What's a "metaverse" company?  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his employees about an ambitious new initiative -- the company would "strive to build a maximalist, interconnected" set of experiences from sci-fi. The world is known as a metaverse, according to The Verge. The term, coined in Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, refers to a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space. Casey Newton explains.

The video interview between Didit Co-Founder Kevin Lee and ad guru David Berkowitz discusses brand voice, creative excellence, and digital out of home. 

When visiting the About This Results panel, Google will now show more information about the results to help make sense of the information and figure out the most useful. Some of the factors include matching keywords, related terms, looking at links, and local relevance. 

DuckDuckGo, the privacy search engine, launched an email privacy service meant to stop ad companies from spying on email inboxes. The free email forwarding service removes email trackers and protects the privacy of personal email address without asking to change email services or apps. 

The European Court of Justice will hear Google’s arguments challenging a $2.8 billion antitrust fine that the EU commission issued in 2017, despite the company’s argument that it does not give preference to its own service, and that developing innovative technologies are at the core of its business. The EC fined Google for giving its price-comparison shopping service an advantage in search results over smaller competitors in Europe. The antitrust court date is scheduled for November 10. Reuters reported that Google has paid about 8.25 billion euros, about $9.7 billion in today’s rate of exchange, in EU antitrust fines related …

There's a chance brands don't get the most out of search agency relationship because of what the agency rep won't say, so for brands it's best to know something about SEO. At least enough to know the correct questions to ask. Silent clients can be ignored, but someone who knows a little something about the process and can treat the agency rep with respect can get much more out of the relationship without spending extra money.

The Biden administration formally blamed China on Monday for a massive hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software and accused Beijing of working with criminal hackers on ransomware and other illicit cyber operations.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission says Amazon is selling hazardous products to its customers, and suing Amazon to stop and takedown the products. Amazon doesn't sell the products, but rather acts as a distributor for many. Among the products cited in the suit are carbon monoxide detectors that fail to alarm, and numerous children's pajamas that could catch fire.

IAC CEO Joey Levin told CNBC on Friday that he believes Apple will become the focus on the next antitrust crackdown in the U.S. He said Apple is worse than Google, in many ways, because it forced companies into the system.

This is not a new warning from Google, so perhaps it should be considered a reminder. Google Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller says that using too many internal links on the same page can dilute the value. He makes other suggestions instead.