Bigmouthmedia Search Engine News: /online-pr/

Apple warns appayola-using app-makers

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:37:00 GMT

App Store competition can be tough, but Apple has warned the consequences of trying to game the system are tougher.

Apple is reminding app-makers that using appayola services - paying to artificially inflate an app's chart ranking - will lead to them being stripped of their ability to release apps in the App Store.

In a post on Apple's Developer website, the company said: "Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts.

"Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership."

The reminder appears to have come in response to a recent conversation on the forum for the mobile games site Touch Arcade. In the forum posting, an independent developer claimed to have been contacted by an ad network charging $5,000 (£3,200) for a guaranteed spot in the App Store's Top 25 placement listing for free apps.

The developer also alleged that the company claimed to use a bot farm to automatically download apps and drive up their rankings, as well as implicating eight free apps currently in the Top 25 listing as using the unnamed bot farm's services.

Making the Top 25 is a coveted position in the App Store, and the potential revenue rewards for download popularity are certainly alluring. However, analysts are quick to point out that long-term business models cannot be built on the artificial use of bot farms.

For example, a really bad game in the App Store may just make it into the Top 25 by using appayola firms, but once "real human" users start playing, the rankings can sink very quickly.

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Angry Birds boss doesn't see Piracy as a bad thing

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:36:00 GMT

Rovio boss Mikel Hed has said he doesn't necessarily see piracy as a bad thing when it comes to Angry Birds.

Speaking at the Midem conference in Cannes, the Angry Birds maker explained the company sees efforts to pursue pirates in the court system as 'futile' - so long as pirated products are not harmful to the brand or ripping off fans.

"We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy.

"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products," he said. "There is tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products."

Hed also explained he believes there is a lesson to be learned from the music industry - namely, approaching customers as fans, rather than users.

"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have," he said.

"If we lose our fan base, our business is done, but it we can grow that fan base, our business will grow."

Hed also took the opportunity to discuss new avenues for the popular mobile game, saying the company hasn't ruled out working with musicians in the future.

Rather than just a game, Rovio sees Angry Birds as its own channel - where users are spending as much time in the app as they are with their favourite TV shows.

"Already our apps are becoming channels, and we can use that channel to cross-promote - to sell further content," he said.

"The content itself has transformed into the channel, and the traditional distribution channels are no longer the kingmakers."

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Timeline lands in New Zealand

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:49:00 GMT

The tides of change have arrived at the social network, as Facebook officially debuts its Timeline feature to users in New Zealand.

"Starting today, we are making Timeline more widely available as we measure speed and other types of performance. We'll begin by making it available to people in New Zealand and then roll it out more broadly in the near future," product manager Samuel Lessin wrote on the Facebook blog.

Following the announcement of the social network's new look and feel at the f8 developer conference in September, Facebook rolled out the Timeline feature to a test group of developers and users - promising to eventually roll out gradually to its 800 million users worldwide.

The timeline will reorganise the way information is presented and allow users to set custom photos on their profile pages, hide stories and share others widescreen, listen to music and share 'apps' with their friends.

"Back in the early days of Facebook, your profile was pretty basic - just your name, a photo, where you went to school... stuff you'd cover in the first five minutes you met someone.

"Over time, your profile evolved to better reflect how you actually communicate with your friends. Now you can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today.

"The way your profile works today, 99 per cent of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of the page. Again. And again."

Users will be able to see highlights in chronological order - looking activity by year, month, and day - as well as have all their content in one place, a move that makes for "frictionless sharing," according to Zuckerberg.

"With timeline, now you have a home for all the great stories you've already shared. They don't just vanish as you add new stuff," Lessin wrote.

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Yahoo snaps up interclick

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 07:12:00 GMT

The search industry's perennial underdog, Yahoo, has acquired advertising and tech software company interclick for $270 million (£168 million).

interclick's flagship tools - Open Segment Manager and Genome Platform - are designed to help users integrate ad campaigns and use behavioural targeting - software that will enable Yahoo! to "dramatically improve data targeted solutions and optimised returns for advertisers ".

EVP Ross Levinsohn said: "The investment underscores our focus on enhancing the performance of both our guaranteed and non-guaranteed display business across Yahoo and our partner sites and, combined with Yahoo!'s reach and advertising leadership, will deliver a powerful solution for marketers.

"Interclick's innovative platform will allow Yahoo! to expand its targeting and data capabilities to deliver campaigns with stronger performance metrics."

The acquisition comes at an interesting time for the company, as Yahoo continues to search for a replacement for fallen CEO Carol Bartz, and the company has been the subject of a number of rumours surrounding its own possible sale.

Still, integrating interclick's software into the Yahoo platform may help it gain an edge on competitors like Google.

