Industry News

The Google AdSense forum has begun lighting up with publishers complaining that their AdSense ads are no longer showing up on their web sites. There seems to be hundreds...

I remember my father building some innovative plastics blow molding machines where he added a central processing control device to the machines so that all adjustable controls could be changed from one place. He would have loved seeing what is...

The chatter and discussions around a Google search algorithm update is pretty strong this morning in the ongoing WebmasterWorld forums. It is very early on the chatter side...

Questionable use of stock photography aside, Colin Lernell’s Is the Product Requirements Document Dead? A Debate. brings up some interesting points. I’ve long argued that if you do it right, a good “product spec” is essential to successful product management and development. We’ve come a long way since the original concept of a 45-page PRD that no one reads (not even the person who wrote it). The format has evolved as we’ve grown accustomed to leaner development processes.

One of Colin’s...

In the past 24 to 48 hours I have been noticing an uptick in SEO and webmaster chatter around a possible Google search algorithm and ranking update...

I find teams generally do a good job of thinking of the features that make up the core customer-facing functionality of their project. It’s the non-customer-facing features that tend to be forgotten.

— James Hood on why software project estimates are so often wrong, from Plan All of the Things!

Gary Illyes from Google was asked about why he didn't mention links in his desktop to mobile comparison tool post. He said that is because it is "close to impossible for you to check which links are actually deemed critical...

There is essentially two ways to improve at your job. You either get better at the things you should be doing, or you learn to stop doing the things you shouldn’t be doing. We tend to spend a lot of time and effort on the first aspect—and for good reason. It’s absolutely essential to keep learning. But lately I’ve been consumed with that second part. Day in and day out, at the most inconvenient times, the same question jumped into my head:

What are the biggest mistakes I’ve been...

Google seems to have made a switch a few days ago where on mobile search they are now likely to serve featured snippets from pages that are powered by AMP. @thefke and @glenngabe were one of the first to notice this and I am able to replicate it...

I should start by stating the obvious: I like technology and phones, and I think it’s essential for kids to be exposed to it so that they can be prepared for the future ahead. That said, despite its click-bait title, Jean Twenge’s Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? really got to me. She studied how teens tend to spend their time, and how it affects their mental health, and came to some alarming conclusions:

More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s...