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“YouTube for Schools” is a portal that helps curate education materials and videos on subjects such as history and math while filtering out potentially offensive or distracting content.

Video has always been used in schools in addition to or as part of the scheduled curriculum. It’s important for schools to evolve with modern technology. If teachers can incorporate elements of students’ everyday lives into the learning process, chances are students will respond positively. Additionally, if students experience new technology in school, it will prepare them for and enhance hands-on experience in the real world when they enter into the job market.

Check out the full article on Mashable by clicking here.

We just made that name up. But a few weeks ago at Outrank, we caught wind of a celebrity endorsement advertising program that Google is testing. If you use Google, you may start to see celebrity endorsements at the bottom of paid search advertisements that appear in search results for online queries. There is not much information about the program other than advertisers on Google will partner with celebrities whose endorsements will appear in paid ads as annotations like “Outrank endorsed this”. A small thumbnail picture of the celebrity will appear next to the annotation, like you see when someone in your Google+ circles +1’s something that then appears in your search results. Check out the example of a celebrity endorsed ad on Search Engine Land.

It is unclear if the advertisements that celebrities will endorse will solely refer to celebrity products like if “Charlie Sheen endorsed this” were to appear on an ad for Tiger Juice, (fictitious example but you get the idea) … or if celebrities will be able to endorse another party’s product, like Chelsea Handler endorsing Belvedere Vodka. If the program exists for celebrities to endorse their own company, it gives them a way to better control their brand by endorsing a specific product. If not, it’s still a way for celebrities to define themselves through other brands that they support.

If you are the type of person that looks to pop culture for what’s hot, this will be an added bonus in the world of search … a world influenced by paid advertisements, rather than an organic focus, however.

Here are a few things Outrank is curious about regarding the program:
• If ads are not limited to celebrities, what is the relationship between the advertiser and celebrity from a monetary perspective?
• What will the cost be to advertisers?
• Will this spur more clicks?
• Will advertisers see a positive effect on their bottom line?

Outrank will report back on details of the program as they become available. What are your thoughts? Please post in the Outrank blog comments below!

Quite a while back, we described Google Latitude and discussed the changes made to the application since it launched in 2009. We also talked about how it was competing with check-in services like Gowalla and Foursquare. Back then, check-ins were just starting to grow in popularity. Now, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, check-ins are not all the rage.

Text messaging, taking pictures and sending photos and videos rank as the top 3 activities performed on smartphones. Next came emailing, using social network sites, and getting location-based directions or recommendations. Using check-in services is last on the list, engaging only 12% of smartphone users who participated in the survey.

Checking in followed posting photos or videos online, accessing Twitter, then participating in a video call or chat.

You can read up on the report on Mashable. Based on reader comments, it is apparent that internet users don’t see the value in using check-ins and expect to be offered something like discounts or actual prizes to make the service more appealing or useful.

Do you check in? What do you like or not like about check-in services?

The marketing team here in Austin is currently reading “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives” by Steven Levy. The book talks about Google’s concerns about energy consumption in their early stages of expansion & scaling up. Google is still conscientious about reducing their carbon footprint and doing what they can to be respectful of the environment. In respecting the environment, they also use it to create a positive environment for employees.

When it comes to greening our office buildings, we apply the same focus that we use for any of our products: put the user first. We want to create the healthiest work environments possible where Googlers can thrive and innovate. From concept through design, construction and operations, we create buildings that function like living and breathing systems by optimizing access to nature, clean air and daylight.

Yesterday’s Google Blog post shows that they are still focused on keeping things green around their offices. Made me think about a blog post I wrote a while back in relation to Earth Day. We are a WasteSMART partner, doing what we can to keep things green! We also schedule clean ups around the outside of our office to make sure pesky trash isn’t flying around on the loose.

Do you recycle religiously? Do you bring your own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store? Don’t forget to do your part. We’re all responsible!

Do you remember the gameshow To Tell the Truth? It was a gameshow where a celebrity panel of judges asked questions of 3 contestants to determine which guest was the one with a certain unusual occupation that was revealed at the beginning of the show.

An episode recorded back in 2000 (2 years after Google was founded) was dug up where, after questioning, the celebrity panel and audience voted on which contestant they thought was Sergey Brin, Co-founder of Google.

The gameshow host for this particular episode (Mr. Peterson from Seinfeld!) reads some background on Google at the beginning of the show, which was actually written by Sergey Brin. Part of the hint was: ” Our search engine is so smart that other prominent portals default to Google when they can’t find what they’re looking for.” I couldn’t help but think back to the Bing incident where Google accused them of copying or stealing their search results.

It’s always amazing to look back at technology and recognize how far we’ve come and how much has changed. Check out the old episode Mashable dug up from the grave, here!

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think this seems to be the pattern for Google as far as making changes to their products:

Debut epic product
Make continual changes to said epic product
Make new product to make other product work better, then incorporate it into said epic product like they should have done in the first place
Continue to make changes to products
Unveil the next epic product
Rinse and repeat

Integrating Hotpot into Places is a good example of Google’s growing pains/improvements – click here. Along the same lines, is a post discussing whether or not Google had spread themselves too thin instead of focusing on search – click here for the full article.

This time though, with Google+ it seems that everything is getting a makeover to create a streamlined, user-friendly and more intuitive product suite.

Most recently, they’ve changed their Place pages – most notably by visually encouraging users to leave reviews using the Google platform and deemphasizing “reviews from around the web”. They’ve pushed down reviews from sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor to appear after Google user reviews on the page. There was controversy surrounding them incorporating reviews from other well-known sites. Critics said they were “stealing” reviews and supporters thought they were just using public information to provide a more well-rounded user experience. Check it out, here.

