second quarter financial results, and no matter how well the search giant's done, at least a few critics are sure to argue that it needs to succeed in new fields. Matt Brittin, Managing Director of Google UK, seems to feel mobile and social are the two main candidates.

Google isn't exactly trailing its competitors in terms of offering mobile products and services, of course. Android has become a fairly mainstream mobile operating system, and more and more info is starting to circulate about Chrome OS, which might function in a similar space. Plus, it's already possible to access just about all of Google's existing products using any sort of smartphone.

Brittin hinted that Google's mobile efforts may soon overshadow its more traditional endeavors, however.

Brittin told Jonathan Sibun this weekend, "As growth in broadband starts to flatten off, we're seeing the next wave. The big shift is to mobile internet. Between 25pc and 30pc of consumers use their mobiles to access the internet. But in three years' time analysts believe more people will be accessing it from their mobiles than from a desktop. That's a massive change."

As for what he said with regards to social networking, Brittin wouldn't go so far as to confirm the existence of Google Me. Still, he didn't deny that a new product's in the works.

Furthermore, Brittin implied that Facebook can be beat, and the UK exec even issued a reminder that one of Google's properties has already achieved some success in the field.

"Facebook is an absolute phenomenon but there are other social networks which are successful too," Brittin said. "We've got Orkut, which is fantastically successful in India and Brazil. And Bebo is successful in other countries. It's a phenomenon that is with us to stay. I think what we'll see is the internet becoming more of a social place, as well as people being social within the context of social networks." source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Facebook Revisits Privacy Policy Ahead Of New Features

At this point, it seems inevitable that people will object to every little tweak Facebook makes; even a 99.9 percent success rate would leave around 400,000 users unhappy. But Facebook has proposed some revisions to its Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities in what appears to be an attempt to prepare everyone for some rather big changes.

One interesting amendment relates to location. Michael Richter, Facebook's general counsel, confirmed something new is in the works by writing on the Facebook Blog, "The last time we updated the Privacy Policy, we included language describing a location feature we might build in the future. . . . Now, we've got some different ideas that we think are even more exciting. . . . So, we've removed the old language and, instead added the concept of a 'place' that could refer to a Page, such as one for a local restaurant."

Richter also hinted at the existence of third-party deals, saying that Facebook's "explained the possibility of working with some partner websites that we pre-approve to offer a more personalized experience at the moment you visit the site. In such instances, we would only introduce this feature with a small, select group of partners and we would also offer new controls."



Then the other changes could be better defined as clarifications; Facebook's mostly just trying to make sure users understand how existing mechanisms work.

Google Adds More Extensions to Latest Chrome Browser

Google has just released the latest and most stable release build of its Chrome browser for Windows. Most notable features are the additional of more Chrome browser extensions and of course bookmark sync which has been tested in the browser’s previous beta version.

If you have not donwloaded the previous Chrome browser beta version, you might have missed the Extensions feature. These are just your usual Firefox plug-ins/add-ons which extend the functionality of the browser.

Right now, there are more than 1,500 available extensions in the Chrome browser extension gallery.

The other feature which made it to the latest release of Google Chrome browser is bookmark syncing. This is very useful if you used Chrome browser on different machines. It lets you synchronize all your bookmarks from one computer to another. After enabling bookmark sync, any bookmarks that you add on one browser installation will automatically appear on the other browser installation on your other computers.

For those using Chrome browser on Linux, the extensions feature is already available in the beta channel. While Mac users will have to wait some more to have the extensions and bookmark sync on their Chrome browser installations.

Facebook's 2009 Scorecard Shows Huge Gains

Simply put, Facebook had a terrific 2009. This afternoon, comScore provided some statistics that cover the entire year, and the easiest way to sum them up is by saying that double- or triple-digit growth occurred in an impressive eight out of ten categories.

According to comScore, the total number of unique visitors to Facebook increased 105 percent between December of 2008 and December of 2009, hitting 111.8 million before the new decade began. At the same time, the number of average daily visitors increased by an even greater amount: 181 percent.



