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Take a look at these pandemic pastimes: I've never spent as much time at home as I have in the last year. Of course, I'm not the only one. Over the past year or so of quarantine, I've found myself searching for new things to do. I searched for cheesemaking when my kids asked me to play sous chef, and for bird watching and how to create container gardens when we started spending more time outside. Like so many people, I looked up recipes for baking bread. My quarantine ...search history feels like a bingo card for hobbies. This made me wonder what other people were searching for during the pandemic and how have these interests changed over time? To get an idea, we worked with design studio Polygraph (creators of The Pudding) to create a new interactive tool that allows us to dig deeper into what captivated our year of social distancing. With this new calendar view, you can see what hobbies and interests were trending on any specific day a year ago in the U.S. Each day reflects the topic that saw the greatest growth in search queries compared to one year prior. You can also learn more about a specific topic by visiting the Google Trends website. Hobbies in 2020 were compared to the search volume in 2019 to calculate percent growth. The hobby with the largest growth was featured on the respective day. Play with the tool here. Explore more by searching for specific hobbies in the calendar or click to select different dates and view what hobby was keeping us busy at that time last year. (It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one searching for needlepoint on April 8 last year.) You can even select a specific hobby and connect with helpful information on the Search results page. Google Trends provides a unique perspective of what we’re currently interested in and curious about. If I learned anything from using this new tool, it’s that we all have more in common than we might think. #Search

Privacy-first web advertising: a measurement update: In January, we shared how Google’s advertising teams have been evaluating the proposals in Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox, an open-source initiative to replace third-party cookies with viable privacy-first alternatives that can support the publishers and advertisers who help keep the web open and accessible. Today, we’re going to explain how the latest proposals in the Privacy Sandbox can solve for key conversion measurement use ...Continue reading

Stadia Savepoint: March updates: It’s time for another update to our Stadia Savepoint series, recapping the new games, features and changes for Stadia. In March, players took to the pitch in FIFA 21 and explored an open-world of a bizarre, over-the-top city in Saints Row: The Third Remastered. They raced high-octane cars in DIRT 5 and started their journey as a legendary hero in Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition. In addition to these March games...Continue reading

Will The Leading Edge Of VC Combine Private-Equity And Unicorn-Entrepreneurship?: The search for the "perfect" VC fund goes on. Have the founders of Juxtapose found it by combining the best of private-equity and unicorn-entrepreneurship? #Entrepreneurs #entrepreneurs #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness

New advanced TV insights from Google Ad Manager: Advanced TV viewership, or the usage of digital technology to watch TV content, continues to accelerate with new direct-to-consumer apps and free ad-supported TV services. To help our partners gain insight into how 2020 impacted advanced TV monetization trends, we're publishing our second annual Google Ad Manager advanced TV inventory report. This data can help you understand how viewers are watching your advanced TV content, w...hat opportunities exist to monetize this content, and where to focus your strategies to grow revenue. To uncover these insights, we analyzed 35 global advanced TV partners who use Google Ad Manager. This year’s report focuses on 2020 and is a bit different from our 2019 report. We specifically focused on advanced TV partners who have long-form and episodic commercial break inventory to ensure we only analyzed TV-like content. The report analyzes both live and on-demand video (VOD) content, and covers date ranges from Q3 2019 to Q4 2020. The report’s four sections tell a story of how last year’s conditions drove transitions that point toward the industry’s future: COVID-19 recoveryAs we all saw, in Q2 at the height of the downturn, advertisers pulled back from most channels including advanced TV. However, we found that one device type’s ad impressions grew even during the depths of Q2 Connected TV (CTV) remained resilient as viewers streamed more content during this time. Similarly, programmatic was also paramount during this time, declining much less than traditional reservations as it offered both publishers and advertisers increased flexibility. Viewership insightsIn 2020, more ads continued to be viewed on CTVs than any other device globally, but the environments where people are watching are changing. For example, in-app impressions showed significant gains in 2020 as more people moved towards over-the-top (OTT) streaming apps and adopted CTV devices. Transaction trendsTraditional reservations still led in 2020, but programmatic transactions grew faster, as advanced TV partners leaped at the opportunity to grow demand, improve efficiency and diversify their demand sources. Livestreaming performanceWhen the pandemic first hit, all live events froze. But as live sports started returning around midyear, advanced TV was there to serve fans who couldn’t attend in person, and live impressions grew much faster than VOD mostly on (yes, you guessed it) those big CTV screens. Advanced TV viewership, CTV devices, in-app impressions, programmatic deal types and live events were the lead stories for advanced TV monetization trends this past year. If you’re interested in a deeper dive, our 2020 Advanced TV Inventory Report takes a closer look at these insights, and what they suggest for the future. #GoogleAdManager

The Different Ways To Join The Ghost Franchise Trend: Allowing anyone to have a piece of the pie affords business owners the opportunity to diversify their income or create something new. #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness

Five Key Solutions To Help Finance Your Business: Money for your business is out there; you just need to know where to look. #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness

Developing Business Resilience: 4 Keys To Success In Uncertain Times: As the world begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the Covid-19 pandemic, business leaders must prepare for both growth and resilience in the year ahead. #SmallBusinessStrategy #smallbusinessstrategy #SmallBusiness

Are Paid Ads A Good Idea For Early-Stage Startups?: Paid ads are growth amplifiers, rather than growth drivers. And you cannot amplify zero. That said, they could be a very useful tool for validating a startup idea. #Entrepreneurs #entrepreneurs #SmallBusiness #smallbusiness

This Week In Credit Card News: Huge Facebook Data Leak; Do You Have Free Cell Phone Insurance?: What took place this week in the credit card and payment industries #PersonalFinance #personalfinance #Money #money #PersonalFinance

The U.S. and Europe should launch a technology and trade council: Two decades ago, countries saw global trade in technology goods and services as an on-ramp to the economy of the 21st century. International agreements to eliminate barriers to trade in technology goods and services helped enable dramatic increases in technology trade, while countries looked to promote foreign investment in the cutting-edge technologies of the future. Consumers everywhere got access to new, lo...Continue reading