The news coincides with the site’s eight birthday, and is a significant jump from the same figure six months ago. At the end of 2012, this figure was 72 hours, which is a 39% increase between then and now. That combined with one billion unique users every month – a figure that’s more than likely larger considering that the site hasn’t updated its statistics page yet – only further consolidates YouTube’s position as the world’s dominant video site.

This is positive news for the site, which is currently pushing a new subscription service filled with premium TV shows. With the overall goal of hosting original premium content on the site, it’s obvious that the site wants to diversify the ways it generates revenue, and not rely entirely on ads. Also, it needs to give its most prominent content creators better ways of making money as the more they earn, the better quality shows they can produce.

While cat videos (among many other things) has taken the site to where it is now, the next test is being able to ensure that the quality of original videos uploaded onto its channels is of much greater quality than what people currently expect. If it can achieve that, then who knows where it could go next. Either way, there will be more viewers and videos to count in the future.

More Than Just Tech

If Google I/O’s Keynote showed us anything, it’s that the company is not only a wide reaching tech company, but it’s changing the way we approach our lives. Every update had a purpose, every design change aims to improve existing service and all of them tie into the narrative that knowledge is power. The company has and still is expanding rapidly and won’t rest until its competition is done and dusted.

And Apple is one of those competitors, and because of its premium status, is the most threatening. Android focused on quantity while Apple’s strategy was quality, but Google’s approach seems to have paid off since both its hardware and OS has caught up. Apple has focused on what it does well, hardware and OS, but since it’s tried to expand its horizons, the problems it faced is not trying to match Google’s vast amounts of data, but create a product that comes even close to matching it.

The Difficulty In Data

Everyone’s familiar with the disaster that was (and still is) Apple Maps. It was so bad that even Google found room in its packed keynote to land a dig saying: “People called it [Google Maps on iOS] sleek, simple, beautiful… and let’s not forget, accurate.” Since it launched, there have been few, if any, updates to the app improving it or fixing the problems that plagued it since launch.

And Siri is another problem. When it was released on the iPhone 4S, people could see the vasts amount of potential it had. While there were some problems with the original product, people excused it since there was nothing else like it. However, updates for it could only happen when the OS was updated, meaning that improvements would only happen gradually.

Then came Google Now which gave it an extra layer of practicality by incorporating its search functions and algorithms into it. Granted Google Now could only be updated through an Android update, but the Google Search app on iOS can be updated anytime, which is bad news for Siri.

While Apple has the hardware and OS market sorted, but the problem now is that it needs data to progress. Both services mentioned earlier live and die on the amount of data put into it. The resources on display in Google Maps didn’t happen overnight, this was the result of years and years of work and constant improvements. Data takes time and unless you can acquire a company that has done the work for you, it will take years to reach this point.

Because Maps has set the standard, everything else will pale in comparison unless it’s as comprehensive or more unique. The closest maps competitor is Nokia’s Here, which put in a considerable amount of time and investment into beating Google. The fact that its easily forgotten by iOS users while they were waiting for Google Maps to return – despite being able to download it as an app – tells you how much of a hold Google has on the market.

This isn’t to say that hardware or a good OS won’t get you anywhere, but when users are demanding more from their devices, the real battle has moved from hardware and software to data, and it’s hard to see anyone matching Google’s might. Apple still has a lot going for it, but it will really have to make an effort to catch up, otherwise it come back to haunt it.

Google Maps Gets Major Overhaul

Expected long before the keynote happened, Google Maps saw a major upgrade that builds upon its success. With a new redesigned interface, Maps uses your history to highlight your work place, home, areas you’ve searched for before and places you might be interested in to create a more immersive and user-friendly experience. It also integrated Google Earth into the service so users can really explore the world.

The announcement also made room for a dig at Apple. When Daniel Graf was on stage, he said: “People called it [Google Maps on iOS] sleek, simple, beautiful… and let’s not forget, accurate”. Ouch!

Solving Messaging Problems With Hangouts

One of the bigger problems Google had was its inability to tie together its different messaging services into one simple app. Today, it made a major step towards solving this with Hangouts, a new messaging feature for iOS, Android and Chrome. Named after its most popular Google+ feature, Hangouts unifies the company’s fragmented attempts at messaging to create a competitor to Whatsapp, Viber and iMessage.

Google+ Upgrade

Despite the criticisms it’s faced by brands, Google+ has received a major redesign that borrows heavily from its cards feature on Google Now. Looking a lot like Pinterest (with a small touch of Facebook for good measure), the update is more visual – drawing on Google+’s greatest strength – and divides posts up into three grids. The nice part is if a post includes a hashtag, clicking on it will flip the card and show you other similarly tagged posts, allowing you to discover more without leaving the news feed.

Photo Sorting Becomes A Lot Easier

Alongside Hangouts, photography is the other trump card Google+ holds, and it’s made sorting and editing photos a lot easier. ‘Auto-Awesome‘ continues the rather hit and miss naming system Google used for its latest products (Google Play Music All Access being the greatest offender), but it puts its algorithm to good use by editing photos automatically to improve them. A nice touch is that if it recognises a series of similar photos taken within a short period of time, it will combine them and create an animated GIF.

Google also found the time to take another dig at Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, showing how much better its photos are through this image.

Voice Recognition Search

Google already had voice search, but the service has taken a step towards being something truly amazing with a button free search interference. Just by saying ‘OK Google’, you can activate search on Chrome and Chrome OS, where it takes previous searches into account. Just from the demo alone, it blows Siri out of the water and allows you to phrase questions like you would in a normal conversation.

Google Play Music All Access

Terrible name aside, Google’s new music offering is a direct aim at Spotify, Pandora and other music competitors. By combining your library with those available for streaming into one overall library for you to search and gesture controls on the mobile version, it offers a better discovery system than other competitors.

Lofty Ambitions For Android & Chrome

To start off the event, Google begun its keynote by unveiling the figures behind Android and Chrome. The head of Chrome, Android and apps Sundar Pichai revealed that 900 million Android apps were activated already this year, a massive jump from the 400 million activated in 2012 and 100 million in 2011. Google Play saw over 48 billion app installs, 2.5 billion coming from the last month alone, while Chrome currently has 750 million monthly active users.

