Americans were busy consuming record amounts of chicken wings and dip during yesterday’s big game, but they were also mobile web browsing more than ever before.

According to an official Google blog post, United States viewers used their tablets and smartphones to Google the Giants and Patriots, halftime acts and the best Super Bowl advertisements.

“In fact, around 41 percent of searches related to [Super Bowl ads] that were made during the game came from mobile devices, up from 25 percent for the same time the day prior,” wrote software engineer Jeffrey Oldham.

The Super Bowl XLVI streamed live for the first time this year, and a soaring spike in related searches came with the flagship circumstance. Predominate searches initially came from desktop devices, but mobile devices leaped forward as the four-hour game launched into full swing.

Read below for more details on Google and the Super Bowl.

Google announced the Top 5 Google search trends during the game were Madonna, Halftime Show, Patriots, Tom Brady, and Giants. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company also announced the most popular commercials were from Acura, GoDaddy and M&M’s.

“Super Bowl ads or ad teasers were watched more than 30 million times on YouTube before the big weekend this year,” Oldham continued. “Game day searches for [super bowl ads] were 122 times higher than the same time last week.”

More information on YouTube’s Super Bowl-related searches is available on its blogspot. The ads are available on the YouTube Ad Blitz channel until Feb. 18.

Oldham also showcased a Think Insights info-graphic (PDF) that highlighted a few more statistics about the Super Bowl in relation to the globally popular search engine, such as YouTube witnessing 96 hours worth of Super Bowl content uploads and various search terms for Super Bowl party planning.

]]> http://www.droidnews.net/2012/02/06/google-and-the-super-bowl-mobile-browsing-youtube-uploads-skyrocket/feed/ 0 http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/yahoo-unveils-app-search-page-for-android-and-ios-because-we-ne/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/yahoo-unveils-app-search-page-for-android-and-ios-because-we-ne/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:16:00 +0000 Amar Toor http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/03/yahoo-unveils-app-search-page-for-android-and-ios-because-we-ne/

Yahoo unveils app search page for Android and iOS, because we need it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Congress wanted answers regarding Google's updated and consolidated privacy policy that goes into effect March 1, and el Goog has responded with a blog post as well as a 13-page letter to eight U.S. representatives.

The long and the short of it is this:

• Google's not using the updated privacy policy to collect new information.
• The new privacy policy doesn't let Google sell your information or anything crazy like that.
• The new privacy policy consolidates dozens of individual policies, with a few exceptions for legal reasons.
• There are a number of Google services that you can use -- including Chrome, Search and Youtube, to name but three -- that you don't have to be logged in at all to use.

In regards to Android specifically, the good people in Washington asked for the following:

8. Please explain exactly how a user of an Android Phone will be affected by Google’s new policy. Is there any ability for users to opt-out, other than not purchasing and using an Android phone? How will Google’s new policy affect users who do not use an android phone but automatically stay logged into their Gmail accounts on their phones?

Google explained that the new privacy policy doesn't materially affect Android, nor do you even have to have a Google account (or at least be signed in) to use an Android device. That's technically true, of course, but you'll certainly lose some functionality. On the other hand, you have devices such as the Amazon Kindle Fire that have become successful without deep Google integration.

Here's Google's full response to that question:

Our updated privacy policy, like the prior versions, covers users signed into their Google Accounts on Android phones just as it does users signed into their Google Accounts from a desktop computer. So the change will not have any significant impact on users of Android phones, and we are not collecting any new or additional data about Android users in connection with this change.

Users can choose not to log into an Android phone with a Google Account and still use it to place phone calls, send text messages, browse the web and use certain Google applications that do not require account authentication such as Google Maps. Some Google applications such as Android Market and Gmail require authentication with a Google Account.

Be sure to hit the links below and read Google's complete responses.

Sources: Google Public Policy Blog; response to Congress (pdf) 
More: Google's updated privacy policy

Following the introduction of Google’s new privacy policy, late last week we reported government officials issued a statement and planned to request that the Federal Communications Commission launch a probe to investigate the changes. In response, Google has now issued its own letter to Congress addressing some of the concerns and detailing important issues that are not changing.

