Google Grants Cannabis Group $240,000 in AdWords Money

Google’s got $5 on it … er, make that $240,000. This is according to last week’s announcement from medical cannabis nonprofit Michigan Compassion. In its announcement, the nonprofit said $240,000 in AdWords grants had been given by the Google Grants program.

If you’re unfamiliar with Google Grants, it’s the nonprofit version of AdWords launched in 2003, which allows participating nonprofits to spend up to $10,000 per month in grants on AdWords.

The grant for Michigan Compassion advertising doesn’t seem to fit neatly within any of Google’s AdWords policies. According to its guidelines, there are certain restrictions on prescription drugs and even tobacco, but since Michigan Compassion is not a direct retailer for prescription marijuana, rather an organization dedicated to the awareness of the benefits of medical cannabis, the guidelines could be different.

It looks as though an organization like this could be given the same allowances that say, vaporizers are in AdWords. While Google does not allow the direct sale of drug paraphernalia, it does allow the sale of vaporizers “when promoted as a humidifier or as an aromatherapy device to relieve respiratory symptoms.”

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We reached out to Google for some clarification on the grant and any restrictions that ads from Michigan Compassion might have. Google did not comment on the matter, but we were curious about a few things:

• Will ads from Michigan Compassion be assigned a family status or non-family status?
• Will ads be targeted only to Michigan or also to other states allowing medical marijuana?
• How does Google distinguish between the promotion of tobacco versus promotion of cannabis in AdWords?

We do know that advertisers participating in Google Grants will be given a lower priority in the results. In a January post on Search Engine Watch, Amman Badlani talked about recent changes to the Google Grants program, which would place all ads from grants below the ads of traditional AdWords advertisers.

If you’re thinking about applying for the program, Badlani gives several tips in that article on how to maximize the value of grants your organization receives.

We’ll update you if and when we hear back from Google or Michigan Compassion on the AdWords grant.

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Google Fights U.S. Government Over FISA Order Data

Google has filed a legal challenge to the U.S. government, demanding the right to reveal more information on the data requests it receives in the latest twist in the PRISM scandal.

Since news of PRISM broke earlier this month, tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter have said they would like to reveal more about the requests they receive from the government, and what they provide, in order to prove to wary customers that they remain transparent businesses.

Google has now taken this further by filing a case against the U.S. government, and specifically the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court asking for this right.

“Google’s reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media, and Google’s users are concerned by the allegations,” it said in the filing. “Google must respond to such claims with more than generalities. Moreover, these are matters of significant weight and importance, and transparency is critical to advancing public debate in a thoughtful and democratic manner.”

The search giant cited the first amendment on the U.S. Constitution as the basis for its argument.

“In particular, Google seeks a declaratory judgment that Google has a right under the First Amendment to publish, and that no applicable law or regulation prohibits Google from publishing, two aggregate unclassified numbers: (1) the total number of FISA requests it receives, if any; and (2) the total number of users or accounts encompassed within such requests.”

Google gave some more insight into its rationale for the case in a post on its Google+ page, explaining that it believes a divide is needed between the type of data it can reveal:

We have long pushed for transparency so users can better understand the extent to which governments request their data – and Google was the first company to release numbers for National Security Letters. Lumping national security requests together with criminal requests – as some companies have been permitted to do – would be a backward step for our users.

The filing came a day after President Obama said all the data collection undertaken by the U.S. was “transparent” but that he was considering declassifying some elements of the process to provide more clarity.

This article was originally published on V3.

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Google Settles Stock Split Lawsuit

Google has settled an investor lawsuit that paves the way for it to issue Class C shares.

Google announced its intention to issue Class C stock last year, however the Brockton Retirement Board and shareholder Philip Skidmore sued the firm, claiming that the firm’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page engineered the stock split in order to keep control of the firm. Google has now settled the lawsuit before the case was about to go to trial in a Delaware court.

Google’s rocketing share price that currently stands above $850 highlights the demand for the firm’s stock, but diluting the Class B stock would mean that Brin and Page would also lose some of their voting influence in the company as the pair own over 50 percent of all Class B shares, with each share having 10 votes per share. Page and Brin therefore wanted to issue Class C shares, which would carry no voting rights.