Offering playlists and music suggestions based on songs you already like and own, the service is available in the U.S. now for $10 per month ($8 if you sign up early). The on-demand service has both web and mobile interfaces that allow you to play music instantly, gather recommendations, and listen to charts and playlists.

The service is built upon Google existing music service Google Play, bringing both local tracks and those available for streaming into one overall library for you to search. With expert-powered recommendations for each genre, albums, playlists and your library showing both personal music and any tracks added from play, it’s a significant improvement over similar competitors like Spotify.

But it’s the mobile version that’s even better. For one, a lot of it is gesture activated so users can take a peek to see what songs are playing next, but you can do so much more with it. For one, while you’re listening to a playlist, you can reorder it or delete tracks while listening to a song, ensuring that you’re not taken away from the music and ensures that you have control across the entire board. An intuitive experience is key to a good mobile app and taking a leaf out of Mailbox and tying it into music consumption is an idea that music lovers will enjoy.

This will be rolled out to other countries over the coming months, but provided that the music deals is on par with other services, it could leave competitors sweating as they draw up counter plans. Google has set its sights on dominating music, now it’s time to see how Spotify and co will react.

This is a significant jump from the 400 million devices activated in 2012 and 100 million in 2011 and it tells us quite a lot about how much Google expects Android to dominate the smartphone market. On top of that, there were 48 billion app installs from the Google Play store, 2.5 billion of these came from the last month alone showing that Google Play is thriving alongside this activation increase.

For Chrome, it was announced that it has over 750 million active monthly users now. This was a jump from 450 million during the middle of 2012 or a 300 million increase over the last nine months.

So far, the company has focused on developer tools for the early part of its keynote speech. Features to note include the three new location API’s introduced. The first, Fused Location Provider, uses all your phone sensors (reception, satellite and WiFi) to find location. According to Google, this will only use 1% of your battery per hour, the second is geofencing, which allows developers to define boundaries and the third is activity recognition, which helps track physical activity through a device’s accelerometer. It will be used to determine whether someone is walking, running, cycling, or driving.

More to follow…

This year, it looks like we will see fewer product announcements, as the keynote will focus more on changes relevant to software developers. It’s hard to live up to the hype of last year’s conference after all, which is when Google Glass was first announced, but there’s enough to keep people interested.

Music Streaming Service

News of Google’s music service has been circulating since early this year and it’s been billed the company’s competitor to Spotify. This is not good news from Spotify, which has seen other dominant players enter the space like Twitter’s acquisition of We Are Hunted.

The need for Google to enter the music space has been around for a long time, particularly given the huge amount of traffic flocking to YouTube to view music videos alone. It looks like YouTube will certainly feature in Google’s music offering as well as Google Play, which will be used to purchase and store songs. Also, following Spotify’s model, it’s expected that the service will be tiered, offering only very limited access for free and incentivising users to purchase through Google Play for the full service.

New Smartwatch?

We’re still getting used to the reality of Google Glass yet Google is looking to make another move into wearable computing. The rumour of a Google Smartwatch seems pretty substantial as it’s been shown around three Google offices so far. Apparently, the watch will have similar functionality to Google Glass and at the moment, it’s being referred to as the Android Smartwatch. According to Android Authority, the watch is being manufactured by Motorola.

Samsung Galaxy S4

You can expect to see Google announce a new Samsung model that will come equipped with stock Android, called the Samsung Galaxy S4 ‘Google Edition’. Essentially, the phone will feature a ‘pure’ version of Android as many users are disappointed with the version of Android that Samsung offers itself. This is expected to arrive on the market in early June, initially offered through T-Mobile.

Android Game Center

Making another play for Apple, Google is expected to launch an Android Game Center at the conference this week. It’s being referred to as ‘Play Games’ for now, and it will function in a similar way to Apple’s Game Center, which allows users to post scores and share games with friends. It will allow Android games to be multiplayer, bringing about a huge opportunity for Android developers. It’s also expected to integrate cleanly with Google+.

Google Maps

Perhaps one of the most exciting announcements to come from I/O this year is Google Maps, where a massive overhaul of the desktop version is expected. It looks set to get a makeover that will ensure Maps offers a more personalised search experience. Droid Life caught the new sign-in page for Google Maps before it was swiftly taken down.

This includes some pretty nice features including a personalised search map that will feature locations it deems relevant to you so you can find the places you want faster. It will also have a new-look search bar, which will pull up relevant information about a location or business as you search, helping you know if you’re on the right track even before you’ve finished searching (Image via Google Operating System).

Nexus 4 Pulled From Shelves

Here’s the downside to rumours circulating ahead of a huge event like I/O. Anticipating a new version of Nexus 4 being announced, two large retailers in the UK have reportedly pulled the current version from their shelves. Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4 U – two of the largest mobile sellers in the UK – have stopped selling the Nexus 4 while they wait for the Nexus 5 to be announced this week.

CNet also reported getting a ‘page not found’ error when looking for the Nexus 4 on Best Buy. The Nexus 5 was also ‘leaked’ last week by a gadget blogger, who decided to release a photo of the phone on his Facebook Page. Originally referred to as the Optimus G2, rumours are circulating it is, in fact, the Nexus 5.

Google Chat

It was initially reported that Google would be bringing all its chat services under one umbrella, code-named ‘Babel’. That name has now been scrapped in favour of Google Hangouts, which will be the catchall for Google Chat. Google needs to unify its chat services, which have become quite disparate across different platform and devices. This could become a significant announcement from Google at the opening keynote.

(Main Image via Google+)

Lack Of Security

Just as we were all queuing up for the Google Glass loveboat, news started circulating this week that they posed a huge security risk, following a successful hack by a developer who had a pair on the test programme. Jay Freeman claimed it had taken him about two hours to unlock his Google glass, even managing to do so while he was having dinner. This would seem to be a pretty significant security risk, but the only thing is, Google was pretty happy about this. Google Developer Tim Bray posted this tweet:

Yes, Glass is hackable. Duh. goo.gl/HQpLC

— Tim Bray (@timbray) April 26, 2013

In the link, he explained that developers hacking the glasses were doing exactly what they wanted them to do as test devices were intentionally left unlocked so users would ‘show me something cool’. Because of that, its security has yet to be really tested.

