March Madness Takes Over Bing’s Search Results

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Source: YouTube

Source: YouTube

March Madness is upon us and everyone is getting into the spirit, including Bing. The search engine has launched their smart answers in the search results for March Madness and other related searches to see brackets, scores, and predictions.

Users get three options above the normal search results for the basketball tournament. The default view shows the current bracket results, but users can also build their own brackets and see Bing’s predicted outcome. On top of all of this, Bing also offers the schedules and teams playing in the competition.

Below you can see a screenshot of the default view for bracket results, which expands by clicking on the down arrow or the results button:

MarchMadness1

If you choose to view Bing’s predictions, the window gets even bigger. Barry Schwartz captured a large screenshot, which you can click to enlarge:

bing-march-madness-predicts

Bing said:

Now that the bracket has officially been announced, our data scientists are in the lab, working tirelessly to perfect their models so our smarter bracket is powered by Bing Predicts and ready for you to access by Monday morning. Stay tuned for an updated analysis of the Bing smarter bracket on the Bing blog tomorrow.

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Accelerated Mobile Pages Are Rolling Out Across Google

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Google Mobile

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) have been rumored to rollout in late February for some time, and it appears they are finally starting to appear. The AMP listings are being spotted in mobile search results, but it seems they are not available for all searchers.

Accelerated Mobile Pages are pages designed to be super lightweight and allow for incredibly fast load times. It does this by using a unique, streamlined version of HTML that is able to be heavily caches to provide the fastest loading experience possible.

To see if you have access to the new AMP search results, just perform a search on Google.com for any query that would typically trigger a news box. If you can’t think of anything, you can try ‘Trump’, ‘Google’, or ‘Obama’.

Barry Schwartz shared a few screencaps of what you can expect to see as the listings become more widely available. You can see them below:

google-amp-live

This screencap shows AMP listings appearing in the news listings, rather than the carousel:

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Google Has The Slowest Loading Mobile Home Page In Its Market

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mobile-closeup-campaign

Google has been vocal lately about encouraging webmasters to improve the loading speed of their websites, especially on mobile devices. It has made loading speed one of its many ranking signals and is rolling out Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to improve mobile website speed.

With all this effort to make mobile loading speed an important issue for webmaster, you might think Google would be ahead of the curve when it comes to making sure their pages load quickly on mobile devices. Not so, according to a recent test shared on Hacker News.

The test was conducted using Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool and several others have replicated the results on their own. The findings seem clear; Google is the slowest loading home page on mobile in its market.

You can see the results of some of the speed tests below:

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Google’s loading speed

DuckDuckGo's loading speed

DuckDuckGo’s loading speed

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Bing’s loading speed

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Yahoo’s loading speed

Somewhat surprising, Yahoo came out ahead of the pack with a loading speed significantly faster than anyone else in the market. That may be part of the reason Yahoo has seen faster growth on mobile than Bing or other alternatives to Google. However, Yahoo’s market share of mobile search still sits at just over 3.5% compared to Google’s 94%.

Several elements are slowing down Google’s mobile home page, including render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content. Once AMP is rolled out, this could change. If Accelerated Mobile Pages are as effective as Google claims, it should have one of the fasted loading home pages on mobile once the new system is released. But, it is interesting that Google is currently lagging behind the field.

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How To Get People To Share Your Brand’s Videos

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How do you get people to share your brand’s video? That’s the question posed by a recent survey from Wyzowl. The findings show people are very open to sharing, but you have to connect with them the right way.

An absolute majority (97%) of US consumers said they would be willing to share a video from a brand with their friends on social media, while 70% said they have already shared a brand’s video in the past.

The survey collected data from 150 consumers and 140 marketing professionals.

Source: Wyzowl / Marketing Profs

Source: Wyzowl / Marketing Profs

The best way to get people to start clicking the share button is by entertaining them, with 76% of respondents saying they would be open to sharing entertaining videos, but that’s not the only approach you can take.

Almost 70% of respondents say they would be willing to share a video if it is of interest to their followers, 65% were willing to share informative videos, and 55% said they might be open to sharing inspirational videos.

The findings make it clear the real trick to making branded videos that people want to share is by pleasing them first and advertising your brand second. If you can get their interest, pull at their heart strings, or make them feel like they’ve learned something, people are likely to start sharing.

For the full study from Wyzowl, click here.

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Is Facebook The New King of Super Bowl Ads?

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FBVidVsYouTube

The war between YouTube and Facebook for the most popular online platform for sharing and watching videos is heating up, and Facebook may win a major victory this weekend.

With the Super Bowl upon us, everyone is gearing up for one of the greatest competitions of the year – the fight for the most watched Super Bowl ad. But, more Super Bowl ads and teaser videos are being shared online ahead of the big game, and TV ad analytics company iSpot.tv says may be the new place for watching the biggest ads of the year online.

It is a close fight, with Facebook barely pulling ahead of YouTube, but it is a big win for the company either way. YouTube dominated online Super Bowl ads last year, but Facebook has pushed their video platform heavily over the year and seen massive increases in both views and shares.