Google’s legal agreement stipulates that the firm will have to pay Class C stockholders if the shares are worth less than the price of the Class A shares. The firm has also agreed that if the Class C shares are between one and five percent lower than the Class A shares it will offer a percentage of the difference to Class C shareholders in cash or additional shares.

Despite Brin and Page having founded Google, with various early investors taking a chunk of the firm, they have only around 15 percent of Class A shares. Page and Brin want to keep control of Google, but because it is a public company the only way they can do so is by keeping significant voting rights through Class B stock ownership.

With Google seemingly having overcome the hurdle posed by Brockton and Skidmore, the path now seems to be clear for it to issue new Class C shares.

This article was originally published on the Inquirer.

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SEO Game Change: Are You Setting the Right Expectations?

Since I happen to be starting this post during warm-ups for a company softball game, I can’t help but tie it in. Maybe there’s an analogy here about everyone playing their own position or a parallel between teamwork in a game and teamwork in SEO. But tonight I have a bit more of a personal perspective.

See, I suck at softball. But I still play because it’s fun.

Before I joined the team though, which was kind of an accident in the first place, I was completely honest with everyone about my athletic limitations. Why? To take on the same challenge with my team that I face every day with my clients: expectation management.

In SEO, like sports, there will be wins and losses stagnation and growth. And getting the most out of either usually comes down to your mindset going in.

Understanding the Playing Field

If you’re paying attention, you know the SEO game has changed. The rules are different; the arena has evolved to a place where in some ways we need to re-learn the fundamentals.

Rankings losses could be caused by plenty of things. It could be on-site issues or backlinks that made Google knock it down a few pegs. That’s typically the most common assumption. It makes sense and a little diminished ranking capacity will generally trigger that kind of introspection. It’s healthy, it’s good, and it usually helps you determine when the problem actually is on your end.

If you do a little research and get really honest with yourself, you’ll probably find some things in your backlinks that aren’t exactly authentic.

You may find a few places on your site where you went a little crazy stuffing a meta tag or creating pages for each keyword you want to rank for when the only conceptual difference is the presence of the word “cheap” vs the word “discount”.

If that’s your situation, your issues may be on you.

But sometimes they aren’t.

After you check yourself, if you’re struggling to find an answer, take a closer look at the landscape. You may find it’s a lot different than you remember it.

Who Moved the Mound?

Where you rank isn’t exclusively a result of what you’re doing yourself. It’s also about your competition, your market, Google’s own self-serving agenda and most of all; it’s about the end user.

You may be looking for victory or failures in the wrong place. It’s entirely possible that you’re trying to play softball in a hockey rink.

Right now, a lot of SEO feels like there’s a sheet of ice where the infield used to be. That part isn’t just you. A lot of things that used to work that aren’t working anymore; things that used to be beneficial are becoming detrimental. But that’s where we are, and we can’t ignore the new reality.

Tactics, spaces and lofty keyword goals may need to be abandoned or at least re-prioritized because they just aren’t feasible now. New and challenging integrated marketing plans may need to be explored. Because when you see the Zamboni… it’s probably time to move on.

So if you can’t play your old way in the new space, look for the right venue or strap on some skates, because it’s a different game now and we need to get used to it.

Recognizing a Win or a Loss

When everything is new, learning to identify a gain or a setback can be problematic. When your big traffic driving keywords slip, it’s easy to dwell on the loss.

It’s easy to blame the Googernaut for its maniacal machinations. It’s not as easy to accept that you may just be out of your league when it’s made up of variety and big names that Google trusts and users recognize. So if that’s actually the case, you’re better off looking for a field you can play on now rather than fuming on the bench.

The old metrics may not apply in the same way. It’s not that you’d ever throw out things like traffic or rankings altogether, but your competition may have changed and the ways you calculate a score are a little bit different.

Reviewing more diverse sources of traffic may have to be a much bigger part of your strategy now. You may have a wider scope of rankings to review and the glass ceiling may have been lowered on certain phrases altogether.

Building real back links, industry authority, brand reputation and expanding the scope of your content have got to be a bigger part of the plan now. But that also means that you have more chances to find victories.

It’s Still a Good Game

To bring this full circle, after explaining the high probability of my failure to the softball team, they seemed to have the right expectation for my performance. They didn’t plan on me hitting a double; they knew I wasn’t going to do a split to catch a pop-up foul like Geena Davis in “A League of Their Own”.

