Hasta La Gadget!

This year’s Super Bowl seemed like it was all about the commercials and the halftime show, and it turns out that the top two trending search results on Google during the big game had something to do with both, at least in the US. “M&M’s” topped the list at number one, while “Beyonce” came in at number two. Unsurprisingly, “Baltimore Ravens,” “San Francisco 49ers,” and “Colin Kaepernick” rounded out the top five.

Google doesn’t tell us exactly what differentiates a trending search term over a most-searched term, but in any case, the most-searched term during the Super Bowl was “The Ravens.” The team won this year’s big game, narrowly beating the 49ers 34-31 in a nail-biter. As you can see in the chart above, Beyonce saw a huge spike in Google activity during halftime, absolutely soaring over every other search term.

As far as YouTube goes, the most-searched for commercials on the video streaming site were ads from M&M’s, Mercedes-Benz, Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful, Lincoln, Audi, and “Gangnam Style.” Of course, there was also a trend in YouTube searches for Beyonce, as well as Alicia Keys, who sang the National Anthem before the game.

Speaking of YouTube, Google mentioned how the platform was increasingly becoming more popular with advertisers when it comes to showing off their Super Bowl commercials before the big game. In total, Google says that Super Bowl commercials were watched more than 66 million times on YouTube before Super Bowl Sunday.

“M&M’s” most-trended search term on Google during Super Bowl is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While Google and France don’t always get along and agree with certain situations, the search giant is looking to patch things up by creating a €60 million ($82 million USD) fund for digital publishing “innovation” that it says will help French news websites make money off of online advertisements.

While Google doesn’t mention anything about a settlement in its blog post, we can only assume that the fund will resolve an ongoing case where news publishers claimed that Google’s practice of linking to news articles was copyright infringement. Along with the fund, Google has agreed to give French publishers discounted access to Google’s advertising platforms.

Google says that the new innovation fund was announced in France along with France’s president, François Hollande. The French government itself has been acting as a mediator for the copyright dispute between Google and French news publishers. However, it seems that the search giant and news outlets in France will live happily ever after for the time being.

This isn’t the first time that France and Google and tangoed, though. Back in October, Google threatened the French media that it would take block their search results from Google due to a new law that would force search engines to shell out money for content. And back in August, the company was in trouble with France over Street View data that wasn’t deleted, resulting in another cat fight between the two parties.

Google starts €60 million French digital publishing fund is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a world where ads are constantly being shoved into everyone’s face at any given moment, these Billboard Blinds are a welcome change. It’s a concept for an urban intervention that gives people like you and me a choice on whether or not we want to view ads while waiting for the bus or train or while flagging down a taxi.

If you’re not in the mood to know about the latest show that’s hitting on network TV soon or about newest teeth whitening products in the market, then simply reach out and pull the blinds, and go on your merry way. (Or rather, continue waiting your merry way. You get the picture.) This idea might even make ads more effective for those who are interested in them, thanks to the interaction required to open them and view the ad underneath. That’s got to make the ad a bit more memorable, right?

The cool thing is you don’t need to install any fancy gizmos or gadgets to achieve this end. Regular window blinds will do. Who knew something so simple could make a world of difference?

Billboard Blinds were conceptualized by George Zisiadis.

This morning brings a revamped augmented reality app to the scene known as Point. Before today, the software was known as IntARact, but along with the new name, users will now find the ability to interact with videos — a neat trick for an app that was previously limited to print ads, logos and the like. At its core, Point allows advertisers to engage their audiences by turning run-of-the-mill ads into interactive experiences. To get your toes wet with this new offering, you’ll need to stumble upon a Point-enabled bit of media and have the app installed on your smartphone. The Point AR browser is available for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian and Windows Phone, which you can find by entering “Pointart” into the search field of your phone’s app market. If you’re curious to see a few Point-enabled sample ads, just grab the app and hit up the IntARact link below.

Continue reading Point brings augmented reality ads to your phone, now with interactive videos

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Google may have a lot on its plate with Android and its ad business, but that doesn’t mean it can’t take the time to make quality apps for iOS. Lately we’ve been seeing Google make a push for Apple‘s mobile operating system, releasing new apps like Google Maps after Apple decided to give the navigation business a spin. However, iOS apps don’t just spring up from the ground – Google obviously needs developers to make these apps happen, so it has rolled out a new web ad campaign to attract the talent it requires.

It isn’t anything spectacular, just a small little box ad that switches through slides showing off Google’s iOS app offerings. It also invites developers to “Do cool things that matter,” and tells them that they “can reshape Google on iOS.” The ad is currently being shown on a variety of sites, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, one YouTube user has captured it on video and you can check it out below.

Clicking on the ad will take you to a page featuring a brief interview with Ken Bongort, who works on the Google Search App team. The interview is quite obviously meant to relay what it’s like to work as an app developer at Google, with Bongort talking about what kind of person these iOS app teams are looking for and what the most rewarding part of launching a new app is.

Those who are interested in working as an iOS app developer for Google can apply through that page, so if it sounds like something you’d want to do, it may not be a bad idea to fill out an application. This expansion seems to suggest that we’ll be seeing much more from Google in the iOS space moving forward, which is always exciting. Even though Google already has a number of its biggest apps available on iOS, we’re sure there’s plenty planned for the future, so stay tuned.

[via 9to5Mac]

Google’s new web ad campaign tries to tempt iOS developers is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.