This day in search marketing history: January 8
A shift from keyword research to intent research, plus: search engines taking data from SEOs, PPC spending/budget cuts, and more.
Topic: Global Positioning System
Google Ads to prohibit spyware, surveillance products and services
The ban will apply globally.
Facebook buys AR startup building a 1:1 digital map of the physical world
The acquisition appears to be about augmented reality, but Scape Technologies' capabilities go way beyond AR.
Machine learning is marketing’s future
When you hear “artificial intelligence” or “machine learning,” what comes to mind? A complicated technology that demands deep domain experience or a degree to use? This was once the way technology worked; only a select few had access. But innovation has a funny way of changing things. What might seem out of reach today can […]
The 10+ biggest things to happen in PPC so far in 2016
Big text ad changes, a revival of device bidding and LinkedIn possibilities are among the announcements that hold big implications for search marketers.
7 SEM experts weigh in on the biggest AdWords announcements
What do advertisers need to start thinking about now, and what are the underdog announcements from Google Performance Summit?
Hedy Lamarr Google Doodle Honors Hollywood Star Who Invented “Frequency Hopping” Technology
Known as the most beautiful woman in the world, Lamarr created the technology that laid the groundwork for Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi.
Google Maps Breakthrough: Search And Navigation Without A Connection
Google continues to add features and capabilities that keep its maps that much ahead of the competition. Coming out of I/O yesterday Google made a major announcement: Google Maps search and voice guided, turn-by-turn navigation will be available offline. This is intended for anyone without a data connection or with a weak or inconsistent one. […]
Apple Renews Maps Agreement With TomTom, Will It Buy The Company?
Reuters reported this afternoon that publicly traded TomTom is up on news that its mapping-data contract with Apple has been renewed. Rival HERE (Nokia) is currently for sale and may fetch as much as $4 billion dollars. There aren’t many global mapping data vendors available; and there’s a great deal of interest if not competitive […]
Uber Teams Up With Baidu For HERE Maps, Apple Buys More Coherent Navigation
HERE mapping unit could fetch more than $4 billion in new bidding war.
World War II, Communism Subtext In Right To Be Forgotten
From an American legal perspective, the recently established European Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) is a disaster. It’s a confusing, vague, impractical and possibly even dangerous decision. But from a European historical perspective, it makes considerable sense. The different histories of the U.S. and Europe in the 20th Century have shaped different attitudes and rules […]
SearchCap: Internet Explorer’s Sponsored Links, Google Universal Search Study & Yandex Cityguide Apps
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Will Google & Bing Penalize Microsoft Over Their Sponsored Post Campaign For Internet Explorer? This morning, news broke that Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting help from SocialChorus to build more awareness […]
Yandex Buys Israeli Geo-Location Platform KitLocate
Yandex announced this morning that it has acquired Israeli startup KitLocate. According to third-party sources, the deal was worth “several million euros.” Yandex will gain and maintain a presence in Tel Aviv though the acquisition. The chief virtue of KitLocate is that it can provide location to apps without using much power unlike GPS or triangulation, […]
Apple Demos Local Search (Maps) And Siri Enhancements For iPhone 5
Today at the iPhone 5 launch event Apple announced a thinner, taller and faster iPhone. (See Danny’s hands-on first impressions.) Apple also reminded people of some of the software announcements made in June at its WWDC conference when it discussed the new iOS 6 extensively. Among the earlier software-related announcements that were showcased again today […]
Google Maps Enters Mobile Workforce Management
There are a number of companies that operate in the enterprise segment offering products for fleet and mobile workforce management, such as Telenav. Now Google is getting into the game with a new product descriptively but somewhat awkwardly called “Google Maps Coordinate.” (Don’t they know about branding consultants?) The new enterprise tool, which will apparently […]
Google Introduces Offline Maps For Mobile, Claims A Billion Users Globally For Maps, Earth
During its “next dimension” event this morning Google sought to convey to an audience of tech journalists and others how much effort, expense and care it has invested in Google Maps. Indeed, the platform is roughly eight years old and has seen enormous growth and evolution. The rumored and much discussed potential launch of an […]
Local Search A Multi-Site, Cross-Platform Affair — Report
Google may currently “own” search, but local search is a different story. Mapping sites, specialized local sites, general search engines and deals, as well as mobile browsers and apps constitute the distributed landscape of local, according to a new report, “The State of Local Search,” released yesterday by the Local Search Association (LSA), with data […]
Google Maps Removes In-Traffic Travel Estimates
Barry discovered that Google had dropped its in-traffic travel estimates from Google Maps on the PC. This is apparently due to some inaccuracy or dissatisfaction with the methodology Google was using to determine travel time. “We have decided that our information systems behind this feature were not as good as they could be. Therefore, we […]
Video: Inside Google’s Self-Driving Cars
At the TED 2011 conference this week, Google has been giving extremely rare demos of its self-driving cars. TED attendees have even been allowed to travel inside them, on a closed course. Below, some video of the action.
