 |
At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it here. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries. So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web. All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build. On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go. Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers. This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust. We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others -- and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward. The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better. So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We'll post an update here as soon as it's ready. Update @ 3:30 PM: We've added a link to our comic book explaining Google Chrome. |
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Google Chrome Browser -- A new Look at the Browser
Friday, June 6, 2008
Google Mini gets new features, learns more languages
Google Mini, the IT mammoth's big blue search appliance rack just got a little better as its maker have now added a few new features and extended its language support. Google Mini's updates include source and date biasing, the ability to find files stored shared servers quicker and six more languages - Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Hungarian, and Polish.
For more info about Google Mini and what it can offer check out this corner of Google's world.
For more info about Google Mini and what it can offer check out this corner of Google's world.
Google modernizes Web software tool
Google plans to release later this week a near-final version of the Google Web Toolkit 1.5, software designed to ease the onerous parts of writing sophisticated Web-based software.
GWT 1.5 includes support for Java 5, a version of the Sun Microsystems programming language released in 2006, and produces software that runs about 1.2 to 2 times faster for complex Web applications, said Bruce Johnson, Google's engineering manager for GWT.
The new software fuels Google's ambition to make the Web a much richer software environment--an ambition on display Wednesday and Thursday at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Johnson believes the Web is already "really close" to the abilities of personal computers as a software foundation.
"We've observed that there's no question anymore whether you're going to target the browser or a desktop app. For almost any new exciting app, you're going to target the browser," Johnson said. "For the right set of applications, it's already better than what you can do on the desktop. For extremely low-latency applications, like video editing, I think we're still a couple years out."
Google is trying to shift people toward the Web, hoping to profit indirectly by spurring more Internet searches, its main source of revenue. It's also got some direct but much smaller businesses, including subscription fees for corporate use of online Google Apps such as its spreadsheet and calendar. Also at Google I/O, the company is revealing the fees for heavy users of its new Google App Engine service to host Web applications.
App Engine, which was unveiled in April and now has about 60,000 approved users, is free for starter applications requiring 500MB of storage and network bandwidth to support about 5 million page views a month, Google said. On Wednesday, the service will be open to the 150,000 who've signed up so far and to any others who want to join.
Beyond that, Google will charge 10 to 12 cents per hour of processor core work, plus 15 to 18 cents per gigabyte of storage per month, plus 11 to 13 cents per gigabyte of data transferred out, plus 9 to 11 cents per gigabyte of data transferred in. The fees are similar in broad structure to that of a competing service from Amazon.
GWT: Doing the grunt work
GWT lets programmers write their code in Java, but then converts that raw material into the JavaScript language that's built into Web browsers. One advantage of GWT is that it can handle the significant differences in how different browsers handle JavaScript, Google argues.
"Not all the JavaScript standards are interpreted in different ways," Johnson said. "The truth is it's a minefield."
GWT supports most modern browsers, including recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari (and other Webkit-based browsers such as that of the iPhone and Google Android), and Opera.
Sun introduced more changes to Java with the current Java 6, but it was Java 5 that introduced several changes to the language. Among them (brace yourself if you're not a coder): generics, enumerated types, annotations, enhanced for/loop syntax, and autoboxing.
Supporting those newer features makes GWT less different from other Java programming environments, cuts down on opportunities for programmer mistakes, and can help GWT produce faster JavaScript, Johnson said.
GWT uses the Eclipse project's JDT to understand people's Java code, then adds a Google-engineered component that translates it into JavaScript, Johnson said.
It's open-source software, and "We get dozens and dozens of patches" from outside contributors. Among those in the current release is support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic.
GWT 1.5 includes support for Java 5, a version of the Sun Microsystems programming language released in 2006, and produces software that runs about 1.2 to 2 times faster for complex Web applications, said Bruce Johnson, Google's engineering manager for GWT.
The new software fuels Google's ambition to make the Web a much richer software environment--an ambition on display Wednesday and Thursday at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Johnson believes the Web is already "really close" to the abilities of personal computers as a software foundation.
"We've observed that there's no question anymore whether you're going to target the browser or a desktop app. For almost any new exciting app, you're going to target the browser," Johnson said. "For the right set of applications, it's already better than what you can do on the desktop. For extremely low-latency applications, like video editing, I think we're still a couple years out."
Google is trying to shift people toward the Web, hoping to profit indirectly by spurring more Internet searches, its main source of revenue. It's also got some direct but much smaller businesses, including subscription fees for corporate use of online Google Apps such as its spreadsheet and calendar. Also at Google I/O, the company is revealing the fees for heavy users of its new Google App Engine service to host Web applications.
App Engine, which was unveiled in April and now has about 60,000 approved users, is free for starter applications requiring 500MB of storage and network bandwidth to support about 5 million page views a month, Google said. On Wednesday, the service will be open to the 150,000 who've signed up so far and to any others who want to join.
Beyond that, Google will charge 10 to 12 cents per hour of processor core work, plus 15 to 18 cents per gigabyte of storage per month, plus 11 to 13 cents per gigabyte of data transferred out, plus 9 to 11 cents per gigabyte of data transferred in. The fees are similar in broad structure to that of a competing service from Amazon.
GWT: Doing the grunt work
GWT lets programmers write their code in Java, but then converts that raw material into the JavaScript language that's built into Web browsers. One advantage of GWT is that it can handle the significant differences in how different browsers handle JavaScript, Google argues.
"Not all the JavaScript standards are interpreted in different ways," Johnson said. "The truth is it's a minefield."
GWT supports most modern browsers, including recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari (and other Webkit-based browsers such as that of the iPhone and Google Android), and Opera.
Sun introduced more changes to Java with the current Java 6, but it was Java 5 that introduced several changes to the language. Among them (brace yourself if you're not a coder): generics, enumerated types, annotations, enhanced for/loop syntax, and autoboxing.
Supporting those newer features makes GWT less different from other Java programming environments, cuts down on opportunities for programmer mistakes, and can help GWT produce faster JavaScript, Johnson said.
GWT uses the Eclipse project's JDT to understand people's Java code, then adds a Google-engineered component that translates it into JavaScript, Johnson said.
It's open-source software, and "We get dozens and dozens of patches" from outside contributors. Among those in the current release is support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic.
A Few Google Tips
In my last post, I talked a little bit about QuickBase’s non-typical Google Analytics implementation. During my time spent investigating how to properly implement the GATC (Google Analytics Tracking Code) on our site, I learned a few nifty things that I thought I’d share.
Make Tracking Dynamic Url’s Pretty
If your site does something like append a session ID to a page url, your probably seeing clicks to the same page look like clicks to different urls with the data showing up in Google like:
/page.php?sessionid=A2DB4BHe554ERG5
/page.php?sessionid=RG4577H891HH677
/page.php?sessionid=345J10R5BM56TH5
In reality, you want visitor data for page.php rolled up into just “page.php” and you probably don’t want to see the sessionid (or whatever dynamic data you have appended to the url).
Fixing this is pretty easy. In your GATC, you’re probably making a call that looks like this:
1
pageTracker._trackPageview();
If you use the default GATC, like in the example above, Google will look at whatever the url is and go with that. In other words, pages with dynamic data appended will continue to look like different urls.
The solution is a rather easy one:
1
pageTracker._trackPageview("page.php");
That’s pretty much it. Just feed in the string you want Google to call this page. You can tell Google to call the page whatever you want, even if the page was actually called page.php!
You can read more on this here.
Track Outbound Link Clicks
Google can track any clicks on outbound links you may have on your site, even if that site doesn’t have the GATC installed. This may come in useful if you’re purposefully driving traffic to a third-party for whatever reason. Here’s how you do it:
First, you need to turn on the feature. To do this, you need to add _setAllowLinker(true) to the default GATC implementation like so:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Once you’ve made that modification, you can add some javascript to your outbound link and start getting the click data.
1
Notice that you can specify how you want the click data to look in Google. If you follow the methodology used in this example, all of your outbound links will look like they were clicked from a folder on your domain called “outgoing”. This makes finding outbound click data much easier if you’ve got a lot of them.
Here’s the Google support page on this topic.
Keep Your Data Private
In April, Google launched a new data sharing policy at around the same time they updated the GATC with several new features. If you’re like us, you want to keep your site data private. Here’s how to do it:
* Login to your Google Analytics Account and select the account you wish to modify from the drop-down in the upper right
* In the upper-left, click on “Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings”
* Selected your desired Data Sharing Settings and hit “Save Changes”
Of course, you don’t have to keep your data completely locked down.
