Tag Archives ⇒ Google

WebMeUp – New Online SEO Tools

· Brandon Hann

SEO has become an industry in and of itself and staying on top of it has become more of a chore than maintaining your website in the first place. There are few options in this arena and one of them is to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire SEO professionals to optimize your website and steer you in the right direction of gaining online exposure.

Or you can use the data tools that WebMeUp has put together to help you get the most granular snapshot of your website(s) possible.

WebMeUp

This online SEO service provides you with a central dashboard that displays everything you need to better optimize your website. This screenshot gives you an idea of just how much data can be found in your account:

WebMeUp

WebMeUp treats your websites as projects and depending on which plan you go with, you can have anywhere from 3 to 30 projects and up to 10,000 pages per website being crawled and monitored. I’ve been using the service for about 3 weeks now and I must say that I’m not sure how I attempted SEO before!

It’s easy to throw up a WordPress website and load it with various SEO plugins and other tools to help optimize your content, but most of these tools make changes site-wide and don’t really tell you why the changes help or more importantly, how you can use these changes to get your visitors engaged and focused on your content. When I log into WebMeUp, I’m able to see current stats on how my site appears to the major search engines and how well it’s performing on the top social networks. If there’s an error, I know about. If one of my page titles is too long, it tells me. If I have broken links, I can resolve them. And all of that is just on the first page!

Site Structure

In dealing with your individual pages, Site Structure is one of the best features due to its ability to drill down to very specific details regarding incoming and outgoing links for EACH page on your site, whether or not an image has an alt tag, what the Page Rank is for each link, is it follow or nofollow and does it provide a 301 redirect or not.

Here’s a screenshot of my own summary page:
WebMeUp Site Structure

If you want to see further detail, simply click on the Details tab and you can go right into every single folder that your site has to see all pages, all links (incoming and outgoing), PR, etc. on everything! Have you ever wished you could remember which pages and posts your site links to? Have you ever forgotten how your “web” of a website is intertwined and would like to visualize the linking structure without having to go through each page manually?? This one section on WebMeUp would save you tremendous amounts of time!

More Tools

Ranking Factors – Take a quick look at your Alexa Ranking, Compete Rank, Google PageRank and overall visibility. This toolset also shows you basic domain information, whether or not your site appears in popular directory lists and how much interaction you have on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

Keywords and Rankings – This is where SEO masters will thrive! Start by adding specific keywords and phrases that are related to your site and within seconds, you can get an overview of how well you rank on the major search engines or worse, whether you rank at all. Having this tool allows you to better optimize your pages and links to gain higher rankings for your chosen keywords.

Competitors – One of the more interesting features of WebMeUp is the ability to place competitors’ websites right next to yours in just about every data report, giving you a real-world comparison between how well your site is doing and that of another website ranking close by. This tool can help you focus directly on one or more websites in an effort to maximize your results without the guesswork. Say goodbye to manual searches!

Backlinks – This section will show you all the backlinks your site has and what the PR is of each page the link is on. Now you can pinpoint where your best traffic is coming from. I was able to use the feature to find out about a related website after they linked to me on their top page. Of course, I was able to link back to them and we have since developed a partnership in which we share links and information.

My Two Cents

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not the greatest at SEO and every time I feel I’m getting the hang of it, I notice my rankings don’t always stay near the top. SEO is a very interesting segment of managing a website of any size and one that often changes frequently and needs constant tweaking and updating. Like many of you out there, I do this site as a hobby and I don’t have the capital to spend on hiring someone full time just to keep up on SEO.

Instead, I’ve been able to use WebMeUp to keep everything organized and managed in one nice little package. It’s one thing to get someone to optimize your site or to use a free WordPress plugin that can set things up the way they’re supposed to be, but it’s another to not have the right data to know if these things are actually doing your site any good. WebMeUp isn’t free, but I can assure you that even just a few of the many features I’ve covered are worth the monthly cost, yet you will get everything and more! But seriously, don’t take my word for it…go get yourself a 2-week free trial and see what I mean.

6 Reasons To Leave Facebook For Google Plus – And 3 Reasons Not To

· Brandon Hann

Google Plus is the new kid on the block and compared to Facebook, it’s still a small kid. However, Google Plus has been gaining huge momentum in the last year that it has been available. Part of this gain has been from the fact that Google operates on so many levels within the web community and Google+ interacts seamlessly with almost all of them. Plus, it helped that Google began forcing all YouTube users to link their accounts with a Google+ profile. So even though Google+ has over 400 million users, only about 100 million are active on a monthly basis.

It might seem like a daunting task to start fresh on a large-scale social networking site considering that you’ve likely been on Facebook for so many years now, but after my experiences with Google Plus, I’m about ready to drop Facebook completely! But let’s not jump the gun completely…check out the pros and cons below to see if Google+ is right for you.