Path

Technically the first app available on Google Glass is Path, which came pre-loaded onto the test devices. Now in the non-glass world, Path hasn’t really made that much of an impact. Most people outside the tech scene haven’t even heard of it, but what’s great is seeing a company like this adapt and be right at the forefront of emerging technology.

Path CEO Dave Morin staked his claim in wearable computing, claiming that Google Glass is ‘transformational‘. Path’s functionality has been adapted fully to work within Google Glass, allowing all its features to be activated by voice.

New York Times App

Last week, we heard about the first significant app developed for the device. The New York Times app launched last Friday and showed the kind of things you could start to do with Google Glass, bringing a new experience to the content we consume. As well as being able to access breaking news headlines through Glass, the app will also read stories aloud to you as you go, combining the app with the audio elements of Google Glass.

Showing just what’s possible with Google Glass, the New York Times included a nice feature within the app, allowing you to access full stories by just tilting your head.

Twitter

Probably the most exciting piece of news surrounding Google Glass is the arrival of a Twitter app. Being the ultimate social network to update on the go, it’s a perfect fit for Google Glass. Details are a little bit shaky, having been started by a tweet from Loic Le Meur who playfully suggested he’s just sent a tweet using Google Glass. This was followed by a tweet from @MogroothMuddler who appeared to have posted a photo from ‘Twitter for Glass’ - although this tweet has now been deleted.

It would make perfect sense for Twitter to develop an app for it early on, particularly with the opportunity to integrate all the features available within Twitter – text, photos and Vine.

Wink To Take A Picture

An app that will likely have those with privacy concerns keeping away from Glass, ‘Winky’ will allow you to take a photo just by winking. The full app is not available for download just yet and is currently available as Android source code only, which was published on Github this week. It sounds kind of creepy, and it probably is, but it’s also pretty cool.

The App Marketplace

Crucial to the success of Glass are the apps that will be available for it. Even at such an early stage, they will be the reason people will queue up to get a pair, and Google’s aware of this. Though it didn’t make it overly easy for developers to get a hold of them – making them shell out over £1,000 and only selecting competition winners – Google is making its intentions clear here.

Nexus 5

Purely a rumor at this stage, but LG is supposedly working on integration with Google Glass. LG is currently developing the Nexus 5, following the popular release of the Nexus 4. As well as wanting deeper integration with Google’s technology, Google Glass is apparently a target for it. This could see some pretty advanced features being released, such as the ability to synch your phone with Google Glass just by having the two devices near to each other.

However, the deeper relationship with handset providers and Google Glass would beg the question of why we would need two devices in the first place. Why have them synced up, when they could actually live within the same piece of technology?

iOS

While many may make the switch to Android eventually because of the clean integration with Glass, functionality isn’t limited to this. If you want to get map directions and SMS on your glass, you can currently only do that on Android, although that could change.

According to details released to TechCrunch from an anonymous Google employee, these features will now be available to anyone regardless of what your smartphone is. Being optimised agnostically for all operating software would be the smart thing for Google to do here, particularly while it’s testing such a new market.

For those not aware of this technique, hyperlapse photography – a technique that combines time-laps and sweeping camera movements focused on a point-of-interest – is a growing technique used by filmmakers. teehan+lax originally used Google Street View as a way of mapping the locations, but when it discovered that it could be used as the source material, it decided to create the entire video around it.

The resulting video is absolutely stunning and we can only imagine how long it took to not only create the video, but the technology used for it. The source code is available to download on Github if any developers wanted to create their own modified version, one with higher frame rates, higher quality images or more complex camera actions.

What’s even better is that if you’re not a developer, you can create your own Street View hyperlapse here.

The original purpose of Google Trends is to see what terms people are searching for and what topics are the most popular in your area. By extension, you can do the same thing with YouTube searches as well so if you want to see just how long a viral trend lasted, now’s your chance. If you wanted to show off this data in a post or presentation, you can get an embed code for any graph that appears. Granted, you could already do this for normal trends, but it’s worth repeating as it’s an overlooked feature. If you regularly publish video content, it’s worth taking a look at and identifying trends that you can take advantage of.

Making Sense Of Trends

Searches are ranked from 1 to 100, the latter representing the peak search volume. As well as a graph, you can highlight the related terms as well as regional interest – which can be useful if you’re going for localised content, or identifying which markets would be most interested in your future content. While you have the option to go back as far as 2008 for videos, if you’re a marketer, you will perhaps look towards the trends that have emerged in the last 30 – 90 days since you’ll want to tie your content in with them.

The only times that looking at previous years would be useful is if you’re looking for trends that occur every year (St Patrick’s Day in March for example), as you can see when those search trends emerge. This is useful if you’re creating videos that can fit into these themes, but this will only be short-term traffic at best as they’ll only be relevant for a few days before the trend dies off.

However, what’s important is to take these figures in context and the number is relative to that particular topic. For example, if you have YouTube on its own, it will appear quite high in the graph since it’s one of the more popular terms on the site. However, if you type in another search term like the ‘Harlem Shake’ and compare it, it shows that it’s not as popular in the greater scheme of things.
It’s worth mentioning that because the Harlem Shake was such a hit, it was always going to eclipse any other search term. Therefore, it’s worth keeping in mind that the data in view shouldn’t completely shape your perception of what’s popular and what isn’t.

Instead, it should be used as a guide that helps you decide what route to take. Combining these results with Web trend results will give you a framework to plan future content around.

Optimising Your YouTube Videos

In the case of YouTube videos, you will either need to be very quick or add relevant tags to an existing video. Changing the video’s title to reflect the trend of the moment may get you short-term traffic, but you’ll annoy new users if you’re using misleading headings while current subscribers will get annoyed when they see you changing your video headings regularly.

