Daily Archives: May 11, 2022

The parent company of dating apps Tinder, Match and OkCupid is suing Google, alleging that the company exerts too much control over payments through its Google Play app marketplace.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Californias Northern District, accuses the company of deploying anticompetitive tactics to maintain a monopoly on the Android mobile ecosystem:

Ten years ago, Match Group was Googles partner. We are now its hostage. Google lured app developers to its platform with assurances that we could offer users a choice over how to pay for the services they want.

But once it monopolized the market for Android app distribution with Google Play by riding the coattails of the most popular app developers, Google sought to ban alternative in-app payment processing services so it could take a cut of nearly every in-app transaction on Android.

Matchs lawsuit is the latest instance of app developers demanding relief from Google and Apple over the 30 percent standard cut now, sometimes 15% that those tech giants extract from in-app payments. Longstanding tensions around the issue boiled over in 2020 when Epic Games sued Apple for antitrust violations, a case that didnt result in a clear-cut victor but did force Apple to allow developers to point their users to alternative payment options.

Facing pressure over its restrictive payment choices, Google recently launched a pilot program that would allow apps to offer an alternative payment option along with Google Plays own system within apps. Spotify was the only company named as a participant in the pilot program, and Match claims that the company has rebuffed its own efforts to sign up.

At the same time, Google announced plans to crack down on apps that circumvent its billing systems, setting a deadline of June 1. In light of the deadline, Match Group CEO Shar Dubey called the lawsuit a measure of last resort for the dating app company.

They control app distribution on Android devices, and pretend that developers could successfully reach consumers on Android elsewhere, Dubey said. Its like saying you dont have to take the elevator to get to the 60th floor of a building, you can always scale the outside wall. Its not legitimate.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Google dismissed the new Match lawsuit as a self-interested campaign to avoid paying its fair share. Even if they dont want to comply with Google Plays policies, Androids openness still provides them multiple ways of distributing their apps to Android users, including through other Android app stores, directly to users via their website or as consumption-only apps, a Google spokesperson said.

Match Group is a member of the Coalition for App Fairness, a developer advocacy group that calls attention to the ways that Apple and Googles dominance over the mobile software market negatively affects app developers. Epic Games, Spotify and Tile are others prominent members of the group, which was formed in 2020 around the time that Epic escalated its own complaints.

Developers tired of paying such a hefty cut of their in-app earnings to Apple and Google are stepping up the pressure on those companies, but governments around the world are increasingly taking an interest in the issue too.

In the U.S., the bipartisan Open Markets Act would crack open both the iOS and Android app store, upending Apple and Googles shared stranglehold on the mobile software world in the process. That bill moved out of a Senate committee earlier this year and appears poised to continue the slow crawl toward becoming law.

Last week, a competition complaint in the Netherlands against Googles Play Store from Match Group prompted a preliminary investigation into the companys potential anticompetitive practices. That countrys Authority for Consumers and Markets is also sparring with Apple over its own app payment processes, and the regulatory group has ordered the company to allow dating apps to offer alternative payment options.

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Match Group sues Google over monopoly power in Android app payments - TechCrunch

In early 2019, Michele Turner sat down for dinner with her colleague Grant Erickson. Joining them at the restaurant in Silicon Valleys Woodside were two of their counterparts from Amazon and two from Apple. Turner and Erickson both worked for Google. The hosts of this dinner party were Tobin Richardson and John Osborne from the Zigbee Alliance. The aim of the evening was simple: fix the smart home.

Turner, the senior director of Google Smart Home Ecosystem, and Erickson, then a software engineer at Google, had agreed to meet with their competitors to find a solution to the major pain points in the smart home: reliability, connectivity, setup, and the multi-platform problem. While this was not the first conversation between the companies, it was a significant step forward in an ongoing effort by the Zigbee Alliance to bring the industry together and address the challenge of interoperability in the smart home.

Grant, who was also president of the Thread Group at the time, had been leading conversations with us internally at Google about how to solve some of the bigger problems in smart home, recalls Turner. We knew we had the foundational technologies to start to address this but that there was a lot to fix. Grant made a proposal. The Apple folks and the Amazon folks obviously had viewpoints as well. But we all could see the bigger picture of what needed to happen.

Turner recalls they left the meeting with a draft proposal agreed on by all parties and with a commitment to take it further. Initially known internally as Project Unity, it went public just prior to CES 2020 as Project Chip (Connected Home over IP). Shortly after that along with a rebrand of the Zigbee Alliance to the Connectivity Standards Alliance the fruits of that Woodside dinner became Matter: the new interoperability smart home standard, and an unprecedented industry coalition.

The Verge sat down with Turner ahead of Google I/O this week to hear how the company plans to implement Matter when it finally arrives later this year and what it will mean for users of Googles Nest products and the Google Home app.

