When it’s my turn to tackle the SEO news for our blog I first look specifically at ‘technology’ news headlines for relevance, and then I usually filter it out a bit to nail a topic that our readers can relate to/find useful.
Today’s news feed looks like I just went to Google’s news blog and did a copy/pasta, yet in reality Google WAS the news this morning.
Here’s the list of headlines:
-
- Google places is gone and now merged with Google+ Local
- Google Plus places now features Zagat review information (Kyle mentioned this in yesterday’s blog post)
- Facebook drops Google chrome as a recommended browser (and then removes the whole page)
- Google’s new ChromeOS Chromebox is available for purchase
- Google’s not yet available ‘5-core’ Nexus 7 tablet makes a sneaky appearance a few days early on a benchmarking website
- And a new Google World of Wonders video from Japan:
Google+ Places
First impression?
Right off the bat it told me where Dave likes to eat..
Which was funny because he’s recommending a restaurant that’s famous for either utterly ruining every aspect of the dinning experience or totally nailing it.
Dave must be lucky. 😉
So like anything on-line:
Zagat reviews aren’t perfect.
Everyone has an opinion.
People have unique interests.
At least this is Google, so we know that it’s trying as hard as it can to learn and suggest things to ‘me’ based on personalization.
So if the first visit doesn’t introduce you to your new favourite restaurant/pub/coffee shop, I wouldn’t write it off, just try it again later.
Stock isn’t the only thing dropping over at Facebook
This image has been popping up in Google/Technology news all morning:
Since Chrome and Safari both share the ‘webkit’ engine, there’s almost zero possibility that Facebook is dropping support for Chrome.
In fact I would say this is more about making Opera stand out vs. dropping support for Chrome. Especially since the FB developer page used to recommend Chrome!
Given that FB pulled this link down completely, I’m going to venture a guess that this was even possibly a mistake.
Chromebox for Sale
The Chromebox is a cute little SFF (small form factor) PC from Samsung with the ChromeOS preloaded and ready to go.
You can pick one up today for $329.. However if you don’t want some extra hardware, or wait for something to ship, you can download and install ChromeOS on an old laptop, or inside a virtual PC, to give it a try and see what’s good/bad about it before investing.
Thanks for going open source Google, we love you, again. 😉
Google Nexus 7 Tablet?
June is on my calendar for a ton of reasons, one of which is that it’s ‘6 months’ from the date that Google said they were planning to launch a tablet ‘in six months’. 🙂
Asus is apparently the manufacturer, so the tablet will be sturdy.
NVidia’s ‘5 core’ Tegra 3 Processor will be doing the thinking, so it will be fast and power smart.
NVidia also supplied the ULP GeForce graphics processor, so 3d graphics/games are supported.
Beyond those stats we’re really guessing based on this leaked info:
The unit that popped up on the benchmarks was running Android 4.1 JRN51B, at 1280×768 resolution, had 1GB of RAM installed, and 16GB of local storage.
So for now this is just a huge teaser and we’ll have to wait for a more official announcement.
Last day for Beanstalk Minecraft Map Submissions!
If you didn’t already know, we’ve been running a Minecraft Map Contest for the last two months and this is the final day for entries!