So when I did make contact, in what I guess you’d call a swinging bunt, everyone was really surprised and happy. No one more than me. Because, I still suck at softball – I crowd the plate, can’t field, and I usually need to lie down for a minute in the unusual event I do make it around all three bases.

So we celebrate those little wins.

I’d never tell anyone anything is impossible in SEO. But if we’re being realistic, you may not be hitting home runs any more. But that’s OK, three singles will still bring a runner home.

It’s not that anything is out of reach, but if you’ve had a New York Yankees-esque winning season based on bad practices then you’ve been playing on borrowed time for a while. In the new game calling a win is all about having the right expectations. It’s when all of the little things add up and all of the hours of collaboration start to bring in results.

There’s no reason why each incremental step forward shouldn’t be considered a step in the right direction or at the very least an insight into a bigger opportunity or an area for further study. It’s all in having the right expectations about how you look at what constitutes a win.

Oh and speaking of which, tonight, we won.

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Seize The Data: 5 Ways To Leverage Big Data for Social Media & Search

Carpe diem! Time is money and the clock is ticking in the race to acquire, decipher and leverage data. Despite the saturation of coverage over “big data” in recent months, many brands are struggling to figure out when and how, exactly, to ride the data wave.

Data is useful to every aspect of business. However, data is, and will increasingly become, especially powerful to those seeking to leverage search, social, mobile, local, video, marketing and emerging technology, to compete and earn more market share.

Big data is a term often associated with Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. These enterprises may have greater resources to invest into the collection and analysis of data. However, data will be equally important to those seeking to grow the small business or medium enterprise.

Big Data Means Business

Effective use of data will likely determine the winners and losers in every sector of the economy. For example, some analysts predict that big data could increase retail margins by 60 percent.

The retail sector appears to be the most obvious benefactor of big data, given the abundance of information conveyed during commerce transactions. However, every sector of the marketplace stands to benefit from the plethora of data being generated. It simply requires quality data, quality queries and the ability to act on findings.

Value of Data Is In the Eye of the Beholder

Big data analysis, known in its earlier life as data-mining, is most useful when it can be applied to decisions that direct business strategy, operations, relationships, human resources, sales, marketing, tax liability, etc. for greater productivity, effectiveness, and profitability.

Just as each business is slightly unique, the value of data will vary according to what the data will be used to accomplish. Let’s hone in on the use of data in the context of e-business, social media, search and digital marketing.

Never Turn Your Back on the Wave

The growth of data is like a tsunami. Like the ocean, a word to the wise is to never turn your back on the ever-growing sea of data.

Image credit: EMC

Big Data Predictions:

• Number of “files” or containers of information within the digital universe is expected to grow 75 percent between 2011 and 2021. Source: EMC
• The volume of data produced is expected to be 44 times greater in 2020 than it was in 2009. Source: Computer Services Corp

The Rise of Unstructured Data (Social Media)

Commonly known to most as photos, videos and social media, “unstructured data”, has pushed the creation of non-relational databases. After 40 years of structured data analysis, the rise of unstructured data relies on the data to reveal the relationships inherent to the data, rather than parsing data through pre-determined filters.

Organic search is widely recognized as one of the most effective methods to leverage data to reach new customers. The value of social media and unstructured data has clearly been on the radar of search engines for some time.

For years I have been emphasizing awareness of the social and search community of a statement Google made in 2008 that Google’s ‘intel inside’ was data, rather than search. The emphasis of unstructured data by search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo is reinforced by their emphasis on the relationship of social data to websites and domains.

What does this mean to the average business owner, marketer, or SEO? Brands must proactively participate in the creation of, and interaction with, unstructured data (social, video, photos, etc.). Those who fail to use data to connect with target audiences can expect to face an uphill battle in the competition for visibility in organic search.

The Power of One

Seventy-five percent of data stored is created by individuals. According to Cisco, consumer online traffic (vs. business) accounts for 91 percent of all Internet traffic, 77 percent of mobile data traffic, and 80 percent of managed IP traffic.

That means you, your customers, employees, investors, reviewers, bloggers, reporters are responsible for generating the bulk of this data. Data generated by the activity of individuals will undoubtedly provide valuable insights to those willing to mine it.

Understanding what your customers are seeking, how they are looking for it, talking about it, scoring it, comparing it and sharing it is invaluable to the social, search or digital professional.

