We told you a couple of weeks ago about how Google[x] recently got a new coat of paint (now under the Alphabet umbrella and simply known as “X”), and now that coat of paint has hit the web. The site has a brand new design, a new logo, and within you’ll find a rundown the group’s newly refocused mission. Additionally, the new Graduated Projects page seems to mention some projects we’re familiar with and some that we haven’t heard of previously… Expand Expanding Close
Users trying to connect to many websites in China through Chrome will soon see a message that the website’s security certificate is not trusted, advising against proceeding.
In a far-reaching response to a recently security breach, Google plans to cease recognizing all web security certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) – which includes many government, banking and ecommerce sites in the country … Expand Expanding Close
Last weekend, Berlin-based developer Matt Aussaguel decided to further his Material Design exploration by creating a website for generating and exporting Material Design color palettes for Android Lollipop. Aussaguel believes that Material Palette could be the first Material Design color palette generator and a very useful tool for both developers and user interface designers alike. Expand Expanding Close
Samsung has launched a redesign of its website in Europe and with it has started selling its Android devices directly from the site. The company previously linked to other retailers and carriers, as it continues to do in the US, but now most EU countries also have the ability to add products to a cart and purchase directly from the website.
In the US, samsung.com continues to link to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and websites of smaller carriers for its smartphones, but it does provide the ability to buy other devices direct from the website such as tablets.
The ability to purchase appears to be available in most EU countries, but you can visit samsung.com to check availability and prices in your country.
Google has added yet another official application to its iOS App Store portfolio: Google Analytics. Analytics is Google’s popular service that allows website owners to manage and view data such as page views, demographics, and the technologies users utilize to access the website. The iPhone app also has the neat Real Time reports feature that allows website owners to view how many people are on the website at the current time. Google launched an optimized version of the Analytics app last year on Android and debuted a related AdWords app on iOS just last week. Like all Google apps, the Analytics program is on the the App Store for free.
Google is touting its successes again by explaining how it helped boost American business last year.
Vice President of Americas Sales Margo Georgiadis took to the Official Google Blog to first spew some economic statistics:
The growth of our Internet use has naturally helped the ecommerce industry to expand rapidly over the past decade. But the web is also positively impacting brick-and-mortar businesses. According to Boston Consulting Group, American consumers who researched products online last year spent almost $2,000 actually purchasing those products offline. That’s almost $500 billion that went directly to main street retail. All in all, it’s clear that the economic impact of the web is huge; the Internet is where business is done and jobs are created.
From there, the VP explained how Google is “committed to helping make the web work for American businesses.” The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company, through its search and advertising tools, helped provide “$80 billion of economic activity for 1.8 million advertisers, website publishers and nonprofits across the U.S.” in 2011. The full breakdown for each state is available at Google’s Economic Impact website.
“[…] Google is committed to getting even more businesses online. Over the past year, we’ve been traveling the country with our Get Your Business Online program, encouraging businesses throughout the U.S. to create free websites and reach more customers,” Gerogiadis wrote. “So far, we’ve worked with thousands of businesses to launch their new websites. It’s a fact that the Internet is creating jobs and helping the American economy grow. And we’re proud to be a part of that process.”
As highlighted on the official Google Analytics blog, the company is today announcing the addition of mobile app analytics for three main areas: Acquisition and new users, Engagement (retention, crashes, conversions), and Outcome (app sales and in-app purchases).
New and active users – measure the number of new and active users who launch your app everyday and analyze your most valuable segments.
App versions – keep track of the distribution of active users over the older and newer versions of your app so you know what to support.
Device overview – check out the top mobile devices and OS versions that your app runs on, and optimize the experience for each device.
User behavior – assess how loyal your users are, how frequently they use the app, and the engagement level of each loyalty group.
Engagement flow – visually see the screens, actions and paths users take to move throughout your application in order to optimize usage.
In-App purchases – if you sell virtual or tangible goods in your app, you can measure the number of purchases and the revenue generated.
In addition to the inclusion of the new Mobile App Analytics reports that can be seen in the screenshots above, Google is also rolling out a new Google Analytics Android app (images above via AnalyticsTalk.) If you are interested in checking out the new Mobile App Analytics and app, Google said it would roll out to select whitelisted users. You can sign up to become part of the beta here.
Leaked slides from a confidential deck show Google+ may soon feature Google Analytics integration.
Dutch website Dutchcowboys found the entire deck with screens showcasing the combined services. According to the slides, users will soon have access to total number of visits with percentage of new visits, page views, average time spent on the site, and the bounce rate for their Google+ pages.
Google+ is a social network operated by Google Inc., and Google Analytics is a free service that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. There is currently no way to measure or view Google+ activity other than self-analyzing +1 social engagement.
For those of you who manage a lot of sites, Google’s latest addition to Webmaster is sure to benefit you. Tonight, Google has announced a new Webmaster tool that allows you to see if you’re site is in good standing — to make sure there aren’t any issues. As you can see above it’s pretty simple. Here’s what Google checks for:
Google today released a new bottom-floating toolbar for Internet Explorer and Chrome users (no Firefox?) called Google Related. They explain it like this:
Google Related is a browsing assistant that offers interesting and useful content while you are browsing the web. For instance, if you’re browsing a page about a restaurant in San Francisco, Google Related will assist you by displaying useful information about this restaurant such as the location of the restaurant on a map, user reviews, related restaurants in the area, and other webpages related to San Francisco restaurants — all in one place.
Whenever you’re navigating to a new page, Google Related will look for interesting related content and, if available, display it in a bar at the bottom of your page. Google Related can display categories such as videos, news articles, maps, reviews, images, web sites and more. To preview a listed item or see additional items, just use your mouse to hover over different categories in the bar. For example, when you hover over a video link, the video pops up in a preview box and you can play the video directly on the page.
This is an interesting move that will likely get a lot more clicks through Google…if it catches on. Expand Expanding Close
Google announced its second favicon change this year after having the same favicon for the past 8 years. Why is this so important?
Google Favicon, its most important 256 pixels
Google.com gets over 150 million hits a day. Every time someone visits Google in their search bar, they’ll see these pixels. This image also accompanies Google in your bookmarks and page history. Browsers that support a tabbed document interface typically show a page’s favicon next to the page’s title. The Microsoft Windows Shell also uses favicons to represent “Internet shortcuts” to web pages. If you save a Webpage to your iPhone, it will be represented by the favicon.
Google’s favicon is looked at millions of times every hour by Google’s customers all over the globe. You’d better believe those 256 pixels are important to Google and they’ve obviously spent some time thinking about it. Have you considered your most important 256 pixels? Expand Expanding Close
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