According to Bloomberg Google is facing yet another antitrust headache at the hands of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The agency is fresh off a settlement earlier this year with Mountain View over its search market dominance. This time the FTC will reportedly be probing the display side of Google's online advertising business. The Bloomberg report says that "The FTC is looking at whether Google is using its tools to force companies to bypass competing products and use other Google properties, including a marketplace for buying and selling Internet display ads, and features that h [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Google: AdSense | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Display Advertising | Google: Legal | Legal: Antitrust

The Google Publisher Toolbar, the Chrome extension that allows publishers to block AdSense ads and access earnings and performance reports, got a revamp this week. The new toolbar interface includes: Pop-up account overview: Estimated account earnings summary for today, yesterday, this month and last month; information on your top 5 channels or sites by revenue over a set of date ranges. Ad Details: Now includes the ability to block the ad by buyer in addition to details on a specific impression including buyer and advertiser details, the creative associated with the current view a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Google: AdSense | Top News

Google Analytics announced a number of new updates today to Goals, including a new set-up process, new templates, and a new verification option. Goals are created at the profile level, and can be started by navigating to a user's account, property, and profile from the admin tab. Once the correct profile is selected, a user must click Goals and then select Create a Goal to begin the goal set-up flow. New Goals Set-Up Flow Once in the goal set-up flow, users will have access to redesigned templates along with new templates that can be added to an Analytics account. When using a templat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Top News

Now, you can speak your queries to Google on the desktop in the way you can on mobile devices and get responses spoken back. It's pretty impressive, but more impressive is the way this new "conversational search" takes what you've previously said and "remembers" that as you continue to search. Google hasn't done an official blog post about the new feature, which works for its Google Chrome browser, but it confirmed to us officially that it's live, saying: Conversational search has started rolling out in the latest version of Chrome. You can just click the mic in the search box, ask your [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Google: Search

In the ongoing "war of the worlds" patent litigation between Apple and Samsung/Google, the Cupertino company has said it will amend its patent infringement claims to include the Galaxy S4. That's according to Foss Patents, which also reports that Apple asserts Google Now infringes two patents associated with Siri. Overall, there are five patents being asserted in the amended Apple pleadings (below). The Siri-related patents are U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604 and U.S. Patent No. 6,847,959, which pertain to a "universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system." Apple is [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Google: Mobile | Google: Search | Legal: Patents

Google has started to slowly expand the group of testers for Google Glass. The company has announced (on both Twitter and Google+) that it'll be inviting #ifihadglass winners "slowly" and "over the next few weeks." This is from the Google+ post: Over the next few weeks, we’ll be slowly rolling out invitations to successful #ifihadglass applicants. If you were one of the successful applicants, please make sure you have +Project Glass in your Circles so we can send you a message. The messaging is slightly different on Twitter, where the message says that "selected" #ifihadglass winners wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google | Google: Glass

If you're one of those Google+ users that happens to use the service on the mobile Web (as opposed to one of the Google+ apps), you'll notice an entirely new look and feel next time you're there. Google has announced that its user interface on the mobile Web now more closely mirrors the changes announced last week during the Google I/O conference. More specifically, individual posts now appears as "cards" in the mobile Web stream. User profiles and Google+ Pages have also been updated to include cover photos, larger tap targets, and "much more," Google says. Here's a screenshot from G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google | Google: Google+

Apple is once again listed as the most valuable brand on earth, while Google inched closer to the top spot and Microsoft fell out of the top five in the 2013 Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands. This is the eighth year that Brandz has compiled its list, which comes from research involving two million consumers and more than 10,000 brands, the company says. Apple tops the list again this year, with Google moving up from third place to second. Microsoft was ranked fifth last year, but fell to seventh this time around. IBM, at No. 3, is the fourth technology company in the top 10. [...]

Related Topics: Amazon | Apple | Branding | Channel: Industry | eBay | Facebook | Google | Microsoft | Samsung | Top News | Yahoo

Google is putting Google Checkout out to pasture and placing its payment processing future solely on Google Wallet. The company has announced it will retire Google Checkout in six months. The news comes a week after Google announced several new features for the Google Wallet platform. The new Instant Buy Android API is designed to make it easier for users to buy physical goods and services in native Android apps in as few as two clicks. The Wallet Objects API allows merchants to integrate their loyalty programs and offers into Google Wallet. And a new integration with Gmail will enable [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | Google | Google: Business Issues | Google: Wallet | Top News

Search may become a common activity for Google Glass owners, but it's a different kind of search to anything I've done before. Since Glass is a mobile device and has no Web browser, it's currently built for informational searches. Transactional queries (like [buy seattle mariners tickets]) and navigational queries (like [facebook]) don't work well because Glass doesn't have a Web browser. It'll show you webpages that match those search terms, but you can't visit them. In other words: Search on Google Glass is about finding information, not webpages. And, for the most part, Glass seems to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Google | Google: Glass

