One of the latest social media applications that has been getting a great deal of buzz is … Google’s Buzz. Google rolled out Buzz not too long ago, with the hope that it would become the next be social media thing. Google is hoping that the fact that Gmail users automatically access Buzz will help it continue. Also helping is the fact that Buzz makes it easy to connect Buzz to other social media feeds, creating a hub of sorts for your various social media accounts, including Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and your Blogger profile.

All of this connectivity had an initial downside. Almost immediately, outcry over privacy on Google Buzz was raised. Private information was widely available, and that caused immediate concerns. The good news is that the widespread panic caused Google to make changes to its set-up, and now Buzz can be adjusted to rectify most of the privacy problems. Now that Google has done its tinkering, and many social media mavens have had their say, Buzz is being considered for its usefulness. While Google Buzz isn’t for everyone, it can be a helpful tool in a number of settings, including education.

If you are looking for an innovative way to connect with students, especially in an online learning situation, here are some ways that you can take advantage of the features offered by Google Buzz:

Create Education Groups

Google Buzz allows you to create different groups, based on shared interests. It is also possible to set up private groups on Buzz so that you are not sharing group information with outsiders. This is one of the most useful features of Buzz for educators. You can create individual groups for each course you teach. Additionally, if you are working on class projects, you can set up small groups and monitor how they are working together. Here are the steps to creating a private group and sending messages using Google Buzz:

1. In your Gmail account, go to “Contacts”.
2. Click on “New Group” and create a name for the group.
3. Add members’ emails to this group.
4. Go to Buzz and click in the message box.
5. Look below the box to see the drop down. Switch from “Public on Web” to “Private”.
6. Click on “Post to a group” and check the appropriate box.
7. Write your message and click “Post”.

Of course, the major drawback is that all of those in the class group or course have to have their own Gmail accounts and access to Buzz in order to coordinate projects and discuss class items using this social media tool.

Collaborate on Projects

Using the ability to set up groups in Gmail and in Buzz, it is possible to use Buzz to collaborate on education projects. Indeed, Buzz is set up so that conversations can take place on a variety of subjects. This allows students to collaborate with each other, sharing files and information. Google Buzz allows for the sharing of pictures, documents (Google Docs can be used easily with Gmail and Buzz), and research links with each other. This can make collaboration fast and easy.

On top of this, it is possible for others in the group to easily follow the thread of conversation, something that can be quite difficult on Twitter when you have groups of people trying to read what others are saying. Buzz keeps related conversations together, so it is easy to see what other group members have contributed to class projects. Every post has the option to insert a link or photo. With Google Docs, you receive a link that you can put in this section (or just share the doc with everyone in your group).

Class Discussion

For distance education, Google Buzz can be great for facilitating class discussion. It is easy for online educators to upload class materials so that class members can see them using Buzz. Then it is possible to discuss the materials with class members. Class members can comment on their own time schedule as well, easily pulling up what they are looking for by post discussion, and seeing what others have said. Then they can add their own comments.

Google Buzz also makes it easy to answer questions students might have. A student can post a question, and the teacher can answer it — allowing everyone in the group to see the answer. This can be an effective way for those who might have similar questions to have them answered quickly and easily without having to email the instructor separately. Filtering improvements should help increase the efficiency of this process.

The fact that you can do this with more than 140 characters (as with Twitter), and the fact that you don’t have to enter individual “friends” for each message (as with Facebook) make Buzz quite convenient. Comments, questions and explanations can be as long as necessary, and illustrative media is readily available.

Course and Assignment Updates

It is possible for you to quickly and easily send out course and assignment updates to everyone in your class using Google Buzz. If you need to make changes to an assignment, cancel a class meeting, or set up a special online class chat, you can use Buzz to quickly let everyone in your group know. You can also post information on extra credit assignments, or let students know when their grades are available.

You can also notify students when you have a new video lecture up. The “Insert Link” feature allows you to insert a link from YouTube and have the video show up as something playable immediately. You can also connect your YouTube account to Buzz, so that every time you upload a new video, it is automatically disseminated to all of your followers.