On the flip side, looking at the long-term, content like tutorials and guides will always remain popular depending on what topic is out so looking for more consistent terms would be the better option. Sticking to your area of expertise is the better option, but there are always ways to linking popular terms to your industry. So long as you have a reason better than “it’s popular” (the Harlem Shake being a prime example), then you shouldn’t have much to worry about.

The best way to treat YouTube trends is the same way you would treat search trends and SEO. Use it to identify search trends and compare it to your own results on YouTube analytics. Looking at the keywords that tie in with your previous videos will give you a better idea about how well they did. Were they published while those keywords were trending? Was it a video that over or underperformed? Is it still relevant after all this time? The more data you have, the more informed your decision will be so take the time to explore and discover what people are searching for, it could end up boosting your view count.

On the official Google Reader blog, software engineer Alan Green gave two reasons for the decision: Usage of the service has declined, and as a company, it’s poring its energy into fewer products to deliver a better overall experience.

To be honest, this news has been a long time coming. Google had stripped features away from the service, such as social back in 2011 in a bid to make Google+ more relevant. While it is a niche service (in relative terms), it had developed a passionate fanbase that swore by it, and a number of petitions have emerged asking Google to reverse its decision.

There are two reasons behind the decline, the first is the prioritisation of Google+. By removing the social features from Reader back in 2011, it practically killed the social element and removed the reason for users to visit it numerous times a day.

The second (lesser) reason is the rise of tablets and mobile news apps. For a more casual audience, it meant that the more user-friendly interfaces were more tempting, something that Google has done with Currents. This will also have a negative effect on smaller blogs who wouldn’t appear in these social feeds since they don’t update nearly as often as the bigger news sites.

Still, it was always nice to have the simplistic and straightforward experience that Google Reader offered, and when it does shut down for good, it will be missed, but here’s what you should do before it’s gone for good.

Downloading Your Google Reader Data

Before you start looking, you should first download your Google Reader data from Takeout. By following the link here, you can download all your data on a handy xml file. Google says that it should be easily transferable to alternative services, but that really depends on whether said services are allowing users to do this. Some like Feedly already do, but other services will quickly follow suit. Even if you don’t use the file straight away, it’s handy to have for future reference.

Best Alternatives

While this is bad news for users of Google Reader, at the same time, it gives anyone who has a RSS reader service a perfect opportunity to capitalise on this, and many already have. Since we now have three months to find an alternative home for our aggregation needs, here are some of the best alternatives you can download (Note: At the moment, loading may be slow with certain sites below, most likely because of the mass migration from Reader to other services).

Feedly
For: iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox, Safari
With a clean bright display, Feedly is one of the more popular RSS readers out there and will end up growing as many people migrate from Google Reader. Allowing you to connect your Google Reader account to it, transferring your data is a simple click away ensuring a seamless transition. It, along with a number of other RSS readers, are offering a replacement service (cleverly called Normandy) allowing you to save your data on its service.

Offering both a traditional web and a chronological layout, Feedly is perhaps a more colourful and social version of Google Reader, which can only be a good thing.

Prismatic
For: Web, iOS
Removing the clutter from reading and leaving only the articles you want to read, Prismatic has become a hit with iPhone users for its approach. With a simple interface, social elements and numerous suggestions based upon your interests, subscriptions and your location, it’s an incredibly useful app for those who are always on the go.

The Old Reader
For: Web, Chrome, Safari
Billing itself as the ultimate social RSS reader, The Old Reader describes itself as much like the old Google Reader, but better. Allowing you to sign in using your Google (preferably) or your Facebook account, you can import your feed subscriptions onto it, but at the moment, the flux of people migrating to it means that there aren’t any slots available at the moment.

It’s still in beta mode, however, so it can be a little slow, but it does everything that Google Reader can do, The Old Reader can do just as well.

Flipboard
For: iOS, Android
Considering how it now partnered with Google, it would be amiss not to include it considering how stylish it is. However, that style comes with a price. While it allows you to integrate your Google Reader subscriptions into the service, its layout means that only certain stories get prioritised. If you use Google Reader for more casual reading, then this won’t be a problem, but if you have your subscription feed perfected, that might end up being too great an issue to overlook.

NewsBlur
For: Web, iOS, Android
Another site that has an import from Google Reader section, NewsBlur isn’t the nicest site to look at if you compare it to the others on this list. However, it does have a number of handy features that makes it worth considering. Sharing options, a focus mode that only highlights the unread stories in your feed, and a training mode which allows you to highlight or hide stories so the service knows for future reference.

The con to this is that for the free version, you can only have access to 64 feeds unless you upgrade to a premium account, but if you’re unsure, there’s a demo you can try out before you sign up.

While its update isn’t something that’s going to trouble Facebook announcement today, if you’re a regular user of Google+ business pages, there are a few things worth keeping in mind about this update.

The Importance of Imagery

Getting the obvious change out of the way first, Google’s cover photo has gotten larger, *much* larger. Originally it was 940 x 180, but now Google has increased it to 2120 x 1192, which is a pretty significant jump. This is a move that follows what Facebook and Twitter already do and taking it one step further, meaning that it’s by far the most noticeable aspect of the page when you first visit. Marketing Land goes into a lot more detail about the comparisons between the cover photos and how it effects the layout of each site.

But back to Google+. What you will realise is that while the cover photo has increased in size, it is really the only thing you’re going to see when you first upload the page. Here’s how it looks on our own page on full screen (resolution 1440 x 900):

And a few other examples of brands updating like Red Bull, Android and Cadbury UK.

Pretty large, huh? While that may come across as massive, it’s not as bad as you would expect. For one, when you load up a page, it will show roughly four fifths of your cover photo so you won’t have to worry about your latest posts being hidden by it. This is similar to what Facebook does, but on a business page, you will be able to see the latest post without having to scroll down. 

However, while it’s significantly large, there is one very important advantage to having it this size. Unlike Facebook, Google has no strict rules or regulations in regards to placing a call to action on your cover photo so the extra real estate gives you a perfect opportunity to do this.

Unless you have a designer on hand on a regular basis, you’re not going to be able to change it regularly so you will need your call to action to be a medium or long-term call to action like ‘circle us’ or even list what you can offer. Also, it’s better to assume that people will only see four fifths of the cover photo and won’t scroll up the screen so adjust your profile picture with this in mind. Although with the large size, you don’t want to overload it with different call to actions so keep them to a minimum.