Google has confirmed that all of its existing Nest branded smart speakers and displays will be upgraded with an over-the-air firmware update to support Matter, allowing you to use Googles voice assistant to control any Matter-enabled device in your home, no matter who made it. It will also update its Google Home speaker and has said that the Nest Wi-Fi, Nest Hub Max, and Nest Hub (2nd Gen) will serve as Thread border routers. Thread is a low-power mesh networking protocol that allows devices to talk to each other locally without a hub, using border routers to route the packets of information around your house. Along with Wi-Fi, Thread is a key component of Matter.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Matter has evolved substantially from that first meeting, and there have been delays and setbacks. Do you still feel confident in that original vision, that its being carried through and is on track to achieve what you set out to do at that Woodside dinner three years ago?

Michele Turner: I do. And, in fact, I think its exceeding our original vision in some ways. Its been incredibly heartening to see the enthusiasm and the adoption and the number of companies that have joined the CSA and the Matter workgroup. Were at 200 companies its amazing.

I think the CSA made the right call [on the latest delay]. We need to make sure that were going to have very high-quality devices in peoples homes. It has to work right. This is super complex. Partners have to make sure that the multi-admin is working accurately [a key feature of Matter that allows devices to work with any platform simultaneously], that theyre not only working with just the Google Nest controller devices but with the Amazon controller devices, the Apple controller devices, the Samsung controller devices. The complexity of this is very high.

How is Matter going to change the smart home experience for the Google Home user?

For the Google Home user, I think the bigger areas of Matter where theyll see change first is in getting your devices set up. I just set up some lights at my mother-in-laws house, and it still took me 45 minutes to set up four lights. It shouldnt have been so hard. The first thing is going to be that significantly simpler setup.

The second piece is the speed and the reliability of the local network. This has been a big pain point for users. My team spent a lot of time working with partners on improving reliability and reducing latency. Because in our mind, if its not as fast as a light switch, whats the point? We believe Matters going to drive down those latency numbers significantly and improve the overall reliability of devices in the home.

Then, I think interoperability for users is going to be a big piece. As much as we love having everybody using the Google Assistant, the reality is people have iPhones and Android phones in their homes. Some of them want to use HomeKit. We just dont have that kind of compatibility today for users. And I think thats hard. Being able to have multi-admin really work well between these ecosystems is going to be a big benefit for users.

Then, our long-term goal is to build out what we call the proactive home. Instead of having a whole bunch of connected devices, how do we build that truly proactive home that works for the benefit of users? ... Matter is going to be absolutely foundational to that. Its the architecture behind the proactive home. If we dont have a home thats reliable, if we dont have things running locally, if it doesnt work consistently, we cannot deliver on that promise.

The proactive home is really that intelligence layer, whether its being able to predict that Im going upstairs, its 10 at night, and I always go into my bedroom at that time, so turn on the lights for me; or, Im watching TV, its 9:30PM, the kids are in bed, and I get a notification on my phone that the lights just went on in the kids bedroom. Is somebody sick? Are they watching YouTube? Being able to do anomaly detection. Now, Matter doesnt do that. But its foundational to be able to enable the rest of that. Because if that core foundation of the home of the smart home isnt solid, the rest of it just doesnt work.

Have you got features like that lined up ready to go? Can we expect to see a significant shift in the way we use our Google smart homes from Day One? Or is this going to be more of a slow build?

Its going to be more of a build. We have to get those intelligence signals coming in, then we have to actually apply machine learning to them. We have to get enough of them coming in that we can build machine learning models around, build algorithms around, to start doing those predictive models.

We have some of that data off of the cloud today. Weve been using it in the Home and Away routine. But that we drive off of the geofence signals and the PIR sensor thats in the thermostat. Its taken us years to get that right. And we have a lot of data coming in from those sources. Now were going to have Matter sensors as a first-party device. Sensors are critical to being able to understand and drive this sort of predictive intelligence in the home. But its going to take time to bring in the signals and build those models. They have to work accurately. You dont want your lights to turn on at 2AM because some signal went haywire.

You mention that sensors are key to the smart home. Is Google exploring other ways of sensing beyond little white plastic boxes? At the Google Smart Home Developers Summit last year, you discussed technologies like ultra wideband for fine location tracking that could be potentially implemented in the smart home. Is that something thats tied to Matter? Or is that something more specific to technologies youre developing within your own ecosystem?

Its not directly tied to Matter. Were working with third-party partners that are using UWB today to try to build some of those more frictionless experiences in the home. But right now, in terms of the smart home area of Google, were mostly working with some of our third-party partners in the home security area around how to use UWB signals for things like frictionless entry [a security system turning off automatically when you walk in]. Thats a thing thats coming.

