InsideGoogle

We've Moved!

2004-12-25T19:11:00.000-05:00

InsideGoogle
now at google.blognewschannel.com
or google.blognc.com, if you're lazy

RSS 2.0 Comments RSS 2.0

InsideMicrosoft
now at microsoft.blognewschannel.com
or microsoft.blognc.com, if you're lazy
RSS 2.0 Comments RSS 2.0

That's it. My blogs have now moved to my own site and dedicated hosting. Only its more than just dedicated hosting. I put out the call not long ago for some good people, and I'm gathering together some very talented bloggers and net programmers to create the next thing in blogging, a blog news organization. We want to create a network of blogs that works together to create a news site, but without all the crap of traditional media (and I should know, I work for the bad guys as well). The Blog News Channel aims to be the first news organization to provide personal news, written by real people who you'll get to know, each covering a beat obsessively like any good blogger. Everything you liked about blogs, all in one place, arranged and organized in one place.

For now, we're still building the interface that makes it all tick, but four blogs are already up and running for you to digest. InsideGoogle and InsideMicrosoft retain exactly the same obsessive focus that brought you here in the first place. BusinessBits (RSS 2.0 / Comments RSS 2.0) written by Devin Reams, a business major at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will have a focus on corporate moves and the stock market (stay away from Google and Microsoft!). Finally, The Society Junta (RSS 2.0 / Comments RSS 2.0)is our look at politics, from "BFranklin", a longtime political blogger and insider. You can also go to our Open Source (RSS 2.0 / Comments RSS 2.0) blog, where Amit Agarwal will soon begin blogging about the open source movement and all those subversive computer movement like Linux and Firefox (think of it as the anti-InsideMicrosoft). Coming blogs will focus on independent films, Apple Computers, and Gadgets, plus I'm still recruiting bloggers for other subjects (if you're able, email me at random12345@gmail.com).

I think this can be the start of something special and new. If you'd like to be a part of it, let me know. I've got ambitious plans for www.blognewschannel.com/ (for now it just says hi, but bookmark it, because its going to get real interesting), and I'll need good people to lend a talented hand. Everybody, make the trek over there, because this post is the last one you'll see either at BlogSpot or LiveJournal, so I'll need you to change your bookmarks and RSS. I want to know what everyone thinks, so email and comment your butts off. Let's welcome the New Year with the Blog News Channel!

Postscript - I'd also like to give a major shoutout to Ma tt from LSBlog, who has given me an enormous amount of assistance. Without his help, this would have taken weeks, instead of six days. Check out his blogging software, LSBlog, at lsblog.com. It has some major advanced features you wish your blogging software offered, and is definitely worth it.

Happy Holidays

2004-12-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

I 'd like to wish a merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it, and happy holidays to everybody else, or at least happy vacation. Whether or not this is a special time of the year for you, use it as the opportunity it is and spend time with your loved ones. I've been to far too many sad occasions these last few months and trust me, you never know when you'll get another chance. Please, party, talk, and just sit around, but make the most of it.

Google Suggests Guts Disassembled - Part 2

2004-12-24T14:34:00.000-05:00

Slashdot introduces us to this analysis of Google Suggest, which goes even deeper than previous dissections of the Google Suggest engine. Some of the interesting discoveries:

The most startling thing is that Google Suggest is actually based more on searches than results. To explain: Google Suggest returns results that are not in Google's index, or for terms that Google can never get to, because it indexes searches made as well as searches found. What does this mean? If you have typed a UPS tracking number into Google (something typical, because Google has searches for tracking numbers built it), it can find its way into Google Suggest. Just go there and type in "1ze" and watch the numbers pop up (all from packages delivered in the last six weeks). Does this mean credit card numbers could be in there as well? Less likely, but possible. Ironically, if you've ever searched for your credit card number to make sure it wasn't publicly available, you may have inadverantly added it to Google Suggest. Oy.

Related posts:
Google Suggest - 12/10
Google Suggests Goooooooooooooooogle - 12/10
Google Suggest Tools - 12/11
The Google Suggest Complete My Sentence Game - 12/15
Google Suggests Guts Disassembled - 12/18
Google Suggest Poetry Generator - 12/20

Googlers Grateful For Free Grubs

2004-12-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about Google's cafeteria, which provides 4,000 free meals for hungry Googlers all day. Apparently, 85% of the food is "healthy", like wheatgrass, grass-fed Angus beef, and all other sorts of organics. Hmm... I wonder if they also provide ethnic and religious foods, like a kosher or halal cafe?

Anyway, from what I've been told, Googlers like the food, but not as much as they like that its free. Some Google employees have been known to never purchase groceries anymore, getting three squares a day at the Googleplex, and making up for non-working days by eating out and ordering in. Come to Google at lunch, and don't be surprised if a large number of people who are eating there are not Google employees at all, but their family, guests, and business partners. Plenty of people who have access to the cafeteria, take advantage of it for the free food.

Well, good for them. I would too. Who doesn't want a well-prepared entirely free meal? Do you have any idea what it costs me to eat in Manhattan?

Hmm... Does Google's New York office have a cafeteria?

Google Doodle IX.5

2004-12-24T03:54:00.000-05:00

What the---? So the water both froze the logo and turned the snowballs into snowcones? Are there normally rabbits in the arctic? Are they selling the snowcones, that they made for free? I know you guys are confused, because the last post got a bunch of comments. Does this new Doodle confirm or inspire any new wackjob theories?

Well, the Google Blog has commented on an element of this "controversy". Apparently, they received an email:

In reference to holiday illustration #3, I am curious as to how the larger polar bear learned, over a period of a few days, how to roll blobs of snow in almost perfect spheres. I mean, wouldn't this require a few thousand years of mental evolution, not to mention the concept of throwing objects and the idea of guessing how much power to put behind their throw in order for the snowball to land in an acceptable radius of the target...

...Well, we won't have to worry about this because apparently the larger polar bear got preoccupied with hosing down the O for no apparent or logical reason. And how exactly can this hose have running water if they are in the Arctic tundra? I'll give your illustrator the benefit of the doubt but come on... Unless the polar bears have developed a heating system for their water supply in order to prevent freezing, this wouldn't be possible. And please, don't use the common "well, they stole the hose from the humans which already have heating methods under development." That is such a cliché...

...Also, considering the size of the polar bear and the circumference of the hose, why would he or she even need help with controlling it? It just seems like the back polar bear is holding up the hose just for the sake of holding up the hose. I mean, these are powerful bears. They can control a small hose with a medium sized jet of water gushing out without requiring the assistance of another bear...

...And where exactly did they learn that holding the back of the hose stabilizes the front part? I'm assuming there isn't a television anywhere close to them. Did they just somehow, by the luck of the draw, decide to hold the hose in that certain way which is so conveniently similar to the method fire fighters use to stabilize their hoses? One final observation: there are more snowballs in picture number 3 than there are in picture number 2. Where did the extra ones come from and why did the polar bear decide to leave them sitting there if he took the time to neatly organize his previously?

