Is Google a Metrosexual?

We think it is!

During a discussion in the office the other day, we stumbled upon a realisation - Google is a very metrosexual search engine! The signs are all there - Google is definitely in touch with it's modern-man side. Wordspy defines a Metrosexual as "An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle." But let's look at this in more detail:

• Stylish - Google has always prided itself in having it's own unique style, with the white-space and uncluttered look spreading through all their new products as well as search.
• In touch with the latest trends - Google trends anybody?
• Efficient and organised - Google documents lets you keep all of your correspondence and documents in one central location, how much more organised could you be?
• Loves to dance - The ongoing Google dance is world famous in the SEM community!
• Loves shopping - Froogle may have had mixed success but there is no denying that Google likes to snap up a bargain in the sales, with YouTube and Blogger a testament to this.
• Constantly updating your image - Google constantly change their logo to reflect special events or days.
• Constant travel and jetsetting - Larry and Sergei do so much travel they recently bought their own private jet!
• Very sociable - Orkut may not be the biggest player in the social networking scene, but who knows where Google will go next...!
• Grooming - Metrosexual men are famously well groomed, with a propensity for facial hair...!

Can anybody else think of any other connections?!

Google News Results In UK SERPs - Why Bother?

News results not relevant for UK users

More and more often we are seeing 'News Results' from Google News in the UK search engine results. And the quality and relevancy are by and large pretty poor. A search for 'Digtial Cameras' brings up the following at the bottom of the SERPs:

So where does this 'News' results take you? To this:

This is an American review site selling Digital Cameras (ok, good relevancy) in US Dollars (bad) to an American Audience (bad, bad). And this is typical of the quality, lets check out 'Life Insurance'.

So three results at the bottom and where do these go? A news report from CNN on plans for WSL to rename itself, to the India Times on the top three non-Life Insurance companies in India and to the Business Standard reporting from Mumbai on Max New York Life Insurance Company Ltd is looking to double its new business premium.

None of these can possibly be of interest to UK users (well, very few) and certainly trying  to interprete user intent these results are way off beam. And this is pretty typical across a wide range of results we looked at.

We understand what Google is trying to do and think it is a good idea, that is draw in results from differant sources. But until they get these results right surely it would be better not to publish them?

Users are not going to be impressed or trust incorrect and non-relevant results so even if (OK, when) Google do get it right some damage may already have been done and trust lost on these additional results.

Yahoo! Update, It's Official

Yahoo! Gets Smarter and Deeper

Yahoo! has announced that there is an update going on so expect results to shuffle about a bit. This update is particularly interesting as it is the first update since the implementation of Dynamic URL Writing using Site Explorer. This enables Yahoo! to search deeper and ignore duplication within sites and should improve relevancy.

If you are interetsed there is a good explanation here.

We have noticed some small fluctuations across some key terms so it will be interesting to watch this develop but overall the impression is pretty good.

I do like the way Yahoo! gives us these weather reports, other Search Engines should take note!

Google Wants Global Privacy Deal

Governments & Businesses should agree basic privacy laws

Google's Privacy Cheif Peter Fleischer has told a UN agency meeting that Governments and businesses should agree soe basic laws of privacy to protect individual.

With so much information being passed around via the internet each day many laws, where they exist, are out of date with many people confused as to what their rights are, count me in on that one!

However, Mr Fleischer did point to the APEC agreement that is in place between countries ranging from Australia to Vietnam. The  guidelines have nine principles that aim to protect the individual and safeguard data collection. If these countries can agree 'cross border' laws then the rest of the world should be able to do so as well.

Google recently changed their own Privacy laws to be more in line with Yahoo! and auto-delete two years after a user's last visit to its site.

Google's Own Rank Up From 53 to 39

Graduates keener to work with Google

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers survey shows that there is more interest in working for Google now than last year, up from 53 on the hot 100 in 2006 to 39 in 2007. Microsoft dropped from 24 in 2006 to 34 in 2007.

The research across 17,170 final-year university students produced a list of over 600 companies that they would like to work for.

The Top Five were unchanged from last year:

1 PricewaterhouseCoopers Services
2 Deloitte Services
3 KPMG Services
4 Civil Service  Public Sector
5 BBC

Companies that dropped out of the 100 included Siemens, Virgin, Airbus and Sony. 

Using the power of the 'net for good

As most people will know by now, famous adventurer Steve Fossett went missing in Nevada last week while flying his mini plane. Well, Google and Amazon have now joined the search and are asking their users to help scour the area of desert where he was last known to have been using Google Earth. This is something we have been expecting for a while, and it's great that Google are recognising the power of their tool and the applications it could have. New satelite imagery has been taken of the area, and by logging in to the Amazon Mechanical Turk page for the project you can sign up to search a small area and report back on your findings.

If you haven't used the Mechanical Turks project before, you should definitely take a look. Amazon define the project's origin and purposes here, but the basics are as follows:

"Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate "artificial artificial intelligence" directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications."

Bob Crow unlikely to get invited to Facebook...

If you have had trouble getting to work in London this morning, you're definitely not in the minority.

Perhaps you'd like to talk about it?

If so, then help is at hand in the form of Facebook! Irate London commuters are showing no sympathy for the RMT or Bob Crow this morning as over 1,000 signed up to 21 Facebook groups condemning the strike action during the morning’s chaotic rush hour alone.

For those of you that might not be aware, tube workers are staging a 72-hour walkout over pensions and jobs in a very public battle with Ken Livingstone and Transport for London, but have failed to win over the support of London’s workforce.

Commuters have already set up twelve groups protesting against the RMT union, four against the union’s general secretary Bob Crow and five against the collapsed maintenance firm Metronet. Highlights include groups named: “RMT union members suck”, “Bob Crow needs a damn good thrashing”, “I hate the RMT”, and “Another tube strike! The RMT and Bob Crow can suck my balls”.

Despite the frenzy of anti-strike protests online, the RMT has not made any effort to communicate its cause to those affected commuters through the social network...

We can only assume that Bob Crow won't be receiving too many invites to be people's friend on Facebook today...