Drawbacks to Google Buzz

Even with the privacy upgrades to Buzz, there are still some concerns. One of them is that in some cases there is an “all or nothing” approach, making it difficult to make some things public and some things private. Another downside to Google Buzz in terms of privacy is that when you use Buzz on mobile devices, it can show your location to followers. You might not want class members knowing exactly where you are.

And, of course, in order for Google Buzz to be effective in education, all of those taking your course must have a Gmail account and use it regularly. That’s no real hardship, since it is free, but some online students may not be too keen on getting a new email account just to take a class.

In the end, though, Google Buzz offers some interesting possibilities, especially for those looking to beef up their online education offerings.

Thanks to Emily Johnston, Best College Rankings

Android was developed with one simple idea: Open up mobile devices to enable greater innovation that will benefit users everywhere. Nexus One, new Android mobile phone from Google. Nexus One is an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile devices through Android – when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket.

The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call “superphones.” It’s the first in what we expect to be a series of products which we will bring to market with our operator and hardware partners and sell through our online store.

Manufactured by HTC, the Nexus One features dynamic noise suppression from Audience, Inc., a large 3.7″ OLED display for deep contrast and brilliant colors and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset for blazing speeds. Running on Android 2.1, the newest version of Eclair, the software includes innovations like a voice-enabled keyboard so you can speak into any text field, fun Live Wallpapers, a 3D photo gallery for richer media experiences and lots more. Of course, it also comes with a host of popular Google applications, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation.

You can purchase a phone with service from T-Mobile USA. Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone in Europe have also signed on to this program.

Price is $529 unlocked or $179 with T-Mobile USA service. This “coming spring,” the Nexus One will come to Verizon. You will need a Google Checkout account to buy the phone. On the site, you can enter two lines of laser engraving and you see a live preview of what the engraving will look like.

It can take any GSM SIM. On AT&T, you can slip in your AT&T SIM card from your iPhone and use it. You’ll get EDGE speed instead of 3G, but it will work fine. Wifi is supported.

Over the past week or so Google has released a slew of updates to its search operation. Some of these are somewhat controversial (personalized search) and some are just aesthetic changes (minimalist homepage) but Google seems to have ramped up their refinement process for the coming festive season. Here are some of the new updates you’ll be sure to encounter:

Google Personalized Search

From around the beginning of December, Google will start tailoring your search results based on previous browsing history, whether you are logged into your Google account or not(This review assumes that you are logged out). In order to allay privacy concerns you can opt out if you wish but most people using Google will be using personalized search by default. Google accomplishes this finding your favored sites (indicated by which ones you most often click through to) and ranking sites from that brand or theme higher in your particular search results. This means Dymocks might be top of the SER’s for the keyword ‘books’ while for another person the same search will yield Angus & Robertson as the top positioned site. This doesn’t mean the other ranking factors are simply ignored however; they are simply used in conjunction with the personalized result factors. With this version of personalized search ( signed out of Google account), Google can only guess at your preference from what you click on, clicks are what your personalized search is based on, not search history or surfing habits.

Now you may think this has doom and gloom implications for search engine optimization, well it doesn’t, not yet anyway. First, Google is going to have to collect huge amounts of click data in order to understand and use your preferences within the SERPS. Good structured pages with terrific content, correctly used HTML attributes and links will still play the majority role in the ranking of sites, whether personalized search takes effect or not. We’re not sure how much weighting the personalized search factor will have within the entire Google algorithm, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people get near identical SERPS, regardless of their click history and habits. I have a feeling they may use the old Google 80/20 rule when implementing personalized search, i.e. 8 ‘normal results’ and 2 results impacted on by personalized search for each SERP.

