What Counts as a Viewable Video Ad?
As video advertising slowly reaches critical mass, many 'Net professionals are unhappy with how video ads are measured. According to a recent survey by Sqad, just 18 percent of digital advertisers believe the current definition of a "view" for desktop video ads is sufficient (ads are "viewable" if 50 percent of an ad's pixels are in view for at least 2 seconds). The majority (49 percent) feel video ads should be displayed for at least 5 seconds to be considered viewable, raising questions about the Media Rating Council's current definition.
Amazon's Pinteresting New Service
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Pinterest should be blushing at Amazon's new Stream service. Products displayed on the new channel are laid out in an "endless product stream" "similar to the pinboard style used by Pinterest, and enables shoppers to save and store items to a personal Amazon wishlist. While there is no "Buy" button directly on the page, users are able to purchase objects from the Stream by clicking on a product image and then selecting "See buying details" to be directed to the product page.
Bing Plays Mobile Catch-Up
Just a few months after Google announced an important update that increases the significance of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal, Bing also announced that it too will be considering mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Bing even indicated four of its most important factors for developers to consider when trying to create a mobile-friendly site: navigation, readability, scrolling and compatibility.
Social Media in Control
Enterprises with multiple brands and locations typically have a tough time handing the social media reigns over for fear of losing brand identity, but Hootsuite's new Content Library can reduce some of that anxiety. The new feature helps organizations extend their social reach with centralized, pre-approved content. Moreover, organizations in regulated industries are able to create compliant message templates that adhere to both company and industry regulations.
Bad Bots, Bad Bots, Whatcha Gonna Do?
Whether their powers are used for good, like crawling and indexing websites for search engine users, or for evil, like unauthorized vulnerability scans or brute force attacks, bots are some of the most important and versatile technology on the Web. According to a new report by Distil Networks, more than 22 percent of all Web traffic is coming from those of a nefarious variety. The report also revealed that 41 percent of bad bots attempted to enter a website's infrastructure disguised as legitimate human traffic.
Tweets Return to Google Search Results (Again)
Since their first deal expired in 2011, Twitter and Google have once again agreed to have tweets show in relevant Google search results on mobile devices. The integration gives searchers access to real-time information and provides organizations another way to reach a global audience in relevant moments.
Brands' Relationship with Facebook is Complicated
While consumers may be obsessed with tweeting, sending snaps and posting images, small businesses are struggling to see the same love according to a new study by Manta. The study found that 59 percent of small business owners are not seeing a return on investment (ROI) from their social media efforts. However, even though small business owners are not seeing ROI from their social media efforts, 53 percent indicated that Facebook is the network returning the most value.
Movers & Shakers: WooCommerce Acquired by WordPress
Automattic, parent company of popular content management system WordPress, recently announced the acquisition of WooCommerce, one of the most popular ecommerce plugins (7.5 million downloads).
#WEBTECHWATCH
See what has the 'Net community all abuzz with Website Magazine's #WebTechWatch series, a weekly roundup available online profiling both emerging and established technologies and some of the most useful solutions for today's Web workers. If you have a digital product or service you think deserves a mention, tweet @WebsiteMagazine with the hashtag #WebTechWatch.
+ CleverAnalytics: Software for location intelligence, competitor analysis and customer loyalty tracking.
+ BugRocket: Bug (issue) tracking designed for freelancers and small teams.
+ Google Project Shield: Protect websites from digital attacks with Google's own DDoS protection service.
+ Discourse: A free and open-source platform for hosting community discussion.
+ Hashtracking: Track hashtag campaign activity on both Twitter and Instagram.
+ Moosend: Manage, create and send email campaigns; offers real-time statistics.
+ BuildFire: Mobile app building and management platform with ecommerce functionality and push notifications.
+ Semantics3: Real-time price and product updates via API.
+ Diffbot: Extract structured content from article and product pages, and images and video with this computer vision API.
+ AppLandr: Create iOS and Android landing pages for free.
