Google

‘Content is king’ as the old maxim goes and whilst there’s still an infinite amount of truth in that statement, the intriguing sub-plot that developed over the past decade or so could perhaps be framed as ‘visibility is a close second’.

Many a beautifully scripted site bearing gifts of great content has got lost in the vast, cacophonous sea of information that is the internet.

From early paid link schemes, through unnatural links to the frowned-upon ‘carpet-bombing’ practises of Link Farms, there’s been an ongoing search for new and improved ways to optimise website rankings.

The algorithms used in search engines have long been the subject of much keen analysis (and equally keen tinkering with a view to manipulating) but the latest phase in online behemoth, Google’s development intends to restore some much-needed transparency and trust to the SEO process with Google+ Authorship Markup.

Last week Chinwag were lucky enough to be joined by Korea's top tech talent, the winners of the Google's Global K-Startup competition. The five lucky startups were treated to a week's tour of London's digital industry, including market briefings, pitch training, agency meetings, incubator tours and roundtables with industry experts. 

On Monday the group took a tour of the ever-expanding Tech City, organised by TCIO and Friday saw the group spend the day with some of the startups based at Campus London at TechHub, Seedcamp and Springboard. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were left in the capable hands of Chinwag's team.

So take a look at what they got up to...

South Korea: the most connected country on the planet. 100Mbps broadband is the norm (N.B. UK government, that is super-fast). The economy is growing at 6.1% and local industry giant Samsung has a combined turnover is larger than Apple, Google & Microsoft combined.

That infrastructure would make any startup’s mouth water. Just imagine the possibilities? Luckily, we don’t have to, Chinwag is delighted to welcome the winners of Google for Entrepreneur’s Global K-Startup program to London. The group are coming to London 5-9th Nov and we’re chuffed to be working with Google to show them the best of the city.

And there's two opportunities to meet, greet, network and find out more about the companies and the digital market in South Korea.

In the boring old real ‘analogue’ world, ideas of authorship and authority naturally sit together. Over time we work out who is talking sense and who is full of hot air.

While I can work on simple hypotheses like ‘if this is written by Melanie Phillips it is almost certainly ghastly rubbish’, a search engine like Google has to calculate authority through a dense mix of keyword density, social cues, link quality, time on page, speed of hitting the back button, etc, etc.

That’s hard work - which is why Google is now starting to account for authorship in its algorithm. It is identifying content by author, and is starting to calculate the authority of different authors. So all things being equal, if Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver are both writing about breakfast, the author with the highest authority will rank higher and (cue drumroll) bring home the bacon.

With 180+ events taking place across London, it can sometimes be a little difficult to navigate and get between events. To aid this problem, this September we're introducing SMWLDN Hubs to London, where events topics and some of the best events will be grouped into venues during the week.

We're very excited to introduce five Hubs for this year's SMWLDN Sept '12 at some very cool venues, with more Hubs and their topics to be announced.

The hullaballoo surrounding Facebook's IPO, the eye-watering $100bn headlines and the subsequent bickering, has largely passed by the social giants' 901m users.

Last week's launch of the App Center could make a much bigger impression and may prove a canny move in answering criticism of Facebook's slow progress in monetising it's half-a-billion (yup, you read it right) active mobile users.

If the IPO critics are to be believed, the company's valuation and its future is all about advertising revenue, but the App Center launch launch hints at a longer-term strategy. If successful, it could establish Facebook at the heart of the app ecosystem, as well as seeing the coffers swell with mobile ad and targeting revenue.