Yesterday, January 18, 2012, can be called the day the web went black, as thousands of websites went dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that experts say would change the functionality of the Internet forever. SOPA is accompanied by the Protect IP Act (PIPA). According to SOPAstrike.com, over 75,000 websites across the web participated in the blackout yesterday, including big names such as Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, and Wired.

Here’s how some big names protested:

• Wikipedia blacked out all English-language pages for 24 hours and added a splash page with information on the bill and how to contact your representatives. According to the Wikimedia Foundation, over 162 million people viewed the splash page and at least 4 million people used the page to look up their Congressional representatives.

• Google protested the legislation by censoring the image on the home page and creating “End Piracy, Not Liberty,” an online petition that has at least 4.5 million signatures.

• Reddit protested by shutting down for 12 hours on January 18. During that time, visitors to the website found information about the legislation and how to take action.

For screenshots of what websites looked like during the blackout, take a look at the slideshow below.

How individuals can protest:

• BlackoutSOPA.org allows you to change your profile picture on social networks to protest the legislation. Choices include adding a “Stop SOPA” banner to your existing profile picture, covering the picture with “Stop SOPA,” or blacking out your profile picture completely. Over 80,000 people so far have used the site to change their profile picture.

• Paul Tassi at Forbes created an image for people to post on Facebook that would show what the Internet could look like if the bills pass.

• Mashable posted an article showing how to use Pinterest to protest SOPA. Protestors have created pinboards of black images, effectively blacking out the pinboard and bringing the blackout to the Pinterest feeds of your followers.

• People everywhere turned to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks for information, to share their own opinions, and speak out. As usual with the internet, statements ranged from serious to hilarious.

But it doesn’t end there…

SOPA protests weren’t exclusively online. The New York tech community took to the streets of New York City. Approximately 1,500 people gathered at the offices of two Senators who support the bill, Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. One speaker was Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

So, how did it go?

• Twitter announced that more than 2.4 million tweets were sent between 12 a.m. and 4 p.m. yesterday that were related to SOPA. Several Trending Topics throughout the day were SOPA-related, and Mark Zuckerberg even took to Twitter for the first time in almost two years.

• Wikipedia experienced increased traffic, even with no English-language content available (without extra work)

• According to a Mashable article, the personal contact pages for several senators were not loading, probably due to all of the encouragement to contact your representatives on blackout pages.

• The blackout may have even changed the minds of a few members of Congress, who withdrew their support of the bill

 What it looked like the day the web went dark

Using Search, plus Your World

Google Search now has two modes: global and personalized. Global search presents results as if you were logged out of Google and Google+. Personalized search results show:

• Listings from the web, some of which may be boosted either because of your past search behavior or because of your social connections
• Public Google+ posts and photos from G+ or Picasa
• Private or ‘limited’ Google+ posts and photos that were shared with you

You can switch between modes using the toggle in the top-right, underneath the search box. You can also opt-out of personal results completely by going to the Search Settings page while logged into Google.

Features

Google’s blog post introduces three new features of the personalized search:

• Personal results – Personal results show relevant posts shared with you on Google+ as well as photos from Google+ and Picasa. You can see public content, content shared with you, and your own posts and photos.
• Profiles in search – When typing in the search box, Google will use autocomplete to display Google+ profiles, similar to direct connect for brand pages. The autocomplete predictions will be for users you are connected with as well as prominent users. The results page will offer a fast way to add the users to your circles if you are logged into Google+.
• People and Pages – When you search for a topic, the results page will include suggested Google+ users “who frequently discuss this topic” and buttons to add them to your circles right from the results page.

Reactions and Concerns

The fact that Google Search, plus Your World doesn’t bring in content from other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter has become a major concern. Twitter even released a statement saying:

“For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.

Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”

Google responded on their Google+ page noting that they had a deal to display results from Twitter in the past, but over the summer the deal expired and Twitter chose not to renew the agreement. Google says that they are open to consider including data from other networks but does not have access to it now.

A privacy watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC), also believes that the new features raise privacy and antitrusts concerns and is considering filing a letter with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Do you like the new search features, or will you be “going global” from now on when you search?

Aaron Wall of SEO Book wrote a blog post on January 2 pointing out the paid links. The marketing campaign included paying bloggers to write generic, favorable posts about Google Chrome that linked to a video about the benefits of using the browser for small business. Wall pointed out that when he searched “This post is sponsored by Google”, over 400 results were found, giving scope to the size of the marketing campaign and the number of links it generated. That disclaimer itself, usually found at the beginning or end of the blog post, also linked to the Google Chrome download page in at least one case.

By paying those bloggers to write favorable posts about Google Chrome, Google was also paying them to include the links. Since the blog posts also included the video, it can be said they were also buying views of the video. Per Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, “Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results.” To prevent paid links from impacting search engine results, Google suggests that paid links should contain a “nofollow” tag, which prevents the link from affecting PageRank. However, not all of the offending blog posts used “nofollow” links.

