Nifty Google tricks you should know about

By Chris Smith

While most users know how to perform a search, use Gmail or navigate with Maps, they may not be aware of some of the nifty hidden tricks Google has included in its online services.

By adding “timer” after an amount of time, you can set up a timer inside the browser, and the alarm will sound when the time is up.

In case you don’t know how to say long numbers in English, all you have to do is type “=English” immediately after the number that’s giving you headaches, and Google will type it in English – you probably already know that you can perform math calculations and unit conversions (including currency) right inside the Google Search bar.

Google Tools You Didn't Know Existed

Webmaster Tools

Google's Webmaster Tools allows webmasters to monitor a site's health and traffic. Additional tools include a Structure Data Markup Helper and Google Places for Business.

Google Fonts

Google Fonts offers open source web fonts for all to use privately or commercially. As of now, there are 629 font families available. Filter fonts by thickness, slant, width and script.

Google Developers

Google Developers houses a plethora of resources that developers can use, tools such as internationalizing different websites and live presentations of tutorials. Developers can also join groups in a local area for meetups and collaboration.

Google Sky

A part of Google Earth, Google Sky allows you to explore space and star systems. In collaboration with NASA, using images from the Hubble Telescope, Google Sky is one of three subsidiaries of Google Earth, the others being Google Mars and Google Moon.

Schemer

Schemer is like a combination to-do list and social event planning app. Connect via your Google+ account, enter your preferences, and Schemer will offer some things to do around your area. A great tool for travelers who want to make the most out of a visit, as well as for locals who want to find something to do on an otherwise boring day. You can also collaborate with the friends in your Google+ Circles and see who wants to do the same things as you.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Google Docs Tutorial

Want to know how to use the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology in Google Docs/Drive?  This tutorial shows you how to use the OCR technology to convert images with text to an editable text document in Google Docs. Have fun digitizing!

danedtech.com/2012/10/16/optical-character-recognition-ocr-in-google-docs-tutorial

Google Translate Beat Boxes When You Type This Gibberish

Now, you can enjoy some a cappella, sung by Google Translate.

If you insert the below nonsensical string of characters into Google Translate, set the "to" language to German and press listen, you'll hear a beat boxer. Just copy and paste to try for yourself.

pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk

Now supports 63 languages...

German, Greek, Japanese and now Bengali is spoken by some 300 million people, and Tamil is the official language in parts of India as well as Sri Lanka and Singapore. The service has supported the most commonly spoken Indic language, Hindi, since 2008.

The support for these new languages is now live on Google Translate.

Find Out When That Email You Sent Was Read

By Alex Magdaleno

Think someone is ignoring your emails? Now you can know for sure.

Your inbox will never look the same after this.

A San Francisco-based startup called Streak has developed a free Google Chrome browser extension that's changing the email game: the extension lets email senders see when recipients open an email.

Using the extension with a Gmail account, senders will be notified when someone opened their email and who opened the email.

If that's not useful — or for some, disturbing — enough, Streak will also tell you where the email was opened. The extension will put the email on a map, giving the user real-time location updates about the recipients.

An eye icon will appear when a user views an email sent with Streak. When the recipient opens the email, the eye icon will turn green, signaling the sender that their email has been read. The recipient doesn't need to have Streak installed for the email sender to be notified that the email was opened.

The sent email will not notify the recipient that their email is being tracked. Streak isn't the first service to perform this function; Bananatag also notifies a user when their email has been read, but requires a monthly fee to send more than 5 emails, and doesn't give you locations.

Streak was designed for customer relationship management, and also features tools for sales, support, hiring, scheduling emails and sharing emails company-wide. It also works with Gmail in the Safari browser, as well as Google Apps accounts for businesses.

Streak is free while in beta; the developers plan to maintain a free version of the extension as it continues in development.

Google Unveils Tool to Help Beat Data Caps

By Brad Reed

Google unveils new tool to help you beat AT&T and Verizon’s data caps

Data caps are one of the wireless industry’s least popular concoctions and they figure to get even less popular as mobile applications become more bandwidth intensive.

Google, however, is trying to help you stay ahead of the curve with a new tool that it’s launched for its mobile Chrome browser for iOS and Android that it says can help you reduce your data consumption by up to 50%. The new feature is powered by an SPDY proxy connection that runs on Google’s servers and that Google says “optimizes and transcodes all images to the WebP format, which requires fewer bytes than other popular formats, such as JPEG and PNG.”

To enable it in your Chrome mobile browser, first make sure you have the latest version of Chrome, then click on “Settings” and then “bandwidth management.”

From there you’ll see an option that reads “Reduce data usage” that you simply have to switch to “on.”