How are Google Nest devices going to work with Thread and Matter? Its been announced which will be upgraded to Matter and which will be border routers. Can you tell us a little bit about how thats going to work in the Google smart home powered by Matter?

Our Nest Hub Max and our Nest Hub (2nd Gen) will be able to act as Thread border routers, and were actively looking at other devices that may need Thread because Thread has been a part of our strategy for a long time. Now we are looking at the topology of the home. We understand what the mix of devices generally are in homes, and we want to expand that Thread footprint with our partners, like Nanoleaf and others. We have a lot of conversations around whats the best way to start getting more Thread border routers into the home so that we will be able to have that truly fast network. Theres only so many that Googles going to have.

Weve committed to our new Nest Thermostat being on Matter, and we are still evaluating if the learning thermostat can handle Matter. It does have Thread. But just because it has Thread doesnt mean we can run Matter on it.

So, when the Nest Thermostat(s) is upgraded to Matter, youll be able to control it from an Apple HomeKit controller (such as a HomePod or Apples Home app) with Matter?

Yes, that is the multi-admin feature. If I want to have both HomeKit and Google Home running in the house, my HomeKit controller my HomePod or my Apple TV should be able to control my thermostat.

However, a Matter controller cant control another Matter controller [so a Nest Hub cant control a HomePod Mini]. Theres a real difference here between controller devices and end devices. The controller devices act differently.

Will manufacturers still have to certify their devices for each separate platform, as well as Matter certification and Thread (where applicable)? And if they dont get the Google certification, will they still be controllable by Google Assistant or a Google Nest smart speaker or display?

If they choose to use our APIs, we will certify them to make sure they did their API implementation accurately. That will give them access to the Works with Google Home badge. But yes, they can do, say, a generic light bulb certification with Matter, get their light bulb working with Matter, and not use our APIs at all. Then, as long as the user has a compatible Google Nest hub in the home, they can use the Google Home app to set up the device as well as the Nest Hub to control the device.

As youve said, Matter is complicated. And theres a lot of expectation thats been placed on its shoulders. What would you say is the biggest misconception right now with Matter?

I think the biggest misconception is that Matter is going to solve every problem in IoT. It doesnt have a native intelligence layer thats going to automatically give you the proactive home. In my mind, its solving three very foundational things. Its solving making setup easier for the majority of the devices that people put in their homes. Not the majority of device types, necessarily, but the majority of devices people put in their homes.

Its making the IoT more reliable and faster. And then its going to solve this multi-admin problem. Its going to provide that device interconnectivity that we dont have today that is really great for users. While its going to be a lot more than that, its not today. But its solving what we believe are really the core problems that have challenged adoption by mainstream users in the past.

Its clear that connectivity is the main issue here thats being solved. But when everything works with everything, the platforms are going to need to differentiate themselves to attract the user. Why will people want to use Google Home in the future when Matter arrives, as opposed to any of the other platforms?

One of the things that Matter does is level the playing field for these device makers. Now theyre all getting a little bit commodified. And theyre worried about that. The CSA says there are 130 devices on track to launch with Matter. But there are tens of thousands of devices out there. Theres a long way to go.

Some of the developers are a little bit wait and see because theyre worried about getting commoditized in the market. What Google is going to be offering to these developers and I talked about this in the Smart Home Developer Summit, well have more on it coming up at I/O is the ability to work with us to build automations on our platform, which will enable them to differentiate.

Were not the experts in lighting; were not the experts in home cleaning; were not the experts in leak detection. Thats what our partners do. We want to build the best platform on top of Android, for them to be able to differentiate and build these new experiences that will create new offerings for users. I think thats the value.

Google is going to have some key offerings along the lines of intelligence in context that developers are going to be able to take advantage of to build these compelling and next-generation solutions on their platform.

Originally posted here:

Google explains why it's all in on Matter, the first true smart home standard - The Verge

Last fall, Google announced a key improvement to devices running its Google TV front end with personalized access so that each user in a home could have individual profiles with their own recommendations and Assistant responses. In December, that feature was delayed until the coming months, and its still nowhere to be found; however, 9to5Google reports glanceable cards for Google TVs ambient mode screen saver that were also announced at the same time are starting to roll out.

When they were announced in October, Google showed a version of the UI (the picture above) with large personalized cards scrolling across the middle of the screen. They could display information like weather, sports scores, and news or toss in shortcuts to content you might like, including podcast episodes, music, and photos.

On the devices where its showing up so far, however, 9to5Google mentions that it actually looks a bit different, with smaller information chips lined up across the bottom of the display with stuff like YouTube video shortcuts, a podcast in Google Podcasts, or a prompt for Google Assistant. If its enabled on your device, they mention that an indication should be a menu prompt telling you proactive personal results are now on so that you can go to the Assistant settings and turn them off if you dont want them on your TV screen.