And their response:

Dear User:

Thank you for your recent email. We appreciate your concern but must confess to considerable bewilderment with regard to various statements you make about the home page doodle of 12/22/04. First, what makes you assert that those are "almost perfect spheres?" If you look more closely, you'll see that the snowballs in question are in fact somewhat oblong, which is to say, wholly producible by a polar bear paw. Second, why would you assume that the polar bear threw the snowballs into that pile, when placing them there would be much easier?

[regarding the running water in the Arctic] Again with the erroneous assumptions. In this case, you conclude that the presence of a heated hose derives not from nearby humans, but from some technologically advanced and therefore highly unlikely polar bear society, because having humans produce the hose "is such a cliché." Well, life is full of clichés; their prevelance, in fact, is precisely what makes them clichés. As for why the polar bear is hosing down the O: we expect that the past few days have by now made clear that this series of doodles is telling a story whose conclusion none of us have yet to grasp.

Well, this being a holiday doodle and Google being a family-friendly company, the polar bear story has a family-oriented holiday theme; i.e., the daddy polar bear is spraying down the O as part of a plan to (as you must by now realize) decorate it in a festive manner, and the baby polar bear is "helping."

Dude, in the interim of time which elapsed between doodle #2 and doodle #3, they made more snowballs, okay? And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place. We love all our users, especially those who take the time to brighten our day with such graceful, witty emails. Enjoy the rest of Dennis' holiday doodles. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Michael Krantz
Google Blog Team

Naturally, this answer was evasive and didn't address the issues present in the melting colors, so I fired off an email:

Michael (or whoever answers the Google Blog emails),

We've been having a confused discussion over at InsideGoogle about Google Doodle IX. While the letter writer makes some excellent points, there is far more confusion about Doodle IX.4. No one seems to understand what in god's name is going on when the hose causes the Google logo to melt and turn the snowballs various colors. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Google have too much eggnog at the office Christmas party?

Nathan Weinberg
InsideGoogle

Jeez, will this ever end (or at least make sense)?

UPDATE: Zorgloob also has the information that the filenames are all Korean, which makes sense since logo creator Dennis Hwang is Korean:

http://www.google.com/logos/winter_holiday_04_1.gif
http://www.google.com/logos/winter_holiday_04_dul.gif
http://www.google.com/logos/winter_holiday_04_sam.gif
http://www.google.com/logos/winter_holiday_04_sah.gif
http://www.google.com/logos/winter_holiday_04_o.gif

Will Google Buy Community Photo Service?

2004-12-23T19:20:00.000-05:00

There has been a bit of quiet rumbling lately that we'll see a Google aquisition of community photo service Flickr, or perhaps Fotki early next year. With Picasa 2.0 coming (source: USA Today), the word is Google wants the key to the new Picasa's success to be photo sharing, and Flickr/Fotki would be the key. There's a few reasons why this could happen:

Orkut - There's no shortage of people at Google who are dissapointed with the way Orkut is not catching on. Google really wanted to build a powerful community, and it isn't going to happen through Orkut. Buying a popular photo service gives Google that, and a great base to build from.
Google Images - Google hasn't updated its image index in many months. Yesterday, when I posted about the Zeitgeist 2004, I got my images from Yahoo, because Google Images was bare. Google may be holding off updating the index until its finished negotiating with Flickr/Fotki, and then do all at once. Google Images will get more than just eight months worth of crawled images, it'll get the entire database of whoever it buy's users, plus metadata. Sounds like a great press release to me.

Adam Lasnik at BLADAM predicts Google will release Picasa 2 on February 15 (very specific... what does he know?), with the Flickr aquisition coming 45 days later. Picking uo Flickr, with fun attitude, small and smart team, open API, "not-evil" history, and considerably large user base (150,000 users and 1.8 million images, according to Fast Company) would be a great asset to Google, and repair the fact that none of its community products (Blogger, Groups, Orkut) work very well. This is an area Microsoft is making serious and successful moves in, and Google would do well to not cede this battle to Redmond. I would call it a very smart move.

Google Doodle IX.4

2004-12-23T10:24:00.000-05:00

I don't get it at all. Look at the sequence. First the bears are dancing. Then, one makes snowballs while the other builds a snow wall (fort?). Then they use a hose on the Google logo, which presumably freezes it. Now all of a sudden the logo is melting and turning the snowballs different colors? What?

Google AdWords Search Engine

2004-12-23T10:12:00.000-05:00

Are you sick of searching Google and getting actual information? Would you rather just get only paid results, the most relevant ads for your keyword? Well, Search Engine Roundtable has noticed the link at the bottom of many ad blocks on Google Search that just says "more". Clicking on it will get you all the ads for that keyword. What does all this translate to? A search engine for Google ads, arranged in a clear order that lets you know which ads Google considers most relevant. It is available via the URL http://www.google.com/sponsoredlinks?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=[query], replacing [query] with the actual search term. Or, if you're lazy, click this search for "fish" and then search from the search box at the top of the page. Sure, if this were the regular Google, we'd all be complaining, but by itself it has some good uses.

UPDATE - Dirson rightly points out that there is a much simpler URL: http://www.google.com/sponsoredlinks.

John Battelle Predictions For 2005

2004-12-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

John Battelle did a very good job with his predictions for 2004, and his look ahead for 2005 looks pretty solids as well. Go read his post in a new windows, and come back here for my thoughts.

What else will happen? Will MSN Search continue to grab headlines and red state net users? Will Google finally open up and reveal what goes on inside its walls? Will blogging conquer its problems with ethics and editing? Will Desktop Search ever live up to the hype? Will Google conquer search spam? Will Google Images ever get updated? Will Slate still exist? Will MSNBC still exist? Will Steve Ballmer start blogging (Bill Gates never will)? Will newspapers ever catch on with younger people?

AOL To Offer Free Webmail

2004-12-22T19:59:00.000-05:00

AOL is beta testing a free webmail service with its members that will soon be made available to the public. The service is called "AOL Mail on the Web" and offers 100 megabytes of storage. C|Net reports that the service has an advanced interface similar to Outlook (screenshot), with an address book, advanced message search, and spam control. This is part of AOL's initiative to move services outside the subscriber firewall, and with the upcoming AOL Browser and AOL Desktop Search, 2005 may be the first positive year for AOL in a long time.