Here are the options:
Share with Google Products only - For example, you would allow this if you wanted to share analytics data with Adwords (for use with Google’s Conversion Optimizer perhaps)
Anonymously Share with Google products and the benchmarking service
With this option enabled, Google will remove any identifiable information from your analytics information and use it for benchmarking and to improve upon its existing products/services.
Do Not Share will disallow Google from using your analytics data internally and it will disallow you from using the data within other Google products and services.
Hope you find these tips useful!
Make Tracking Dynamic Url’s Pretty
If your site does something like append a session ID to a page url, your probably seeing clicks to the same page look like clicks to different urls with the data showing up in Google like:
/page.php?sessionid=A2DB4BHe554ERG5
/page.php?sessionid=RG4577H891HH677
/page.php?sessionid=345J10R5BM56TH5
In reality, you want visitor data for page.php rolled up into just “page.php” and you probably don’t want to see the sessionid (or whatever dynamic data you have appended to the url).
Fixing this is pretty easy. In your GATC, you’re probably making a call that looks like this:
1
pageTracker._trackPageview();
If you use the default GATC, like in the example above, Google will look at whatever the url is and go with that. In other words, pages with dynamic data appended will continue to look like different urls.
The solution is a rather easy one:
1
pageTracker._trackPageview("page.php");
That’s pretty much it. Just feed in the string you want Google to call this page. You can tell Google to call the page whatever you want, even if the page was actually called page.php!
You can read more on this here.
Track Outbound Link Clicks
Google can track any clicks on outbound links you may have on your site, even if that site doesn’t have the GATC installed. This may come in useful if you’re purposefully driving traffic to a third-party for whatever reason. Here’s how you do it:
First, you need to turn on the feature. To do this, you need to add _setAllowLinker(true) to the default GATC implementation like so:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Once you’ve made that modification, you can add some javascript to your outbound link and start getting the click data.
1
Notice that you can specify how you want the click data to look in Google. If you follow the methodology used in this example, all of your outbound links will look like they were clicked from a folder on your domain called “outgoing”. This makes finding outbound click data much easier if you’ve got a lot of them.
Here’s the Google support page on this topic.
Keep Your Data Private
In April, Google launched a new data sharing policy at around the same time they updated the GATC with several new features. If you’re like us, you want to keep your site data private. Here’s how to do it:
* Login to your Google Analytics Account and select the account you wish to modify from the drop-down in the upper right
* In the upper-left, click on “Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings”
* Selected your desired Data Sharing Settings and hit “Save Changes”
Of course, you don’t have to keep your data completely locked down.
Here are the options:
Share with Google Products only - For example, you would allow this if you wanted to share analytics data with Adwords (for use with Google’s Conversion Optimizer perhaps)
Anonymously Share with Google products and the benchmarking service
With this option enabled, Google will remove any identifiable information from your analytics information and use it for benchmarking and to improve upon its existing products/services.
Do Not Share will disallow Google from using your analytics data internally and it will disallow you from using the data within other Google products and services.
Hope you find these tips useful!
Microsoft Aims to School Google Collegiate Apps
Microsoft adds Exchange Labs e-mail to its Live@edu solution in an effort to keep pace with Google in online apps.
With Google Apps Education Edition gaining market traction in thousands of universities across the country, Microsoft can ill afford to rest on its lofty on-premises software laurels.
The software giant, looking to make inroads against Google Apps in the SAAS(software as a service) market, May 27 said it is providing its Microsoft Exchange Labs hosted e-mail applications free for university students and alumni.
Microsoft Exchange Labs is now part of Live@edu, a Microsoft R&D communications and collaboration project based on Microsoft Exchange Server.
An alternative to the education editions of Google Apps and Yahoo's Zimbra e-mail service, Microsoft Live@edu includes Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Windows Live SkyDrive online storage, which lets users share documents and photos.
Students can use these tools to communicate with each other and teachers through e-mail and instant messaging. Students also can use Live@edu to complete coursework solo or to collaborate on group projects using the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office Live Workspace.
Since Live@edu launched in March 2005, 2,000 universities and colleges in 86 countries have enrolled in the program. These include UNINOVE, a large university in Brazil that boasts more than 70,000 students, and Kagoshima University in Japan, which deployed Live@edu for its 16,000 users.
Google claims millions of students and faculty at more than 6,000 universities are using Google Apps.
Students Demand Alternatives
With Exchange Labs in the Live@edu mix, universities will be able to provide students with hosted e-mail with up to 10GB inboxes and 20MB attachments, Bruce Gabrielle, senior product manager for Microsoft's Live @edu software, told eWEEK. Students can now also access their e-mail, contacts and calendar from Outlook Web Access and Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as from mobile phones with Exchange Labs.
Gabrielle said Microsoft launched Live@edu after a buildup of student demands for alternatives to proprietary e-mail systems, or even as an alternative to Microsoft's Exchange-driven Outlook system.
Microsoft used Hotmail in some cases to solve the problem, but for students using mobile phones all the time, a more comprehensive suite of communication and collaboration software was necessary.
Other features of the service include shared calendars (with Exchange Labs, users cannot see Google's free/busy calendar, but can send and receive meeting invites from Google Calendar); student directories that enable administrative control to create distribution lists; and the ability to add faculty and staff who are using on-premises Exchange to student directories.
Security is of paramount importance at any institution, so Live@edu with Exchange Labs also allows message tracking to confirm that e-mails were delivered and includes content filtering so that admins can quash e-mails with offensive content.
Hotmail Alternative by 2010
Exchange Labs comes as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are locked in a titanic battle for the education e-mail sector, Gartner analyst Matt Cain said in a research note.
"Exchange is a richer platform than Hotmail, [so] it represents a more competitive offering than the Google platform," Cain wrote. "The ... Exchange Labs option also allows Microsoft to test new Exchange features and functionality at high volumes, and is designed to perform better in a hosted environment than the current version of Exchange (Exchange 2007, SP1)."
Cain said he expects Exchange Labs will replace Hotmail at universities by 2010 and noted that the advantages of running Exchange Labs rather than Gmail for students (while running Exchange on premises) include a common global address list that makes address look up easier and a consistent end-user and IT staff experience.
With Google Apps Education Edition gaining market traction in thousands of universities across the country, Microsoft can ill afford to rest on its lofty on-premises software laurels.
The software giant, looking to make inroads against Google Apps in the SAAS(software as a service) market, May 27 said it is providing its Microsoft Exchange Labs hosted e-mail applications free for university students and alumni.
Microsoft Exchange Labs is now part of Live@edu, a Microsoft R&D communications and collaboration project based on Microsoft Exchange Server.
An alternative to the education editions of Google Apps and Yahoo's Zimbra e-mail service, Microsoft Live@edu includes Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Office Live Workspace and Windows Live SkyDrive online storage, which lets users share documents and photos.
Students can use these tools to communicate with each other and teachers through e-mail and instant messaging. Students also can use Live@edu to complete coursework solo or to collaborate on group projects using the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications in Office Live Workspace.
Since Live@edu launched in March 2005, 2,000 universities and colleges in 86 countries have enrolled in the program. These include UNINOVE, a large university in Brazil that boasts more than 70,000 students, and Kagoshima University in Japan, which deployed Live@edu for its 16,000 users.
Google claims millions of students and faculty at more than 6,000 universities are using Google Apps.
Students Demand Alternatives
With Exchange Labs in the Live@edu mix, universities will be able to provide students with hosted e-mail with up to 10GB inboxes and 20MB attachments, Bruce Gabrielle, senior product manager for Microsoft's Live @edu software, told eWEEK. Students can now also access their e-mail, contacts and calendar from Outlook Web Access and Microsoft Office Outlook, as well as from mobile phones with Exchange Labs.
Gabrielle said Microsoft launched Live@edu after a buildup of student demands for alternatives to proprietary e-mail systems, or even as an alternative to Microsoft's Exchange-driven Outlook system.
Microsoft used Hotmail in some cases to solve the problem, but for students using mobile phones all the time, a more comprehensive suite of communication and collaboration software was necessary.
Other features of the service include shared calendars (with Exchange Labs, users cannot see Google's free/busy calendar, but can send and receive meeting invites from Google Calendar); student directories that enable administrative control to create distribution lists; and the ability to add faculty and staff who are using on-premises Exchange to student directories.
Security is of paramount importance at any institution, so Live@edu with Exchange Labs also allows message tracking to confirm that e-mails were delivered and includes content filtering so that admins can quash e-mails with offensive content.
Hotmail Alternative by 2010
Exchange Labs comes as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are locked in a titanic battle for the education e-mail sector, Gartner analyst Matt Cain said in a research note.
