Last fall, Twitter started including geolocation information in its API, but it was not available through Twitter.com. That appears to be in the process of changing now. This week, Twitter has been rolling out (it appears to still be in the process) geolocation info on tweets at Twitter.com. Various reports from users have been circulating, with those who have access to the feature pointing to a little blue icon by the tweet source on individual tweets, which when clicked, shows location information on a Map (powered by Google Maps). The feature (as most new Twitter features do) is already receiving some criticism from users who have access to it. For example, Kim-Mai Cutler with VentureBeat says Twitter's geotagging is "far from what Twitter needs to be a real player in location."
Cutler adds, "First, the new maps feature isn’t turned on for Twitter’s search results. The whole point of location-based search is to be able to find what’s actually happening around you right now. Instead, Twitter tosses a few such tweets into a wash of noise..."
Earlier this week, news of Facebook readying location features surfaced. The company is expected to launch something along these lines at its f8 conference in May. Location players getting the most buzz currently are Gowalla and Foursquare. They you have Google, of course. This may be the most interesting space to watch as the year progresses. It will be quite interesting to see how mainstream location sharing becomes when it comes to consumers.
Are you seeing the geolocation information showing up at Twitter.com? Do you intend to share your location when tweeting?
Google has launched the Blogger Template Designer, a way to customize the look and feel of your Blogger blog.
"Over the past few years we've worked to scale Blogger and ensure that it is capable of handling hundreds of millions of pageviews per day," Google says. "But we also believe that blogging is about self expression and that an important part of expression is creating a custom design that expresses your unique voice. So last year we started working on a tool that would allow everyone to easily customize their blog’s look and feel, and today we’re proud to introduce the Blogger Template Designer." Features of the template designer include: - 15 new templates (with more on the way)
- Custom blog layouts with one, two and three columns
- Hundreds of background images courtesy of iStockphoto
- Customizable colors, fonts, and more. "While alternative offerings force users to choose among a limited set of rigid template designs, Blogger provides an intuitive yet powerful interface so anyone to customize their blog's design & layout - putting the user in complete control," the company says.
It's interesting that this kind of customization has not been available from Blogger until 2010, as Blogger itself is over a decade old, and has been Google-owned since 2003.
The Blogger Template Designer is available through Blogger in Draft, Blogger's testing ground/sandbox site.
Has it ever occurred to you that you may have keywords on your site that are misleading to search engines? Or that you need to take a look at all of the keywords you are trying to rank for, and think about the different meanings and contexts that those could be taken in that are unrelated to your actual product, and then eliminate other seemingly unrelated words that to a search engine could be misconstrued as an indication of one of those other contexts?
At SMX West last week, WebProNews sat down with Bruce Clay of Internet Marketing firm Bruce Clay, Inc. who made some interesting points about understanding searcher behavior, intent-based search, and how that should affect keyword research. Note: We talked to Bruce about quite a few search-related topics, but this subject is focused on more toward the end of the video (about 20 minutes in).
Clay talks about Google delivering more personalization in search results, taking into consideration things like how prior queries influence future queries. "Ranking is going to be less of a measurement," he says. "We're going to be focused on more the traffic."
"When I decide I'm selling a hammer, I have to actively go out of my way not to have certain things appear in my site, because the search engines could be confused about what I'm talking about....I don't mean the Armand Hammer Art Museum at UCLA. I don't mean a bowling ball...you know, the things that show up for hammer are all over the board," says Clay.
"One of the things that I think is important, and that we've been working on is how do we actually do keyword research without knowing the behavioral aspects our personas that are actually going for our product? You have to understand personas now a little bit better - what kinds of things are they likely to search on, in sequence - before they type in hammer...so if they're on an arts and crafts site, and then they type in hammer, I ought to understand that behavior in sequence, so that I can better do my keyword research and determine how I'm gonna put the words on my page. I don't see a lot of people even thinking that way."
Personalized search is nothing new. Google's been personalizing search results for some time, based on various indicators, and it appears that Google is looking for more ways to deliver users a personalized experience (whether they want that or not).
Between personalized search and other sources of information infiltrating search results pages, traditional SEO is becoming harder to accomplish, and Bruce says, even ineffective. That's why it may become increasingly important to focus on relevant elements of the SERP for queries you hope to be found for.
Motorola has announced a "global" alliance with Microsoft, which will see Bing used as the default search engine on Motorola Android-based devices. The move begins in China, where obviously there is some turmoil between Google and that country, but again, this is being called a "global" alliance that is "launching" in China.
Motorola says that users will get a pre-loaded Bing bookmark on their mobile browser, and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration, though users will be able to customize their devices and select their own search provider.
"We believe that consumer choice is one of the most critical components to ensuring a rich and seamless client experience," said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobile Devices. "Motorola and Microsoft have enjoyed a longstanding collaboration and the addition of Bing services to our Android-based smartphones in China is another important step in empowering our end-users."
"Mobile devices continue to be a critical place for customers to access location-based services such as local search and mapping," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Services Division at Microsoft. "We are pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Motorola to bring powerful Bing location-based services to Motorola's innovative new mobile devices, providing consumers with more choice and flexibility in mobile search."
This is the second time in about a week Motorola has made news by offering non-Google search options on its Android-based devices. The recently launched Motorola Backflip comes with Yahoo.
Bing search and maps will be available on Motorola Android-based devices in Q1 2010 in China. No other expansion of this has been announced, but the phrase "global alliance" certainly leaves room for speculation.
Gowalla is a service that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. If you're not familiar with it, it's a location-based social networksing service that comes in the form of mobile apps. Gowalla announced today, the availability of Gowalla 2.0 for the iPhone 3G and 3GS platforms.
Gowalla highlights the following new features with this version: - Design – Gowalla developers have created a fresh new experience that is more flexible, readable and usable.
- Photos – Gowalla 2.0 gives users the ability to not only check in and create new spots; they can also upload a photo after checking in, browse photos from friends and see photos taken at that spot.
- Checkin Commenting – Now when a friend checks in someplace, other users in the community are able to tell that friend what they think.
- Multiple checkin messages – Users now have more opportunities to add messages even after they’ve left a checkin spot. Skipped typing a message? Come back and add one.
- Hot spots – The most popular spots nearby will be highlighted for users in a particular area to discover.
- Browse friends – and friends of friends. Browsing friends’ bookmarked spots and creating trips are two new features put in place by Gowalla’s developers by popular demand.
- Facebook, Twitter and web links – Building your Gowalla network is easier than ever with more ways to stay connected with friends through Facebook, Twitter and web links.
- Spot details – Address, phone numbers, Twitter names, Facebook pages and website will now be available in several checkin spots. Gowalla will be heavily involved in SXSW (of which WebProNews will be covering the Interactive portion). Gowalla has updated its SXSW mini-site that details all of the SXSW initiatives the company will be rolling out, including: real world rewards, competitions, challenges and events.
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