Mediaboss Marketing

The Internet proved the only true form of free communication
during the Arab
Spring and yet the West has come to take the freedom it
confers for granted, Google boss Eric Schmidt said Friday.

In a stout defence of Internet freedoms at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Schmidt also said that rather than be
seen as contributing to job losses, the web was a great
opportunity for businesses to grow.

Schmidt told delegates he had just returned from a visit to
Libya after the revolution that toppled Moamer Kadhafi, a trip
which had underlined the value of the Internet in societies
where phones are tapped and media is state-run.

"The thing I learnt most about the Arab Spring is that we take
the Internet for granted here," said Schmidt, Google's
executive chairman.

"When you live in country where censorship is the norm ... the
Internet is your only communications mechanism."

The role of the Internet in the Arab Spring was memorably
illustrated by Wael Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the
Middle East and North Africa, who administered the Facebook
page that helped spark Egypt's revolution.

Schmidt said an uncensored Internet could ensure the
new generation of Arab leaders does not repeat the same pattern
of corruption of the old regimes.

He proposed it becomes mandatory for politicians running for
office to disclose their assets on the Internet.

Schmidt, whose own firm employs some 30,000 people, also said
the Internet should not be blamed for problems in the labour
market, arguing that: "It's important not to fear technological
innovation and revolution."

He said that governments had to address what he called "a huge
labour shortage for highly educated people" in manufacturing.

"There are plenty of countries, (the) United States and other
countries that I have visited, that are very short of skilled
people," he said.

He said the web worked to the benefit of small business as
"there's no better tool" to find customers, adding: "A
reasonable expectation is that the access to the Internet will
produce a very large number of smaller companies."

Google announced that it is including some new information in
the Webmaster Tools sitemaps feature.

This includes details based on content-type, like stats from
Web, Videos, Images and News featured more prominently.

“This lets you see how many items of each type were submitted
(if any), and for some content types, we also show how many
items have been indexed,” explains^[1]
Webmaster Tools engineer Kamila Primke. “With these
enhancements, the new Sitemaps page replaces the Video Sitemaps
Labs feature, which will be retired.”

There is also now the ability to test a sitemap. “Unlike an
actual submission, testing does not submit your Sitemap to
Google as it only checks it for errors,” says Primke. “Testing
requires a live fetch by Googlebot and usually takes a few
seconds to complete. Note that the initial testing is not
exhaustive and may not detect all issues; for example, errors
that can only be identified once the URLs are downloaded are
not be caught by the test.”

Google also has a new way of displaying errors, which the
company says better exposes what types of issues a sitemap
contains. Rather than repeating the same kind of error numerous
times for one sitemap, Google will group errors and warnings,
giving a few examples.

For sitemap index files, Google aggregates errors and warnings
from the child sitemaps that the sitemap index encloses, so
users won’t have to click through each child one at a time.

The functionality of the delete button has changed as well. It
will now remove the sitemap from Webmaster Tools from both your
account and the accounts of the other owners of a site.

View all posts by
Chris Crum ?^[9]

References

1. ^{^} explains
   (googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)
2. ^{^} WebProNews
   (www.webpronews.com)
3. ^{^} iEntry Network
   (www.ientry.com)
4. ^{^} Facebook
   (www.facebook.com)
5. ^{^} Twitter
   (twitter.com)
6. ^{^} @CCrum237
   (twitter.com)
7. ^{^} Crum
   (www.stumbleupon.com)
8. ^{^} +Chris Crum
   (plus.google.com)
9. ^{^} View all posts by Chris Crum
   ? (www.webpronews.com)

SES
London^[1] is taking
place in just one month (20 – 24 February 2012) at the QEII
Conference Centre in Westminster, and here is your chance to be
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All you need to do is create a blogpost or a video telling the
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• An All Access Pass to SES London (including access to the
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You have until Friday 3rd February to get your entry in and the
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Register
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3!

References

1. ^{^} SES London
   (sesconference.com)
2. ^{^} SEO Chicks
   (www.seo-chicks.com)
3. ^{^} Register now
   (sesconference.com)
4. ^{^} SES London 2012
   (sesconference.com)