Rumours, insinuations and accusations have been bubbling around for a while now, but today’s announcement that the European Commission has launched a preliminary anti-monopoly probe into Google’s affairs is the first concrete action to challenge the firm’s tactics.

Brief summary without getting too technical – Google allegedly artificially demotes articles in its search results to discourage users from visiting particular companies.

Google’s response to today’s allegations has been simply to swat them aside, claiming “this kind of scrutiny goes with the territory when you are a large company.” They will also be encouraged that much of the disquiet can be traced back to Microsoft, making the claims seem like a case of sour grapes.

Google would also argue that its search engine algorithms are as much a part of its unique appeal and success as, say, Coca Cola’s or KFC’s recipes are part of theirs. SEO experts feel they have a general idea of how Google works, but many of the intricate vagaries and updates remain closely guarded secrets only revealed to an inner cabal. Google believe this is its intellectual property, and that making too much of the information available would weaken its position and open the company up to its competitors. All companies have their own ideas, and in a free society, they should have the right to hold onto them shouldn’t they?

The position is weakened somewhat by the fact that Google’s formulas are constantly being tweaked and updated. Coca Cola and KFC introduce new products, but their core offering remains basically the same as it has always been. Google can change its algorithms at a whim, constantly updating and reacting to patterns as it likes.

Many in the industry have a love/hate relationship with Google. For some, Google is a team of evil scientists, seconded in Silicon Valley bunkers coming up with ever more diabolical schemes to rule search engines and, one day, maybe even achieve total world domination. Google Government anyone? For others a paragon of what can be achieved through always being one step ahead of the competition.

My suggestion to Google would be: a little transparency can go a long way. Give us a crumb of insight, enough to dampen the criticism, but you can always leave your audience wanting more.

Image via Wikipedia

Last week Google announced its new social networking feature, ‘Buzz’, which gives its Gmail service similar features to those found by social networking giants, Facebook and Twitter.  Google executives describe it as the “poster child” for Google’s future: ‘a social networking structure that automatically finds people to connect with you.’

The new Buzz module will allow all 176 million users of Google’s Gmail service to see their friends’ live status updates, and share photos and videos.

Sound familiar? Been there, done that, got the Facebook/Twitter account already?

With social media success stories like Facebook claiming 400 million active users and Twitter recently reaching 75 million users, do we really need another social networking tool? Buzz is unlikely to usurp either of these services ; it doesn’t seem to add anything significant to what they already do and it certainly doesn’t attempt to do them any better.

To add to this, Google also faces competition from Yahoo and Microsoft, which have already added social networking features to their web mail products: Microsoft’s Hotmail and IM products between them claim close to 500 million users.

Also, what are the benefits for businesses? As we know, Facebook and Twitter have both been useful tools for building and maintaining brands, but what does Buzz offer? The answer is nothing at the moment as the service has not yet been rolled out to those using Gmail within organisations – this is due to arrive in March 2010. However, if it is a success, brands would be foolish to ignore the service, as experts predict that, if it was adopted by all of Gmail’s existing users, it would slingshot past News Corporation’s MySpace to become the world’s second-largest social network – behind Facebook.

Despite the cynicism and doubt surrounding this new service (and the growing privacy concerns), we must not cast aside the fact that Buzz has access to a large talent pool of engineers and it stands on top of existing Gmail, mobile devices, and a dominant search portal. Indeed, if Buzz grew, users could integrate with all Google apps and aggregate the entire internet. So, at this stage, I’m going to sit on the fence and say let’s watch this space.

Positive and negative comments in groups on social network sites, such as Facebook, Flickr and MySpace reveal Disney, Nintendo and Google are the most popular brands. This comes from our latest research, Brands in Social Media.

Social networking groups are proving very popular in the UK. They are a very public demonstration of the connections between people and brands. Popular groups can quickly swell in numbers and influence large numbers of consumers online.

Understanding the sentiment of brand conversations is crucial. Frequency and popularity in the conversation is meaningless without a clear picture of whether the discussion is positive or negative.

We assessed groups set-up on three of the most popular social network sites: Flickr, Facebook and MySpace. We compared groups against the Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands. Groups that mention the top 100 brands were examined and brand sentiment (positive, negative or neutral in tone) recorded.

Automotive brands had the most loyal fan-based groups, Microsoft the most negative groups and Google hardly any negative comments at all! In fact, most Google groups were either advocating the search engine or explaining ways of using the technology.

The full report will be on our website on Thursday – for those that want the detail.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Disney, Nintendo, Google, Brands in Social Media, Social networking, Microsoft