Reasons to jump ship

  1. Advertising – Facebook is full of it. It’s not always so apparent too. With all the adverts for game requests, sponsored links and now promoted wall posts, Facebook has become a haven for cyber junk that you are probably getting really sick of. I know I am. Now, this doesn’t mean that Google+ doesn’t have the potential for falling into the same traps, but my guess is that since Google has more than one service, they don’t need Google+ to be their cash cow. Whereas Facebook now has shareholders to answer to, it’s very possible that advertising could get worse for them.
  2. Integration – Facebook integrates well with other online services and websites, but it’s still a very separate platform. Google+ is basically the backbone of the majority of Google services so when you log into Gmail, you are already logged into Google+, YouTube, Drive and more! The best part is that practically all of these services are well-integrated and they cross-manipulate one another.

    3. Google+ Events

  3. Google Events – Yes Facebook has events, but they are like Google’s. On Google+, you can create an event, invite all your friends and instantly it turns into Party Mode. This feature allows all attendees to upload photos to the event which then threads them all together for everyone to see.
  4. Google Hangouts – Remember the days of video conferencing or webcam chats? How difficult was it to get more than two people in on the event? Well Google+ now allows live streaming events to be hosted online and joined by others and/or watched by everyone. From a business standpoint, this allows much more integration between employees and clients.

    5. Muppets Google+ page

  5. Communities and Pages – Google+ offers users the ability to create pages for their businesses just like Facebook as well as starting their own communities like Facebook groups. The difference is that the integration is much tighter with Google+ and everything is instantly linked to search results related to your content. On Facebook, you might have to pay for advertising to get similar results.
  6. Future proof – Google+ is banking on long term goals with product integration and it starts with Google search. With the rise of micro-blogging and the sharing of content all over the internet, the power of Google search can only help get that content to the people. As a blogger myself, Google+ has even allowed my search results to appear next to my name and a photo to help make them stand out among the competition.

It seems that there isn’t much if anything that Google+ can’t do that Facebook can, so why would anyone not make the switch? Let’s take a look at some of the things that are holding me back…for now.

Reasons not to jump ship

  1. Entrenchment – There’s no doubt that Facebook is vastly more widespread than Google+ is. In fact, “facebook” has almost become a ubiquitous term for social networking, much like “google” has become for finding things online. As a result, it’s much easier to find people on Facebook.
  2. Vanity URLs – This might seem like such a small detail, but having the ability to tell people they can find your Facebook page by going to facebook.com/ledfrog is far more enticing than trying to tell people that they can find you on Google+ by going to plus.google.com/114683976907069457614. However, I should point out that Google has already started rolling out vanity URLs to verified celebrities and corporate brand pages. One such example is google.com/+hughjackman. The use of the little ‘+’ is also used to tag names in posts or search for people.
  3. Integration – Although it’s also mentioned above as a pro, Facebook does have a leg up with website integration in terms of being able to login to external websites, but that’s all starting to change.

With time, Google+ has great potential to become much more powerful than Facebook due to Google’s vast amount of services and products they have connected together. Facebook has been described has being a social network, while Google is described as being a social layer that covers many of Google’s properties.

My Two Cents

In the end of all this debate, many people (including myself) will simply continue using both. I have to because all of my real-world friends are on Facebook and very few of them are on Google+. I also have a couple of Facebook pages that already have fans attached to them, so until I see the natural progression of Facebook users moving toward Google+, I don’t plan on deleting any accounts.

But just like the pioneers of Facebook did when they left MySpace all those years ago, I plan to start really pushing Google+ to my friends as well as posting more updates there than on Facebook. If my friends want to continue following me…well, they’ll have to literally follow me over to Google.

Google+ Author and Publisher Connections With hAtom Feeds

· Brandon Hann

That title might sound scary, but all of these things can only help your search engine rankings and improve the visual appeal of your website on Google. Let’s take a look at each one and then we’ll get into how to implement them on your site. The example site used in this article is my own and as you might already know, I’m using WordPress. Since this is more of an informative post as opposed to an actual guide, you should be able to add these items on any other blogging platform or CMS.

Google+ Author Link

Let me say first that if you don’t already have a Google+ account, you really need to set one up. Even if you don’t plan on using it as much as Facebook, get one so you can at least get your website more connected on the web.

Google sample searchThe purpose behind the author link is to tell Google that you are the author of the content being ranked in the search results. The single most important reason for this is so you can verify your content to the world. This not only helps Google weed out the plagiarists, but it also helps to single you out on the results page. Take a look at the image to the right to see a sample search I did on Google for “nexus 4.” If you’re like most people, there are two search results that probably stood out more than anything else. One of them is for TechCrunch and the other is for William Rothman. Both of these articles are benefiting from having the Google+ author link connecting their websites to their Google+ profile.

  1. On your posts, modify (or create) the link from your full name so it links to your Google+ profile, but add ?rel=author to it. For example, my link looks like this: <a href="https://plus.google.com/114683976907069457614?rel=author">Brandon Hann</a>
  2. Head on over to your Google+ account and add a new link under the section “Contributor to”
  3. Make sure this link matches exactly. For example, I put www.ledfrog.com because if I put ledfrog.com, it won’t match.

