seo news

Ten Areas Where SEO and PPC Should Work Together

2008-10-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

SEO or SEM (PPC), organic vs. sponsored? Where should your online marketing budgets go? Well the answer is both. SEO and PPC can work very nicely together depending on where you are with your online marketing efforts. We came up with ten instances where SEO and PPC should be used together as an effective online marketing campaign.

Preparing for a Site Redesign - when planning a redesign and making sure that all of the SEO best practice are being put in place as you prepare to launch, you'll want to bolster your online campaign with sponsored efforts as you transition your site from the old site to the new. Once the SEO efforts kick in post launch, you can reduce your PPC spend and focus your sponsored efforts elsewhere.
Preparing to Launch a Microsite - Microsites allow you to try out a more targeted online strategy. For quick traffic generation to your new microsite, you'll want to utilize an well planned sponsored startegy. At the same time your SEO efforts can be geared towards a focus on long-tail, and less competitive keywords to drive additonal traffic to the microsite.
Launching a new Sub-Domain - Similar to launching a microsite, sponsored efforts can be used to direct traffic to the new sub-domain while an SEO strategy can be developed to obtain long term rankings for the sub-domain.
Launching a new Website - Anytime you launch a new website, you should have both an SEO and SEM strategy working together to help obtain traffic to your new web property. Initially your sponosred startegy might be the only means of driving traffic to your new site, until you can improve your visibility in the natural search results of the search engines.
Marketing Your Website on a Shoestring Budget - If you have a tight budget, you can focus efforts on SEO and compliment that with a smaller PPC strategy where you bid on phrases that are less expensive. You may want to focus your PPC spend for local search while you concentrate your SEO efforts for more genreal search engines rankings. As you develop content through SEO and on-page optimization the only cost you incur is time.
Company Mergers & Merging Web Properties - In the dynamic economic environment that we have experienced in recent years, it's not uncommon to see companies merge. Quite often startups are bought out and you are left with multiple web properties at your disposal. This is another great example of when you should be using SEO and PPC simultaneously to educate your target audience of your recent merger or acquisition. You may want to phase the old company out, as a resul you may want to move some content from that companies website to your own. Developing an SEO transition strategy that is backed up by a solid PPC strategy can be an effective way to educate your existing consumers as well as any new prospects who may be looking for your solution.
Releasing a New Product Line - PPC can be used in conjunction with SEO to promote your new product or solution line. Chances are that your new product name will be easy to rank for orgnically, backing that up with some non-branded traffic from sponsored efforts and you can quickly acheive some additional branded and non-branded traffic that will convert on your site with the proper type of messaging and promotion.
Online Reputation Management Camapaigns - Experienced some negative press? Use SEO and sponosred solutions to protect your brand in the online space. From an SEO point of view, you'll want to ensure that any negative organic listings are pushed to page two of the search results page, by optimizing your site for blended search, and leveraging social networks to dominant the SERP landscape. Furthermore you will want to protect your branded via PPC efforts so that negative or "questionable" listings do not appear within the sponsored results.
Entering New Markets - If your company is large enough to go global or is entering new regional markets, you might want to use SEO and PPC to target these geographic demographics. Depending on your expansion, you might want to try a GEO-targeted sponsored campaign, backed up with content development for organic rankings in the natural search results of the search engines.
Plateauing Search Engine Traffic - Seen your website traffic start to plateau? Maybe you need to modify or add a sponsored strategy to your SEO strategy or vice versa. Revisit both your SEO and PPC efforts and get creative with some new messaging to drive more traffic to your site.

While many companies are doing SEM or are developing SEO strategies, there are still a number that are not leveraging SEO and PPC efforts together. If your company is experiencing any of the ten issues above, you may want to establish a co-existing SEO and SEM strategy to ensure that you effectively intercept your target audience and that you continue to drive qualified traffic to your site. Search engine optimization and sponsored search marketing efforts can work together to provide you with optimal results. The more effective you become with your online marketing efforts, the less spend it will take to drive more business. While it takes time and is subject to the changing nature of the Internet, realizing when to use SEO and PPC together can return tremendous results.

Capital Research quietly gobbling up Yahoo! shares

2008-10-13T17:24:00.000-07:00

Capital Research Global Investors has been buying even more stock in Yahoo!, according to a Reuters report on Friday.

Already a significant investor in the company, they have been very vocal in the company's management as pointed out in August by Kara Swisher of AllThingsDigital.

According to the Reuters report, Capital's two investment funds, Capital World Investors and Capital Research "now own 22 per cent of Yahoo! collectively".

While it's hard to speculate on the investment groups' strategy (and the 10K was unavailable as of this post), it's likely that the 'fire sale prices' last week on Yahoo stock (NASDAQ: YHOO) was part of the motivation for the increase.

With tech stock price still somewhat depressed, this is probably one of the many announcements we can expect in the coming weeks as Venture Capital and Private Equity companies begin to take stock (for lack of a better way of putting it :).

Different times YES ... Meltdown less likely

2008-10-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

Futures had indicated an up opening on Wall Street this morning after a weekend chock full of announcements by the world's central banks..., that they were prepared to inject cash into their respective banking systems.

A quick snapshot (click to enlarge) shortly after the opening in New York (at 9:41 ET) showed most tech and media stocks were tracking the Dow, while others were breaking away a bit (notably Viacom). Yahoo, not shown, was lagging the others, up approx 4.5 per cent.

Update 1: Markets at mid-day appear to be reacting to what may be a return to some level of liquidity.

It's worth noting the change in Market cap in these companies in just 3 hours! (11:55 ET)

Update 2:

Here the same list at the end of trading today:

Here's hoping things level off a bit and we can all concentrate on continuing to innovate, explore, develop, and create.

Wishing everyone a great week (Stay cool :)

Charlie

No More Annoying Frames in Google Video

2008-10-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Google has finally made the right decision and it removed that were created when you clicked on a result from Google Video. Instead of directly linking to the original site, Google used frames to show both the external site and a list of related videos from Google Video. This duplicated the functionality from video sites like YouTube, while making it difficult to navigate and to share a URL.

Here's the first version of the frame, from June 2007:

... and a screenshot from April 2008, when Google Video has been redesigned:

Google Image Search uses a similar frame, but it's more useful as it provides information about search results. If you don't like the frame from Google Image Search, you can use Greasemonkey scripts like Google Image Relinker or Google Image direct links to bypass it.

Windows 7 at PDC2008

2008-10-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

PDC2008, Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference is being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from October 26th-30th.

Among the programs available to attendees will be numerous sessions on existing products, Microsoft's vision for cloud computing, and participants will receive a hard drive with 'pre beta bits' from the next Microsoft Operating System, Windows 7.

There will are 21 unique sessions scheduled, drilling down the new features and changes upcoming in the Windows 7 operating system.

More information (and new links) can be found at the Microsoft PDC2008 website here.

Correction Oct 12 1 AM ET

Embed a Part of a YouTube Video

2008-10-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

If you want to embed a YouTube video that starts to become interesting somewhere in the middle, there's a simple way to skip the boring part. YouTube's embedded player has a parameter that lets you specify the number of seconds that should be skipped before starting to play the video. Here's how you should edit the code: append &start=[number of seconds from the start of the video] to both URLs.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/abcdefghijk&hl=en&fs=1&start=15"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/abcdefghijk&hl=en&fs=1&start=15" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

For example, the video below includes some excerpts from Google Chrome's launch, but I skipped to the last part, when Sergey Brin answers some interesting questions.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't provide an option to link to a part of the video, but you can still use the embedded player:
http://www.youtube.com/v/w8oPEJiCqi4&start=249&autoplay=1,
where the autoplay parameter is necessary to automatically start the video.

Since there's no end parameter, you can try Splicd, a site that uses YouTube's API to isolate a part of a video.

Related:
YouTube embedded player parameters

Advanced IMAP Settings for Gmail

2008-10-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

Gmail offers more options for IMAP through an experimental add-on from Gmail Labs: "Advanced IMAP Controls". After enabling the add-on, you'll find two categories of options:

* the Labels tab lets you control which labels show up in your email client, including built-in labels like Drafts, All Mail, Spam or Trash. If you have a lot of messages in your Gmail account, most email clients will perform poorly when processing the "[Gmail]/All Mail" folder, so you might hide it.

* the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab lets you turn off auto-expunge. "The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In our standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn't let it linger in that state -- it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you've enabled this Lab, just select 'Do not automatically expunge messages' under the 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab in Settings," explains Gmail's blog.

If a message is removed from the inbox or from a custom IMAP folder, Gmail still keeps it in "All Mail". You can now change the default behavior and instruct Gmail to send the message to the trash or to delete the message forever.

Rambling Thoughts...

2008-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Wow it feels like I haven't blogged forever. I've been on vacation, was in Las Vegas, am preparing for hockey season and frankly just very busy with clients et al. It feels like I have been out of the loop in the world of search lately.

One of the items that I have been interested in, is the endeavors or ASK.com. I liked their ASK 3-D experience, but now they have reverted back to a more Google-like SERP. However it appears that ASK is looking to improve results become a leader in semantic search through their new Q&A feature. Here's an example based on a search for Enquiro.

I still think that they are on the right track, but I wish that they would have kept their cool looking SERPs. I'll have more on this later in the week. I just wanted to apologize to my readers for not posting as much as usual as of late. There's more to come I promise.

One thing that I did want to mention was the release of Yahoo Web Analytics. Manoj Jasra at Web Analytics World has a post all about this that you can find here:
http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2008/10/yahoo-web-analytics-officially-launches.html

Oh and by the way it's hockey season so blog posts may become more sparse..... just kidding.

OpenOffice 3.0 out of Beta - goes Final

2008-10-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

OpenOffice 3.0, the latest version of the free 'alternative' Office suite is out of beta.

OpenOffice, for those that haven't used it previously, is an open source suite of client programs supported by CollabNet Inc., Sun Microsystems, and other organizations and contributors.

The suite includes Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation software), Draw (graphics, flowcharts and more), and Base (an embedded database).

The main OpenOffice.org website is still offering version 2 as of this post, however, numerous prominant websites are already showing the new final version and are pointing to various 'official' OpenOffice download mirror ftp sites.

The University of Utah (US) mirror is currently showing Open Office 3.0 for Solaris, Linux, and Windows. The version we downloaded a short time ago no longer has the Beta stamp.

It shouldn't take too long for the software to hit your local mirror, so we suggest you wait a bit! .... to get the localized version for your area. The mirror sites can be found here.

More to come as we test out this latest version of OpenOffice!

Internet scams proliferate as economy turns

2008-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

I have been noticing a marked increase in outright scams, in a variety of spaces, and increasing in frequency in recent weeks on the web.

It's pretty obvious that the 'bad guys' are trying to hit as many people as possible while 'they're down'.

While many in the tech arena recognize quite a few of these, I thought it was a good time to re-hash the subject in the event you want to mention it to a relative or a casual web user you might know. I was literally watching someone this morning (who's very intelligent) almost fall for one of these. Some of them look pretty good.

Of course, e-mail is still No. 1 for spammers, and there are still a lot of people receiving these e-mails from friends who think they are legit, bypassing spam filters.

There are quasi-scams as well. Those that pass the test of legit business but ride the line of 'ethics', or even misrepresentation. I've see a slew of these hit the employment and career sites (with the possible exception of LinkedIn ... at least, so far). Other spaces are being hit as well.

Some obvious stuff.

The Internet really makes it easy to do the research before you waste money and / or your valuable time. Do the homework. Your social security number is no. 1 - Just don't do it. There are few, if any, legit organizations that will ask anyone for a social security number. Confirm who it is.

Snopes.com is still very much around if you want to double check an e-mail you received.

Potentially hardest hit are the legitimate charities. Search them. Find their website and research before you part with a dime.

The improvements in search can help you to identify a lot of these so-called legitimate offers.

The audience that this blog reaches is probably not 'the target audience' for this piece, but it never hurts.

The old adage ... "If it looks too good ... It probably is".

Yahoo - another day, another employee departs

2008-10-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

In my travels across three states the past 2 days, one of the subjects that came up often was Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).

I was curious what people thought about the failure of the Microsoft deal, Yahoo's declining market cap, and the recent revived discussion over a Yahoo-AOL deal.

On return today, thanks to a Google Reader share from Rob Diana, I learned that Yahoo's Ian Kennedy was turning his stuff in tomorrow.

There have been a number of high profile (and not so high profile) key departures from Yahoo!, since the Microsoft deal went west and Carl Icahn joined the Yahoo! board.

Perhaps the most visible departure to the Search and SEO crowd was Jeremy Zawodny, recently married, and a long-time Yahoo! employee who left the company several months ago.

Ian Kennedy was one of those employees who consistently monitored the products that he was responsible for. When our blog had the MyBlogLog widget installed, and inadvertently inserted it with the fly-out in the wrong direction, Ian was right there in the comments suggesting the fix.

We wish all the best to Ian in his future endeavors. Apparently already on board with Nokia.

As Rob noted in his 'share', it'll be interesting to see what role he plays in his new position.

Enhanced Snippets for Discussion Boards

2008-10-09T06:32:00.000-07:00

Google has been experimenting with displaying additional information for discussion boards in the search results and now the experiments are live. Below the title, Google lists automatically generated data about forum threads: the number of posts, the number of authors and the date of the last post.

The additional information helps you decide if the search result is likely to be useful. If a thread has a single post or the last post is very old, you could ignore the result.

This new feature shows that Google is able to automatically classify web pages and to extract relevant information. Once Google starts to show data for other kinds of web pages, we can expect to see an option to restrict the search results to a certain category (forums, reviews, blogs, news articles).

Related:
Google detects the published date of a web page
Metadata for scientific papers in Google's search results

Look. Up in the Sky. It's Google - ite!

2008-10-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of public / private space initiatives that have caught the attention (and imagination) of the tech community over the past few months.

SpaceX, after a live (on the Internet) failed launch, quickly recovered their credibility several weeks later by putting Falcon 1 into orbit on September 28th.

Then there's GeoEye (NASDAQ: GEOY), which we first covered in-depth here.

Among GeoEye-1's sponsoring partners is Google, who has gained exclusive 'Internet rights' to the ultra high resolution imagery from the satellite.

Yesterday, as reported by Wired Magazine and confirmed by GeoEye, the satellite delivered it's first high resolution image from space.

The image of Kutztown University (about 45 minutes from here ... by land :) in Central Pennsylvania was crystal clear. The shots displayed by Wired and Gizmodo are nothing less than amazing. (Is that a huddle on the football field??).