As with most things Google, the exact timing of the rollout is unknown, but with Google I/O kicking off tomorrow, maybe well hear more about its smart TV features then.

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Google TV's ambient mode screen saver with sports scores and podcast links is rolling out - The Verge

What if you never had to type in a password again? Imagine. An international day of celebration. Children dancing in the streets. Soldiers laying down their arms and hugging tearfully across the battlefield.

Sign up for our weekly technology newsletter, TechScape.

Or, at least, a mild improvement in your daily life. Thats what Apple, Google and Microsoft are offering, with a fairly rare triple announcement that the three tech giants are all adopting the Fido standard and ushering in a passwordless future. The standard replaces usernames and passwords with passkeys, log-in information stored directly on your device and only uploaded to the website when matched with biometric authentication like a selfie or fingerprint. From Apples announcement:

Users will sign in through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN. This new approach protects against phishing and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS.

The three companies will roll out Fido support over the course of the coming year. The Fido2 standard is actually already public, and some companies support it already, largely for internal authentication. But the standard has long lacked the final step necessary for ubiquity: making it easy to get started.

Thats what this latest announcement is about. With the help of the platform owners, users will be able to sync their Fido passkeys, without needing to log in fresh on each new device. That takes it from a service that is nice addition to passwords, to one that can be fully used to replace them.

Ease of use is only part of the reason for the switch. Passkeys, secured with biometric identification on your phone, are faster than manually entering passwords, but if you use a password manager (and you should use a password manager) youll be able to enter passwords and login to most websites at the tap of a (fingerprint sensing) button anyway.

But the bigger reason is that passwords suck. They suck because of how they are used in practice: people make short, easy-to-guess passwords, and then re-use them across the internet. For many users, the more important a website is, the more likely the password is to be short and easy-to-guess, because while you may tolerate entering a long, secure password once or twice, you wont bother doing it several times a day.

And the ways weve tried to fix passwords also suck. Requirements to add complexity to passwords, in an attempt to make it harder to break them by brute force, are notoriously infuriating, and frequently inept at securing the actual outcome theyre seeking: if P@ssword1 is a valid password but doubloon prorogue tunnel (to offer a passphrase randomly generated by my password manager just now) isnt, youve just reduced the security of someones account.

Two-factor authentication, which asks you to link a second factor to your account such as a phone number which gets texted, or another device, which you use to approve the login has its own problems. The most popular forms of two-factor authentication all involve the use of one-time passcodes, either texted to you or generated by an app on your phone or computer. And those one-time passcodes are just as open to phishing as a conventional password, albeit with a shorter expiration date if theyre successfully stolen.

And so, if the Fido thing takes off, the world should get slightly more secure, slightly less frustrating and slightly smoother to move through.

What will it look like for you? Probably not that different in practice. One day, youll be making an account on a website and just wont be asked for a password. You might not even notice it happens. But rest assured: the children will be dancing in the streets anyway.

If you want to read the complete version of the newsletter please subscribe to receive TechScape in your inbox every Wednesday.

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TechScape: Apple, Google and Microsoft are about to make passwords a thing of the past - The Guardian

Google will allow ads for stem cell treatments that are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration a change from its previous policy, which banned all ads for this experimental category of medical care. The policy update was first reported by Gizmodo and will go into effect in July.

The company said in the policy update that it will also allow cell or gene therapy ads that are exclusively educational or informational in nature, even if they reference products or applications that are not approved by the FDA. Its not clear how Google would define educational or informational or what type of advertisements would be allowed under that umbrella.

Stem cell therapy is a broad term for medical treatments that use stem cells, which can develop into any cell type. There are some evidence-based applications for the cells, like to treat some cancers, and there are around two dozen FDA-approved cell- and gene-therapy products (which Googles new policy would allow ads for).

But most uses for stem cells are unproven, experimental, and can be dangerous. Clinics claim the cells, taken from donated umbilical cords or from patients fat, can treat things like joint pain or eye conditions. People have developed infections and died after getting those types of procedures. The FDA has tried to crack down on businesses offering these types of procedures, but theyve proliferated over the past few years.

Googles initial ban on stem cell ads hasnt done much to keep the clinics from popping up in search, Paul Knoepfler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine, wrote in Stat in March. Even if they cant advertise, the companies have designed websites that appear at the top of search results for searches related to stem cells above more reputable medical resources, like the National Institutes of Health.

These companies are savvy and have been able to skirt policies to push out their products even in the face of a total ban. Now, that ban is set to relax, opening up new avenues for groups to distribute information. Googles continuing stem cell problem is emblematic of a serious, broader problem with unproven biomedical offerings the company needs to address, Knoepfler wrote.