Those are the basic steps to making this connection, but if you’re using WordPress, it gets even easier! Just download the Google Plus Author Information plugin. This will create a new field in your user profile for inputting your Google+ link. By doing that, it also replaces the link associated with your name on all posts with your Google+ link and adds the proper link relationship. The other advantage for using the plugin is if you have multiple authors on your site, each one can have their own link within their user profile and have it reflect properly without any manual editing.

Google+ Publisher Link

Google Publisher sampleSimilar to the author link above, the publisher link also creates a cohesion between your website and Google+, but this time the link connects to a Google+ page. Just like on Facebook, you can have a profile and a page with Google+. The difference between the two is that profiles can have friends in their circles and pages can only have followers.

To create a Google+ page,

  1. On your Google+ profile, click Pages at the bottom of the menu on the left.
  2. Click on Create New Page and choose a category.
  3. Fill out the necessary information and save.
  4. When you add a link to your company (or blog) website, click Verify Link.
  5. Add the following code to an area on your site. If you use WordPress, add it to your header or footer so it appears on all pages and posts. <a href="https://plus.google.com/[yourpageID]" rel="publisher">Find us on Google+</a>

If you don’t want to have an actual link on your site, you can use the span tag to implement the link on your site without the text itself. I found a great guide on how to complete all the steps required for your site automatically. Since there doesn’t appear to be a WordPress plugin yet, this is the best way to implement the required code. Check out the Google+ Publisher guide at MarketingTechBlog. This guide also outlines the manual steps of adding authorship links if you’re not using a plugin.

Google doesn’t provide any information on when these changes will take effect, but it’s commonly believed that a Google+ page has to have a significant amount of followers in order to be placed in the publisher section. But it doesn’t hurt to have everything set up while you’re building up your follower list!

hAtom Feeds

According to Wikipedia, hAtom is defined as:

hAtom is a draft Microformat for marking up (X)HTML, using classes and rel attributes, content on web pages that contain blog entries or similar chronological content. These can then be parsed as feeds in Atom, a web syndication standard.

hAtom feed sampleTo Google, this is important information that can be used to show rich-text snippets in the search results. Along with the authorship connection made above, using the correct hAtom information is key to helping Google display basic information correctly. As a WordPress user, sometimes not everything is properly constructed when dealing with themes and whatnot, so here’s another quick fix to help you reduce or eliminate all errors on your site’s posts.

To begin, run a scan on a specific page on your site using the Google Structured Data Testing Tool found in your Google Webmaster Tools account. If you have no errors, great! You might be able to skip this step. However, many people are having these three common issues:

1. Warning: Missing required field “entry-title”.
2. Warning: Missing required field “updated”.
3. Warning: Missing required hCard “author”.

All three of these issues are very easily fixed. Go to your WordPress admin and open the theme editor. Begin editing your single.php file or whatever filename your theme chose for the posts on your site. Follow the follow steps:

  1. Find <?php the_title(); ?> and wrap it with a new span class, like this: <span class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></span>
  2. Find <?php the_time(‘F d, Y’) ?> (may also be listed as <?php echo get_the_date();>) and wrap it with: <span class="date updated"><?php the_time('F d, Y') ?></span>
  3. Find <?php the_author(); ?> (or some variant of that) and wrap it with: <span class="vcard author"><span class="fn"><?php the_author(); ?></span></span>

Once you save this file, re-run the test with Google again and you should see these errors gone!

Tying it all together

As mentioned before, getting all of these connections made does not guarantee any of your results will be enhanced overnight, but doing this is a great idea to keep your site organized and displaying the proper information at all times. You never know what Google will do for your search results, so it’s always best to maintain the best practices up front just in case. As for me, it took about 2 weeks for me to get the rich-text snippets and I had to do it all over again after I deleted my Google+ profile…long story on that one, but once again I’m waiting for Google to make the updates. We’ll see how well it goes this time around. I’ll post updates if anything major happens.

Be Careful When Deleting Your Google+ Account

· Brandon Hann

Learn from the master…ehh…well not-so-master today. Learn from one of my biggest mistakes in quite some time!! The lesson of the day is DO NOT DELETE your Google+ account if you plan on keeping your YouTube account.

YouTube error

Purpose

I only had one reason to delete my Google+ account and it was simple—I started using Google Apps. Google doesn’t allow users to have two Google+ accounts, so my original setup was me just using Google Apps for the email service. This meant that I left everything else over on my original Gmail account. As a result of this, ever time I wanted to use YouTube, Google Drive or Google+, I had to switch accounts. There were times when this was as easy as clicking on my name and selecting the second account and then there were times when I had to log in again.

These issues weren’t so much a problem when I was on my laptop or desktop, but when I went mobile, everything went to hell. The reason for that was because all of the Google services run as separate apps and things like YouTube, Google+ and Gmail need the account to be added to the phone. I didn’t want to do this because with adding the account, I now have multiple Google accounts battling it out for attention over things like syncing contacts, calendars, Chrome settings, etc. I also didn’t want to have the second (original) Gmail account in my inbox because I was already forwarding mail to my new one, which meant that I was now getting two of every forwarded message on my phone!