People in the industry are upset not only because of Google buying the links. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land explains in his coverage Google’s fight “against paid links and ‘thin’ content,” both of which the campaign produced. PageRank not only takes into account quantity, but also quality of links. The sponsored blog posts are said to be examples of the “thin” content that the Google Panda update was supposed to fight against.

Google’s stance on paid links received a lot of attention last year, when Google banned companies such as JCPenney, Forbes, and Overstock for using them. As for Google Chrome, a Google spokesman released this statement via email: “We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.” The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts says in a post on Google+, “After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would.”

As a result of the punishment, Google Chrome went from the second result of a search for “browser” to the bottom of the fifth page of results and has been reported sinking as low as position #73. Search Engine Land also reported that Chrome’s ranking lowered in searches for other terms such as “web browser” and “internet browser.” The Chrome download page doesn’t even rank when searching for “chrome,” “chrome browser,” and “google chrome.” Instead, a help page on Chrome installation has become the top result. When the Chrome download page does appear in results, it does so only as a sitelink.

Do you think this punishment Google placed on itself is fair? With only one violation found so far, do you think it’s too harsh, or is it appropriate for Google to place harsher punishments on itself, who “should know better”?

The brand pages are extremely similar in appearance to regular profiles with a lot of the same functionality as a Facebook page. Users add pages to their circles just as they would with other users. But there are differences between a page and a profile.

First of all, a page cannot add a user to its circles unless the user has added it to one of his or her circles already or mentioned it in a post. Secondly, brand pages are public by default. The third major difference is that pages have a +1 button and count, which can be linked to your websites count as well (more on that later!). Pages also can’t use some other Google+ features such as playing games and giving +1 to other pages.

The reason the brand pages may be such a game changer is because of Direct Connect. Direct Connect is a way of finding and following Google+ brand pages through Google Search. All a searcher has to do is type “+” followed by the name of the brand or business. Instead of sorting through a page of results, you will be taken directly to the correct Google+ page. Google+ users can also opt-in to a feature that automatically adds the brand to their circles by searching with Direct Connect. (Side note: Google+ brand pages will also now show up in Google search results.)

Google has also released Google+ badges for brands to promote their presence on Plus. Similar to the Facebook’s Like Box plugin, the widget can be embedded on web sites and lets a user either +1 the page or add it to their circles. The important thing about the Google+ badges is that it will connect your brand page with your website. This will help Google better index the brand’s Google+ page, but will also link together the +1′s from your brand page, search, and display ads. It is also required for your brand to be eligible for Direct Connect.

It’s obvious that the Google+ brand pages will open up a lot of new possibilities for brands, although there are still shortcomings and questions. For example, right now brands cannot run any contests or promotions through their page, and there are no page analytics or insights. Will these things be added in the future? There are also no custom URLs yet, something which seems impractical. Lastly, pages can also only be controlled by the one admin that created the page. Multiple admin support is expected in the future, but when? We’ll need to wait and see!

Connect with eZanga.com on Google Plus!

What are your opinions on the Google+ brand pages? Do you think they will make Plus more popular?

Yesterday, Google officially rolled out its mobile payment system, Google Wallet. It seems great, but it doesn’t look like it will be replacing old-school wallets, at least not for a while.

Right now, you can use Google Wallet very easily…if you have the right phone (Sprint Nexus S 4G only), the right currency (Citi Mastercard or the Google Prepaid Card), and go to the right places. But as the mobile payment movement catches on, it will be able to be used with more types of cards and available on more phones.

Since the much-anticipated launch of the product yesterday, there have already been many reviews. Many recognize the potential Google Wallet has to transform the way we shop, but have pointed out many reasons why a virtual wallet cannot replace a physical one…yet.

First of all, many people are concerned about the security, even though Google Wallet uses an additional layer of security known as the Secure Element.  What I worry about more than the phone’s security being breached is the phone itself. Storing all of your financial information on your phone makes even more valuable than it already is. Phones with financial information may become prime targets for phone theft.

Secondly, with Google Wallet or any form of mobile payment, the money only lasts as long as your phone’s battery does. Smart phones have already started to replace television, music players, and now wallets. The more we are able to do on our phones, the more we will do. If someone went to the mall with only their Google Wallet and their battery dies, they’re stuck with window shopping.

Lastly, many people have pointed out that people use wallets to hold more than credit cards. So even when technology has advanced to where we don’t need to carry cash and credit cards, people will still use wallets. We still have licenses and identification, insurance info, and other uses for wallets.

Google Wallet has amazing potential and mobile payments are the future. But for now, don’t throw away your wallet.

Motorola ‘bet big’ and backed Android as the sole operating system on all of their smartphone devices since 2008, showing extreme Google-loyalty. The plan is for Motorola to continue on as a separate entity from Google, governing under Motorola CEO, Sanjay Jha.