"Exchange is a richer platform than Hotmail, [so] it represents a more competitive offering than the Google platform," Cain wrote. "The ... Exchange Labs option also allows Microsoft to test new Exchange features and functionality at high volumes, and is designed to perform better in a hosted environment than the current version of Exchange (Exchange 2007, SP1)."
Cain said he expects Exchange Labs will replace Hotmail at universities by 2010 and noted that the advantages of running Exchange Labs rather than Gmail for students (while running Exchange on premises) include a common global address list that makes address look up easier and a consistent end-user and IT staff experience.
Google to preach Web 2.0 gospel to developers
Just because Google so obviously loves the idea of cloud computing, don't think the company doesn't care about what happens at the other end of the network connection, too.
As former President Bill Clinton used to say, there's a third way: Google wants to improve technology on both the server in the cloud and on the client running a Web browser. The search giant will detail its approach to at least 2,800 developers paying to attend the first Google I/O conference this week in San Francisco.
Vic Gundotra, head of developer evangelism and open-source projects at Google
(Credit: Google)There's been a long-running tension among computing companies about where the brains of the computing operation reside. In early years, central servers did all the work and people connected through "dumb terminals" that did nothing but display text. Then the personal computer revolution took off, and companies such as Microsoft whose software ran on these "clients" prospered. Now it's the Internet era, and Google wants a little of both.
"We are going to make the cloud more accessible. And we're going to make the browser more capable," said Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering in charge of developer evangelism and open-source software.
Clouds and clients and connections, oh my
Google isn't showing its Google I/O cards beforehand, but here's my translation of Gundotra's opening keynote themes--"Client, Connectivity, and the Cloud"--into some specific projects under way at Google. For client, think Google Gears for running Web applications even when offline. For cloud, think Google App Engine, a site to house Web applications. And for connectivity, think Android, the mobile phone software package.
The Android software itself is under development at Google, with help from a number of partners in the Open Handset Alliance. To make that project successful--in particular its promise as an open foundation with a vibrant programming community--there needs to be software for Android, too.
Google has been trying to jump-start the Android developer program. It launched a developer contest that drew 1,788 submissions. I'm guessing Google will announce the winner from the top 50 finalists (and click here for a PDF of the top 50 Android apps in slideware form).
A sample Android application, AndroidGlobalTime
(Credit: Google)More newsworthy, though, is the likelihood of a second software development kit (SDK) for Android. "We are working on those things in the next day or so," Gundotra said of the SDK last week. "Android is a big portion of how we make pervasive connectivity useful."
Google vs. Microsoft
We in the media are doubtless too susceptible to narratives that pit one company against another, but in Google's case, there really is a big rivalry with Microsoft. The search giant is trying to make into reality the fear Microsoft had in the 1990s about Netscape, that the Web browser would supplant the operating system as the way people used their computers.
Gundotra has seen it from both sides. Before joining Google in 2007, he was general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft, the culmination of a 15-year stint at the company.
But does Google want to dominate the Web platform the way Microsoft has with the operating system platform? Emphatically not, said Gundotra, who took pains to note that the I/O in Google I/O stands for "innovation in the open."
"Today, the most interesting and dominant platform is not the closed, proprietary platforms of the past, but the open Web...It's the platform adopted by all of us because it isn't controlled by any of us," Gundotra said. "Google's motivation is to move the Internet forward as fast as we can."
That's not to say Google isn't interested in bringing home the bacon. But its Web platform work has only an indirect connection to Google's revenue and profits.
Gundotra repeated what's become a familiar refrain to me as I've asked various Google executives about how their initiatives make money: "We have an economic reason to move (the Web) forward. As it gets richer, better apps, it gets more users. More users using more apps leads to more Google searches, and that leads to more revenue for us," he said.
Android is another target aimed at Microsoft. It will become freely available open-source software--or at least 8.6 million of its 11 million lines of code will be--with the specific intent of providing an alternative to Microsoft's mobile version of Windows. Wind River Systems wants to profit from it directly by helping phone companies build it into their products, but Google thus far has voiced no such ambition.
Lighting a fire under Web 2.0
App Engine and Gears together are centerpieces of Google's attempt to bring the Web alive, and we can expect some action there at the conference, too.
But developers are likely to be disappointed in hearing about one area in which they're hungry for news: support for other programming languages besides Python in App Engine. Java, Ruby, PHP, and Perl support are the top four requests in the App Engine issue tracker, and JavaScript, C#, and ColdFusion Markup Language are in the top 25.
"You can assume from that ranking what we're working on, but not what we'll announce next week," Gundotra said. And he wouldn't offer a specific time frame. "We're actively working on it. It's difficult for us to know until development gets further along."
The company is pleased with the progress so far. It's granted App Engine access to 60,000 developers so far, said Tom Stocky, director of product management for developer products.
Gundotra promises that App Engine isn't a lock-in strategy to lure application developers irreversibly to Google's part of the cloud.
"It is hosting the same open LAMP stack people are used to," he said, referring to the combination of the Linux operating system, Apache Web server software, MySQL database software, and Perl, Python, and PHP programming languages to run Web applications themselves. "If you decide you don't want to use it, you could easily revert back to using your own data center."
Well, maybe not easily. App Engine ties into the Google-only BigTable service for housing data. But the company is working on an export ability for data, and there's an open-source implementation of BigTable, Stocky said.
Giving Gears
The company claims to be equally giving with Google Gears, an open-source project that Google released in beta version to enable richer Internet applications. Specifically, it lets browsers store data better in a local database, work offline, synchronize once they're online again, and run JavaScript more efficiently.
It's hard to find Google Gears used beyond Google Docs, Zoho's competing online office applications, and Google Reader. Gundotra is happy to declare the project a success in another way, though: its influence on version 5 of HTML. Indeed, a draft of the HTML 5 specification includes interfaces for handling database storage and offline work.
"You're right on the cusp of seeing a slew of apps come out that use the HTML 5 and Gears features that redefine what a Web app can do," Gundotra said. "We're working to drive that innovation, and also to drive that back into standards...We think we contributed to the evolution of the Web."
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Google Analytics Finally Launched For Bloggers
And the discouraging news for Measure Map bloggers: existing analytics data from the original Measure Map cannot be transferred into the Google Analytics / Measure Map platform.
Back in February 2006 Google purchased the Adaptive Path’s innovative set of blog traffic measurement tools called MeasureMap. Since then Jeffrey Veen and his team have redesigned Google Analytics and integrated new features such as Website Optimizer with great success.
“Its key feature was providing blog proprietors with a near-real-time geographical plot of where its readers originated from, along with key data as to what readers were interested in and what they responded to.”
The private beta stage, as its name designates, something that companies often comment on, and on the Official Google Analytics Blog, Group Manager Brett Crosby acknowledged, “We usually do not widely announce private-beta programs.”
But he then continued, “We are moving all existing Measure Map users (including many prominent bloggers) to this new interface. With all the exhilaration around it, we knew we could not keep it a secret, so we decided to let the cat out of the bag early.”
Jeff Veen made the announcement of the latest Google Analytics for Bloggers reporting interface several weeks ago at South by Southwest and had this to say: “the team has been hard at work fulfilling our original promise: to help bloggers understand the impact that their blogs are having on the world. To that end, we have rebuilt Measure Map as an integrated feature of both Google Analytics and Blogger. We hope you like what you see.”
“We are offering our earliest users of Measure Map a chance to use our latest service, built on the powerful Google Analytics platform and continuing to use the interface you are familiar with,” reads an excerpt of the e-mail posted by one blogger whose principal subjects include, among other things, blogging itself.
At present, Google Analytics is a complimentary tool best suited to commercial sites whose goals include driving readers to specific pages, and often converting those readers into customers. Bloggers have other goals in mind; they are intrigued by more personal data about readers’ statistics and their interests.
“I bet I check my stats a half-dozen times a day, anxious to see if anyone has linked to me or see what posts are most popular today,” wrote Google’s Veen, whom the company assigned to the MeasureMap team since February 2006. “Our users agree -- whether their audience is just friends and family or thousands of readers -- they are having more and more fun with their blogs and investing more time in them. And that means content across the web is getting better.”
Google plans to work out all the frizzles and issues using the beta over the next year before they release it to the general public. When it finally is released it will be an optional reporting tool in both Blogger and Google Analytics.
An email invitation sent out to all former Measure Map users telling them their accounts would be transferred to the new application -- sans historical data -– and they were invited to test the new software.