Google's all-or-nothing plan to make you a Google+ user

By Molly McHugh 
Digital Trends
 

Since Google+ launched, Google has created a variety of ways to loop users into the budding social network — and then keep them there. The brand has integrated its other Web products into G+, and more and more is beginning to go its own route when it comes to tying in social content. If you are among the few who liked Social Search and wanted those tweets mixed in with search results, you’ll now notice that these have been replaced with Google+ posts — and if you want to interact with them, you’d better get on board with the Google social site.

But in comparison to Google’s new plan of attack, these were relatively timid ways to rope in users. Now, all users who want to create a new Google account will automatically be added to Google+. Say you only want to create an email address. Too bad, you are obligated to be a member of the social network as well.

Google’s redesigned the landing page for creating your new account as well, and the layout and instructions emphasize you’ll be roped in to more than one property. “Talk, chat, share, scheduled, store, organize, collaborate, discover and create,” the site says. “Use Google products from Gmail to Google+ to YouTube, view your search history, all with one username and password, all backed up all the time and easy to find at (you guessed it) Google.com.”

Google’s been criticized for doing a poor job of integrating its various Web properties, and early G+ criticism saw users begging for the ability to reach their other accounts within the site. The company deserves kudos for quickly addressing whats its new social users were asking for, and doing it relatively quickly. But in traditional platform fashion, we’re now being given an ultimatum: It’s all or nothing. It’s a really user-unfriendly way to go about things, but one that is sure to spur G+ numbers – which have been climbing regardless. Google says the social network now has 49 million users and traffic is up 55-percent.

You always need to read between the lines with reports like these, and now we’ll be forced to even more. We can imagine that plenty of new Google account holders will turn their G+ off altogether, limiting their profile entirely and keeping themselves unreachable (if that’s you, follow this link and change all the settings to “only you”).
www.google.com/settings/plus

Google ‘+1′s for sale!

By Molly McHugh
 

A +1 sale operation was uncovered, giving Websites the option to buy their way into what they would believe to be a better social search ranking.

It’s time to talk about another Google+ – the +1 button Google introduced. The feature was officially rolled out in 2011 as an answer to the Facebook Like, allowing users to recommend content that their friends will then see via Google’s social search.

The +1 button launch brought concerns as to how the application would affect SEO. And while exactly how it affects page rank isn’t entirely obvious yet, we know it does. Which is why it makes perfect sense that +1s are now for sale.

A report in The Atlantic brought our attention to a site called Plussem.com, which is offering +1s to boost your site. At Plussem, for $20 you get 50, $70 nets you 250, all the way up to $360 for 2,000. The site describes itself, saying:

“Google are [sic] now striking back at Facebook with there [sic] version of the Like button. This will be used to judge contents [sic] worth [sic] by using real people to rate it rather than there [sic] own bots. To cheat the searching algorithm be sure to get the ball rolling for your site by purchasing Plus Ones.”

If you were able to muddle your way through that grammatically-challenged mission statement, you know that there isn’t some complicated operation going on here: The site has a person with a verified Gmail account click +1 on your desired content and that way each +1 your site gets originates from a different IP address. Plussem also spreads out its +1 bingeing to make it that much more convincing. We contacted Plussem to ask about their process and if they would like to comment on the attention their site is getting. We were told that ”‘where there is demand there will be supply.’ I can not explain our process publicly. I can only say that we deliver our customers the service they request for a fair price.”

An SEO company trying to game Google is hardly revolutionary. The company’s stranglehold on search is motivation enough for Web publishers to attempt to understand the nooks and crannies of its algorithm – and to then exploit them. And Google does everything it can to keep its page rank process a mystery, possibly to a fault. Its Panda updates this year had varying results, and in some cases actually hurt its content farm crackdown. So given the power it wields over search, we don’t think it’s inappropriate for Websites to do what they can to figure it all out and try to boost their page rank.

That said, this type of marketing is generally bad news. First of all, we wouldn’t trust our money anywhere that can’t figure out the difference between “their” and “there” – that’s reason enough for caution. Secondly, +1s aren’t really worth the money at this point. The feature doesn’t have the kind of pull a Facebook Like does yet given Google+’s limited userbase. On the new social network, you can see what users give a +1 – but there simply isn’t a wide enough population on the site to make that useful yet.

Currently, +1s don’t have a big effect on search results. You only see them when one of your Google contacts +1s something, and we’re willing to bet you aren’t Gmail buddies with the spammers working for Plussem. Eventually +1s might become more visible to a larger population, but that isn’t currently the case.

Not to matter. The site that operates Plussem, SEOShop.biz, also sells Facebook fans, fake product reviews, forum posts, and a handful of other faux marketing services for your site. The SEO world is riddled with this type of trickery, and we don’t necessarily advocate against exploring and experimenting with methods to boost page rank. But given Google’s harsh punishments for this type of activity and its ever-changing algorithm, this particular scheme and many like it are definitely not worth the risk.

