Posts Tagged ‘gmail’

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Study: Google Ads Work Better Than Facebook’s (Boston Herald)
Facebook may be this week’s stock market darling, but when it comes to online display advertising, search engine Google provides advertisers with “significantly more value” than the social media giant in terms of growth rates, performance, targeting options and formats, according to a study released Tuesday. The study compares the value of Facebook advertising to Google’s Display Network. PC Magazine Facebook moved quickly — again — to address concerns that it wasn’t doing enough to satisfy mobile users, buying the developers of the Lightbox Android photo app. However, the company also made it clear that Facebook was not acquiring the company or the photos that users had stored on the Lightbox website, just the developer team. AdAge General Motors said Tuesday that it is “reassessing” its spending on Facebook advertising — about $10 million — but “remains committed” to the social network as part of “an aggressive content strategy with all our products and brands.” Meanwhile, Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, said that the automaker is bullish about Facebook ads — particularly “sponsored stories” that contain a social layer — and intends to “accelerate” spending on them. AllFacebook Facebook followed up last week’s introduction of its app center with two new metrics to its insights for applications: app ratings and negative feedback. The new app ratings dashboard will bring developers information on how users rated their apps with the five-star ratings system Facebook recently implemented. The negative feedback feature shows developers how many times stories from their apps have been hidden or reported as spam, as well as how many times the app itself has been blocked. Mashable Two Colombian criminals almost got away with robbing an Internet cafe, but one of them checked Facebook first — and ended up being identified and arrested because he forgot to log out. The two men whipped out guns at the cash register to demand money and made a clean getaway on a motorcycle. After the men escaped, an employee at the cafe called the police turning in information from the Facebook page that led to his arrest. Read more

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Twitter’s Redesigned Discover Tab Is Watching You (AllTwitter) Twitter announced that it has added “improved personalization algorithms and real-time indexing.” What does this mean? Through a new Discover tab, Twitter is making search more personalized (just like Google). Let us know if you like what you see or if you have any other general impressions. PC Magazine The update is currently rolling out to Web users accessing Twitter.com, as well as those who use the Android and iOS versions of the Twitter app. The process will take weeks, Twitter said. GigaOM Recommendation services are a little like voice-recognition, in that no one notices when you get it right but everyone hates you when you get it wrong. But more than anything else, that is what Twitter has to figure out — and soon, before someone else does it better. Read more

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Spotify Launches Android Redesign (CBS News / Techtalk)
The new Spotify for Android will be completely redesigned from “top-to-bottom.” Some of the new features include: new “slide-out” navigation, the ability to view profiles and playlists, related artist view, high-resolution imagery and 320kbps listening. Support for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is also included in the update. PCMag “That’s not the end of it,” Spotify said. “We’re working hard on adding further features, including folders and Last.fm scrobbling, before the app goes live in Google Play.” Computerworld If you can’t wait for it to hit Google Play, Spotify is offering a preview version you can install right now. Cnet Before any Spotify users head to the company’s blog to download the application, though, be aware that it’s only available to Premium subscribers who pay $9.99 per month for that offering. Spotify’s free and Unlimited plans do not include mobile support. Read more

When Larry Page told Googlers that he was tying their bonuses to their abilities in social, it lit a fire under their collective behinds, and got the teams working hand in hand to get Google users able to browse the web hand in hand.  That’s why we’ve seen so many updates lately.  Yesterday, Google made another update, by allowing users to easily manage their contacts and filters right from Gmail and Contacts.

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Google is a believer in the saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.” Google released the first Gmail for iOS app a little over two weeks ago. It was pulled within hours of its release because of a major bug. As Frank McPherson noted here: Google Rushes Gmail App For iOS And Botches The Release
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As the late great Rodney Dangerfield might have said, “The BlacKBerry don’t get no respect.” Falling market share, an aging mobile platform and a recent multi-nation three-day outage is not helping RIM win friends for the BlackBerry. The latest blow? Google announced that the Gmail App for BlackBerry will take a bow and exit on November 22, 2011.
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Apps? Who needs apps? This appears to be Google’s motto as they add more features to mobile web pages for services like Gmail. The latest feature addition is the ability to be simulatenously logged in to multiple Gmail accounts and then switch between them.
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I’ve found the ability to receive and make phone calls from inside of Gmail on my desktop to be very useful. The sound quality from my desktop speakers is far better than any handset or headset I’ve ever used. The Gmail Blog just announced that this feature is now supported in a lot more languanges and that long distance voice calls are a bit cheaper now.

Calling from Gmail now in 38 languages, with lower rates to over 150 destinations

So, what does this have to do with mobile? Although, the Google Gmail Blog article doesn’t directly say so, this calling feature is Google Voice. So, if you configure for Gmail phone calls, you can also configure Googel Voice to work with your cell phone and/or landline too. Here’s a neat trick if you assign your Google Voice number to work with your cell phone or landline and have an iPad.

The Google Voice for iPhone app works on the iPad. While the iPad cannot directly make voice calls (it is great for text messaging), you can use it as a phone number dialer for your other phones. Here’s how it works: Tap out the phone number in Google Voice on an iPad, then press Call. Google Voice will ask which phone you want to make the call on. Select the physical phone you want to use (cell or landline) and Google Voice will dial that phone and then dial the party you are calling. Google Voice then connects the two lines together to complete the call.

Google announced three new features in Google Sync for iOS (iPhone and iPad).

Three new updates to Google Sync for iPhone and iPad

1. Search email on server in addition to email on the device

2. Accept, decline or edit calendar events from the iOS calendar app

3. Send email from the address you want (Send mail as). This addresses an important need by people who manage email from other email addresses in Google Mail.

The “Send mail as” feature was not active on my iPhone or iPad. However, the search on server was accessible.