Not only is the Internet moving so fast at this stage that it's hard for anyone to keep up with the next 'big thing', but the 'private' interest in space continues to be funded and is moving rapidly as well.

YouTube Links to Online Music Stores

2008-10-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

YouTube started to add links to iTunes and Amazon MP3 for music videos from EMI Music and Universal Music. "Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products -- like songs and video games -- related to the content they're watching on the site," announces Google Blog.

YouTube hopes to add this option for other types of videos and to offer an alternative way to monetize videos. "Our vision is to help partners across all industries -- from music, to film, to print, to TV -- offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos."

For now, the links are only available in the US, but they will be added internationally if this experiment turns out to be a success. YouTube shows ads only next to the videos uploaded or claimed by its partners, which account for 4% of the videos hosted by YouTube.

Machine Translation and Speech Recognition at Google

2008-10-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Google's technologies for automatic translation and speech recognition already have visible results: you can translate texts in 35 languages at translate.google.com or use voice to find a local business with GOOG-411, but Google intends to expand their use. You should be able to translate an email written in a foreign language or find answers to simple questions by voice.

Mike Cohen, who leads Google's speech technology efforts, and Franz Och, machine translation researcher, chat with Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives at Google, about two technologies that might seem unrelated to Google's core competency. Both statistical machine translation and speech recognition are search problems and Google's computer infrastructure can process large amounts of data that are needed to build language models. Another big advantage for Google is that it has popular services that generate a lot of useful data.

"When we first created GOOG-411, we had no speech data. Because we had so much query data here at Google (textual queries that people had typed to Google Maps), we could already train a pretty good language model. Now, obviously, text is a little different than speech and now that we've also trained on speech, we have better performance than we had back then, but even out of the box we could get good performance on that problem because we had so much textual data," says Mike Cohen.

Edmonton Oilers Unveil Third Jersey as they Start Their 30th Season in the NHL

2008-10-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

Ah the Mighty Oil are back. In the past hour the team has unveiled their new third jersey for the upcoming NHL season. This season marks the Oilers' 30th in the NHL. The Oilers were the powerhouse of the 80's and into the 90's winning 5 Stanley Cup Championships within their first ten years of existence in the National Hockey League.

Here is a look at the unveiling of the new retro jersey. Great job! Visit www.edmontonoilers.com for more info.

YouTube Theater View

2008-10-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

YouTube shows a new option for long videos: a theater view that enlarges the player and fades out the rest of the page. Randall Munroe's talk at Google and Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford are two examples of feature length videos that should display the new option.

You can restrict YouTube's search results to feature length videos by appending &longform=1:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=site:youtube.com&longform=1

It's not clear how YouTube filters feature length videos, but most of them are from the Authors@Google series, Standford University, Carnegie Mellon University and Vancouver Film Studios.

If you want a YouTube interface that looks more like Google Video, try the YouTube Googler Greasemonkey script.

{ Thanks, Daniel. }

Better Answers in Ask.com

2008-10-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ask.com went back to its roots and enhanced the snippets for search results if the query is a question. Snippets are usually excerpts that include your query, but Ask.com replaced them with the actual answers, as you can see if you search for [how to tie a tie]:

"Presenting direct answers to your searches, front and center, has always been at the heart of the Ask.com experience, and we push further down that path today with the introduction of three new answer technologies: DADS, DAFS, and AnswerFarm. These technologies take both structured and unstructured data, and - instead of delivering a title and description for each document - they deliver answers," explains Ask's blog. This is a clever idea, but Ask.com only shows at most 2 results with enhanced snippets.

The new feature is part of a broader update that mixes specialized search results with organic web results, much like Google's universal search. Ask.com goes one step further and almost eliminates standard, as you can see if you search for [Madonna]: in the top 10 results, you can find 4 web search results, one direct answer, image results, news results, event listings, video results and an encyclopedia result.

What Happened to ASK 3-D?

2008-10-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

So this morning ASK changed their Search Engine Results Page from the cool ASK 3-D experience to a more simplified Google-like appearance. What gives? Where has the innovation gone? OK I understand the need for more relevant results, but the drastic changes to the SERP? ASK had the the best SERP in the business and now it is just plain boring.

ASK is trying to streamline the Search process. You can now search for things like local TV schedules, concert and event info, health inquiries, jobs, and generic reference-type questions and get your answer at the top of the result listings without ever having to click into a site. Depending on the type of query that you perform, you may be presented with the information that you were looking for without ever clicking through to a site.

A search for "Las Vegas" returns 9 sponsored results, four up top and 5 below. Yup I'm pretty sure that's what users wanted to see. In all fairness, near the top of the page, users also have the option of searching for maps of Las Vegas, jobs, current weather, local time, local results through ASK City, facts, school information etc. In terms of blended results, you will see news results near the top of the organic results (this is similar to what Google does), some TV listings and ticketmaster (another IACI company) event listings. There is also a wikipedia listing with a thumbnail of the LAs Vegas Strip listed. More text... hmm is that going to improve user engagement with their search engine? There is a new ASK Q&A section which is in beta to provide semantic answers to questions about your query.

While some efforts were made to improve the relevancy, I must say that I am extremely disappointed in their attempts to make their results page similar to a Google SERP. They had an innovative SERP experience. They needed to improve relevancy, not both.

Related Stories:

ASK Testing New Interface - Search with ASK X

ASK.com The Second Coming of Search Means Personalization

ASK Morphs Into the Future

ASK X – Prelude to Personalized Search?

ASK X Leading the Way with User Experience

Google Spreadsheets Redesign

2008-10-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

One more step towards a consistent Google Docs interface: Google Spreadsheets has been redesigned and it now includes the same old-fashioned menu like the word processor and the presentation app.

"We were hoping to accomplish three things with it: make it faster, make it more consistent with our siblings (documents and presentations), and give us more room to add features without clutter," explains Google.

The toolbar includes some of the most frequently used features, but I don't think Google did a job at ordering them: for example, the cell formatting options are too prominent, while pasting and sorting have been neglected. It's great that the formulas can be added without switching to a different tab and you can share the spreadsheet without opening a new page. The most stylish UI element is the chat box that can be loaded by clicking on "(name) is viewing...".

If you don't remember the previous interface, here's a screenshot:

A very cool new feature is the full-screen mode: press Ctrl+Shift+F repeatedly to alternate between two full-screen views and the standard view. The same shortcut lets you switch to the full-screen mode in the word processor, but you need to press Esc to return to the normal mode. Where is the consistency?

{ Thanks, Kevin. }

A couple of SEO aggregators

2008-10-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, when the subject of Google's new blog search came up, I made a comment about a variety of aggregators that I use over on Friendfeed.

A few of you e-mailed, specifically in the area of SEO, so here's a couple as a 'starter kit'.

For a good 'quick take', try SEOmash. It's fast, simple and will keep you somewhat up-to-date quickly.

The recently reincarnated Alltop SEO page delves deeper, has a few of my absolute favorites, but also crosses over a bit to a few 'gray area' websites as well as PPC and blog promotion. (The disclaimer being 'Don't believe everything you read ... Things change quickly!').

I'll try and update the blogroll next week with a few more, but I hope this brief post helps some of you interested in Search and Search Engine Optimization.

Sidenote for SEO fans: SMX East rolls into the Javits Convention Center in NYC tomorrow through Wednesday. The last time I looked, there were still networking and all-access passes available. If your thing is SEO, it's worth a stop by the expo at the very least.

Cooliris (formerly PicLens) now offers '3D' style shopping

2008-10-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

There aren't too many products that I can remember featuring here four times.

Cooliris (formerly PicLens) may be the first.

It's the user interface that makes it useful, and just fun!

Apparently the team that created the popular Internet Explorer / Firefox add-on, that allows you to search photos and videos in '3D', has found a way to monetize the product (or so it seems).

Version 1.8.3 lets you do in a little 3D shopping at Amazon, Macys, Walmart, Nordstrom, Lands End as well as numerous other online stores.

The (highly addictive :) free program still offers numerous web searches, and the 'discover' feature which allows you to browse through various categories and, in my case, discover new places that you may not elsewhere.

The upgrade is not yet 'announcing itself' to Firefox users. I had a heads up from the team last week and simply offloaded the old version and loaded the new one.

Ironically, one of the things I like the most is that the search occasionally 'misses' (not unusual for photo searches) and takes me to places I've never been before. Discovery in a random fashion, which sometimes can be enlightening and / or enjoyable.

So, here's a chance to take a break from your Twitter or Friendfeed addiction and check this latest version out :)

Warning: Allow a little time. You're going to come across some cool stuff and, before you log-on, decide whether or not to hide the credit card.

You can check out the new features or download Cooliris here.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Charlie

Edit Oct 5 PM

More on URL Structure: Dynamic URLs vs Static URLs

2008-10-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, Google posted about their thoughts about re-writing URLs. Previously it had been communicated to Webmasters, site owners, search marketers and the general online public that Google preferred the use of static URLs as opposed to long dynamic URLs. Now Google is telling everyone that in essence there is no need to rewrite dynamic URLs to appear static. This has caused mass confusion in the online world. First there wasd an understanding that static URLs were the way to go and now Google says that dynamic URLs are cool.

I would suggest that there is nothing wrong with rewriting your URLs if you do it properly. The fact of the matter is that while Google may now appreciate dynamic URLs, for the user or the Searcher, static URLs will ALWAYS be preferred. Static URLs are cleaner and easier to remember. Not to mention an effectively created URL can be a great indicator of the subject matter of a web page. Let's say that you sell widgets and that you have a page on how ro repair red widgets. As a searcher looking to find information about repairing red widgets, would you prefer to find a nice static appearing URL in the search results of Googleo or Yahoo or ASK?

Maybe something like:
http://www.yourwidgetsite.com/repairing-red-widgets.html vs an ugly looking dynamic URL with a long query string? http://yourwidgetssite.com/widgets/12345?lang=en/2008?id-77000561/bin_2905GY/6789_YIY

Frankly if presented with the choice, most users will click the shorter, cleaner static URL.
Google's comments about not rewriting URLs is most likely geared towards those not familiar with URL rewriting. For a novice site owner or Webmaster, URL rewriting can be tricky and if done incorrectly can make a mess of your URLs and site architecture.

So what should you do? Well let's remember one thing. As cool as Google is, they are not the Gospel when it comes to web design, site architecture and search. While they are adominant player in Search, they're not the only game in town. Communicating to the masses that "dynamic URLs are fine" and "avoid rewriting URLs..." simply because Google can handle dynamic URLs is one thing, but what about the other search engine crawlers out there? What about Yahoo or MSN Live Search or ASK or AOL?

When planning out your site architecture here are four items to consider:

Think of a logical structure for your site content. Translate this into your URLs.
Think of scalability - create a system where you can easily add pages (URLs) to your website.
Shorter is better - shorter URLs tend to resonate better with users and searchers
Static URLs will generate more click throughs - Isn't this what you want? You want your pages to rank in the search engines so that they show up in the search results for a given query. From there you want the user to click on your result over that of your competitor or any of the other results that are ranking.

So while Google has changed their stance on dynamic URLs, we would suggest that any time you have an opportunity to make your URLs static as opposed to dynamic, do it. The other search engine spiders will thank you. More importantly the Searcher will thank you.

Audio Knols

2008-10-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

Google Knol tests a cool feature that automatically converts articles to audio files, which can be played or downloaded. For now, the option is available for a small number of knols, like this one about multiple sclerosis.

"We are experimenting with Audio Playback as an option for some knols, starting with a handful of English language featured knols. If this experiment is successful, we may make Audio Playback available to more knols in additional languages, and additional features," mentions a Knol help page.

Hopefully, Google will add support for text-to-speech conversions to other services like Google Docs, Google Reader or Google Book Search.

Google Tests Image Search Ads

2008-10-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

TechCrunch reports that Google started to experiment with displaying ads next to image search results. This isn't a surprise, since Google announced in May that it intends to test display ads.

There are different formats and positions for the ads, which combine a small image with a standard text ad. Steve Poland spotted a blended ad that looked deceivingly similar to an image result.

"The big insight of Google wasn't text ads; it was that the ads should be conducive to the format. We were doing text-based search that was all textual. Visual ads don't work in that format," explained Marissa Mayer in February, when Google started to test video ads next to web search results.

Google Image Search prepares to become more useful by adding options to find similar images, recognize faces and objects. The new features will increase the site's popularity and will attract more commercial queries that could be monetized using display ads.

No More Definition Links in Google Search?

2008-10-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

One of the easiest ways to find definitions for words and idioms was to do a Google search and then click on the words from Google's blue bar. Google linked to dictionary.com until 2005, when it switched to the more comprehensive answers.com. Unfortunately, the feature is no longer available and users will have to find other ways to get definitions.

Here are some other ways to find definitions using Google:

1. search for [define word] and you'll get a short definition for your word, most likely from WordNet. To get other definitions from different glossaries and dictionaries, click on "web definitions for...". Example: define cup.

2. a shortcut for finding a list of definitions from the web is to use the define: operator. Just search for define:cup and you'll get a lot of definitions from a variety of source, but not all of them are authoritative.

3. subscribe to the Merriam-Webster OneBox to add a special search result with definitions.

According to Search Engine Land, Answers.com got 20-25% of its traffic from the Google definition links in 2007 and there wasn't any paid deal between Google and Answers.com. The only other important search engine that shows definition links is Yahoo, but it doesn't use a third-party service.

{ via Google Blogoscoped }

Update: The feature is back. Maybe it was just a technical glitch.

iTunes for Windows goes to version 8.0.1.11

2008-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Apple released an updated version of iTunes 8 for Windows earlier today.

This latest version (available for XP, Vista and 64-bit systems) resolves a problem syncing Genius results to iPods and also addresses an issue where HDTV episodes were being deleted during download.

Other minor fixes are also included in this latest version.

The full download can be found at Apple's website here.

Note: Be sure and check the system requirements on the left side of the download page. Older systems or those not meeting 'most' of the list will probably experience some problems with iTunes 8.

Google Homepage Time-lapse

2008-10-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

You can go back and see how Google's homepage evolved in the past 10 years. The video uses cached versions of Google's homepage from Internet Archive.

Google's special site for the 10th birthday shows 17 of the most interesting homepage interfaces and Philipp Lenssen analyzes some of them. My favorite Google homepage is the one from April 1999 which only included a search box, two buttons and a link to "More Google!". If you like it, there's a slightly different version at google.com/ie_rsearch.html.