Regardless of every workaround I found, it went against the streamlined setup I was aiming for—one Google account for all my devices and one login for all my services when on a regular computer. And thanks to my desire to have this account be my new Google Apps domain rather than Gmail, I have now lost everything I had in my YouTube account.

How to do this the right way!

The first thing you want to do is unlink your Google+ and YouTube accounts. However, this only works on accounts created before May 2009 as those are called legacy accounts and were created before Google owned YouTube.

  1. Make sure you’re signed out of all Google Accounts and visit this page: http://www.youtube.com/my_account_unlink
  2. Enter your YouTube username and your old YouTube password from before you linked to your Google Account, then enter the verification code.
  3. Next, click Unlink My Accounts.
  4. You’ll need to re-link your YouTube account to another Google Account. You can link it to an existing Google Account that you own, or create a new one.

After the original accounts are unlinked and the new accounts are linked, you can delete the old Google+ account. Because I didn’t follow these steps, I have lost all my video uploads, video/channel views, other stats, subscribers, username, etc. I have since opened a trouble ticket with Google’s 1 on 1 support to see about possibly getting back my old account or at the very least, my username! I’ll post back here with updates as I get them.

How this happened

Ever since Google+ came out, Google has been linking user profiles to YouTube accounts. This was in an effort for Google to streamline their services under one roof and to enhance the ability to share things with friends. I had no problem with this and in fact, I linked my accounts as well. Everything was going fine until I realized that I couldn’t escape using Google+ with my Google Apps account.

Many of the services (as expected) needed Google+ configured in order to work. I begged and pleaded with Google to allow accounts to be merged, but alas, the only option was to have one account migrated to the other. This allows a user to move all their circles and information over to the new profile to allow the deletion of the old one. I did this step, but I still never deleted my old profile because it was connected to Google’s authorship feature allowing them to show my name, photo and Google+ profile link next to search results of blog posts I’ve created.

Ultimately I decided to start using my Google Apps Google+ profile and delete my old one. When I went to go delete the old profile, I was warned about everything being deleted like photos, circles, etc. Nowhere on this page did it say that I’d lose my YouTube account!!

My Two Cents

I feel that Google should be a little more clear about the real-world effects of moving things around. Normally they are pretty good about warning you what will be deleted and everything, but in this case, there were no warnings about the direct effects of how deleting a Google+ account will affect YouTube. At any rate, I’m expecting the worse case scenario in that I’ve lost this battle. I’ll have to re-upload my videos (whichever ones I still have) and start all over. I’m not too heartbroken because I didn’t have a whole lot of time invested in my YouTube channel, but I kind of want my original username back.

Using Google Apps for business – Or for pleasure

· Brandon Hann

UPDATE: Google is no longer offering a free version of Google Apps. They wiped out the ability to use Google Apps for free with less than 10 users and few features missing and all businesses (and individuals) of any size must upgrade to the premium service that starts at $5 per user monthly or $50 per user annually. Google also announced that existing free account holders will still be able to use their free accounts with no changes. If you’re like me and were lucky enough to get in on Google Apps while it was free, don’t close your account!

For years now, I’ve run various websites on many different servers and hosting configurations all with varying success. One of the biggest pitfalls in hosting your own web services besides keeping up with security is finding that happy balance between function and form. While it may be easy to get a server configured properly and have your site up and running in no time, email services seem to always become problematic.

I find that the reason for this is because no two hosting companies are alike and depending on your setup (dedicated, VPS, shared, etc.), the email service(s) that you’re forced to use can be anything from OK to downright crappy.

Google Apps

Google Apps PricingIf you haven’t heard of Google Apps by now, you’re seriously missing out! Google Apps provides your business (or you) with EVERY Google app for use on your own domain. Imagine instead of having a random email @gmail.com, you can use yourname@yourdomain.com and still have full access (and interoperability) with things like Mail, Drive, Plus, YouTube, etc., etc. and it’s all free (up to 10 users)! This experience is greatly enhanced if you’re also an Android user as you would imagine.

Now if you’re like me and you only run a personal website, have a few extra domains lying around that you want to be able to send email from or you’re just looking to consolidate all of your Google accounts under one roof, you’ll get the most out of Google Apps. This is because you’re the admin and have full control over everything from creating new users, domain aliases and more. If you work for a company that already uses Google Apps, you must suffer the consequences that all of your services are managed by your company and things like YouTube favorites won’t be so personal anymore.

Gmail

I started using Google Apps mostly for the email service. I had so many problems running my own mail server. I’m not sure if it was my lack of experience in running Linux-based email or if my server was never configured properly to begin with, but either way I had issues ranging from invalid SSL certificates to mail servers not being found. By moving everything to Google, I was gaining quite a few advantages:

  • Fast and secure email
  • Freed up extra bandwidth on my own server
  • Trusted email servers
  • DKIM signed messages (more security)
  • Ability to check my email by simply logging into Google anywhere in the world
  • Flawless syncing to my Android devices

This is not to say that none of that couldn’t have been done without Google Apps, but for me, I was starting to use my original Gmail account more and more because of the ease of use that Google always seems to provide. I didn’t want to use this account because I wanted so badly to be able to promote my own domain, ledfrog.com.

