Over 1 Million People Are Protesting The ITU With Google

In just a few hours, delegates from around the world will be meeting in Dubai to discuss changes to the ITU. The results of which could lead to further regulation of the Internet by less than reputable countries that want more power in controlling how and what its citizens access online. Google doesn’t like that for a variety of reasons, some self-serving, and the company has invited citizens from around the world to protest with them.

In a post on the Google Public Policy Blog, Vint Cerf details his hand in helping create the Internet. He says that “openness is why the Internet creates so much value today.” He also says that the Internet is “borderless and belongs to everyone.” That’s the basic gist of Google’s initial protest movement in getting people to share why the Internet is important to them. You can now see the results of that first movement in an interactive map.

That map shows a real time count of how many people are signing Google’s petition from around the world. It’s now at over 1 million people and climbing rather quickly. The largest number of those opposed to an ITU takeover of the Web are obviously in more developed nations, but citizens in less developed nations are doing their part to let their voice be heard. Surprisingly enough, even some people in mainland China have signed Google’s pledge.

The ITU negotiations will begin today and continue until December 14. You can add your voice to the growing number of those opposing the ITU until then. The sooner the better, however, as some governments may perhaps have a change of heart after seeing its citizens raise a stink. It worked for SOPA and ACTA. It can work here too.

3 Ways to Simplify Online Marketing

This post was originally written by Jonathan Gardner for Mashable

Technology makes the magical possible, but it’s also making marketing complicated. With ad exchanges, hyper-local targeting, and endless mobile options, it’s easy to get tangled up in an alphabet soup of advertising technology. Just one look at Terence Kawaja’s ad-tech landscape induces tears of empathy for over-marketed-to marketers. Basically, the time for simplification is here.

Simplicity is what consumers want, what marketers need, and what standard-bearers such as Apple andGoogle have shown as the way forward.

What did Steve Jobs do when he returned to Apple in 1997? He simplified the product line and, by extension, Apple’s whole business. That worked out pretty well.

The same goes for Google. Every once in a while the tech giant cuts products to move forward with new offerings. Sure, some of their initiatives — say, wind energy or self-driving cars — may seem to come out of left field. But Google’s basic promise to consumers is to develop products and services that help them organize and navigate the world in a better, geekier way. (I’m talking about you, Google glasses.)

We need to learn from these examples. When advertisers obsess over brand impact, and agencies insist on slicing and dicing every impression, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re focusing on the wrong things. For all the efficiency we’ve gained with the burgeoning of ad tech, we’ve lost a lot in the way of simplicity. Keeping marketing simple — delivering compelling ads and content that consumers actually want to engage with — could take the industry a long way toward improving performance for both brands and consumers.

Here are three rules that brands can follow to simplify their marketing for everyone involved.

1. Put Consumers in the Driver’s Seat

Let’s move away from strategies and metrics that aren’t really relevant for branding. Brands always look for some kind of number and stat to justify their online spend — CTR, view-through, attribution, “likes.” Does that make sense at all? Did brands worry about measuring the impact of a full-page spread in Vogue back in the day? The issue is over thinking the numbers and not thinking enough about advertising in the interest of consumers.

Give people choice, control, and relevance in their experience. Don’t put a roadblock between anyone and the story, images, or video they want to see. Create intriguing, value-add experiences that are relevant to the page, that make users want to click, view, and engage. Make it user-initiated and easy to start and stop engagement. Instead of real-time bidding (RTB), how about trying real-time relevance?

2. Get in the Content

We’ve seen a recent surge in attention for the “native ad,” sponsored content, and branded-content meme. But it’s really nothing new. Ever watch soap operas on TV? Those started out as radio broadcasts that were literally created by consumer packaged goods companies. Since the dawn of digital time, we’ve known that the traditional ad concept had to change and that brands needed to move into the content-creation business and get their content seen.

But what if your stellar campaign assets are part of the one-third of display advertising that, according tocomScore, goes unseen due to banner blindness? Even if you have awesome, entertaining, useful branded content like Red Bull or Unilever, you still need to surface it. How will your brand’s content be discovered by consumers who have literally zillions of content channels to choose from?

Focus your attention where consumer attention is focused: in the edit well online, on mobile, and on the tablet. Surface your content through advertising technology that gets you in the words and images where a relevant, immersive brand advertisement or content experience will really make an impression with consumers.

3. Simplify Your Strategy

Instead of doing one thing on mobile, another on tablets, and something else on desktop, consider puttingmobile at the center of the design process, then refining and customizing everything from there.

Brands can now respond directly to how consumers interact with all kinds of devices. In an era where we swipe, expand, and share an ad or useful brand content, it isn’t enough to rely on the same old creative approach. Brands need to leverage their great assets with amazing creative executions in high-impact, exciting ways that are native to devices, contexts, and formats.