The profile photo will now be a circle instead of a square. You can format the cover photo to take advantage of this, but the one thing to keep in mind is that the bottom part of it is shaded so your profile photo will stand out more. You will need to adjust your profile photo if you want to achieve a similar effect like what you would get on Facebook, but you will have to take the shading into consideration before you create one that combines both cover and profile photos.

If you’re thinking of redesigning your cover photo and you don’t have a working knowledge of Photoshop, we put together a cover photo tutorial for you to reference. While the tutorial is designed to help you create a Facebook profile photo, the same principles apply to Google+.

A minor, but nice change is if you’re managing multiple accounts, you can open a dashboard section on pages. Here you can see the number of followers you have, when you posted last and the ability to switch pages.

Colour-Coded Cards

The other major change to Google+ is the introduction of About cards. If you’ve ever used Google Now, you will understand the principle behind this change. Instead of just having a normal layout, each section of your About page is broken up into colour coded sections. This mightn’t sound particularly impressive, but it ties in with the visual aspect Google+ is pushing, both with the cover photo change and the most recent updates to its mobile app.

For personal profiles, there are a lot of different sections to update, but for business pages, it is simplified into five sections: People, Story, Contact Information, Links, and Community. By colour coding these sections, users can easily find the sections that they’re looking for once they learn which colour corresponds to which section.

Editing sections has also been modified so it provides a more intuitive experience. When you open the edit window, you can change section by clicking on the tabs at the top of the page, ensuring that you can review each section without having to exit. Don’t forget you can place hyperlinks in the Story section to help with your SEO efforts.

Overall Google+ users should be pretty happy with the changes that have been introduced. The cover photo expansion could have easily taken the focus away from the content posted, but the decision to only show most of it while fitting in the latest post was a wise one. Also, page managers will find that the interface is more user friendly. For those already using Google+, there’s a lot to like with this new update, and with 135 million active users in the Google+ stream, that’s a lot of people.

For one, incorporating such a service will make your feed that little bit busier as your friends and followers see what apps you’re using. It also makes it more vibrant as the news stream resembles Facebook more, being an activity feed rather than just a place to see what your friends are doing.

Whatever your opinion is on Google+, it is a site that you should pay attention to, if only for its SEO and search engine potential if nothing else. Although, with Facebook and Twitter having their own sign-in features for a while now, what reason would app developers and programmers have to incorporate it into their app or service?

The Case For

If you’re talking about the reasons why you should use Google, then you need to look at the stats. For one, while you sign in to any Google account, really you’re signing in with Google+ as they’re now one and the same. But while it has been accused of being a ghost town during the first few months of its existence, it looks like it’s really beginning to gather momentum.

The stats surrounding Google+ itself should help. When it announced communities back in December 2012, the Senior VP Vic Gundortra wrote in a blog post that more than 500 million people had upgraded to Google+, 235 million are active across Google – that is, +1′ing apps, using Gmail, connecting with friends in search, etc.) and 135 million are active in the Google+ stream.

It’s also the fastest growing social media site at the moment – although that’s mainly because so many people use Google products that upgrading was mandatory – but it is being used and there is a growing community slowly emerging from it. It’s still a long way from challenging Facebook and Twitter, but it’s increasing to the point that even casual users are beginning to warm to it.

The real strength is when you consider the number of people that use other Google products like Gmail, Android and YouTube. Google has created an ecosystem where users refer to it for a wide number of things. Creating documents, saving onto the cloud, watching videos, checking mail, planning journeys, checking the news.

It has become ingrained into our online lives to the point where it’s hard to imagine not having all this information easily available to us. Depending on your app, you can make it context sensitive such as incorporating your YouTube viewing history when you’re logging in, but for now it looks like it’s limited only to Google+.

However, going back to Google+ itself, the 135 million active in its stream is important to note as it shows that there is traction behind the site, which is what app and site developers are going to be looking at when they’re considering it.

Also, the ability to automatically install the app version of a site you’ve signed into will be handy for those trying to grow their mobile presence, something that is now essential for all businesses to get ahead.

The Case Against

The reason why this method is so popular with apps and sites is because information is power. The more information you can extract from a user, the more you have to work with when you’re developing a product or service. When a site asks you to sign up, they’re really looking for as much information about you such as email addresses, names, gender and age, but other important information such as demographics and geographical locations play a part in it too.

Facebook sign-in is popular because these sites gain access to all this information that you’ve already provided. All those details you’ve spent time entering into the ‘about’ section comes into play here and because we’re always signed in, a process that usually takes five-ten minutes is reduced to a single click. The price of convenience is that both Facebook and the app you’re signing into learns more about you and your consumption habits, giving them more power in the process.

The immediate problem facing Google+ is that while people are engaging with it, more than half just upgraded and did nothing more. Also, outside the 135 million active users, how many of these people have filled out their ‘About’ pages? Since they’ve already filled out their Facebook profile among others, why would they feel the need to fill out the same information again.

Also, a smaller problem, but worth considering, is that people may sign in with Google because there’s less information on it and therefore they’re revealing less. Of course, the sign-in process is similar to Facebook’s, notifying you of what information they’re accessing before you click the ‘Accept’ button. If this does come to pass, it’s not going to be much use to app developers who thrive on this information, or for Google.

The reason that this mightn’t be as big a problem is because Google already has a number of services to gather data from so if you haven’t placed it in the ‘About’ page, they can still get that information from places like Gmail and YouTube.

Is it Worth Using?

If you’re already integrating Facebook sign-in, then there’s no harm in including Google’s version too. It’s definitely a case that more people are using more Google products than just search and when you add the different services together, that’s a lot of information they’re sitting on. The problem is that these plugins live or die by how much third-parties sites can get out of it so if you limit it, sites and apps won’t include it and if you open the floodgates, users will be reluctant to use it. Google has wisely chosen to go for the former, which could be a problem in the short-term at least.