Google Year-End Interactive Zeitgeist

2004-12-22T19:07:00.000-05:00

Google has released its end of the year Zeitgeist for 2004, highlighting the top searches of the year, and in order to top everyone else's, Google's is interactive, made with Flash. Lots of interesting factoids and trivia bits (one day, you will be able to buy a Google Zeitgeist family game, mark my words), including lots of things you may have forgotten, or wish you had, including:

The South Beach diet
Howard Dean
Spalding Gray
Janet Jackson @ the Super Bowl
New Zealand and the Lord of the Rings
Martha Stewart
Avian flu
Gay marriage in San Francisco
The Passion of the Christ
Kobe Bryant on trial
The Madrid terrorist bombing
Omarosa in The Apprentice
Gmail unveiled
Pat Tillman
Fantasia Barrino winning American Idol
John Kerry's daughter in a see-through dress
Nick Berg
The Friends finale
Smarty Jones
Lynndie England and Abu Graib
Ronald Reagan dies
Farenheit 9/11
John Kerry, Barack Obama and the Democratic National Convention
Maria Sharapova!
Lance Armstrong - six in a row
JibJab
Swift Boat Veterans for truth
Spider-man 2
The Athens Olympics and Michael Phelps
Google goes public
Hurricanes in Florida
George W. Bush, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Rudy Giuliani and the Republican National Convention
Rick James dies
Oprah gives away 276 cars
Hostage situation ends in disaster in Chechnya
Ray Charles dies
Britney Spears marries
Dan Rather and the National Guard scandal
Christopher Reeve dies
Vioxx recalled
SpaceShipOne makes history
John Stewart on Crossfire
The Red Sox win (and the Yankees lose!)
The presidential debates
Ashlee Simpson "sings" on SNL
Yasser Arafat dies
President Bush reelected
Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Half-Life 2 released
MSN Search and Toolbar Suite
Scott Peterson sentenced to die
Bernard Kerik
Pregnant mother brutally murdered

I've added a few things Google left out. Other companies have released a list of their top search keywords:

America Online
AskJeeves
Lycos
Yahoo

Google Doodle IX.3

2004-12-22T05:05:00.000-05:00

Just what are those bears up to?

The Future: Journalism Is Dead

2004-12-22T04:16:00.000-05:00

This Flash video is just unbelievable. I love it and hate it at the same time. EPIC 2014, by Robin Sloan, chronicles what will happen over the next four years, as companies like Google tear down all notions of information and news media, destroying traditional media institutions and giving every user access to information that is as personalized and communal as it is sensational and devoid of ethics. I agree that, the way things are going, traditional media will be destroyed by the internet. However, I believe that a new form of media can be created on the internet, one that leverages citizen journalism with old media rules of ethics and organization. You'll see more of what I mean over the next few weeks. Is traditional media dying? Yes, but that doesn't mean that the news has to die as well.
(via Alex Barnett)

Email Firm Pimps Gmail For Publicity

2004-12-22T00:30:00.000-05:00

IncrediMail is proud to announce that Gmail users can access their Gmail through IncrediMain by POP3 access... just like every email provider on the planet. Taking a play from the Stupid Google Press Release file, IncrediMail figures it'll get free publiciy by adding something like four lines of code to its email program to make it so Gmail users only have to enter a username and password to get POP3 through their program. Well, just like with the PageRank releases, I'm sure it'll work out just fine. I should release a press release, too.

Too Many Google Ads?

2004-12-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

The Unofficial Google Weblog asks "Why so many ads, Google?" I've noticed that on some very popular searches, Google displays as many ads as the page will fit. I searched for domain registration, and even though I ask for 100 results per page, Google managed to have ads the whole way down. Same thing Brad Hill discovered on a search for MP3 players. Are people okay with this? It doesn't seem that way all the time, but often enough to be noticed.

GoogleBot: Interview

2004-12-21T13:18:00.000-05:00

Phillip Lensen has scored a major scoop, an interview with the ever elusive GoogleBot. GB paints a tragic, haunting figure, laid-back, carefree, aware of his own mortality, but unconcerned. Truly, the saddest thing I've read all day. But whatever. He's lazy. "I don't do ranking"? Get off your college-educated pot-smoking good-for-nothing butt and do some real work! Sheesh!

New Worm Uses Google, Just Like Everybody Else

2004-12-21T10:37:00.000-05:00

The Net-Worm.Perl.Santy.a worm uses Google to find websites running vulnerable versions of phpBB, and then defaces their homepages.

"This is a little hint of what's coming in 2005," cautions Timothy Keanini, chief technology officer for nCircle Network Security Inc., a network security company. "All the technology that makes us more efficient makes the bad guys more efficient, too."

You have to believe on some level, someone at Google is thinking, "Yeah, they used our search engine. Not Yahoo, not MSN, not Jeeves. Us. Because we're the most eficient way to find anything." Still, Google must use its powers only for good.

Google Doodle IX.2

2004-12-21T04:10:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Forums Blow Things Out Of Proportion

2004-12-20T22:18:00.000-05:00

Rich Ord explains at WebProNews how a rumor spread through Search Engine Watch forums, Webmasterworld, and eventually MarketingVox that Google was going to limit ads to only one per page. Obviously, that would have been a revenue damaging move, and the rumor was a misunderstanding of the new policy on affiliate ads. Still, another example of why I don't report on message board rumors.

Google Deskbar Plugins

2004-12-20T20:51:00.000-05:00

Google Blogoscoped points out the GDeskbar site, filled with plugins for the Google Deskbar. The site has:

Foodle - Search Feedster, A9, Technorati, others.
Net Send - Send a net send message direct from the Deskbar.
GoogPlug v1.2 - Use various free web services to obtain information, including the command line, real-world distances, random bible verses, most Google services (GDS, Gmail, etc.), and much more. Also has the ability to save favorite scripts for quick access.
CHM - Search CHM (help) files.
Xlsgen - Search Excel files.
Gmail - Search Gmail.
Local - Search Google Local.

Picasa 2.0 Coming In January

2004-12-20T19:41:00.000-05:00

USA Today has a story on what Google 2005 will bring. Included in the tidbits is this:

A new, greatly enhanced — and still free — version of Picasa will be released in January.

Google also plans expansions of Orkut and Keyhole and their anathema to ever being a portal. Also, analyst Mark Mahaney continues to speak of gloom and doom for the stock, since the company's lack of disclosure presents serious risks.

Compare All The Desktop Search Tools

2004-12-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

Goebel Group has put together a handy matrix to compare all the major free desktop search systems. It looks at

Autonomy Beta 1.7
Ask Jeeves Desktop Search
Blinkx
Copernic
DT Search
Google Desktop Search
ISYS:desktop
MSN Toolbar Suite
X1

and compares them on:

Download size
Operating System
System Requirements
File types
Email
Audio
Video
Images
Browser Supported
Deskbar
Content Integration
Enterprise Integration
Security
Languages

(via Search Engine Watch)

Google Loses Top Executive

2004-12-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

Cindy McCaffrey, Google's Vice President of Corporate Marketing and with the company practically since the beginning, has announced she's leaving. McCaffrey is in many ways responsible for Google's low-key ad strategy that has relied more on word-of-mouth than anything else, according to SiliconBeat. Because she's been around so long, she can retire on the millions she likely made in the IPO, a great capper to a 20-year career in the P.R. business, which she pursued after a shorter career as a reporter. Danny Sullivan calls her one of Google's "secret weapons". John Battelle also reminisces, giving Cindy credit for "the most unprecedented run of good press in modern corporate history".
Hey Google, you looking to hire any reporters?

