Linkedin Today has a new look and new channels to make it easier for people to follow news in their fields. See — LinkedIn Today Introduces Content Channels (EContent May 9)
You’ll see “Your News”, Influencer Posts, All Influencers, All Channels.
Get language packages from Google Translate on your Android mobile device. Can look up word, speak, write, take a photo and have Google translate. Handles 64 languages. Canadian Press prepared this video – Amazing Google Translate features you may not know about Add to … (Globe and Mail, May 5)
There could be trouble brewing for all Internet users if net-neutrality rules in the United States are challenged and undone. Tim Wu at the New Yorker warns that if net neutrality is cast aside, costs for consumers could soar – as they have and continue to do for cable tv, and the Net would become dominated by the big players. Read The Coming War over Net Neutrality (May 3)
Google can help webmasters target their web sites that have generic top level domains to users in other countries. Sometimes those generic codes are country codes – such as Columbia with .co.
Google Expands List of “Generic” Top Level Domains and Makes Them Geotargetable Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land (May 2)
Your browser is your main productivity tool – you’ll get more out of it using extensions that suit your work needs such as bookmarks, saving clips, tabs, blocking ads. Paula Hane at Newbreaks has some recommendations for Chrome extensions, her new favourite browser, in Useful Browser Extensions (May 2)
Canadians love their Facebook. One third check social media places daily – Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin.
One-third of Canadians don’t go a day without checking social media: survey, Michael Oliviera, CP via Globe and Mail (Apr 30)
The numbers:
“About 63 per cent of social media users said they read Facebook posts, tweets and/or LinkedIn updates every single day.
Facebook remains far and away the most popular social network. About 63 per cent of Internet users and 93 per cent of social media users said they’re on Facebook.
Only seven per cent of the social media users surveyed said they were regular users of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, logging in to each at least one a month. Those users were most likely to be under 50, university educated and live in a high-income household with a child under 12 in the home.”
Danny Sullivan shows that Google can make very bad mistakes when it takes over writing the title for a page and ignoring what the owner/creator of the website wrote – When Google Gets It Wrong By Changing The Titles Of Web Pages (Search Engine Land, April 30)
CBC executive to head first Canadian office of Twitter, Simon Houpt, Globe and Mail (Apr 30)
Twitter is opening an office in Canada, of which Kristine Stewart, a senior executive in CBC, will be managing director.
“Her hiring suggests Twitter may move more into the area of content creation or partnerships. The micro-blogging service’s forays into advertising have been largely restricted to ad placement within Twitter itself. But Ms. Stewart may be asked to develop partnerships with creators of TV and Web programming.”
Twitter is changing -one direction is toward “discoverability – helping people find things they might like. Two weeks ago, it introduced an app called Twitter Music that helps people find music that is trending on the service.”
Good video about finding an email address using advanced search syntax at Google. Video was created by Boost Elearning in 2009 but still very much applies.
SearchMetrics identified that many of the news items that Google shows in Web search – ie the universal search – come from AOL-owned Patch.com. Huffington Post is in second position.
Google News Sources Grow 15% In 2012 & Continue To Climb With Patch.com In The Lead, Amy Gesenhues, Search Engine Land (Apr 30)