Google is adding recent earthquake data to search results

Google is making it easier to find out useful information in the event of an earthquake. Searching for terms like "earthquake" or "earthquakes near me" will show a card with data like the magnitude and epicenter of the relevant quake, as well as other recent tremors to put it into context.

This mapping information will be particularly useful for finding out whether a seemingly minor earthquake was actually a major one further away; it'll show how strong the quake was in various areas. Google will also display tips for how best to stay safe in the earthquake's aftermath.

Living in Japan, earthquakes are a pretty frequent occurrence for me, and the first thing I usually do after feeling one is check Twitter to see other people's real-time reactions and make sure it's not too serious. If this Google feature works well, however, it could be a more reliable and easily parseable way to get the most important information fast.

Google Expeditions App for Virtual Reality Field Trips Now Available to All

HIGHLIGHTS

• The Expeditions app is now available to all
• Google Cast for Education was also introduced
• Google also launched Quizzes in Google Forms

Google first introduced the Expeditions Pioneer Program in September last year, to encourage teachers to teach students with the help of Cardboard VR. Now, the search giant has opened up the Expeditions app to all, in order to make more people aware about the initiative, and take advantage of it. It has even announced new tools like Quizzes and Cast for Education aimed to elevate the teaching experience.

The Expeditions app consists of many VR trips to exotic locations like the Great Barrier Reef and Machu Picchu. Google claims that the app consists of more than 200 virtual trips to many places around the world. With this move, teachers will not have to go through the lengthy sign-up process for the Expeditions Pioneer Program in order to get access to the app. Now, the Expeditions app can just be downloaded onto multiple devices, and then the teacher can choose which location he/she wants to take their class. The app is available for Android via Google Play, however Google claims that it will arrive on iOS soon.

(Also see: Google Unveils Virtual Tour of Buckingham Palace)

The teacher can serve as a tour guide, while students follow through VR, learning about historical places and events in the process. For those classrooms that do not have the technology to do these VR trips, Google had even introduced Expeditions kits. The company claims that more than a million students from 11 countries have taken virtual reality trips so far.

The search giant is now making these kits available on Best Buy for $9,999, so that anyone can purchase without going through the lengthy sign-up process. These kits contains 30 smartphones, 3 chargers, a tablet for the teacher to direct the tour, a router that allows Expeditions to run without an Internet connection, and 30 Google Cardboard viewers that turn phones into virtual reality headsets.

Furthermore, Google even announced a new Google Cast for Education Chrome app that lets students and teachers share their screens wirelessly. The search giant has also launched Quizzes in Google Forms, to ease the work of the teacher. Quizzes will enable grading for multiple choice and checkbox questions automatically. Teachers will now be able to pre-select answers in quizzes, so that the students get results immediately, while also reducing the grading work for teachers.

Lastly, Google also introduced three creative apps - Explain Everything, Soundtrap, and WeVideo - for Chromebooks. The apps let students create animation, music, and videos, and can be purchased from the Play Store.

7 Ways Blogging Can Boost Your Business

Starting a blog for your website can open up a range of new opportunities for your business, in a range of different ways. When used properly, a blog can help increase awareness, showcase your expertise, answer customer queries and establish your business as the go-to brand in your niche.

Put simply, starting or upgrading your company blog can improve your business’s marketing power.

Here are seven ways a business blog can help boost your brand.

1. Improve your website’s SEO

If you use the right titles and descriptions in your blog, you can improve your Google search rank for ideas that your potential clients might be looking for. This will bring them to your website and, ideally, lead to more business for you.

You can also boost the SEO power of your posts by sharing link juice by linking to other websites and even your previous blog postings.

2. Create credibility with your clients

The best way to approach your business blog is to center your content around ways to use your product or the ways your industry has changed or is evolving. In doing so, you can showcase not only the functionality of your offerings, but also your industry expertise, which will improve brand reputation, trust and credibility.

3. Create great posts for your social media pages

Coming up with interesting content to post on social media can be tough, yet maintaining an active presence is essential. If you generate your own blog content for this purpose, dry spells in posting can be eased, alleviating the struggle when searching for content.

Creating researched, relevant blog posts will also help boost engagement on your social media profiles and website.

4. Showcase how your product (or service) is useful to clients

Your can write your blogs based on ways to use your products and best practices your company takes. While these are often searched topics, they also give you a chance to share information and comment on it.

If you're a service based business, this will show your potential clients that you value being educated in your field.

5. Help establish brand voice

Whether your business has a fun-filled tone or a conservative one, you can use your blog to express that. It brings life to your company and helps you create a consistent branding that can help draw in more leads from people who respond to your business’s style.