Analysis is Key

Data analysis is as much an art as it is a science. The 2011 movie “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt, tells the story of how Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane shuns the mainstream methods to scout and fill a major league baseball team roster, and instead uses data to an algorithm called sabermetrics to qualify players to build a winning team.

The A’s have yet to win the World Series since this method was deployed, but have come close. The point is, human interpretation is not exacting, especially when you are analyzing human behavior and performance.

Big data enables the prediction of behavior by allowing patterns in metadata to emerge from the data, rather than placing the data into structured databases. The emergence of unstructured data analysis will likely reveal patterns that may have eluded brands in the past.

Only after you understand who your target audience is, where they spend their time, what resonates with them, and how to craft an offer they can’t refuse can you identify and leverage opportunities to encourage behavior proven to yield results.

The quality of analysis can only be as good as the quality data, and the ability to view data through quality filters. You must ask good questions in order to get good answers.

Data Can Be Controversial

The collection of some data has come under scrutiny recently. As the United States debates government use of consumer metadata, a recent Boston Globe post by Farah Stockman illuminates how data can be used to make predictions, citing a joke that the FBI investigates pizza places because “People in hiding tend to have food delivered, and make a lot of calls for pizza.” It may be funny. Yet, the correlation may be accurate.

Providing you take into consideration privacy, intellectual property and legal implications, there is much to gain from the collection and application of data from a variety of sources.

Unstructured Data and Search

Unstructured data is expected to explode to epic proportions from all accounts. Coincidentally, Google, Bing and Yahoo are placing greater emphasis on individuals and the unstructured data they create, specifically identifying content and social media. So, what can you do to leverage data sources, today?

5 Ways to Tap Into Data, Today

1. Google Trends

One of the easiest ways to demonstrate a trend is to use Google Trends. Google Trends recently received validation as a predictor in the financial sector.

I’m not suggesting you use Google Trends to begin trading or investing in the market. However, with this validation comes confidence that Google Trends delivers accurate, timely insights on behavior.

Social, search, marketing, PR and advertising professionals seeking ways to better frame content, data and offers can use Google Trends to craft communications and content according what people are talking about, the way they are talking about it. This is a contender for those seeking to identify long-tail SEO keywords.

2. APIs and Mashups

Big data is all about leveraging data around the behavior of individuals. Forty-six percent of Internet users post original photos and/or videos online. This unstructured data has become social currency, organically elevating the visibility of those who are active in publishing such data.

In direct correlation with the anticipated expansion of this data, the opportunities to glean actionable insight will also expand. Add to this the emphasis of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks on data shared by individuals, and you have the key to the data kingdom.

APIs and mashups offer access to invaluable data. Many of the most popular social platforms make their data freely available through API’s. These include social giants Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Visit ProgrammableWeb.com to explore the wealth of data available.

3. Communicate Intelligence With Data Visualization Tools

Data becomes actionable when decision-makers can interpret data and make informed decisions. There are plenty of ways to interpret data without a big budget. Applications like Tableau transform data from various formats like Excel into a visual that can be published online. An application like this can be highly effective in expanding on the limited visualization that Google Analytics offers to communicate website statistical data related to SEO, content marketing, etc.

Computerworld featured a list of free data visualization tools that may help you clean up, analyze and/or visualize the data.

Image Credit: Computerworld

4. Download and Manage Social Connections

In addition to publishing data, brands who embrace the data created by individuals, such as customers, bloggers, reviewers, media, etc. will become organically connected to that topic, as well as the person and those they are connected to, and influence; what I often refer to as “spheres of influence.”

To achieve this, you must first master your own list. Whether you maintain them in Excel, Outlook, or within a CRM system, it’s imperative to be proactive in exporting, downloading, and managing human relationships. All relationships are important to the sustainable business, including:

• Customers
• Vendors
• VARs
• Investors
• Employees
• Media
• Fans
• Other relationships related to the brand

Using tools, such as those identified above, to identify trends in interests, geographic location, common affiliations, shared connections, etc. amplify the value of relationships you have worked so hard to establish and cultivate over time.

5. Embrace Data Now!

If you’re actively working on any digital aspect of a brand without the benefit of data, you’re working in a vacuum. The digital age hasn’t eliminated the need to keep an ear to the ground to identify trends and opportunities. Now, more than ever, data will play a vital role in every aspect of business.