If it’s a case you can only access information from Google+ (which seems to be the likely scenario), then the use could be handy for users, but limited for apps who thrive upon this information. If it’s a case that you can incorporate more than one sign-in option, then by all means include it, but if you have to choose only one, then sites may lean towards Facebook’s version since it’s already well established. If you’re looking to improve your mobile presence, then Google’s version becomes more tempting.

It’s best to think of Communities as a cross between a group and a forum, acting as a message board and a place for discussion. With there being only a few groups with over 10,000 members so far – the concept is off to a decent start considering it’s only a week old. We take a look at what they have to offer and how you can start your own community.

Why You Should Invest Time Into It

Social Search
While it’s still very early days, the potential for Communities to play a major part in social search is huge. When people search for an answer to a problem, they’re normally brought into random forums and sites. Communities could have the potential to be the new type of forum, a place where if you don’t find an immediate answer, you have a group who can answer it for you.

Granted, LinkedIn and Facebook offer this as well, but their search functions tend to be hit and miss so Google+ may offer a viable alternative. Considering that Google already incorporates posts into its search results, it’s likely that it will go in this direction.

It Gives Context To Your Opinions
One of the criticisms aimed at Google+ was that you could post something, but you’re not entirely sure who you’re talking to or if it would get a response. You could enter in a search term and post a status update, but this method of posting often felt disjointed.

Communities gives your conversations and updates much-needed context so when you do post something, you know the people reading it are interested and willing to respond.

It Could Potentially Bring Everyone Together
Admittedly, Google+ has been classified as a place for either photographers or geeks. Now anyone can be catered for through these groups, no matter what their interests are. There are features that Google+ offer – such as hangouts, and constant real-time updates – that will appeal to people and could potentially help expand the platform.

Getting Your Content Out There
If you use Google+ regularly, then you could give yourself a significant advantage by setting up a group ahead of your competitors. If you run a community group, the opportunities to slip in your own content and get noticed is greater. However, like all good social media strategies, you should keep this to a minimum.

Setting Up Your Community

To set up a community on Google+ and get started, go to the Communities homepage. Click the red “Create a Community” button in the upper right hand corner and enter your community name. Community names do not have to be unique.

First of all, you will need to choose between a public or private community. It should be noted that the setting you choose is permanent and you cannot change the privacy later, so choose carefully.

If you choose public, you can select if it will be a community where anyone can join or if a moderator approves the requests. Selecting private will let you choose if people can search for the community and request to join. Unlike the public community type, only members can see existing members and their posts.

Alternatively, you can choose to have your private community hidden from search and have people join via invitations. At this point, you’ll need to create a unique name that communicates your community’s function. This should define the purpose and interest of the community ensuring that it stands out.

Next, you will need to include a 200px x 250px photo that makes a good impression and catches the viewer’s eye. It’s generally a good idea to use the same image that you use on other social profiles for strong personal branding and so people can recognise you. Make it complementary with your logo while also relating to the name and purpose of the community.

Write a unique and descriptive tagline to attract the right members. This is the description that will help users decide if a community is suited to them. The more focused and specific this is, the better, as broad topics only generate competition with other communities and lack focus.

You should expand on your community’s purpose in the ‘About’ section. Add additional information that conveys the message of your community and outline what members can expect. Choose appropriate keywords that will show up in searches and attract potential members. If your community has a physical location, you can add that in too.

For a community to thrive, it needs to be nurtured. It’s important to keep adding content at a consistent pace, and encouraging others to do likewise.

To help facilitate discussion, you should start a few discussion topics to give members an idea of the type of content that will feature. Post provocative content that will stimulate discussion and keep them interesting. If you do that, members will begin to post and return to share news on your community page as well.

To get your community active and running, you will need to start inviting people to join. Alongside friends, invite people who are natural community builders and will add value to discussions. Spread the word in your Google+ profile and relevant networks.

Many people leave groups and communities due to an influx of spam and potential overload, so keep an eye on the content and block spammers if necessary. On a related note, community notification are off by default, but you can switch them on by clicking on the bell icon on a community page. Once a community has more than 10,000 members, notifications are turned off permanently.

Categories

Another important section to keep an eye on are the categories underneath your group image. When you first visit a community, the news feed features every post made in that group, but categories can help direct conversation and make it easier for members to find relevant posts. It also allows members to find topics they’re most interested in.

Categories can be changed, deleted or reordered so you will be able to edit them as the needs of your community changes. A good idea is to keep the number of categories you have at five or less. Any more and you risk making topics too specific with little interaction occurring. If your community grows over time, you can gradually add more categories, but keep it simple when you’re starting off.

Notable Google+ Communities

Already within the week, there have been a number of different communities set up on the site. While there are many to choose from, here are the best ones to learn from:

Social Media Marketing
Link
Social Fresh’s community is relatively small in comparison to the other Google+ groups in this list, but Social Media Marketing is a good example of keeping the discussion concise and relevant. Alongside the obligatory Google+ and Facebook categories, it also deals with analytics/ROI, which is bound to come in handy for many marketers.

Google+ Discuss
Link
One of the largest communities out there, Google+ Discuss does exactly what it says it does: Provide a place for users to share ideas and meet new people. With some ground rules, a nice mixture of fun and serious categories and a regularly updated feed, it’s a good place to start if you’re still getting the hang of Google+.

Android
Link
Another Google-centric community, but these groups tend to have the most passionate users so it’s worth analysing. Created by Android Central, this community allows members a section to introduce themselves (in case you’re looking at the feed and are puzzled by the number of people saying hello) as well as more specific areas such as hacking and development that cater for the more hardcore members.

Building A Company
Link
Created by one of Google+’s biggest fans, Robert Scoble, Building A Company is designed to help those with startups get their venture off the ground. Providing tips on PR, funding, infrastructure and business plans, practically every aspect of developing your startup can be found here.

HDR Photography
Link
Google+ is well known as a place for photographers to show off their images and it’s no surprise that some of the more popular communities involve images. We chose HDR Photography not because it’s one of the biggest communities on the site, but for the amazing images its members post regularly. It’s an encouraging and receptive group, catering towards new members with their own section and offering constructive criticism for anyone who wants their work critiqued.