Google’s New Search Page

Now unlike some of the other tweaks and updates that Google has implemented over the past month or so this is pretty much a purely aesthetic change. When the search page is first loaded, you only see the logo, search box and the search buttons. When you move your mouse the rest of the search page ‘fades in’. This is something that Google has been testing for a while, for example it only worked on Chrome for a while and then periodically for other browsers. The only reason I can think of for this change is to funnel more people to start searching right away, rather than exploring the other links on the page.

Google Real-Time results

Google also announced that Google Real Time search has been rolled out. This feature is going to be rolled out in an incremental process over the next few weeks. Essentially Google is going to start indexing tweets, Facebook status updates (where made publicly visible by the Facebook user and this feature will be rolled out at a later stage) and other forms of real-time information. According to Google, they are processing over ‘a billion documents a day’ from the real-time web. In order to activate this feature you need to click on the show options link just above the results. This opens a whole heap of options, in order to activate the Google real-time results click on latest link. Then just sit back and watch new results blend into the top of your SERPS.

Now with the advent of Twitter, ‘real-time’ seems to be all the rage, with everybody wanting instant gratification. I think the problem Google and the other search engines may be at the juxtaposition of real-time and relevancy. How do you rank a tweet in terms of relevancy to the subject? Is something that is ‘real-time’ better than something that is more relevant? Well, I don’t have answers to these questions but with a couple thousand PHD’s just sitting around thinking up answers to these questions I’m sure the big G has it covered. The following sources of real-time information will be indexed:

• Facebook
• MySpace
• FriendFeed
• Jaiku
• Identi.ca
• Twitter
• Fresh press releases or blog posts

Was this feature an absolute necessity for Google to survive? No, but it’s a ‘nice to have’ feature, as for me, it’s easier to keep up with my UEFA champions league scores.

Google Mobile Updates

Google announced a whole raft of search capabilities for mobile phones (and in particular android enabled phones). In terms of Google Voice search, Japanese, Mandarin and English are all now supported as well as several more phone models, including; Blackberries, Android powered mobiles and Nokia’s.

Search By location is a really interesting feature. According to the Google announcement, people with Google Maps on Android 1.6+ devices, can just press on the map for an extended period and ten of the closest points of interest (restaurants, shops etc) will be revealed to you. Nice feature, especially if you are bored and stuck somewhere for an extended period.

Google Goggles

Now this is a feature that really interests me, If Google can pull it off correctly it is going to be massive! This feature is currently a labs product that only users of Android 1.6+ devices can use. Essentially, you take a picture of an object, send it to Google and if they are able to recognize the object it returns relevant search results regarding the object. According to Google, Goggles will recognize the following objects:

• Books
• DVDs
• Landmarks
• Logos
• Artwork
• Businesses
• Products
• Barcodes

Google has also released the following tips for making Goggles work better:

• Take photos in areas with good lighting.
• Zoom in as much as possible.
• Use your phone in “left landscape” orientation (with your right thumb pressing the shutter).
• Hold your hands steady, and use the on-screen shutter button.

Imagine the capabilities, you are in a foreign country, you are doing the touristy/sightseeing thing, you want more information on an odd relic you are perusing so you take a picture and voila, all the information right on your mobile, very cool.

There are some other features like Google living stories, news rendered in a new and dynamic way. Updates to the Google Web Kit, including ways to speed up web apps. Loading time/web site performance is slated to be a big indicator in terms of search results in 2010. Martin has written a great post on Google and speed. As a result of the speed factor, Google has added another tool in Google Webmaster Tools where you can check the performance of your site. Google has also announced that extensions for Chrome are also now available. Wow, Google has been busy and I for one am looking forward to playing around with these news features and figuring out how they benefit me and the SEO I perform.

About the Author : Marc Elison is a Search Engine Optimization consultant with Bruce Clay Australia. Bruce Clay Australia is part of Bruce Clay, Inc a leading provider of Internet marketing services, with an emphasis on SEO.

Tweet Positioning System, or TPS, is known in social media circles as a “mashup”. It merges functions of Twitter Search with Google Maps to provide a real-time geographic view of micro-blogging conversations.