We commend Google for their improvements and working toward integrating all their different toys for the benefit of users and businesses.

Normally, in the world of SEO, when we think or talk about reviews, we are interested in positive reviews that help improve a small business owner’s website ranking on the search engines. At Outrank.com, we educate clients on the impact positive reviews can make not only for SEO purposes but also when a potential customer has found you on the internet and starts to weigh their options. Reputation matters. Providing incentives for your customers to positively review your business is mostly frowned upon but you can politely ask satisfied customers to review your business and rate their experience.

What do you think looks more impressive – a company with happy customers who took the time to provide valuable feedback or a company that has no reviews from customers? Even if you are a successful business owner with happy customers, appearances speak volumes in marketing and advertising. Consumers assume that businesses with (positive) reviews are more legitimate than those without. Consumers look to one another for honest opinions which is why reviews are so important: user-generated content is influential. Consumers trust one another. Casual conversations happening on social sites like Yelp, Google Places, Facebook and Twitter are why businesses have found a way to join in to engage and reward fans and customers.

Blumenthals brought up an important issue in a post about ratings and reviews. He called to attention a case where a moving company posted fake reviews about their competitors. Clearly, this brings up another, darker side of reviews. There is always the chance that a customer at some point in your career might post a less than desireable review of your product or service. If and when that time comes and the customer has a legitimate point, you can certainly use it as a learning opportunity, do what you can do remedy the situation and respond publicly to send a positive message and reveal what you did to make things right. Simply put, sometimes there are just miscommunications. Sometimes, there’s just no pleasing certain people. And, in Blumenthals’ example, there are unethical strategies other businesses will use as poor guerilla marketing tactics.

What you can do to combat this type of behavior is limited. You can flag and report the review and wait for Google or (wherever the review lives) to respond. You can try to locate the source but good luck with that. Blumenthals suggests some possible solutions that Google could employ to quickly respond to small business owners suffering from false reviews. Check out the post here.

Word on the street is that Google+ is set to rule over all Google products, meaning users may have a central hub to indulge all their online activty in one place. I think we’ve all been ready for a more fully integrated platform where Google is concerned. Google made their first significant step when Hotpot was integrated into Google places.

Additionally, there have been various complaints about search – how information is found and displayed as well as the opinion that Google has veered too far from what they are: a search giant.

I’m curious to see how many people and who will adopt Google+ for the long haul. Right now, there is alot of curiosity. Users want to explore Google+ if, for no other reason than it being such a secret and difficult to obtain an invite. Kudos to Google for aiming to create a more seamless experience for users!

Tech drama. My, how life has changed. Long ago, I watched soap operas with my mom and no matter how long you stayed away and how many episodes you missed, you could jump back in and know what was going on — the same drama was being dragged out.

Now, the drama I look to lives in tech blogs. I suppose no industry can resist shaking their money maker to keep things hot. The “battle” between Google and Facebook ensues. True, there is competition and there has definitely been controversy. I just find the language interesting at times. You see things like: “X” going up against “Y”, heavyweight “X”, battle this, battle that — you get the idea. It tends to create more heat, more drama, more intensity. Still, I rely on my go-to sources for SEO and social media: Mashable and TechCrunch.

At any rate, you’ve probably already heard about Google+, Google’s new social media platform. Google has developed the Facebook Friend Exporter, a Chrome extension designed to help those who want to convert their social graph from Facebook to Google+. The extension pulls pretty basic information your friends have shared with you like their names, birthdays, websites, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Erica Swallow of Mashable says:

CNET reporter Stephen Shankland pointed out that this tool probably won’t rub well with Facebook, citing Section 3.2 of Facebook’s terms of service: “You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.”

Google’s release of Google+ will probably spur up existing hostility between the two tech giants, as Google has long held that a user should be able to easily extract his or her data (case in point, Google Takeout lets you extract your data, including Google contacts). Facebook, on the other hand, claims that Google’s practices raise “serious privacy concerns.”

Holy moly! The Google Goggles have surfaced! It didn’t take a genius to see the potential and the fun in that name but since I caught wind (back in April) of Google acquiring a swimming goggle patent I made a mental note to keep an eye out for what would develop.

Here’s the post on the “tech bubble” vs. innovation, where I mention the goggles. Bill Slawski, the author of the blog (Seo by the Sea) where I first learned of the googles, said that

it does show that Google’s founders follow their own interests and take them very seriously. Google’s self driving cars were a dream of Google founder Lawrence Page since his days as a doctoral student.

Slawski also said:

Sergey Brin is an avid swimmer and diver, in part to help stave off the possibility of Parkinson’s Disease. In a 2007 biography piece, Sergey Brin’s father was quoted as saying that when he asked his son if he were taking any advanced classes at Stanford, Sergey responded, “Yes, advanced swimming.” So, perhaps this acquisition isn’t that odd.

So, here’s what the Google Goggles project is:

The Google Goggles team has worked with The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles to “Goggles-enable” their permanent collection of paintings. Now you can use the Google Goggles app on your phone to take a photo of any of the paintings in the Getty’s permanent collection and instantly access information about the work from both the Getty’s mobile-optimized webpage about the painting and from around the web.

Pretty fun little app, there! Similar to the Google Art Project, which I covered in a blog post in February, the project is exciting for art enthusiasts, students, artists or anyone seeking more information about specific art pieces.

This out-of-box thinking defies the notion of a tech bubble and demonstrates how we can apply technology to topics other than those strictly tech-related.