Tag Archives: user

Hulu Makes More Search Improvements

Posted on November 30, 2009 by admin

Popular online video site Hulu has made some new improvements to its search interface. They have added a new Advanced Search feature , which offers the user additional search filters than were previously available. With Advanced Search, users can search by a keyword or phrase (use quotes to set off a phrase), search within specific fields (such as show title, video title, etc.), or use common search operators like "and," "or," and "not." "If you search for videos on Hulu often, we offer search operators that correspond with each of the fields in our Advanced Search menu, so you can type in a complete search query directly from the search bar," says Rebecca Harper on Hulu's blog. "For instance, you can use the plus sign ('+') to add keywords to your search string. For example, +jim +pam +wedding calls up videos related to Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office earlier this season." "The Advanced Search menu also offers a way to limit your results to videos with closed captioning — just click on the appropriate check box," says Harper. "In addition, a family-friendly search option offers an easy way to search for content that might be more appropriate for younger viewers. (The filter will exclude videos that are rated TV-14, PG-13, TV-MA, R, NC-17, NSFW or NR.)" Hulu's Advanced Search feature can be accessed via any search results page on the site, or by following a link at the bottom of Hulu.com. Earlier this year, Hulu rolled out some changes to its search results pages , and allowed results to be refined through filter menus. You can display only clips or full episodes. You can also sort by relevance, airdate, or by shows with closed captioning. Other features recently launched include a "coming soon" page and custom playlists . Related Articles: > Hulu Adds "Coming Soon" Page > Hulu Launches 2 New Labs Features > Hulu Makes Changes to Search Results Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged makes-changes, nc 17, office, pg 13, review and story, search menu, search users, user | Leave a comment

Google Finally Shows Off Chrome OS

Posted on November 19, 2009 by cgseo

Everybody has been waiting to see a glimpse of Google's upcoming Chrome OS - that is Google's new operating system. Those who attended an event at the company's headquarters today had a chance to view a demo in person, and many more details than previously available are now out on the OS. Google has now opened up the code for Chrome OS , so developers can get in there and see what it's really all about. For all of the non-developer types, Google has provided the following short video, which sums up what Chrome OS is as a concept. Google says Chrome OS is focused on three main things: speed, simplicity, and security. The main philosophy behind Chrome OS is that most people use their computers mostly to access the web, so Chrome OS cuts out the middle man, which is your operating system. With Chrome OS, your browser is the operating system. The programs you would use on Chrome OS are all web apps. They're all in the cloud. Nothing is saved on your computer. This mean that if your machine dies on you, or you lose it, or if it gets broken, you can just get another one and all of your data will be readily available, because it's all in the cloud. Google says that it takes about seven seconds to go to the log-in screen, and three more to log on to an application. That's much less time that it probably takes you to boot up and get onto Facebook on your current machine. The look of Chrome OS is very similar to the Chrome browser, but it has application tabs and an app menu. You may have seen the screenshots at TechCrunch recently. Google did note, however, that the user interface could change to some extent by the time it actually launches. When you use apps in Chrome OS, they can take up the entire screen, so that it doesn't even look like you're using a browser or an OS. You can also drag and drop tabs. If you hook up additional hardware to the machine, it will bring up windows for that. For example, at the demo, they pointed out that if you hook a camera up, it will bring up a window with the picture files, and you can pull a picture up and open it in a new browser Window. Fore more technical details about Chrome OS, and how it handles security issues, read this live blog . Here is another account from Danny Sullivan. From the sounds of it, Google Chrome OS will not be replacing established operating systems for users who use a lot of programs that aren't web-based. However, it has the potential to cut significantly into the market share of Windows, Mac, etc. among users who do mainly use their machines to connect to the web. I can see this catching on in a big way, particularly with the Netbook crowd, which Chrome OS is essentially aimed at. Google Chrome OS is currently scheduled to launch sometime before the holiday season next year. Do you think Chrome OS will be a hit? Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged chrome, demo, developer, machine, main things, philosophy, review and story, techcrunch, time, user, user interface, windows | Leave a comment

Twitter To Make Suggested Users Feature More Like Twellow’s?

