Google

Google superlatives

Neville Hobson 6 Comments Business, Communication, Innovation, Reputation, Software, Technology, Web

Opening my Chrome browser this morning presented a new Google doodle highlighting Google’s 17th birthday. Many happy returns, Google! Google is a company that seems to have been here for almost ever, not just seventeen years. It’s part of the indispensible fabric that makes up our online world that began as a search engine and now embraces advertising, video, social networking, mobile, maps, and a great deal more in all its products and services. Google today is a company that brought in over $66 billion in revenue in 2014, and is one of the most admired companies in the world (currently number 2 on Fortune’s list of most admired companies) with a reach and influence that is pervasive and ubiquitous […]

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FIR #819: The ad-blocking revolution is just months away

Neville Hobson 6 Comments FIR Podcast Network

Intro: Two new FIR Interviews coming this week; Quick News: A steady percentage of Americans continue to stay offline according to Pew, LinkedIn starts building a syndicated content network, what Millennials expect from employee communications, Snapchat tweak boosts traffic for publishers; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: The ad-blocking revolution is just months away; listener comments; what’s the fate of Google+, and should communicators remain engaged?; Igloo Software promo; Dan York’s Tech Report: Cecil the lion and mob rule, latest WordPress update breaks websites, Facebook owns 20 percent of smartphone minutes; the past week on the FIR Podcast Network; Music from Peter Sharp; and more. Links to the content in this episode are on Delicious. Listen Now: […]

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How ready are you for #Mobilegeddon ?

Neville Hobson 23 Comments Business, Mobile, Software, Technology, Web

Tuesday April 21, 2015 – that’s tomorrow – is a date that will mark a milestone of sorts for any business with a website on the public world wide web. It’s the day when a company like Legal and General Group will start to see its ranking in Google search results begin to be influenced by how friendly its website is when viewed on a mobile device rather than on a desktop or laptop computer. Unfortunately for Legal and General, their website is not very friendly at all. Here’s what it looks like on my Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone running the Android operating system: It’s the regular desktop website formatted for how it would appear when you visit on a […]

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Think of the new Gmail/Google+ features as part of the identity jigsaw

Neville Hobson 7 Comments Business, Communication, Ethics, Google+, Public Relations, Society, Software, Technology, Web

Last week, Google announced the addition of an interesting new feature to Gmail – the ability for people you know on Google+ to email you even if they don’t have your email address. And vice-versa. I first heard about it through seeing posts and reports galore about “how to disable Google’s new Gmail feature,” clearly suggesting that an awful lot of people see this as something really bad and to be avoided. In fact, I’m ok with the idea as explained by Google, that enables anyone in my circles on Google+ being able to send me an email just by typing my name and using the result offered by Google. And crucially, says Google… […] Your email address isn’t visible […]

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Get used to “Ok Google”

Neville Hobson 10 Comments Communication, Experimenting, Innovation, Software, Technology, Web

Earlier this year, Google announced a new feature for search – conduct a search with your voice in the Chrome browser. To conduct a conversational search, you’d fire up Google Search; if you saw a little microphone symbol in the search box, you could click on it to activate the function, and then speak your search phrase in conversational English (or any of the other supported languages). When I tried it in May, I thought it was a bold step by Google in making everything easier in how you interact with your computer for conducting a routine task like a search. Google has now taken this to another level by doing away with the need to click anything – now, […]

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