Source: Marketing Land

Source: Marketing Land

According to iSpot.tv’s data counting video views through Tuesday, February 2, approximately 75 million super bowl ads videos have been viewed on Facebook, compared to 74.9 million on YouTube. As the published report on Marketing Land shows, the numbers are neck-and-neck. But, it is a huge change from last year where YouTube received 87.6 million to Facebook’s 45.5 million.

In most cases, an argument can be made to explain the discrepancy. Facebook counts video views when a user watches for just three seconds, but YouTube doesn’t count until “around” 30 seconds in. However, iSpot.tv says it uses a three-second standard for counting views on both platforms.

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Infographic Shows How Search Works at Google in 2016

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Google is always changing. Over just the past few years, the way search works has changed radically – moving to a more user-based model and mobile-first mindset.

This shift in attitudes has changed how the world’s most famous search engine works down to its very foundation, with the intent of moving away from a system that started with information and aimed to connect it with its audience. Instead, Google has made it its philosophy to start with the user and aim to provide the best search results for them.

SEOBook recently shared an infographic to visualize how Google’s search engine works in 2016. It shows that in SEO and Google Search, you can’t rely on the same methods from 2013 to keep your business growing online today.

You can see the infographic below. If you can’t see the small text, a larger version is available at SEOBook.

howsearchworks

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Google Testing Feature That Lets Users Download Apps Straight From Search Results

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Apps

Android users will soon be able to install apps to their smartphones directly from Google search results. According to Android Police, Google has begun testing the new feature which will let users bypass the Play Store and directly install an app by performing a Google search.

To try out the feature, open the Google app on any Android phone and search for any app you want to install. Within the Google card, which previously directed users to the Play Store, you will now see an Install button.

If you press the Install button, your phone will ask for the normal permissions that appear with all Play Store app download. If you accept, the app will immediately begin downloading and installing.

The feature hasn’t been rolled out to all Android phones, so there is no guarantee you will be able to directly install the app. Many users are still being directed to the Play Store.

Ryan Whitwam of Android Police speculates the feature is just in testing currently, and will see a wider rollout in the future. He also suggests the feature is likely to be available only in the Google app and not through Chrome.

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Twitter Lets Users Customize How Long Polls Run

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Twitter Banner

Since the launch of polls on Twitter in October, the feature has been a hit. The company recently announced users have cast over 1.7 billion votes to date, and now Twitter is improving the feature by allowing users to set how long they want their polls to last.

When polls were launched, they came with a default lifespan of 24 hours. While this may work for some, a full day can be a long time to expect people to stay interested in one of your Tweets. Now, users can customize their polls to run for much shorter or longer than previously.

Users can now tweak their polls to run anywhere from just 5 minutes to 7 days, allowing you to get instant results or a more comprehensive response.

The move to bolster polls on Twitter couldn’t come at a better time. The feature has been widely adopted and users seem excited to participate. While the change isn’t likely to completely stop Twitter’s stock price from freefalling, it could help please users who are still disgruntled over a rumored upcoming feature which would allow users to share long-form posts on the platform known for its 140 character limit.

Creating a poll works as it always has. The only difference is users will now see a tiny clock icon near the tweet button, which allows you to quickly establish how long you want a poll to run.

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Periscope Videos Are Now Viewable In Twitter Timelines

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Periscope

Periscope has been gaining popularity as a social live video streaming service, but it has been limited by requiring its own app to join in the fun. Now, the Twitter-owned streaming platform is getting some help by finding a place on one of the largest social platforms available.

Twitter users can now share and promote their Periscope videos directly on their time-line, opening up a huge new audience to the service. Users can embed and view Periscope videos directly in the timeline of Twitter’s iOS app. Just as with the Periscope app, broadcasts can be rewatched for up to 24 hours before automatically vanishing.

Twitter has been struggling to expand their market, as the recent 10,000 character tweet controversy and plummeting stock price shows. The company is most likely hoping this move will help both platforms expand their utility and user base, though only time will tell if that is the case.

The new feature is currently only available through the iOS Twitter app, but Android and web versions are expected in the near future.

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Twitter May Expand Tweet Limit From 140 to 10,000 Characters

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Source: Shawn Campbell

Source: Shawn Campbell

Rumor has it that Twitter will be extending the character limit of Tweets from 140 characters to upwards of 10,000 characters. The news comes from a report in Recode, which cites multiple sources claiming the longer tweets should be expected by the end of the quarter, but public reaction is mixed at best.

Descriptions of the new feature say the longer tweets wouldn’t clutter up feeds. Instead, up to 140 characters of any tweet will appear in user’s timelines, but a new call to action would allow users to read more.

The sources also say the company is already planning for how users might attempt to spam timelines so they might be able to combat it. For example, there may be limits to the number of other users that can be mentioned in tweets.

Unfortunately for the company, response to the rumor has already been overwhelmingly negative. Many say the 140 character limit has been the defining feature of Twitter and without it there is little to distinguish the platform.

The hashtag #Twitter10k has already taken off as users both mock and lament the rumor. Here is just a sampling of what users are saying:

Given the reaction to the rumor, it is hard to predict whether Twitter will follow through or go back to the drawing board for the next big feature. The best indication will be if we start seeing tests for different character lengths in tweets in the coming month.

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