Google's released a new Google Doodle, one for the 200th anniversary of the birth of legendary author Charles Dickens. That's not the big news, though. Normally, clicking on a Doodle takes you to search results for that term. This time, clicking on it takes you to a set of search results promoting Google Books.
Atop the results will be the Wikipedia entry for Charles Dickens. Following that will be page after page of Google Books results related to Dickens. All of them appear to be free, but this is still the first time Google has turned its Doodle into a marketing tool.
On its Inside Google Books blog, Google offered a behind-the-scenes look at the Doodle. Here's how they picked out the books:
"... our Google Books editorial team curated a collection of free and featured Dickens classics available in the Google eBookstore in Dickens' native land (United Kingdom) and some Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia) as well as the US -- a relatively new nation that Dickens himself visited in 1842 and 1867."
It's not as though Google hasn't used its homepage for promotions before. However, it hasn't used its Doodle in such a manner.
So, from now on, a user won't know if a Google Doodle leads to an innocuous search result page, or some promotional search result page. These are innocent, being just about free books, but in the future, who knows? And you can bet that since Google will know the conversion percentage, too, this could be good data that Google could provide to advertisers, as well.
Google Plus continues to get more open bit by bit, and just today made the service available to teens age 13 and up. Previously, Google Plus was restricted to people 18 and up. Along with the wave of new teenagers, Google Plus is also getting new privacy and security features--a fairly important thing if the service is to become something parents encourage their children to use.
Google is probably doing the slow rollout on purpose. This is their third or fourth wave of opening the service up. Each time it's followed by new statistics on membership, and this time will be no different. Millions of teens are going to sign up in the near future.
Google Plus Opens To Teens
Google Plus is now open to everyone 13 and up, and I'm guessing there will be plenty of takers.
This kind of news should be music to a video marketer's ears, because teenagers are among the most avid video consumers. They're also much more prone to social activity, with most of today's teenagers having grown up with mobile devices, Facebook, and Twitter.
The influx of teenagers 13 and up to Google Plus means the demographic will change almost overnight. It should also make Google Plus a more attractive social video marketing tool for brands and businesses--particularly those that create content known to appeal to teenagers: I'm thinking about action-oriented brands like Go Pro and Red Bull, music videos and music industry brands, movie trailers, etc.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will soon have to admit that Android is not the only place for porn. Jobs famously said that in the past, yet here comes Playboy to the iPad, uncensored, as Tweeted by no less than Hugh Hefner himself late Tuesday.
The entire catalog of Playboy, from start to current, will be available on the iPad beginning in March, according to Tweet 1:
Big news! Playboy--both old & new--will be available on iPad beginning in March.
Tweet 2 was in response to the obvious question. Since it will be in the App Store, will it be censored or uncensored?:
@hughmcook Playboy on iPad will be uncensored, Hugh.
Steve Jobs, in the past, both railed on Android for its open Android Market and defended Apple's closed App Store by declaring Android as the place to go if people want porn. He has been strident in the past on keeping "porn" out of the App Store, including nudity in fashion magazines, and some apps with bikini shots, yet no nudity. Playboy's iPhone app doesn't include full frontal nudity, either.
It's also been noted by many that porn is readily discoverable on iOS via Safari. However, Apple has seen fit to use the "porn on Android" statement as a marketing tool and as a harangue for some time.
This decision therefore seems very inconsistent, except when one considers the huge amounts of cash that Playboy probably through at the issue.
Exactly how the magazine archive will be distributed hasn't been revealed yet, or if consumers can buy individuals issues, etc. Details to come, obviously.
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