Google linked to many pages that no longer exist, but they're still available at Internet Archive:
* some credits from 1998
* press coverage from 1998-1999
* older versions of Google's logo
* Google's affiliate program
* an old Google tour
* the special Katrina page.

The Invisible GoogleUpdate.exe

2008-10-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

Most of the recently released Google software uses live installers that download the required files from Google's servers and enable an auto-updater. Whether you want to install Chrome, Gears, Lively or Google Earth's plug-in, Google first downloads a small setup file that needs an Internet connection to obtain the software.

The most important reason why Google doesn't provide offline installers for these applications is the auto-update software, which has a separate development cycle. Instead of integrating an auto-update feature in all the applications, like in Picasa, Google Desktop or Google Toolbar, Google decided to create an independent tool that deals with keeping Google software up-to-date.

"GoogleUpdate.exe is a software component that acts as a meta-installer and auto-updater in many downloadable Google applications, including Google Chrome. It keeps your programs updated with the latest features. More importantly, GoogleUpdate allows your Google applications to be rapidly updated if security flaws are discovered," details Google.

Web applications can be easily updated and everyone gets the latest version, but desktop software needs to be updated manually or by the software itself. Google chose to automatically update most of its applications, in many cases without providing an option to disable the updates and without informing the user when a new version is installed.

GoogleUpdate automatically runs in the background when you start your computer and it connects to Google's servers every few hours to check if there are updates and to report some usage data.

"When GoogleUpdate communicates with Google servers, it sends IDs of GoogleUpdate-managed applications on your computer and general usage information for these applications. GoogleUpdate also uses its own, randomly-generated unique ID number to accurately count total users. This information includes version numbers, languages, operating system, and other install or update-related details, such as whether or not the applications have been run."

GoogleUpdate is installed as a system service, which can be disabled from the services console, but there's no transparent option to uninstall it. It also installs the GoogleOneClick plug-in for Firefox, IE, Chrome that allows Google to launch the updater directly from a web page. If you kill GoogleUpdate.exe from the task manager, a scheduled task will reopen the service when your computer is idle. Google says that the service is uninstalled a few hours after you uninstall the last application that uses it. "Google Update Service uninstalls itself when there is no Google software using it. It may take a few hours after uninstalling Google software for Google Update to uninstall."

To make things even more difficult for those who manually remove the updater, "you may find that your Google programs no longer function properly and, in many cases, you may see GoogleUpdate return automatically".

Even if the software's intentions are noble, it's unfortunate that Google doesn't inform users about the updater and it doesn't provide an option to disable GoogleUpdate or to ask before downloading updates.

Google Blog Search launches new look, features

2008-10-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

It was back in January that I commented on changes in Google's Blog Search, a story that the readers at Sphinn seemed to like :).

A difficult product to manage (to say the least), Google's Blog Search has been improving and not only providing users with a 'quick take' on the blog world, but as mentioned in January, the product makes makes it dramatically easier to ferret out those engaging in 'link bait schemes'.

Several new Google initiatives were announced today on the Official Google Blog, including the new features and front page on the Blog Search product.

Also, as pointed to in the past, Google now indexes a lot of blogs literally 'on the fly', moments after being published. The new Blog Search will most likely take advantage of that facility, as well as it's own 'formula' for listing those blogs that are relevant, to attempt to provide better and faster results.

It is, in fact, a viable competitor to TechMeMe, Gabe Rivera's popular technology technology aggregator and his other product Memeorandum which covers the world of politics.

There are hundreds of other aggregators out there in unique niches (IE: SEO), as well as all-in-one's such as Thomas Marban's PopUrls (which now includes a second IT page sponsored by Intel). Inspired by PopUrls, Guy Kawasaki's Alltop is a 'mega-aggregator' that covers a slew of topics and just went through a re-design just last week.

Most recently Duncan Riley launched iq.inquisitr.com, a tech aggregator with some unique features.

So what does all of this mean to me, or you?

I've written numerous times that when I do look at TechMeMe, it's AFTER I write a post, so I'm not jaded by what someone else (or 'the crowd') is saying.

TechMeMe's bot comes around here fairly often. The two times I literally broke a story here (by accident ?), they became TechMeMe headlines. Over the past year, we've been listed approximately 50-60 times in TechMeMe 'discussion mentions', for which I am thankful. It's recognition that the blog is 'real' and the content may be interesting to some.

Inquisitr's new 'IQ' has us on Page B. Good enough. Duncan Riley is breaking new ground consistently and seems to be having fun doing it.

What's all the fuss about?

In our case, it's not about money, but for many, direct hits and new unique visitors could translate to income. A TechMeMe headline (especially one that stays around for a while), depending on the topic, could drive as many as 1000 hits to a blog over a short period of time.

Google, once again (and it still remains to be seen how this works out) is just being smart and topical.

With the elections approaching, they also launched a page to help get the vote out. Politics, it would appear, is where the product will be 'discovered' by many as the US elections approach. A new voter page was also highlighted on Google's Official Blog today.

Will this new product hurt TechMeMe, PopUrls, or any of the others mentioned about? My guess is that people will continue to use all of them, as I have, with the 15 or so aggregators that I currently use, particularly when my feed reader is on overload :)

Will this piece end up on any of them? It's usually a guessing game, but I'll say two (but probably three :) ...

Charlie

Staff Update: Oct 2 AM

Google News for Blogs

2008-10-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Google Blog Search's homepage has been updated and it now includes a list of popular stories, which are categorized and clustered similarly to Google News.

"Blog Search uses a set of algorithms to try to determine the most popular stories in the blogosphere. We consider factors such as a blog's title and content, as well as its popularity throughout the rest of the blogging community. Then we display groups of posts that are closely related," explains the FAQ.

It seems that Google Blog Search didn't select some authoritative blogs to be listed on the homepage and almost any blog post could be included in a Blog Search cluster. There are 11 categories: politics, US, world, business, technology, video games, science, entertainment, movies, television and sports, but they aren't equally represented.

Google shows a chart for the number of blog posts that discuss a story:

Unfortunately, Google is not able to detect spam posts, plagiarism, forums or blog comments. Google Blog Search doesn't provide yet feeds for the top stories and the search results aren't clustered.

The new Blog Search homepage is a decent alternative to the technology-focused Techmeme and to Technorati's front page. Hopefully, Google will filter the low-quality posts and it will integrate the service with Google News.

{ Thanks, Jonathan. }

Microsoft offers free Office Online eBook

2008-09-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

Katherine Murray, an accomplished author of over 50 books related to Internet technologies and the digital lifestyle, has joined with the Microsoft Office Live team to produce an extensive (304 page) reference to the Online Office product.

Initially launched as a 'Get a website for your business free' product last year, Microsoft Office Live now integrates a variety of online applications, some free, and others by subscription.

The product has improved significantly since we began our simple beta test last year. More recently, the team has been introducing new features to existing users, as well continually to beta testers.

The book, 'Take Your Business Online', provides a simplified approach to new users, as well as marketing tips and ideas for putting a small business online for the first time. It also serves as an easy-to-read, walk-through guide to Microsoft's Online product.

Katherine Murray is the founder of reVisions Plus, Inc. Her 'occasional' blog announced completion of the book in April.

The ebook, a 20 MB download in PDF format, is available free until October 19th, from Microsoft here.

Google Time Machine: the Web in 2001

2008-09-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Google brought back the index from January 2001 to show how many things have changed in almost 8 years. At that time, Google's index included 1,326,920,000 web pages and it was the most comprehensive index of a search engine.

Google explains that the index from January 2001 is the earliest available. "Well, for various technical reasons that are too boring to go into, earlier versions of our index aren't readily accessible. But we did still want to offer users a chance to search an older index as a way of looking back at web history, and the January 2001 index is the best we can do."

As Wikipedia informs us, January 2001 was an important month: Wikipedia is founded, George W. Bush becomes the 43rd President of the United States and Apple introduces iTunes.

A search for Gmail returned results about a Linux mail client and the Garfield email service:

If you search for Google, you'll find references to very few Google services: Google Directory, Google Toolbar and specialized search engines for Apple, Linux, but not yet Microsoft.

In 2001, Google's algorithms were less smart than today:

Unfortunately, Google doesn't use the interface from 2001 and the exclamation mark has been removed from the logo in 1999. Here's an original Google SERP from May 2001, courtesy of Christina Wodtke:

Another anachronism is this error page titled "2001 problems":

For more Google nostalgia, don't miss Google's special site for the 10th birthday.

{ via Blogoscoped }

Google Photo Search

2008-09-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Google Image Search has a new option that allows you to restrict the results to photos: just select "Return images that contain photo content" from the advanced search page.

A simple way to find photos would be to restrict the results to JPEG files, but a search for Gmail shows that many people use the JPEG format for logos and screenshots. If we use Google's image analysis technology, we'll find more photos related to Gmail, including the Gmail soap, Gmail Theater and Gmail's product manager Keith Coleman.

The other two content restrictions available in Google Image Search are for images that contain faces and for images that illustrate recent news articles. Microsoft's image search engine has more advanced options for refining your search: you can find photos, illustrations, faces and portraits.

Lively, a Future Platform for Online Games

2008-09-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

"X-Ray Kid is the team that was recruited by Google to establish the visual style and aesthetic direction" for Lively, the 3D chat service launched in July. "It's been 2 years of work, dozens of original character designs, each with hundreds of unique animations, thousands of clothing variations and original sound content. In addition, we also produced numerous themed environments, hundreds of objects, animated room buddies, and the list goes on," explains the game development studio.

Kevin Hanna, creative director at X-Ray Kid, offers some insights on Lively's future in an interview for GamesIndustry.biz. Kevin says that there are lot of interesting features that will be added to Lively:

Some of my favourite stuff has yet to come out. There's a lot of different characters, and cute animals and stuff, but we didn't do anything really genre-pushing. I think with the next step we're going to be still within that style, but really pushing the different genres of known game types. (...) There is a longer term goal of opening up the API so the architecture of Lively could be used as an online games platform.

Google has already bought AdScape, a company that monetizes games by placing relevant advertising, and some speculated that Google intends to acquire Valve, the company that developed Half Life.

Google Page Rank updates begin to appear

2008-09-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

SEO specialists and their clients are watching tonight as the anticipated PageRank update by Google is now beginning to appear.

I was going to do a quick rundown of some of the websites and blogs I follow and their new PR here, but I'm not sure I'm seeing all of them yet, so that would be a little misleading.

PageRank was the original 'formula', developed in the very beginning (In fact, the trademark belongs to Stanford University and Google purchased the exclusive rights).

It's very important to recognize that PageRank is now just one part of a complex algorithm that Google uses to determine where a website lands in the SERPs (Search Engine Relative Positions).

While it's amusing to see what your new PR is, it's a mistake to fixate on it. There are many websites that rank in the Top-5 for specific search terms (or phrases) that have PageRanks of 4 or less.

Google's latest toolbar is the easiest (and most accurate) way to surf and check PageRank at the same time.

No doubt, if you follow the SEO space, you'll read a lot of "My PageRank went up" and "My PageRank went down".

Unless you go from a 6 to a zero, don't lose too much sleep over it :)

Google Groups Video Results

2008-09-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Google adjusted the interface for video results that are part of universal search. Until now, Google promoted two videos in the first 10 results if the query was strongly associated with videos, but they looked like standard results. The new interface separates the two results from Google Video and this is more in line with other types of OneBoxes (images, local business, news) that evolved into universal search results.

Another change is that the image results group has 4 images instead of only 3 and it can be displayed inside the list of search results, not just at the top or at the bottom. When the image results group shows up at the top of the page, the thumbnails are significantly larger.

Building an universal search engine that manages to rank web pages, images, videos, books, maps turned out to be a difficult task, so Google tries to do something easier: rank OneBoxes for different specialized search engines and display them in appropriate places. You can find a version of Google that doesn't include universal search results at searchmash.com.

LinkedIn, WikiMetro, and yes, Friendfeed

2008-09-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

I've done more than a few posts on brand and / or 'Reputation Management'.

I've also done more than a few on Wikipedia.

Read on ... It may effect YOU.

Recently, I've become a little more active on LinkedIn. I like it. It's been a good vehicle for me in numerous ways, and I like to follow online sites that I feel strongly will be around for a while. LinkedIn is in that group.

Possibly the place I've been the most active for the past 4 months is Friendfeed, where I feel that the founders' vision is strong, and I have enjoyed a community of smart, interesting, and just fun people to interact with.

This blog has been scraped almost from inception. (Long before the Louis Gray, Mike Fruchter, Inquisitr, Robert Scoble, and other lists). It never really bothered me. All one has to do is wander over to Technorati. About 25% of 'authority', which I've never really concentrated on for this blog, is coming from sites that scrape it's content.

That brings us to today's fascinating find.

Apparently my twin has reappeared in upstate New York!

A site called Wiki Metro has me listed as the CEO of US Airways, residing in Buffalo NY. Neat huh? Buddy Passes?

WikiMetro appears to be a LinkedIn-type site, but publicly edited. It also REQUIRES your Friendfeed ID to join which had me wondering. I did join briefly to make a little note on the page .... and e-mail the CEO.

I may not be the chief executive of a major airline (and that may be a good thing?), but I'm pretty proud of what I do here and elsewhere, and unless someone legally changed their name, there is only one me.

This is just another little amuzing heads up on the human-edited community (and possibly for the people at LinkedIn and Friendfeed).

So here I am, flyin' around upstate. Feel free to send the paycheck (I'll pass on the stock options)

Maybe I'll post a bio to Knol ?? :)

Have a GREAT WEEK to all.....

Charlie

More Googley Stuff - Google News in the wild

2008-09-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

Google appears to be testing a new layout for Google News. This screenshot, captured earlier tonight, not has a new layout, but the drop-down box allowed visibility to a slew of versions from different countries. It was only visible on one of my IP's and disappeared rather quickly ?!

Picasa 3 (beta) has released a significant upgrade which will auto-update if you have the Google Updater installed. (It's MUCH better and has even more features). Details can be found here.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Charlie

Brief: Firefox updates the update !

2008-09-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

Mozilla just released Firefox 3.0.3 which fixes a bug in the new version featured earlier in the week here.

CCleaner updated to include Google's Chrome

2008-09-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

CCleaner, the handy, small, and free system utility featured here numerous times in our 'Free Stuff to play with over the weekend' feature, is out with a new version.

