NEWS

Google Announces Free Hotel Booking Links via @martinibuster

Published

3 years ago

March 9, 2021

Google announced a new Hotel Booking Links program was formerly offered through the Hotels Ads system. Hotels and travel companies are encouraged to join. Current Google Hotel Ads advertisers don’t have to change anything as their listings will be shown automatically.

According to the announcement:

“Partners who already participate in the Hotel Prices API and Hotel Ads do not need to take any further action to appear in free booking links…”

Google Hotel Ads and Free Booking Links

Hotel Ads show room availability information and rates when a consumer is researching on Google Search, Google Maps and in Assistant.

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When users are actively searching, Hotel Ads will display relevant information like rates which allows hotels to gain more travel business.

The free booking links appear to show beneath the ads as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot of Google Hotel Ads and Free Booking Links

Screenshot Google Booking Links and Ads

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The Hotel Ads program helped many companies earn more from searchers who were actively searching for rooms. The free booking links should presumably also become a quality source of converting customers.

In a 2015 Think with Google video Ted Schweitzer, SVP Marketing & E-Commerce for La Quinta Inns & Suites praised the Hotels Ads program as a winner.

He related:

“Hotel Ads are performing at a significantly stronger conversion rate, twice what we see on regular traffic on mobile. And that makes a big difference in terms of results.
Being able to deliver the right type of content at the right time enables us to improve that conversion rate and satisfy that guest request.”
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If the ads do that well then the free hotel booking links should also perform well.

Free Hotel Booking Links

According to Google’s announcement, Google is making it free to appear in hotel booking links.

“Now, we’re improving this experience by making it free for hotels and travel companies around the world to appear in hotel booking links, beginning this week on google.com/travel.
…For all hotels and travel companies, this change brings a new, free way to reach potential customers.
For advertisers, free booking links can extend the reach of existing Hotel Ads campaigns. Our testing of this new feature shows that all partner types — from individual hotels to online travel agents — benefit from free booking links through increased booking traffic and user engagement.”

Google Under Anti-trust Investigation

Google’s stated goals for the free booking links is to provide more options to users. But… the move to provide free booking links might be related to anti-trust issues that Google is currently facing.

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In an SEC filing in 2019, Expedia noted that Google was their most significant challenge.

“We believe our most significant challenge remains Google pushing its own hotel products in search results and siphoning off quality traffic that would otherwise find TripAdvisor via free links and generate high margin revenue in our hotel click-based auction.”

Nevertheless, the free booking links should be welcome to a travel industry that is no doubt in search of any good news.

Citation

Read the official announcement:

More Choice for Travelers with Free Hotel Booking Links

Searchenginejournal.com

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FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

Published

1 month ago

March 20, 2024

Max

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

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NEWS

We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Published

1 year ago

March 20, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Investors who have invested in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock have reaped significant benefits from the company’s robust financial performance over the last five years. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market has been a key driver of the company’s consistent revenue growth and impressive profit margins.

In addition, Google has expanded its operations into related fields such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These areas show great promise as future growth drivers, making them increasingly attractive to investors. Notably, Alphabet’s stock price has been rising due to investor interest in the company’s recent initiatives in the fast-developing field of artificial intelligence (AI), adding generative AI features to Gmail and Google Docs.

However, when it comes to predicting the future pricing of a corporation like Google, there are many factors to consider. With this in mind, Finbold turned to the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to suggest a likely pricing range for GOOG stock by 2030. Although the tool was unable to give a definitive price range, it did note the following:

“Over the long term, Google has a track record of strong financial performance and has shown an ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As such, it’s reasonable to expect that Google’s stock price may continue to appreciate over time.”

GOOG stock price prediction

While attempting to estimate the price range of future transactions, it is essential to consider a variety of measures in addition to the AI chat tool, which includes deep learning algorithms and stock market experts.