Live Blogging Bing’s Future Of Search Event
Bing and Big Think are hosting”Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box,” a four hour event today in San Francisco looking at the future of search. We’ve got various luminaries lined-up. Google will be on a panel. There’s that whole Google says Bing is copying them thing that just happened. Plus, Blekko’s here — and it […]
Yahoo’s Year In Review 2010 Of Top Searches: My, How Much You’ve Grown
Sound the vuvuzelas! In what surely will take top honors for the list(s) to end all lists this year, Yahoo! has unveiled its annual Year in Review for 2010, featuring at least 25 categories of Top 10 most searched for topics. This year’s special searches cover everything from the usual celebrities and gossip headlines, to […]
Google Ends Street View WiFi Data Collection, May Now Need Other Sources For Location
Having caused PR and legal headaches around the globe for Google the company has decided to permanently discontinue its Street-View-based WiFi data collection. Multiple countries have asserted that Google’s Street View practices violated privacy laws for the collection of personal information from unsecured WiFi networks. Google is being fined in Spain and in Canada the […]
Google’s New Mobile Ads Take Users From Search To Store
Earlier this summer Google rolled out Expandable Map Ads for mobile devices. These ads appear on the mobile web and in apps. To participate advertisers must enable location extensions and be opted in to the content network for mobile. They begin as a banner that expands when clicked into a map with the option to […]
Google Introduces Expandable Map Ads For Mobile
At Google I/O Google VP Vic Gundotra and his co-presenters showcased a dizzying array of announcements and products to come. Included among them was Google’s iTunes competitor, soon to come to market, and well as a range of new richer mobile ad formats. Those new mobile ad formats have been gradually rolling out. This morning […]
Google Formally Introduces “Clickable Phone Numbers” In Mobile Search Ads
Today Google is formally launching functionality that enables a “clickable local phone number” to appear in mobile ads. In other words a phone number appears as part of the ad copy and consumer-users can simply tap the number to initiate a call (see image below). It’s a call for the price of a click on […]
AT&T Planning To Launch Yelp-Like Site Buzz.com
Forbes covers AT&T’s forthcoming local recommendations site Buzz.com. It aims to be a place where people can get and share recommendations about local businesses. Despite my headline and that of the Forbes article it’s not going to be a reviews and social networking site like Yelp. Rather it may be more analogous to AlikeList or […]
Google Earth iPhone App 2.0 Available Soon
A new version of Google Earth for the iPhone is due soon, and among its new features is one with a personal touch: the ability to see maps you’ve created and/or saved in Google Maps. To make this happen, the new Google Earth iPhone app will add the ability to login to your Google account […]
Disruptamundo: Google Adds Turn-by-Turn Navigation To Mobile Maps
I hate the word “disruptive,” as it’s often used in the internet world, because it’s something of a cliche. But I use it here because the new Navigation for Google Maps for Mobile will in fact be — disruptive. On Monday we covered Google Navigation, the then rumor, asking “Will A Free Google GPS Sink […]
Will A Free Google GPS Sink The Navigation Industry?