If you've never used it, CCleaner is a lightweight (adware and spyware free) utility that lets you delete your cache, temp files, cookies and more 'gunk' fast, with a couple of mouse clicks (Sometimes gigabytes worth!). It also has a decent registry analyzer and fixer on board which lets you back up before repairing.

(Note: If you don't want a Yahoo! toolbar or automatic updates, you can opt out during the installation. Upgrades can be performed by simply installing the newest version over the old one).

Version 2.12 released yesterday impliments these changes:

Added Google Chrome support.

- Improved cleaning security checks.

- Improved recursive cleaning functions.

- Fixed bug in INI FileKey evaluation routine.

- Updated INI file processing engine.

- Improved system info checks for modern CPUs.

- Various language and translation improvements.

- Minor GUI tweaks.

You can download a copy of CCleaner here.

More Languages in Google Translate

2008-09-26T04:20:00.000-07:00

Google Translate added 11 new languages: Catalan, Filipino, Hebrew, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. Google's machine translation service now supports 35 languages and you can use it to translate text between any combination of languages.

In most cases, Google uses English as an intermediary language, so when you translate a text from Indonesian to Vietnamese, Google translates the text to English and then it translates the result to Vietnamese. You'll get the best results when one of the languages is English, since Google needs a single translation.

"Most state-of-the-art, commercial machine-translation systems in use today have been developed using a rule-based approach, and require a lot of work to define vocabularies and grammars. Our system takes a different approach: we feed the computer billions of words of text, both monolingual text in the target language, and aligned text consisting of examples of human translations between the languages. We then apply statistical learning techniques to build a translation model," explains Google.

One of the advantages of this approach is scalability: if Google finds enough parallel text to create a good translation model for a language, it will be added to Google Translate. When Google licensed Systran's technology, Google Translate was only able to translate between English and French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, but this has changed when Google developed its own translation technology. Microsoft followed suit and Windows Live Translator switched from Systran to Microsoft's machine translation system.

As Microsoft notes, it's important to keep in mind that "automatic translation enables you to understand the gist of foreign language text, but is no substitute for a professional human translator if fluency is required," at least not yet.

Google Toolbar 5 for Firefox

2008-09-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

If you liked Google Toolbar 5 for Internet Explorer, but you didn't want to use Microsoft's browser, there's now a version for Firefox that includes similar features: support for Google gadgets, integration with Google Notebook, multiple profiles for AutoFill and synchronized settings.

The Firefox version doesn't include all the features that are available in Google Toolbar 5 for IE: there's no find bar, pop-up blocker, Browse by Name because Firefox already has these features. Customizable layouts, highlighting search terms, Word Find and Google Docs integration are the four Firefox-only features.

If you use Google Toolbar on multiple computers, enable synchronization to save AutoFill profiles, custom button and other settings to a Google account. Since bookmarks and notes are saved to the same Google account, you'll see the same Google Toolbar anywhere you go.

Google Toolbar 5 for Firefox - http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT5/

Should I Buy 300 One Way Links for $397!

2008-09-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

I don't usually pay a lot of attention the ads that pop up in my GMail, but this one was pretty funny.

I was chatting with @steph_woods about her entry to the SEO business and how she likes Kelowna. I opened the email with her direct message in it and found this PPC ad:

(If you can't see the picture it says: 300 Permanent Links $397, Permanent one way links $1.4/link. Buy 300 one way links for $397 Now!)

Let's be clear. Buying links is a bad idea. Selling links is a bad idea. Advertising the fact that you're selling links on Google is an idea so bad I had to use a thesarus to find a word to describe it, and then I couldn't use the word because it was so bad. Perhaps Matt Cutts has a special word for special people like this, but I'm at a loss.

Entertaining, yes. Good business, no.

The Best Gmail Error Message

2008-09-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

You can't get a funnier error message than this:

Dear valued user,
You have reached the error page for the error page...
You win!!

Sometimes even the error pages can't be displayed and you need to come up with a plan B. Gmail's meta-error page is simple, yet effective: Google can't always win.

This reminds me of a similar error message from Google Reader: "Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen".

{ The first screenshot is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial by Viofiddler. The second one is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution by Ashley Dryden. }

Blogger lets you share your blogs

2008-09-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Introduced a couple of weeks ago, Blogger is now letting you 'follow' (and share) other blogs directly on your sign-in profile screen.

(Click image to enlarge)

I'm not sure whether to call this a social network, an aggregator, or just a cool tool to let you see what others are saying before you post?

I originally thought it was Blogger-specific when it was first announced and held off trying it. It's not. You can add any RSS feed to the list, and the step-by-step interface makes it simple. (Very simple). You could, if you wanted, add your entire reader list (although I think for most that would be impractical).

This blog is produced in Blogger so I see that page each time I update. I can think of a lot of possibilities utilizing this moving forward.

To try it out, all you need is a Blogger profile and simply go to the main page or draft.blogger.com.

Google Moderator

2008-09-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

Google Moderator is a small application initially created for submitting and voting on the questions for Google's tech talks.

"At Google, we host a large number of "tech talks". These talks cover a wide rage of Computer Science topics like research in machine learning and methods for ranking images based on text queries. I've enjoyed attending these tech talks, but as the number of attendees has grown over time, the question-and-answer part of the talks hasn't been able to scale," explains Taliver Heath.

The application turned out to be useful for other things, like the company's meetings, and Google decided to launch it publicly on the App Engine platform.

I created a list of suggestions for Google's services and anyone can add new suggestions or vote on the existing ideas. The most popular ideas are displayed at the top, but Google Moderator also lists random suggestions to make them more visible.

Google Contacts

2008-09-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

One of the most visible changes in Gmail 2.0 was the new contact manager with better search options and more flexible exporting. You might have noticed that the contacts list doesn't load instantly and that's because Gmail opens a separate web page in an iframe.

Google has recently updated the stand-alone contacts page by adding a logo and a more prominent search box. Unfortunately, the URL is not user-friendly: http://mail.google.com/mail/contacts/ui/ContactManager.

The page should be useful if you have a Google account that is not connected to a Gmail address and you would like to access your list of contacts from services like Google Docs or Google Reader.

{ Thanks, Tony. }

Compare Political Quotes

2008-09-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

Google Labs added a new experimental service: In Quotes, which compares what different politicians say about popular issues like health care, taxes, environment. The service uses a feature from Google News that detects quotes in news articles and a public API that offers programmatic access to the quotes.

"These quotations are a valuable resource for understanding where people in the news stand on various issues. Much of the published reporting about people is based on the interpretation of a journalist. Direct quotes, on the other hand, are concrete units of information that describe how newsmakers represent themselves. Google News compiles these quotations from online news stories and sorts them into browsable groups based on who is being quoted," informs the FAQ.

Automatically detecting quotes is not an easy task, so not all the quotes are correctly attributed. Google truncates long quotes because they're treated the same as search results snippets.

For now, Google selected a small number of political figures from the US, Canada, India and the UK, but it would be interesting to create a service that allows users to enter two or more names and then save the interesting quotes.

Microsoft takes I'm a PC to the next level

2008-09-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

Last week, Microsoft subtly launched this page which allows you to submit your own video telling why 'you're a PC'.

Starting today, visitors to MSN.com will see a collage of people that submitted their own videos surrounding the MSN home page.

Clicking on any of them will play the selected video in the MSN front page ad box.

After the first few plays, it wears a little, but luckily you can turn it off (upper right).

Are you a PC?

Assuming this runs for a while (It was live at 12 AM ET), just go to MSN.com to check it out.

As for me, I think the next video is headed for Seesmic :)

Charlie

Mozilla upgrades Firefox Version 3 to 3.0.2

2008-09-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Earlier this afternoon, Mozilla upgraded both Firefox 3 and it's predecessor Firefox 2.

The latest version of Firefox 3 is now 3.0.2 and Firefox 2 is now 2.0.0.17.

If your browser isn't set to automatically update (or just hasn't yet ... ), simply tap 'Help' (at the top) then 'check for updates', and follow the instructions.

While Mozilla is now urging users to upgrade from Version 2 to Version 3, they are still supporting the older technology browser.

Included in the latest release are numerous security and stability fixes, a variety of new languages, better rendering of some web pages, as well as some Mac OS X specific issues.

Firefox is been steadily gaining ground as the second most used web browser next to Microsoft's Internet Explorer over the past two years, and continues to be a favorite among the 'blogging' and tech communities.

The full (free) install of Firefox 3.0.2 (for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux) can be found here.

Launch of the Google G1 Phone

2008-09-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

T-Mobile USA and Google unveiled the first Google Android phone earlier today. Finally, the day I have been waiting for has arrived... well not exactly. You see, news of Google's G1 Phone being released has been big news. That is if you live in the US. I happen to reside in Canada, where there has been no mention of the Google Phone being released.

We featured a post last year reviewing Google's Android platform. We've heard a number of great things about the G1. Is it more than just another advertising platform for Google? Here is what some other folks had to say about Google's venture into the mobile market:

For Google's Android phone, it's what's inside that counts
Google’s Android: Following the money on mobile search
Live coverage of the T-Mobile G-1 Google Android announcement
T-Mobile's G1 debuts as first Google Android phone
T-Mobile G1 with Google Android is Smartphone 2.0
G1 Android Phone is Interesting But Lacks Wow Factor
First Google Android phone to cost $199: WSJ

SEO Paradigm Shift: Google Prefers Dynamic URLs Over Static URLs?

2008-09-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

Came across this post which will have large implications for our clients and all websites for that matter. According to Barry Schwartz at SE Land Google posted a blog entry telling Webmasters not to rewrite dynamic URLs to be static. This is an entire paradigm shift into what we have learned and been told by the engines.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html

Key Takeaways from the Google Post:

static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls
the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking
Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.

http://searchengineland.com/080923-090542.php

10 Years of Google Part Seven: Inside the Google Culture

2008-09-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

If you have ever visited Google's Mountain View location, you are immediately taken back by the College-like vibe that seems to emerge from the Googleplex. Their corporate culture is legendary and is part of what makes Google so unique.

As Chris Davies from Enquiro put it while he attended the Google Dance as part of SES San Jose last month, "... Google is the happiest place on Earth. It's like the new Disneyland..." Many people would agree with this statement including the many Googlers who work at Google as evidenced in the following video clip.

There have been many people who have described the Google Culture, but until you actually see it for yourself you just cannot put into words as to how unique the Google Culture is. So why not ask the people who know best? The folks at Google:

How does your company compare to Google? Well at Enquiro, we share a number of the key elements that you'll find at Google. Where Google has the "Google 15", Enquiro has the "Enquiro-7" (the amount of weight that you put on after you start working at Enquiro due to the abundance of tasty and healthy snacks provided. Balance in life and work is important to Enquiro as it is to Google.

More About Google's Culture:
http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html

About the Googleplex

Google's world headquarters building is located in Mountain View, California, a stone's throw from the Shoreline Regional Park wetlands. While not all Google offices around the globe are equally well-stocked, these are some of the essential elements that define a Google workspace:

Lobby Décor - Piano, lava lamps, and live projection of current search queries from around the world.

Hallway Décor - Bicycles and large rubber exercise balls on the floors, press clippings from around the world posted on bulletin boards everywhere. Many Googlers standing around discussing arcane IP addressing issues and how to build a better spam filter.

Googler Offices - Googlers work in high density clusters remarkably reflective of our server setup, with three or four staffers sharing spaces with couches and dogs. This improves information flow and saves on heating bills.

Equipment - Most Googlers have high powered Linux OS workstations on their desktops. In Google's earliest days, desks were wooden doors mounted on two sawhorses. Some of these are still in use within the engineering group.

Recreation Facilities - Workout room with weights and rowing machine, locker rooms, washers and dryers, massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, baby grand piano, pool table, ping pong, roller hockey twice a week in the parking lot.

Google Café - Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff. Stations include "Charlie’s Grill," "Back to Albuquerque," "East Meets West" and "Vegheads." Outdoor seating for sunshine daydreaming.

Snack Rooms - Bins packed with various cereals, gummi bears, M&Ms, toffee, licorice, cashew nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks. Dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda and make-your-own cappuccino.

Coolest stop on the tour - A three-dimensional rotating image of the world on permanent display on a large flat panel monitor in the office of the engineer who created it. What makes it special is the toggle switch that allows you to view points of light representing real time searches rising from the surface of the globe toward space, color coded by language. Toggle and you can see traffic patterns for the entire Internet. Worth a trip to the second floor.

Google is a company like no other. Congratulations Google on ten great years!

NY Times gets social with Times People

2008-09-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

Fans of the NY Times will welcome this morning's online edition.

The newspaper has added, yes, an integral on-site social network for you to interact with other readers and comment on articles.

Dubbed 'Times People', the new social network is aimed at connecting readers of the NY times and engaging them in the newspaper's content.

We've seen quite a few cross-media plays in social and microblogging circles the past few weeks. It'll be interesting to see how the NY Times does with this new addition.

The new 'Times People' section is now live and can be accessed here.

Launched just in time for breakfast - Delish.com

2008-09-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

New website is all about food!

Looking for an awesome recipe? Need to mix a cocktail? Have a favorite food-related TV personality?

Delish.com is a new website with popular food TV shows, food festivals, recipes (on top of recipes!), food-related blogs and more.

A joint venture of Hearst Magazines Digital Media and Microsoft's MSN, the site already has numerous advertisers onboard.

Delish can be reached at www.delish.com, www.msn.delish.com, or via MSN's home page.

Hungry? ..... Maybe you should wait until after you eat before you check it out :)

Android Makes its Debut in T-Mobile G1

2008-09-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

After less than a year since the initial Android announcement, T-Mobile USA launches today the first handset that uses Android's software stack: a smartphone built by HTC, which is known for manufacturing Windows Mobile portable devices.

T-Mobile G1 showcases some of the most advanced capabilities of Android, by including a touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, accelerated 3D graphics, Wi-Fi and 3G support, GPS and accelerometer. The device won't have an impressive design and it won't be as easy to use as an iPhone, but it will certainly be able to run a lot of interesting applications.

Android's marketplace will accept any applications without a preliminary review, so that users decide whether they're useful. That means Angelo DiNardi's MailWrangler application won't be rejected because it duplicates the functionality from a built-in application. "Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. (...) Content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it," explains Android's blog.