Bottom Line

Data always has been a goldmine for marketers of all walks (strategy, social, search, SEO, PPC, PR, etc.). However, it’s safe to say that the anticipated growth of data and emerging use of unstructured data are game-changers.

Those who recognize and embrace the power of this mountain of data early on stand to reap the rewards while competitors attempt to decipher exactly how they became so successful.

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No. 1 Position in Google Gets 33% of Search Traffic [Study]

New findings from online ad network Chitika confirm it’s anything but lonely at the top. According to the study, the top listing in Google’s organic search results receives 33 percent of the traffic, compared to 18 percent for the second position, and the traffic only degrades from there:

For the top 10 results, Chitika found:

A similar study by the Chitika team back in 2010 showed comparable results, and Chitika suggests the findings validate the importance of SEO for online businesses.

“While being the number one result on a Google search results page is obviously important, these numbers show just how big of an advantage websites of this type have over any competitors listed below them. The importance of SEO for online business is seemingly quantified by these latest statistics, which, judging by their similarity to those observed as part of the 2010 study, are not likely to change significantly in the near future.”

For many, it’ll come as no surprise that the findings also showed a significant drop in traffic from Page 1 to Page 2 results. Page 1 results garnered 92 percent of all traffic from the average search, with traffic dropping off by 95 percent for Page 2.

And whether you’re on Page 1 or Page 4, Chitika reports the top position consistently sees more traffic than others on the page. On Pages 2, 3 and 4, traffic dropped by 27 percent, 11.3 percent and 5.4 percent respectively from the first position to second position.

For this study, Chitika examined tens of millions of online ad impressions where the user was referred to the page via a Google search. Chitika says that from the referring Google URL, the study was able to extract the position the page was on within the prior search results page.

For more information on Chitika’s methodology for this study, you can download the full report here.

Interpreting Rankings and Traffic Data

Rankings as the sole indicator of SEO success are only as important as the traffic they drive. And even though rankings for a particular query may waver in the search results from one user to the next, data shows time and time again that the top positions are winning.

Compete.com last year released a study that showed 53 percent of organic search clicks go to the first link.

And a 2011 study by Slingshot SEO showed the No. 1 organic position in Google received 18.2 percent of clicks, with the second position at 10.05 percent and the third at 7.22 percent.

Understanding what any one ranking means to your SEO campaign in terms of traffic and conversions is the key to unlocking that ranking’s value. So while studies like these can be important in educating stakeholders for buy-in, use the data wisely.

Work to understand the methodology of these types of studies, and use your own expert insight to extract how this data can reinforce the work you’re doing as a marketer.

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Blekko Brings Izik Search to iPhone, Android With New ‘What’s Nearby’ Feature

You may remember the launch of Izik in January, which brought users tablet-friendly search courtesy of Blekko that’s geared toward gesture-controlled navigation and image-focused results. Now the Izik experience is tailored to and available for all smartphone users.

Blekko’s Izik app organizes useful information tailored to those on the go. In its announcement, Blekko illustrated a scenario where Izik search would be ideal: looking for movie information.

“You want to know a movie’s plot, its cast, critical reviews, pictures, video clips, recent news about the movie and more. You’re looking for multiple pieces of information on the movie and need a tool that organizes search results into categories to help you find what you need quickly and painlessly, and without clicking through multiple tiny blue links.”

Blekko says many of the features on the tablet app are available for iPhone and Android smartphone users, but recognizes that the intent behind mobile and tablet usage varies.

“While tablets are more focused on media consumption around the home and office, mobile phones serve more as a tool to help you on the go, while also helping pass the time in line at the supermarket and post office,” Blekko said.

Keeping that in mind, Blekko added the “what’s nearby” feature for mobile. This feature helps users find popular local establishments close to them if the user’s location is shared with the app.

This release is just one of many recent moves that shows Blekko is continuing to re-imagine the search experience. Not too long ago, Blekko announced a new look and feel for its search engine results that redefined the SERP “norm.”

For a demonstration of what the Izik tablet app looks like in action, check out this video:

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Google: Improve Your Site’s Rank by Building High-Quality Sites, Not Links

For years webmasters have been following one of SEO’s golden rules: get lots of quality backlinks in order to help your site get top rankings on Google. And over the past couple years this is become a lot more tricky as Google began penalizing sites with poor quality backlinks.