Google promotes Web journalists – as long as they have Google+ profiles

By Molly McHugh

Is a new tool from Google helping writers promote their work or cornering them into using Google+?

Google announced it would begin offering writers a new way to promote their work on the Web. Now, in Google News, writers have the option of having their identity given some spotlight alongside their stories. Given the obvious effect Google rankings can have on a site’s performance, this is inarguably an important tool.

But there’s always a hitch, and this time it’s the fact that you aren’t linking in your Internet profile of choice. Instead, you have to sync your work to your Google+ account.

It’s a poorly veiled—maybe even completely forthright—attempt on Google’s part to create a little Google+ interest and activity. While Google continues to protest the site’s success, users and analysts (and in one case a Google team member) complain the social network has become stagnant. Google itself seems to be halfheartedly reclassifying Google+, saying long term plans for the site haven’t revealed its true purpose, that it’s really a platform for looping you into Google’s Web properties as a whole.

And if that’s the case, then tempting writers with the lure of Web notoriety makes sense. The language Google uses in linking your authorship with your Google+ account also makes us a little wary. The site asks you to go to Google+, list your work email, make it universally public, and then verify its authenticity. Call us conspiracy theorists, but combine the remaining unknowns about the Panda update, the mystery of what exactly the +1 button does for page rank, and Google’s general secrecy about its algorithms, and we can’t help but wonder if verifying your place of work doesn’t help bump your articles further up the chain.

That isn’t to say there wouldn’t be any benefit from this: There are Internet “writers” and then there are Internet writers—and knowing a little more about them can help readers gauge where their information is coming from. For example, do  you want to read an article by someone whose Google+ profile lists him as employed by Taco Bell and living in “the man cave,” or by someone who has a background in the subject at hand and a corresponding work email address?

Of course there are sweeping generalizations that can be made when you’re cornered into linking one specific Internet identity to your work life. Google has danced around the issue of Web anonymity, and this would seemingly force writers’ hands into proclaiming themselves—and possibly into maintaining and using a Google+ profile. And it also makes a statement: If you choose to keep things private on the Internet, you lose. Even if using this new tool from Google doesn’t improve your site’s page rank, it will likely make those who do choose to use it seem more credible. Readers will see an image, how many Circles you’ve been added to, and a link to your Google+ page. Of course, being included in three Circles isn’t exactly attractive—hence your desire to become a more active Google+ member.

Update: Google to Retire Checkout

Google announced two enhancements to the Google Wallet platform. The Instant Buy API enables merchants to offer a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers on their Android apps and websites, while processing their own payments. In addition, the new Wallet Objects API enables merchants to engage their customers with loyalty, offers, and more.

As we continue to build the Wallet platform, we must focus our priorities. That is why we are announcing today that we will retire Google Checkout.

Merchants can continue to accept payments using Google Checkout until November 20, 2013. 

If you are a U.S. merchant that does have payment processing, you can apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy, which offers a fast buying experience to Google Wallet shoppers.

Sellers of digital goods on Google (Google Play, Chrome Web Store, Offers Marketplace and Google Wallet for digital goods) will automatically transition to Google Wallet and will not be impacted.

•	We will continue to process Checkout transactions until November 20, 2013. The last date for refunds will be December 20, 2013.
•	After November 20, 2013, all order reports and history will be available for download.

How to Use Google's New Top Charts Feature to Improve Your Web Content

BY Eric Siu

As a webmaster, the more you know about your website visitors, the better able you'll be to target future promotions, stock changes, content and more to their needs. Google has a new tool that can help with this.

Conventional keyword research can make it difficult to identify overarching trends within your industry. As an example, suppose you run a website that recommends different credit cards and bank accounts to personal finance readers. You want to know which banking brands are trending among your followers, but when you use your keyword research tool, you get a jumble of results that are hard to interpret.

A keyword list was generated using the search term "bank" within Google Adwords.
SunTrust Banks was represented twice on this list using different spellings. In order to get a complete idea of how many of your readers are interested in SunTrust Banks, you'd need to add all the different SunTrust related keywords together and compare your total against other aggregate options.

This is where Google's new Top Charts feature comes in handy. 
Top Charts provides cumulative trend data in more than 40 categories. Essentially, these charts reveal the subjects that people in a given industry are most interested in based on overall search habits -- not on individual keyword volumes.

SEO Basics: Keyword Research Made Easy

BY Eric Siu

When it comes to optimizing your website for search engines, knowing the best keywords for your brand is critical. But sometimes the process of researching your keywords can get out of hand.

