FUNNY! Click to Enlarge
Google unveiled its latest lab today, Google Play (http://www.google.com/reader/play/), a magazine-style RSS reader. It shows thumbnails along the bottom edge and the viewing window enlarges images and makes them more prominent. A slideshow mode also makes Play dissimilar from Google Reader. Play includes the ability to “like” an item, share an item and star an item for later viewing.
The recipe for Play seems to be two parts Google Reader, one part Google Fast Flip and one part StumbleUpon.
A touchscreen device would be the ideal platform for Play; readers could simply flick ahead to the next snippet. Perhaps this product was developed primarily for the upcoming touchscreen tablets.
I found the funny image [points up and to the right] using Play. One of the people I follow on Google Buzz shared it.
This post was inspired by Stan Schroeder’s post on Mashable entitled, “Bing takes on ‘Goliath’ Google with Huge UK Advertising Campaign.” Apparently, Microsoft will spend up to $2.0B on an advertising campaign in the U.K. To put this “huge” campaign into perspective, Microsoft current has a market cap of approximately $253B.
65 Google buzzers replied with comments. I commented: “Microsoft is pushing Bing prematurely. Wired ran a very good article about Google which, among other things, compared the accuracy of results between Google and Bing. Bing was pathetic.” The Wired article is entitled, “Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web.” In that article, Google’s accuracy is compared with Microsoft Bing’s.
I have no doubt that Google will dominate internet search, perhaps in perpetuity, but this has less to do with the algorithm Google uses than the Wired title suggests. Google is womping the competitors because it has something they don’t… better data and a steady flow of it. When I say better data, I don’t mean that Google knows about web pages that other search engines don’t (although it’s quite possible). Google search is the smartest around because it has a phenomenal algorithm, no doubt, but also because it has been collecting data generated by humans (clicks) for a very long time. Between the data and the algorithm, Google can predict what content you want to view. In a sense, Google search is the high watermark for artificial intelligence. It can predict human behavior based on a person typing a word or two.
According to the Inside Google special on CNBC, Google saves everything typed into Google indefinitely. Your own search results are identified with your Google account and IP address for a period of 18 months and then anonymized. This information makes Google smarter. Now, a full 20% of Google searches are actually tailored to you and differ from Joe Schmoe’s search results.
Enter Bing. Bing is an outgrowth of MSN Search. MSN Search was never a dominant player in the search business. AltaVista, Yahoo and others were Google’s chief competitors. In the early days, search was dominated by who had the biggest map of the internet which was a function of the “spidering” software. Another factor was the algorithm used to produce results. Google won the search war but it did it by being innovative and leveraging data. It learned if you clicked the what you were looking for and didn’t return to Google for another X seconds.
Microsoft is trying to play catch up. It needs to brand Bing but it also needs Bing to accurately predict what you want to click. How can it accomplish this when Google has virtually monopolized the search market? Maybe spending $2.0B in the UK will bring in $2.0B+ worth of data (clicks). Then again, maybe it won’t. It will be difficult to leverage this localized data because Google will generate more and arguably better data in the same period of time globally. It’s data where Google excels; even if Bing had precisely the same algorithm and the same map of the web, it would lose the search war on data alone.
Bing’s strategy seems somewhat outside of the box. Colorful graphics and promotions seem to be in Bing’s playbook. These seem like mere window dressing to me. When it comes to getting accurate results, Google wins. It knows what I want to click. Will Bing ever be smart enough to be a viable alternative? I’m not sure but spending $2.0B in advertising off in the U.K. won’t propel it ahead of Google.
Gmail users can now enable “Refresh POP Accounts” in the Labs section. Once enabled, the refresh link (pictured) will check all POP accounts for new mail.
Friday I was complaining about the previous method for checking POP accounts to a friend who hasn’t yet become a Gmail convert. The 1 hour POP times were driving me nuts and the manual POP checks were cumbersome. This new Lab is a dandy. Anyone who uses Gmail to POP mail from other accounts should activate this.
I believe the web has a new anthem, replacing the Black Eyed Peas Now Generation, depending on your taste in music. The video featured below has already been viewed on YouTube over 32,000 times and has scored a five star rating. It’s entertaining and it is the most web-centric of any music out there… as well as a great parody.
The New Dork ~ The Entrepreneur State of Mind.
And if you missed the Black Eyed Peas Now Generation, here it is:
[via Mashable]
I’ve been writing about the cloud lately and remotely hosted files. Quite a few Blackberry users already use the cloud to backup contacts and calendars either with Google Sync or mIQ. I recently discovered two new Blackberry cloud apps that have significant potential… one for managing cloud hosted files and another for streaming your Mp3s or discovering new music.
Click to visit GrooveShark.Com
GrooveShark is a cloud-based music service that works in two different ways. First, you can use it like a custom radio similar to Pandora and Slacker but with unlimited skips (yes, even in the free version). Second, you can upload your MP3s and maintain a cloud library of music that you can stream from any browser. There is a paid version of GrooveShark that eliminates visual ads on the web interface and includes apps for streaming your tunes to your smartphone.