Even if the first device fails to impress, it will still be a success because Android pushes the boundaries further. "Consumers will see cheaper and more innovative mobile devices and services, which will inevitably feature more engaging, easier-to-use interfaces - as well as a rich portfolio of applications," envisions Open Handset Alliance's FAQ.

We will find more at 10:30 a.m. EDT, when T-Mobile and Google will announce the device in a press conference webcasted live.

Update. HTC has more information about the device:

Processor: Qualcomm MSM7201A, 528 MHz
Size: 117.7 mm x 55.7 mm x 17.1 mm (4.60 in x 2.16 in x 0.62 in)
Weight: 158 grams (5.57 ounces)
Display: 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution
Camera: 3.2 megapixel color camera with fixed focus
Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, 1150 mAh
Talk Time: 406 minutes
Standby Time: 319 hours
Memory: microSD memory card, 1 GB included
Special features: Digital Compass, Motion Sensor

Update 2: CrunchGear informs that Amazon's MP3 music store will be preloaded on the device. "T-Mobile G1 users can search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3, which offers over 6 million DRM-free MP3 songs. (...) Downloading music from Amazon MP3 using the T-Mobile G1 requires a Wi-Fi connection but searching, browsing, listening to samples and buying MP3s can be done wherever customers are connected to the T-Mobile network."

Update 3. More details from T-Mobile's press release: three color options (white, brown and black); music player that supports MP3, M4A (iTunes AAC, DRM-free), AMR, WMA, MIDI, WAV, OGG Vorbis; pre-installed 1 GB Micro SD memory card; built-in instant messaging client with support for Google Talk, AOL, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

Update 4: The phone costs from $179.99 to $399.99, it's locked in the T-Mobile network and it requires a 2-year subscription and a data plan that costs $25 or $35, depending on the number of messages included. T-Mobile customers from the US can pre-order the phone starting from today, but the phone will be available in stores from October 22. T-Mobile promises to launch G1 in the UK one month later and in the first quarter of 2009, for the rest of Europe.

Update 5: The entire press conference showed a surprising lack of enthusiasm until Larry Page and Sergey Brin came on stage. There were very few interesting questions about the device: we found that G1 is targeted to consumers, it doesn't support Exchange and there's no way to buy it unlocked.

Update 6. T-Mobile G1 tour (the most exciting phone in the history of phones?):

Update 7. An overview of Google's services connected to G1: search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Contacts, YouTube. There's too much Google integration: the phone even has a Google logo on the back.

Update 8: android.com is now live and it shows an interesting video about running multiple applications in Android:

This playlist highlights some cool G1 features, including the not-yet-available-in-iPhone copy & paste.

{ T-Mobile G1 image courtesy of Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins. }

10 Years of Google Part Six: What Does Google Mean to You?

2008-09-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

So Google turns 10 this month. Have you thought of the profound impact Google has had on our lives? For me personally it has changed my life immensely. Although when I first went online my search engine of preference all those years ago was ASK Jeeves (now ASK.com). The simple reason for this is that Google was not around yet.

I'm not sure of the first time I used Google. To tell you the truth I'm not sure if my first Google experience was a successful one or not. I do know that fairly early on I was intrigued by Google's results. A query in Google appeared to return more relevant results than a Yahoo or an MSN or Netscap or even my favorite at the time ASK Jeeves.

Today Google is an everyday part of my life. In fact I spend more time interacting with Google than I do with other aspects of my life. My career as a search strategist means that from 7:30 in the morning until 3, 4, or 5 in the afternoon I am using Google as a tool to help my clients communicate their brand and their solutions to the millions of Web searchers out there. In the evening when I go home for the day, I'll use Google to go online and search for more information. The Google Toolbar is a part of all of the Web Browsers that I use. I have a personalized iGoogle page that allows me to follow the things that are of interest to me. To Google is an assumed practice with me. It's become a way of life. You cannot really compare Google to anything. Is Google to my generation like TV was to previous generations? Working in the search industry means that as a marketer I tread new waters each and eveyday. Technology has changed and continues to chnage how we search for information. Google is an effective tool that allows us to search for and find information that previously was unavailable or meant searching through reams of newspapers or magazine articles or dictionaries or telephone books or encyclopedias.

What Has Google Done For Me?

Google has allowed me to become an author in the online world
Google has presented me with a challenging but rewarding career

Google has allowed me to learn about innovation and technologies

Google has shown me that much of the World's information is at my finger tips

Google has helped teach me about RSS and syndication of content, online video, blended search, XML, blogging, website usability, eye tracking and much more.

Google has also made me:

spend more time online

strive for a richer search experience

question their ranking algorithms and whether the most relevant results are being served up

spend less time on MSN and Yahoo
worry about privacy concerns and sharing of my personal information

Google has had both a positive and negative impact on my life. However I think that positive aspects that Google has brought to my life outweigh the negative. Google is a fascinating company and their innovation continues to impress me. I'm glad Google has been around for ten years. I'm excited about their next ten years. From starting with a team of 8 people in 1998 to a Global business with 20,000 employess ten years later, Google is the greatest modern day success story that we have had the privilege of experiencing.

Microsoft Research New England Facility Opens

2008-09-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Research Cambridge facility officially opens.

We first covered Microsoft Research's plans to open a state-of-the-art research facility back in February.

Microsoft officially announced the opening of the new facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts today.

An inaugural symposium was held as well, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Microsoft Research New England was founded this past July by Managing Director Jennifer Chayes, Ph.D., and Deputy Managing Director Christian Borgs, Ph.D., with a charter to build on Microsoft Corp.’s commitment to advancing the state of the art in computing".

You can discover more about the new facility and find out more about Microsoft Research at their website here.

Embeddable Google Books

2008-09-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

Google made it easy to embed in a site any book available at Google Book Search. You can add a fully-functional widget using this code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://books.google.com/books/previewlib.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
GBS_insertEmbeddedViewer('GkCpLIk7aisC',600,500);
</script>

where you should replace GkCpLIk7aisC with the corresponding book ID, which can be obtained from the URL. Here's the result for "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens:

"As on the Book Search site itself, you can search within the book, zoom in and out on the page, and browse up to 20% of the book," explains Inside Google Book Search. The new widget is already used by online catalogs like WorldCat.org and social book sites like weRead to preview books.

This is just one of the three Google Books APIs that allow programmatic access to more than one million books.

The Network Monitor for the rest of us is here

2008-09-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

Over the years, there have been numerous freeware and commercial network monitoring software packages available. Many 'techs' prefer command line utilities in Windows, OS X or Linux to keep an eye on network traffic. Others simply ignore it or don't know how to access it.

What is really being sent over your network?

Is there something (or someone) that shouldn't be there?

The Network Monitor for the rest of us is here. (or ....now you can see what you ISP sees ? :)

Last week, Microsoft posted Network Monitor 3.2 to the MS Download Center and it will be offered soon as an optional download via Microsoft Update (Windows update).

Think you have spyware? You'll now know with a few mouse clicks.

The small Windows utility literally walks you though the first steps of starting and stopping network monitoring and enables 'captures' over long periods of time. (Of course, longer periods of time will require more memory and hard disk space).

The stand-out feature of this latest (free) version is for those that aren't totally 'tech savvy'. They'll be able to install it, start and stop it, or just turn it off, without having to use the command line at all.

For small network administrators, it's a simply yet versatile tool.

Network Monitor 3.2 is available for XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008 with both 32 and 64 bit versions available. Complete details with screen shots can be found on the Microsoft TechNet NetMon blog here.

Latest upgrade to Twhirl rocks !

2008-09-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Late Friday, a new version of the popular desktop client Twirl was released.

If you had the latest version, you were probably auto-updated. If you didn't, you may not have been.

I've had Twhirl 0.8.6 running nicely in the background on both the XP and Vista boxes for the past few hours.

One word. Nice!

Twirl now lets you access Twitter, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Seesmic and also has generic support for the Laconi.ca platform that powers Identi.ca.

The latest version also fixes a few problems created when Twitter changed their API.

Open all the windows at once and ... watch the 'micro world' go by!

This is a really sweet update. Be sure and check it out. (It works on OS X too!)

Kudos to Marco, Loic and the Seesmic team on this desktop app. It's a winner.

You can download Twhirl at their website or check out the latest features on the Twhirl blog here.

A Simple Way to Refine Searches

2008-09-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

In many cases, finding some information using a search engine is an iterative process: you type a query, study the results and then you adjust your keywords. Sometimes your query is too ambiguous and you need to clarify its meaning by adding or subtracting keywords.

Xippee is a plug-in that makes it easy to refine your query using words from the search results pages. Let's say that you want to find some news about the Chrome game and you search for [Chrome]. Most of the results are related to Google's recently-released browser, so you can just select "Google", click on the "-" button and you'll get the results for [Chrome -Google].

Xippee works in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, Safari and you can use it in Google, Yahoo and Live Search.

What did he say? - Newsflashr and Spy revisited

2008-09-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

In this new and continuously evolving chapter of microblogging and lifestreaming, it's becoming increasing difficult to track what people you 'follow' are saying .... and at times, ... what you've said?!

Over the past few days, I've revisited both Newsflashr and Ben Hedrington's 'Spy'.

At first glance, Newsflashr appears like any other searchable aggregator. Try a vanity search. IE: Search your own name. If you do any writing, blogging, commenting, 'liking', etc, I can almost guarantee you'll get a few surprises. I said what?

Ben Hedrington is watching everybody. There's just no doubt about it. I sent a Twitter to Sarah Perez a few weeks ago (Sarah writes for RWW, Channel 10, and others), and Ben picked it up in a heartbeat. Literally. Why? I was talking about his (pretty neat) Google App Engine powered 'Spy'.

Spy is really amazing. An almost real-time view of what you (or anyone else) is saying with a unique graphical display. It's a 'must try'.

There are a few commercial Buzz Tracking Tools and/or Reputation Monitoring programs out there that are more comprehensive such as Andy Beal's Trackur.

More suited to business (or politics??), the commercial entities do a good job and are evolving as well.

Give Newsflashr and Spy a fresh spin. The cool stuff just keeps on coming.

and....

Have a GREAT weekend all!

Charlie

Twitter launches new look !

2008-09-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Twitter's sporting a new look tonight.

Since MOST users access Twitter via an API, many haven't noticed that they too have launched a 'new look and feel' today on the direct website, and it's just the beginning.

For now, mostly cosmetic changes, but Ajax is soon to be deployed for faster speed.

Other upcoming changes include more customization and more.

Twitter is seeking YOUR input on the Twitter Blog .

With Blog World Expo upon us, something tells me we're going to see more of these announcements.

Brief: Friendfeed Beta is now Friendfeed!

2008-09-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I ran down a number of improvements that had just been introduced by Friendfeed.

A few hours ago, just prior to Blog World Expo (nice move guys :), the 'cut over' decision was made, and those visiting the regular URL are now seeing the all-new Friendfeed.

Tuesday's piece with numerous links is here, and of course, you can check out Friendfeed here.

To my friends out at Blog World, have a great time in LV!

Charlie

Update: The newest features have been posted by Bret Taylor to the Friendfeed blog here.

Lots of Bloggers - Blog World and New Media Expo

2008-09-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

If last year is any indication, the halls will be filled as Blog World Expo rolls into Vegas over the next few days.

Some workshops will be held tomorrow and the Expo will run Sept 20 and 21st at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Over 200 speakers will be on hand for keynotes and conferences.

The official website now has links to ongoing coverage, and of course ....

.... there will be more than a few bloggers 'live blogging' the event.

The Blog World and New Media Expo official website (with much more) can be found here.

Sergey Brin Launches Personal Blog

2008-09-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

The most outgoing Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, launched a personal blog at too.blogspot.com. "While Google is a play on googol, too is a play on the much smaller number - two. It also means in addition, as this blog reflects my life outside of work," explains Sergey Brin.

The first blog post is somber: Sergey discovered that he has a "higher chance of developing Parkinson's in [his] lifetime than the average person".

My mother had always been haunted by Parkinson's because her aunt had suffered from it. I had often reasoned with her that since Parkinson's is not hereditary (there is not a strong correlation of Parkinson's incidence among close relatives), she had little to fear.

In 2004, my wife, Anne, introduced me to her future cofounders in 23andMe as they were studying the genetics of Parkinson's Disease. As with my mother's fear, I was skeptical about the study. I reasoned that if there was much to be learned about Parkinson's in the genome, there would have to be a high percentage of inherited cases. In fact, I appeared to be right in that this particular study did not bear immediate fruit. (...)

So, when my wife asked me to look up G2019S in my raw data (23andMe scientists had had the forethought to include it on their chip), I viewed it mostly as entertainment. But, of course, I learned something very important to me -- I carry the G2019S mutation and when my mother checked her account, she saw she carries it too.

The exact implications of this are not entirely clear. Early studies tend to have small samples with various selection biases. Nonetheless it is clear that I have a markedly higher chance of developing Parkinson's in my lifetime than the average person. In fact, it is somewhere between 20% to 80% depending on the study and how you measure.

{ via Bradley Horowitz }

Popular Names for iGoogle Tabs

2008-09-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

iGoogle has a very cool feature that populates tabs with gadgets and feeds just by entering a title. When you create a tab, there's an option called "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name".

To make things even easier, iGoogle started to suggest popular names sorted by the number of users. There are 227,300 users that have tab named "Lifestyle", 3,725,200 users that named a tab "Music" and 21,070,090 users that couldn't find a better name than "Home".

Here's the top 10 for English:

1. Home - 21,070,090 users
2. News - 6,755,900
3. Games - 4,103,500
4. Entertainment - 4,002,300
5. Music - 3,725,200
6. Humor - 3,712,500
7. Sports - 3,667,300
8. Technology - 3,016,700
9. Cooking - 2,203,700
10. Politics - 2,170,700
.....
?. Name this tab - 490,000

and the top 10 for French:

1. Accueil - 1,757,000 (Home)
2. Actualités - 590,100 (News)
3. Dictionnaire - 375,100 (Dictionary)
4. Google - 371,300
5. Musique - 346,100 (Music)
6. Jeux - 297,800 (Games)
7. Informatique - 291,600 (IT)
8. Photos - 282,700
9. Culture - 242,600
10. Radio - 237,700

For other languages, use this URL:
http://www.google.com/ig/mtjson?hl=LANG_CODE&q=
and replace LANG_CODE with a language code supported by iGoogle.