A keyword, or keyword phrase, is an easy way of referring to the queries people type into the search bars of their favorite engines. As a website owner, you want to know which keywords your customers are searching for so that you can use SEO best practices to optimize your site for them and improve your chances of appearing in the natural search results for these queries.

Say, for instance, that you run a pet-grooming business in Bloomington, Ill. You want your website to appear at the top of Google's list for the keyword phrase "pet grooming Bloomington, Ill."

You might have already read about the importance of things like keyword competition or keyword search volume when conducting your keyword research. But forget all of that for a moment. The only keywords you need to worry about when you're starting out are the keywords your customers are actually typing in to their search engines.

There are a few different ways you can find these keywords:

Use your customer research knowledge.
Nobody knows your market better than you do. Instead of relying on a third-party keyword generating tool, start writing out a list of all the different keyword variations your customers might be searching for. Following our previous example, a pet grooming keyword list might include "pet haircut Bloomington, Ill," "dog grooming Bloomington, Ill" and "pet grooming Ill."

Look in Google Analytics.
If you have Google Analytics installed on your website, log in and head over to the "Traffic Sources" menu. There, you'll be able to separate your organic search visitors and see a list of the keywords they used to get to your website. Unfortunately, a large number of your results will come up as "Not Provided" (thanks to anonymous browsers and Google's proprietary reasons), but add the phrases that you do see to your growing keyword list. You can also find similar information in your Google Webmaster Tools account.

Leverage Google's "Related Searches".
You can also head over to Google and conduct searches for each of the individual keywords you've come up with to this point. Then scroll down to the bottom of the results. There, you should see a separate section where Google lists other keywords that are related to your original phrase. If any of these keywords are relevant to your business, they deserve a place on your keyword list.

Once you have an initial keyword list compiled, you can start thinking about keyword search volume and keyword competition. Head over to the Google Adwords Keyword Planner, which recently replaced the External Keyword Tool. You'll need a Google Adwords account to access the tool, but you should be able create an account without funding it right away. Alternatively, if you prefer to use another keyword tool, such as Wordtracker (plans start at $69 per month) to research search volume, use that one instead.

Once in the Google Adwords Keyword Planner, select the option labeled "Enter or upload keywords to see how they perform" and paste your list into the text box that appears. Modify the targeting options if necessary and then click the "Get search volume" button.

The screen that appears will give you a rough estimate of the average number of monthly searches each keyword receives and how competitive Google thinks the phrase is. There's no hard and fast rule about the minimum number of monthly searches you should aim for, as your threshold will be determined by the size of your audience and the profit margins of your products.

For example, if your market is small and your website only receives an average of 1,000 visitors per month, a keyword with a monthly search volume of 100 visitors could be quite lucrative. But if you're serving a larger market and operate on miniscule profit margins, it might not be worth your time to optimize your site for keywords with less than 3,000 to 5,000 average monthly searches.

Search competition is similarly subjective. If you're in a competitive market, you might not have a choice but to target tough keywords. At the same time, just because a keyword has low competition doesn't mean you should optimize your site for it -- especially if it isn't well-targeted to your customers.

If you're struggling to get started with keyword research, I recommend not worrying too much about either one of these metrics. Start by tailoring your sites to the keyword phrases your visitors are mostly likely to use to find your site, assuming that their Keyword Planner results show at least a few monthly searches.

Only after you've cut your teeth on these introductory phrases should you start to worry about metrics-driven keyword research.

How to Make Your Website More Mobile-Friendly

BY Barbara Findlay Schenck

Forget about designing your website for mobile devices. Instead, design your website for all devices, from tiny phones to huge living room flat-screens.

"Nearly every business needs to adapt to reach consumers effectively on any screen," says Janine Warner, a globally recognized digital design and Internet trends consultant who I caught up with on her way to Abu Dhabi, where she took the World Summit Award stage to share multiple-screen strategies before a vast audience of international mobile specialists.

"There are two basic strategies for building websites that display well on all devices: responsive and adaptive," she explains. "And responsive sites are the best bet for most small businesses." Following is a translation of what that lingo-laden sentence means, along with key steps your business should be taking.

At a minimum, adjust your existing site for today's Web users. No business can afford to ignore the fact that more than a billion people primarily access the Web from mobile devices. Even if you're not ready to rebuild your site for optimal display on all devices, at least take one of the following two steps:

Simplify your site design.
Pull up your website on a smartphone (or view it on the Google PageSpeed Insights) and you'll probably see the need for design changes. To display well on mobile, Warner recommends simpler page designs, large font sizes, critical information placed "above the fold," and big, touchable buttons that are fat-finger-proof. Minimally, she says, "You'll go a long way toward delivering key information on any device simply by putting your name, phone number and a link to a map at the top left of your home page where it is easy to find."