Following a number of new Google+ updates announced at Google I/O, a new Google+ app for Android is rolling out today with more options to organize and edit photos, a new locations section that lets users know where their friends are, and the new automatically-added Google+ hashtags to locate related content within a user's stream. Photo Organizing & Editing Options The new app now includes an Auto Backup feature that stores photos as they are being taken, along with an Auto Highlight feature where users can browse a selection of top shots from added sets of photos, and an Auto Enhance f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Google I/O | Google: Google+ | Google: Mobile

Google announced the launch of Open Bidder for developers to build real-time bidding solutions. Currently in Beta status, the platform uses the Google Cloud Platform and DoubleClick's real-time bidding protocol. Over a year in the making, the Open Bidder Team wrote in a blog post that the platform removes development barriers for companies looking to build their own RTB technology. Open Bidder removes these barriers by providing a customizable bidder toolkit with a reference implementation that developers can adapt to plug in their own bidding logic and data. Additionally, we provide an ad [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display Advertising | Display Advertising | Display Advertising: Programmatic Media Buying | Google: Display Advertising

During  last week's I/O Conference, Google announced they would be adding a number of upgrades to AdMob, their mobile ad network for app developers. Since fully integrating the AdMob's mobile app inventory into AdWords last June, Google claims AdMob can help developers monetize and promote their apps by connecting them to more than a million advertisers globally. Rolling out over the coming months, AdMob's new features will include the same Conversion Optimizer tool used in AdWords. By choosing a target cost per acquisition for each download, the AdMob Conversion Optimizer will show ads w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: AdSense | Google: Google I/O | Google: Google Play | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing

Last week, in the midst of  Google I/O, Google announced two upcoming updates to mobile app analytics. Google Play Integration Google Analytics will fully integrate with Google Play and allow marketers to get a full view of Google Play's sales funnel. The new report will use flow visualization to facilitate further analysis of any aspect of the funnel. The report will include: Google Play traffic sources: understand which traffic sources and Google search keywords account for most new users.  Google Play views: see how many views your app is receiving in Google Play from each [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Analytics | Google: Mobile

Google+ users who enjoy social gaming will soon have to look elsewhere as Google+ games is being shut down. After June 30th, Google+ Games will be officially retired as Google will move forward with one united front, the  Google Play Game Services platform. Google+ Games launched in the Summer of 2011, but whether it be demographics or just the platform itself, Games continually under-performed. Some developers jumped ship on Google+ Games last year as the adoption on the social network didn't have a high enough impact on customers. In an unglamorous announcement, Google directed [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google | Google: Google+

Within a roughly 48-hour period, Google got two big helpings of bad news. According to the Canadian newspaper Financial Post, the country's Competition Bureau is preparing to launch a formal antitrust investigation into Google's Canadian business operations. The scope and precise focus of the Canadian investigation have not been revealed. Google has a nearly 90 percent search market share in Canada according to StatCounter. Bing and Yahoo combine for less than 10 percent of the market. The other shoe comes from across the Atlantic where a former UK Google employee, Barney Jones, now has [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal

YouTube launched 8 years ago today, and they are celebrating their eighth birthday! The growth of YouTube has been significant over these short eight years. Now, every minute, over a 100 hours of video are uploaded. Google acquired YouTube back on October 9, 2006 for $1.65 billion. Back then, that was the largest acquisition Google ever made. Since then, Google has only made two acquisitions larger than that purchase price: DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in 2007 and Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2011. YouTube is one of the most searched properties, a top video consumption site and has m [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: YouTube

You're not supposed to see this video. Unless you work at Microsoft. It's a fake Chrome ad that's part of Microsoft's ongoing "Scroogled" campaign against Google, but it was supposed to remain internal. It appeared first on a blog called iCosmoGeek and has now been picked up by the Los Angeles Times. The Times says it has confirmation from Microsoft that the video was made for internal purposes. The video plays up many of the same charges that Microsoft has been making throughout the Scroogled campaign -- tracking users to target ads, not respecting users' privacy and so forth. He [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Google: Critics | Microsoft | Microsoft: Business Issues | Top News

Nearly two years after its launch, Google is still dealing with people who question why they should bother with Google+. But in recent weeks, the company has released what it considers "game changing" features that it feels will better enlist both marketers and developers to embrace its platform. "You're now seeing us put out, on a constant drumbeat, tools and capabilities for developers and marketers that I think are game changing, that they may not get anywhere else," said Seth Sternberg, product management director for the Google+ Platform, when meeting yesterday with a small group of re [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Featured | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Top News

With the announcement of Google Affiliate Network closing its doors in July, many retailers are being forced to find new alternatives for their affiliate advertising programs during the coming weeks. While such a major task may not be at the top of any marketers favorite things-to-do list, the move could result in improved numbers for retailers using GAN that have put off migrating to a new network. After speaking with two former GAN clients, both reported significant increases in their affiliate advertising revenue since migrating from Google. One Retailer's Story Matt Khalili, a marketi [...]

Related Topics: Affiliate Marketing | Channel: Content Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google | Interviews | Top News