Since there are more companies using YouTube to drive sales and brand awareness, it’s as good a time as any to learn about it and see how you can improve your channel.

Why You Should Be Using Analytics

Understanding Your Audience
One of the fundamental features of the analytics tool is the demographics section, offering you a better picture about how to see how your YouTube audience.

By studying your demographics, you can get a clear picture of the target group you’re appealing to and by making yourself aware of this information, you can better tailor your content and engage more effectively.

Finding Out What Content Works
Under the views reports, it’s possible to see which videos are popular with your audience. If you’re experimenting with different ideas, you will get a much better idea about what viewers respond to. You can check out a breakdown of the views, estimated minutes watched and also, monetisable views.

Discovering How Engaging Your Videos Are 
Under the audience retention tab, you can figure out which videos are the most popular, find out the average time the viewer spent watching and at what point they stopped watching. Under the engagement reports, you can see which videos have attained the most engagement, which videos get shared and commented on the most.

The usefulness of these tools can not be overstated. You can apply these results and enhance the quality of your work, making your videos more concise and ensuring they are viewed and shared by the broadest possible audience.

Monetising Your Videos
It’s important to note that good YouTube channels were usually created because of the passion behind them rather than trying to make money. Generally, it takes a long time and a lot of hard work to build up a large following. However, when you have gained a steady increase of followers and views, it’s worth monetizing your work.

There are a number of ad formats designed to help monetise your videos and through experimentation, you can discover which ones provide the greatest returns.

Getting Started

When you first access YouTube Analytics, you will be greeted by the overview page which displays all of your channel’s activity over the last 30 days. It’s entirely possible to base your future strategy on this screen alone as pretty much all important content is located here.

Views, estimated minutes watched, earnings, engagement, top videos and demographics. A good overview is provided, but chances are you will want to go further and see what areas you can improve upon. Clicking on any of the metrics that feature here will take you to that specific report where you can view it in further detail.

The entirety of YouTube’s analytics can be broken down into three different sections, views, engagement and earnings.

Data Filter
Before you proceed, a handy tool you should definitely keep in mind is the data filter located at the top of the screen. Unless you’ve only posted a small number of videos, this tool will be very useful in narrowing the number of videos you’re analysing. The main sections you can filter down is by video, geographical location, timeframe and dates. This can be used for any section so if you enter keywords into any of these sections, you will be presented with a number of different autocomplete options so finding videos is easy.

Also, the majority of reports featured use a line chart, which displays how your views (or the metric in question) are distributed. You have the option of checking data points in daily, weekly or monthly increments or even compare them to a second metric if required.

Views Report

The first port of call when you’re analysing your results, views are the most basic metric to measure your success. Alongside the amount of views your videos get, it also tells you how many of those views were monetised as well as the estimated number of minutes spent watching your videos. It should be mentioned that views signify when the user intends to view the video. If a video is set to autoplay and someone watches it, that view isn’t counted.

Perhaps more importantly, you can find out where your views originated from as well as the number of views you’re getting per day. Knowing what location your views are coming from can be useful if your content is aimed at local audiences. If you have a high viewer rate in the U.S. for example and you’re based in Europe, you can make slight adjustments to your content so that it appeals more to this demographic.

The section you should pay the most attention to is ‘Audience retention.’ As the name suggests, this tells you just how good your videos are in keeping attention and ensuring that all viewers watch until the end.

Absolute audience retention shows the views of every moment of the video as a percentage of the number of views of the beginning of the video. It’s possible for this figure to go beyond 100% as any views where the video is rewinded or a particular moment is watched again will push this figure upwards. On the other hand, any instances where your video is fast forwarded or abandoned will see this figure fall.

Relative audience retention shows how well your videos keep viewers in comparison to other YouTube videos of similar length. The higher the figure, the more viewers that kept watching your video.

While it isn’t possible to get a perfect 100%, you should aim for an average viewing percentage of 60%. There are two ways you can ensure that this percentage is as high as possible. The first is to ensure that all content shown on your channel is interesting enough to keep you watching towards the end, while the other method is to keep your videos short. The latter is common sense: The shorter the video, the more likely someone will watch to the end.

Engagement Report

The real meat of your analytics involves the social side of your videos. This section concerns how many people subscribe to your videos, the ratio of likes and dislikes, favourites, comments and sharing. The metrics in this section are relatively straightforward although the one section you may want to keep an eye on is annotations. If you’re regularly asking annotations to link to other videos or convince people to subscribe, you will see their click-through rate and close rate (the percentage of annotation impressions that were closed by the viewer).

Engagement has grown in importance thanks to the new layout YouTube introduced recently. As well as making the overall interface better for viewers and content producers, the site is placing importance on subscribing to channels.

For one, all videos now have the subscribe button directly underneath it. This is to help grow original channels and help grow content by placing subscriptions front and centre of the experience.

Earnings Report

Unless you’re one of the top channels on YouTube, it’s probably not a good idea to place too much hope in payment. The average top 1,000 channel receives $23,000 net each month from YouTube ad revenue so while it’s possible to make a living out of it, it will take a lot of effort to reach that point.

Another factor that will work against you is that ads are only displayed to those who allow it so roughly between a quarter to half of all views will count towards it. And even then, you need a significant audience before you begin to see any tangible returns.

When your videos start getting some traction, it’s worth spending some time analysing ad performance. Here you will be shown how much you’re earning through playback-based cost per mille (CPM) and impression-based CPM. More importantly, the different type of ads will be displayed at the bottom so you can see just how well the different ads are performing. When you’re starting out, it’s good to activate all of them to see just how well each one performs. Then after a brief period of time, choose the ad formats that are performing the best.

Activating Monetisation
To activate monetisation on your account, you must go into the “Video Manager” section of your account and choose to monetise your video by clicking the $ symbol. Here you will choose which ad formats you want to enable.

If your video features any third-party content such as a music label, you may not be allowed to monetise your video if you do not have the official rights to use it. YouTube itself covers a lot of different situations where this might apply.

If you have an Adsense account, you can link it up to your YouTube account to simplify payments. Once you’ve done this, you are usually paid when your earnings reach a specific amount (usually $100) so for small publishers, it may be a while before you begin to see any tangible returns.

