May 22, 2012

Foursquare Hosts Developers at Hackathon

Recall, it was not too long ago that Foursquare released their latest developer toolset, the foursquare API v2. Recently, in an effort to bolster the developer community and kick start more Foursquare-based apps, the company hosted their first Hack Day event in New York. According to the Foursquare dev blog, some 150 developers showed up at the event including geeks from around the States and even a few from Canada. Foursquare hosted a … [Read more...]

YouTube To Stream NBA and NHL Games?

Sports-seeking cord cutters might have reason to rejoice, or at least reason to hope:  there’s a possibility YouTube will become a major player in the way sporting events, specifically, the NBA and the NHL, will be consumed by their fans. After the success YouTube enjoyed from streaming of cricket from the Indian Premier League, Google’s online video service is looking to expand its reach by including the NBA and NHL in their sports … [Read more...]

Investing in news innovation in Europe

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog) Journalism is changing fast. And as news businesses experiment with new ways of creating and delivering journalism in the digital age, Google is keen to play its part on the technology side. Over the last year, we’ve been partnering with publishers around the world to develop technological solutions—including, most recently, One Pass—to find new and engaging ways of presenting stories … [Read more...]

Apple Event Invitations Sent, iPad 2 Basically Confirmed

Apple event invitations have been sent out for March 2nd. News of the event leaked out yesterday, but now it's official, as reporters have started receiving their invitations. It will take place at 10am Pacific on March 2nd in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. "Come see what 2011 will be the year of," the invitation teases, with a big picture of an iPad hiding behind a calendar page displaying a big number 2. The … [Read more...]

FTC Cracks Down On Mortgage Spammer

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today it has asked a federal judge to shut down a company that allegedly sent people millions of spam text messages. The text messages allegedly advertised for a deceptive mortgage modification website called “loanmod-gov.net.” The FTC is asking the court to freeze the defendant’s assets. According to the FTC complaint, the defendant behind the operation, Phillip A. Flora, sent millions of … [Read more...]

PayPal Opens New Customer Service/Operations Center

Thanks to PayPal, the unemployment rate in Chandler, Arizona should dive rather soon.  PayPal announced today that it's opening a new customer service and operations center in the city, and the center is designed to accommodate as many as 2,000 employees. This move earned PayPal a warm reception from Chandler's mayor, Jay Tibshraeny.  He stated, "PayPal is a very welcome addition to Chandler and the region on many levels.  From job creation … [Read more...]

The three laws of display advertising physics

It’s not just the Android team that is exploring the outer reaches of our galaxy. In recent years, advertising technology has had its own “Big Bang": a rapid onset of incredible growth and expansion in the display advertising universe. Display advertising is one of our big focus areas. Better display advertising helps to fund the websites and content we all use and read, provides useful and engaging commercial information, and helps large … [Read more...]

Can Groupon Own The Deals Space?

Can Groupon own the deals space the way Google owns search? It's hard to imagine the space being dominated by any one company. Forget for a second that it has Google and Facebook to contend with, and even LivingSocial (previously cited as its closest competitor). Deals sites are popping up everywhere - some focusing on local markets and different verticals - and while many may be dismissed as "Groupon clones", many are also finding that … [Read more...]

Let’s Talk about Keyword Density

Recently, I received an email question wanting to know about keyword density, asking questions like how do I deal with it, is it still a factor, and how important is it. As with most things in SEO, the answer is … it depends… Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to the Interwebz circa 2001 … Page rank was the big magilla in the ranking algorithm. It didn't matter how crappy your website was–with enough links from anywhere, you could … [Read more...]

Zacks Investment Research Downgrades Google

Investors who own shares of Google are sure to be thankful of that fact today; Google's stock rose 0.18 percent even while the Dow and Nasdaq sank 0.87 percent and 1.21 percent, respectively.  But not all the news is good, as Zacks Investment Research also downgraded Google to "neutral." That doesn't mean it's time to panic, of course.  Zacks is sticking with a price target of $662 (versus Google's current price of about $611,), and … [Read more...]