6. Keep Google happy

The more activity you have on your website, the higher it's likely to rank in searches. If you have a couple of blog entries per month on your page, you'll have enough activity to keep Google's crwalers coming back to your page regularly, ideally helping to increase and maintain your search engine rankings.

7. Give you a chance to write a call to action (CTA)

At the end of your blog, leave your potential lead with a specific way to contact you if they want more information about your product or service. Remember to use your preferred method of contact in that CTA. Also, remember to include why they might want to work with your business.

By following these rules you can improve your chances of having your leads contact you the way you want. Plus, more often than not, people who are considering using a service or buying a product are more likely to follow through when they're given direct instructions to do so.

Maintaining a business blog can create a range of opportunities for your business. However, the best piece of advice I can give you is to have fun.

Why You Need to Optimize for Voice Search Now

Do you know how searchers are finding your business online? Chances are, consumers are using voice search to find a business like yours right now - if you aren't optimizing for voice search, you're risking missing out on those potential customers. So, do you know how to optimize for voice search, or why you should?

What is Voice Search?

In case you’ve never tried it, voice searches happen when a smartphone or computer user speaks to the device they are using to search for a particular topic.

For instance, let's say I’m driving home and I want to find a coffee shop - I can’t safely take my attention away from the road long enough to unlock my screen, open Google search, and type “coffee shop”. Instead, I’ll say “Okay, Google, where can I get coffee?” and let the voice search do the work.


But when we use voice search, we're more likely to use a conversational tone - you don't use the same language as you do when you type out a text search. The main difference here is a short keyword term and a long-tail keyword that, aptly enough, sounds more like something you would say out loud.

Why should small businesses optimize for voice search?

The use of voice search is increasing, especially among teens. In fact, one study found that 60% of the people who use voice search started using it within the last six months.

And voice search isn't just for smartphones and other mobile devices. Consumers can use voice search on their laptops, tablets and PCs too.

Not convinced? Here are some additional, compelling facts which underline the rise of voice search.

• Earlier this year, Northstar Research found that 55% of teens use voice search every day
• 20% of all Google searches are now conducted via voice query
• Google's data also shows that 45% of teens and 36% of adults want to be able to place a pizza delivery order using voice search - while that’s not yet possible, it shows how important it is for restaurants to optimize for voice search. 
• 25% of all Bing searches are voice searches
• According to ComScore, voice search will account for half of all searches by 2020

The research shows that voice search optimization should be a part of your local search marketing strategy, particularly if you want to attract 'on the go', nearby customers who are searching for your product or service on their smartphones.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

The important thing to know about optimizing for voice search (and local search in general) is that in order for your business to appear in search results, the search engine needs to think your business is a good match for the search query - search engines only want to give searchers the best, most relevant results for their queries.

According to Google's local search document, Google determines whether your business is a good match for searches by taking into account three things for each search:

1. Prominence

Prominence has to do with how well-known your business is. Think number of reviews and star ratings, as well as inbound links and amount of directory listings.

2. Distance

Your business will have a better chance of ranking high in local searches if you're located near where the searcher is searching.

Never underestimate the power of consistency in your business’s citation information (name, address and phone number) - some 40% of voice searchers are looking for directions, so make sure your citation information is consistent and correct across directories.

3. Relevance

Everything the search engines know about your business will have to match the search query in order for your business to rank high in local searches. This is where your voice search optimization will come into play. You'll need to give search engines the information they need so they can understand when your business is relevant for certain voice search terms.

So if your business is prominent and you're in close proximity to the searcher, the only thing left to do is be relevant for the search query.


If you own a pizza shop, you really don’t want to show up in a search for “children’s clothing” but you do want to make sure you show up for any relevant pizza-related queries. So to be relevant for voice searches that are related to your business, you need to do some long-tail keyword research and then make sure you’ve plugged a few of those into your website’s content.

Long-Tail Keyword Research

As we mentioned earlier, voice search often involves longer spoken phrases - “find me a pizza restaurant nearby” v. just “pizza.”

These longer phrases are called “long-tail keywords", and in order for businesses to optimize for voice search, they'll need to research long-tail keywords related to their industry and location. We've a few favorite (free) keyword research tools, including Keyword Tool, Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.

Using these tools, you can learn which terms consumers are using to search for businesses like yours. For instance, if you own a salon in Columbus, you might search for “Pedicure Columbus” and find that users are using voice search to ask “Where can I get a pedicure with fish in Columbus?”

Often, the search results for these two queries will differ.