As a result, many webmasters have shifted a lot of their work from link building to creating quality content that visitors want to share, and now Google has updated their Ranking help article to reflect exactly this.

First spotted by Erik Baemlisberger, the article now states:

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.

Previously, the article stated:

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.

For those who despise link building, and the negative SEO aspect of competitors pointing bad links to websites, the fact that Google is putting greater emphasis on sites that users want to use and share will be good news to many webmasters.

It also isn’t surprising that Google wants to put that emphasis on the sharing aspect as well, particularly with Google+ and how it interacts with searchers who are logged into their Google account. I believe aspects of this will be given greater weight in the search algorithm, at least until the spammers figure out how to exploit it on a large scale.

Google’s Matt Cutts not long ago signalled this shift, when he mentioned that putting too great of an emphasis on link building is one of the top 5 basic SEO mistakes.

“I wouldn’t put too much of a tunnel vision focus on just links,” Cutts said. “I would try to think instead about what I can do to market my website to make it more well known within my community, or more broadly, without only thinking about search engines.”

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New in AdWords: Add Descriptions to Sitelinks

Google AdWords is introducing another new feature to encourage advertisers to convert their campaigns to enhanced campaigns. Google is now allowing advertisers to nominate specific text that will display for their sitelink descriptions within their ads. 

Back in February 2012, Google began showing sitelinks displaying additional detail on some Google AdWords advertisements. This was pulled from other ads in the count or for those advertisers who created sitelink information within their My Client Center.

Now, Google’s allowing advertisers to specify, or nominate, the specific text advertisers would like to appear for their sitelink descriptions. This gives advertisers much more control over what is appearing on their enhanced advertisements and to be specific about what text they would like to appear.

For example, here’s how the new sitelink details look on a search for [ses san francisco]:

This is pretty important for advertisers to consider, since Google has found that click-through rates on ads that appear with sitelinks with further detail are much higher than traditional AdWords ads. They also states that the sitelinks offer additional detail that searchers often find more useful and relevant.

If you haven’t upgraded to enhance campaigns, the option will not be active until those campaigns have been upgraded. All upgraded campaigns will now find a new description field when creating or editing a sitelink.

It is worth noting that not all advertisers will see sitelink extensions due to a variety of reasons such as quality score, positioning, landing page quality, other ad extensions within the same campaign, search terms used, and the relevance of competitor’s ads on the same page.

With all campaigns being upgraded to enhance campaigns on July 22, it is worthwhile to start upgrading accounts now and take advantage of the new sitelinks before all advertisers have it enabled and competition for those sitelinks being displayed becomes much greater.

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Facebook Reveals a New Way to Share 15 Second Videos on Instagram

The rumors were flying leading up to a mysterious announcement at Facebook headquarters this morning, made even more mysterious by some “snail mail” invites sent out to reporters in advance:

Image Credit: Joanna Stern/ABC News

And at least one of the rumors was true. Today, Facebook and Instagram announced video on Instagram for iPhone and Android. Now, users can record and share 15 seconds of mobile video with basic editing features.

“Fast, simple and beautiful” was the theme of today’s announcement and words uttered more than once by Instagram’s co-founder Kevin Systrom.

Video is a complex thing, Systrom said, so in order for it to good enough for Instagram, it had to be perfect. That quest for perfection is one of the reasons why video wasn’t included in Instagram’s original launch, he said, because from Day 1, they wanted Instagram to be the best in speed, simplicity, and beauty.

While those core principles haven’t changed for the company, the technology and the team has.

At the announcement, we learned the Instagram team is triple the size it was a year ago. With that, Instagram is now able to offer the following video functionality to its mobile users:

• Record 15 seconds of video, clip by clip.
• Edit out and the clips you don’t want or re-record them.
• Choose from 13 new visual filters exclusively to video.
• Anti-shake function that stabilizes mobile video called “cinema.”
• Select a cover frame for your video thumbnail from the clip.
• Share on Facebook and on an Instagram Web profile.

A total of 16 billion photos have been shared on Instagram, there are 1 billion likes each day and 130 million users monthly.

Systrom said the community is what makes Instagram different, and with the new video app, Instagram allows that community to create even more beautiful content to capture the world’s moments.

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