Click to visit www.glideos.com
Transmedia Corporation’s “Glide OS 4.0″ is an advertising-free, cloud-based operating system. You can access it through any web browser (including mobile browsers) and through a proprietary desktop app (Windows/Linux and OS X flavors). It has all the bells and whistles of Google’s free cloud services (calendar, email, documents, spreadsheets, etc.) and some other services not offered by Google:
- 30 GB of free online storage in the “GDrive” and a desktop app to automatically sync directories on your computer and in the cloud.
- The best web-based image editor I have seen. While it’s not exactly PhotoShop or GIMP quality, it will do the trick for basic use.
- An online version of PowerPoint called “Presenter.”
- It’s very customizable, e.g. you can set wallpaper and other custom options.
Frankly, I’m not doing justice to the scope of offerings available in Glide OS 4.0. It’s truly a complete operating system that is remotely hosted. Glide OS 4.0 has been favorably reviewed by InformationWeek, PC World, CNET, eWeek and PC Magazine. Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue of the New York Times both wrote rave reviews about it.
A cloud-based solution like Glide might be particularly appealing to those running Chrome OS on their netbooks (including the Flow variety I wrote about). Currently, there is nothing comparable though Office 2010 is supposed to have a cloud based version. As noted in many of the reviews of Glide, Microsoft is playing catch up with Transmedia’s free offerings. Glide OS 4.0 is completely free for up to 30 GB of storage. This would be more than sufficient for most and I intend to use it for my online backups. A 250 GB account runs $50 per year.
Check it out at http://glideos.com/.
[Thanks Brian]
I want to briefly plug Clicky web analytics. I haven’t received any compensation or free services for the plug.
I was a Google Analytics fan until I was introduced to Clicky. I use the free version on this blog and my professional blog and I’ve found it to be valuable in analyzing web traffic. The setup is easy. The interface is intuitive. Additionally, it offers many advantages over Google Analytics, including:
- Twitter analytics
- Dedicated iPhone and mobile version
- Alerts
- “Juicy details” about every single user, including reports about every click
- Visitor organizations, hostnames, IP addresses — the works.
A full chart comparing Get Clicky to the competition is available at: http://getclicky.com/ It’s roster of clients include the Boy Genius Report, Mashable and Smashing Magazine. And, it’s worth noting that you don’t have to forfeit Google Analytics to use Clicky. One site can run both tracking codes.
Check it out if you want to know more about your website or blog traffic. http://getclicky.com/
What new website has over 500,000 unique visitors a day and anywhere from 20,000 to 150,000 concurrent users? Hint: It’s certainly not this blog. It’s the interwebs latest rage, ChatRoulette.com, an overnight sensation created by a 17 year old Russian computer hobbyist. Chat Roulette has been featured in the New York Times, Mashable and Tech Crunch, among other sources. It piqued my interest when I saw such substantial media coverage. A quick search on Twitter shows almost universal intrigue about Chat Roulette and quite a few fans.
Everyone is buzzing about how to use Google Buzz and whether it will succeed. Some are still tweeting about privacy concerns. Everyone wants to know whether Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz can coexist. In this post, I take a different approach. I begin with the assumption that Google Buzz will succeed and consider what effects that will have on the world of blogging and on more mainstream digital media. I conclude that Google Buzz will have profound effects that significantly differ from effects of any other social networking site that currently exists.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a post dedicated entirely to a Microsoft product but this is awesome. Below is a video from the TED conference which shows off the augmented reality features in Bing Maps. The video is long, around 8 minutes, but it gets better and better as it progresses.
[via Alden Torres on Google Buzz]
I believe that Google Buzz is primarily aimed at attracting Twitter content right now, not Facebook content. This is a follow up post to the video I recently posted.
The Wall Street Journal and Mashable are reporting that Google will soon roll out a “status update” feature to Gmail similar to Facebook and Twitter. This is BIG news and “Make Gmail Social” (which appears in the Mashable headline) is now a trending topic on Twitter.
There’s a slew of blog posts the past couple days about Apple’s decision not support Adobe Flash on it’s upcoming tablet, the iPad. Things got interesting today. Adobe employee, Lee Brimelow, fired back with a blog post that really shows off Adobe Flash… and it’s use on porn sites. Apparently, the blog post was short lived but below is a screenshot:
Ok, so I’m a big fan of just about every Google product. For the record, however, I’ve been critical of the Google Voice team for not implementing certain features and I’ve also ripped on Google Docs. Notwithstanding, Google has hit a home run with it’s Google Reader app. I’ve previously pitched RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers generally. They allow you to aggregate your favorite websites into a global inbox. Your favorite websites basically come to you when you subscribe to their RSS “feeds.” The amount of time you can save by reducing page loads and clicking around the web is astonishing. Continue reading »