This social media tool that allows users to track Twitter conversations as and where they happen – and it is one of the first tools to incorporate Twitter’s newly released “geo-tagging” feature.

Users can enter any search term into the TPS search box. The tool then links to Twitter, which recently released a software update allowing users to opt to share their current location. Drawing data from this “geo-tagging” feature, a map automatically appears showing “hot spots” where Twitter conversations are being held on that topic at that moment, whether it’s around the United States or around the world. Users can then click on the hotspots to view or even join conversations (if they are Twitter members).

Humana built the tool to gain insights in areas such as product development, event management and regional sales and marketing. In the spirit of transparency, it decided to share the tool with other users. The tool will continue to evolve based on user feedback. Several new features have already been added, such as the ability to see the volume of tweets over time for any given search, and the ability to add a widget (showing a map of your favorite conversation) to your blog or Facebook page.

It may be go down in history as a rocky decade, but it surely had its bright spots. To wind up the 21st century’s first ten years, AdweekMedia named the best and brightest in the branding, marketing, media and agency world in 33 categories.

Media Company of the Decade & Digital Company of the Decade

Google : Sergey Brin and Larry Page surely didn’t realize it when Google launched in 1998, but the two had founded the most powerful direct-response marketing vehicle ever created (people tell Google they want specific stuff and Google delivers ads offering that stuff).

Media Executive of the Decade

Rupert Murdoch : Murdoch is the last of the great media moguls, and while he’s 78 years old, the entrepreneur may well be at the height of his powers.

Media Entrepreneurs of the Decade

Larry Page & Sergey Brin : Here’s what really changed about media in the past decade: The fastest growing, most dynamic, disruptive and arguably most important media company of the 2000s produced absolutely no content of its own. Not a single article. No hit series. Google, founded at the end of the prior decade by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is an engineering endeavor through and through.

TV Show of the Decade

The Sopranos : When The Sopranos debuted on Jan. 10, 1999, it was as if creator David Chase were telling the nation that the very best things were finished, and that American life from that moment forward would be informed by a dull longing for the irretrievable past.

Broadcast Network of the Decade

CBS : The strength and consistency of the most watched network, CBS, shows it can be done, year after year, thanks to its steady diet of scripted comedies and dramas, top-notch reality, and the granddaddy of news magazines, 60 Minutes.

Cable Network of the Decade

Disney Channel : Hannah Montana. High School Musical. The Jonas Brothers. These inescapably popular names would most certainly not grace the pop-culture lexicon were it not for the marketing (some might say evil) genius at Disney Channel.

Magazine of the Decade

Wired : Wired survived the storm by capturing a broader readership with an editorial mix spanning technology, business, science, entertainment and culture-in essence becoming the chronicler of the technology surge that’s changed all our lives this decade.

Radio Personality of the Decade

Rush Limbaugh : Love him (as his “dittohead” fans do) or hate him (as every liberal does), no radio host or personality comes close to Rush Limbaugh in size of audience or volume of political discourse. The man manages to stay in the headlines no matter who’s in the White House or who’s gunning for him.

Web Site of the Decade

YouTube : YouTube helped make it remarkably easy to post video online, and even easier to stream. Plus, clips could suddenly be embedded on any site across the Web. Super syndication – now a core digital media strategy for many content companies – was born.

Blog of the Decade

Gawker : Gawker burst onto the scene in 2002 as a new kind of publication. It defiantly skipped magazine prose in favor of Internet snark, obsessively needling the New York-centric media world.

Commercial of the Decade

Honda, “Grrr” : An unlikely mix of cute animals frolicking in a CGI Eden, flying diesel engines and the gravel-on-velvet voice of Garrison Keillor, the spot won a slew of awards in 2005. It gets ours for the best of the decade, period.

Super Bowl Spot of the Decade

Coca-Cola, “It’s Mine” : Normally, a fight on New York City’s streets isn’t this funny—let alone heartwarming. But the theme is just one of the chances taken by Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., in creating Coke’s 2008 Super Bowl ad, “It’s Mine.”

