A report has been made public proposing that France begins taxing the likes of Google to subsidise its own creative industry. The authors of the report suggest that this new taxation could raise up to the equivalent of $28 million, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t much money at all. The suggestion that the tax will help France subsidise music artists and book publishers doesn’t therefore sound like the sole objective here, given that this amount of money won’t make much of a difference if it’s spread so thinly across France’s creative community. On this basis it feels like protectionism of the worst sort – instead of collaborating with successful, innovative companies, or creating an environment that promotes innovation domestically, France appears to want to give its own industries an unfair commercial advantage by taking money from non-French firms. If the proposals are made into law, this then…
Ever wondered when links became such an influential component of SEO? Or when Google released the infamous “Florida” update and what effect it had on search engine optimisation? Perhaps you’re interested in the origins of the unsolicited link exchange, or want to know when (and why) nofollow was created. All these questions and ma...
So, less than a month after filing the trademark application for the ‘Nexus One’, Google has launched its first hardware retail product direct to consumers and starts a direct assault on Apple’s dominance of the mobile sector. This is a great example of ‘speed to market’ from the most over-exposed brand on the planet launching ... ...
Google released real-time search this week, incorporating Twitter and kin. So we at Greenlight took it for a road test. We evaluated what the pros and cons are for users and for marketers. Amidst all the hype, I can’t help feeling the usefulness of the results seems to range from the inconsequential, to the surreally ... ...
Google has unveiled ‘The Living Stories’ prototype, a project in conjunction with The New York Times and The Washington Post. It explores a new way to get news to the masses online, which Google hopes other publishers will want to exploit with them too. The central concept is that particular news topics could be centralised ... ...
Google has launched ‘Web History’, the new name for its personalised search feature, by default across its user base. Essentially, by monitoring what you click on in their results, Google can learn what sites you like and give them a ranking boost in your search results. This adds a further dimension to how Google ranks ... ...
Google could become the biggest threat to online property intermediaries overnight Google is said to be considering a launch into the UK property market next year. This will allow both estate agents and private sellers to put their property for sale as an overlay on Google Maps. Whilst this is open to estate agents to ... ...
As companies become more and more comfortable with search as a marketing medium, we’ve seen increasing numbers of ATL (above the line, or TV, radio, press, outdoor or cinema) advertising campaigns utilising a search based call to action either instead of or in addition to a web address. The attraction of this approach is obvious; ... ...
Experts fighting back The current balance of power between crowds and experts hugely favours crowds, largely because the social media and networking movement of recent years has given the crowd the tools and mechanisms it needs to build efficient methods of collaboration and communication, and this has naturally been focused on the lowest common de...
First it was Microsoft, followed a day later by Google. At the end of last week both giants have signed deals with “micro blogging” phenomenon Twitter to reuse its vast repository of data for their own purposes. The terms of the deal aren’t known, but it probably represents the first time Twitter has managed to ... ...