See the article here:

Google relaxes ban on stem cell therapy ads - The Verge

Ken Colburn| Special for The Republic

QUESTION: I love Google Chrome, but it seems like its bogging down a lot lately. Any suggestions?

ANSWER: No matter which browser youre using, over time things can bog down especially if you like to have lots of websites open at the same time.

There was a time when you could only have one active session running in a browser and the use of the Back button was how you switched to something that you previously opened.

That all changed with the adoption of tabbed browsing back in the early 2000s, which allowed for additional web pages without closing the current one.

This incredibly useful feature has led to what many are calling a tab hoarding problem that can lead to numerous issues, including sluggish browser performance.

Getting junk text messages?: Here's how you can stop receiving so many of them

Each browser session you open via a new tab takes additional working memory (RAM) which taken to the extreme can deplete this precious resource for everything on your computer.

Many web pages have active sections of video as content or as an advertisement, which can lead to an even greater amount of memory being sucked up for something you arent currently viewing.

If you see a lot of tabs open when things get slow, try closing as many as possible to see if thats contributing to the slowdown.

This is why you have so many browser tabs open

Whether on our personal or work computer, we all may be guilty of this one bad habit. Having way too many browser tabs open at once, to the point that it can become overwhelming. Susana Victoria Perez has more.

Buzz60

Chrome has a Task Manager tool that will allow you to see how much memory each open tab is using and close them if they are memory hogs.

You can open the Task Manager by using the keyboard shortcut of Shift+Esc or click on the three dots in the upper right corner of Chrome, then on More tools, then on Task Manager.

To see the tabs that are using the most memory, click on the Memory footprint heading until you see a black down arrow, which indicates memory usage in descending order.

Look for anything that starts with Tab: to start your evaluation of the memory hogs so youll know which ones to avoid keeping open in the background.

Getting tired of political ads?: Here's how to manage your Facebook settings

Google includes a basic tool for removing harmful or rogue software that may have snuck into your browser.

To open the tool, click on the three dots in the upper right corner of your browser window, then on Settings and then on the Advanced tab.

Look for the Reset and clean up option to get to the Clean up computer function.

A great reason for choosing Chrome as your browser is the plethora of add-on tools better known as extensions that can dramatically improve functionality.

But, just as with tabs, too many can add unnecessary overhead to Chrome that can contribute to slower performance issues.

Extensions are often like smartphone apps that seem to be something youll use often but turn out to only get used when you first install them.

Look for an icon that looks like a puzzle piece in the upper right corner of Chrome to access the Manage extensions option which will allow you to disable or remove the ones that you dont use regularly.

If these tips didnt help, try alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Brave, Safari (macOS) or Edge (Windows).

Ken Colburn is founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services, datadoctors.com. Ask any tech question at facebook.com/DataDoctors or on Twitter @TheDataDoc.

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Google Chrome bogging down? Try these tips to speed it up - The Arizona Republic

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah also shows that the company provided $5.6 million in free advertising to Utah nonprofits

(Google) Cameron and Jacquelyn Muir, founders of The Baby Cubby in American Fork, have used Google tools to help them achieve a 300% increase in online sales since 2019.

| May 10, 2022, 12:42 p.m.

| Updated: 6:04 p.m.

A report released in April shows Google provided $9.67 billion of economic activity in Utah during 2021.

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah shows that more than 192,000 Utah businesses received requests for directions, phone calls, bookings, reviews and other direct connections to their customers through Google.

Additionally, it shows that Google provided $5.6 million in free advertising to Utah nonprofits through the Google Ad Grants program.

The company has had Google Fiber offices in Provo and Salt Lake City for over five years, according to a news release.

Samantha Heyrich, a public affairs spokesperson for Google, said the Economic Impact Report for Utah was calculated by estimating the economic activity provided to businesses, publishers, nonprofits, creators and developers by Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Google Cloud and Google advertising.

Our estimate is conservative in this regard and we dont include the economic impact of our employees in the state or other Google products, she said.

Googles full methodology report is available at bit.ly/3vHCrlx.

Heyrich also said Googles economic impact varies depending on the state and how businesses, nonprofits, publishers, creators and developers are using Google tools.

For instance, Google provided $1.1 billion in economic activity to Idaho, $10.06 billion to Arizona, $9.23 billion to Colorado and $5.4 billion to Nevada.

The U.S. Impact Report also shows that Google invested over $7 billion nationally into data centers and offices, and donated $263 million to local nonprofits.

Economic impact reports for other states are available at bit.ly/3scfViA.

Googles Economic Impact Report for Utah highlighted several local businesses who have benefitted from using Google tools, including The Baby Cubby in American Fork.