Campaign of the Decade

Apple, “Get a Mac” : Apple always diverged from the “speeds and feeds” ads associated with the computer category, but the brand really defined itself with the 2006 launch of the “Get a Mac” campaign. That series of 60-plus ads brought some humanity into the equation by turning the machines into live-action cartoons.

Commercial Director of the Decade

Daniel Kleinman : The special-effects savvy director Daniel Kleinman, an expert teller of weird but beautiful stories, has a career characterized by a collection of offbeat gems.

Print Ad of the Decade

NBA, “There Can Only Be One” : In 2008, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners dunked the tradition of freeze-frame action shots customarily used in NBA marketing by replacing it with an image at once emotional and iconic: the human face.

Out-of-Home Ad of the Decade

Apple, “Silhouettes” : You’d have thought Andy Warhol did them – and why not? In the end, the work was nearly as iconic. Perennially at work on new ways to brand Apple’s products, TBWA\Media Arts Lab took the wraps off of “Silhouettes” in 2003. It didn’t just brand the iPod – it immortalized it.

Digital Campaign of the Decade

Nike Plus : If there was a knock against Nike Plus from the ad world, it was what it wasn’t: an ad. Which was, of course, the point. Nike Plus takes “Just do it” and actually helps runners get it done.

Agency of the Decade

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners : Retooled into a potent force for the digital age, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is a true master of all trades, deserving to be called the decade’s best.

Small Agency of the Decade

Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners : When John Butler, Mike Shine and Greg Stern left Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to open their own shop across the bay, they were warned that no one would ever take them seriously. 16 years later, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners is thriving with $30 million in revenue and 150 staffers.

Agency Executives of the Decade

Jeff Goodby & Rich Silverstein : Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, co-chairmen and creative directors of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, have been setting creative standards since they opened their award-winning San Francisco agency in 1983.

Agency Creative Director of the Decade

Alex Bogusky : While his methods are alternately revered and reviled in the industry, few would disagree that the Crispin Porter + Bogusky co-chairman is the one man who most shaped creative trends in advertising over the past decade.

Multicultural Agency of the Decade

GlobalHue : The agency’s successful investment in demographic research following the 2000 U.S. Census helped fuel the shop’s growth into the largest, smartest multicultural agency in the U.S. with revenue of $83 million in 2008.

Digital Agency of the Decade

R/GA : R/GA founder and CEO Bob Greenberg has a fortune-teller’s knack for seeing what’s around the corner. R/GA has been at the forefront of the top developments in interactive marketing and, along the way, has developed an agency model melding creativity and technology that’s the envy of the industry.

Media Agency of the Decade

Starcom MediaVest Group : The Publicis-owned shop started the decade as the AdweekMedia’s first Media Agency of the Year, an award bestowed after the organization— technically two shops that operate separately but also collaborate on key accounts such as Procter & Gamble—won General Motors’ landmark $2.9 billion planning assignment. Huge wins from Kraft, Coca-Cola and Mars followed.

Media Agency Executive of the Decade

Irwin Gotlieb : Alternately known as the “king of advertising” or the “Zen master” for the skills and influence he brings to bear on the media agency business, Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of WPP’s GroupM, has been a media innovator throughout his career, now spanning some four decades.

Marketer of the Decade

Steve Jobs : Visionary, iconoclastic and fearless, Steve Jobs the marketer is inseparable from Steve Jobs the personality. His inimitable blend of competitive skill and design savvy hasn’t just saved a fading brand, it’s recast two businesses that used to have nothing to do with computers: music and mobile phones.

Marketing Innovation of the Decade

Viral Videos : For advertising, the watershed moment came in 2004, when the “Subservient Chicken” video for Burger King’s TenderCrisp chicken sandwich got hundreds of millions of visits. Here, for the first time, was an ad created for the Internet with a reach far beyond what TV could offer – and all at a fraction of broadcast’s high prices.