Create a mobile version of your site.
As an alternative to editing your website, you can create a parallel version, using mobile-site-design services, many of which are free or low cost. "But there are tradeoffs," Warner says. "If your mobile site has a second URL, such as one with a .m subdomain, search engines may or may not find it." Both Bing and Google advocate a one-URL approach for findability and search engine optimization. "Still, if you love your site or can't afford to rebuild it, creating a mobile site that links to your main site isn't the worst strategy," Warner says. "The worst strategy is to ignore your mobile audience altogether."

Better yet, rebuild your site for display on any device.
Here's where the terms adaptive and responsive site design come into play:

Adaptive design is the high end of website design. It's used by big companies that invest -- heavily -- to reach the largest possible online audience. "American Airlines is a good example," Warner says, explaining that adaptive design "detects and identifies the user's device and then generates a page matched to the device capabilities."

Responsive design is a more affordable solution that uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology to create a single version of a website that auto-adjusts to display properly on all devices except the oldest cellphones. "A responsive site allows you to reach the most active Web audience," Warner says. As an example, she pulls up the site of The Boston Globe, clicks on the right edge of the browser window and drags to the left, shrinking the page from full screen to an area the size of a smartphone. No matter how small she makes the display area, the Globe's responsive design looks good and is easy to read.

Commit to future-proof your website
As you prepare to make long-delayed investments in your business, put website redesign high on your list so you'll be ready to reach consumers via their phones, tablets, PCs, TVs or, soon, refrigerator doors, bathroom mirrors and more.

Even DIY platforms, ranging from GoDaddy.com to WordPress and many in between, are starting to offer designs that work on a variety of screen sizes. "Just be sure the theme you use is labeled responsive," Warner says.

Alternatively, she says that for a few thousand dollars or more, a professional designer can create a good custom website, "unless the designer doesn't know the term responsive, in which case you need a different designer."

Finally, once you get the technology right, turn your attention to creating great website content. "Remember," Warner says, "that especially on mobile devices, people access your website for three reasons: to save time, to connect with others and to waste time. So give them quick and easy access, put your contact information front and center, give them links to maps and directions, and then add video or other amusements to keep them on your site for as long as they want to stay."

That's how to future-proof your site.

How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business

BY Jayson DeMers

There are numerous variables that go into running a successful social media campaign. Factors like quality and frequency of posts, along with proper engagement quickly come to mind. These are obviously important, but choosing the network that caters to your target audience is equally important.

Since there can be a disparity in terms of user demographic on different social media sites, you should understand which network best fits your business before launching a full blown campaign. Here is a rundown of the demographic of some of the most popular networks to help you choose which one to use.

Facebook and Twitter
These two heavyweights are at the top of most marketers to-do list, and rightfully so. With Facebook recently surpassing one billion total users worldwide, it can be used by marketers to reach consumers in nearly any industry. Twitter isn’t all that far behind with over 500 million users that also are seeking content in a multitude of niches. Consequently, both Facebook and Twitter tend to be great places to start your campaign and test the waters.

If your business has a broad demographic, you should be able to effectively reach your audience. The same thing can be said even if you have a relatively small demographic, and you’re trying to zone in on a smaller segment of the population. Regardless of your industry, you should be able to bring exposure to your business and establish a community around it.

While creating a presence on both of these networks is applicable for nearly any business, Facebook can be even more advantageous when you’re looking to reach females between the ages of 18 and 29. According to CMS Wire, the vast majority of Facebook users are women and young adults, which makes it ideal if this is your business’s main demographic.

When it comes to Twitter, it’s also popular with a young audience between the ages of 18 and 29. A large part of its user base is comprised of African Americans and individuals living in densely populated, urban areas.

Google+
Although this network didn’t receive all that much attention a few years ago, it’s seen steady growth and currently has over 500 million users. Unlike Facebook and Twitter which have a relatively balanced gender demographic, Google+ is heavily favored by males. According to Social Statistics, nearly 70 percent of total users are male, which makes it the perfect network if your business focuses on this demographic.

Taking it one step further, the majority of the users are fairly well educated with many having a background in technology based fields like web development and software engineering. Nearly 44 percent are single and nearly 42 percent are looking for friends. As a result, launching a marketing campaign on Google+ could serve you well if your company offers a product or service that appeals to men that fall into these categories.

LinkedIn
If you’re looking to grow your business and gain B2B networking opportunities, LinkedIn is an effective way to do so. Unlike many other social media sites that are more casual in nature, this one is more designed for educated professionals that are looking to advance their careers. According to statistics by Quantcast, the majority of users have earned either a bachelor’s degree or completed grad school. Male users outweigh females, and a large percentage of them have no children.

LinkedIn users also tend to earn considerably more money than those on other networks. For instance, individuals earning over $150,000 annually account for the largest number of users. Not far behind are individuals earning between $100,000 and $150,000.