Meanwhile, the total minutes and total pages viewed stats rose 198 and 151 percent, respectively. Average usage days per visitor hit 10.4 (up 37 percent), average minutes per visitor totaled 246.9 (up 45 percent), and average visits per visitor reached 27.4 (up 64 percent). And total visits increased 236 percent.

The only sort of weak metrics were the average minutes per visit measurement (down 11 percent, probably due to people visiting the site so often), and the average minutes per usage day tally (up just 6 percent).

So Facebook's certainly starting 2010 in a much stronger position than it entered 2009. And looking at the tail end of the line in comScore's graph, it doesn't appear that the social network's stats are going to plateau anytime soon.
source: http://www.webpronews.com

Skype Sees Big Jump in International Calls

Skype announced that its share of international calling minutes has jumped by 50% year-over-year. This data comes from a new report released by research firm TeleGeography.

According to this report, Skype's share of international calling minutes jumped to 12% from last year's figure of 8%. Telegeography says that the volume of traffic routed via Skype is growing at an "astonishing" pace. The following graph shows the net increase in international phone and Skype traffic from 2005 to 2009.

Skype's Peter Parkes writes on the Skype Blog:

Skype retains its top spot as the ‘largest provider of cross-border communications in the world, by far’ according to the same report. Skype-to-Skype international calling minutes grew by 21 billion in 2009, a phenomenal acceleration of almost 100%. Telegeography strategy VP Stefan Beckert said at a meeting in Honolulu (why can’t we have meetings there?) that ‘he knew Skype hit a tipping point when his grandmother started using it’.

Sten Tamkivi’s presentation at eComm in Amsterdam explored some of the backstory behind Skype’s conquest of the international long distance calling space, and included some discussion of the reasons behind Skype’s increasing ubiquity. Definitely interesting viewing, if I say so myself, and there’s a transcript over at Skype Journal if you’d prefer to digest it in text form.

It should be noted, as Skype points out, that Telgeography has slightly altered its methodology for the report this year. The firm is now comparing international Skype-to-Skype minutes to the total number of international minutes to get the 12% figure. In the past, the Skype share included Skype calls to landlines and mobiles too.

Details of the TeleGeography report, which covers much more, can be viewed here. Samples can be downloaded.

source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/19/skype-sees-big-jump-in-international-calls

Google Gets 75% Of Paid Search Clicks & Dollars: Report

Three of every four paid search clicks happen on Google, and 75 cents of every paid search dollar is spent on Google. That’s according to the latest quarterly report from Efficient Frontier, a search advertising agency that manages more than $750 million in annual digital spending annually. The stats cover Q4 of 2009, and show Google’s share of paid search clicks rising from 71% in Q3 to 74.4% in Q4. Yahoo’s share of paid clicks, meanwhile, dropped from 24.4% in Q3 to 21% in Q4. Bing’s share was down slightly, but remains up 31% year over year.

The numbers are similar on the spending side, Efficient Frontier reports. Google is the clear leader, but the company’s 74.5% share is actually down year-over-year. For the year, Yahoo remained steady at 20.4% of spend, while Bing grew 25% from Q4 2008 to Q4 2009.

The report offers an overall positive outlook on search advertising. Efficient Frontier says the retail sector led a strong Q4 2009 that was up 6% from quarter to quarter and from year to year. Retail advertisers spent 17% more in Q4 than they did a year earlier, but retail CPC was down 9% from Q4 2008 levels. The report suggests lower cost-per-click may be due to search engines experimenting with new ad formats:

“Google and the other engines are adding more features to provide comparative shopping data within the SERP, a move that is likely contributing to a retail CTR drop-off of over 40% YOY.”

Looking ahead, Efficient Frontier is optimistic for 2010. The company expects that a “moderate amount of CPC growth will accelerate growth in Q1 and throughout 2010,” and that “2010 spend growth will exceed earlier estimates of 10-15%.” The report also predicts solid growth for Bing in 2010, saying that a 30% gain is possible, which would put Bing between 6-7% of click share by the end of the year. But there’s also a warning that Yahoo’s falling share of paid clicks could offset Bing’s gains if and when the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal is approved and takes effect.

source: http://searchengineland.com/google-gets-75-of-paid-search-clicks-dollars-report-33780