Celebrex Soars, At Least In Ad Dollars

2004-12-20T17:12:00.000-05:00

Celebrex, the keyword, has soared, as personal injury attorneys scramble to buy the keyword for big bucks at Overture and AdWords, MarketWatch is reporting. The Overture cost of Celebrex soared from 95 cents on Friday to $4.02 today, following news that the FDA was considering regulatory measures for the best-selling arthritis drug. Celebrex is expected to top ten dollars, but not reach the heights of Vioxx, which reched $40 per click within two weeks of its withdrawl from the market. Vioxx still sells at about $9.
(via Search Engine Watch)

The Google Story

2004-12-20T17:04:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Watch's Gary Price posts that Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter David Vise has signed a book deal for The Google Story, a "a chronological narrative that also embraces the populist style of the company, its technological expertise and the challenges success has brought". Expect more similar announcements, as Google remains "hot". The abstract from the PublishersWeekly story (evil subscription hides the rest):

Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post business reporter David Vise has signed with Ann Harrisat Bantam Dell to write The Google Story, which traces the search engine from its founding by a pair of graduate students in 1998 to its global reach and multibillion-dollar revenues today.

Google Patches Desktop Security Flaw

2004-12-20T16:43:00.000-05:00

Google has patched a security flaw in its Desktop Search product that would have allowed an attacker to search the contents of a user's system.

The flaw was discovered by two Rice University graduate students, who figured out two different attack scenarios that could be used to exploit the vulnerability. The two students were, as part of their final project for their Computer Systems Security class, conducting a security audit of the search tool. You can read their report as a PDF on the Rice university website (they only released their paper after Google fixed the flaw). The flaw was related to the way Google integrates Desktop Search results into regular searches. Apparently, the flaw even allowed attackers to use wi-fi connections to attack the user's computer without even tricking the user into visiting the attacker's website.

I bet they got an A.

Some new details learned about how GDS integrates with Google Search. Apparently, when Google said it didn't access any of your local data, it wasn't kidding. There's no code in Google Search that calls for GDS to see if its there. Instead, GDS intercepts web requests to google.com and runs it through the program instead of the website. Basically, you send a request to Google, GDS intercepts it and sends it out, then, when Google returns the request, GDS intercepts it again and inserts the local results. This works well enough that you can trick Google into returning different local results than web results. There's lots of interesting data about the infrastructure of GDS in the paper.

All versions of GDS 121004 and above are protected against the flaw. Mine hasn't been updated yet. Has yours? Check the GDS "About" page.
(via eWeek, New York Times)

UPDATE: The Google blog comments, and a version history page is now up.

Google Suggest Poetry Generator

2004-12-20T15:21:00.000-05:00

Reader Brad has a post on his blog, bradsucks.net (I hate big egos), showing his Google Suggest Poetry Generator. Basically, you type a word, and it queries Google Suggest, picks a random next word, and keeps going. As Brad says:

[I]t hits Google with 40-50 queries each page load and is about the dumbest use of
Google’s vast resources I can think of.

Still, it can be fun:

google email addresses in uk universities
in australia bureau of statistics canada
savings bonds factory outlet covers
dvd recorder notes
buddy holly hunter
mountain bike trader
online radio stations
in blackpool tower perrin

Who wants to bet some aspiring rapper is going to view this as a treasure trove of lyrics? Google Suggest is off da' hook!

Google Doodle IX Is Here

2004-12-20T05:03:00.000-05:00

The irregular series of themed Google Doodles, now in its ninth iteration, has arrived, as Google Doodle IX brings a holiday theme to everyone's favorite search engine. Expect new Google Doodles every day for the next few days, starting with today's:

Yahoo also has a holiday logo:

Postscipt - When I said "everyone's favorite search engine", I didn't mean to discriminate against those who don't believe in Google.

Postpostscrips - Great, now I've basically compared Google to Jesus. That'll go over real well.

BusinessWeek: Page And Brin "Great Innovators"

2004-12-20T02:16:00.000-05:00

BusinessWeek has been publishing all year its list of the greatest innovators of the last 75 years. Last month they included Bill Gates, and this week its Larry Page and Sergey Brin, innovators in information. Explaining how Google had great tech and no business model:

Although the Google founders were sure their technology was a quantum leap forward, they had no clue how to turn it into a business. Initially they scorned the notion of accepting ads. But after a competitor began selling ads around search results for sizable profits, Google followed suit.

Google Sending Out AdSense Christmas Gifts

2004-12-20T02:07:00.000-05:00

Google has sent out these tiny, cool looking radios to certain AdSense publishers (not me). This is an extension of their tradition of sending Christmas presents to AdWords customers. More info at Dirson.

Take A Stroll Through The GooglePlex

2004-12-20T01:37:00.000-05:00

6S Marketing president Chris Breikss has thrown up some (very well presented) photos of his visit to the Googleplex just prior to Halloween 2004 (which explains why Google appears to house a coven of devil worshipers). Man, that is one pretty building. Also, where can I get a cool real-time Google Query screen? Did you know Elvis Presley is a member of the AdWords team?
(via Aaron Swartz)

InsideExpanding

2004-12-19T02:59:00.000-05:00

So, I'm slowly making my way through the list of bloggers interested in joining in my plan to create a network within the blogosphere. I'm in the process of contacting everyone back. You can still contact me (I can never have too many good people). I've pretty much settled on a domain, but if anyone knows of a good, available domain, I could use some help. More importantly, I need advice on web hosting providers, so please contact me at random12345@gmail.com if you can help, or to submit your interest in signing up. I would recommend sending a link to your blog, or something you've written extensively about online, since if you don't, I'll just be asking you for it anyway. I also need someone with experience in website programming, specifically some more advanced techniques (you'll see what I mean).

Anyway, why should you be interested? The pitch:

There are countless thousands of blogs out there. So many bloggers write for months and give up when they realize they have no audience. I'm looking for the bloggers who are willing to post numerouse times per day in a news-driven style about targetted topics, so as to leverage the blogs against each other, creating a blog network that takes advantage of the combined strength of all the bloggers involved. I need well-spoken bloggers who are looking to increase their visibility, and are willing to be consistent, dependable, and professional enough to earn the respect of the blogosphere.

If you want an example of what I mean by consistent and news-driven, just read this site. I post 2-300 times per month, and my goal is a simple one: Don't miss a single news item. If you can offer me a decent commitment, I can offer you a decent opportunity.

Google Suggests Guts Disassembled

2004-12-18T19:07:00.000-05:00

Chris Justus, a blogger who examines server-side programming, has performed a "live autopsy" of Google Suggest, examining all the guts and explaining who it works. He discovers how Google Suggest breaks many conventions of web programming by fully utilizing advanced programming languages, much liek Gmail does. Google is really proving that there's more you can do with the web than you think.
(via Google Blogoscoped)

Postscript: One guy comments that he basically stole the code and used it on his site. Google's lawyers should be contacting him in 5... 4... 3... 2...

Using Bloggers In Google Ads

2004-12-18T18:34:00.000-05:00

Intelliseek's BlogPulse has bought up Google ads for certain influential bloggers' names, including Steve Rubel (screenshot). Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw shows up in the comments to explain the experiment, which yielded only a 1.5% click-through rate on "modest volume" (ouch!). If you search for my name, you get an ad for books by Nathan Weinberg (not me... for now) at Alibiris.com. Of course, I clicked on the ad to see where it went, so now you may not see it, plus I cost those guys some money, but whatever...