Founders Cameron and Jacquelyn Muir began the business in 2013 when they felt unsatisfied with their experience shopping for their kids.

Their brick-and-mortar store (586 N. 900 W., American Fork) plus their e-commerce site aims to make baby gear decisions and shopping easier.

With help from tools like Google Ads and a Google Business Profile, theyve achieved a 300% increase in online sales since 2019.

The Muirs have also created over 500 YouTube videos that offer product reviews and how-to guides for parents.

Cameron said they use a variety of Google tools in their business, from Google Analytics to Google Docs and Sheets.

Jacquelyn added that Google tools are extremely seamless and easy to use.

Cameron said the unique value in The Baby Cubby is found in creating a shopping experience that mirrors the huge life transitions parents go through when they have a child.

With so many baby products out there, choosing which ones to buy can be overwhelming, he said. Thats why The Baby Cubby tries to be a resource for parents navigating the baby products market for the first time.

Ive talked to lots of moms who have legitimately had panic attacks when they started shopping for their kids, Cameron said. So we want to create that experience where instead of being discouraged or overwhelmed, parents can be excited about that step in their lives.

Google has been a big part of marketing that type of experience to their customers, Jacuelyn said.

For instance, their YouTube channel, which theyve been running for about five years, has over 23,000 subscribers and gets 185,000 views a month. The channel has a total of over 11 million views.

Jacquelyn also gave some advice to aspiring business owners: make sure your heart is in what youre doing.

Make sure youre passionate about it, she said. If your main goal is to make a quick buck here or there, then youre not going to find joy in what youre doing.

Editors note This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

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Google provided $9.67 billion of economic activity in Utah during 2021 - Salt Lake Tribune

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of cloud services at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco on April 9, 2019.

Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google's cloud unit is forming a team to build services for developers running blockchain applications as the company tries to capitalize on the surging popularity of crypto and related projects.

Amit Zavery, a vice president at Google Cloud, told employees in an email Friday that the idea is to make the Google Cloud Platform the first choice for developers in the field.

"While the world is still early in its embrace of Web3, it is a market that is already demonstrating tremendous potential with many customers asking us to increase our support for Web3 and Crypto related technologies," he wrote.

Pioneers of Web3 have created a set of decentralized and peer-to-peer systems that they hope will form the next generation of the internet. It's a philosophy that challenges the current state of the web, controlled by massive corporations like Amazon, Google and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.

Google wants to offer back-end services to developers interested in composing their own Web3 software as the company battles for market share in cloud infrastructure against Alibaba, Amazon and Microsoft.

"We're not trying to be part of that cryptocurrency wave directly," Zavery told CNBC in an interview. "We're providing technologies for companies to use and take advantage of the distributed nature of Web3 in their current businesses and enterprises."

Zavery, a former Oracle executive, joined Google's cloud group in 2019, months after Google tapped Thomas Kurian, Oracle's president of product development, to be the next head of its cloud unit.

In building an in-house team for Web3 tools, Google is taking its next step to prove its commitment to the market. In January, Google's cloud unit revealed plans for a Digital Assets Team to work with customers, following the emerging growth of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The company said it was looking at how customers could make payments with cryptocurrencies.

Going forward, Google could devise a system other companies could employ to make blockchain data easy for people to explore, while simplifying the process of building and running blockchain nodes for validating and recording transactions, Zavery said. He added that Google's tools can work in other computing environments, such as Amazon Web Services.

Enthusiasm around bitcoin, the most established cryptocurrency, has tapered off this year as investors have turned away from risky assets. As of late Thursday, bitcoin was down 21% so far in 2022, underperforming the S&P 500, which has dropped about 13%.

But blockchain applications continue to find their way into the mainstream and have increasing relevance in industries such as financial services and retail, said Zavery.

Nike CEO John Donahoe told analysts on a conference call in March that the shoe company plans to build Web3 products and experiences. Warner Music Group is also interested.

"From collectibles to music royalties, Web3 represents an exciting future for the music industry that will help our artists reach millions upon millions of new fans in interesting and innovative ways," CEO Steve Cooper said on the company's first-quarter earnings call.

James Tromans, a former Citigroup executive who arrived at Google in 2019, will lead the product and engineering group and report to Zavery. The team will bring together employees who have been peripherally involved in Web3 internally and on their own, Zavery said.

Google trails Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing, but the business is growing faster than its core advertising unit. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said last week that the fastest growth in head count is inside the cloud division.

WATCH: Crypto-based web3 remains in 'dial-up' phase, says Unstoppable Domains' Sandy Carter

Link:

Google's cloud group forms Web3 team to capitalize on booming popularity of crypto - CNBC

One thing that attracts many entrepreneurial-minded spirits to the SEO industry is its dynamic design.