Before answering the questions presented in the letter from Congress, Google took some time to outline aspects of its policies that will not change. Among them: Google reminded Congress that the new policy will only apply to users signed into a Google account, while those signed in can still access the usual privacy settings like turning off search history, tailoring ads within Ads Preferences Manager, and setting Gmail chat to “off the record.”

Google noted, “The privacy policy changes don’t affect our users’ existing privacy settings. If a user has already used our privacy tools to opt out of personalized search or ads, for example,” they will remain opted out. The company also made it clear the new policy will not collect any new or additional data. Google further clarified how users will be able to access multiple accounts:

Furthermore, people can still set up multiple accounts to manage multiple identities, move data between those accounts with Data Liberation tools, and prevent information from one account from being used to personalize another account. If Jane wants to use Google Docs and keep that separate from her personal Google+ account, she may create a work_account_jane@gmail.com account that she uses for Docs, and a personal_account_jane@gmail.com account that she uses for sharing on Google+.

Google also broke down exactly why the new privacy policies were necessary for creating a better user experience:

Our privacy policies have restricted our ability to combine information within an account for two services: Web History, which is search history for signed-in users, and YouTube, the video-sharing service we acquired in 2007. (We had not updated YouTube’s original privacy policy to include Google, with the result that Google could share information with YouTube, but not vice versa.) For example, if a user is signed in and searching Google for cooking recipes, our current privacy policies wouldn’t let us recommend cooking videos when she visits YouTube based on her searches – even though she was signed into the same Google Account when using both Google Search and YouTube. 

Google plans to officially roll out the new privacy policy on March 1, 2012.

You say tomato, I say tomahto. You say potato, I say potahto. And that's where we stand on the state of Android, at least compared to Mark Spoonauer of Laptopmag. Mark, whose opinion we certainly respect, tonight in a "Spoon Fed" blog post titled "Why Android is broken," highlights four reasons why he believes Android is "more vulnerable than ever," despite activating more than 700,000 devices a day. 

So is Android really doomed? At the rate it's been growing, can it be doomed? Let's break down Mark's points.

read more

Rep. Edward Markey, a prominent U.S. lawmaker on privacy issues, announced earlier this week he was concerned with Google’s new privacy policy, and he further addressed his worries on Thursday by calling for a probe into Google’s handling of consumer data.

Google’s offerings include its globally popular search engine, Gmail, YouTube, Search plus Your World, Google+, and more, which are streamlined under the merging of 60 privacy policies intended to “mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” The unified policy’s primary objective is to assemble and integrate information from across Google’s products and services as a single throng of data that the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company can use to target advertising dollars.

Markey released a Jan. 26 statement contending that the new policy changes should allot premium consumer control, and in the meantime, he plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate if such options exists for Google users:

“All consumers should have the right to say no to sharing of their personal information, particularly when young people are involved.  Google’s new privacy policy should enable consumers to opt-out if they don’t want their use of YouTube to morph into YouTrack.  Consumers – not corporations – should have control over their own personal information, especially for children and teens. I plan to ask the Federal Trade Commission whether Google’s planned changes to its privacy policy violate Google’s recent settlement with the agency.”

More information is available below.

Markey is one of eight U.S. lawmakers who question the policy’s fusing in regards to increased complications for consumers to adequately protect their privacy. The representatives are seeking more information on whether consumers could opt-out of the new data sharing system and whether the policy will provide sufficient protections of consumers’ privacy rights.

Republican representatives Cliff Stearns, Joe Barton and Marsha Blackburn, and Democratic representatives Markey, Henry Waxman, Dianne DeGette, G.K. Butterfield, and Jackie Speier addressed their concerns in a Jan. 26 letter (PDF) to Google’s CEO Larry Page. The majority of the lawmakers are members of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

“We believe that consumers should have the ability to opt out of data collection when they are not comfortable with a company’s terms of service and that ability to exercise that choice should be simple and straightforward,” wrote the members. ”While Google suggests that the purpose of this shift in policy is to make the consumer experience simpler, we want to make sure it does not make protecting consumer privacy more complicated.”