Though each one plays the waiting game, we will be sure to report any indications of how Analytics for Blogger is performing. Crosby warned that there could be some hiccups, yet the fact that there was a big announcement hopefully indicates it's in somewhat solid shape.
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Weather
To see weather conditions and a four-day forecast for a particular U.S. location, type "weather," followed by the location. Usually a city name will be enough, but you may also want to include a state or zipcode. For example, to see Palo Alto weather, you could search for "weather palo alto, ca" or "weather palo alto 94301."example:
All weather conditions and forecasts are provided by Weather Underground, Inc.
Travel Information To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport's three letter code followed by the word "airport." For example, San Francisco International Airport updates can be found by searching for "sfo airport."
example: Enter Man for Manchester Airport & Same shorter codes for other UK airports.
To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline followed by the flight number. For example, to see the status for United Airlines flight 134 search for "United 134."
example: Films
To find reviews and showtimes for films playing near you, type "films", "showtimes" or the name of a current film into the Google search box. If you've already saved your location by using Google Local, the top search result will display showtimes for nearby cinemas for the movie you've chosen. example:
To find cinemas and showtimes near you for a currently playing film, simply search for the film's name.
example:
Can't remember a film title, or just looking for something new to see? You can use the "film:" operator to search for films related to a specific actor, director or plot detail.
example:
Want to read about the films you find? Your search results for any film will include an average rating out of 5 stars and several snippets from online reviews, along with links to the reviews themselves. Click the "reviews" link near any title for a complete list of online reviews of this film.
Local Search
Google Local enables you to search the entire web for just those stores and businesses in a specific neighbourhood. Include a town or postcode in your search and Google displays relevant results from that region at the top of your search results. example: Q&A
Want to know the population of Japan? What currency is used in Algeria? The birthplace of Bono? Hit us with a fact-based question or query (like "population of Japan") by typing it into the Google search box. We'll search the web and display the answer at the top of your search results page. We also link to our source for this information so that you can learn even more.
Find the rest of the features below Google Web Search Features In addition to providing easy access to more than 8 billion web pages, Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you're looking for. Click the title of a specific feature to learn more about it.
• Book Search - New! Use Google to search the full text of books.
• Cached Links View a snapshot of each page as it looked when we indexed it.
• Calculator Use Google to evaluate mathematical expressions.
• Definitions Use Google to get glossary definitions gathered from various online sources.
• File Types Search for non-HTML file formats including PDF documents and others.
• Films - New! Use Google to find reviews and showtimes for films playing near you.
• I'm Feeling Lucky Bypass our results and go to the first web page returned for your query.
• Images See relevant images in your regular web search results.
• Local Search - New! Search for local businesses and services in the U.K., U.S., and Canada.
• News Headlines Enhances your search results with the latest related news stories.
• PhoneBook Look up U.S. street address and phone number information.
• Product Search To find a product for sale online, use Google Product Search.
• Q&A - New! Use Google to get quick answers to straightforward questions.
• Search By Number Use Google to access package tracking information, US patents, and a variety of online databases.
• Similar Pages Display pages that are related to a particular result.
• Site Search Restrict your search to a specific site.
• Spell Checker Offers alternative spelling for queries.
• Stock Quotes Use Google to get stock and mutual fund information.
• Street Maps Use Google to find U.S. street maps.
• Travel Information Check the status of an airline flight in the U.S. or view airport delays and weather conditions.
• Weather - New! Check the current weather conditions and forecast for any location in the U.S.
• Web Page Translation Provides English speakers access to a variety of non-English web pages.
• Who Links To You? Find pages that point to a specific URL.
New Reports from Google Webmaster Tools
Mobile Crawl Validation
I've talked before about the importance of watching the queries that come to your site via mobile devices. Mobile usage is in a state of rapid growth, both in terms of raw searches as well as the types of queries people are using on these devices.
Recently, Google Webmaster Tools began showing a report in its Diagnostics section called "Mobile Crawl." This report tells Webmasters whether Google's mobile crawler experienced any particular CHTML (Compact HTML) or mobile WML/XHTML (mobile wireless markup language/extensible HTML) errors during a crawl of their site.
If you run this report for yourself, remember some important things.
* Full validation doesn't necessarily imply a great user experience. Google's report will tell you about crawling errors, but it won't tell you about graphics that took 12 minutes to load before any text showed up.
* Crawling errors don't necessarily imply a poor user experience. Plenty of terrific sites have validation errors, yet they're invisible to the user and engines have no problem finding key content.
Consequently, the Google Mobile Crawl report is important in showing errors that can potentially stop a mobile crawler in its tracks. But one of the single most effective diagnostic tools you can use on your site is simply to visit your site from a mobile device yourself, such as a BlackBerry, iPhone, or other Web-enabled phone. This will tell you a great deal about how engines and users navigate through your site's mobile version (if you have one). One example of a terrific mobile presence is The New York Times, which redirects to mobile.nytimes.com when you're using a mobile device.
Mobile crawling is important for search in two distinct ways. First, remember that more "traditional" search patterns are emerging from mobile devices. Mobile searches are far more comprehensive than the stereotypical search for directions or for restaurants in a specific ZIP code. People are using their phones to search for the same things that they search for from their desktops.
Second, Google's search algorithm for mobile devices is similar, but not identical, to its algorithm for desktop devices. Typically, for example, the mobile SERP will contain fewer than 10 results, which affects the SERP due to domain clustering. That means your site might not have an additional indented, second URL appear on the SERP if that URL's true position is lower than sixth place.
Google Webmaster Tools Widgets for iGoogle
This is already a couple months old, but in case you don't follow the official Google Webmaster Tools blog, Google released widgets for your personalized iGoogle home page that correspond to traditional Webmaster Tool reports.
This means that in addition to your iGoogle tabs for local weather, Gmail, Reader, Calendar, and so on, you can now create a tab that lists the following Google Webmaster Tools reports:
* Crawl errors
* Content analysis
* Top search queries
* Subscriber stats
* What Googlebot sees
* External links
* Internal links
* Sitelinks
The usability of these gadgets isn't perfect. It's often difficult or impossible to scroll through large lists (such as lists of URLs showing external link counts), and you need to click over to the main Google Webmaster Tools page to find anything beyond the superficial anyway. So it's helpful as little more than a dashboard, but for many day-to-day Google Webmaster Tools metrics, that's enough because they change infrequently.
In my opinion, the two most helpful widget windows when viewed from iGoogle are the Crawl Errors and Content Analysis reports, because there's no need to scroll, and because you can click directly over to specific error reports.
Conclusion
I'm continually disappointed with the low numbers of online marketing staff who have taken the time to verify their sites through Google Webmaster Tools. Somewhere there's a lack of communication. The verification process, which is a little like learning to ride a bike, intimidates some people. Others have no issues with verification but are apparently unconvinced that it's worth the time. Still others have no idea that Google Webmaster Tools exists. I'll continue to evangelize on the benefits of taking advantage of the tool sets that all engines make available. But the engines need to do some additional promotion themselves.
Google note this, notebook feature
Here is something fun that you can do on Google, if you have a Google account. Note some of the interesting web pages that you come across Google search. There are lot of such cool features on Google that we miss. So it is suggested that you have a Google Account before you search on Google.
The screen shot shows the Google notebook. After making the search, below each search result, you can see the note this link (only if you have a Google account). When you click on the note this link, a box will open up asking you for some additional details. With note this feature, you can have an online bookmark list. Google is also doing its part to get into the social bookmarking region.
Keep looking around in Google, you will find many features like this. Let us know if you know any.
Microsoft: we'll keep 'chipping away' at Google
Microsoft has said that it will continue "chipping" away at Google in the market for internet search, but warned that there would be no magic bullet to increase its share overnight.
The software giant said that its 5 per cent share of the UK search market was "a long way from where it needed to be", but added that it was "in the game for the long haul" and would do "everything it could" to attract more consumers to its search product, Live Search.
The remarks - made by Chris Dobson, the acting head of Microsoft's online services group in the UK - came as the company announced a major overhaul of its search offering to incorporate a greater number of images on the results page, as well as maps and other location-based features.
There will also be a new feature called Celebrity xRank, which will chart the 'performance' of celebrities and other personalities in the news based on how many search queries they generate.
"There's certainly no 'killer app' which will mean we'll have 30 per cent share in search overnight, but it's always been Microsoft's view that you can be in the long game if the game's worth being in in the first place, and we think search most certainly is," Mr Dobson said.
"Ultimately we don't want to be a 'Me too!' product that is simply compared with Google. We want to offer next-generation search. We think we're at the beginning of the journey with search, rather than the end."
