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You can now book a hotel room on Yelp

Oct21
by on October 21, 2014 at 4:49 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

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It seems rare to go somewhere new nowadays without checking out reviews first. If you’re looking for a place to stay the night, for instance, you probably want to know the rooms aren’t regularly full of roaches. If the rooms are critter-free, Yelp is looking to make your life a bit easier now by letting you book a hotel room right from its website or apps. The integration comes through Hipmunk, and comes along with the addition of several other partners to the Yelp Platform. These increase users’ options to order food or even make wine tasting reservations right within Yelp. The change…

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Google’s Penguin is flapping again – but what about the much-feared guest post penalty?

Oct21
by on October 21, 2014 at 4:40 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, Design & Dev, Entrepreneur, How-To's, Social Media

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Rohan Ayyar works at E2M, a premium digital marketing firm specializing in creative content strategy, Web analytics and conversion rate optimization for startups. The long awaited and widely anticipated Penguin 3.0 update from Google is finally here. It’s nearly finished rolling out as I write. Penguin 1.0 targeted sites with backlinks that had anchor text overly optimized for money keywords. Penguin 2.0 went deeper and attacked sites that engaged in “black hat” practices – comments, directory listings, articles, internal pages of blog networks and mass link buying of pretty much any sort, came under its purview. And from first impressions, it appears…

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ESL’s eSports app lands on Xbox One, letting you compete directly from your console

Oct21
by on October 21, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

There’s little question that eSports is big business, which goes some way towards explaining why Amazon snapped up Twitch back in August. Now, ESL Gaming, one of the biggest eSports competition organizers in the world, is arriving on Microsoft’s Xbox One. Through the app, you can search for tournaments, sign up and compete directly from your console – this is in contrast to Twitch for Xbox One which is more about streaming than competing. If you’re a novice, you can choose from ESL Open tournaments before entering the major competitions where the big people hang. And yes, you can win…

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Hidely’s double encryption scheme promises photo privacy

Oct21
by on October 21, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Product Launches

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Hidely, a new iOS app launched today, is designed to keep your photos free from prying eyes. Even if you’re not sharing way too much skin with 100 of your closest pals, you still probably don’t want your personal photos in line for the next data hack. Photos taken with or imported into Hidely are “zero trace,” according to the company, because they are protected with double encryption technology that secures them from unauthorized access. Zero-trace also applies to the password: If you forget it, Hidely will not help you recover it. Unlike standard cloud storage-based platforms, which have recently proven vulnerable to…

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Google Play Music updated with Songza’s contextual playlists and Material Design UI

Oct21
by on October 21, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

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After Google bought Songza back in July, it was only a matter of time until we started to see some of the service’s features start trickling into Google’s Play Music apps. In an announcement today, Google says it’s done just that. It should come as no surprise that Songza’s most popular feature, the ability to select contextual playlists tailored to specific activities, moods and times, has now been integrated into Play Music. As with Songza, the music curated by actual people rather than just an algorithm. This means that instead of just looking through your current music or through its store, typing into Play Music’s…

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