Still, I wouldn't mind buying the ad myself, just to see how many people are searching for me name (me and my mom). Perhaps, as bloggers become bigger media figures, this practice will gain wider acceptance. For now, at least Scoble and Danny Sullivan have ads.

The Marqui Story So Far

2004-12-17T16:18:00.000-05:00

This post sponsored by Marqui

As you may have forgotten at this point, this blog is being sponsored by Marqui. More details are available here and here.

So, what's happened in the first half-month of the largest pay-for-blogging program yet? Well, the sky hasn't fallen, none of the bloggers has been revealed as Satan, and I think my integrity lies intact (except for that time I begged everyone to purchase Charmin. Charmin! I love Charmin!).

Marqui has published a FAQ of sorts, answeing some questions people have been asking these last few weeks. The program certainly seems to be working out for Marqui, getting it a lot of publicity, but I can imagine it'll be a challenge to keep the interest level high as the next ten weeks pass by. Cool enough, the page was produced as an "interactive brochure" using Marqui's system, so it actually functions as both information and a product demo.

The first thing addressed is what Marqui likes to call "Software as a Service" (and because everything must have an acronym, SaaS). Rather than hosting the whole shebang themselves, Marqui sets up the system on your servers and gives you control over it. I know blogs are on a much smaller scale than CMS, but I can't wait to get my blog off Bloggers servers and onto a faster one of my own, where I can better control pages, so I can relate. Way I look at it, if you're paying Marqui $199/month after an initial startup fee of ~$5000, you'd better have full control over your server. If you're interested in it, you'd probably be pleased to learn that its programmed with ASP, so its platform independent. You can use any sort of server, whatever you're comfortable with. Apparently, some people are using it by only publishing Word documents to a file server, so it works not only well for the technically inclined, but also for the people who still think you can use Word in publishing (yeah, I'm referring to one of my relatives, you know who you are).

Anyway, since this program is all about communication (not just about Marqui's communication system, but about communicating with the blogosphere), the bloggers in the program have been pestering Marqui to get out their as well. Marqui figured it could pay us to talk about them, I don't think they expected to find a bunch of people (who they're paying) telling them to start their own blog!

Most companies who have their ear to the blogs implement community oriented features, and it looks like the bloggers are forcing Marqui to move in that direction. Besides the coming corporate blog, Marqui is now talking about a user-to-user support program, public demos, and publishing APIs. Even the FAQ questions were submitted by a blogger. I'm a major advocate that companies that listen to bloggers have to get better, otherwise the bloggers will just skewer them. We're seeing a new attitude at Microsoft in this regard, and I'm hoping Marqui learns from their experiment to develop the same way.

Looking For A Blogger

2004-12-17T14:05:00.000-05:00

Since InsideMicrosoft has joined InsideGoogle as a well-trafficked blog, I think the time is ready to expand a little further. I'd like to start another blog, but I won't be writing it. In case it isn't obvious at this point, I'm building a network (and don't be surprised if everything moves to a domain in the next few weeks). So, I haven't settled on the topic of the blog (and it needn't be tech-related), but I am looking for an untapped, dedicated blogger. The blog would have to have a news focus, and be updated constantly and consistently. Feel free to suggest possible topics as well (InsideApple, InsidePolitics, InsideGadgets) that you'd like to see explored. If you know of anyone who I should consider, IM me (check the profile) or comment with contact info.

And yes, there is money involved.

Yahoo Signs Up JibJab Guys

2004-12-17T00:10:00.000-05:00

Yahoo has picked up the JibJab brothers, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, with an agreement to exclusively distribute their next two video. This is a great move for Yahoo, since JibJab's last big hit, "This Land", was an internet phenomenon, the most viral video of the year, inspiring a major court case. Yahoo should get a lot of publicity for their entertainment division out of this one (something they've been trying to do), assuming the videos are any good. One video, already available, has a Christmas theme, the other will be a political spoof.
(via CNET)

Froogle Adds Product Reviews

2004-12-16T21:05:00.000-05:00

With nine days left in the holiday shopping season, Froogle has added product reviews to aid customers in their purchases. In typical Google fashion, the whole service is powered by algorithms, not people, as a Google crawler picks up the reviews from other sites, such as Bizrate.com, Circuit City and CNET, and attaches them to select popular products, like the iPod and the Playstation 2. The idea is you can now search Froogle for generic products and use the review to find out which one is better. The review page is very cool, with color coded alert levels and "hot topics". The hot topics are quite useful; you click on a set of words that the crawler has found in a large number of the reviews, and Froogle zeroes in on the reviewers who considered "battery life" to be important, and what they said. Gotta love that.
(via Cnet, Search Engine Journal, and Greg Linden)

Postscript - Guess what? Gary was right!

Yahoo Maps Adds Traffic Reports

2004-12-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

Yahoo has added traffic reports for 70 major metropolitan areas, according to MediaPost.

Accident reports and news about construction will be available for the 70 top metro areas, while additional information about the speed of traffic will be posted for the top 20 metro areas.

The data will be updated in real time, and will be integrated into Yahoo Search, Yahoo Local, and Yahoo Maps, but will be hosted at maps.yahoo.com/traffic.
(via Search Engine Watch)

Blinkx Beats Google To TV Search

2004-12-16T14:34:00.000-05:00

While Yahoo released yesterday a search engine for video, Blinkx came out with one today that searches TV and radio. Blinkx TV Beta has video results from FOX News, CNN, BBC News, Bloomberg Television, ITN, Sky News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, HBO, ESPN, Sky Sports, E! Entertainment Television, A&E Biography, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, BBC Parliament, National Geographic, and audio results from National Public Radio, Voice of America, BBC Radio 4 & 5, and BBC World Service. You can limit the search to any number of specific sources if you wish.

Blinkx searches the content of the broadcast, not just the title, but does not do so using closed captioning, as Google's reported work-in-progress will. As the white paper explains:

Through the use of fast server-based audio/video-capture cards and a linearly scalable architecture, the blinkx TV platform seamlessly assimilates audio and video from multiple sources including, but not restricted to, terrestrial television aerials, satellite television feeds, cable TV, analog and digital radio and Internetbased content.

Blinkx's algorithm actually watches the program, contextualizing the images and audio, and determines what it is about. It even time-stamps segments of the video, so you are sent right to whatever you are searching for. The entire process is based on speech recognition technology and context clustering, to create a synchronized metadata stream for every video.

not only does blinkx know what was said, blinkx knows exactly when it was said.

This is just a brilliant idea. Google thought closed captioning was the secret to TV search, but Blinkx realized that speech recognition was better. See, speech recognition isn't perfect, but since you only want keywords, you don't need to get every single word. Besides, if you have ever seen live captioning, its actually far worse than any speech recognition program, rife with misspellings and moronic mistakes. Blinkx went with the more powerful solution, and as long as the speech algorithm holds up, its got a great search engine. Blinkx even provides the transcript so you can read that instead, or look at the snippet to know you have the right video, although it says "this is not what is used for searching as a more accurate phonetic algorithm does the matching process". Excellent work, Blinkx.