At present Microsoft, which is in the process of a $41 billion takover bid for Yahoo!, the struggling internet portal, handles only 4.2 per cent of the search queries conducted in the UK - compared with Google's 79 per cent. Search is seen as a key plank of its overall 'online services' strategy, however, as an increasing proportion of companies' advertising budgets is spent online.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, has said he would like online advertising to be a $10 billion business for Microsoft - but has not specified by when. In the last quarter, online services brought in about $834 million in revenue for the company - approximately 6 per cent of overall earnings.
Mr Dobson said Microsoft was now in a good position to deliver an 'end-to-end' advertising solution, which incorporated not just search advertising - the paid-for links that appear alongside search results, and banner adverts - those that appear at the top of the page, but also 'bidded display' adverts.
The latter, which are similar to banner ads in that they are usually graphical or interactive in nature, sit on other sections of a website and are auctioned off to advertisers.
As a result of the $6 billion acqusition of aQuantive, the online advertising platform, last year, Mr Dobson said, Microsoft now knew much more about the internet population at large. Users' registration data have provided details of age and gender, as well as records of the sites that they have visited.
That meant it could help advertisers target customers in ways that were not possible with older methods. "If you're an advertiser, you need to get away from thinking 'I want to sell a car so I better go to the car channel' and start thinking 'How do I find a 16-24-year-old male?'"
Display adverts would gradually come to account for a greater proportion of the overall online advertising spend, he said, as companies came to realise the value of having their brand appear on a site and weren't solely focused on getting users to click on an advert, he said. The so-called 'pay per click' approach to advertising has largely been driven by search advertising.
At present, search advertising, in which Google is the runaway leader, accounts for about half of the overall online advertising spend.
The new Microsoft Live Search platform goes live globally tomorrow.
Adobe opens up Flash, but leaves out Google and Apple
While Flash players have always been free of charge and some Flash tools are open source, until now Adobe has kept tight reins on the format that the player consumes. “Previously, in order to look at the SWF specification you had to sign a licensing agreement not to use it to create competing players,” writes Adobe’s Ryan Stewart, “but in the interest of expanding the reach of the Flash Player we’re removing all of those restrictions.”
Adobe is also publishing the device porting layer APIs for their Flash player, and removing all licensing fees. With this change, any handset manufacturer (*cough* Apple *cough*) who wants Flash to run on their device can do so without paying Adobe a dime. That’s assuming, of course, a version of Flash player has been compiled for the specific processor used by the device. With ARM and Intel on board, the two major mobile architectures are covered.
The reason I say the announcement was well timed is that it came two days after comments from Mozilla warning developers not to rely on proprietary technology like Flash, and a week before the opening of Sun’s JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Java powers many of today’s mobile programs, and Java and Linux form the foundation for Google’s upcoming Android platform.
“You’re producing content for your users and there’s someone in the middle deciding whether users should see your content,” said Mozilla Europe founder Tristan Nitot at a conference Tuesday. “If Adobe or Microsoft decides to compete with you and you’re using their technology, you cannot compete.” Nitot says that HTML5-compliant browsers from a variety of vendors will provide much of what people use Flash for today such as audio and video. This is true, though people use Flash for much more than that. Increasingly, it’s being used for entire rich internet applications.
The source code for the Flash player is still closed source and proprietary, but removing restrictions on licensing and even looking at the format specifications goes a long, long way towards alleviating fears of vendor lock-in. This will give a boost to open source players like Gnash and swfdec. While it’s unlikely that the open source players will ever catch up to the performance and features in the official Adobe player, it’s nice to have the option to get the technology from multiple places in case something happens to Adobe such as, say, getting acquired by Microsoft.
The IBM-Google connection
LOS ANGELES--Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt gave a speech and chatted with IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano onstage Thursday at IBM's Business Partner Leadership Conference here. The two talked up their relationship, which primarily involves a joint research project. In October, Google and IBM announced a cloud computing initiative, based on Google's expertise in distributed, parallel computing and IBM's industrial enterprise management technologies, for public use by universities.
IBM is taking some of the learnings from the project and plans to operate a cloud that will allow partners to house their Web-based applications and sell them to customers, Palmisano said. "It is the first time we have taken something from the consumer arena and applied it to the enterprise," he said.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt joins hands with IBM CEO Sam Palmisano.
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)Schmidt said that over time there won't be much differentiation between consumer and enterprise architectures. The major difference is that enterprise customers will pay for software and services, with required security and other features, and consumers won't.
Schmidt gave IBM lots of credit for pioneering many of the technologies that underlie today's computing architectures. He noted that IBM, which has about 87 years on Google, has figured out that the underlying platform is a server and Web services.
"Cloud computing is the story of our lifetime," Schmidt said. "Eventually all devices will be on the network." Both IBM and Google, and a host of competitors, have the same idea, which was actually first promoted by Sun with its "the network is the computer" slogan. Google figured out how to monetize the fruits of the pages its massively parallel servers manage.
IBM wants to provide the infrastructure and support services to the planet, and Google wants to provide the world's information, and some applications, on its platform. "The two companies are great and have lots of innovation in their gene pool," Palmisano said. "There isn't a lot of overlap in the strategies." Both are committed to open standards and an open Internet, and they are both going in the same direction, he added.
Google's YouTube captures 10 hours of video every 60 seconds, and IBM might like that business if it could figure out how to make money at it. But eventually, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Google, and other big players will look more similar in their technical architectures and business models.
Google and IBM have more in common than a shared view of the world and an academic research project. It turns out that Google outsources its accounting to IBM and that Schmidt considers IBM's sales organization important to Google's enterprise software efforts.
As more companies look for Web-based tools, mashups, and standard applications, such as word processors, Google stands to benefit. "IBM is one of the key planks of our strategy--otherwise we couldn't reach enterprise customers," Schmidt said.
While IBM isn't selling directly for Google in the enterprise, IBM's software division and business partners are integrating Google applications and widgets into custom software solutions based on IBM's development framework. The "business context" is the secret of the Google and IBM collaboration, Schmidt said. Embedding Google Gadgets in business applications, that can work on any device, is a common theme for both Google and IBM.
Currently, Salesforce.com is selling Google Apps as an integrated part of its platform. It's not far-fetched to think that Google would seek out IBM's help with its business partners to spread the Google word in the enterprise.
Google Help Files: Download Tips
All Google services have help centers that include information about features, tutorials, troubleshooting guides, but if you ever need to find the information in a complicated hierarchy of topics or use the search box, or you ever want to get a help file for Gmail, Google Docs or for Google Desktop so you can print it or save it on your computer?
Fortunately, there’s a way to save all the information related to a Google service: append ?fulldump=1 to the address of a Google help center. This doesn’t work for all Google services, but here’s a list of addresses that dump all the information from a help center (note that the pages are very large and are frequently updated):
IBM To Launch Web-Based Application Market
IBM said it's planning to launch a global, online marketplace for software applications under a plan it's calling the Blue Business Platform.
The marketplace will feature a mix of business applications and services aimed primarily at small- and mid-sized companies, IBM announced Thursday at a conference in Los Angeles for its business partners.
IBM said it believes that the Web-based model will allow it to tap smaller companies around the world, which it says represent a $500 billion IT market that it has trouble serving profitably through traditionally sales channels.
IBM said the marketplace will offer pre-integrated products and services from IBM and independent software developers. Customers will be able to use the software they buy "on premises or in the cloud," IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said Thursday during an address.
Palmisano also revealed Thursday that IBM is working with Google to build a worldwide network of connected servers, an architecture sometimes referred to as a computing cloud, from which it plans to deliver software and services.
The online store will be organized geographically and also by industry. Customers will be able to purchase software or services in just four clicks, IBM said. The company plans to pilot the marketplace throughout 2008. It did not say when it plans to formally launch the service.
IBM on Thursday also unveiled a new server for small businesses.
The Lotus Foundations Start server includes Lotus Notes and Domino for e-mail and collaboration, as well as security, backup and recovery features. It's aimed at SMBs with little or no IT support and it can be deployed in as little as 30 minutes, according to IBM.
Google Analytics feature request…
For a free package, you cannot beat Google Analytics. But now surely we are getting to the point where the clever engineers behind the scenes are building a list of new features that will be bundled into a ‘premium’ package, where a subscription fee will be levied.
Personally, I would be over the moon if this were to happen, because then we would be able to request features with more of an expectation that they will take them seriously (not that they don’t now, it’s just that if we paid for it then they would have to take us even *more* seriously).