Strategies are changing continuously based on each clients focus and industry, preventing proverbial cookie-cutter practices.

This is especially true when approaching keyword research.

There are many keyword research tools available, and each requires a unique creative focus to produce the best search opportunities.

For this article, Ill home in on one tool from the internet Mothership that sometimes gets sidelined for SEO due to its ad-based focus: Google Keyword Planner.

Here, youll find nine Keyword Planner research tips that can help you target more profitable terms in organic and paid campaigns.

First and foremost, you want to know which products, services, and keywords deliver the most profit.

With this information, you can create a list of seed keywords to launch your first plan of attack.

Generally, I focus on quality over quantity, which typically equates to low volume over high volume.

For example, one of our clients is an environmental consulting company, so getting someone to convert an organic piece of content for an SWPPP Plan could yield that company thousands of dollars in one sale.

As you can see, search competition for many of these keywords is low, and volumes are rising for many relevant keywords in that space.

Due to increasing environmental concerns, keywords like these will continue to grow and make money for whoever captures their organic share.

Bonus Tip: If youre looking for more accurate keyword volumes, use another keyword planner like Semrush or create a high bid using the max CPC on a keyword to better understand its total volume and monthly impressions.

Next, compile a list of keywords for each campaign and sort by intent.

Unfortunately, Googles Keyword Planner doesnt provide any filters for intent, such as commercial, informative, or navigational intent.

However, we can glean commercial intent from other keyword phrases by filtering keywords by Top of Page Bid in ascending or descending order.

For example, pages with higher Top of Page Bids typically have highly competitive commercial intent and imply relatively good conversion rates if advertisers are willing to bid so highly on these terms.

LinkedIn content marketing is a highly sought-after term with lots of competition based on this research.

However, you can flip this list in ascending order to discover keyword terms with greater informational intent.

Using our previous example of SWPPP Plans, we find informational keywords with low bids in ascending order.

Bonus Tip: Using phrases like buy, coupon, sale, etc., will help you separate keywords by commercial intent.

On the other hand, terms like best practices, top, and question phrases will signify informational intent.

While several competitive research tools are available, including Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, etc., you can conduct competitive keyword research right in Googles Keyword Planner.

In fact, right when you log onto Keyword Planner, they offer options to search for keywords using a seed keyword or a competitor website.

Google will provide a list of all keywords this website ranks for, and you can filter out keywords by brand name to get a good list of keywords a website is ranking for.

Bonus Tip: Click Organic Average Position in Custom Columns to see where this website ranks for specific keywords to generate ideas for success.

You may notice that Google Keywords Planner provides a keyword overview of your competitors website and page-specific content in the image above.

If you were searching for topics and keywords for top or mid-funnel content that drives traffic to your website, you could use any of your favorite competitor research tools to see which pages are driving traffic to a website.

Of course, you could also manually input any webpage that your competitor outranks you for and discover other keyword ideas and variations.

For example, using Semrush, I found that this article on alternative search engines pulls in the highest annual traffic for Search Engine Journal.

I can see the most relevant keywords driving traffic to that web page by copying and pasting the link in Keyword Planner.

You could even bid on these keywords if youre so inclined, whether youre marketing an alternative search engine or an awesome piece of content.

Bonus Tip: Conducting page-by-page keyword research, you can discover other keyword variations Google ranks that page for that you otherwise would not have inputted in your content.

Informative content answers as many user questions as possible.

This provides several advantages for your SEO and content strategy, including:

Fortunately, Googles Keyword Planner provides easy filters to input question phrases, such as what, when, where, why, and how to help create stellar content that satisfies user intent and educates users.

Bonus Tip: AnswerthePublic is a free tool that provides common user questions in an easily visualized format to help you answer as many questions as possible.

In addition, Googles answer box and commonly searched results at the bottom provide good indicators of what questions users are researching.

Another great feature of Googles Keyword Planner is the ability to filter ads and impression shares to specific locations.

Google even lets you filter keyword search volumes down to the city level.

In addition, you can access search volume data by state or region to find out where most of your traffic and customers originate in Googles Forecast tab.

For example, below, I looked up the search volume for SWPPP plans.

Using this data, you could create location-specific landing pages for SWPPP plans for California, Texas, Florida, etc.

Bonus Tip: Filtering searches by location also provides a good baseline for the amount of reach local ads on Facebook and other networks will garner.

For example, if most searches are regionally specific, this could help you avoid wasteful spending across all ad platforms.

In addition to location and intent, optimizing web pages for different devices is also critical.

I created an ad campaign targeting roof repair in the Dallas metro area in the example below.

Not so surprisingly, most of these searches occur on mobile devices and are most likely done as near me searches.