Another factor that differentiates this network from others is the average age of its users. Unlike many that cater to a younger demographic, LinkedIn users are typically older and range between 25 to 64 years of age. If you want to connect with an audience that is well-to-do and mainly consists of business professionals, this can be the perfect resource.

Pinterest
This social media site has really gained a lot of momentum in the past couple of years. While it pales in comparison to the user base of Facebook and Twitter, it’s seen plenty of growth since its conception and could be a major contender in the near future. The concept of Pinterest is incredibly simple, which involves “pinning” images onto boards.

This simplicity combined with its eye appealing aesthetic probably accounts for the success it has seen. Like Google+, Pinterest also has a significant disparity in terms of gender. The difference is that it swings the other way and has a massive female user base of around 72 percent.

Most users are relatively educated and have either attended college or have at least a bachelor’s degree. Users are primarily Caucasian and between the ages of 18 and 50. Going even deeper, the top geographic location of Pinterest is the south east United States including states like Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. Due to the large volume of females who use this network, some of the most widely shared content is based in the following niches.

    Cooking and recipes
    Arts and crafts
    Clothing and fashion
    Home décor
    Home design
    Gifts

If your business focuses on any of these areas, Pinterest can be a potential gold mine. Since this site is image centric, it’s a great resource for displaying pictures of your products or services in action. It’s also possible to achieve a level of virality on this network because of the ease with which users can share content.

Tumblr
Many business owners have heard of this site, but aren’t necessarily sure how it can fit in with their marketing campaign. In a nutshell, Tumblr is a microblogging site that allows users to share a variety of content including text, images, audio and links. They can upload their own original content or re-blog content from other users. It has an incredibly easy to use interface which many people find appealing and has contributed to Tumblr’s success. While you could consider this network in its early stages, more and more legitimate brands like IBM and J Crew are taking the time to build their presence on it.

The most noticeable aspect of this site is its young audience. If you’re in a business that’s looking to reach people over the age of 35, then Tumblr isn’t for you. However, if you’re mainly looking to connect with consumers between 13 and 25, you should definitely consider this network. One of the most interesting statistics is that more young people in this age group now use Tumblr than Facebook. According to The Real Time Report, 61 percent of teens and 57 percent of young adults use Tumblr regularly, while only 55 percent of teens and 52 percent of young adults use Facebook regularly.

While it’s not completely clear why Tumblr is so popular among young people, it’s suspected that it relates to the fact that most parents aren’t using the site. Consequently, teens and young adults can use it without their parents constantly keeping tabs like they can on Facebook and other more notable networks. If your business offers a product or service that’s youth oriented, Tumblr can be an excellent choice. The best part is that competition is likely to be minimal for at least a few years.

Paint Your Own Lush Music Video

by Taylor Hatmaker

With Google's browser-based experiment 3 Dreams of Black is an interactive experience that puts WebGL and HTML5 to the test.

Paint your own lush music video with Google's browser-based experiment A new music video crafted to promote Google Chrome is more than a creative way to flex the browser's muscle — it's also a fully interactive experience that lets you transform buffalo herds into tarantulas and sprout flowers on the fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifly, all just by moving your mouse. The video, called 3 Dreams of Black, also coincides with the release of Rome, the new project by famed producer Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi. It was http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmentioned earlier this week at Google I/O, wedged between Google's more gadget-centric announcements, and is now viewable online at "ro.me".

3 Dreams of Black is an experimental web film (created by Chris Milk and Google) that stretches HTML5's wings with a tool called WebGL. The advent of WebGL may not have you on the edge of your seat — it is a programming language, after all — but WebGL is poised to unlock the potential of browser-based 3D graphics. After a bit of a wait in loading time (it's worth it), you can generate blossoming vines and swooping birds of paradise just by pointing your cursor and making it so. Budding developers can even add to the video's third dreamscape with a built-in tool, so naturally you might see some Android and Reddit-themed statues pop up as the song winds down.

ro.me

4 Low-Cost Ways to Turbo-Charge Your Website

BY Jonathan Blum

Creating the most dynamic and effective business website doesn’t have to break the bank. With reasonable effort, investment and a modicum of Web know-how, you can either build a website or significantly improve your existing Web presence -- for less than $200 in one-time costs.

To do so, you’ll need to know which tools are essential and how to use them. Here are four low-cost ways to get your site not only functional, but attracting customers and helping you close more sales.

1. Get a professional look.
One of the easiest ways to create an effective, low-maintenance website is to combine off-the-shelf content management systems with a pre-made Website template. That way you have a unique-looking site that’s distinguished from basic Web tools such as Google’s Blogger format or Typepad that can also support complex live content.

Among the most popular website hosting services that support free content management systems are WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. All can manage dynamic content without any tricky or costly coding on your part.