So what’s the deal, why now? It seems Google’s primary motivator to Motorola can be broken down by the simple equation: 17,000 patents + another 7,500 patents in progress= Android software protection against anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and others.

The Federal Trade Commission still needs to approve the transaction (although it seems likely), but is projected to close at the end of 2011 or start of 2012. What are your thoughts?

Lee Allison’s Google+ Cooking School will broadcast live in a Hangout of up to ten people.  Lee Allison is a technology consultant in New York and has created Google+ Cooking School.  The classes are one hour long and are meant to be a casual culinary school.  This is a social media culinary experiment that just may be crazy enough to work!

Classes are usually aired Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Allison shows how to make everything from crab dumplings and fried rice to homemade gnocchi.  Allison posts a list of ingredients before each class so people can follow along at home or just simply watch for enjoyment.

Allison and his friend/partner, Eric McKee, plan to start “The Social Skillet,” broadcasting classes with WebEx in addition to Google+ Cooking School.  Using WebEx will allow people to join the lesson on an iPad or mobile phone, too.

The Hangouts on Google+ would be a great way for businesses to stream live videos and chats.  Lessons or classes of any sort can be put up on this social networking site—not just cooking!

So think about.. How could YOUR business benefit from Google+ and why have you not already started?

Google+ is great social networking site.  It allows you to upload posts, photos, separate your friends into circles, and even live video chat with multiple people.  The concept is awesome, but more people need to keep using it!

The site’s visits dropped from 1.86 million two weeks ago to 1.79 million total visits last week.  The site initially had regularly growing traffic, but even the time spent on the website has started to decline.  The average amount of time spent on Google+ decreased from 5 minutes & 50 seconds to 5 minutes & 15 seconds.  This may not seem like that big of a deal, but if the drops continue, Google+ may lose its buzz altogether.

Google+ had a booming launch, but it seems to be running out of fuel.  More people need to get on and stay on the social network for it to stay up and running.  The loss Google+ has experienced is not enough to tell whether or not it will be a success, but it needs to gain some momentum.

So everyone upgrade to Google+ so you can have “hang outs” with multiple friends at the same time—no matter where you all are!  This could either be the next Facebook or a dud, but only we have the power to make it rise or fall!

Whaddyathink?

Google Virus: What you need to know

Not sure what that link is? DON’T CLICK IT! Google has announced that over two million people have been affected by a bug in their computer.  The virus directs web traffic results to sites of fake security programs and other scams.  Google says the malware got into their computers from about one hundred variants of fake antivirus software and that a few million machines were affected.  You will know if your computer is affected because a big, yellow warning will appear at the top of your Google search page that you can’t miss.

All PC’s beware of what you click and find ways to clean out your computer! Visit eZanga News again next week for more tips!

Competitors vs. Google

The multiple antitrust complaints against Google have brought about an investigation on the company.  However, many oppose this case.  All of Google’s supporters argue that antitrust laws are for consumers, not competitors.  They believe that the company should only be questioned if the monopoly is abusive and immoral, such as price fixing.  But Google’s inferior competitors are the only ones complaining, and Google consumers are completely satisfied.

Consumers can switch to any other search engine whenever they wish, but there is no reason for them to if they’re happy with the site, and that is simply just business competition.

Break-ups and Make-ups

Google has also recently settled its dispute with Copiepresse, a company that was complaining Google was unlawfully using their online newspaper information in their news site since 2006.  Google removed the company from its search engine results page—thinking that would be what they wanted—and Copiepresse complained they were boycotting them.  The two companies finally came to an agreement, and Google has re-included Copiepresse into their search index.

Google+ Plays a Tune for Facebook

After taking the spotlight from MySpace, a social networking site that prides itself on its music sharing capabilities, Facebook has reigned supreme in nearly every other facet. Most would say, however, that Facebook is seriously lacking in the music sharing department.

This sore spot has been left open to potential competitors, and it seems as though Facebook will meet its match once Google’s social network launches. Google+ is reported to feature:

• Easy sharing of YouTube music videos – the most popular of all videos watched on YouTube
• Group Listening Parties – a hangout where “circles” can listen to music together
• Live Sessions – the possibility for musicians to perform and interview live, in real-time
• Music Storage – storing and sharing of music files
• Android Apps – integration between music apps and Google+ on smartphones

So, watch out, Zuckerberg, Google+ is coming to steal your fans.

Facebook’s Planned Solo Performance?

But wait! Are there secret plans for a new Facebook music service? Jeff Rose thinks so. The software developer reportedly cracked the code while downloading the file used to run the new Facebook video chat feature, which was announced just this past Wednesday.

Rose says a string of code which includes the phrase “facebook.vibes” hints at a music service that is already in the works. In his tech blog, Rose announced that “The vibes app connects with a music download dialog in the page though, so I’m guessing that with this release we are seeing the seeds for Facebook’s upcoming music offering.”

So, maybe Facebook does have a shot at staying on stage! Which are you most looking forward to? Google+ or a more music-friendly Facebook?