Google Policy Manager Betsy Masiello insisted on Thursday that users had a choice and control.

“We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google,” wrote Masiello in a Jan. 26 blog post. “We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period.”

Online privacy is a hot issue in Washington in recent months due to a trickle of Internet giants allegedly compromising user privacy to attract advertisers.

Google knows all-too-well about the gaucheries of personal information safety. The company exposed personal contacts of its email users in 2010 when it launched a social service called “Buzz.” The blunder led to a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that required Google to submit to external audits of its privacy policies every other year.

Folks seeking information on natural disasters or other global emergencies can now access Google Maps for the latest details through a new Google Crisis Response project.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant launched a Google Public Alerts system today to keep users informed of disaster alerts regarding tornadoes, floods, winter and tropical storms, and other hazards menacing throughout the world.

“With today’s launch of Public Alerts on Google Maps, relevant weather, public safety, and earthquake alerts from US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) will be accessible when you search on Google Maps,” announced Google in a blog post.

More information is available below.

The service alerts users to what is happening, when and where it is happening, how critical it is, and which resources are available for immediate assistance. A specific term, name or location of any emergency is also directly searchable on Google Maps.

Users can type “high wind warming” into the Maps’ search bar today to currently reveal a “High Wind Warning in Central Montana” alert, or they can enter “winter storm Alaska” to display an active alert for “Winter Storm Warning in Northern Alaska.” Every result offers a “more info” link to view more details.

The Public Alerts‘ website also shows a list of live warnings throughout the world, with each advisory highlighted on the map. Users can hover over or click on the hotspot to view more information along with advice and safety recommendations. Google’s Crisis Response team throughout various government resources collects and assembles the information for all emergencies.

“The Google Crisis Response team works on providing critical emergency information during crises. Our goal is to surface emergency information through the online tools you use everyday, when that information is relevant and useful,” Google contended.

Google asked users to “Provide Feedback” through the link at the bottom of the Public Alerts’ website, because this is the company’s first attempt at a crisis response service and it is seeking any suggestions.

“We’re learning as we go and we’re working hard to continuously improve the range and relevance of the content you see, so we’d really like your feedback,” Google concluded.

Google is adamant on accelerating work on its Google+ social network. By doing so, the company has already stepped on people’s toes. An upcoming Q&A feature from Google does not seem to be aimed squarely at Quora, a popular question-and-answer website, but the Quora people understandably cann0t be too happy about this development. See, according to VentureBeat, the search company is trying out a new capability called “Ask on Google+” allowing you to ask friends about the topics you are searching for. It is akin to Facebook Questions, with one huge advantage: One accesses it easily at the bottom of one’s search results:

Click the link to ask your friends any question related to restaurants, movies, how to make friends on Google+, or other topics. Your question will automatically be posted to your Google+ stream for your friends to answer.

Granted, it is nowhere near as complete as Quora and it lacks the basic component, a Q&A engine. In its current implementation, asking stuff on Google+ from your search results simply puts up an overlay window with a pre-populated Google+ post related to your search query. For example, if I were searching for “2012 Android smartphones,” clicking the “Ask on Google+” link would create the “Hi there! I have a question about 2012 Android smartphones…” message. You can edit the message, select your audience, or add a location, photo, video or URL. The folks with whom you shared the message will not be able to select from custom choices like with Facebook Answers. Still, it certainly does not mean crowd-sourcing answers from your Google+ friends will not take some allure off Quora and similar services— quite the contrary.

Hardly any companies are able match Google’s ability to tie Google+ features to the dominant search engine and other popular web properties such as Gmail, Picasa and others. In this regard, anything and anyone should be worried indeed. Do not get us wrong, Quora is a popular service, but a question arises as to why folks would continue using it if Google+ provides similar capabilities enriched with integrated Google+ profiles, automatic posts and other perks? Nevertheless, according to a spokesperson for the Mountain View, Calif.-headquartered Company, Google is “experimenting” with the new feature at this stage. No word yet when and if “Ask on Google+” might roll out to all users, but we have a feeling it will be sooner than later.

