This week Google announced the addition of a new feature for its Google Mobile Maps application called Google Latitude. The enhancement allows people to share their location via GPS, cellular tower triangulation, or manually. Check out the video below created by Google to learn more about this cool technology that may not be new to the Internet but Google has upped the ante by embracing it:

Check out “Google’s Latitude Has Vast Marketing Potential” on Search Engine Guide to see where I think Google could take this technology in the near future.

Whether it is for spreading propaganda to a nation’s populous – or suppressing it – governments have always sought to control new forms of media. From the printing press to the radio and the television, there has been the presence of political powers.

Today’s new media is, of course, the internet. And, it is the most potent form of media yet. However, though the internet’s power to broadly and immediately reach an audience is unparalleled, it is far too large and complex a system to be controlled exclusively by just one group or entity.

Nevertheless, world governments still try to manipulate what they can; however they can. Read more…

Well, another year has come and gone, seems like only yesterday we rolled over to 2008 and now it’s just about to end.

A lot happened in 2008. Here at StepForth we have expanded our families both on business and personal levels with the addition of some new personnel internationally and the pitter patter of little feet turning both Ross and I into new fathers. Our services have grown, and we have some exciting plans in store for 2009. Stay tuned to see what we’re up to during the next calendar year.

Everyone at StepForth would like to wish our readers and clients all the best 2009 will have to offer. Have a safe and wonderful New Years Eve!

From all of us at StepForth, we would like to wish all of our American friends and clients a happy Thanksgiving!

StepForth will also be closing early Thursday Nov 27 at 3:00pm (PST), for our annual Christmas staff party. Yes we know it’s still November, but with everyone’s busy work and family schedules in December, tomorrow just works out best. We will be open during regular business hours on Friday Nov 28.

Again Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and let the Christmas shopping begin!

Last night in a blog post at the Official Google Blog, Google announced that one of its Google Labs projects, Lively.com, will see its doors closed forever.

After only a few short months, Google has decided to pull the plug on this popular chat platform in order to direct resources to more important areas such as core search, ads, and apps.

While I have never used Lively, it seems to me that if this site is popular, there must be a way to make some money off of it, and I am somewhat surprised to see them choosing to shut it down so quickly. Would it not make sense to try and sell? Surely a company out there could make use of this to earn a living and keep the current user base happy. Maybe they should approach Facebook and turn it into yet another app?

Funding to the tune of $28.7 Million, led by Highland Capital Partners, will be used over at Digg to incorporate a number of changes, Jay Adelson announced in the official Digg blog Wednesday.

Changes will include improvements in infrastructure, new feature development, international expansion, and hiring new employees to make the whole thing happen. New features will include personalizing the “Digg Experience” and incorporating a number of user suggestions from over the years.

Adelson notes that nearly half of their 30 million monthly users are from outside of the US, so making adjustments for localized tastes and languages are on the forefront for their growth strategy for 2009.

He also notes that they will be hiring, so if you are a techie in need of a job, you may want to take a look at their jobs page!

According to Reuters, MySpace saw more advertiser ad views in June than Yahoo! Yahoo may be the second biggest search engine on the planet, but when it comes to advertising it saw 34.7 billion ad views compared to MySpace which saw 51 billion views. (figures are from a press release issued by ComScore last week).

Yahoo does have the power to draw more revenue out of their ads and still leads MySpace in terms of revenue. Typically in the realm of social media, ad impressions do not necessarily equal dollars.

“Social media gets all these ad impressions but not necessarily get the dollars,” said Colin Gillis, analyst at Canaccord Adams. “MySpace’s cost per thousand (CPM) page views are significantly lower than that of Yahoo”.

Back in June MySpace unveiled a redesign of their home page which has opened to doors to larger sponsors such as Wendy’s and Sprint. While it is too soon to say that MySpace has overtaken Yahoo in the ad wars, this definitely shows that at this rate, they aren’t far from it. Look out Yahoo!

Including features that are commonly found on other networks like Facebook and MySpace, Yahoo Mash was Yahoo’s beta attempt at the Social Networking scene.

I have to ask the question “where have I been?” It was not long ago that I reported on the demise of Windows Live Expo, a classified ad platform that I had never heard of until its doors were closed. Now, I hear of the loss of Yahoo Mash, another entity that, well, I didn’t know existed until I read a twitter post from Lee Odden noting that its shutting down. Read more…

The Los Angeles Times reports German researchers, through the help of Google Earth, have discovered that 2 out of 3 cows point North.

Using Google Earth, the researchers studied more than 300 herds of cattle from around the world. Of the 8510 cows they observed, two thirds of them had aligned themselves to face magnetic north while grazing or resting.

This is the first discovery of large land mammals to have this built-in compass. Other animals such as birds and most bees have a similar trait to aid with migration.

So, if you ever find your self lost out at the farm, take a look at the near by cows to help guide you safely home.

Google celebrates many holidays with pizazz by presenting a themed logo. On Memorial Day Google has not opted to provide a themed logo as long as I can remember, yet as Search Engine Journal depicted today many of the other search engines do a decent job of theming their logos.

So what is it with Google? Obviously no one in their right mind would have any problem with honoring active members, veterans and resting military personnel.

Read more…