Brand of the Decade

Apple : In terms of politics and world events, this has been a wild decade, but on the marketing front, one thing has remained constant: Apple’s emotional connection to consumers, who reward it with an almost cult-like loyalty.

Product of the Decade

iPod : To date, more than 220 million iPods have been sold worldwide. The success is all the more amazing because Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player—it redefined it.

Promotion of the Decade

BMW Films : In 2001, BMW was searching for a new way to get the word out about its kick-ass cars. But instead of just running commercials, its then-agency Fallon proposed creating five Hollywood-style minifeatures, then airing them only online. Soon, branded entertainment became an industry buzzword, but no one ever topped BMW, which was first and did it best.

Product Placement of the Decade

Coca-Cola/American Idol : With its 20 million-plus viewers, American Idol wasn’t just a successful program, it was a phenomenon. At the center of the action was Coca-Cola, which got straight commercial time plus other perks like a Coke-red waiting room for contestants.

Digital Device/Platform of the Decade

Facebook : Just as Google wasn’t the first search engine, Facebook didn’t invent the social network, but rather improved upon it in such a way that it became the de facto standard. By decade’s end, Facebook was at the forefront of the evolution of online advertising.

Social networking sites are emerging as a hotspot not just for teenagers, but also for advertisers who target these youngsters to build brands and sell products.

However, only 13 per cent of the total Internet advertisement budget has been spent on social media initiatives for the year 2008-09, according to a recent study Webchutney.

But the advertisement spend on digital media by the top 500 marketers is likely to grow 44 per cent to Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) in FY 2009-10.

Google, which has the largest network of users in India, is working with advertisers to aggressively target the youth with innovative strategies on Orkut and You Tube.

Orkut gives marketers the ability to find audiences that they want to target and create an interactive advertising experience that seeks to understand them better and offer products that they need.

Mr. Parminder Singh, Business Head (Technology & Media), Google India, is bullish on the growth of advertising from social networking platforms. He tells why social networking sites are turning out to be a money spinner for advertisers.

How effective are the social networking sites for advertising? Why is it getting more popular?

A social networking site is a great medium to advertise as lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people use these sites to interact with others. It is a growing community. There is a great interest among clients to advertise more on these platforms. People like to connect with brands and advertisers want to connect with people so this is an ideal platform. After a recent survey by a telecom company, it was found that about 75 per cent of the people identify the brand better. The brand found high favourability among the users.

How many active users do you have on Orkut?

Orkut has 15 million users in India, making it the largest and fastest growing social networking site. The site has over 5 billion page views in India. So India is a very strong market and we hope to continue with this pace of growth.

How difficult is it to retain users? How do you attract more users?

We try to offer a variety of features, which includes photo sharing, innovation in terms of content as we have a good understanding of what the user wants. We offer a variety of apps on various topics, which are of interest to them.

Bollywood is a hot topic in India so we offer a lot of apps based on that. We constant innovate to give content and features relevant for users. We make sure what we add features according to the users’ needs and preferences.

How have revenues from advertising grown? Which sectors advertise the most?

I cannot disclose exact figures but revenues have been growing substantially. Financial services, telecom companies, automobile and travel companies are upbeat on the response they have received. We educate our clients on what people would like to see, create better brand awareness and tell them how to get better brand impact.

How will advertising on social networking sites rise in the coming years?

The networking sites are getting more popular. Advertising across all sections are set to register high growth. We offer advertisers four main target criteria, like the age, gender, geography and interest of the person. This gives them a clear idea about who the audience is, this helps them make the best judgment and offer products to suit their interest.

How do you plan to garner more revenues from online advertisements?

We plan to constantly innovate and offer what our readers want. The social networking sites require intellectual investment, besides monetary investment. We have to be in tune with their demands.

We have this program called, IFPFB for advertisers. This stands for interest, feedback, pride, bonding and fun. The advertisements should generate an interest, get a feedback from people, people should get a sense of pride associating with the product, offer people an opportunity for fun, bond with others. If it’s an insurance product or a loan, people can discuss it and decide which is the best product.

