Welcome to Friday’s Link Roundup. As leaders in the web design industry, Scale is constantly on the lookout for new and exciting ways to benefit our clients, from new widgets for your websites to changes in Google’s search algorithm. Therefore, it’s only natural that during the course of all this research, we run across lots of interesting stories from across the web. Published every other Friday, Scale will be sharing the best of these articles you in an easy to digest format.
1. A third of all Americans now own a tablet — is your website responsive?
For the first time, a third (34%) of American adults ages 18 and older own a tablet computer like an iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus, or Kindle Fire—almost twice as many as the 18% who owned a tablet a year ago. That means your website needs to be able to accommodate the smaller screens. All Scale sites are responsive, meaning they will fit any screen size nativly. Does your website need a mobile ‘face lift’? Contact us now to get started.
2. Google adds a recent activity dashboard to its accounts page
Google has added a new Recent Activity dashboard to its Accounts page, so you can see lots of detail about when and where your account was used, so you can ensure no one has your password
3. Best free stuff on the web: 2013 Edition
What makes the Internet the extraordinary resource that it is? Some people say it’s the way the Web seamlessly connects all of us; others value its role as a limitless data repository; still others are just there for the cute animal pictures. (Grumpy Cat doesn’t count.) All of these points are valid, but when you drill down to nuts-and-bolts usefulness, one thing trumps them all.
The Internet is full of free stuff.
4. How to stop brands from using you in their Facebook ads
If you have checked your Facebook account in recent days, it is very likely that you have seen sponsored stories in your newsfeed that read something like ”<Friend’s Name> likes <Brand’s Name>.” These are basically social ads where the advertiser is targeting friends of connections to promote their Facebook Page.
5. Google adds nutrition info to search results
Google is incorporating nutrition data into search; beginning today, results will include “extensive” details on calories, carbohydrates, proteins, sugars, and other relevant food info.
6. More brands are placing ads in digital magazines
The magazine industry’s ad spending revenues for print only continue to decline, with eMarketer estimating in March 2013 that the format would contract by 0.4% this year and would not start growing again until 2016.
7. Google trumps twitter earning second place in total US social account holders
Google+, a social network which had been somewhat marginalized after a lackluster start, is proving itself in US user figures. The site had the second-highest number of account holders among both men and women, leading Twitter by approximately 10 percentage points for both genders. About one-quarter of male and female web users were on the site.
8. Facebook adds clickable #hashtag support to your newsfeed
Facebook wants to help you make your conversations just a little more discoverable (if you so desire), and it’s decided to finally include a long-missing feature — clickable hashtags — to the News Feed.
9. Google buys traffic mapping service Waze
Google has acquired the mapping service Waze, a Google Maps competitor that relies on user data to build accurate maps with real-time traffic reports.
10. 2013 Digital Advertising Trends
See what 2013 holds for Digital Marketing.