10 Years of Google Part Five: Top 100 Google Moments Part IV

2008-09-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well we have gone through 75 of Google's top moments from the past ten years in celebration of their 10th Anniversary/Birthday this month. Yes way back in September 1998, Google started out with a handful of employees. some investment capital and a passion fort changing how the world receives information. The result has become this innovative juggernaut that is used by millions each and every day.

Google has changed all of our lives and whether you like it or not, Google will be around for a long time. Their innovation and desire to help organize the world's information continues to spawn new services, products and online experience like no other. With that let's complete our countdown of the top 100 Google Moments from the past ten years.

10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part I
10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part II
10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part III

Top 100 Google Moments 1998-2008 - Part IV

#25. Google buys YouTube for 1.65 billion in stock - November 2006.
#24. The Issue of "GoogleBombing" - 2005
#23. Google Launches Universal Search - May 2007. The launch of Google Universal Search was the first time a major search engine would be serving up blended search results on the main SERP (search results page). http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/universalsearch_20070516.html
#22. Google Launches Own Browser Chrome - September 2, 2008. A more recent development that may have huge implications for the browser market in the future. Google Chrome had a lot of initial hype, but will it continue to be top of mind of mainstream Internet users?
#21. Google Guys Do Playboy Interview - later include it in SEC filing documentation. September 2004. http://www.google-watch.org/playboy.html
#20. A patent describing a portion of Google's Algorithm was granted. This patent of "Page Rank" process is registered with Lawrence Page being the inventor. - September 2001
#19. Google Secures $25 Million in Equity Funding - June 1999 http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease1.html
#18. Google forms non-profit division, Google.org with a starting find of $1 billion
#17. Google's Big Daddy Update - Early 2006
#16. Google Launches AdSense - later launches AdSense blog in 2005.
#15. Google Gets added to the S&P 500 Index (replacing Burlington Resources on the list) - March 31, 2006
#14. Google Purchases DoubleClick - April 2007. The deal is estimated to be worth $3.1 billion.
#13. Federal Trade Commission Clears Google's Acquisition of DoubleClick - December 2007
#12. Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin meet in the summer of 1995
#11. Google Launches their First Targeted Keyword Ad Program - August 2000. http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease31.html

#10. Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto is born - July 19, 2001. Reflecting the core values of the company, their infamous "Don't Be Evil" motto was originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit and Amit Patel.

#9. Google makes an S-1 Form SEC filing for an IPO - April 29, 2004. According to wikipedia, "on April 29, 2004, Google made an S-1 form SEC filing for an IPO to raise as much as $2,718,281,828. This alludes to Google's corporate culture with a touch of mathematical humor as e ≈ 2.718281828. April 29 was also the 120th day of 2004, and according to section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, "a company must file financial and other information with the SEC 120 days after the close of the year in which the company reaches $10 million in assets and/or 500 shareholders, including people with stock options."

#8. Eric Schmidt becomes Google's First CEO - August 2001 - http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/ceo.html

#7. Google Launches Google Toolbar - late 2000. Google launches the innovative browser plug-in that made it possible to use Google search without visiting the Google homepage, either using the toolbar's search box or right-clicking on text within a web page, as well as enabling the highlighting of keywords in search results.

#6. Google valued at more than $52 billion making it one of the world's largest media companies based on stock value - June 2005.

#5. Google's Florida Update (algorithm update) - November 2003. Webmasters, search marketers and site owners were devastated when Google made a major algorithm shift with their Florida Update.

#4. Google Purchases Applied Semantics - Later Capitalizes on Online Ad Platform that Changes the way companies advertise online. Deal is worth an estimated $102 million and later spawns Google AdWords and Google AdSense. - April 2003

#3. Google's IPO - August 19, 2004 - The Google IPO took place on 19 August 2004. 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of US$85 per share. According to Wikipedia data, the sale of US$1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than US$23 billion.

#2. Google Launches AdWords, Google's flagship advertising product, and main source of Google's revenue.
www.enquiro.com/marketing-monitor/how-Google-makes-money.asp
http://seo-space.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-google-makes-money-in-2007.html

#1. The word "Google" becomes a verb used in the English language - 2005 - In July 2006, the verb" to Google" was officially addded to the Oxford English and the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionaries meaning to "use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google

There you have it, ten years of Google. What a ride it has been. Where do you think Google will be in 2018? Will there be a Google in 2018?

September is redesign month!

2008-09-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's called 'legacy migration'.

When a website or blog employs newer technologies to enhance the user experience, and, in the larger picture, hopefully gain a larger market share.

This month, some of the largest websites (and many of the oldest) have introduced wholesale web redesigns.

CNET, one of the first 'mega' websites on the Internet, has an all-new look.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal launched their new look, and yes, Yahoo! is testing yet another new version of their home page as well. (Note: Not all users will see the Yahoo! changes yet).

Many are employing newer content management software to drive fresh, up-to-date, any yes, search engine friendly content .... while introducing what they perceive to be new, more interactive layouts.

"Hey Google, take another look over here. It works now!"

Almost everyone is 'going social' if they haven't already .... with the 'hope' their product will become sticky (retain users).

In the Web 2.0 sphere, TechCrunch, Mashable, Facebook, and numerous others have redesigned as well.

The question becomes ... Will any of this work?

Facebook got hit with a HUGE petition on their own network that delayed the 'permanent' switchover. User habits are hard to break.

With RSS feed readers now in use by many busy people and offsite commenting (IE: Disqus and Friendfeed) becoming more common, the landscape is changing....and fast. It's only a matter of time before this becomes much more mainstream.

In a recent poll, I asked the question 'What is your start-up page set to'. Although it was more of a tech and early adopter audience, over 100 responded, and the answers were surprising (at least to me).

While I have always felt more than half your audience should come from 'search', I ran a two week test on the social networks this month as well. Unique visitors to this blog (not RSS subscriptions) tripled and that was with a very mild amount of bookmarking (and sharing) across 5 of the primary off-site social networks.

'Professional social marketers' KNOW .... every channel hits a different audience. Why create your own?

The web is more dynamic than ever. I call it 'hyper dynamic'. It has to be confusing to even the best of marketers right now.

Will any of these changes bring new users that come back in significant numbers?

With THOUSANDS of brand new blogs, new ventures, and websites hitting the Internet globally each day, it's very likely that these redesigns, that while they're 'pretty' and 'more sale able', this will pass as fast as the wind.

What will work?

Direct user engagement, on other sites, microblogging and lifestreaming (and the new multi-media engagement we're seeing in it's very early stages now for larger companies).

Delivering a product that delivers on a consistent basis (and/or provides real value) is still the key. Make it easy for people to interact, and if at all possible, let them know they're being heard.

On-site comments to many Internet marketing professionals has already been relegated to linkbait. How many times have you gone back to a blog or website to see if someone commented on your comment?? Think about it.

The mad rush back to Twitter is a great example. If you can't answer on the moment on Twitter (or Friendfeed), it's considered OK. You're engaging a new and growing audience, still limited somewhat in scope, but not for long.

It's not enough to 'partner' or even buy companies anymore. Want page views? Put 'direct interactivity' on your list. People want to know your listening.

What still works from 'the old school'? Babies, Pets, and yes, Sexy people.

Update: With thanks to the 50 or so of you that immediately reminded me it's September, not August (It's been a long week :) Fixed!

The iGoogle Experiment

2008-09-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

iGoogle Developer Blog announces developers that the experimental version of iGoogle is a success and that more users will be a part of the experiment.

"It's been a few weeks since I've provided an update on the status of the canvas view launch. Our experiments with a small percentage of users have been going well, and we've been making some small changes and adjustments based on user feedback (such as reducing the width of the left nav). In the next few weeks we plan on ramping up the number of US English users with the canvas view."

Canvas view is one of the features from a major update for iGoogle that will bring support for OpenSocial gadgets, activity streams and more social apps. The trouble is that Google randomly selected a list of users to join the experiment, without providing a way to opt-out*. Most people didn't understand the implications of the update and only noticed the new design (the horizontal tabs have been replaced by a vertical menu), the missing functionality (you can't move a gadget to a different tab) and the broken gadgets (Gmail's canvas view displays the messages inside iGoogle, but it doesn't have a reply button).

Some people complained in iGoogle's discussion board, but Google didn't admit its mistake and continued to expand the experiment. Here's an interesting comment from a user:

"Your methodology is very heavy-handed. I am a retired executive from the old-days of computing (IBM and the BUNCH). We could never have imagined changing the interface of our customer's tools without asking permission. In many cases, we would have to support old versions of software for years after we thought we had newer and better products, just because our customers had gotten used to the way the old versions worked and had modified their habits to accommodate us. It would be considered the highest form of arrogance to force changes on them without their permission. Part of the wrath you are hearing from your users is because of your methodology, and the fact that it's way too hard to give you feedback."

Things have changed and web applications update much faster, often without providing an option to revert to a previous version. But it's extremely arrogant to replace a working version of a popular application like iGoogle with an unfinished version, without providing a way to opt-out. iGoogle was supposed to be a personalized Google homepage, a place where you can choose your favorite gadgets, feeds, themes.

When Flickr started to test a new interface for the dashboard, it placed a small link: "Would you like to try a new version of this page?". FriendFeed used a different address to test a new design and improve it based on the feedback. Gmail still links to the "classic" version to test how many people are satisfied with the new one. But iGoogle decided to try a different path and many unhappy users migrated to My Yahoo, Netvibes or other similar services.

"Our experiments with a small percentage of users have been going well, and we've been making some small changes and adjustments based on user feedback (such as reducing the width of the left nav). In the next few weeks we plan on ramping up the number of US English users with the canvas view."

* Some users managed to revert to the classic interface by going to google.com/ig and pasting in the address bar:
javascript:_dlsetp('v2=0')

Foxit PDF Reader updated

2008-09-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

Foxit Software today released version 2.3 build 3309 of their popular (and lightweight) PDF reader plug-in for Windows.

Version 2.3 adds new features and is still 'free for home use'. The latest build issued a short time ago is an important bug fix.

Details on Foxit, their other products, and today's updated download can be found at the company's website here.

Street View and Walking Directions in Google Maps Mobile

2008-09-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

The latest version of Google Maps for mobile phones brings two popular features that were only available in the desktop version: Street View and walking directions. You can download the application by visiting www.google.com/gmm from a supported mobile phone.

Street View is integrated in the local search results and you can see Street View imagery next to each step from driving or walking directions.

I tried to install the new version, but Google Maps linked to GMM 2.2.0, an earlier version launched in June.

Update. Here are the direct links for Google Maps 2.3.1:

* Java-enabled phones: http://google.com/gmm/apps/v2.3.1/L1/gmaps-231-m2_L1.jar

* BlackBerry: http://google.com/gmm/apps/v2.3.1/L1/BlackBerry-43/gmaps-231-bb-43_L1.jar

* the native versions for Windows Mobile and Symbian haven't been updated

Google Should Learn About Contacts APIs

2008-09-17T02:59:00.000-07:00

Garett Rogers noticed a new option in the chat widget from the experimental iGoogle: invite friends to Google Talk. Unlike the similar feature from Gmail, iGoogle provides a simple way to import your contacts from Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AIM and send mass invitations. The problem is that Google asks the username and password for a third-party email account, instead of using the APIs provided by Yahoo and Microsoft.

Google explains that it doesn't keep your username and password, but it's a really bad practice to teach your users to type their credentials on third-party sites. "Big internet companies stand to lose the most from widespread abuse of the anti-pattern, because they're the ones most likely to be targeted by phishers," says Simon Willison.

It's ironic that Google has a Contacts Data API and the introductory blog post has the following message:

"Have you ever been on a web-site that asked you for your Google username and password so that it can import your Gmail contact list? Did you think twice before giving out that information, hoping the web-site would not use it to access your credit card information stored with Google Checkout? Now you don't have to! We're happy to announce the availability of our Google Contacts Data API that gives programmatic access to your contact list. (...) We hope that APIs like this one mean you will never have to give out your username and password to other sites again. Please encourage all sites you use to switch to this API for accessing your Google contact data."

Flickr heard Google's message and it uses the contacts API to import the address book from Gmail. This way, Flickr doesn't have access to your password and it can only use a small portion of the data stored in your Google Account.

Friendfeed - The Beta gets Better (and closer!)

2008-09-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

Friendfeed has rolled out a few more features today as well as addressing numerous 'user recommended' changes to the still experimental beta test format launched in late August.

While Friendfeed is alive and well (and growing) at www.friendfeed.com, the newer features can be accessed by any Friendfeed user at beta.friendfeed.com.

The experimental beta URL has been a testing ground for a variety of improvements and mostly user requests, as well as to facilitate better navigation (personal categories) and more. Many issues have been addressed in posts by FF staff members almost in real time ..... impressive.

Friendfeed expects to take the newer, easier to use format to the main URL 'very soon' and continues to respond to (reasonable) requests in the Friendfeed Beta room (No A-list pass necessary :).

I've had only one complaint about Friendfeed since the original launch.

I spend way too much time there.

The platform has now attracted a mix of interesting, smart, fun (and yes, a few crazy) people. What else could you ask for ?

As far as this guy's concerned (at at times, I've been concerned), Friendfeed is continuing down the right path.

Check out the Beta. See what YOU think. Join me if you like here. Spread the word.

Charlie

PS: A little warning. While Saturday Night Live may have gotten a little one-week blip that past week, Saturday Night on Friendfeed is 'the new deal' :)

The First Android Phone Will Be Launched Next Week

2008-09-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

HTC Dream, the first mobile device that uses Android will be introduced on September 23 by T-Mobile at a press conference in New York. "HTC says it expects to ship 600,000 to 700,000 units of the smart phone, dubbed the Dream, this year," according to Wall Street Journal.

The phone will be available at the end of October, but you can see a demo from Google Developer Day in London.

Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms, is aware that the first Android-powered mobile phone is very important for the public perception. "If we come out with a dud, people will go, 'Well, that was a waste of time'". Reuters reports that the device will ship with a beta version of the Android application marketplace and Google will not make money from selling applications. "We made a strategic decision not to revenue share with the developers. We will basically pass through any revenue to the carrier or the developer."

{ via Information Week }

Google Android Powered Phone Set to Drop in October

2008-09-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Wow it's been quite a week. Surreal even with all of the financial news coming from Wall Street. We've been taking it all in just like everybody else, when we read a little story that put a smile on our faces. TechCrunch is reporting that the first Google Android powered phone is set to drop in October.