Founder and CEO of interclick Michael Katz said: "Having worked closely with Yahoo for the past few years, we have a deep appreciation of the quality of the inventory that Yahoo brings to market.

"The combination of Yahoo's premium data and inventory with our platforms will create tremendous value clients. I would personally like to thank our team, our clients and our board, who helped to make interclick the success it has become."

Co-chairman Michael Brauser echoed Katz, saying: "We believe that this is a great outcome for our shareholders, Michael Katz and his team have done a tremendous job over the past few years and I'm proud to have helped make this outcome a reality."

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TripAdvisor in hot water over 'red flag' feature

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:48:00 GMT

TripAdvisor's new "red flag" feature seems to have landed the online travel review site in hot water, as the firm is now facing legal action from disgruntled hoteliers.

According to Brand Republic, Deborah Sinclair of the Riverside Hotel and Restaurant and Evesham has initiated defamation proceedings against the travel review site, after her hotel's TripAdvisor page was red-flagged.

Ms Sinclair's TripAdvisor page now features a warning sign and red text explaining that TripAdvisor has "reasonable cause" to believe that the hotel and its affiliates "may have interfered with traveller reviews".

Ms Sinclair claims that TripAdvisor's decision to red flag her hotel's page has undermined her credibility and will likely badly damage her business.

As a result, Ms Sinclair has petitioned the courts, requesting that TripAdvisor be made to fully disclose how and why it came to red flag the hotel's page.

The court case is set to be closely watched by hoteliers, travel companies, online review sites and online reputation management agencies, as well as by brands and marketers, as friend reviews and consumer reviews have grown to further influence consumer's purchase-making decisions.

TripAdvisor is currently under investigation from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), following a complaint from an online reputation management firm that the site hosted a high level of defamatory comments.

Regardless of the outcome of ASA's investigation, TripAdvisor has already modified its brand messaging to minimise references to "trust". In September of this year, the firm replaced it's well known strapline "reviews you can trust" with "reviews from our community."

It is expected that the court-case and ASA's review will spark further investigation into how user-generated content and user-engagement is indexed and valued.

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Subtext fills in fine print with the help of Google Venture

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:25:00 GMT

Palo-Alto start-up Subtext has launched its new service, hoping to crack into the eBook market and change the way readers read.

The custom iPad app allows users to read and interact with their books in a more 'social' way.
With Subtext, readers will gain access to author commentary, and web connectedness, as well as have an opportunity to add additions and side notes of their own - all for free.

The project - made possible with the support of $3 million (£1.9 million) from Google Ventures, and other venture fund investors - aims to make eBooks social, allowing readers to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the novel without getting in the way of the reading experience.

Chief officer of Subtext, Andrew Goldman said: "Our goal is simple: to transform the way people read.

"Whether you want to talk about books or tap into all kinds of great insights and information as you read, we help you get more out of - and more into - your books."

Subtext is capitalising on the popularity of digital reading by giving users an opportunity to interact with a community of other readers and gain insights and author context into whatever they're reading.

New York Times bestselling author Amy Stewart said: "Here, at last, is a platform that allows authors to add video, audio, photos, links and notes to enhance their books - and it is as easy as changing their Facebook status.

"Best of all, Subtext frees authors up to approach their subject in a different way, to speak in a more intimate voice and to lift the curtain on their process.

"I'm midway through my next book, and I'm already thinking about how I can enhance it in Subtext."

Subtext is launching with 18 titles - including 'A Game of Thrones', 'Under the Tuscan Sun', 'Incognito' and 'The True Memoirs of Little K' - and has announced that it is also collaborating with authors published by industry giants HarperCollins, Random House and Simon & Shuster, among others.

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Popular TV shows prompt Tweeting frenzy

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:12:00 GMT

A YouGov report has found that more than three quarters of adults use some form of additional media while watching television.

The Social TV Trends Report found that of the 2,025 internet users questioned, 76 per cent amused themselves with a games console, the radio or internet whilst watching television. The results are an increase on last year's 58 per cent tally, and indicate TV watching could be becoming a more collective experience, with everyone wanting to get their opinion out there.

The research discovered that 43 per cent of British adults commented on or discussed TV shows they were watching using Twitter, Facebook and other websites, and mobile phones. The 18 to 24 demographic proved most active, with 68 per cent of the age group joining in on online chatter via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Despite the generation gap, a quarter of over 55s were also using the web to make their opinions heard.

According to the study, TV shows such as X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and Glee provoked the greatest flurries of online activity in the UK. Twitter analysis on behalf of the BBC News website and found that X Factor yielded the highest number of comments on the micro-blogging site over a 30 day period.