The search results page is an innovation in itself, featuring animated Flash previews of each video. You actually get to see a few seconds of the video in the results page (if its radio, you see a dancing radio. Cute). You can sort be relevancy or date (very important in the world of TV). Roll your mouse over a thumbnail, and it expands, a cool effect that says "you're dealing with something new". It all combines into a smart, slick package other companies would be wise to emulate.

Blinkx TV integrates very well with Blinkx Smart Folders, allowing users of the product to create a smart folder in which all new clips on a certain subject will be placed. For example, create a Jon Stewart folder, and every time a new Jon Stewart video is made available, you have it in your Smart Folder. Call it RSS for video (or video podcasting) or whatever, the point is that it just works.
(via Search Engine Journal)

UPDATE: Gary Price notes that this is the web release of a tool that was always available to users of Blinkx software, and he points out other video search engines.

Overture Can't Be Happy With Geico Outcome

2004-12-16T13:06:00.000-05:00

It's virtually a guarantee that Overture is eating crow today after settling with Geico two weeks ago, only to watch Google win its case against the insurance company. I'm predicting two things happening over there right now:

Every so often, an Overture exec asks, "Is there any way we can get that settlement cash back?"
Yahoo has begun the process of firing some lawyers, especially whoever advised them that settling was their only recourse.

Still, there is one bright side for Yahoo-owned Overture, as pointed out by the Uofficial Google Weblog. Since Google pays Yahoo licensing fees off of Overture patents, at least Yahoo will make some money off of Google's victory. Still, they made a decision, and in hindsight, it was the wrong one.

Yahoo Video Search Is Here

2004-12-15T22:55:00.000-05:00

What is this?! We seem to get some brand new step forward several times a week. God, I love this industry.

Tonight, Yahoo launches Video Search Beta. Media providers can submit their videos to the engine through RSS feeds, and you get a powerful video search engine. If you search for something that isn't there, Yahoo even shows you the web search results to help you out. Yahoo shows a nice little thumbnail of whatever results it has. I've noticed .avi, .mov, .mpg, .wmv and .rm, so it is sompletely capable of handling all the major formats. You can use the advanced search page to limit your results by format, search by file size or duration (or both), or limit your searches to a domain. Because Yahoo Video relies on publishers for information, it's SafeSearch should work just fine; it should even think about implementing a ratings system.

The idea of all video content sites publishing RSS feeds makes me excited about prospects for using those feeds. You just know some guys are going to code apps that download the latest videos (video podcasting, off course).

Back on topic, good work Yahoo. We should be able to have dedicated engines for every type of content out there. There's no reason we shouldn't have video, audio, newspaper, radio station, library, whatever search engines. I'm very happy with this.
(via John Battelle, who is under embargo till tomorrow to deliver more news about it)

UPDATE: The Yahoo Search Blog has info on the new engine. They explain that the RSS enclosure data is almost exactly like that for podcasting. Yahoo has come up with additional metadata to go in the feed, creating a set of "Media RSS" rules. The data contains ten attributes: the URL, file size, format, media player, player height and width, whether the video is full or a sample, bitrate, duration, and an indeterminate "isDefault" parameter. Expect every other company to use this data, meaning Yahoo can take credit for an industry standard. Expect other companies, like Google, to add more parameters to the standard, like publisher name, or even author, actors, genre, etc. This standard was developed with several partners:

In addition, we're working with several other companies and organizations to help refine these ideas. They include: AtomFilms, Creative Commons, Buzznet, Ourmedia, and Broadband Mechanics.

UPDATE 2: Gary Price has more

Desktop Search Roundup + First Impression: Ask Jeeves Desktop Search

2004-12-15T20:47:00.000-05:00

Here you go folks: What I think of Jeeves' offering, plus, I declare a winner (for now).

So, I got Jeeves Desktop Search to work. How? By shutting down every single program on my computer. And when that didn't work, I closed my internet connection, and then I was in business. After allocating all my system resources to the program and selecting the "Fast" method of indexing, Jeeves started indexing things.

I don't like at all Jeeves' practice of automatically selecting the first search result and previewing it in the right pane. If I want a preview, I'll click on it. If I wanted a preview when I was trying to open a video in Media Player through Jeeves, well, that just wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it? Don't play my music without prompting! Dont' play movies without prompting! If my hard drive was loaded up with pornographic images, I'd be pretty pissed if Jeeves started playing porno flicks and showing naked pictures while anyone could be looking over my shoulder! And the preview window only displays snippets of text documents, not the whole thing. This preview window is a good idea in concept, and only in concept. I hope they offer thumbnails as an alternative in future releases, since I can't stand the thing. There has got to be a way to turn the thing off.

Otherwise, the program seems decent, indexing as expected in about the same amount of time as everybody else. I kind of like that it doesn't use IE, since I found that I was always "losing" my Google Desktop Search when I clicked on things, so I had to memorize its IP address. On the other hand, MSN's interface does a better job acting as a hybrid of IE, Explorer and its own thing, plus it has more options, so I think it wins on the interface.

Who indexes more? Jeeves found 12,920 files, MSN found 13,275, and Google found 3,126 (not including things like email and AIM, which the others didn't index). I was stunned to discover that Google had indexed so few files. As for relevancy, Google actually loses points because of its cache! Most of its results were files I had already deleted, something it should be smart enough to eaither bump from the index or push to the bottom, with a little "Supplemental Result" tag. MSN and Jeeves don't have any relevancy ranking, but at least MSN makes up for it with the ability to sort columns, something Jeeves barely offers, and both of them have an edge on Google by displaying all the results on the same screen. Ultimately, MSN has the most useful search results page, followed by Jeeves and then Google.

Google is faster. MSN has more cutomizable option (Jeeves has basically none). Google has better online functions. MSN has more features (although Google's cache is very useful). MSN displays metadata, but won't index it. Google handles email best. MSN handles Windows best (naturally). Google handles files better. MSN handles previews best, with image thumbnails, followed by Google's cache and Jeeves preview (which is practically a negative).

So, having tested these three early desktop search offerings from the major search engines, who's the winner?

Interface - MSN, Jeeves, Google
Resources & Speed - Google, MSN, Jeeves
Search Results - MSN, Jeeves, Google
Advanced features - MSN, Google, Jeeves
Internet Options - Google, MSN, Jeeves
Ease of Use - Google, Jeeves, MSN
Index depth - MSN & Jeeves (tie), Google
Index detail - MSN, Jeeves, Google
Email - Google, MSN, Jeeves
Communications - Google, MSN, Jeeves
OS Integration - MSN, Google, Jeeves
File types - Google, MSN, Jeeves
File preview - MSN, Google, Jeeves
Security - MSN, Jeeves, Google

The winner (for now)?
In the category of "Desktop Search", Best Overall Product

- MSN Desktop Search

Google takes second place.

While Google's offering is the only one with seemingly no bugs, and the fastest, smoothest interface, it is also the weakest product, with no interface, no options, and no ability to do anything with your results. Google essentially created a powerful engine, and dumped it on you with no product to take advantage of that engine.

