Internet Marketing News June 2014 Recap

Here is an overview of the top internet marketing news stories of June 2014!

Google

• Google Analytics now automatically separates branded and non-branded PPC traffic eliminating the need to build custom segments or filter strings.
• After only launching 2.0 last month, Google announced Payday Loan Algorithm 3.0 to target spammy queries such as payday loans, casino, Viagra, and forms of spammy queries.
• Google is removing profile photos, and circle counts from authorship on its search results. The new design just features a clickable name below the headline and before the meta description.

• Google introduced a revamped flight and hotel travel search experience. The new version is a more integrated travel experience which makes planning easier and pleasing to use. The interface is simpler, cleaner, and more visually rich.
• Google adds one-click music app integration where a user can search for a musician or song and tap the link to open the music in apps like Rdio, iHeart Radio, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, or YouTube.
• Google has been testing step by step instruction snippets in the top knowledge graph box. Google says they hope it draws attention to webpages that provide similar content.
• At Google I/O developer conference, Google announced they would bring app indexing to all Android Apps.
• Google also announced Android TV. The UI is simpler and more intuitive than Google TV and is controlled by an app on Android phones. Voice search works using the phone or Smartwatch instead of the TV. Searching returns Google Play content and knowledge graph search results.
• Starwood launched an app for Glass called “SPG for Glass” that allows explorers to search for hotels by current location, destination, airport, and hotel name.

Bing

• Bing upgraded their music discovery functionality. Bing released a dynamic carousel which automatically features an artist’s top hits when searching for an artist’s hits. Users can then select a song from the carousel, choose a video, and play it within the same window.
• After EU’s new Right to be Forgotten, Bing is also working on a process for European Union citizens to request blocks of specific privacy-related queries.
• A major datacenter project at Microsoft, Catapult, aims to lead to faster and more relevant search results. The project is a collaborative effort between Microsoft and Bing and will roll out to new technology in one customer datacenter in early 2015.
• Bing users will soon be seeing more twitter content into their search results. Users can find topics trending on Twitter by entering a hashtag into the search box. Users can use the “@” symbol and Bing will deliver a list of matching profiles. Lastly, celebrity searches on Bing will include relevant content from twitter.

Yahoo!

• Tumblr began serving native ads across Yahoo properties in an effort to further monetize Tumblr. These ads, called sponsored posts, will be offered through Gemini which launched in February.
• Yahoo is changing how it charges some advertisers for display ads with the launch of “Prime View,” only charging advertisers for ads that the consumers see on their computer screens. With this launch, Yahoo joins the other display networks into a push for a more fair display advertising medium.
• Yahoo’s Aviate, the Android launcher app acquired by Yahoo earlier this year, was updated with new features, out of beta. Aviate aims to simplify your home screen and move to a more compelling user experience.

YouTube

• At Vidcon, YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki announced a series of new features including a crowd-sourced translation effort, virtual tip jar that supports contributions up to $500, direct connections between videos and crowd funding sites, and a mobile app for YouTube users to manage and monitor their videos.

Facebook

• Facebook updated its ranking algorithm around videos to consider whether a user has watched a video and for how long. For users that watch a lot of videos, they will see more videos in their newsfeed while others will see different content. This update also allows advertisers to target users who frequently watch videos with video ads.
• Facebook announced a plan to revamp the way Timelines look on its Pages, moving to a one-column design. This further blurs the visual differences between profile pages and Pages.
• The latest update to Facebook Messenger for iOS and Android devices gave users the ability to record and send 15 second video messages. This happened in close proximity with Facebook’s launch of Slingshot, its latest competitor to Snapchat.
• Instagram added ten editing tools in its latest iOS and Android update, in addition to the standard filters. The new adjustments include contrast, brightness, and saturation as well as adjusting any filter’s intensity.

Twitter

• Twitter added automatically translated tweets to iOS app using Bing’s translator. This addition comes well timed with the international conversation around the world cup.
• The owner of the Weather Channel announced a new advertising effort on Twitter that allows marketers to coordinate marketing efforts with products around real-time local weather conditions. This allows advertisers to send promoted tweets based on factors including temperature, humidity, wind, rain, and dew points.

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn announced a new search architecture, Galene. The architecture will be cheaper and more efficient for LinkedIn while users will see deeper access to all members, more relevant results, and improved speed.
• LinkedIn launched a new iPhone standalone app dubbed LinkedIn Job Search. To aid its users in their search for a new job.
• LinkedIn began rolling out a new profile design for its premium members. The new design is more image heavy with a larger profile picture and customizable header image, similar to the latest Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Pinterest

• Pinterest is rolling out Guided search to desktops, a feature rolled out to mobile devices two months ago. Users are prompted with category suggestions as they explore to help the user in the search profess. Below is a video on how to use Guided Search on the web:

Foursquare

• Foursquare is reportedly  negotiating with its heaviest users of the Venue Database to pay fees or offer services in return. This would affect under 1% of the 63,000 partners that access the database.

Have any questions about any of the above stories or think we missed something? Let us know in the comment section below. Also, be sure to check back in early August for our July monthly recap!  In the meantime, check out our Thoughts Page featuring our latest publications, blog posts, and featured articles, and sign up for the Catalyst Must-Have Digital Insights e-Newsletter for the latest thought leadership, industry updates, and Catalyst news.