Unless you’ve been occupying some disconnected space where the only thing that could be accurately described as ‘digital’ are the fingers of your hand, you’ll know that search giant Google has been very busy of late. September the 26^th 2013 saw them come clean and admit that they have been using an updated algorithm to rank sites – although those with their wires in the right sockets had been speculating whether something was afoot for several months before. As it transpired they were right – according to sources at Google, “Hummingbird” had been operational since the end of August.

Last week saw an overhaul of the YouTube comments section in a move by Google to further integrate their services. It is also designed to make the less than adequate state of YouTube comments more meaningful. The new system will provide a major boost to the Google+ social network. Users now need to connect their Google+ profile with YouTube in order to comment on videos with the comments also displayed as Google+ posts.

As Google’s webspam meister he’s used to dealing with techie issues on a day-to-day basis…but where did he start out, and what does he see as the current/future state of search?

You may only be dimly aware of its potential, but Google Authorship should be an essential part of your content marketing strategy over the next 12 months. Here’s why:

With the arrival of Internet Explorer 11 accompanying the Windows 8.1 release, and the new availability of the browser for Windows 7 users, Google Apps has announced that it will soon be shutting down support for IE9. Users will be notified shortly that they need to upgrade to more recent browsers in order to maintain compatibility.

If you’ve visited Twitter in the last few days you may have noticed the new feature with pictures appearing in your newsfeed. You no longer have to click when opening media in your tweets, as the social network has now opened its links to video and photos.

A new study in the Guardian has sought to look forward to next year with the aim of predicting new trends that are likely to emerge in the content marketing industry.  These are some of the main points made in the article:

Motorola has used its blog to announce an innovative venture called Project Ara.  This initiative will enable consumers to literally design their own smartphones.

A recent report published by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs has highlighted some genuinely interesting statistics from the content marketing world, many of which make for some surprising reading:

A new survey has indicated that the budget for content marketers around the world is likely to increase.