Finbold collected forecasts provided by CoinPriceForecast, a finance prediction tool that utilizes machine self-learning technology, to anticipate Google stock price by the end of 2030 to compare with ChatGPT’s projection.

According to the most recent long-term estimate, which Finbold obtained on March 20, the price of Google will rise beyond $200 in 2030 and touch $247 by the end of the year, which would indicate a 141% gain from today to the end of the year.

2030 GOOG price prediction: Source: CoinPriceForecast

Google has been assigned a recommendation of ‘strong buy’ by the majority of analysts working on Wall Street for a more near-term time frame. Significantly, 36 analysts of the 48 have recommended a “strong buy,” while seven people have advocated a “buy.” The remaining five analysts had given a ‘hold’ rating.

1679313229 737 We asked ChatGPT what will be Google GOOG stock price — *Wall Street GOOG 12-month price prediction: Source: TradingView*

The average price projection for Alphabet stock over the last three months has been $125.32; this objective represents a 22.31% upside from its current price. It’s interesting to note that the maximum price forecast for the next year is $160, representing a gain of 56.16% from the stock’s current price of $102.46.

While the outlook for Google stock may be positive, it’s important to keep in mind that some potential challenges and risks could impact its performance, including competition from ChatGPT itself, which could affect Google’s price.

Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.

NEWS

This Apple Watch app brings ChatGPT to your wrist — here’s why you want it

Published

1 year ago

March 10, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

ChatGPT feels like it is everywhere at the moment; the AI-powered tool is rapidly starting to feel like internet connected home devices where you are left wondering if your flower pot really needed Bluetooth. However, after hearing about a new Apple Watch app that brings ChatGPT to your favorite wrist computer, I’m actually convinced this one is worth checking out.

The new app is called watchGPT and as I tipped off already, it gives you access to ChatGPT from your Apple Watch. Now the $10,000 question (or more accurately the $3.99 question, as that is the one-time cost of the app) is why having ChatGPT on your wrist is remotely necessary, so let’s dive into what exactly the app can do.

What can watchGPT do?

Now if you need a quick refresher on ChatGPT in general, you can read our handy guide answering what is ChatGPT, but in short the artificial intelligence (AI) tool understands and responds to natural language questions based on its vast trove of knowledge gleaned from around the web. Now that can be applied in lots of different ways, to answer questions for you or produce written content based around a prompt.

That core functionality of ChatGPT is a big part of what you can do with watchGPT, quickly accessing it through a complication on your watch. Imagine an actually useful version of Siri on your wrist, that’s what watchGPT promises. Whether the answers are incredibly helpful or completely off-the-wall (which happens), you can easily share the results of your chats over text, email, or on social media (internet celebrity here you come).

The other major use case for watchGPT is generating longer messages quickly on your watch without trying to type with the built-in keyboard or relying on the at times questionable dictation results. Tell watchGPT the type of message you want and it will just write it for you, whether that’s a sonnet for your spouse or a lengthy explanation to your boss on why you are going to be in late this morning.

The app doesn’t store any data, so your watchGPT questions and prompts are yours alone unless you share them with people.

The developer is at work on a number of updates as well. At present you can only pose a single question/prompt at a time, typically the conversational nature of ChatGPT is part of its appeal, that will be possible in the next update. Other updates include a history, the ability to set it to vocal input by default, and the option to have its responses read out loud.

For a one-time fee of $3.99 it’s certainly an interesting application for ChatGPT and one that I think is worth giving a try.

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(Image credit: Modum B.V.)

How to get ChatGPT on your Apple Watch

Just download watchGPT from the App Store (opens in new tab) and you’ll be on your way. Again the app allows you to set it up as a complication for easier access, but otherwise just ask it your question or ask it to type something out for you and it will quickly get the job done.

While ChatGPT may feel omnipresent already, we are still just seeing the tip of the iceberg for its potential usage, so we’ll be keeping our eye out for any unique or interesting applications of the versatile AI tool.