Dave’s just read on the Telegraph that Google now has 1 billion unique visitors – and I thought Facebook had a bigger userbase! According to the ComScore report cited on the Telegraph, this is how the top few companies break down:

Google over 1000 million (1 billion) unique visitors (8.4% up year on year)
Microsoft 905 million unique visitors (15% up year on year)
Facebook 714 million unique visitors (30% up year on year)
Yahoo 689 million unique visitors (11% up year on year)

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This title is a bit of a shocker, but it’s true, but before I can explain it fully you need to hear the background to my story.

Back in December 2010 I bought a website off Anthony, the website is called Cockatiel Care, it’s a terrible looking static site that for some reason had been earning around £20-30 a month on AdSense for the past 5 years.

I asked how much Anthony wanted for it, and he said the figure I had in mind, £300 – so we did the deal and I got the website later that week. After getting the website I basically did the following:

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The internet has always been a place for the open exploration of all things good, bad and ugly but it seems that that right could soon be made obsolete for many users as governments step up their bids to reduce the openness of the online world, keeping search results firmly enclosure behind a virtual wall of censorship.

The internet has become a platform in which free expression, open opinions and innovation have been displayed across the globe, sparking a whole new level of debate in relation to the ability to reveal both positive and negative thoughts on the biggest stage possible.

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If you want to see the future (or, more depressingly, the present) of media circle jerking and thin content shills, you can do a lot worse than check out the ‘sexy mps’ website. Frankly, I’m not going to grace it with a link. The BBC breathlessly notes that the owner Francis Boulle, “the entrepreneur who’s appeared on reality show Made in Chelsea”, Tweeted out that everyone should “make this go viral” and duly obliged by making it a lead ‘news’ story on the BBC site.

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Google announced yesterday their new mobile payments offering, Google Wallet.

Basically it is a mobile phone payments system for Android mobiles, which has been launched in conjunction with Citi, MasterCard, FirstData and Sprint.

The advantages for the end user are obvious – carry less cash, simply swipe your phone and save time. For businesses, they can operate loyalty programs and gain the data directly from Google Wallet – great news for smaller companies who can’t afford the infrastructure they would require to do this.

Some of the companies that will accept Google Wallet include Subway, Toys R Us and Foot Locker.

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This has been a real bug bear of mine for some time now, today the EU cookie law was meant to come into force – and low and behold, nothing.

The only site I have seen asking explicit permission for storing cookies prior to placing a cookie is – well, nobody. The ICO website actually places a session cookie without asking – why? I’m not sure, it doesn’t seem absolutely necessary unless I was to tick the box saying I accept cookies!!! It’s not like I’m going to login or add any EU directives to some fictional shopping cart. So ICO, why the “necessary” cookie?

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Google have placed all of their comparison services under one name, Google Advisor. This appears to the next in a series of moves by Google to squeeze comparison sites such as Money Super Market and Compare The Market (maybe they hate their adverts?). We blogged about how Google acquired Beat That Quote, and there was much speculation at the time over the reason – Dave now believes it will have been to attain the existing agreements Beat That Quote had with various companies.

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Google is making a conscious effort to improve its market research tools, this is great news. One such tool is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool – they’ve made improvements to make it more accurate at estimating traffic you’ll get if you add it to an AdWords campaign.

Not only have they improved the traffic estimates but they have also started releasing some very useful information through a new offering called Google Think Insights. It has a load of useful market research on there, here’s a great video they have produced on Smartphone usage (makes you think – so many people haven’t got a mobile version of their site yet):

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