Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Libby.
1. Google plays possum
At the beginning of the month, there was a Google Local algorithm update which lead many businesses to believe their Google My Business listing had vanished. Turns out they’ve gone nowhere, they’ve just been filtered.
According to Joy Hawkins of Search Engine land, this is the biggest shake up of Google Local since Pigeon in 2014.
Businesses that fall outside of physical city limits have historically struggled to rank for location-specific terms, but Possum’s meant their visibility has improved. If you want to know a little more about this latest update, I suggest you check out Hawkins’ webinar:
2. Allo, allo, allo
Google’s launched its “smart messaging app”. On Wednesday the English-only version was released on Android and iOS, and using AI to generate auto-responses, it also includes Google Assistant, so users can quickly complete tasks all in one place… due to it “listening in” on all your interactions. Great.
It’s fair to say that its previous attempts at winning the messaging apps battle, like Google Talk, Google Chat and Google’s Hangouts, have struggled to come close to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. There has been some backlash against WhatsApp’s privacy policy, but Allo is already suffering a scathing review from Edward Snowden:
What is #Allo? A Google app that records every message you ever send and makes it available to police upon request. https://t.co/EdPRC0G7Py
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016
3. Takei that, Trump
I hate writing about Donald Trump, but I couldn’t resist highlighting this sweet social media burn by George Takei after Trump’s dig at Obama:
Why isn’t President Obama working instead of campaigning for Hillary Clinton?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2016
As Commander-in-Chief, he is sworn to protect us from threats both foreign and domestic. You, sir, are the latter. https://t.co/8lJAF6CZa4
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) September 16, 2016
Trump’s social media stream is usually just blowing his own horn and hurling out insults, which has unfortunately resulted in successfully launching him further into the public eye. Takei, however, has gone from sci-fi icon to social media superstar. He has expanded his fan base beyond trekkies by sharing positive posts, hilarious memes and cutting comebacks like the above. Oh my!
4. More iPhone 7 lololololzzz
Joe wrote about iPhone 7’s launch in his My Five post a couple of weeks ago, but the funnies just keep on coming. My colleague sent me this, frankly, ridiculous story from Gizmodo about a chap with too much money and not enough sense just as I discovered this ‘helpful’ video dealing with the device’s missing headphone jack:
If you’ve time, please check out the comments, even if it’s just to remind yourself that people really can be so gullible.
5. International Jennifer Aniston day
What? At least I didn’t say “Brangelina”. Anyway…
News broke this week that Angelina Jolie filed for divorce against Brad Pitt. I don’t know the circumstances (and I haven’t been bothered to try to find out), but what I do know is that there has been an influx in the number of Jennifer Aniston gifs all over the internet as Brad’s ex, and – like so many of us – I do enjoy a good gif, so here’s a trilogy of Jen reaction gifs:
Excited Jen:
Smug Jen:
And, my personal favourite, drunk Jen: