Google is now rolling out the new image search design for desktop, as announced at the company’s 20th anniversary event on Monday. The new desktop design features much of what Google launched back in March with the new mobile image design changes, including captions on images, the URL of the image and new filter bubbles at the top. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Facebook has officially launched Stories Ads on the Facebook platform, making the ad units available to all advertisers globally. These new ad units will include Facebook’s full ad targeting and measurement capabilities — and, soon, will be available in Messenger as well. [Source: Marketing Land]
Snap Inc. has this week announced a range of new Snapchat ad tools and options, mostly aimed at driving direct response, and guiding Snapchat users through to purchases direct from the app. [Source: Social Media Today]
To the the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Google has announced a range of updates to its search tools, each with varying degrees of SEO relevance. [Source: Social Media Today]
Facebook has launched a smart speaker called Portal. The two versions from Facebook would retail for a max of $400. The underlying voice architecture will be powered by Amazon Alexa and will be available in two different sizes. [Source: Logicserve Digital]
Google has been using a technique called neural matching to better understand synonyms, which is said to impact 30% of queries. [Source: Search Engine Journal]
Slowly but surely, Google is expanding its portfolio of travel offerings that now range from hotel- and flight-booking services to trip planning tools. Now, it’s launching yet another set of new travel features that focus on travel planning and hotel bookings. [Source: TechCrunch]
Facebook has announced two new video ad buying options to help both businesses and publishers capitalize on the potential of video during the 2018 holiday season. [Source: Social Media Today]
Google is now using artificial intelligence to “intelligently construct” AMP stories for search. These new AMP stories appear in knowledge panels in search results for actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Google announced the launch of three new measurement features for Google’s enterprise-level ad buying platform Display & Video 360 (previously known as DoubleClick Bid Manager). All three are now rolling out globally. [Source: Marketing Land]