How has the recession hit advertising?

We have not been immune to the recession. It has affected advertising but we continue to focus on return on investment.

What kind of growth do you expect in terms of users, advertisement revenues?

We see substantial growth from India in the years to come. Many of our clients have good success stories after running advertisement campaigns. The advertisements of an online trading company saw a conversion rate of 13.5 per cent which is quite impressive. The advertisers have seen a significant increase in purchase after advertising on these sites.

Social networking sites are booming. How do you plan to fight competition?

We bank on innovation and a strong user base to fight competition.

What are the different methods of advertising? Which method works the best?

We have various formats like banner, text, image, and flash ads. We have also started video format now. It works very well as users get to see the commercial. It also helps companies get a feedback about who is watching it and for how long. This gives a good idea about what clicks and what does not. It helps us understand their preferences better. The advertising method work well depending on the content.

Thanks to Rediff.com

Google recently added powerful new features to Google Analytics account. With these 7 new features you’ll be able to get quicker insights, create deeper customizations, do more advanced analysis and track more mobile marketing!

Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts
Using an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine, Analytics Intelligence monitors data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Significant changes in data trends and insights you may not have noticed are surfaced directly in your account. You can also create your own Custom Alerts that monitor your selection of dimensions and metrics that can be sent by email or displayed in the Intelligence reports.

Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals
You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. Set up your first Engagement goal in minutes.

Expanded Mobile Reporting
Google Analytics has expanded support for mobile websites and tracking for iPhone and Android mobile applications tracking. Adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites enables you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones. For mobile application developers, access the SDK and technical implementation details here. You’ll also be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section.

Unique Visitors Metric
Include the Unique Visitors metric in your Custom Report or Advanced Segments to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) visit your website. You can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics.

Advanced Analysis Features
Dive deeper into your data with Pivoting, Secondary Dimensions, and Advanced Table Filtering. These combined features enable you to perform in-depth, on the fly data analysis within your account.

Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates
Share the URL link for an Advanced Segment or Custom Report with anyone who has an Analytics account. Sharing the link will automatically import the pre-formatted template into the person’s account. Also available now is the ability to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports by profile.

Multiple Custom Variables
Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. Start learning more about them now.

Award-winning digital publishing provider, YUDU Media, has today launched SmartADS, a digital advertising solution for publishers looking to monetize their online magazines and ebooks.

Created with the assistance of Google and DoubleClick, SmartADS is the first solution in the world to enable automated ad streaming into digital editions (online page-turning magazines) using flash in flash technology and full integration with ad serving engines.

SmartADS therefore offers publishers the ability to generate additional revenue without the need for a dedicated sales team by using third party ad networks.

The streamed ads can be static, flash or even video based. There is also an option to include SmartWORDS, which activates in-text advertising throughout a digital edition.

“Digital publishing has proved successful at saving on print and postage costs but has so far not mastered a suitable method of revenue generation. SmartADS has been designed to address this and help publishers make the most out of their existing content.” says Robert Elding, Marketing Director of YUDU.

One of the biggest advantages for publishers is the ability to include extensive advertising without the need for any page re-design or interference with the publication’s content. Flexible methods of insertion include pre-roll, transparent tabs, auto playing on a page, scroll over etc.

The combined result is a comprehensive advertising solution for digital editions allowing publishers to monetize digital publishing and generate additional revenue for minimum effort.

SmartADS was developed with the help of Google and DoubleClick who advised on ad streaming criteria whilst also assisting with the technological platform needed for SmartADS development.

A “doodle” is a name given to any logo that Google displays on their site during commemorative events and special dates. It has become commonplace recently. Now it’s no surprise that a website was created to enlighten people and put together an archive of different doodles made by Google. The site is called Doodle Source and what it does is collect doodles all over the world to show you the doodle recently displayed on a Google page.