Google Apps Domain AliasesThe best part is that I also have many other domains that I used to use for email and a few that I still wanted to have access to, but the old way of doing things meant that I had to setup a mail account for each domain and then configure all the accounts separately on my mail client and/or phone. At one time, I had 6 different email accounts all draining my battery with each server check.

Google Apps solved this problem as well by allowing me to add multiple domains under my account and use them as aliases. From there I was able to create email aliases all pointing to my one main email account. It gets better! Within the Gmail settings, you can set up a bunch of email addresses you’d like to send mail from, so now when I compose a new message, I have the option of sending it from any one of my many aliases! And this isn’t one of those aliases that just looks like an email, but the end user will see your real address…no…these are fully functioning email addresses.

Anyone who uses Gmail will tell you that Google’s labeling system is amazing. Rather than create actual folders that emails are placed into for organizing, Google simply allows you to place a label (or more) on messages so you are given the appearance of folders. Mix this in with filters and you can have all of your incoming email from each domain alias being labeled properly so you can sort everything as it comes in!

Drive

If you’re just a solo user, this Drive account is nothing new. It’s just connected with your new Google Apps domain and works the same way that your standard Gmail account worked. However, if you’re using Google Apps for business, Google Drive becomes much more than a storage place. You can now have shares automatically setup between user groups. For example, if your business has 20 employees and 5 of them are in the accounting department, Drive will allow those 5 to share files between themselves while still being able to share everything else with the other 15 employees.

By creating user groups within Google Apps, you can break down your entire company’s employee structure and secure it piece by piece.

Google Plus

Again, as a solo user, nothing has changed. For businesses, each of your employees will get their own Google Plus profile with all the perks included. Plus, as the owner, you actually have the ability to post things across all accounts without needing approval. This would be handy for times when you want to send out an advertising campaign through your employee’s pages.

My Two Cents

As you can tell, I’m pretty stoked about Google Apps. I’ve been using it for about 2 months now and it was the best move I ever made! As I mentioned earlier, the main reason for making the change was to clean up my email issues, but knowing that I have access to all of Google’s other services as well just makes the deal that much sweeter.

Everything within the Google Apps suite is free for up to 10 users. If you have more than 10 users, it’s $5 per user and you don’t get to have the first 10 remain free. But along with that $5 charge, you up your storage space on Gmail from 10GB to 25GB and you can finally disable those pesky ads that show up in your inbox. Personally, I haven’t found a need to upgrade since I’m well below my 10-user limit. Even with the addition of some of my friend’s websites and at least one username for each of them, I am still within the free range.

In all honesty, when you factor in some of the features of the more corporate ($10 per user) plan that Google offers and compare it to running an Exchange/BlackBerry environment, I wonder how long it will be that those two giants are still leading the pack. It can costs thousands of dollars purchasing hardware, software and licenses to operate just one Exchange server. Plus you have to factor in the amount of money it takes to keep everything updated as well as the paycheck of the IT guy to manage and maintain it all. Add to that the cost of providing data backup services (on or off-site) and you have an insane bill at the end of the year. With Google Apps, you pay a monthly fee and that’s it. Everything is maintained by Google.

Full Review of the Google Nexus 4 Smartphone from LG

· Brandon Hann

LG Nexus 4After I skated through the initial ordering process on November 13th and multiple communication breakdowns from Google in regards to order status, shipping date, etc. I finally got my Nexus 4 ten days ago. I was already so put out by the experience that I decided not to do an unboxing video and with Thanksgiving having been on the horizon, the last thing I wanted to do was rehash the Nexus 4 buying experience.

This delay has only served to better my review process since I’ve had a full 10 days to use the device and gather my thoughts and feelings about it. I don’t need to go over the specs on this phone since they’re pretty well known, but if you want to see them, go to the Nexus 4 page on Google.com. So enough chat…let’s get to it.

The Form

The Nexus 4 has got to be one of the smoothest phones I’ve ever felt. This can be a huge con however, considering how easy this thing will slip from your hands if you’re not holding it tight enough. As many of you know, I’m not a fan of cases and screen protectors and to this day, I’ve never scratched or broken a phone. With that said, understand that the Nexus 4 can be made far less slippery with the use of a 3rd party case or the official bumper from Google.

Front panel – The first thing you will notice about the front glass is that it is practically flat across the front, but slightly bevels downward into the siding of the phone. This makes for an almost seamless transition between the rubbery sides and the front panel. This is in sharp contrast to the iPhone 4 series and iPhone 5 models, which has a slightly raised frame around the front glass. This makes the Nexus 4’s screen feel more usable as you slide your finger around from edge to edge. The new Corning Gorilla Glass 2 makes this screen much more durable and scratch resistant than those of other devices. It also provides a much smoother feel over the new iPhone 5.

LG Nexus 4 back panelBack panel – The back panel is also made of Gorilla Glass 2, which gives it the same sexy smoothness that the screen offers. Unlike the prior Nexus device, the back panel is not a readily removable piece (requires T5 hex bit) and it certainly does not feel as cheap. It is inlaid with tiny little circles arranged in such a way that any movement will make them appear like color-changing pixels on a monitor.