MSN's product is polished. It's powerful. It can do a lot of things. I can use it to browse my computer, something I could never do with Google's. It has kinks, and it needs a ranking system, but its tops in my book.

Jeeves is too rushed, too buggy, too weak. It has promise, and I believe it could pull into second place with a few lines of code allowing customization of the interface and more rankable columns, but without those, it's little more than two windows and a search box. It has no vision, no purpose, but it has a chance, if it sees an upgrade soon.

My plan? I'll keep Google and MSN, but turn off indexing my hard drive in Google. I'll use Google for its communication search (email and IM) and MSN for my hard drive. That makes MSN the desktop search tool I find best, and Google the not-as-good-product with some decent features I really like. Jeeves? It kinda annoys me, and I have no reason to keep it over the others. This is one product, unlike the other two, that has earned its "beta" title.

AskJeeves Desktop Search Is Here

2004-12-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

I'm installing the new AskJeeves Desktop Search as I write this (click to install), and here are some of the features from the site.

Unique features (compared to Google and Microsoft) include the preview window, buttons to select indexing speed between "Gradual" and "Fast"
Uses a dedicated program, not a web browser window (or MSN odd IE/Windows hybrid)
Indexes Office documents, Outlook email, images (jpg, gif, png), music (mp3, wma, wav), video (mpg, wmv) and bookmarks and web history.
Only indexes Outlook, not Outlook Express. MSN doesn't have a toolbar for Outlook Express, but at least it indexes it. Jeeves says OE support is forthcoming.

When choosing options for initial indexing, Jeeves invites me to "choose wisely". Good advice for anyone looking into desktop search.

UPDATE: Well, this is a waste of time. AskJeeves Desktop Search crashes when I try to run it. I'll keep trying, but if it doesn't work, not only can't I review it, but that means the program has issues. I know its beta, but Google and MSN work fine for everybody, so why not Jeeves?

UPDATE 2: You can read my later post, since I found a crude work-around for the problem. Also, I would like to note that I was contacted by an employee from AskJeeves, and he was very interested in any information I had to help fix the bug. I was very impressed with the quick and professional response, and I advised them to start a blog :-)

Google Wins Big Part Of Geico Case

2004-12-15T12:40:00.000-05:00

In a major victory for Google, the judge has dismissed a key part of Geico's complaint. From the Associated Press:

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected a claim by auto insurance giant Geico Corp., which argued that Google should not be allowed to sell ads to rival insurance companies that appear whenever Geico's name is typed into the Google search box.

Brinkema said she would halt the trial at this point to put a decision in writing and she encouraged both parties to try and settle the remaining issues.

Well, Overture must be kicking themselves now.

Also:
Reuters
John Battelle

AskJeeves Announces Desktop Search

2004-12-15T12:20:00.000-05:00

Jeeves has put up the press release announcing its desktop search product, expected some time this afternoon for download here.
(via Search Engine Roundtable)

Search Engines Send E-Commerce Sites A Christmas Present

2004-12-15T12:03:00.000-05:00

Internet Retailer has some interesting stats about search engines and internet shopping sites:

Google helps drive up share of Internet traffic to shopping sites
The share of Internet visitors landing on shopping and classified sites reached a record 9.73% for the week ended Dec. 11, a year-to-year rise of 24%, as Google led search engines in contributing traffic to shopping sites, Hitwise reports.
Hitwise also reports that the 9.73% of Internet users who visited shopping or classified sites broke the prior record set in Thanksgiving week, when 9.72% of Internet visitors landed on shopping sites.
Google accounted for the largest share of traffic, 4.26%, directed by search engines to shopping sites for the week ended Dec. 11, compared to Yahoo Search, with 2.24%, and MSN Search, with 0.54%, Hitwise says.
But while Google dominates overall search referrals to shopping sites, it doesn’t lead in every product category, Hitwise says. Google sends a higher share of traffic to books, sports, fitness and music sites than does Yahoo or MSN, but Yahoo is stronger in referrals to video, game, automotive and classified sites, and MSN sends a higher share of referrals to sites offering apparel and accessories, house and garden products and appliances and electronics, Hitwise says.
Of the top 500 unique search terms used in visits to shopping and classified sites, 86.7% were related to corporate brands, 10.8% were related to generic product names, and 2.5% were related to product brands, Hitwise reports.
The fastest growing shopping categories were grocery & alcohol, books, computers, sports & fitness, and flowers & gifts, Hitwise says.
In another search-related study, comScore Networks Inc. found that of the 25% of consumers who purchased a consumer electronics or computer product after searching online in the first quarter, 92% made their purchase offline. Of the 8% that bought online, the “vast majority” made their purchase in subsequent online sessions.
ComScore also found that generic product terms accounted for 70% of search volume for consumer electronics and computer products and for 60% of search-to-purchase conversions. In contrast, it found that branded terms accounted for 30% of search volume but 40% of search-to-purchase conversions.

Here's one thing I picked up on: 86.7% of these searches used corporate brands. This means that brands are relevant to search, and that it is important that search engines provide complete results for brands. You listening, Geico?

Browser Usage Meme

2004-12-15T11:53:00.000-05:00

I normally don't do memes, but I'll make this one relevant. The idea: just type a letter in your address bar and list the first URL, to give people an idea of your browsing habits. Instead, I'll do an ABCs of InsideGoogle: The most relevant sites I use in regrads to this site. Here ya go, feel free to post any I should be using:

A - aboho.com - Aboho - Where you can find forums that post RSS feeds of InsideGoogle and InsideMicrosoft, a great way to discuss the topics at hand. bet you didn't know there was an InsideGoogle message board of sorts, did you?
B - This one's just not fair, so I'm listing mutiples:

battellemedia.com - John Battelle's blog
beta.search.msn.com - The MSN Search Beta
blog.outer-court.com - Google Blogoscoped
blog.searchenginewatch.com - Search Engine Watch Blog
blog.seattlepi.nwsource - Todd Bishop's Microsoft blog
blogs.msdn.com - MSDN blogs - An enormous collection of blogs by Microsoft employees

C - channel9.msdn.com - Channel 9 - Community at Microsoft with a user-centric focus and lots of tips
D - still looking...
E - eweek.com - eWeek
F - findory.com - Findory - No contest :-)
G - google.com - Google - What'd you expect?
H - still looking...
I - images.google.com - Google Image Search - Yeah, I know its another Google site, but I rely on it so much for lame clip art on my posts...
J - jeremy.zawodny.com - Jeremy Zawodny's blog
K - still looking...
L - still looking...
M - microsoft-watch.com - Microsoft Watch
N - neowin.net - Neowin
O - still looking...
P - photobucket.com - Photobucket - I know there are better photo hosting sites, but it's fine for me, and I won't need it anymore when the whole shebang moves to dedicated hosting (you are okay with updating your bookmarks, right?)
Q - There are no q's on the internet!
R - resourceshelf.com - Resource Shelf - A huge resource I don't use often enough
S -

scoble.weblogs.com - Robert Scoble, Microsoft Geek Blogger
searchenginelowdown.com - Search Engine Lowdown

T - topix.net - Topix news aggregator - I actually never visit the site, but its RSS feeds (you'll notice three of them in my Blogroll) I could never live without
U - still looking...
V - still looking...
W - wired.com - Wired News
X - still looking...
Y - still looking...
Z - zorgloob.com - Zorgloob

This is by no means a complete list, or even a "Favorites" list. It's simply a list of sites I rely on to produce this site. I may like a site and omit it (I even included a site or two I don't like). If you would like to suggest a site, let me know, but I won't include it unless I come to rely on it. Even if I like your site, I may wind up leaving it out.

