Internet

Mike Pantoliano has written an interesting article at SEOmoz about how to turn Google Analytics into a rank tracker using custom variables.

The article covers: How to set it up – Analyzing the Data – Creating Custom Reports and Advanced Segments.

Read the Full Article

Google has added a two-factor authentication option to Google Apps, to provide additional protection against phishing and malware attacks, as the one-time codes are valid for a limited period, said Eran Feigenbaum, director of security for Google Apps.

Google will send out authentication codes by SMS (Short Message Service) or voice message. The SMS service will be free and available in 19 countries including Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

The authentication codes can also be generated locally using a smartphone app called Google Authenticator, available as a free download from the Android, BlackBerry or iPhone app stores. Apple has already approved the Google app for the iPhone and all three apps are now available, Feigenbaum said. More Info on Google Enterprise Blog

Trailmeme, a new web publishing technology, launched today at DEMO Fall 2010. The Web today offers users many tools to collect and share information, but there’s a noticeable lack of tools that truly make sense of that abundance of diverse content. Trailmeme gives users the ability to create and consume Web content in a more meaningful and visual way.

Developed at the Xerox Research Centre Webster, Trailmeme has been in private beta since late 2009, and is now officially opening their service to everyone as a public beta offering.

Trailmeme makes it possible for users to blaze personalized “trails” across the Web and share them with the world. Trails — visual maps of Web content — allow users to create and publish creative and personalized paths through digital content to tell a story. Readers can “walk” trails in intuitive ways, using a combination of a map-like big-picture view and a reading interface with familiar page-turning controls.
On Trailmeme.com, users can blaze and walk trails across multiple sites, using the simple browser toolbar and bookmarklet.

Web publishers can also create trails on their own WordPress sites, using the “Trailmeme for WordPress” plug-in, to easily organize and present their content in new ways. The plugin also offers one-click generation of PDF eBooks from trails. Trailmeme also pushes technical boundaries and makes pioneering use of HTML5, the emerging standard for rich Internet applications.

By turning browsing into a creative act, Trailmeme reinvigorates the Web content consumption experience for both active trail publishers and content consumers. Publishers can craft deeper, more engaging experiences for themselves and their audiences, while consumers enjoy the benefits of “guided tour” experiences shaped by the knowledge of experts on different topics.

Links / URLs:
Product Website: http://trailmeme.com/
Blog: http://blog.trailmeme.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/trailmeme

Today, Google announced the launch of Google Instant, a new Google.com interface that shows relevant results while the user types.

This new search interface applies to both search results and related ads.

Google said “We expect Google Instant will help users find what they’re looking for faster. With this change, you might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and traffic for organic keywords. For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward.”

Core features in Google Instant:
Dynamic Results – Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.

Predictions – One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that we predict the rest of your query (in light gray text) before you finish typing. See what you need? Stop typing, look down and find what you’re looking for.

Scroll to search – Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/search-now-faster-than-speed-of-type.html

Google ha announced a Search Event today, Sept 8, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, to which the media have been invited.

Google homepage has a new logo, which changes color as you type a search query.

Rumored new features / products to be announced according to net buzz are:

AJAX powered search results
Streaming Results As You Type
30 results per page

www.google.co.uk

Google has made Chrome 6 almost 17% faster than the previous version, Chrome 5.

“The last couple of years we’ve been focused on speed,” said Brian Rakowski, Chrome’s director of product management. “A lot of things have changed in the last two years (in browsers), but the one thing we’ve learned is that speed matters. It’s something Google’s always believed in and it resonates with people.”

Chrome 6, which Google released a few days ago, also included patches for 16 vulnerabilities and another attempt at fixing a Windows kernel bug that affected the browser.

Google is updating Gmail with priority inbox, which it is said to automatically grade e-mail into four categories: important, important and unread, starred items and everything else.

Google said the product acts like your “personal assistant helping you focus on the messages that matter”.

“E-mail is a great tool, but also a key contributor to overload. There are about 1.5 billion mail users worldwide, and almost 1 million (non-spam) e-mails sent each second. That works out at roughly 250Gb of mail per second, which is the equivalent of 2,000 hardcover books.

“That’s a lot of mail. You can’t possibly read or process it all. You will stress your brain beyond capacity,” Mr Merrill told the BBC.

More info at: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/email-overload-try-priority-inbox.html

Google’s new game developer advocate Mark DeLoura and Chrome developer advocate Michael Mahemoff, spoke about Google’s major entry into the browser game space with its app store for Chrome at Gamescom.

The Chrome Web Store is reported to be opened this October.

More at Gaming portal 1Up.com: http://www.1up.com/news/google-shows-future-browser-games

Google info: https://chrome.google.com/webstore

Google has announced a multiple account sign-in feature that makes it easier for users with more than one Google account to manage their online identities. Google allows using three Google accounts at one time with the multiple sign-in feature at present

At the moment, you can only use multiple Google account sign-in to use App Engine, Google Code, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Reader, Sites and Voice. Multiple account sign-in for Google Docs is not ready yet, but will be coming soon.

More info: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=181602

Vonage, a pioneer of home phone service over the Internet, has a new application for the iPhone and Android phones

Vonage Mobile for Facebook is available as a free download for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phone users. They sign in with their Facebook username and see a list of Facebook friends who also have the app. Tapping a name places a call to the friend, whose phone rings. The app doesn’t need to be running on the friend’s phone for the call to go through.

“Essentially, we’ve given Facebook a voice,” said Marc Lefar, the CEO of Vonage Holdings Corp., which is based in Holmdel, N.J.

The calling works over cellular broadband, so-called 3G, and over Wi-Fi. It doesn’t use calling minutes, but will use up data, which could be a concern for subscribers to AT&T’s new limited data plans for smart phones.

Google has announced it is ending development on Wave, it’s cross-platform communication tool, little more than a year after being launched at Googles I/O developer conference in May 2009.

Google said on their blog “Google said in a post last night that “Wave has not seen the adoption we would have liked” and that elements of Wave’s technology, including drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are now as open source so users can “liberate their content from Wave”.”

At the O’Reilly Open Source Conference last month in Portland, Oregon, Google Wave developer Dan Peterson admitted, in a Wave tutorial, that early versions of the service were slow and tended to crash.

More: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html

Google has announced Google Apps for Government, featuring the same applications in other versions but with a higher level of security. Cost is $50 per user per year.

Google says meets the requirements set forth by the Federal Information Security Management Act. This includes segregated data centers, which Google says goes beyond FISMA regulations, and will keep government e-mail and calendar event data within U.S. borders.

Google Apps for Government homepage:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/#utm_campaign=govapps&utm_source=ogb-appsforgov-0710&utm_medium=blog