Create display network exclusion lists with this (free) tool
A tool born out of frustration could save you time managing brand safety.
Topic: Crowdsourcing
Aivon launches blockchain-based protocol for ‘first decentralized video search engine’
The Singapore-based organization is launching a non-profit community composed of token-incentivized humans who validate AI-generated metadata.
Google’s reliance on Wikipedia makes it vulnerable to search pranks
Google said Wikipedia prank caused Republican "Nazism" Knowledge Panel.
Google now has 50M Local Guides adding content to Google Maps and Search
The number of Guides has grown by 10x in just one year.
Google asks some searchers to tag movies with critic statements
Google is experimenting with a new movie feature to let searchers tag videos.
Google Maps will use crowdsourcing to identify wheelchair-accessible locations
Anyone can now add accessibility information to places on Google Maps or business listings in search.
Google retiring Map Maker to speed up the Maps editing process
Company says that new process, using Google Maps app and Google Search, will expedite publication of changes and additions.
OpenStreetMap debuts Google Street View alternative: OpenStreetView
The company seeks to crowd-source street-level photography on a global basis.
Google Maps adds more ways to add or edit locations
Google Maps now lets users add, change, supplement and check the details for venues listed on Google Maps in a new way.
Google Maps showing how long people typically spend at a store or venue
New feature shows you time based on crowdsourced location data.
Google Map Maker Up Again In 45 More Countries Including The U.S.
Earlier this month, Google re-launched Map Maker after a several-month hiatus to address issues that had resulted in racist map references and several other problems. Map Maker came back first in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, the Philippines and Ukraine with a new moderation structure that substantially relies on regional lead moderators. Today, Google is saying […]
Google Map Maker Back Up In Six Countries With More To Follow Soon
Google Map Maker: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, India, the Philippines and Ukraine are the first countries back online.
Google Shows A Store’s Busy Times By Crowdsourcing Your Store Visits
Google now tells customers when not to go to a store based on long wait times.
Google About To Reopen Map Maker, Largely Outsourcing Moderation
After the recent rash of map vandalism and other map mischief that caused Google to shut down Map Maker, the company is getting ready to reopen it. Simultaneously Google is instituting a new moderation procedure that will rely more heavily on community moderation than on in-house Google personnel. Google observed in support of the new […]
New Link Tool Crowdsources Your Disavowed Links In DisavowFiles
A crowdsources tool that helps you be more confident when disavowing links pointing to your web site.
After Several Public Google Maps Hacks, Google Forced To Suspend Map Maker To Prevent More Fake Edits
After years of fraudulent edits to Google Maps, Google has temporarily suspended Google Maps Maker.
From Novelty To Foundational Product: The Evolution Of Google Maps
Until Android came along Google’s most important product after search undoubtedly was Google Maps. I know it sounds heretical to say this but in some ways Maps is more strategic to Google than search today. That’s because Google Maps bridge the physical and digital worlds and because Maps are more “useful” to mobile users than […]
Report: Apple Accelerating Crowdsourced Maps Improvements
According to a couple of reports (Reddit and MacRumors), Apple has stepped up the pace of map-data corrections and improvements. The MacRumors report, from a couple of weeks ago, says that changes are being implemented weekly. The Reddit thread says they’re happening nightly — at 3 a.m. Eastern: Over the past month, Maps were being […]
Maps Roundup: Google Avoids Waze Antitrust Fight, Scout Social Mapping, deCarta Route Patent
Google spent just over $1 billion to take Waze away from Facebook, Apple or Nokia and Microsoft. It equally sought the real-time driver feedback that Waze crowd-sourcing provides. Given the size of the transaction the US FTC got immediately involved to bring antitrust scrutiny to the acquisition. Now Bloomberg reports that the FTC is unlikely […]
Foursquare Aims To Improve Venue Database By Expanding Superuser Program
Foursquare’s superuser program, now 40,000 people strong, is getting an overhaul. The company says it’ll soon launch an automated test that will make it easier for users to become superusers — they’re the ones with special privileges to edit business listings and venues in Foursquare’s database of 55 million places. (Non-superusers can only suggest changes […]
Apple Beefing Up Maps With Crowdsourcing, “Ground Truth” Hires
Apple Insider points out that Apple is hiring for dozens of positions in its mapping group. There are more than 80 positions that respond to the keywords “Apple Maps” on the company’s jobs site. Among a range of other positions, Apple has been seeking “ground truth local experts” for various cities. Here’s one such job […]
AdProof PPC Ad Copy Testing Platform Aims To Speed Up Testing Through Crowdsourcing
Ad copy testing is one of the foundation blocks of PPC campaign optimization. Yet, as any PPC manager knows, it can be laborious, time-intensive, money-consuming, or take eons to get enough data to make a call and move onto the next test. Jonathan Nelson and Yuanyi Zhang developed and recently launched AdProof, a new “user testing” […]
Will Google’s Expected $1.3 Billion Waze Acquisition Be Allowed?