One of the good things about GA is that they keep your analytics data for a very long time. We’ve had our account with them since 2006, and being able to go back that far to analyse traffic and behaviour is very powerful. Sometimes though, it would be nice to be able to delete or ignore some data - for instance one particular institute in Tempe, US, decided to build a bot that executes javascript and then crawl all over our site. For the most part, we can happily use GA in the knowledge that most spiders don’t execute javascript, but this javascript-executing-bot now appears in my GA data (as GA data-collection is javascript driven).
So I’ve got this nasty spike of data that I’d just like to be able to select, then hit the ‘ignore forever’ button.
I guess, that when Google do decide to tap into the thousands of organisations that really want more features and are happy to pay a premium, this would be one of the many features I’d ask for… as well as more Goals, better page-flow analysis, page-rendering-time data, more than one custom dimension, the ability to break out traffic from Google across the country-specific domains, etc etc etc…
Google Docs Update Adds More Offline Features
At the moment the offline features are limited to viewing, but that allows you to give a presentation without needing an internet connection. The Docs team had previously released limited offline features for other Google apps like Spreadsheets and Presentations. The offline features require the Google Gears plugin (which, regrettably, still isn't Firefox 3 compatible).
Speaker also has a new feature dubbed Notes, which allows you to add notes and make them available in both print and presentation modes. Also new is the ability to embed YouTube movies if you’re looking to spice up your dull presentations with some video. The YouTube tools come with their own custom movie player embedded in your presentation. Unfortunately the new features are YouTube-specific, creating a lock-in with Google’s video service.
Other new features in Google Docs include the ability to save searches as custom views. There’s a new folder pane under a “Saved searches” label, where you can access your saved searches. To create a new one just click “Show search options” and, once you’ve run your search, hit the “Save this search” button and give your custom search a name.
Another new feature for Google docs fixes a small but annoying problem — Google Docs captures your right-click actions and presents its own menu of options rather than the system wide, default right-click menu. While Google’s context menu is helpful when you want it, it was annoying to have to move out of the window to get to the normal right-click menu. Fortunately you can now get to the system menu by holding down the Shift key while you right-click in Google Docs.
While Microsoft is finally starting to ramp up its own online office components, Google Docs is far ahead when it comes to on/offline functionality. Google Docs real competitor at the moment is Zoho’s online office suite, which offers similar, and in some cases, much more impressive features.
Improving Google Image Search Using Implicit PageRank
Image search engines have a very limited usefulness since it's difficult to accurately describe images in words and since search engines completely ignore the images, preferring to index anchor texts, file names or the text that surrounds images. "Search for apples, and they haven't actually somehow scanned the images itself to see if they contain pictures of apples," illustrates Danny Sullivan.
Image analysis didn't produce algorithms that could be used to process billions of images in a scalable way. "While progress has been made in automatic face detection in images, finding other objects such as mountains or tea pots, which are instantly recognizable to humans, has lagged," explains The New York Times.
An interesting paper [PDF] written by Yushi Jing and Google's Shumeet Baluja describes an algorithm similar to PageRank that uses the similarity between images as implicit votes. "We cast the image-ranking problem into the task of identifying authority nodes on an inferred visual similarity graph and propose an algorithm to analyze the visual link structure that can be created among a group of images. Through an iterative procedure based on the PageRank computation, a numerical weight is assigned to each image; this measures its relative importance to the other images being considered."
The paper, titled "PageRank for Product Image Search", assumes that people are more likely to go from an image to other similar images. "By treating images as web documents and their similarities as probabilistic visual hyperlinks, we estimate the likelihood of images visited by a user traversing through these visual-hyperlinks. Those with more estimated visits will be ranked higher than others." To determine the similarity between images, the paper suggests using different features depending on the type of images: local features, global features (color histogram, shape).
The system was tested on the most popular 2000 queries from Google Image Search on July 23rd, 2007, by applying the algorithm to the top 1000 results produced by Google's search engine and the results are promising: users found 83% less irrelevant images in the top 10 results, from 2.83 results in the current Google search engine to 0.47.
For example, a search for [Monet paintings] returned some of his famous paintings, but also "Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil" by Renoir.
It may seem that this algorithm lacks the human element used to compute PageRank (links are actually created by people), but the two authors disagree. "First, by making the approach query dependent (by selecting the initial set of images from search engine answers), human knowledge, in terms of linking relevant images to webpages, is directly introduced into the system, since the links on the pages are used by Google for their current ranking. Second, we implicitly rely on the intelligence of crowds: the image similarity graph is generated based on the common features between images. Those images that capture the common themes from many of the other images are those that will have higher rank."
For now, this is just a research paper and it's not very clear if Google will actually use it to improve its search engine, but image search is certainly an area that will evolve dramatically in the future and will change the way we perceive search engines. Just imagine taking a picture of a dog with your mobile phone, uploading it to a search engine and instantly finding web pages that include similar pictures and information about the breed.
In 2006, Google acquired Neven Vision, a company specialized in image analysis, but the only new feature that could be connected to that acquisition is face detection in image search. Riya, another interesting company in this area, didn't manage to create a scalable system and decided to focus on a shopping search engine.
Labels: Image Search
Picture searches currently rely on text cues to help decipher the image but, according to Google researcher Shumeet Baluja, the majority of image searches hardly use any image information to rank the pictures. Instead search engines such as MSN, Yahoo and Google itself rely on text on the pages in which the image is embedded. This can, however, throw up unrelated results.
With this in mind, Google researchers developed VisualRank, an algorithm that identifies themes in pictures and then ranks images on how similar they look to other photos that contain the same themes.
Google Talk: Google’s Communication Services
Google’s online communication service, Google Talk has different versions: Google Talk, Gmail Chat, Google Talk Gadget, and Google Talk Labs Edition, which offers different features, like: you can transfer files only in Google Talk, chat with AIM contacts only in Gmail, get calendar notifications only in Google Talk Labs Edition and upload pictures from webcam only in the gadget. It’s quite confusing to switch between all these implementations of the same service. Apparently, the main reason behind the launch of Google Talk Labs Edition was to unify these versions in a common platform.
From Ollie’s Google Talk Guide post on Google Groups:
We certainly haven’t forgotten about our client users and we’ve been listening to your comments (here, in the Google Talk Help Discussion Group, and on the feedback forms). We hear you loud and clear; you love the client and you want it to have all the great new features that have been added to Gmail Chat or the Google Talk Gadget. We know that it’s important to be able to chat inside and outside of your browser and that it’s important to have a full array of features at your fingertips in both places. In short, you want to be able to choose how to connect to the Google Talk service without having to make any major feature trade-offs. We’re completely with you on this one — we want that too!
Now, I suspect some of you are thinking: if you’re with us on that, why aren’t all features available on the client right now? Well, we’ve got a lot on our plate here at Google Talk and we’re always negotiating what we can get done. At the moment, we’re focusing our energy on developing platforms that will let us make Google Talk better for all our users, whether they want a web-based experience or a client experience. There is still much to done, but we’re committed to continually improving the Google Talk user experience for everyone.
Microsoft's Deadline to Yahoo Expired Silently
Jerry Yang rejected Microsoft's bid saying that it undervalues the company. Yahoo asked for a $12 billion raise in Microsoft’s offer, which has not happened so far. It is common knowledge that Yahoo has been searching for a backup option to Microsoft’s offer, discussing different partnership scenarios with Google, AOL and the News Corporation. However, no deal has been struck or announced.
Microsoft gave an ultimatum to Yahoo in a letter sent on April 5, stating that if the two companies will not begin negotiations on a definitive agreement within the next three weeks, they will take the case directly to the shareholders and start a proxy contest to elect a slate of director for the Yahoo Board.
Microsoft’s mission to take over the Yahoo Inc Company can be better understood now as reports show a below the target profit and a small decrease in share prices.
Apparently, Microsoft’s core business, the globally known Windows, is beginning to slow down, bringing revenues in its client unit to $4 billion from last year’s $5.3 billion. One of the main issues is the slow adoption rate of Microsoft’s newest operating system, Vista, which presents some low-interest new features for the majority of users. The new interfaces need some time to get accustomed to and the incompatibility of Office 2007 documents also causes problems.
The business division was also below the target. The company’s developers and analysts expected revenues of at least $4.8 billion and the reports showed $4.7 billion.
Last month, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said the company is not in a hurry to merge its technology platform to that of Yahoo. Ozzie commented in an interview with the Financial Times that “technology companies, if they dive in and just smash things together for smashing them together’s sake, it’s reckless, it’s just simply reckless,” adding that Yahoo has its own technologies and corporate culture.