Side panels – The sides are made up of very durable rubbery plastic. That’s the best way to describe it because it feels like rubber, but it’s hard like plastic. This is not something that you can make an impression in with your fingernail, but it is likely something that would endure scratches and chips very easy. The advantage to this material is that it helps you keep a grip on the phone if you choose to use it without a case.

The Function

Along the sides, you have a micro SIM card tray, a volume rocker, headphone jack, noise-canceling microphone, power button, voice microphone, micro USB port and two T5 hex screws that hold the back panel on. This design element is very similar to Apple’s iPhone. On the front panel, you have a very thin sliver at the top for the earpiece and a small hole for the 1.3MP front camera and the back panel has a spot for a speaker and the 8MP camera with LED flash.

Screen – The screen is a vibrant 1280-by-768 4.7-inch display. Google describes it best: “Gently curved glass edges allow your finger to slide smoothly on and off the 320ppi screen, while cutting-edge G2 Touch Hybrid display technology means you feel like you’re touching every pixel.”

Rear camera – The 8MP rear camera on the Nexus 4 is an upgrade from the 5MP camera on the Galaxy Nexus and it really shows! The Nexus 4 supports HD video recording in full 1080P quality. With Android Jellybean 4.2, you can now use this camera to take 360 degree photos using a new feature called Photosphere. These .jpg images can be viewed as a flat panoramic photo or in full 3D on the device and other Google services like Google Maps.

Google charging orbWireless charging – I have yet to test this myself since I don’t currently own an inductive charger, but the Nexus 4 supports it. Google was supposed to release their “orb” charging dock, but there has been no word on when this will happen. Other users are reporting that existing devices are compatible. The way this works is you simply place the phone on the dock and it charges. No need to plug in any USB cable!

My Two Cents

In trying to keep this review short, I really only wanted to highlight some of key features. My overall experience has been very satisfying. I was reluctant to go with another non-LTE phone after having left my Galaxy S II for the Galaxy Nexus (GSM model), but since I’m not a heavy data user off wi-fi, I wasn’t too concerned. Plus to be able to buy a brand new phone unlocked and contract-free for about the same price that others pay for a phone after signing up for 2 years is a HUGE plus in my book.

The Nexus 4 has a quad core processor and I can’t tell you how great that feels. To be able to jump from app to app with almost no load time is a luxury that few people have. It probably helps that this device is running pure Android and isn’t loaded down with carrier and manufacturer software. If I were rating this phone on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 9 only because it doesn’t have LTE. This will be a huge loss to some and although it wasn’t my primary concern, it does suck to not have it.

I hope to expand this review in the near future with sample photos, videos and other hands-on reviews. In the meantime, you can keep checking the Google Play store for this phone to be available for purchase, but I doubt you’ll be getting it anytime soon. I believe the current shipping time is 8-9 weeks!

Nexus 4 Is Now On Sale!

· Brandon Hann

I waited up last night…I’m not going to lie. I actually started refreshing the Google Play page at around 9:30pm and began following the Reddit posts around 10. This all brought me back to my iPhone chasing days!! There was speculation that Google would began a pre-order process at midnight and then those rumors were quickly dismissed with reports that this wasn’t a pre-order, but the actual purchase. That fueled more speculation and excitement around what time all this was going down.

People were arguing about what timezone was in effect, what country was going to get their’s first, whether or not 2-day shipping was going to be an option and how quickly things would sell out. Then came the reports from Australia saying that the Nexus 4 sale had started early by mistake and everyone who placed an order had it cancelled shortly after. Then they started reporting that the 16GB was sold out and the 8GB was sure to follow.

All of the night’s events—phone calls to Google support, Reddit updates, blog posts and even YouTube videos had the makings of an iPhone/AT&T launch written all over it. We can all remember those days…server crashes, people getting bounced off the shopping cart page, users reporting successful orders only to see them get cancelled later and the countless arguments from people claiming they “knew” how to get through.

Yet today was rather peaceful.

Google Play Nexus 4 Order ConfirmationI was expecting a 9am PST release time, so naturally I was refreshing my phone every few minutes during my morning commute. I got to work, attended a meeting and quietly walked to my office. Once inside, I launched the live stream of a local radio station and opened the Play store. I began my refresh regiment once again and was delighted to see that at 8:33am the “Coming Soon” message had been replaced with an “Add to cart” message.

I added the 16GB model and processed my order. It took about 30 seconds as I imagine I was only one of hundreds if not thousands doing the exact same thing and then I got my order confirmation alert and order email.

At 8:58am, I did another refresh just out of curiosity and I was surprised once again that the “Coming Soon” message was back! If I assume that the order process started at 8:30am, then Google successfully sold out of the 16GB models in less than 30 minutes. As of this writing, the 8GB models are still available. UPDATE (9:23am): The 8GB models are sold out.

I just wanted to share my story. When I get my new phone this week, I’ll be posting a video comparison between it and the Galaxy Nexus (GSM) as well as my initial thoughts on the new device. For those of you who got your Nexus 4, congratulations!