"Louis Walsh is looking consistently bewildered. Like an old man wandering around a geriatric ward that can't find his bed," one X Factor viewer tweeted.

The findings may simply be an extension of chatter that has surrounded popular TV shows for years. Families are still enjoying the age-old Saturday and Sunday night tradition of gathering around the TV, "but we're tweeting at the same time," mother, Caitlin Moran told the BBC.

"As we evolve, we have gained the ability to both live tweet amusing comments to our peers and friends and still engage our children in a conversation."

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MC Hammer unveils new search venture

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:01:00 GMT

MC Hammer, once known for baggy trousers and rap music, is these days a web entrepreneur, who demonstrated his new search engine - WIREDoo - at the Web 2.0 Summit.

WIREDoo technology combines what he calls 'Deep Search' and 'Relationship Search' to produce relevant results for users.

"Hammer, cognizant of the presence of Google co-founder Sergay Brin in the audience, said that the technology isn't meant to replace existing search, but to add value. Specifically, search queries add the notion of data relationships to results," Information Week's Fritz Nelson reported.

Examples of this 'added value' were given during the presentation. A search for 'car' with WIREDoo revealed information on costs, specifications, insurance and mileage. A search for a postcode would show on a single screen the homes, schools, shops and even the crime rate of the relevant area. Digging further, searching for schools in that area displayed school quality ratings, examination scores and truancy rates.

The technology appears to be aimed at those looking for useful related information to their subject with the added ability to dig deeper with each search.

Nelson said that even searching a company symbol can dredge up all types of related information, as Hammer demonstrated: "A search on the Apple stock symbol brought back results that showed related stock data, related news, mutual fund ownership, and each of these showed even deeper, rich[er] data, like all of the funds invested in Apple and the share volume and changes in that volume."

WIREDoo is currently in pre-beta mode and is looking for people to sign up to test it.

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Brand pages coming soon to Google+

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:49:00 GMT

Google's coffers have been filling fast since the launch of Facebook rival Google+, and the firm looks set to cash in further as Vic Gundotra suggested brand pages will be coming soon to the fast-growing social network.

According to CNet.com, Gundotra - Google's senior vice president of engineering - told audiences at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that brand pages would be coming to Google+ "imminently".

While sharing the stage with Sergey Brin - a Google co-founder, Gundotra added that brands have already expressed an "overwhelming interest" in establishing a commercial presence on Google+.

Gundotra also let slip that Google+ will soon be available - "Not days ... a little bit longer than days" - to businesses that use Google Apps.

Google Apps, he said, now has 4 million customers. However, user levels are expected to spike sharply as corporations sign-up in a bid to get the most from Google+'s social, digital marketing and advertising offerings.

Google+ is also expected to become more appealing to advertisers, marketers and brands over the coming year as Larry Page said the firm plans to use Google+ as a channel and G+ data to better personalise search and target ads.

Page said: "It's still incredibly early days for Google+, because our goal is actually far bigger than the individual feature launches themselves.

"Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, because we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly.

"This means baking identity and sharing into all of our products so that we build a real relationship with our users.

"Sharing on the web will be like sharing in real life across all your stuff. You'll have better, more relevant search results and ads."

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RIM keeps quiet on BBX release date

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:12:00 GMT

Hot on the heels of the BlackBerry blackout, smartphone maker RIM has announced its next-generation operating system, BBX.

RIM founder, president and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis took to the stage at the BlackBerry Developer conference in San Francisco to announce all the latest from RIM.

While many techhies and developers anticipated an announcement about the poorly-selling PlayBook, what they got instead was a promise of a forthcoming operating system.

Essentially, the QNX platform that powers the PlayBook will now also power BlackBerry devices. The next-generation mobile platform will take the best features from BlackBerry and the QNX platform - combining them to create a sleek new operating system.

RIM also announced developer tool updates, including WebWorks for BlackBerry, the Native SDK for the PlayBook tablet, along with a developer beta version of PlayBook OS 2.0 - which will specifically give support for Android applications.

Though RIM announced BBX at the developers conference in San Francisco, the operating system is still in development and will not yet be released to users or developers.

Ultimately, Lazaridis stayed quiet about when users might expect to see BBX on their phones.

In fact - BlackBerry Developers Conference lacked any concrete details about release dates or any tangible preview of the product itself, though Lazaridis touted the platform to those gathered.

Lazaridis said: "With nearly five million BlackBerry apps downloaded daily, our customers have made BlackBerry one of the most profitable platforms for developers.

"At DevCon today, we're giving developers the tools they need to build richer applications and we're providing direction on how to best develop their smartphone and tablet apps as the BlackBerry and QNX platforms converge into our next generation BBX platform."

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