At the same time, Ozzie declared himself optimistic that Microsoft will be able to achieve its main goals if the deal with Yahoo will materialize, as long as they will focus on giving users and advertisers the same experience, rather than rushing into getting financial benefits from the deal.
New Features For Google Docs.
The Google Docs team has been hard at work on numerous aspects of the online office suite, and they’re ready to unveil the new features to the public.
Speaker, Google’s answer to Microsoft PowerPoint, received some new features this week, according to the Google Docs Blog. First is the addition of Speaker Notes, which allows the presenter to access chosen highlights of their presentation. These can either be printed out in advance, or you can pop them up on the screen to show off to your audience. You can also now embed videos from YouTube. This could be quite useful if you wish to beat the dead horse further and “Rickroll” a room full of people in the middle of a presentation.
The Docs Blog is also reporting that the offline access feature enabled through the Google Gears plugin has also been added for spreadsheets and presentations. Unfortunately these will be view-only for the time being, but it will at least allow you to show off your work wherever you need to go, and make presentation wherever you choose, regardless of whether you have an Internet connection at the ready.
With the continuing improvements to Google Docs, Microsoft has sufficient reason to be nervous about their future sales of Office. They themselves are building an online version, but with the ease of use of Docs, and quick access/integration with Gmail, it’s going to be more difficult to convince some people to leave the Google empire. As more and more companies learn of their ability to inexpensively make Gmail their default domain email client, and allow multiple users in the company (even those located in remote settings) to collaborate on projects for free, the company’s list of productivity applications will grow more appealing for users all around the world.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Filtering Google Searches By Freshness
One of the more useful Google advanced search features is the date filter, which limits results to recent pages. Results can be limited to the past day, week, month, year, etc. Google’s Matt Cutts and GoogleOperatingSystem wrote about it late last year.
You can access the search via the URL as well, by simply adding “&as_qdr=d” to the end of any query (Apple v. Apple in last day). simply change the =d to d5 for 5 days, or w5 for five weeks, or y5 for 5 years, etc. With Google indexing sites so regularly now, it would be great if they let users refine searches down to the hour as well.
One other thing I like about the feature is that once you’ve searched by date, it stays as an option next to the search bar for that session, so you don’t have to keep adding it.
Google may also be testing date searches with some users even without them voluntarily setting it. Our Israel correspondent Roi Carthy resports that it appeared in one of his searches without him using the URL string or advanced search. A quick poll to my Twitter followers asking if anyone saw it yielded mixed results. A few people said they saw it without setting advanced search, but they may have just seen it stay in the session after they set it.
If anyone sees the data box in Google search and they didn’t set the URL string or advanced search, please let us know in the comments. And try to take a screen shot that includes the entire URL string, preferably even before you’ve done a search.
Something about Google Earth 4.3
Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and even explore galaxies in the Sky. The new Google Earth 4.3 promises photo-realistic buildings from cities around the world, dawn to dusk views with the Sunlight feature and swoop navigation from outer space to street-level.
You can now enjoy the photo-textured cities and towns, and thousands of user-contributed buildings around the world with greatly improve performance and realism of 3D data. The amazing as well as controversial Street View, a well-known Google Maps feature is now part of Google Earth with version 4.3 and will let you easily find, discover, and plan activities relevant to a location.
Understand more about Street Views in this video
Play with the Sunlight feature and control the sun’s location relative to the Earth. While zoomed into a given city, you can watch the sunrise and sunset! This video explores the amazing new features of Google Earth 4.3.
Things you can do with GOOGLE
Nifty Google Features
Calculate This: You can use Google Calculator to crunch numbers and figure out conversions. Try entering 12*12 and see what happens; you can also run more complex equations, like G*(6e24 kg)/(4000 miles)^2). Google Calculator handles conversions of all types, such as 3 ounces in tablespoons, 16 dollars in euros, or 19999GB to MB.
Find That Number: You can track FedEx, UPS, and U.S. Postal Service shipments just by sticking the tracking number into Google’s search field; do the same with zip and area codes, vehicle IDs, patent numbers, airplane registration numbers, and even UPC codes.
Make Me Special: Google has special search sites just for you. There’s one for Firefox users, another for Linux users, and a spot for those of you who can’t get enough of Microsoft.
Sights on Google: My buddy Leo F. sent a note asking if I wanted to create a quick Web page, or something fairly complex, with just novice skills. “Google Sites is fun to play with,” Leo said, “and even makes a useful Web page, too. Of course, it’s free.”
Ongoing Experiments: If you like poking around with Web tools, you need to explore Google Labs. For instance, Experimental Search gives you five new ways to search, each aimed at tightening and focusing on specific results.
BTW, Goog411 is a Google Labs graduate and a great service.
Alert Me! Google sends me an e-mail every time it sees a new occurrence of “steve bass PC World,” “steve bass PC Annoyances,” or keywords about my various hobbies and interests. If you haven’t tried Google Alerts, you’re missing out on a terrific service.
Hello, Google? If you’re using Firefox and find something cool on the Web, you can use Google Send to Phone to pass the info along to a U.S.-based cell phone. It’s a nifty service that’s really useful for, say, sending a map to a lost buddy. Check the FAQ for details.
Even More Fun With Google
You probably think there’s not much more to say about Google. Nope, there’s still lots.
Start by downloading the Google Cheat Sheet, a two-page PDF with lots of valuable Google shortcuts, search and query examples, and services.
Even better is 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google, a free e-book with Google trivia, games, and nonsense, enough to kill an afternoon (I did). The more I explored, the better I liked this 228-page book. For instance, I wasted time with The Image Quiz, which has you guess the Google search term for a bunch of images. I also picked up a nifty Google magic trick, learned how to find world records, read IRC chat logs people didn’t know were public, and browsed to some very funny Google parody sites, such as UnderGoos, the underwear search site, and Cthuugle, the Lovecraft search engine.
Calculate This: You can use Google Calculator to crunch numbers and figure out conversions. Try entering 12*12 and see what happens; you can also run more complex equations, like G*(6e24 kg)/(4000 miles)^2). Google Calculator handles conversions of all types, such as 3 ounces in tablespoons, 16 dollars in euros, or 19999GB to MB.
Find That Number: You can track FedEx, UPS, and U.S. Postal Service shipments just by sticking the tracking number into Google’s search field; do the same with zip and area codes, vehicle IDs, patent numbers, airplane registration numbers, and even UPC codes.
Make Me Special: Google has special search sites just for you. There’s one for Firefox users, another for Linux users, and a spot for those of you who can’t get enough of Microsoft.
Sights on Google: My buddy Leo F. sent a note asking if I wanted to create a quick Web page, or something fairly complex, with just novice skills. “Google Sites is fun to play with,” Leo said, “and even makes a useful Web page, too. Of course, it’s free.”
Ongoing Experiments: If you like poking around with Web tools, you need to explore Google Labs. For instance, Experimental Search gives you five new ways to search, each aimed at tightening and focusing on specific results.
BTW, Goog411 is a Google Labs graduate and a great service.
Alert Me! Google sends me an e-mail every time it sees a new occurrence of “steve bass PC World,” “steve bass PC Annoyances,” or keywords about my various hobbies and interests. If you haven’t tried Google Alerts, you’re missing out on a terrific service.
Hello, Google? If you’re using Firefox and find something cool on the Web, you can use Google Send to Phone to pass the info along to a U.S.-based cell phone. It’s a nifty service that’s really useful for, say, sending a map to a lost buddy. Check the FAQ for details.
Even More Fun With Google
You probably think there’s not much more to say about Google. Nope, there’s still lots.
Start by downloading the Google Cheat Sheet, a two-page PDF with lots of valuable Google shortcuts, search and query examples, and services.
Even better is 55 Ways to Have Fun with Google, a free e-book with Google trivia, games, and nonsense, enough to kill an afternoon (I did). The more I explored, the better I liked this 228-page book. For instance, I wasted time with The Image Quiz, which has you guess the Google search term for a bunch of images. I also picked up a nifty Google magic trick, learned how to find world records, read IRC chat logs people didn’t know were public, and browsed to some very funny Google parody sites, such as UnderGoos, the underwear search site, and Cthuugle, the Lovecraft search engine.
Google Annoyances
While there are a lot of things to love about Google, some strange annoyances manage to balance the situation. Here are 10 annoyances that are in need for a fix:
1. Every time you go to www.google.com/analytics/, Google Analytics asks you to enter your password, even if you are already logged in. One workaround is to bookmark https://www.google.com/analytics/home/.
2. "New features!". Google's products are updated pretty frequently, but sometimes they show this message for months, even if the features are no longer new. Some pathological examples: Google Calendar and Picasa Web Albums.