Based on this evidence, optimizing landing pages for mobile devices, inserting a click-to-call CTA, curating a strong brand presence on local directories, and optimizing the Google Business Profile (previously Google My Business) with clear contact information will net the most conversions for most ad campaigns.

Bonus Tip: Understanding which device users search for products allows you to target users on those devices with retargeting ad-based campaigns across social media and other websites.

Advertisers mostly use this strategy, but it provides a rich information resource for SEOs and content marketers.

By searching for keywords in Grouped View, instead of Keyword View, Google organizes keywords directly for you by category.

For example, by using the seed phrase homemade kombucha and best kombucha, you can see the number of keywords and topic ideas generated with two simple keywords.

By grouping these keywords by category, you could create page-specific content for each group, utilizing each keyword in the group to help optimize your content.

Bonus Tip: If you notice up top, Google provides relevant keyword and topic ideas to expand your marketing efforts further.

Finally, one converting strategy for advertisers is if youve run out of keyword ideas, consider bidding on the branded keywords and redirecting user searches to your website.

You can use this strategy genuinely if you sell brand-name products on your website, such as Nike shoes, if you sell apparel, or if you want to gain more clicks for your own branded keywords.

There are several advantages to bidding on branded keywords, including:

Bonus Tip: You could also bid on competitors keywords to be competitive. While this strategy is not foolproof, sometimes its a good way to steal away traffic and clicks from competitors.

However, this plan could always backfire, and your competitor could do the same to you.

Googles Keyword Planner is free to use with a Google Ads account and provides users with most of the tools needed to start keyword research and begin a multi-faceted digital campaign.

Furthermore, what Keyword Planner lacks in functionality can be made up for in third-party tools and a bit of creativity.

More resources:

Featured Image: Nikolay Klimenko/Shutterstock

More here:

9 Creative Ways To Use Google's Keyword Planner Tool - Search Engine Journal

Google Maps has become a fixture of 21st-century lifebut typically, one doesnt use it to plan transcontinental journeys. But in 2010, when Yu-Wen Wu couldnt afford the airfare from Boston to Taipei to visit her sick grandmother, she typed in the addresses to their respective homes and asked for walking directions.

It actually gave me instructions for 155 days to Taipei City, Wu told Artnet News.

It was an impossible tripthe directions included kayaking across the Pacific ocean for some three months, with a stop in Hawaii. It was also the beginning of an epic art project that would take Wu a decade, transforming the outlandish journey into a 20-foot long collage in the tradition of a Chinese landscape scroll, stored in a traditional wooden box.

Its a trip of longings in some ways, Wu said. Only in my mind have I followed these directions.

To transform a Google glitch into a work of art, Wu first printed out the directions, which she had saved as a PDF, on rice and mulberry paper. That proved a fortunate decision, as she was never able to get Google to suggest the fantastical journey again.

Yu-Wen Wu, Walking to Taipei (2021). Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

It was gone within seconds, she said.

Wu cut each of the 2,052 steps of the directions into strips, and pasted them onto a 20-foot scroll. To fully experience the piece, the viewer has to be ready to stretch their legs, as each line stretches the full length of the artwork.

I wanted you the viewer to walk the distance if you were to read it, Wu said. I was thinking about it as a contemporary landscape and also a data structure.

Yu-Wen Wu, Walking to Taipei (2021). Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

The work, titled Walking to Taipei (2021) and on view with Boston gallery and first-time Independent exhibitor Praise Shadows at the New York art fair, is priced at $50,000. The hope is to attract an institutional buyer for the piece, which includes a custom-built table on which to display the scroll, and a large panel of acrylic to keep the portion on display lying flat.

Fortunately, some months after her fateful Google Maps querymade on April 10, 2010, according to the PDFWu was able to visit her grandmother, who died not long after. But the image of a transcontinental journey made on foot, crossing the ocean in a solitary vessel, would stay with her for years to come, even as she struggled to complete the painstaking cutting and pasting that the project required.

Yu-Wen Wu, Intentions II, III ,IV (2022). Photo courtesy of Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston.

Its presented at the fair with a suite of sculptures and works on paper by Wu, including her series Intentions, chains ofBuddhist meditation beads made from bundles of gilded Taiwanese tea leaves wrapped with red thread, hanging from the ceiling to the floor. Other works on paper are embellished with gold leaf.

All of this is based on my immigrant story, said Wu. When I came, I thought the streets would be paved in gold. I was sevenwhat did I know?

But even if they were, it probably still wouldnt be possible to use them to walk back to Taipei.

Read more from the original source:

Yu-Wen Wu Asked Google How to Walk From Boston to Taipei. She Spent the Next 10 Years Turning the Directions Into an Incredible Artwork - artnet News