The basic software packages for Joomla, Drupal and WordPress are free. Premium features and extensions, such as e-commerce tools, can be purchased but prices vary. Downloading and installing the basic and advanced versions of these tools does require an understanding of Web software. WordPress, however, offers a hosted version which doesn’t require any software installation.

You’ll also need a professional-looking template for your site that is compatible with your content management system. Options include New York-based Template Monster, which lets users narrow down themes based on business type and website purpose. Templates can cost about $50 each.

2. Analyze your website.
Not getting an accurate picture of how customers use your site might be the single biggest mistake online businesses make. Analytics tools can help you find out how many people visit your website, how much time they spend on each page and what service referred them.

One option is Visistat, which not only offers a number of web analytics services but also tracking of your online marketing campaigns and behavioral data on your site’s visitors. The average package costs about $50 per month.

But the most popular and perhaps the most effective analytics tool is Google Analytics. This free service generates deep, constantly updated visitor statistics. Installation usually only requires you to copy and paste a line of tracking code into your Website code, although some content management systems including WordPress make it even easier through plugins.

3. Get feedback.
Constructive criticism can be key to any business website. While full-on website testing technologies can be effective, they can also be costly.

Southborough, Mass.-based uTest offers access to a global network of 50,000 Web-connected testers and can create custom testing templates for everything from usability to security. Basic usability testing starts at several thousand dollars per engagement.

But there are numerous low-cost online testing services that can provide reviews. For example, Washington, D.C.-based Feedback Army lets businesses post four to six questions about its website, which are answered by online testers. Prices start at $20 for 10 reviews. For $39, Mountain View, Calif.-based UserTesting.com, can provide you with a video of an actual human tester using your website and talking about it as he or she navigates it.

4. Integrate social media.
Your website should link to your business’ social media accounts, but it’s even more important that your visitors be prompted to share your website through their own social media identities.

Most social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, provide detailed instructions for how to insert “Like”, “Share”, “Comment”, and “Tweet” buttons onto your Web page. Depending on how your website is hosted, can be installed as simple as copying and pasting some code into a website template or downloading and installing a plugin.

They also provide feeds showing your Facebook updates, Tweets and other ways people are interacting with your website -- which can be some valuable information when it comes to knowing your customers.

Bottom line: Working through the fundamentals of good design, compelling dynamic content, properly installed social media and user data can be the fastest and most affordable ways to gets results online.

Trust Google's Keyword Tool?

from SEroundtable.com

Google provides a very popular Keyword Suggestion Tool that many SEMs rely on.
But, a HighRankings Forum thread questions how trustworthy the tool is.

Many SEMs use the tool because it is convenient and Google provides the estimated search volumes. At the same time, many SEMs know how to take Google's estimates and apply them to their campaigns. Experience and campaign history helps SEMs learn this trade.

In fact, did you know that the keyword tool allows you to adjust the type of query based on match type? After you run the tool, you can then click on a drop down menu to select the match type, broad, phrase, exact or negative match.

Research Results

I believe you get "better" numbers when logged in to Adwords and use exact match.
As we know that these are not actual numbers but more of a index against the set of keywords being researched. I tend to go with Global versus Local as well.

One of the big issues, is that if you run the report for a word that is not on an
advertiser list yet, so there is no competition for that word, it gives you a totally wrong amount of queries you can get per day.

Like any keyword tool, the Google Keyword Tool needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are always going to be irrelevant queries, and for that reason I would never simply add them without taking the time to scrub them and identify other expansions. However, the tool is generally valuable for identifying head terms and modifiers.

No keyword tool is perfect.

All of you are not believing on the tool provided by Google because it's free. If Google were charging you for their tools like: KeywordExternalTool, Google Trends, Google Insights, SKTool (Search Based Keyword Tool) etc... you would appreciate them.

Second, the tools provided by Google are not for Publishers but are for Advertisers.
So if you want to use these tools for your keyword research, you will have to learn
the whole process of Keyword and Market researching.

Tell me one thing. who knows you better than you? YOU youself, have you any doubt
on this fact? Who knows exactly which keywords have been searched mostly on GOOGLE?
It knows only Google exactly.

You believe on WordTracker which is depending on DogPile and MetaCrawler that cover
only 2% market of the US and UK. What about for the other 98% market and rest of the
countries of the world?

You believe on the data of KeywordDiscovery, and on what it depends? Near about on
200 small search engines.

All keyword tools capture their data from Google, Yahoo and MSN and after normalizing that data, they serve you and you believe on them because they charge you while Google, Yahoo and MSN are not charging you a penny, you can't believe on their results.

Profitable Market and Profitable Keyword Research is a Step by Step long process.
You can't make decision in 10 minutes about which keyword is good and which is not.