3. The inconsistent navigation bar. There's no consistency here: some of the links send you to search results, other links send you to homepages. Some of the pages open in a new tab/window, other pages open in the same tab/window. The list of links is different, depending on the current service, and the ordering is not predictable.
4. Search results with tracking code. Because Google needs to track the search results you click on in order to add them to Web History, it replaces their addresses with redirects like: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=... That means you can no longer right click on the link and copy the location. Some workarounds: disable/pause Web History, log out or use a Greasemonkey script.
5. Google Updater. An annoying and intrusive way to install Google software, without providing an alternative for people who like the classic installer.
6. Set Google as my default search and notify me of changes. Every Google software has the mission to make Google your default search option in Internet Explorer (it's already the default option in other browsers), but also to install a notifier that warns you when other software tries to change the default search engine. Usually, the option can be disabled, but Google's wording is vague.
7. Blogger comments. It's hard to create something worse than Blogger's comments: they open in a new page with a different layout, the first option is to log in with a Google account, there's no spam filtering etc.
8. Posting a message at Google Groups. It usually takes one minute for your post to appear on the site, but Google should show it instantly.
9. When you translate a web page, Google Translate shows the original text in a bubble. Google's JavaScript code interferes with other web pages' code and the result is usually terrible. Another downside is that you can't copy the text from a translated web page. One workaround would be to block the JavaScript file, but it keeps changing its address.
10. Google Video has the worst advanced search page. If you search for something and click on "advanced search", your query is lost. The page doesn't put the focus on the first input box and pressing Enter has no effect.
11. Click on a broken link for a Blogger blog and Google is glad to inform you that "the blog you were looking for was not found". Pretty bad for an error message that should've been helpful.
Did you find other Google annoyances?
1. Every time you go to www.google.com/analytics/, Google Analytics asks you to enter your password, even if you are already logged in. One workaround is to bookmark https://www.google.com/analytics/home/.
2. "New features!". Google's products are updated pretty frequently, but sometimes they show this message for months, even if the features are no longer new. Some pathological examples: Google Calendar and Picasa Web Albums.
3. The inconsistent navigation bar. There's no consistency here: some of the links send you to search results, other links send you to homepages. Some of the pages open in a new tab/window, other pages open in the same tab/window. The list of links is different, depending on the current service, and the ordering is not predictable.
4. Search results with tracking code. Because Google needs to track the search results you click on in order to add them to Web History, it replaces their addresses with redirects like: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=... That means you can no longer right click on the link and copy the location. Some workarounds: disable/pause Web History, log out or use a Greasemonkey script.
5. Google Updater. An annoying and intrusive way to install Google software, without providing an alternative for people who like the classic installer.
6. Set Google as my default search and notify me of changes. Every Google software has the mission to make Google your default search option in Internet Explorer (it's already the default option in other browsers), but also to install a notifier that warns you when other software tries to change the default search engine. Usually, the option can be disabled, but Google's wording is vague.
7. Blogger comments. It's hard to create something worse than Blogger's comments: they open in a new page with a different layout, the first option is to log in with a Google account, there's no spam filtering etc.
8. Posting a message at Google Groups. It usually takes one minute for your post to appear on the site, but Google should show it instantly.
9. When you translate a web page, Google Translate shows the original text in a bubble. Google's JavaScript code interferes with other web pages' code and the result is usually terrible. Another downside is that you can't copy the text from a translated web page. One workaround would be to block the JavaScript file, but it keeps changing its address.
10. Google Video has the worst advanced search page. If you search for something and click on "advanced search", your query is lost. The page doesn't put the focus on the first input box and pressing Enter has no effect.
11. Click on a broken link for a Blogger blog and Google is glad to inform you that "the blog you were looking for was not found". Pretty bad for an error message that should've been helpful.
Did you find other Google annoyances?
Microsoft's piracy problem could grow
When it comes to software piracy, Microsoft may just be aiding the enemy.
Microsoft has been counting on gains against unlicensed software to boost revenue from the Windows unit, which accounts for a huge chunk of overall profits and sales. However, one of the company's own decisions could make its antipiracy battle more difficult.
With Windows Vista, Microsoft took an extremely tough stand on piracy. Computers that were not properly activated within a short period of time went into a virtually unusable state known as "reduced functionality mode."
In the newly released Service Pack 1, however, Microsoft is softening its stance somewhat. The reduced functionality mode is gone, and in its place, a series of warnings and visual indications that a computer is not running a genuine copy of Windows.
I would argue, though, that having an unusable copy of Windows is a far greater deterrent than having one that simply labels its user a pirate. Microsoft has maintained that the new approach will be just as effective and is more palatable to customers and partners. Color me skeptical.
But, will the changes automatically lead to an uptick in overall piracy rates? That's a more complicated question.
On its face, it would seem the answer would be a clear "yes."
However, there are a couple of other factors to keep in mind. First, Windows XP is pirated far more than Vista (at least 2 to 1, according to Microsoft). Also, Microsoft did close several notable hacks to its Vista protection scheme with SP1. So while the price for piracy is arguably lower, Microsoft has closed a few loopholes that let pirates bypass the security features altogether.
Time will tell whether Microsoft's technical changes will have an impact on the broader piracy issue. Enforcement is also key, with Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell noting that a couple of legal actions can make a big difference in any given quarter, suggesting true gains (or losses) from piracy require looking at a longer time horizon.
What is clear is that piracy rates remain a critical issue for Microsoft, which needs to continue growing its Windows revenue and profits to help fund its advertising battle against Google.
Microsoft had seemed to be making major headway against piracy, surprising analysts and itself in the September quarter by gaining 5 percentage points of growth through piracy reductions. Last quarter, though, Microsoft actually saw piracy rates head upward, reversing what had been a particularly positive trend for the company.
Microsoft now expects its gains for the year to be just a percentage point or two, though it believes it can continue to see improvements next year as well.
"Piracy is a tough battle and an area where we will need to continue investing," said Colleen Healy, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations.
Yahoo’s New Social Strategy
 | Yahoo officials presented yesterday during a “Web 2.0” conference their plans for the site’s major makeover. The new direction searches for new advertising opportunities, as the site is going to host applications from other online services turning Yahoo into one of the biggest social hubs on the web. |
Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer, was quoted by
the Associated Press telling the crowd: "We are going to rewire the entire
experience at Yahoo to make it social in every dimension."
The plan is to allow its hundreds of millions of users to
enjoy the old services such as Web mail, instant messaging and calendar but also
include new features which contribute to the social experience, features made
popular by social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.
"It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all
of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a
consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience
as well," concluded Ari Balogh.
Yahoo also attempted to break into the Internet
social scene by launching in 2005 a network called “Yahoo 360.” Unfortunately
the application was recently closed due to a rather small impact in the media.
The new strategy is expected to be completed by the end of
the year and an official launch date will be presented in the weeks to come.
The move is believed to also raise the bar for the other major players such as
Google, Microsoft, MySpace and Facebook.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Google Analytics : New Graphing Options
Sometimes trends can hide pretty well, and one of Google Analytics' jobs is to make the most actionable trends as apparent as possible so you can surface them to your colleagues and management (and get a promotion). And we realize that most management reporting is done in weekly and monthly time buckets.
With that in mind, we've made it even easier for you to use Google Analytics to create clear and effective management dashboards without having to extract data into other programs. You can use the rich Google Analytics UI and present your promotion-worthy numbers in all their vibrant glory by clearly visualizing trends in weekly or monthly units, in addition to day by day. Have fun with this feature! Watch the patterns come into focus.
Let's look at how the weekly and monthly graphing views can be used by comparing them with viewing the data by day, which used to be the only option. It's very interesting to open up one or two years worth of data to look at your site over time. (Click on the images below for larger views.)
Graph by Day
Strategic insights come from analyzing long term trends. This is the default view in Google Analytics. It hints at something interesting going on in terms of Visits on your site.
New: Graph by Week
Try this cool thing. Click on the Week link on top of the graph, it is newly available in your reports! Suddenly it is more clear what the trend in Visits is. Cooler!New: Graph by Month
Click on Month and you are now really cooking. Months and months of data visually represented in a way that allows you to clearly show a positive trend, highlight the key points, and yes even ask for a bonus.Of course all other visualization features in Google Analytics are even more useful now as you use these new time buckets. For instance, take a look at the compare to past visualization.
Comparison in Day view
Comparing two different time periods is a great way to get context to your current performance... New: Comparison by Month
...but you can highlight the trends in your performance much more optimally by simply clicking on the Month link. This works great for your management reporting and moves you into that corner office. :-)
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