Source: besttechInfo.com

A rumour that spread like wildfire across the web a month ago has now metamorphosed into a big, exciting News butterfly. Facebook is on a journey to take on the might of Apple and Google in the mobile market, much like Leonidas and his 299 fellow under-dressed men.

Project Spartan, as it is known, is Facebook’s plan to develop their own new App Store; think iTunes but through Facebook. While not too much has been said yet (Spartans are men of action, not words) it is not too difficult to imagine what the project could lead to.

This will allow for e.g. making better use of some features like Facebook Credits for sales, in-app purchases and thus making more profit.  It is a clever battle-plan which the Financial Times and Playboy have already kicked off.

Apparently about 80 outside developers and companies (including Farmville and The Huffington Post) are contributing to the project, and we also know now that Apple is giving a certain level of support.

This effort from Facebook to bring a whole new experience to the iOS devices is something to celebrate. It would be nice to see this new platform being spread through other mobile devices, let’s say… Android OS for instance!
It may very well push developers and the rest of the industry to have more interest in HTML5 and CSS3 features, pushing forward new web standards.

source: Slashgear.com

The exciting news for our clients however is that it is a new contender in the app market with Facebook’s 750-million users behind the top brand.

Thought Den’s experience with the technology, HTML5 and Javascript will allow our clients pretty much instant entry to the service.

Now less talk about the naked men fighting please!

Google on Wednesday (8th September) announced the release of ‘Google Instant’. This change made to the Google homepage allows for live, real-time “Search as you type” results updates. When you start typing your query, Google immediately starts offering results based on the prediction of the fragments already present.

Google Inside AdWords blog gives an example: “if someone types “flow” into Google.com, our algorithms predict that the user is searching for “flowers” (the predicted search) and therefore display both search results and ads for “flowers”. However, if that user then adds the letter “c” to the query, our algorithms may predict that the user is searching for “flowchart” and show the corresponding natural and paid results for flowchart.”

Screenshot of Google Instant in action

Interestingly, the results vary for every individual as it depends on your web history and location to offer up appropriate predictions.

From a BBC article Google estimates the typical user will take 9 seconds to enter a query and a further 15 seconds then looking through the results for answers. Google Instant Search is claimed to be able to cut between 2 and 5 seconds off a typical web search. They reckon that could be 11 hours saved globally every second.

All magical of course, however this is going to bring some serious changes to the future of SEO.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your website or web page more visible in search results. It actively tries to push your site higher up the results list for potential visitors to find your site first.

Why is it affecting your SEO?

For instance “with Google Instant if you searched for ‘red striped socks’ you’ll whizz through results for ‘red’ and ‘red stripe’ first, but as these produce listings on the DVD rental company Redbox and Red Stripe beer, they’re unlikely to hit the term ‘red striped socks’.”

It is stated in a Telegraph article that Google’s main system for deciding relevant search results has not changed. So this means if you search for something in both static and instant Google, you will get exactly the same list of results. Google Instant just autocompletes your search query as you type, offering up results on-the-go related to your half-complete search.

It now appears you may need to capture the attention of the searcher earlier to create an SEO instant winner.

Further reading:

Mashable poll results – Google Instant Vs. Regular Google

The official Google blog has some interesting articles upon Instant Search if you are interested and want to read further. Take a look here and here.

Google is not the only search engine, even though it does control around 85% of the international search engine market. Please remember with SEO to remember the little people (Yahoo, Bing etc.)
(Stat from: netmarketshare.com

A nice link on an SEO’s point of view -
http://tupalo.com/en/blog/pass-through-impressions/

Come and sign our Hello World Thought Den book. It can even be a little rude if you want!

http://hello-thought-den.appspot.com/

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They’ve acctually done it, Google went ahead and released lively.com a 3D world to “create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design”.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5YbwfOucET8[/youtube]

They packaged the whole product to explore the lands completely through your browser, no need for a separate client application, just download a package (windows only) and install it to run in Internet Explorer or Firefox! A full 3D world in your browser to go explore, to read more about the product check out Lively.com but now read to open up thoughts on the wider aspects of Lively.

Offshoots

The package initially makes me wonder what (more…)