Search Engine DuckDuckGo’s traffic explodes after PRISM news – Crosses 2 Million Daily searches

With NSA’s PRISM program of collecting information from tech companies going main stream, Search engine DuckDuckGo, has seen a huge increase in its searches. On its privacy page, the search engine states, “does not collect or share personal information. ” Since it doesn’t track the users, there is no way to base the ads on the users profile. Rather it is based on the keywords.This search engine was started in 2008 & in 2009 it was decided not to collect the IP addresses.

Google & other search engines collect user data & advts are based on the users profile. The site which usually gets 1.7 to 1.8 million searches daily, got a record searches of around 2.2 million on Monday. Below is a traffic stats chart showing how the search queries are increasing daily. After the media feature & Bloomberg TV interview, there is a significant increase in Traffic.

Adobe #CreativeDay – Adobe Photoshop Prank in a Bus Stop

Adobe to promote its Adobe creative days created a series of events in EMEA. This has been created by the agency Abby norm. Think bus stop advertisements are dead.? Not any more, with this creative Adobe advt at the bus stops.

This involved photoshopping the person in the bus stop & then displaying it in the Digital Adshell in the bus stop with various art works. The person could see the artwork with his photoshopped image in real time. The hashtag #CreativeDay was displayed as part of the campaign so that people can follow the conversation.

#GalaxyVine – Samsung uses Twitter’s Vine for Galaxy Promo

Twitter’s Vine has become the latest to be used for marketing activities by the brands. Several campaigns have already been done on vine. Vine is a Twitter’s 6-second mobile video recording application. Recently Vine was released for Google’s Android. Samsung, world leader in smartphones, has used Vine effectively for its marketing activity.

The vine itself consists of 3 different videos on Samsung Galaxy smartphones. It also used the hashtag #galaxyvine for this creative campaign. This has been used as a part of Samsung’s marketing activity to download & share vine videos on their Galaxy smartphones.

Burberry & Google Launch Burberry Kisses – Send Virtual Kiss through Google Maps

Burberry & Google have launched “Burberry Kisses”, that allows you to send a digital copy of your lip imprint through Google Maps. They have launched the site at kisses.burberry.com. You can access this through your smartphone, or through desktop chrome browser.

You can take an imprint of of your lips through webcam & also select Burberry colors for your lips imprint. You can select the address to which the digital lip imprint should be delivered & it can be seen flying across on Google maps.

Summer Break – A Social Media Only Reality Show

Here is a new Reality show, Summer Break, which will be available on social media like twitter, instagram, tumblr. This is going to be the first reality show not on TV. This tracks lives of 9 teenagers who enjoy their summer break before they go to college. You can check their daily updates as it will be posted on twitter, instagram & tumblr. Within 24 hours of event happening, there will be 60-second daily episodes produced by professionals that will be posted on YouTube. The cast consists of five guys – Connor, Kostas, Zaq, Trevis, Ray & four girls – Clara, Lena, Alex, Nia.
With mobile dominating the lives of teens, this show provides a perfect platform to track their lives on mobile devices through social networks. Pics, tweets, shares & updates rule the lives of teenagers. The budget for this is around $5 million dollars & is sponsored by AT&T. This is the first such social media reality show & will be watched closely on how successful it will be.

• SummerBreak Twitter 
• SummerBreak Instagram
• SummerBreak Tumblr 
• SummerBreak Youtube
• SummerBreak Members

Google buys Waze & the Reasons for Google’s purchase

Google has acquired Waze, free mobile navigation application for around $1.1 Billion. This is a big ticket purchase for this year by the tech company after Yahoo’s tumblr acquisition. There has been rumors of Facebook going for this purchase but it has been confirmed that Google finally purchased it. Waze’s social oriented traffic app has generated a lot of map data. Waze would add crowd sourced info to the Google traffic updates with real time updates. This is an Israeli based company. Here is the official release from Google on its blog.

Some of the reasons How Waze would benefit Google are

1) Waze is a crowd-sourced mapping app with a member base of 50 million. This strong community provides real-time updates of traffic, accidents & route updates. This coupled with Google maps is a big USP for Google maps.

2) Google is the king of maps. Apple which launched maps, had problems associated with it & is yet to gain wide popularity.

3) Can keep competitors away with this prized acquisition.

4) Google is still catching up in the social networking space & Waze gives a strong community of around 50 million members

5) Facebook is yet to make a mark in the maps business. With mobile browsing booming, Waze would help Google gain a strong hold in Mobile space

Game of Thrones and the Role of Social Media in its Promotion

Game of Thrones is created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an American TV drama series. It is adopted from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The series involves the members of several noble houses in a civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms. This has garnered a great fan base with wide acclaim by the critics. It has won several awards. It deals with religion, civil war, crime, Social hierarchy and punishment. It has a high fan engagement & huge fan following across the world.

Blogosphere & Social Media is agog with the Game of Thrones series. HBO utilized social Media to promote the series & also to post screening event. HBO’s Join the Realm site lets users create own Family arms. If you already have a house, you can even edit it. Its twitter handle has millions of followers & thousands of tweets. Celebrities with their gifts from Game of thrones showcased it on twitter & Instagram. This was retweeted by their followers. Its facebook account has millions of likes & great fan engagement & amplification. Several Tumblr accounts have also been created for fans to follow & share pics.

Following is a list of social media profiles of Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones Twitter
Game of Thrones Facebook
Game of Thrones Website
Game of Thrones Tumblr
Game of Thrones Google+
Game of Thrones Youtube
Game of Thrones HBO
Game of Thrones Apple itunes

India & Pakistan Connect Together Through Coco-Cola Interactive Soda Machine

Coco-Cola‘s Open Happiness campaign has created a lot of brand visibility for Coke. India & Pakistan, 2 neighboring countries have been at loggerheads for decades over the border issue. Coke is is trying to change all of that through a new advertising film. Small World Machines from Coca-Cola allows people to connect in real time, touching each other over the interactive machine & drawing peace, love, and happiness symbols together.Coca-Cola installed Smart vending machines in Lahore, Pakistan and New Delhi, India. This would promote happiness and cultural understanding between the 2 nations.

Future of Search and How it will affect SEO

Right from the days of Altavista to Google, search has undergone a paradigm shift. Now, Google is the king of search. Whatever Google does to its algorithm, it will have a profound effect on the online world. Its recent changes (Penguin & Panda), created ripples with the way it affected search results. Past few years has seen the growth of mobile & tablets resulting in more local searches. Google correlate, a product from Google labs, finds search patterns which correspond with real-world trends.

The Dabbawala Foundation’s Share My Dabba Initiative

This is a non-profit collaboration between Happy Life Welfare Society  and The Dabbawala Foundation. Dabbawalas provide great services without any technological backup. Share My Dabba is an initiative to get food left uneaten in tiffins to hungry street children, using the dabbawala network.

All you have to do is put a Share sticker on your dabba if there is any left food in it. The sticker allows the dabbawalas to identify the ones Shared from the empty ones & use it to feed children. Here is the FAQ‘s on how the process is done.