Lots of companies make a good living from hardware and software GPS navigation systems. In the US carriers such as Verizon and Sprint and personal navigation device (PND) makers such as TomTom, Garmin, Magellan, among others, earn device and subscription revenues from turn-by-turn routing and directions and points of interest directories. There are a number […]
Battle Of The Augmented Reality Apps: Urbanspoon, Layar, Wikitude, WhereMark & More
There seems to be an explosion of “real-time” search engines on the PC. The space is very new, still fairly open and in my opinion the tools and sites are not yet all that useful. Almost exactly the same can be said of “augmented reality” (AR) in mobile. From almost nothing about six months ago, […]
Google Now Using You To Provide Traffic Data To Maps
Google is now using location-enabled mobile phones that have Maps for mobile installed to improve its real-time traffic data. According to the Google Blog: If you use Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled on your phone, that’s exactly what you can do. When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone […]
Google Confirms & Talks About Expanded Local Results
In a blog post today, Google confirms what we and others reported last week — they’re now showing local results on non-local queries. Google says they’re guessing the searcher’s location, “in most cases” by using your IP address. As I pointed out last week, this isn’t always the most accurate solution. And, as Greg Sterling […]
MapQuest Launches Mobile Personalization
As part of a wave of new features, MapQuest late last year introduced My MapQuest, a personalization tool for the PC side of the business. It subsequently renamed that offering “My Places” and has now launched it in mobile. My Places for MapQuest4Mobile offers a rich user experience and the ability to save maps and […]
Google: ‘Don’t Blame Us For Terrorism’
Comparing it to blaming car makers for deadly car bombs, Google Earth chief John Hanke recently said Google shouldn’t be blamed for terrorist use of Google Earth. Hanke defended his online mapping tools in a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. “You have cars; you have car bombs,” Hanke said. “You have GPS […]
Google “My Tracks” Uses Android GPS To Capture Outdoor Performance
Google’s new Android-only app My Tracks is a “route tracking and outdoor training aid” that helps runners, skiers, bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts capture their routes and performance using the phone’s GPS chip. The data can be uploaded to Google Docs, Google Maps (in the form of My Maps) and/or otherwise shared (e.g., via Twitter […]
Privacy Critics Don’t Give Google Enough ‘Latitude’
Since it launched a couple days ago there have been several predictable responses from persistent Google critics who regard the new location-aware Latitude service on Google Maps as a threat to privacy. The phrases “tracking,” “stalking” and “Big Brother” popped up in a range of articles in mainstream news outlets. Those stories were quickly written […]
The Local Mobile Opportunity … “Yes We Should.”
Last week’s inauguration was a great time to reflect. Witnessing such an inspirational, historic event combined with the ground-swell of optimism gave me a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. Professionally, it made me think about how I can get even more resourceful in my marketing approach and solving the problems of my valuable clients.
Google StreetView, GPS Save Kidnapped Girl
According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Google StreetView was used by police to help locate a child in Virginia who was allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother. The police tracked the girl’s cell phone with GPS and then confirmed her whereabouts at a Budget Inn on a rural highway in Natural Bridge, Virginia, using StreetView: […]
Indian Government Wants Google Earth Censored
On the heels of the tragic terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month, legal advocates in India are asking the country’s High Court to demand that Google blur sensitive locations on Google Earth. The Times reports that the Indian petition says Google Earth “aids terrorists in plotting attacks” and offers “absolutely no control to prevent misuse […]
Google Earth For The iPhone Released
Google announced the release of Google Earth for the iPhone (iTunes link). It is a free app that brings many of the features of the desktop version of Google Earth, to your iPhone. I played around a bit with the app and I am very impressed. It takes advantage of many of the iPhone’s capabilities. […]