However, if you delve a little deeper, there are many tricks hidden away that will help improve your experience. To help you out, here are a number of tips and tricks that you can use for four of Google’s more popular features: Gmail, Maps, Google Drive and Google News.

Gmail

Use Filtered Search
Gmail’s search bar is very handy for finding that message you got months ago, but most people don’t realise how easy it is to access advanced search. Just click the downward facing arrow on the right-hand side of the search bar and you will be presented with a number of different search options. You can narrow your search down to the person who sent it, the subject, words used, and the dates it would have been sent.

Activate Starring Feature
Sometimes you will come across important messages, but the only way you can mark them is with the yellow tab or star icon. Thankfully, there is a feature in settings which lets you mark your inbox with different symbols to help you. Start by clicking the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and scroll halfway down the general settings page to find the “Stars” setting. Here you can drag different stars and icons into the “In Use” section to activate them. The next time you’re starring an email, you can cycle through the different colours by clicking on the icon repetitively.

Cut Down Text In Email Replies
The annoying thing about email threads is that if the messages are long and numerous, it’s very easy for the context to get lost among the many paragraphs of text. There’s a handy way to get around this as blogger John Graham-Cunning recently discovered. Before you hit reply, highlight the block of text you want quoted and then hit reply. This ensures that only that text you highlighted will be quoted in the email below your message.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Like all Google features, there are keyboard shortcuts that you can take advantage of. Simply go into the gear icon on the upper right general settings and activate the shortcut. You can find a list of the different keyboard shortcuts by visiting this link.

Sign Out Remotely
If you’ve signed into Gmail on different computers and forgot to sign out, you can sign out remotely through the details section. If you scroll down to the bottom of Gmail, you will see your last activity at the bottom right hand corner. Click on “Details” underneath this and you can sign out of all other sessions.

Emphasise Important Words In Gchat
If you want to add extra emphasis to your comments on Gchat, you can add some basic formatting as you type. To make text bold, surround your text with asterisks (*bold*), use underscore to add italics (_italics_) and hyphens to add strikethrough (-strikethrough-).

See Which Emails Were Sent To You Directly
If you want to keep track of what emails are sent to you directly and which ones were sent to a group, you should activate the “Personal Message Indicators” setting. Found near the end of general settings, activating it will place arrow icons within the important tab. One arrow signifies emails sent to you and others, while double arrows indicate emails sent just to you.

Activate Gmail Remotely
If you’re a Chrome user, you can download a handy app which will allow you to work on Gmail without an internet connection. It allows you to read, respond to, search and archive mail without network access. For those interested, you can download it through the link here.

Google Maps

Remove Side Column
Not really a tip per se, but handy to know when you’re viewing a map. If you want more space to work around with, simply click the small arrow on the right of the printer and URL icon (the chain). This will minimise the column so that you have more space to view the map.

Adjust Your Route
When you’re searching for directions and you want to avoid a particular road or street, you can adjust your route by dragging it to a different path. This will create a new white marker which Google will use to calculate a new route and timeframe. You can create as many of these markers as you wish.

Add/Remove Layers
Depending on your location, you can add or remove layers to your map. Depending on your location, you can see terrain, traffic, weather reports, Wikipedia entries, bike trails and when you zoom in close enough in satellite mode, 45 degree mode. You can access these modes by hovering on the box located on the top right-hand corner and expand it by clicking the arrow button at the bottom.

Drag and Zoom
Google Labs has some incredibly handy tools, but it can be very easy to miss it considering its location. When you open up maps, you will find Maps Labs at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. One of the options you can choose is ‘Drag ‘n’ Zoom’ which lets you zoom in by drawing a box on the map. Click the magnifying box underneath the original zoom to activate it. The smaller the box, the further you zoom in.

Measure Distances
Another Google Labs tool that you can activate. Clicking the ruler tool at the bottom right hand corner of your map will let you measure the distance between two points in metres or feet. The fun part behind this option is you can choose the geeky option and measure the distance based on the size of American football fields, Olympic swimming pools and light years among other more useful measurements. This feature will only let you measure in straight lines, however.

Google Drive

Keyboard Shortcuts
It’s probably no surprise that Google Drive has its own set of keyboard shortcuts which you can find through the cog icon. Scroll down the menu and you will see an option for keyboard shortcuts. Clicking this will bring up all the different key combinations available to you.

Access Revision History
If you’re creating or viewing a document on Google Drive and you want to see what changes were made, go into file and select “Revision History.” This will bring up a list of previous versions of said document that you can restore or use to view differences between that version and the latest. If the document is shared by more than one person, all changes are colour coded to show which person was behind each change.

Attach Drive Files To Your Email
When you’re writing up an email, you can insert a file directly from Drive through your Gmail account by clicking the Drive icon at the bottom of the new compose email format. It will appear when you scroll over the attachment icon at the bottom. This option isn’t available if you’re using the old compose format, in which case you’ll have to add in your files manually.

Google News

Personalise Your News
Google News is a handy way to find articles when normal search isn’t enough, but you mightn’t be aware that it can also be used as a news portal. Going to the News homepage will present you with all the major news stories, local and national, for you to read. However, if you’re not happy with the articles you’re presented with, the customise section is what you’re looking for.

By clicking on the cog icon at the top right-hand corner, you can adjust the sliders for a number of topics to determine how often they appear. Also, you can add specific news sources to the list and adjust how often they appear on your feed, allowing you a more personalised experience.

Adjust Appearance Of Blogs & Press Releases
In its search function, Google News also incorporates blog posts and press releases to give you a more comprehensive view of the news and what’s happening. If you only want major media outlets and sites to appear on your feed, you have the option to lessen or get rid of blog posts and press releases from your feed. When in the customise section, go into settings (found underneath adjust sources) and you can adjust the frequency they appear.

Add Specific Topics
If you want to have a stream that related to specific search terms, then create your own section. In the customise section, go into advanced (found underneath the Personalize Google News section), and select “Create A Custom Section.” Here you can add in any search term and you will be presented with a feed correlating to that. Remember if you want to add more than one term, separate them with a comma.