New Domain TLDs – A Real Possibility for Q1 2013

· Brandon Hann

Back in June, it was announced that ICANN revealed a list of over a thousand new domain gTLDs (generic top level domain) could be released to the internet sometimes in early 2013. For those that don’t know, ICANN is the governing body that presides over and from time to time, they take in applications from companies and individuals alike who wish to see a new (and hopefully functional) domain TLD put out on the market.

The most recent addition to this namespace was the .XXX domain. After months of back and forth wrangling, the new domain extension was finally put into action with a goal of being able to separate adult websites from the rest. This new extension met with criticism by those who compete in the industry because many people felt that a new extension does nothing but pollute it. Those who supported the initiative said it would be much easier for network admins to block entire domain names at the extension level rather than trying to pin down individual websites.

Some of the TLDs expected to be approved are .BLOG, .WEB, .LOL, .ONLINE and .SHOP. If these and others are approved, it will change the internet namespace forever. As it is, there are over 200 TLDs available for registration, but most of them are just 2-character designators created for each country in the world. Some countries have been successful at selling domains by promoting their use for specific niche markets to English-speaking countries such as what Tuvalu did with .TV, Montenegro did with .ME and the Federated States of Micronesia did with .FM. Less than successful pitches came from [Western] Samoa with .WS (promoted as “Web Site”), Laos with .LA (promoted as “Los Angeles”) and the Democratic Republic of Congo with .CD (promoted as “compact disc”).

The new TLDs will completely change the conventional thought process behind the registration of domain names. When domains first came out, there was an attempt to separate commercial (.COM) companies, networks (.NET) and organizations (.ORG), but shortly after, the domain space was pretty much opened to anyone with the money to cover the registration costs. With new TLDs like .BLOG and .SHOP, the attempt to sort the web is back. However, once again, there are no regulations in place that would keep people from registering a .BLOG domain and putting an adult website there.

Each proposed domain that gets approved can either be hoarded for private use or be used to sell second-level domains to consumers. For example, if Google wins the rights to .BLOG, they can decide to allow users to register new domains such as MYAWESOME.BLOG or TECHNOLOGY.BLOG or just keep it for themselves. It’s only $25,000 annually for Google to own .BLOG!!

My Thoughts

Google gTLD listThe most interesting part about this whole process is that every application that was sent to ICANN carried with it a $185,000 fee just to have the TLD evaluated! In the case of Google, they have applied for over 100 TLDs! I hope they get a few approved because I’d love to set up some new websites under the .BLOG domain.

But at the same time, I think that releasing so many TLDs at one time would seriously dilute the spectrum. I imagine myself as the owner of Ledfrog.com and having to register over 2,000 variants just to lock down my name at every possible corner of the web!

This also doesn’t bode well for those who make money from registering domain names and selling them to people months or even years down the road for a hefty markup. Right now something like BUSINESS.COM is worth millions to the right person, but add in over 2,000 other versions of it and people might be more inclined to settle for a lesser known extension just to save the money.

Also, what’s the point of some of these requests? Feel free to look over the entire list (including multiple submissions for the same domain) and please tell me what we need .BOO for? Or how about .CHK? I understand that many companies and corporations are submitting TLDs to completely wipe out the need for having to type in any “dot” after their name like with Canon trying to get the TLD .CANON, but seriously…I think this is going a little too far.

However, that hasn’t stopped the speculating guy in me! I found out that at least one company is making an attempt to pre-order new TLD domains free of charge. Of course there are no guarantees, but they say their success rate for acquiring domains for the .XXX extension was about 47%. If anything, placing a free pre-order will allow you to stay informed of the changes coming (if and when) as well as possibly even being able to to secure a nice second-level domain that you haven’t been able to get in the .COM world. To check out the pre-order system, visit UnitedDomains.com.

4 Days Until New Google Nexus Devices Are Released

· Brandon Hann

Only four days left until Google begins selling it’s new Nexus line of products! On Tuesday November 13th, Google will be adding a 10″ tablet and the new Nexus 4 smartphone to it’s line. The Nexus 7 (already available in 16 and 32GB) will soon be getting a 32GB HSPA+ model as well. There’s no word on whether that version will be ready for order on Tuesday, but it is indeed “coming soon”.

Nexus 4

Nexus owners have been eagerly awaiting the release of Android 4.2 as well. Originally it was speculated that the software update would be pushed out to devices as early as October 29th when Google made the announcement of the new releases, but it didn’t happen. As we draw closer to the 13th, it can only be assumed that the 4.2 update will be handed down at the same time the new products go on sale. Here’s an unboxing video from Android Central:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z23wdtTWK6s

As for me, I’m a Nexus GSM owner and even though I’ve only had the phone for about 2 months, I’m planning on getting the Nexus 4. The main reason is simply the quad core processor and upgraded camera. Originally I wanted a Galaxy S III, but after trying a pure Android experience, I can never go back! Plus, since it feels great to not be on contract with AT&T, I doubt I could ever sign another one of those again.

