The Great Debate UK
Google juice dampens news headlines
- Mic Wright is Online News Editor at Stuff. The views expressed are his own -
Google juice – it sure isn’t tasty but it is vital for anyone writing news online. The slightly irksome term refers to the mysterious combination of keywords and linking that will drag a webpage to the top of Google’s search pages.
While the exact way Google’s search algorithm works is largely a mystery to outsiders, news sites know it’s vital to write headlines stuffed with the keywords that the search engine seeks out.
Online, the perfect punning headlines created by The Sun newspaper’s super sub-editors just won’t cut it. News stories on the web are all about the facts and the most successful sites are constantly checking to see what keywords will send you soaring up the Google search rankings. If you story isn’t on the front page, it’s not getting clicks, the less clicks you get the less likely it is that your advertisers’ ads are going to get seen.
Now Google has announced that it’s been working on a brand new version of its search engine and it’s likely that online headlines are about to get even more straight forward. The new iteration of Google’s most profitable invention is codenamed Caffeine thanks to its speediness. It has already been made available for users to test and besides the noticeable increase in speed, it appears to make search a more real time experience than we’ve previously seen.
from Commentaries:
Apple-Google learn Corporate Governance 1.0
LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The resignation of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Apple's board should come as no surprise to anyone with an inkling of what corporate governance means.
But then Silicon Valley's idea of corporate boards has long consisted of cozy, interlocking directorships which would be considered collusion in most other industries.
from Commentaries:
Saying boo to Micro-hoo: Eric Auchard
LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - There's been a bonfire of shareholder value at Yahoo and the blaze is not out yet, even after the agreement to a long-delayed deal with Microsoft.
Eighteen months ago, Yahoo walked away from Microsoft's nearly $45 billion acquisition offer -- a 60 percent premium to Yahoo's then market value.
from Commentaries:
I am thinking of rebranding myself as Zing
Some tech links to start the week:
I am seriously considering changing my byline to Zing, what with all the media attention a certain search engine is getting.
The New York Times looks at the ups and downs of turning brands into verbs. The jumping off point is Bing, Microsoft's effort at verbal one-upsmanship over Google, Twitter and over generic daily activities. The software giant must alter deeply ingrained computer habits to succeed. In the meantime, my original questions about Bing remain.
from Commentaries:
Don’t read too much into Intel’s success: Eric Auchard
By Eric Auchard
LONDON (Reuters) - Intel Corp has cheered up investors by once again making forecasts about its financial performance. The trouble with reading too much into its rebound, however, is that this is largely due to productivity gains of its own making, rather than a broader awakening of demand.
To be sure, Intel's revenue, profit and margins surged past all published analyst expectations for the second quarter. Partly, this was merely the "snapback" that occurred after Intel throttled back production to as low as 25 percent of factory capacity in the first quarter, amid a glut of unsold chips and shriveling demand.
Google calls time on the Age of Windows
-Tom Dunmore is Brand Director & Editor-in-Chief at Stuff magazine – Stuff has over 1 million readers worldwide. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Google announced on Wednesday that it was developing its own computer operating system. It will be secure, fast, lightweight and – most of all – free. And it presents the biggest challenge yet to the long-standing dominance of Windows.
from The Great Debate:
Advancing global Internet freedom
-- Leslie Harris is the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, DC. The views expressed are her own. --
In the wake of troubling reports as recently as last year that Western companies were assisting China with Internet censorship and the unmasking of cyber-dissidents, governments around the world seemed poised to regulate the conduct of Internet companies. Lawmakers appear to have stepped back from those efforts, but the challenges of advancing global Internet freedom remain.
from The Great Debate:
The Black Hole: How the Web devours history
-- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --
Academics, family researchers and even baseball history nuts have noticed recently how some important archives of older newspapers from around the world have vanished off the Web.
The problems have surfaced since PaperofRecord.com, a collection of more than 20 million newspaper pages of papers ranging from the Toronto Star to Mexican village periodicals to newspapers as far as Perth, Australia, merged into Google News Archive.