Posted on November 16, 2009 by cgseo

Last month Twitter CEO Evan Williams made some comments at the Web 2.0 Summit, indicating that the company was strongly considering ditching the "Suggested Users" list. This is a list that co-founder Biz Stone once discussed as being a way to get new users engaged with Twitter. This has historically been an important thing for Twitter to consider, as user retention rates have suffered in the past. "When you don't follow any other accounts on Twitter the product is not as relevant as it could be," Stone said in an old post to the Twitter blog. "To improve the user experience, we started suggesting some accounts to follow. As a result, new users are much more engaged and active." But since then, the company's attitude towards this list has changed. Williams noted that the list was initially meant as a way to help new users, but it became controversial. The biggest problem with the list is that it is not personalized. If you are not interested in the specific people that Twitter thinks you should be, you will still find no reason to continue using the service (at least if you are the type of person who needed suggested users to find value in the service in the first place). Our own Twellow service (shameless plug) recently launched a new feature, which provides suggested users for Twitter on a more personalized level , making it far more useful. The feature is aimed at connecting Twitterers with similar interests. It's tailored to the interests of the specific user, rather than just one list for everyone. It appears that Twitter is looking to offer its suggested user list in a similar way. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb reports that Biz Stone told a crowd at a conference in Malaysia, that the current suggested users list "will" be going away, and "in its stead will be something that is more programmatically chosen, something that actually delivers more relevant suggestions." That sounds pretty similar, but one difference is that Twellow's feature is already available. There's no telling how long it will take for Twitter to actually roll it out. We're still waiting on the retweet feature. Twitter's Lists feature of course was recently launched after a significant wait, and it should go a long way in helping user retention moving into the future. It's an incredibly valuable tool for Twitter users, for a variety of reasons . Between that and a more personalized suggested users list on the way, Twitter should be keeping more people using its service longer. Do you think a personalized suggested users list would be beneficial to Twitter users? Have you tried Twellow's version? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends... what you think . Related Articles: > Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged ceo, crowd, location-adds, people, person find, reason, relevant suggestions, review and story, suggested users list, suggested-users, twellow, twitter, twitterers, user | Leave a comment

Google Chrome OS May Be Here Very Soon

Posted on November 13, 2009 by admin

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch claims to have heard from "a reliable source" that Google will be launching the much-anticipated Chrome OS within a week. The tech industry media has been punked on Chrome OS in the past , but as Arrington notes, Google has said to expect it in the fall, and fall is running out. Chrome OS is Google's attempt to "rethink what operating systems should be." It's an open source, "lightweight" operating system to be initially targeted at netbooks. "Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS," Google said upon the Chrome OS announcement. "We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work." "The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform," the company continued. "All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform." Arrington says he thinks driver support will be an issue with Chrome OS. "...Having a robust set of functioning drivers is extremely important to Chrome OS’s success. People will want to download this to whatever computer they use and have it just work," he says. "We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don’t expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one." If Arrington's source truly is reliable, then we should see how the launch of Chrome OS pans out very soon. It's going to be very interesting to see how Google competes with Microsoft in the operating system space, as it is doing in both search and web browsers. Related Articles: > Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged application developers, chrome, chrome os, google chrome os, launch, only-on-google, open source, operating-systems, running, simplicity, user, user experience, user interface, windowing system | Leave a comment

Google May Change Your Page Titles

Posted on November 11, 2009 by admin

In case you were not aware, Google "reserves the right" to change the titles of your pages in search results. Google's Matt Cutts has released a video discussing why and how they go about doing this. Cutts says Google wants to show the titles that it thinks are most useful. "For example, suppose the title of your page is 'Untitled' or if there is no title. If that's the case, we try to show a relevant, useful title." "We reserve the right to try to figure out what's a better title, what's a more descriptive title or snippet to show the users," he continues. According to Cutts, if you have a title that's really long, they may still use that in their scoring, but in the snippet, they might try to find a "better title." This is presumably based on what the user is looking for. As Cutts has said in the past, sometimes Google will use snippets right from the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). Sometimes, they'll simply use snippets from the page or the meta description tag. "We do a bunch of different things to find the best description that we can," he says. "If you have a bad title or a title that we don't think helps users as much, we can try to find a better title, and one we think will be an informative result so that users will know whether that's a good result for them to click on," he says. Have you noticed Google changing your titles? Did they find better ones? Discuss here . Related Articles: > Why Your Email Address May Show up in Google Search Results > Why Your Robots.txt Blocked URLs May Show up in Google > Does Google Recognize the Name of Your Business? Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged Business, cutts, dmoz, matt cutts, review and story, robots txt, search google, snippet, snippets, titles, user | Leave a comment

The SEO’s Toolkit Part Two of Three: Tools

Posted on October 26, 2009 by cgseo

Welcome to part two of this three part series on SEO tools and resources. In the last article we discussed the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we'll discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your organic optimization efforts. To make sure that when I say affordable I mean for virtually everyone I'm going to set the bar at $100/yr or ownership. Admittedly, we use tools that cost more than this but many of those tools will be out of some people's price range. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged article, beanstalk, daily, development, impact, likely-familiar, organic, price, review and story, seo, tool, tools, user | Leave a comment

Android Users Outspending iPhone Counterparts

Posted on October 23, 2009 by admin

Is it better to have tons of customers, or some who are willing to spend a little more? Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Pay-Per-Click | Tagged base-increases, Business, kevin-nakao, review and story, then-continued, user, whatever-its, white, whitepages | Leave a comment