Significance of a Doodle
A doodle pertains to some sort of a sketch or drawing that may be an abstract shape but represents a concrete meaning. Stereotype examples of these doodling are found in the margins of school books and notebooks when students are daydreaming in class. Some of them are also produced during long conversations on the phone if there is paper and pen available.

Popular doodles include cartoon versions of famous people or characters, fictional beings, geometric shapes, landscapes, banners, textures, or animations. According to a published study by Applied Cognitive Psychology, a doodle or the act of doodling actually helps improve a person’s memory. This study was done at University of Plymouth School of Psychology by Professor Jackie Andrade.

Recent Google Doodles
The doodles of Google have been making headlines again. The company attracted attention to its doodles when it started showing relevant and current information about a country through its unique logo drawings. Some of the recent ones include the promotion of the Olympics in Brazil for 2016; the commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi, the famous spiritual and political leader in India; fireworks in China; Children’s Day in Singapore; and a tribute to Confucius who was a social philosopher deeply influencing China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

DoodleSource.com gathers all Google doodles worldwide the moment these doodles appear. Their archive started on August 30, 2009 but they promise to expand it starting from 1999. You can follow them easily through Twitter or RSS feed to keep you updated on the latest doodle in a specific place and date.

The doodles of Google are entertaining to the eyes but it can also be educational as well. You can learn about the history, art, or culture of the country if you check out the different doodles that appeared for them throughout the years. Fortunately, the database of Doodlesource.com also has a ranking by country depending on the number of doodles shown there. You may want to check out the website soon.

Nimbuzz announces the launch of its multi community mobile social messenger application for Android handsets. Unique for Android users, Nimbuzz introduces a revolutionary buddy list layout, Skype IM, a time-sensitive user interface, home-screen notifications, auto-reconnect, clickable URLs, and local social network support to make Nimbuzz the most sophisticated IM application for Android handsets.

Though there aren’t as many Android devices sold yet as iPhones, they are a mass market product and Android is a logical extension to their lineup of over 1000+ supported devices. The free app is available to download from the Android Marketplace.

Nimbuzz takes full advantage of the benefits of the Android platform technologies. Alongside home-screen notifications that alert the user on the home screen of activities such as incoming chats while the application runs in the background, Nimbuzz also added a time-sensitive user interface option that detects how long the user presses on a contact in the buddy list. A fast-click instantly opens the contacts profile; a long-click opens a live chat window.

These updates work alongside the auto-reconnect feature guaranteeing seamless connectivity, by instantly reconnecting whenever a connection is lost. The smart buddy list displays information in an intelligent way, combining avatar and presence information in one, with community icon and resource information, if the person is online on the mobile or PC, in the same line.

What Nimbuzz has in stock for Android users:

• Smart buddy list layout displays avatar and presence information in one, combined with community and resource information (if your buddy is online on the mobile or PC).
• Time sensitive UI detects how long you press on a buddy’s name. A light touch opens their profile and a stronger touch instantly starts a new chat!
• Home screen notifications alert you of activities such as incoming chats while Nimbuzz runs in the background.
• Clickable URLs make for a multi media rich chat experience – share Youtube videos and Wikipedia information. A browser window will open from which you can seamlessly switch back and forth to Nimbuzz.
• Auto reconnect keeps you connected when switching between 2G, 3G and Wifi networks and automatically reconnects you if the service has been interrupted.
• Unique to Android users – only Nimbuzz intergrates Skype IM and local social networks such as Hyves in the Netherlands, StudiVZ from Germany, Gagu Gadu from Poland, and Giovani from Italy.

Evert-Jaap Lugt, founder and CEO of Nimbuzz said: “Mobiles are no longer just about hardware but software. Nimbuzz increases the value of the handset and enriches the user experience. Our Android version is a perfect example of what we do best, integrating Nimbuzz’s award winning service to bring the best out of each operating system and handset.”

Nimbuzz welcomes Android users to its community that grows at nearly 1 million new users per month and has recently been recognized as “Best Mobile Startup” by Techcrunch Europe, and Top Global 250 tech company by AlwaysOn Stanford Summit.