Search Engine Land pointed us to a new browser bookmarklet dubbed “Don’t Be Evil” created by Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook engineers to alter the controversial social search results displayed by Google since its most recent “Search plus Your World” update.

Earlier this month Google began rolling out the new “Search plus Your World” update to Google.com search results. The update consists of Personal results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, all of which provide prominent quick links to Google+ content relevant to your search query. It sparked controversy as the update arguably favors Google’s own Google+ social network over relevant social content from competitive services.

The tool is being open-sourced and available free. After performing a search, you simply click the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet in your browser of choice (no IE support), and the social “Search plus Your World” results will be altered to also include content from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, Github, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and a hand full of others. The image above shows Google’s Search plus Your World results on the left with the altered results after clicking the “Don’t Be Evil” on the right.

You might be thinking that the tool is instead favoring websites like Facebook or Twitter, much the same way Google is accused of favoring Google+. However, the creators explained that the tool actually utilizes Google’s own search results to determine the most relevant social content to display. Search Engine Land explained exactly how it works:

What happens is that the bookmarklet looks at which accounts are listed initially by Google in the People & Pages section. It then does a search for the people or companies listed to find which social profiles Google itself believes are most relevant, in the first 100 results. In the case of Snoop Dogg, the bookmarklet sees that he’s listed as a People & Pages suggestion for a search on “music.” It then conducts a search for “snoop dogg” on Google, to see which social account Google lists first for him. As you can see above, Twitter is the first social account shown, so the bookmarklet rewrites Snoop Dogg’s suggestion to link to his Twitter account.

Two things jump out at me regarding these closures:

1. Google is channeling its lab-like smaller products into features of Google Plus.  It almost feels like if it isn’t Android or Search (both recently got heavy + integration), it will soon be part of Google Plus.
2. Larry Page is heeding the advice he got from Steve Jobs: “Figure out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map,” read the biography of Jobs’ interaction with Page. Later, Jobs came to Page with a sharped-tongue warning that Google was making products, “That are adequate but not great. They’re turning you into Microsoft.”  Page is now striving for greatness by putting “more wood behind fewer arrows”

Most notably for consumers, Picnik, the Cloud photo editing software, will be discontinued in April.

Picnik: We acquired this online photo editor in 2010. We’re retiring the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. You can download a zip file of your creations through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+. As of now, the premium service is free to everyone. Premium members will receive a full refund in the coming weeks.

We will likely see Picnik’s features reincarnated in Google Plus —where Google wants users to be storing photos anyway.  Google did the same thing to Picasa late last year.

Google also announced that it will close Urchin Web Analytics, the company it bought in 2005 to make Google Analytics cloud service.  Google kept the offline product available, but it will discontinue updates and sales, then subsequently direct customers to the Google product.

Urchin: helps businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. We’re fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so we’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.

Google’s Skymap App project, which was started by some Pittsburgh Googlers in their 20 percent time, will now be Open Sourced and run out of nearby Carnegie Mellon.

A number of other services were also slated for termination…

• Google Message Continuity (GMC): In December 2010 we launched an email disaster recovery product for enterprise customers that use Google’s cloud to back up emails originally sent or received in an on-premise, Microsoft Exchange system. In the time since we launched, we’ve seen hundreds of businesses sign up for it. By comparison, in that same time, we’ve seen millions of businesses move entirely to the cloud with Google Apps, benefitting from disaster recovery capabilities built directly into Apps. Going forward we’ve decided to focus our efforts on Google Apps and end support for GMC. Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract and are encouraged to consider using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform.
• Needlebase: We are retiring this data management platform, which we acquired from ITA Software, on June 1, 2012. The technology is being evaluated for integration into Google’s other data-related initiatives.
• Social Graph API: This API makes information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers. The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today. It will be fully retired on April 20, 2012.