Second thing is, which keyword is looking best, have you ever checked the Complexity
Factor of the keyword, Search Volume and Actual Competition count of the keyword?

If you don't know properly about all these 3 most important factors, you can never
capture right market and right keyword.

Don't blame on the Tools given by Google. All the tools are giving their best results offered by Google. The problem is not in the Data given by Google. The problem is we don't know how to use the data properly and efficiently and how to make right decisions on the basis of this data.

Be Positive.

No other site or company gives you results and tools like Google, Yahoo and MSN for free. These are the biggest Search Engines at the current time. Why would they give you wrong results which can hurt their reputation?

The problem is not in Data given by the tools, the problem is in our Researching Process. If an external tool is saying 3000 searches per month for any keyword it means 100 searches per day and each SERP has a minimum of 15 links: 10 for Organic and 5 for Sponsored.

Top 3 results captures 60% clicks. It means only the top 3 results are getting 60 clicks and the rest of the 10 to 12 links get 40 clicks. If you are getting 5th position for any keyword and you think that you will get 100 clicks per day, it's a problem of your mind because you are going to get clicks from rest of the 40 clicks and 10 other sites that are in your competition.

The summary is that if any keyword is getting 3000 clicks per month and you are
not in the top 3 on SERP, you are not going to get more than 2 to 5 clicks per day.

Yes, I trust Google's Keyword Tool. In fact, I think it's so great, it can be used to determine ideas for successful domain names. I wrote an entire blog about how this tool helps you accomplish this:
www.themasterblog.com

Google's Keyword Tool

ONLINE RESOURCE OF THE MONTH

GMail Drive
Reviewed by CNET Staff

GMail Drive takes the short stack of gigabytes given to Gmail users and turns them into a virtual drive accessible from your computer's file tree.

In short, it creates a shell name--a space extension that creates a virtual file system around the account. This lets you treat those 5 gigs (at the time of writing) as a standard remote drive. You can drag and drop files into the drive, or use standard cutting and pasting. When you add a file, it sends an e-mail to your Gmail account with the file as an attachment. If you delete a file from the virtual drive, it deletes the associated e-mail, as well.

There's not much else users can do with GMail Drive. It's an effective tool, but lacks any additional features. It does allow for proxy authentication and secure HTTP, it preserves long filenames, and it can auto-login, a useful touch for those who want to regularly use their Google account for file transfers.

Download here:
download.cnet.com/GMail-Drive

Amazon vs. Google...

by Chris Dixon

There's lots of buzz in the media about the "Marketplace War" between eBay and Amazon, the "Search War" between Google, Bing, Yahoo! and the "Mobile War" between Google and Apple.

Today, serial entrepreneur Chris Dixon shines light on the real potential loser from Amazon's dominance - Google.

We've long thought at ChannelAdvisor that it is interesting that Google has taken their eye off of the core business. It's somewhat reminiscent of eBay's focus from 01-08 on all things 'not eBay': China, Skype, etc. which left the core marketplace business atrophied and open to competition from Amazon.

Google gets approximately 40% of its revenue from the 'retail' vertical, yet since Google Checkout (atrophied), hasn't done anything to really innovate in the vertical. In the meantime, Amazon has created the best product search engine which is gobbling up share hand over fist. Sooner or later consumers will stop using Google to start the search, and just use Amazon.

A couple of data points indicate this is already happening:

• Amazon's revenue is growing faster than Google on a y/y basis
• Amazon's traffic is growing faster than Google's
• For many customers that are on both Google (Adwords) and Amazon, Amazon's same-store-sales are growing much faster than Googles.

Perhaps with the appointment of Stephanie Tilenius as VP of e-commerce at Google, they realize this is a potential problem for them. Stephanie gave a talk at ChannelAdvisor's Catalyst recently and hinted at some big things to come. She also spoke in early June at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE for you home gamers) and the title of the talk was "Google enters the e-commerce arena".

ONLINE RESOURCE OF THE MONTH

Gmail Gets Drag-and-Drop Attachments
by Josh Lowensohn, cnet.com

Google put out a pair of small, but useful Gmail updates on Thursday that make it both easier to use and more integrated with the company's free Calendar service. Notably, both have skipped a trial through the service's "labs" section, and gone straight through to the final product.

The first is drag-and-drop attachments, a feature which lets you drag files from your desktop machine right into your e-mail message to have them begin uploading. It works the same as the system Google implemented in its Wave service for photos and other media types. It also has the same requirement of the user having to run Google Chrome or Firefox 3.6.

To use it within Gmail, users just drag any file from their hard drive (or from within an open application) into a new green box that appears within the compose menu. The service then uploads it in the background, which--just like uploading any other attachment--lets you do other things as the bits are being pushed.

More here...