Posts Tagged ‘Google’
YahSoft: Google Removes Gloves
February 3rd, 2008 • Internet
Tags: Google, microsoft, yahoo
An otherwise quiet Sunday, then Google slides the blog post equivalent of a B52 laden with armed nuclear warheads out of the hanger.
The post on its official blog, penned by their senior VP of Corporate Development, shows a forthright side to The Big G that we, the average consumers, never get to see. It asks many questions, perhaps the prime one being:
Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?
So for Google, the issue is the ‘preservation of the underlying principles of the internet: openess and innovation.
Like Google, only hand-crafted
January 13th, 2008 • Search, Social
Tags: Google, Search, Social, Untitled
Just stumbled upon a Firefox extension from the people at Mahalo.
Not Earth-shaking, I know, but quietly cool. Mahalo, in case you’ve been holidaying on Mars for the last six months, in the new search engine from Jason Calacanis, the entrepreneur who brought you such legendary web properties as WeblogsInc (the power behind Engadget and Autoblog).
Checkout Trends: the new retail price index
January 13th, 2008 • Google, Search
Tags: Google, Search
Just about everyone working on the web uses Google Trends at one time or another, if only to give that quick gauge on which term would prove more popular (Hilary or Barack?).
But now there’s Google Checkout Trends, the search equivalent of every retailer opening their ledgers to the world’s prying eyes. Well, almost. Read more »
The largest threat to Google yet?
January 7th, 2008 • Google, Search, Social
Tags: Google, Search, Social, web3.0, wiki
Wikia Search went live today.
So what? So it’s the brainchild of one Jimmy Whales, the clever chap who brought you Wikipedia. So there’s just a remote chance that it may fly.
The search results are, so far, pretty damn poor, and many of the preferences do not work. But as the world gets stuck in and begins to rate those returns, so they’ll improve (tricky right now, as the star ratings that accompany each entry in a return are disabled), and doubtless the various features will get switched on in the coming weeks. Read more »
Last year, social. This year, knowledge
January 6th, 2008 • Business, Internet
Tags: Google, ibm, Social
Ex-IBM boss Irving Wladawsky-Berger reckons an IT-based knowledge economy will be the most significant trend of 2008, grabbing the cool baton from social networking.
I confess to struggling with the concept at first. IWB points to a recent Business Week piece on ‘cloud computing’ - basically, server networks that can number in the hundreds of thousands that hold invaluable services and wells of know-how. Read more »
Google to launch Facebook rival
October 16th, 2007 • Google, Search, Social
Tags: facebook, Google, Social
So the search giant is going to unveil its Facebook rival on November 5 (no source here… just a hail of blogosphere noise).I’m wondering what tricks Google has up its sleeve to bring down the social giant. In case they’re still wondering, and happen to be reading this, here are a few ideas:
- Bring every social profile together in one place: YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Facebook, the lot.
- Include an IM client in the Friends interface.
- Include a way of seeing what other people are reading.
- Ensure that you can export everything if you tire of the service
- And running through that list again, you realise just how close Google is to delivering the killer blow.
New Live.com: fighting relevance battles
September 27th, 2007 • Business, Search
Tags: Google, live, Search
So today, we have a new Live.com, with Microsoft attempting to steal some Google turf by primarily focusing on relevancy of search returns.
Sensible enough: apparently, many billions of hours of analysis by people with large foreheads revealed that most people want to find things.
Being a person, I thought I’d give it a totally unreasonable test - one search query - and compare the big G with the big, er, L. As you’ll plainly see, Google is the infinitely better thing: Stuff.tv is clearly the right thing to return when you search for ’stuff’. Live, on the other hand, has decided that you want some kind of English course. Blagh. Anyway, in total fairness to Microsoft, many millions of queries from humans around this fair planet of ours will settle the debate. Let battle commence.
Google to ’sort’ Facebook? Outside, now…
September 20th, 2007 • Google, Social
Tags: facebook, Google, Social
Put a tick in your diary for November 5 - TechCrunch claims to have a leak from a secret squirrel briefing held deep within Google, aimed at addressing the “Facebook issue”.
The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I’ve now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.
Google unveils online PowerPoint
September 19th, 2007 • Google, Social
Tags: Google
So here it is: the final link in the Google Office chain. Presently aims at creating fairly slick presentations, and goes live today within Google Docs. I’ve yet to cook a full presentation using the newcomer, but everything seems to be there - including a whole bunch of themes that, while not fit to lick the boots of Keynote, appear perfectly workable.
Presently deserves to make friends: I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve lost versions of PowerPoint presentations as they pass from author to author. The new Google service wants to put pay to that - you can share your presentation with others (who can edit it), and you can even discuss the thing as you edit using Google Talk. Fast, clever, and free… what more could you want?
Google Reader gets search
August 31st, 2007 • Google, Social
Tags: Google, rss, Search
Silly things please simple minds. I open my browser this evening for my usual trawl through 1001 news stories using Google Reader, and… there’s a search box.
OK, OK, it’s hardly earth-shattering. But I’m a Reader addict, and could never understand why the world’s search giant didn’t have search enabled on its popular newsreader. Daft. Well, today, at long last, it has. And it works - you can either query all results, or drill down by category. Smart, quick, and wonderful.
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