Nexus 10

I’m loving this Nexus 10 and if I can find a reason why I need a tablet, I would seriously buy this one. I think my only complaint so far would be the slight rounded curve it has along its sides. I’m more a fan of the squared look, but maybe that’s because I’m so used to widescreen devices looking like tvs. Microsoft Surface certainly wins the design prize on this one.

At any rate, I won’t completely judge until I have one in my hands. Here’s a quick look:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4c6xvhI9GQ

That’s it for me today! I decided to keep it short, so have a great weekend and I’ll see you all back here again on Monday.

Google Announces New Devices and Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

· Brandon Hann

Google had originally planned an event today to discuss the latest devices coming out of the Nexus line of products as well as showcasing the new Jelly Bean upgrade, but due to hurricane Sandy, it was cancelled. This didn’t stop Google however since they decided to go ahead and make the announcements via the official Google Blog.

Google Play screenshotAs expected, we’re going to see a Nexus 10″ tablet from Samsung and the new Nexus 4 smartphone from LG. What was not so expected was that the Nexus 7 is now being offered with HSPA+ services making the tablet even more portable than it was.

Given the insane amount of coverage on these announcements, I don’t need to go over every last detail, but here’s the overall gist of what’s going down on November 13th.

Nexus 4

Nexus 4The Nexus 4 is unfortunately not a 4G phone, thus leaving the only 4G Nexus device as the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon. However, LG did put a quad core processor inside so that would explain why it’s only HSPA+. Apparently LTE doesn’t play well with quad core processors.

Specs:

  • 4.7″ screen with 1280 x 768 resolution (320ppi)
  • 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front
  • 2GB memory
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor
  • Wireless charging

The device comes in 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($349) sizes both with no external storage options. This is because Google despises external storage devices as they can sometimes cause performance issues with apps and whatnot. This is probably why Apple doesn’t go this route either.

Nexus 10 Tablet

Nexus 10Recently the Nexus was available in the 7″ size with wi-fi only, but Google has just released a new 32GB model that has HSPA+ cellular connectivity. This brings the Nexus 7 line up to three models: 16GB (wi-fi only for $199), 32GB (wi-fi only for $249) and 32GB (wi-fi + HSPA+ for $299)

But the biggest news was the announcement of the 10″ tablet. Originally with the Nexus 7, critics were only really paying attention to it as a competitor to the Kindle Fire, but now we’re looking at some real competition to the full size iPad.

The only downside…both models are wi-fi only. The 16GB model will sell for $399 and the 32GB will sell for $499.

Specs:

  • 10″ with 2650 x 1600 resolution (300 ppi)
  • Dual-core A15 processor
  • 5MP front camera, 1.9MP rear
  • 9000 mAh battery
  • Weight: 603g (1.3lbs)
  • Size: 263.9 x 177.6 x 8.9mm

Without the HSPA+ option, some of the iPad models are still looking like a better choice, but at these price points, Nexus tablet is still a better buy. Plus you get Android software unobstructed by any manufacturer software.

Android 4.2

Android 4.2Originally dubbed Key Lime Pie, it appears that Android 4.2 will simply be a major update to Jelly Bean and it packs in a lot of new features! For full details, check out what’s new on Android.

Photo Sphere – Here’s a new feature that allows you to take photos in all directions and put them back together in a 3D sphere and then share them with your Google+ friends and/or add them to Google Maps.

Gesture Typing – Now you can type simply by gliding over the letters of the word and letting go. The word will appear with spaces and all. Plus, with Google’s new dictionaries, your text conversations become more predictive, allowing you to select your next word without having to type.

Multiple users – Available only on the tablets, this features allows you to create new users on your device so each person can have their own everything — apps, games, homescreen, background images, widgets, etc. You can also use fast user switching to go from one user to the next without having to log out each time.

Wireless HDMI – Connect a wireless HDMI adapter to your tv and now you can stream whatever you’re doing on your phone or tablet right to your big screen!

Of course there’s so much more, but I found these to be the top highlights.

My Thoughts

Here I am once again with my infamous dilemma. Before, it was about getting the iPad or a Macbook Air, or getting the Kindle Fire or staying with an iPad. Today, the question still remains. Do I need a tablet? More importantly, do you? Many people are finding that while tablets are very convenient smaller (compared to laptops), they still don’t present much of a “working” device. They seem to be more of a luxurious toy rather than a practical replacement for any of your real devices.

Microsoft may shift this paradigm when they release their Surface tablet with full blown Windows 8 Pro, but again, only time will tell.

As for the Nexus 4, it doesn’t appeal to me other than its cool design, wireless charging feature and quad core processor. Since I currently have the Nexus GSM, these basic upgrades aren’t enough for me to swap phones again. However, I’m saying this after only owning my Nexus for a few months, so who knows how I’ll feel come Christmas. Maybe if the phone was 4G LTE, I’d be singing a different tune.

Android 4.2 is definitely an upgrade I’m excited about. All these new features for free and because I already own a Nexus device, I don’t have to wait months before the carriers and manufacturers get it together before I can update my phone.