Google's Android has been discussed for months and it appears that a release is right around the corner. With reports that there are over 30 partners for the offering, it looks like HTC will be the first one to feature a headset with Android. Hopefully the release will be made available here in Canada as well. We had to wait until this July for the iPhone in Canada, and with the expensive data rates hopefully Android can offer a less expensive solution.

Related Stories
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/03/google-android-for-sure-in-4th-quarter-of-2008/
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4032446.ece

Microsoft releases new build of Pro Photo Tools

2008-09-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released version 2.2 of Pro Photo Tools, the company's popular (and free) photo metadata editor.

Version 2.2 has support for 64-bit systems, improved geotagging, support for XMP, as well as interfacing with Microsoft's Live.com local.

This release adds several new features while providing the tools to perform common tasks, such as embedding photo keywords, author, time and date, etc.

Google, Yahoo, and Live.com have all been hard at work with image search, and while geotagging has helped in many cases, this simple tool can embed and augment the labels and keywords already available on many online galleries.

In addition, Microsoft is inviting your feedback.

You can download the latest build of Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 from the Microsoft Download Center or the Microsoft Professional Photography homepage.

edit 10 AM ET

Google Audio Indexing

2008-09-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

Google's efforts to improve video search by using speech recognition technology started to become visible in July, when Google launched a gadget for searching inside the political speeches from YouTube. The gadget has been expanded into a new service called GAudi (Google Audio Indexing), which is now available at Google Labs.

"Google Audio Indexing is a new technology from Google that allows users to better search and watch videos from various YouTube channels. It uses speech technology to find spoken words inside videos and lets the user jump to the right portion of the video where these words are spoken. (...) Political videos and election materials are a special case of broadcast news content, a domain that has received a lot of academic and industry attention and is known to perform well," explains the FAQ.

The interface is attractive because you can find all the mentions of your keywords and go directly to the appropriate sequence. And if you find an interesting video, there's another search box that lets you search inside that video.

Google's technology is far from being perfect, so you'll find many mistakes. In the video "Barack Obama on the 40th Anniversary of the Prague Spring", "Czechoslovakia" is incorrectly detected as "tech also but there", "free" is replaced by "forty" and there are many other mistakes.

{ Thanks, Kevin and Pat. }

Gmail's Forgotten Attachment Detector

2008-09-16T00:55:00.000-07:00

Gmail Labs added two new experimental features: a "Mark as Read" button and a very basic script that warns if you write about attaching documents but you forget to actually attach them.

The attachment detector couldn't recognize patterns like "I attached a file", "Check the attached file", but it worked when using: "I've attached..." and "I have attached". Greasemonkey scripts like Gmail attachment reminder find their way in Gmail Labs and you no longer need to use Firefox or install a certain extension to use them.

{ Thanks, Carlos. }

Hi. We're Yahoo! (and we're, very much, still here).

2008-09-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Ever since the unsuccessful takeover attempt of Yahoo! by Microsoft, it seems many of us (including myself) have been devoting a lot of coverage to Google and Microsoft, but not quite as much to Yahoo!.

In the meantime, Yahoo! has been far from sitting idly by. In fact, they continued to innovate throughout the takeover attempt, and still are.

First: Search. The Yahoo! Search blog reported last week they were about to 'make some adjustments'. Yahoo!'s search team calls it their 'weather report', and this time they're inviting community participation.

The first reports are trickling into my e-mail tonight, and apparently some of you are starting to notice changes in the Yahoo! index already. Will it be more relevant? Will it help YOU? It all remains to be seen but it's still good to see it happening. Whether you're Google, Yahoo!, or MSN, it's getting more difficult every day to separate the spam from the real stuff ..... and especially to get the valid responses into the Top-10. No doubt, part of the reason all three (and others) have been engaging in web developer interaction.

In recent months, Yahoo! has delivered an all-new delicious. (Less the 'periods' that people are still typing in??!!). They delivered a significant upgrade to MyBlogLog, and were responsive to suggestions and /or criticism. Yahoo News introduced a numbers of initiatives, including breaking news and numerous content partners, and yes, citizen journalism. Shine (Fashion and Beauty), OMG (Celeb gossip), Zimbra, lots of ther content betas ... and yes, Yahoo Video arrived, got buggy, and now works.

Of course, the most recent beta change, is appearing on what possibly is, their most popular property, Flickr.

There's a lot more in the Yahoo! portfolio.

I, for one, will be very interested to see where they go from here.

After fighting off a hostile takeover attempt by Microsoft, this is one guy that isn't ruling anything out from Sunnyvale.

Update Sept 18 AM: Kara Swisher at AllThingsD is reporting an all-new look for Yahoo! tomorrow.

Better Performance in Google Desktop 5.8

2008-09-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

Google Desktop announces that the latest release focuses on performance and that's a great thing, considering that many users call Google Desktop a memory hog.

Google Desktop 5.8 improves the memory usage during startup, has a faster shutdown and detects the gadgets that slow down your computer. "To reduce memory usage, increase stability and reduce memory fragmentation, we reduced the number of different processes that Google Desktop runs, and we now recycle some of our processes frequently."

The blog post doesn't mention the biggest performance improvement: Google Desktop's main feature, indexing the files from your computer, is no longer enabled by default. In Windows Vista, Google uses the index created by Microsoft's desktop search service. If you want to enable Google Desktop's index, you need to select "Enable Enhanced Content Indexing" when you install the software or in the options page.

Enable additional features by using Google Desktop's index:

* Backup and view previous versions of your documents
* Search your web history, Gmail, and more
* View thumbnail previews of your images, videos, and web history

Google Desktop's wording makes you think that the "enhanced content indexing" is an advanced feature, when it should be the main feature of the software.

If you do enable desktop search, the initial indexing is much faster and the overall performance has been improved.

10 Years of Google Part Five: Top 100 Google Moments Part III

2008-09-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Throughout the month of September we have been celebrating Google's official 10 year anniversary. In September 1998, Google became incorporated as a business entity. Continuing with our top 100 Google moments, we know enter the top 50 Google moments. For those that missed the first half of our countdown, they can be found here:

10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part I
10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part II

Top 100 Google Moments - Part III

#50. Google makes it official opens it's doors in Menlo Park , Ca. - 1998
#49. Matt Cutts Joins Google as a software engineer, later becomes Google Evangelist - January 2000
#48. Google Buys Android for Planned Mobile Assault - August 2005
#47. Google Launches Google Image Search - Summer 2001. images.google.com
#46. Google Hits 20,000 Employee Mark - Summer 2008
#45. Google Acquires Usenet Discussion Service and Significant Assets from Deja.com - December 2001
#44. Google Announces Purchase of a Radio Advertising Company dMarc - January 17, 2006
#43. Google Hires Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group to arrange an IPO - January 2004
#42. Google Forms "Partnership" with Yahoo helping Yahoo stave off a takeover from Microsoft - June 2008
#41. Google Leases Buildings at 1600 Ampitheatre Parkway in Mountainview, CA - 1999
#40. Google Android: Open Handset Alliance is Launched - November 2007
#39. Google Incoporates Customized Logos Celebrating Special Days in History
#38. Google Purchases Property for home of the GooglePlex for $319 million - June 2006
#37. Google Acquires Keyhole Inc - 2004 - Later Launches Google Earth in 2005. http://earth.google.com/
#36. Google Acquires Technology Assets of Outride Inc. - September 20, 2001
#35. Google Releases Gmail - April 2004
#34. Google Shares Hit $500 - Fall of 2006
#33. Page, Brin and Schmidt listed as the top people on PC World's Top 50 Most Important People on the Web list. Marissa Mayer VP of Search Products and User Experience is in the number nine spot on the list - March 2007
#32. Google Launches Google Alerts, an email notification service for receiving updates on a topic or issue from Internet news sites, blogs, and other web sites - 2006. http://www.google.com/alerts
#31. Google Shares Hit $700 - October 31, 2007
#30. Google Launches iGoogle - Google Personalized Homepages for users - May 2005.

www.google.com/ig

#29. Google Launches Google Analytics - For Free!
#28. Google cut Goldman Sachs from the IPO, utilizing Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Boston as the underwriters for the IPO - May 2004
#27. Google Maps Launch - 2005. http://maps.google.com/maps
#26. Google Purchases a 5% Stake in AOL - December 2005

We will conclude our top 100 Google moments of the first ten years later this week.

Speed up Vista without spending a dime

2008-09-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

No, this piece isn't about some magical new free software (I only do those on Fridays :), or removing the 'bloat' that manufacturers load on to your hard drive.

It's about Vista SP1 and why it's time for you to take another look at your computer.

Back in August, I wrote this piece describing some frustration with, what I thought was, a GREAT deal on a laptop .... until I found out it maxed out at 2 GB and Vista was slow! I went on to describe how I got past the RAM block, and Rick R from Microsoft was good enough to chime in, in the comments.

Well, Rick. You weren't kidding.

In my spare time (????), I wandered over to the OEM's site yesterday. There were not only FIVE firmware upgrades since the last one, but also new drivers, and they were all specific to Vista SP1.

(Note to non-techies: Flashing a bios can be (VERY) hazardous to your computers health).

Admittedly (and somewhat strangely), the downloads weren't on the US site. They were on the manufacturer's Euro site. (Not entirely unusual for this OEM ... and a few others on their Taiwan websites).

I quickly loaded up Belarc and FreshDiagnose to see which goodies were in the box then proceeded with the bios firmware and 4 software upgrades, one at a time, re-booting each time.

(I hold my breath anytime I do firmware. This one was perfect!)

Results: Graphics rendering faster. Internet throughput faster. More options in the bios. ReadyBoost 'seems' to work even better. Better benchmarks ACROSS the board, and, with absolutely no changes in start-up programs, less CPU and Memory overhead.

Not bad?

Manufacturers and integral parts makers are issuing drivers all the time. Vista has been (admittedly) slow in getting to the 'best of' level.

Software upgrades are issued pretty often too, usually free. Have you checked yours?

Sidenote: It's usually much easier to find new firmware and drivers for newer hardware. Be VERY cautious with any of the third-party sites. More than half are ridden with malware. Either use Microsoft or the OEM's site if at all possible!

What I found interesting was that ALL of these were Vista Service Pack 1 specific.

The best part is ... they worked!

So to Rick R in the Microsoft Windows Vista Outreach Team. Nice job.

CoolIris (PicLens) and Firebug - Significant Upgrades

2008-09-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend both CoolIris (formerly Piclens) and Firebug for Firefox both issued significant updates.

CoolIris has been featured here numerous times. If you want to surf photos and videos across the web, there's simply nothing like it.

Firebug is an open source Firefox add-on which allows you to, on the fly, view source code, execute javascript, monitor network activity, and more. All immediately, while viewing the page in the Internet.

You don't have to be a techie to fall for CoolIris. If you are viewing a CoolIris 'enabled' website, it grabs and displays the images in a variety of ways, 3D style across your screen instantly. If you're not on a CoolIris specific site, the integrated search and the discover features deliver a collage of photos and videos by keyword or category (with a good chance you've never seen many of them before). Move them around and zoom in and out with your mouse.

Firebug keeps the developer in mind. Script error on a page? Firebug will isolate it in a heartbeat. The latest version shoots a few bugs and adds features. Potentially, one of the most popular Firefox extensions for 'coders'.

If you haven't visited either of these programs since Firefox went to 3.0.1, they're well worth another look.

I seriously doubt you'll be offloading them anytime soon.

10 Videos About Google

2008-09-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

Even if Google has been founded 10 years as a company, there aren't too many great videos about Google's history. I compiled a list of 10 videos: interviews with Google's co-founders, press events, an interesting documentary and some highlights from Googleplex.

1. "Charlie Rose" (PBS, July 2001) - a conversation with Larry Page (Google's CEO at that time) and Sergey Brin.

2. "60 Minutes" (CBS, 2005) - transcript. "To this day, Google has still never run a TV commercial. Their popularity has spread literally by word of mouth around the world, as people everywhere search for everything under the sun."

3. "Sergey Brin and Larry Page: Inside the Google machine" (TED conferences, 2004)

4. "Google - Behind the Screen" (Ijsbrand van Veelen, 2006). The documentary asks interesting questions like "How can you convince people that Google isn't a Big Brother company?", "What happens if a search engine becomes dominant?", but the answers from Google's executives aren't always convincing.

5. "Sergey Brin Speaks with UC Berkeley Class" (2005) - 40 minutes about Wikipedia, search engines, China, desktop software and more.

6. "Google Factory Tour" (a press event from 2005) - 340 minutes

7. "Googling the Googlers' DNA: A Demonstration of the 23andMe Personal Genome" (2008). Anne Wojcicki reveals interesting details about Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt - skip to minute 27.

8. "Marissa Mayer at Stanford University" (2006) - Marissa Mayer's 9 Notions of Innovation

9. "The Science and Art of User Experience at Google" (2006) - Jen Fitzpatrick

10. "Working at Google" (2008) - interviews with Google employees and images from Googleplex.

Google Chrome, a Shell for the Web

2008-09-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

"In the long term, we think of Chromium as a tabbed window manager or shell for the web rather than a browser application. We avoid putting things into our UI in the same way you would hope that Apple and Microsoft would avoid putting things into the standard window frames of applications on their operating systems. The tab is our equivalent of a desktop application's title bar; the frame containing the tabs is a convenient mechanism for managing groups of those applications. In future, there may be other tab types that do not host the normal browser toolbar," explains a document about Chrome's user experience.

This philosophical shift might explain why there are few interface distractions and the browser is barely visible. Google Chrome is built for web applications that have their own menus, keyword shortcuts and status bars.

Chrome comes with intelligent defaults to minimize the interaction with the browser. The settings dialog doesn't include many options available in other browsers and the team hopes to "reduce the number of options further". The lack of customization is not a good news for advanced users, but normal users might appreciate the simplicity of the interface.

"The heck with more features, is Safari 3 faster, more stable, less memory-hungry and more compatible on the web at large? That's what I want to see in each release," commented Peter Kasting on an article from 2006 about Safari 3. Peter Kasting is now an engineer in the Google Chrome team.

More on Comcast and Bandwidth Caps

2008-09-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

It seemed like the world was coming to an end last week when Comcast announced they would start capping monthly Internet use at 250GB. Comcast was one of the first providers in the US to introduce widespread 20 MB plus residential connections. Since that time, Verizon, Cablevision, and many others have 'lit' the new fiber and competition in major Metro areas is ongoing.

Relatively new flexible fiber is now becoming cost-effective, making it viable to rewire entire office and apartment buildings, raising the bandwidth possibilities dramatically.