Once you know what your long-tail keywords are, you can add them to your website's content - but remember that voice search usually uses more natural language than text searches, so the long-tail keywords will also need to look natural on your website. In order for your long-tail keyword to be effective, it will need to closely match the voice search query.

Another voice search optimization tactic that incorporates long-tail keywords and natural language is to answer questions your customers might pose. When a searcher uses voice to ask a question and your website's content answers that question, you'll be more likely to appear in the search results for their query.

You could answer questions in your blog posts or in your FAQ section so that search engines can find your business when consumers use voice search to ask questions related to your industry. But, as always, don't just optimize for search engines. Make sure you tailor your content to the people who are using the search engines to find your business by using natural language.

Voice search optimization is another way for small businesses to show up in local search results and get more customers, but don't neglect the rest of your local search marketing just to optimize for voice search. Make sure you have a well-rounded digital marketing strategy so you have the best chance possible at being found online.

Google’s senior executive hints Android N could be called Nutella

Google is likely to soon announce the final name for Android N.

Last month Google invited everyone to suggest a name for its next iteration of Android. The company had set up a dedicated website for users to submit their suggestions. Google’s crowdsourcing campaign for the Android N name ended a week ago, and final names that made it the final are Nutella, Neyyappam, Naankhatai and Nuts + Nachos among others. Even as we wait for the final announcement, Android’s senior VP Hiroshi Lockheimer has hinted that the next Android version could be called Nutella.

His latest tweet, which reads “Just testing some stuff out”, has the word  Nutella typed in the Google search bar among a cluster of screenshots. The tweet does drop a big hint about the Android name but looking at Hiroshi’s recent tweets, he could be just trolling the fans. Last week he had posted a similar tweet that indirectly hinted at a different name for Android N.

Google’s crowdsourcing campaign has garnered a lot of attention but at the same time has been targeted by trolls as well. Some suggested funny names like notgettingit, newphonerequired, and of course NameyMcNameFace for Android N. That said, the Indian fans have long sought after an Android version name after the Indian desserts. For Android N, the Kerala government had launched a campaign to push Neyyappam, a popular south Indian sweet dish. Other Indian sweet dish which made it to the list was Nankhatai.

Google is expected to announce the result by end of this month. Until then we’ll just have to wait and watch whether it is Android Nutella or Android Neyyappam.

Indian mobile brand among Africa’s top 100 most admired brands

itel Mobile that entered India recently has broken into top 100 “Most Admired Brands in Africa” in 2015, the company said. Ranked 51st, itel was launched by China-based ‘Transsion Holdings’ with a focus on delivering cost effective and high-specification mobile devices. “Being named amongst the ‘Most Admired Brands in Africa’ highlights the difference we have made to the continent’s consumers by bridging the technological gap between the urban and rural geographies,” said Sudhir Kumar, CEO, itel Mobile India, in a statement.

itel has sold more than 70 million handsets worldwide since its inception, and was previously ranked 72nd in the 2014 list of “Most Admired Brands in Africa”. Transsion Holdings recently unveiled its flagship brand itel with three smartphones and three feature phones varients in India. The feature phones — SmartSelfie, SmartPower and Shine series — will be strategically priced below Rs.2,000 while smartphones SelfiePro, PowerPro and Wish series will be available at prices below Rs.10,000.

Google’s Android Security Rewards program has given out $550,000 this year

Everyone’s worried about Android vulnerabilities whether or not Google is able to resolve them in time. But last year, Google did portray that they are serious about the vulnerabilities found in Android OS with its Android Security Rewards program. A year later, security firms and researchers seem to have made a killing indeed.

Google has given out about $550,000 to about 82 individuals in rewards in the program’s first year. This would cover about 250 reports that qualified, translating into about $2,200 per reward and about $6,700 given out to every researcher.

@heisecode was the top researcher on that short list. He reported about 26 vulnerabilities himself and has managed to reap about $75,750. About 15 researchers were paid $10,000 or more. There were no payouts for the top reward for a complete remote exploit chain leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise.

While it may worry many Android users as to how there are so many exploits to begin with, Google seems pretty happy with the success of the program. In fact, it has upped the rewards plan and has decided to pay even more. According to the blog post Google will now pay 33 percent more for a “high-quality vulnerability report with proof of concept.”

A researcher would need a Critical vulnerability report with a proof of concept that it works in order to qualify for the reward that has now been upped from $3,000 to $4,000.

The stakes for kernel exploits have been raised as well. From a jaw dropping $20,000 to $30,000. At the same time, a remote exploit chain or exploits leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise also increases from $30,000 to $50,000.