Google posts

As mobile technology continues to become more prevalent in use and present in our hands, so too do the “bad guys” make gains in skill and tools. As such the recent malware report (PDF) released last week by McAfee showed a 22% increase in malware over the same period last year. Android was hardest hit with malicious software disguised as legitimate apps. The attacks are getting more sophisticated as well, finding exploits through downloads of common apps with hard-to-detect holes that open up for more malware to be downloaded behind the scenes. Much of this can be blamed on Google’s “less rigorous…

When the Google +1 button first rolled out earlier this year, it made a little bit of a splash from speculation that it may have an effect on general search rankings some time in the future. It was designed to help logged-in friends help each other with suggested web pages. Not a big deal. When Google then launched the Google+ social network, the similarities in design and integration of functionality became more intriguing. Users could click the +1 button on any website that had it installed and could use it to share the page on their Google+ profile. Again, great stuff, but nothing huge. Now, the…

The drive towards domination of the smartphone market continues for Apple and Google as they approach a combined 70% choke hold. Symbian is all but non-existent, holding on to just under 2%. Microsoft has been unable to break the 6% barrier but hopes that they will be able to do so with the release of Windows 8. RIM is still in the race, though hope is growing dim. Still, they are over 20%, a mark that most expected them to sink below in the most recent report. Blackberry has lost 4% since April….

In the news, people are well aware of the iOS vs Android war. Both operating systems and the companies behind them wage open battle in their quests for mobile domination. Otherwise, there are no arenas where the two tech giants go head to head… at least openly. Behind the scenes, a more heated battle than the public one wages every day. It’s not the technology that drives these companies but rather the people behind their technologies. As a result, getting the best people available is always at the top of the priority list. Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley giants have been actively recruiting…

With several hundred signals that are read and processed by their search algorithm, we’ve always known that Google puts a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort into making their results match their users’ needs. Now, we have an idea of how much tweaking is done: a lot. Their “search scientists” test the changes they make in a sandbox environment to see how each change, twist, addition, and omission reacts to various searches and search types. “Just last year we launched over 500 changes to our algorithm so by some count we change our algorithm almost every day, almost twice over,” said Google…

Companies are often no longer the experts about their own products. The internet has allowed us to find information like never before and people are able to offer advice or resources at a bulk rate in ways that companies simply cannot replicate. Such is the case for Nintendo who, according to Reddit, has simply given up. It’s probably a good move….

Every month, StatCounter comes out with their ranking reports that are combed over by bloggers to find trends, see changes, and note anything newsworthy, such as StumbleUpon overtaking Facebook for US traffic sent. The one chart that none of us ever look at is Mobile Search. The domination in that arena is so pronounced, nobody bothers reporting on it. Google delivers over 97% of the mobile searches in the world today. The combined challengers at Yahoo, Bing, Yandex RU, Ask Jeeves, and everyone else peaked in February, 2011, when they were closest to achieving a full 3% of the global mobile search…

As Google and Apple continue to grow in the mobile market, Android and iOS are quickly becoming the predominant operating systems for phones and tablets. There are many statistics to look at and comparisons to be made. Here, we present a visualization tackling the debate. Thanks to our friends at Hunch, we now know that Android users are 10% more likely to be men. We know that iOS users are 50% more likely to have been on the internet before 1992. We know who is more likely to prefer General Tso’s Chicken over Pad Thai. It may not be the most important demographic data, but it’s definitely interesting….

How different is Google+ from Facebook? It turns out, they’re not that different. A recent eye-tracking study has revealed that users of Facebook and Google+ look at their respective social networks in almost the exact same way. The study, conducted by EyeTrackShop, studied 54 people while they used Facebook and Google+. Users examined the content columns of both social networks’ homepages in the identical manner, and also spent the same amount of time reading each section. The study found that 50 percent of participants fixated — for one second, at approximately five seconds into their…

As it does with most trends in marketing, the automotive industry has gone from way behind just a year and a half ago to shaping the venues and carving the path today. There have been some missteps to say the least, many in the business from car dealers to manufacturers are fully embracing social media as a venue to get their brand and message out to the masses. Earlier this year we wrote about how the industry is embracing new media. Now, we’ve compiled a breakdown of the major manufacturers and how their current social media presence ranks in this competitive world. By the numbers There’s an old saying:…