New Facebook Design a Copy of Google Plus?

New Facebook Design...Copy of Google ?

Google HotelFinder

As has been expected for some time, Google is making it's own play for a piece of the hotel booking industry. While it's still in "experiment" mode, Google Hotel Finder offers a service many are used to through services like Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Orbitz, etc. Users simply need to input the city and dates and they are given a list of results. Further fine-tuning of the results is available by price and hotel class/user rating.

It's a fairly basic tool. I personally don't see myself using this anytime soon though, Without an "amenities" filter, there's no easy means of filtering out, say, hotels without pools, hotels that don't permit pets, etc.

...Read more on Google HotelFinder

Top 20 Google AdWords Keyword Categories

Insightful article by MarketingProfs, listing the most expensive and top Adwords categories:

The top five high-volume keyword categories that demand the highest costs per click are as follows:

1. Insurance. Top CPC: $55 (example keywords/keyphrases are "auto insurance price quotes" and "buy car insurance online)
2. Loans. Top CPC: $44 (examples: "consolidate graduate student loans" and "cheapest homeowner loans").
3. Mortgage. Top CPC: $47 (examples: "refinanced second mortgages" and "remortgage with bad credit")
4. Attorney. Top CPC: $47 (examples: "personal injury attorney" and "dui defense attorney")
5. Credit. Top CPC: $36 (examples: "home equity line of credit" and "bad credit home buyer")

And what it means? Read the original article to see: http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2011/5489/where-does-google-make-its-money-top-20-google-adwords-keyword-categories#ixzz1SlGMuVN4

Automatically Update Facebook and Twitter from Google+

One of the first complaints I had about Google+ was that it meant having to manually input items multiple times as Google+ was isolated from the other social sites. Facebook and Twitter, despite competing in the same general social space, played nice and allowed one to easily sync their accounts: you update in Twitter, it can can automatically update your Facebook page (and vice-versa).

But with Google+, that isn't the case.

They do give you the option to "share" on Facebook and Twitter, which most of time would be enough.


But if you're anything like me, you might not want that manual effort each time and instead want it done automatically.

Luckily, there are some ways to make your life easier, freeing you from having to copy/paste across multiple platforms.


Here's a system I put together that seems to do the trick, taking my posts on Google+ and automatically updating Facebook and Twitter.


Give it a read, try it out and let me know if it suits you.


http://matt.peloquin.info/2011/07/google-to-facebook-twitter.html

Google Plus Launched This Week

So as expected, Google has launched the initial phase of their "Plus" project this week. Since the project is still in beta, not too many people are fully on board to use all it's features. The goal is to turn the project into some sort of Facebook alternative. As it is now, you'll already find the "+1" buttons on various websites, including this one. Once a user clicks the button, the site button will have an increased number. More importantly, search results (including paid ads) will also have that +1.

But those are only the features that everyone has access to. For a more detailed breakdown of all the features available to those in the project, click here.

Google Search Globe

Google has recently released the Search Globe, a new visual display representing one day of Google searches around the world—visualizing the curiosity of people around the globe.


Worth a look...

The Evolution of Email

...in an image. At least from Microsoft's perspective. Click to enlarge...

80% Of AOL's Revenue Is Subscribers, 75% don't know they're still paying

Photo Credit: Jonathan Volk

I'm a week late in sharing this as the news came out on 1/21/11. The number seems to actually be 43%.

But it's worth noting: take a look at your credit card statements and make sure you're still not paying for AOL, a decade after you likely though you cancelled. There are numerous horror stories about people trying to cancel and not being able to, even when speaking to a person on the phone.

A quick look at the numbers:

In 2010, AOL generated $564 million in revenue. That means at 43%, $242 million was made off of people thinking they cancelled or forgetting they paid for the service. Ouch.