The only piece I read that put the numbers in perspective was written by Duncan Riley at the Inquisitr.

I started giving it some thought over the past few days.

Could Comcast be trying to protect their (highly profitable) cable franchise?

As more and more TV programs (in HD) begin to appear on the Internet, and so-called Media Center PC's and/or Apple TV move into the marketplace, will more people watch TV on their computers?

I find myself on sites such as Hulu and CBS HD often (In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm watching hurricane coverage from Houston in full-screen HD from KHOU.com in another tab).

I haven't crunched the numbers but live HD TV over IP has to be pretty big if you do it all the time?

If networks around the world continue to put programming online, not only could the cable companies see people downsize their programming packages, but DVR's could be rendered obsolete as well.

Will the satellite TV providers feel the heat as well?

It'll be interesting to watch this next chapter evolve.

Have a GREAT weekend everyone.

To my friends in Houston and that region, please, stay safe.

Charlie

More Advanced Search Options for YouTube

2008-09-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

YouTube added some new options that allow you to filter search results by type. You can restrict the results to videos uploaded by YouTube partners, videos that have annotations or closed captions. There's also an option to restrict the results to feature length videos, but it doesn't seem to work yet.

Use the "partner videos" restriction to get official videos, annotations could be used for additional explanations or interactivity, while closed captions allow you to search inside the text of a video. The closed captioning features has been recently added to YouTube, so you won't find too many subtitled videos.

YouTube's interface doesn't let you combine the restrictions, but you can manually add parameters:

http://www.youtube.com/results?closed_captions=1&annotations=1&search_query=site:youtube.com (videos that have both annotations and closed captions)

http://www.youtube.com/results?partner=1&closed_captions=1&search_query=site:youtube.com (partner videos with closed captions)

10 Years of Google Part Four: Top 100 Google Moments - Part II

2008-09-12T15:29:00.000-07:00

The other day we began our countdown of the top 100 Google moments of the past ten years. Today we continue our countdown with items 50-75.

Our top 100 list included memorable events from Google's ten years of existence and a few pre Google launch in 1998. The world is such a different place than it was ten years ago. We've seen the rise of the Internet, the rise of terrorism, record gas prices and the start of a new form of marketing known as search marketing? (OK it may have been around prior to 1998, but the term "search engine marketing" has become mainstream only in recent years.)

Top 100 Google Moments 1998-2008

#75. Google Launches Google Pack at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2006.
#74. Google Makes Time Magazine's Top Ten Cybertech of 1999 List - December 1999
#73. Google Search Index Reaches 25 Billion Documents - June 2005
#72. Google Releases the Google Web Toolkit - May 2006
#71. Google Launches Google Health to help users manage their health records online - Summer of 2008
#70. Google Acquires Pasadena based Picasa - July 2004
#69. Google Launches Google Trends - Provides some initial insight into search volume for keywords. - May 2006
#68. Salesforce.com and Google Form Strategic Global Alliance - June 2007
#67. Google (GOOG) Launches Google Finance - March 2006
#66. Google Listed as the Best Company to Work For by Fortune Magazine - January 2008
#65. Google Acquires Pyra - Later Releases Blogger Free Blogging Service - February 2003
#64. Google Acquires Genius Labs - Blogging Technology - October 2003
#63. Google Launches Google Docs; includes Google Spreadsheets - 2006
#62. Google Announces Non-Exclusive Advertising Services Agreement with Yahoo! in U.S. and Canada - June 2008
#61. Google Acquires Feedburner for $100 Million - June 2007
#60. Google Releases GOOG-411, Search for local businesses using your voice, from any phone, for free. Dial 1-800-GOOG-411. - Spring 2007
#59. Google Listed As One of Time Magazine's 25 Sites We Can't Live Without - August 2006
#58. Google Listed as the Top Brand in the World for 2007
#57. Google Begins Launching April Fool's Day Hoaxes - 2000
#56. Google Takes on Government in Feds Request for User Data - January 2006
#55. Google Updates Their Philosophy with Ten Things Google has found to be true.
#54. Google Launches Google Labs - 2002
#53. Google Bans BMW from Index - as part of the "Big Daddy" algorithm update, Google banned the BMW site for using doorway pages ans other "misleading SEO practices" - February 2006
#52. Google Launches "Official Google Blog" - 2004 saw the birth of Google's official blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com. Google has since gone on to launch a number of interesting Google related blogs.
#51. Google Listed as the Best Company to Work For by Fortune Magazine - Jan 2007

We're half way throght our list of the top 100 Google moments of the past ten years. We'll conclude next week with the Top 50 Google Moments of the past ten years.

Lifestreaming is just the beginning

2008-09-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

I'll qualify this piece briefly by saying that I feel strongly that organic 'Search' is still No.1 for most websites or blogs to reach a target audience. Target ad buying is second for most marketing campaigns on the Internet, and there's more places than ever to do it potentially suited for YOUR target audience.

I've read a lot lately about bloggers having a hard time monetizing or losing readers RSS feeds. Some are just getting started, many have been around a long time, while still others are 'Net Vets' starting new ventures.

While there are many ways to build an audience, the most recent 'experiment' to achieving my own personal goals has been to 'cross-platform', starting in the space where I'm the most active as a launchpad.

It's no secret, I'm a huge Friendfeed fan. I'm there several times a day. I find it entertaining, interesting, informative, thought provoking and just fun .... and the new beta finally lets me 'turn up the noise' a little (IE: Find new people).

I visit all the major social networks during the course of a week, and yes, they're all getting even more social. The reason is obvious (and the competition healthy). They all want you to make them number one.

Those who've read this blog for a while know I just don't keep any secrets. If I find something neat that works, I pass it on.

I did a little research this week. I really like doing my own research and testing, and for lack of a better way of putting it, leading and not following. Things just change too dynamically on the 'Net.

Yesterday's big thing is tomorrow's old news.

Like many, I got a little put-out when Facebook firmly decided to move to their new format this week. I needed more time. I later changed my mind after giving it a good run and wrote about it here. (Incidentally, the petition to delay the change won, and Facebook has confirmed it's giving users more time to get used to the new format).

People tend to highlight almost every social network except Facebook. The reality is that Facebook is HUGE and the changes are positive and interactive. Facebook still has the potential to be one of the biggest IPO's in tech history (if it even gets that far .... before someone buys them).

My activity on Friendfeed automatically translates to Twitter followers. Facebook too. I enjoy it because my scope continues to broaden into new spaces, and a world of opinions (and yes, unfortunately, a few spammers?!). The friend or follow requests come. I do look at their stuff, and 9 times out of ten, I green light them.

This week it was time to re-visit sites I had ignored for a while and I decided that for my immediate purposes, LinkedIn would be a primary target. It had changed a lot since I last visited (for the better). My network was old and small. My profile was completely outdated.

I made a simple post to Friendfeed, a brief note on Twitter, imported my Gmail contacts and had an active and decent showing in less than a day.

One of the highlights was the same thing that had happened when I first started using Friendfeed. I discovered someone I hadn't spoken to in years, and that was, well, just cool. A good friend.

I am not a 'professional social networker'. I have no desire at all to visit 29 (or 40?) networks every day.

I want my Internet to be informative, thought provoking, profitable, and fun .... (and still have time to visit 'the real world' once in a while :)

The point? Start where you are the most active. Chances are, people have grown to 'follow' you, hopefully respect you, and will answer a simple request. When you cross over into the next space, you may just find people that you've never heard of ..... but could be your next best friend or ....

..... your next big client.

Edited 9 AM ET Sept 12 cba

Gmail Reply Enhancements

2008-09-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

After adding 3 experimental features related to labels, Gmail Labs has 3 new features that deal with replying to messages.

"Quote selected text" changes Gmail's replying behavior and it lets you include a selection from the original message. This is especially helpful when you reply to long messages from people who don't use Gmail. Your reply will only include the necessary context, not the entire message.

This experimental feature works only when you use the keyboard shortcut for replying (r), not when you click on "Reply".

"Reply to all" changes the default replying option when you receive messages addressed to more than one person. Instead of replying only to the sender, the default option changes to "reply to all". Just make sure that your reply is really useful for everyone.

"Vacation time" is an enhancement of the vacation responder that lets you enter when you intend to go on vacation. This way, you won't have to remember to turn on the vacation responder. "While planning my own vacation, I didn't want to worry about composing, starting and stopping my vacation auto-response while I was on vacation. Call me a purist, but that defeats the whole point of being on vacation," explains Darick Tong, the author.

What other features would you like to see in Gmail Labs?

{ via Gmail Blog }

The Missing Doodles

2008-09-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

Google started to customize its logo in 1999 for the Burning Man festival, an annual art event that encourages creative self expression.

Since then, Google's Dennis Hwang created hundreds of doodles that celebrate interesting holidays and events, from Halloween to Father's Day, from Picasso's birthday to the 50th anniversary of the LEGO brick. Dennis told CNN that the events selected for Google's doodles are the subject of an internal debate. "We talk about interesting holidays that are coming up, or various international holidays or any current events or news events that we think are cool and geeky or 'Google-y' in some sense and then we just sort of give it a go."

In fact, most Google doodles are cheerful, celebrate birthdays and innovations. Instead of creating doodles for any important event, Google chose to decorate its logo for events that have a lot in common with Google's values: excellence, cheerfulness, universality.

Some people noticed that Google choose not to commemorate 9/11. "The murder of 3,000 individuals by Islamic fanatics on September 11, 2001 is, to Google, apparently less important than the first hot air balloon flight, which the company commemorated on June 4 with a stylized logo in which a balloon replaces one of the O's," asserted Paul McDougall from InformationWeek.

Like many times before, Google answered by reminding people that doodles are a part of the company's brand. "The doodle selection process aims to celebrate interesting events and anniversaries around the world that reflect Google's personality and love of innovation. Although we are aware that our list of doodles is not exhaustive, we try to select doodles that show creativity and innovation in a fun, quirky way. Generally, we choose doodles from a variety of categories, such as those that celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of artists and inventors. We try to be sensitive that a doodle is not the most appropriate way to recognize certain events, especially those that are more somber in nature."

Doodles are inherently childish and unpretentious. According to Wikipedia, "a doodle is a type of sketch, an unfocused drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. They are simple drawings which can have a meaning, a shape or just irregular forms. Doodling is mainly made by young people around the world, notably students. This activity is normally made during long or boring classes as the students begin daydreaming or losing interest."

So you can see doodles as glimpses from an imaginary Googleworld that gathers some of the greatest human achievements. The missing doodles are hidden somewhere inside this drawing:

("Up in the Clouds" by Grace Moon, winner of the Doodle 4 Google US competition)

Table of Contents, Dictionary and Thesaurus in Google Docs

2008-09-11T02:53:00.000-07:00

It's no longer necessary to use bookmarklets if you want to add a table of contents in Google Docs because this feature is now available in the interface: Insert > Table of contents. To add a table of contents, your document needs to include headings from the Format menu.

Google Docs actually creates a bookmark for each heading from the document and displays the bookmarks hierarchically using lists. Unsurprisingly, when you open the document in Microsoft Word, the application treats the table of contents created in Google Docs as a list.

You can find more information about a word directly from Google Docs: click on the Tools menu and look up the word in Merriam-Webster's dictionary and thesaurus and in Encyclopædia Britannica.

In the Tools menu, there are two other options that allow you to search the web for the selected text. It would be nice to see the results in a pop-up box and to link to them directly from Google Docs, but this is not yet possible.

{ Thanks, Mike. }

10 Years of Google Part Three: Top 100 Google Moments - Part I

2008-09-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

Continuing with our tribute to Google (GOOG) as they celebrate their 10th birthday. We have compiled a list of the top 100 Google Moments that have made them the unique and innovative company that they are today.

Here is the first installment of the Top 100 Google Moments.

Celebrating 10 Years of Google: Top Google Moments #75-100

#100. Google Acquires Trendalyzer to Bolster Analytics - March 2007
#99. Google Acquires Online Presentation Development Tools Zenter Inc. - June 2007

#98. Google Acquires Dodgeball a social networking site built specifically for use on mobile devices. - May 2005

#97. Google Wins M.I.T. Sloan eBusiness Award - Students' Choice - April 2002
#96. Google Cleans Up at Search Engine Watch Awards - Wins for Outstanding Search Service, Best News Search Engine, Best Image Search Engine, Most Webmaster Friendly Search Provider, Best Paid Placement Service, Best Search Toolbar and Best Search Feature - February 2004

#95. Google.org invests more than $10 million in breakthrough geothermal energy technology - August 2008

#94. Google, in conjunction with a variety of social networks develops Open Social, a set of common APIs for web based social network applications - November 2007

#93. Google Acquires Endoxon for $28 Million - The product is used to improve European mapping feature in Google Earth and Google Maps. - December 2006.

#92. Google and Fox Interactive Team Up to provide search and advertising on MySpace - 2006

#91. Google Wins at World Technology Awards for Best Marketing Communications - December 2004

#90. With eight employees, Google moves to an office on University Avenue in Palo Alto - February 1999

#89. Google Invests in Clean Energy and Green Technology - June 2007

#88. Google Acquires Russian Context Ads Service Begun - July 18, 2008. Acquired for $140 million. http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20080718_begun.html

#87. Google Acquires Marratech's Video Conferencing Software - April 2007
http://seo-space.blogspot.com/2007/04/google-video-conferencing-vs-cisco.html

#86. Google Sells 2.6% Stake in Baidu.com that they had previously acquired in 2004 - June 2006

#85. Google Search Index Reaches 3 Billion Documents - December 2001

#83. Google Acquires Grand Central Internet Service that uses VoIP to link customers phone numbers together -July 2007

#82. Google Wins PC World's Internet Product of the Year and Best Search Engine Awards 2002 - June 2002

#81. Google Launches Google Talk a web-based application for instant messaging - August 24, 2005

#80. Google Teams Up with Sun MicroSystems to help share and distribute each others technologies. - Fall of 2005

#79. Google Launches Webmaster Tools - www.google.com/webmasters/tools

#78. Google Acquires Orion Search Algorithm / Orion Search Engine - April 2006

#77. Google Launches Google Gears Open Source software project that enables more powerful web applications by adding new features to your web browser. Later changes name to "Gears". - May 2007. http://gears.google.com/

#76. Google Acquires Postini - services for message security, archiving and encryption for an estimated $625 million. - July 2007

The top 100 Google Moments will continue later this week.