So let’s leave the purchase funnels behind, and stick with these three simple rules. Chances are people will thank you with ever-coveted, ever-elusive, real engagement

Google+ to get custom "vanity" URLs

In a welcome change to Google’s social network, steps have been taken to finally introduce what they are branding ‘vanity’ (custom) URL’s.

The move will eventually see the removal of the elongated, and difficult to remember, URL’s, which irritatingly involve many numbers. In place of this, one’s URL will be a plus sign followed by their desired name. So for example, instead of BBC News having their current URL (https://plus.google.com/107045876535773972576/posts) it could quite simply be google.com/+BBCNews. This will make it far easier to share and discover sought after Google+ pages.

Already some of the major companies and celebrities on Google+ have been handed these custom URL’s (+davidbeckham, +TOYOTA and +hugoboss to a name a few). Google Product Manager, Saurabh Sharma, has noted however, that these custom URLs will initially only be applied ‘to a limited number of verified profiles and pages’. He continues to promise that they will be available to more brands and individuals in the future.

Judging by the comments to Sharma’s post, this is something many Google+ users have been craving. Most significantly it seems that many companies have been seeking this change to help increase their visibility and ease in sharing their page, not to mention the fact that it looks far more professional.

The time frame for this change has not been specified and it appears it could take a while to verify those who require custom URL’s. Nevertheless, it is a step by Google to bring their network in line with competitors Facebook and Twitter, who have offered this service for a while now. It proves Google are still investing time and advancing their social network despite it having faltered against competitors. Still there remain many companies who question whether a Google+ account is worth the effort as the ‘social give and take’ is far less than comparable sites. If anything though, this move should benefit businesses as more may potentially join the site looking to boost traffic and visibility.

Google and Good Deeds

Gone are the days of popping a few coins into a tin on a Sunday to do your good deed for others in need. With the power of social media, donating to charities, community groups and non-profit organisations, giving for a cause has become easier. With websites like kickstarter and just-giving raising funds for individual groups, Causes allowing you to share which campaigns interest you via social networks and organisations like Sparked that gives the user the opportunity to volunteer their expertise to third-sector organisations via the web; doing your bit has become that much easier.

If you're interested in volunteering online, have a community group that lives close to your heart or even want to give a small donation to a charity in mind, then here are a few websites that can help you out:

·         IndieGoGo - The largest crowdfunding platform on the web, IndieGoGo allows users to create campaings in which they wish to fundraise. It can be anything from giving a boost for a small company to helping out with someone's medical bills. What you donate is entirely up to you and allows random acts of kindness to flourish.

·         Kickstarter - Fancy putting some money towards a creative project? Look no further than the largest platform for this on the internet. The diverse selection of projects available range from Game Designers creating apps to History of Art webinars to photography gallery exhibitions. For something a little different that caters for all, Kickstarter is probably your best bet.   

·         JustGiving - JustGiving works differently than the above two websites as it is much more sponsorship-based. Raising for a selected charity, users can fundraise by doing their chosen tasks such as skydiving and sponsored silences.

·         Sparked – Fancy volunteering your specialties or area of expertise online? Look no further than Sparked, an easy way to find voluntary positions online. There are various different avenues in which you can help including web design and marketing.

It has never been easier to do your kind deed for the day, and now you can do it with only a few clicks! 

Improving Traffic After Googles Panda Update

The recent Google Panda update has raised the bar not only for SEO experts but also for web designers. It’s getting tougher and tougher to rank well and that means that you really have to pay attention to all designing and Google ranking factors. When we do this, search engines rewards us because we are rewarding our audience and providing them with the information and experience they are looking for. The following points will help you to make your website panda proof:- 

1.Content is key:The Panda algorithm update emphasizes providing assurance only on websites that contain unique and useful content. This will help users better find content relevant to their search. If you provide web page content that is unique, relevant, high quality and preferably 1000+ words, your site will likely be rewarded with improved rankings and therefore, increased traffic. 

2.Above the fold design: Narrowing your header images, removing header banner images and pushing more content onto the top of your site will help with Panda. 

3.Web Page indexing: A website with more than 100 web pages and maximum pages indexed by Google would be considered as a Panda friendly website. 

4.Page rank: Page rank is still one of the most important factors. PageRank is an independent measure of Google’s perception of the quality/authority/credibility of an individual web page. It does not depend on any particular search phrase. Google conveniently reports this as a number from 0-10 (10 being the best). 

5.Check your Domain registration: Domain registration for five years helps to enhance authority points. This is a small tip, but every little bit helps. 

6.Webmaster tools: It enables webmasters to get a better idea of what Google “thinks” about their web sites, how the Google “spider” sees them, and what improvements could be made. 

7.Social media proof: Google Panda takes social media trends seriously and content that is loved by social media sites like Twitter and Facebook gets better position in search engines. 

8.Optimize for Fast Load Times: Avoid flash, single background images in the website. Google tends to favor sites that are snappy, quick, and fast.