Category Archives: news

Google Delights Trekkies with Interactive Star Trek Doodle

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Star Trek anniversary Google doodleAs soon as I laid eyes on today’s Google Doodle I knew it was going to be my favorite so far. I’m a huge Star Trek fan, so my heart started racing when I typed in Google.com and recognized the familiar uniforms from the Starship Enterprise adorning the letters in the GOOGLE logo. But it’s a far cry from your regular doodle. Today’s Google Doodle is a fully interactive game of sorts.

To mark the 46th anniversary of the iconic TV series Star Trek, Google has put together a really fun commemorative doodle. Ryan Germick, Google doodler and keen Trekkie, led a team of animators to create the multi-scene Star Trek animation to celebrate the show’s launch 46 years ago.Google Doodle Star Trek anniversary

My initial delight in spotting the doodle grew as I discovered the incorporated interactive elements. Clicking on highlighted areas of the Google logo triggers a series of tributes to iconic Star Trek episodes, including “The Trouble With Tribbles” and pilot episode “The Man Trap”, which aired on Sept. 8, 1966. Various letters from the Google logo play the crew of the starship Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk is played by the central “o” in Google.

There are a few different scenes with various highlighted areas you can click on to make the scene play out. My favorite is the tribbles hiding in the ceiling of the Transporter Room. How many others can you find? After the final animation plays out, Google redirects you to search results for Star Trek the Original Series.

I declare this to be Google’s Best Doodle Ever!  You can watch a full video of the interactions below :

 

 

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Marissa Mayer’s shock move from Google VP to Yahoo CEO

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Marissa Mayer has the ballsThe Twitterspehere has been aflame for the past hour with the breaking news that Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer has been announced as Yahoo’s new CEO.

News of another Yahoo CEO was nothing out of the ordinary -  they’ve had 5 CEO changes in 5 years – but the fact that it was Google’s blue-eyed girl has come as quite a shock to the search industry. Marissa has been the *face* of Google for 13 years and was Google’s 20th employee. She has been the driving force behind the makeover of Gmail, the launch of Google news and is considered one of Google’s stalwarts. To see her named as CEO of one of their two main rivals has caught most people by surprise.

The surprise has been a pleasant one though – the overwhelming sentiment on Twitter has been that if anyone can turn Yahoo around, it’s Marissa. Yahoo stock holders clearly agree – the stock has risen by nearly 4 percent since the news was announced. In an interesting twist, Google learned of Mayer’s resignation via a telephone call.

What will this mean for Yahoo? Who knows, but her appointment alone has raised hopes Yahoo can regain all-important market share. Watch this space!

 

 

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Q and A: Do YouTube Accounts Ever Expire?

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QuestionDear Kalena

Thanks for clarifying in your blog post yesterday about Gmail account expiration. Is it the same situation for YouTube accounts? Do YouTube accounts ever expire and can you acquire the username over time if no-one is using the account?

thanks
Phil

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Dear Phil

Thanks for your feedback about my recent blog post about Gmail account expiry. Because Google owns YouTube, there are some similarities in terms of account expiry and also some crossover in relation to YouTube account hijacking and username impersonation.


YouTube Account Expiry and Transfer

The creation of a YouTube channel requires a Google account. There is no brandname protection over YouTube account creation. Whoever registers a channel name first *owns* that channel.

If someone owns a Google account permanently linked to a YouTube channel e.g. brandname@gmail.com linked to YouTube.com/brandname, to use that channel you would have to convince the Google account holder to transfer the whole account over to you.

Just like Gmail, when a YouTube account is closed, the username is no longer available for use. It’s permanently reserved so you can’t have it transferred to another YouTube account. A closed YouTube account will bring up an error message like this one.


YouTube Account Hijacking

Unlike Google accounts, YouTube have a clearer policy when it comes to username squatting and brand impersonation. From their Username Policy guidelines:

“Impersonating another user by copying their channel layout, using a similar username, or posing as them in comments, emails or videos is considered harassment and is a violation of our Community Guidelines… In cases of username squatting, YouTube may release usernames in cases of a valid trademark complaint.”

Despite the clearer policy guidelines, YouTube still prefers to take a *hands off* approach when dealing with trademark complaints:

“If you are a trademark owner and you believe your trademark is being infringed due to a username issue, please note that YouTube is not in a position to mediate trademark disputes between users and trademark owners. As a result, we strongly encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the owner of the username.”


YouTube Account Recovery

If your brand-related YouTube account is being squatted, approach the owners and politely ask if they would be willing to hand over the account/s. Keep in mind that they will have to agree to hand over the related Google account as well. If that fails, you might consider negotiating a price for hand over, as I recommended in an earlier post for Gmail accounts.

If you own the trademark for your brand/company name being squatted on YouTube, lodge a YouTube Trademark Complaint. If the YouTube channel in question is in violation of the YouTube Community Guidelines or is clearly impersonating another user or brand, you can report it via the YouTube Help and Safety Tool.

Good luck.

Kalena

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Facebook Logout Ad Placement

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It seems the Facebook premium ad placement on logout has finally reached New Zealand.

After logging out of Facebook earlier today, I was shown a full page ad for Harvey Norman (see below). I have never seen an ad on logout before, even though the service has apparently been in testing since February.

 

Hat tip to Matt Burgess for demystifying the ad format for me. Apparently the service is VERY pricey, but if any NZ company can afford it, it’s *Hardly Normal*. So now I need to put up with their annoying Facebook ads AND their extremly shouty tv commercials.

Oh goody.

 

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Latest Google algorithm penalizes web spam

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Google has released a new update to their ranking algorithm this week, aimed at isolating and penalizing websites that use particular spam techniques. From the official blog post :

“In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.”

So what constitutes a violation of Google guidelines? While deliberately avoiding being specific, Google has highlighted these tactics as problematic and likely to be targeted:

  • Duplicate Content
  • Keyword Stuffing
  • Link Schemes
  • Cloaking
  • Deliberate Redirects
  • Doorway / Gateway Pages

    • Unlike Panda, this algorithmic update has no cutesy name, simply the *webspam algorithm update* according to Search Engine Land.

    As much as this update is a slap on the wrist for aggressive search engine optimizers, Google were very careful to endorse the methodology of so-called *white hat* search engine optimizers in their announcement and isolate those “acceptable” tactics from the tactics they will be punishing with this update:

    “We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites.”

    It’s interesting to see them so eager to support the SEO industry but probably a sign that they’re expecting webmasters to be confused by the changes and the possibility that they might accidently over-optimize their sites.

    The algorithm change has already started to roll out and Google claims it will affect approximately 3 percent of search queries.

    UPDATE 27 April 2012: You know how I said above that the new algorithm revision doesn’t have a cutesy name? Scrap that. Google has now decided to call it *Penguin*

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