Early yesterday, Israeli business website Globes.co.il said that Google will acquire social mapping app Waze for $1.3 billion. That report has subsequently been all-but-confirmed by others, including the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which said the announcement could come this week. The WSJ said that by size Waze would constitute Google’s fourth largest acquisition, assuming it comes to pass. […]
Google’s Mapping Contest In India Creates Uproar
Google has run up against some of India’s restrictive laws in the past, most notably in the context of vague and expansive censorship rules for content and search results. A new episode involves a crowdsourced mapping contest run by the company to obtain data for Google Maps. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Google ran […]
Get Me To The Gulag: Google’s Map Maker Becomes A Political Weapon
On Monday, Google announced that “citizen cartographers came together in Google Map Maker” to help create a “new map of North Korea” for Google Maps. BuzzFeed was the first to point out that the new maps contained references to “gulag” and “concentration camp.” Beyond this, some people on Google+ have added satirical, fake reviews to […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 3, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Intros Congressional District Targeting In AdWords Just in time for upcoming elections, Google has released an AdWords feature that lets political candidates (and anyone else, for that matter) target their […]
Meet The Man Who Makes Sure Google Maps Is Right
MercuryNews.com has a story on Blake Stephens, the man who is responsible for many of the Google Maps edits you see on Google Maps day. In fact, this man is a member of Google Maps’ collaborative cartography corps, where users use Google Map Maker to make corrections and adjustments to the details you see on […]
Traffic Estimates Return To Google Maps
About a year ago, Google dropped traffic estimates from Google Maps driving directions and now they are back in the form of “current traffic conditions.” To see the traffic conditions, go to Google Maps and type directions from point A to point B. Google will show you the “current traffic conditions,” note these are not […]
An Interview With A Google Search Quality Rater
Since at least 2005, Google has been using a large, worldwide focus group to help review its search results and the quality of the web pages that rank well in its algorithm. The people in this program are called Quality Raters and, as you can imagine, the work they do is important to search marketers […]
Trada Secures Additional $9M In Funding From Google Ventures & Foundry Group
Trada, the crowdsourced PPC marketplace, has secured an additional $9 million in funding from their existing investors, Google Ventures and Foundry Group. This additional seed of Series D financing brings the total money raised for Trada to $17 million. Trada basically lets you offload your PPC management onto a community of SEM experts, who spend […]
Waze Craze Brings $30 Million For Growth, China Expansion
Waze is a somewhat unlikely success story. The social navigation and traffic app has just passed 7 million users globally and also announced another $30 million in funding, bringing its total to nearly $60 million. It also said that one of its new investors is Hong Kong magnate Li Ka Shing, who will help the […]
Google Map Maker Now Open To US Users
Google’s Map Maker has been available since 2008 and is now in more than 180 countries and regions all around the world. For the first time, that list includes the U.S. Google has just announced that Map Maker is (finally) open in the U.S. It’s a tool that lets citizen cartographers update or correct Google […]
Blekko Partners With Stack Overflow To Improve Search Results
Blekko and Stack Overflow have announced a partnership that aims to use the latter’s community of programmers to improve programming- and tech-related searches on Blekko. The agreement calls for Stack Overflow’s community of programmers to “help improve and maintain programming-related slashtags,” while Stack’s CTO, Jeff Atwood, will be the editor of those slashtags. Stack Overflow’s […]
Twitter As Utility, Like Running Water? That’s Goal, Says CEO
One should be able to access Twitter anywhere, on any platform, and the interface should be instantly usable. So said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in outlining the company’s vision for its future at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, going as far as to compare the service to running water. “It needs to be water. […]
Mapquest Advances ‘Open’ Strategy With Euro Sites
Mapquest is continuing down its new “open” path with OpenStreetMap. Previously the AOL company announced an investment in the open-source mapping community and the creation of “Mapquest Open” a parallel, crowd-sourced mapping effort in the US and UK based on the OpenStreetMap data. Now that initiative is being expanded across Europe to France, Italy, Germany […]
OpenStreetMap Layer Added To Bing Maps
Bing announced they have added a new layer to the Maps data. The new layer is from Open Street Maps, a free editable map of the whole world. This layer is a lot like the Wikipedia concept, where anyone can “view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth.” You […]
Crowdsourced SEM “Marketplace” Trada Raises $5.75M From Google Ventures & Others
Trada announced a $5.75 million “C” round this morning. It was led by Google Ventures and early investor Foundry Group. Trada CEO Niel Robertson told me yesterday that the money will be used for to get into display (and eventually video and mobile), as well as to expand into non-US markets and develop new tools […]
Google Develops “Parking Network” For Open Spots & “App Inventor” To Open Up App Development
Google has developed something like an Android social network for parking spots. Called “Open Spot,” it relies on people rather than sensors or other sophisticated technology to locate parking spots that are being vacated. Open Spot users indicate when they’re leaving a spot. The phone’s location awareness indicates that person’s location on the map and […]
Google Ends Community Editing Free-For-All In Maps
Local business owners can breathe a sigh of relief: Google has ended the “community edit” free-for-all in Google Maps. According to Tuesday’s announcement, “all community edits [will] be reviewed before they are shown.” For local business owners, this means that competitors, spammers, jilted lovers, and the angry parents of the kid whom your son struck […]
Elevating The Global Importance Of Content
Shortly after my last Multinational Search post (Global Vs. Local: How To Let Google Know How To Treat Your Site) I was taken to task by a few readers complaining that supposed global experts only talk about domains and hosting for international sites and not enough about content. Ok, fair criticism, that article was written […]