Google Says: Disappoint Your Relatives This Holiday Season

2004-12-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

The Google Blog has some holiday gifts. Problem is, they're the kind that'll get you dumped, fired, or just slapped for being an uncaring little so-and-so. Seriously.

Honey, I love you so much, I got you this free gift certificate from Google that entitles you to an already free download:
Enjoy the gift of Google

Dear _____________________
This holiday season, I would like to bestow on you the gift of Google. I hope and believe that downloading these free Google software products and installing them on your computer will make you more efficient at work, adept at play, happier online and off, and in general a better human being in all possible ways.

Love Always, ____________________
This certificate hereby entitles the bearer to
ONE (1) FREE download
of each of these very cool Google products:
(Yes, they were always free. It's the thought that counts.)

Google Desktop Search - search your own computer
Google Toolbar - add a search box to your browser
Google Deskbar - search from any application
Picasa Photo Organizer - find and share digital photos
To redeem, please visit this web page:
http://www.google.com/downloads
Honey? What's that you're muttering under your breath? Did you just say Brad would have gotten you a real present? No honey! Put down the tire iron!

Seriously, anyone who hands out Google Gift Certificates at the office Christmas party is going to look far worse than George Costanza handing out those "A Donation Has Been Made In Your Name" things. I challenge anyone to actually try to pull this off. I would be eminently impressed with the story, and I promise to console you when she dumps your sorry butt.

The Google Suggest Complete My Sentence Game

2004-12-15T01:11:00.000-05:00

A poster at Slashdot points out the possibilities for fun with Google Suggest, so I suggest what I call:

The Google Suggest Complete My Sentence Game
The rules are simple: type a word or group of words that produces the funniest set of Suggestions. Examples:

Where are my...
keys
children
kidneys
student loans
records
pants
lymph nodes
children movies
panties
car keys
I have a l...
little shadow
little dreidel
lovely bunch of cocunuts
little sister they call her peep peep
list of folks i know
little dreidle
little list
lovely bunch of coconuts lyrics
little dreydl
little shadow that goes in and out

Do 15 million people ask Google to find their kids and 4 million ask it where their panties are? And I'm glad to know so many people are singing on the net about their dreidels/dreidles/dreydls.

Post any funny ones that you find, I'll collect the best ones.

Well, Google Glogoscoped has gone right ahead and set the standard for what craziness Google Suggest can suggest, and drawn up a nifty table that I would never steal and dump right in my own post:

Type This ...	and Google suggests this
When will I ever ...	use math
Where in the world is m ...	marijuana legal
Is there someone ...	out there for me
What time does ...	it get dark
Will I l ...	lose my hair
Who said ...	I have a dream
I want ...	I want a hippopotamus for christmas
Who d ...	do I vote for
Is Bush ...	wired
I lost m ...	my frog
When will I ...	get married
Who danced ...	the dance of seven veils
Why is ...	the sky blue
Why is ...	it important to vote
Why is ...	Mars red
I am ...	bored
Will my ...	vote count
My next ...	job
I saw ...	mommy kissing
I can't ...	wait for the weekend
I really want ...	one of those
My sister is ...	mean
How do you ...	kiss
How do you ...	make out
Is my ...	boyfriend gay
Is my ...	cat pregnant
Am I ...	fat
How does one ...	become a saint
How do people ...	live in the desert
What ...	not to wear
How do I spell ...	my name in Chinese
Why is Google ...	so fast
My girlfriend ...	hates me
When do I say ...	I love you

Why Microsoft Always Wins

2004-12-14T22:33:00.000-05:00

Technology Review has an intelligent, detailed article handicapping the search war. Writer Charles H. Ferguson, who was involved in the first browser war as a creator of FrontPage, argues that an industry standard proprietary architecture is the only way to succeed. The article starts off with explaining Netscape's greatest failure, which was to realize that fact:

At breakfast, and repeatedly over the following months, I tried to persuade Barksdale to take Microsoft seriously. I argued that if it was to survive, Netscape needed to imitate Microsoft’s strategy: the creation and control of proprietary industry standards. Serenely, Barksdale explained that Netscape actually invited Microsoft to imitate its products, because they would never catch up. The Internet, he said, rewarded openness and nonproprietary standards. When I heard that, I realized that despite my reservations about the monopolist in Redmond, WA, I had little choice. Four months later, I sold my company to Microsoft for $130 million in Microsoft stock*. Four years later, Netscape was effectively dead, while Microsoft’s stock had quadrupled.

Explaining how Microsoft approaches this sort of battle:

Strategies and Prescriptions
In all of Microsoft’s successful battles, it has used the same strategies. It undercuts its competitors in pricing, unifies previously separate markets, provides open but proprietary APIs, and bundles new functions into platforms it already dominates. Once it has acquired control over an industry standard, it invades neighboring markets.
In contrast, the losers in these contests have usually made one or more common mistakes. They fail to deliver architectures that cover the entire market, to provide products that work on multiple platforms from multiple companies, to release well-engineered products, or to create barriers against cloning. For example, IBM failed to retain proprietary control over its PC architecture and then, in belatedly attempting to recover it, fatally broke with established industry standards. Apple and Sun restricted their operating systems to their own hardware, alienating other hardware vendors. Netscape declined to create proprietary APIs because it thought Microsoft would never catch up. Google—and Yahoo—would do well to take note.

What can Google do to win? Well, Charles argues that Google and Yahoo merging might be a necessary first step to turning Google into an internet standard. Google would do well to try to reach a larger audience than it currently does. Last week, I caught a bit of flack for arguing that Google should have a portal of some sort, but the crux of my argument was that Google cannot afford to not offer anything important that anyone else offers. If Yahoo creates a search engine for movies, Google needs to build its own, or at least license IMDB's database. If Microsoft offers an RSS reader in its search portal (as Yahoo already does), why shouldn't Google? Locking customers into your site by giving them everything they need is important. Give customers one good reason to sign up with Yahoo or Microsoft, and they might find good reasons to switch entirely. I hate to say it, but Google doesn't have a single lock-in product yet. What Google product do you use that you couldn't switch from in the next fifteen minutes, if a better product came along? Gmail? GDS? Neither is good enough to lock-in users, and Google Search will only hemorrhage customers as other engines get better.

But even more importantly, as the article argues, Google must work at locking in content providers into Google's massive indices. Google may need to start offering its search appliances to corporations for next to nothing, or even for free. If companies use Google internally, and software is produced with "Google Inside", then Google has a lead it won't easily lose. Otherwise, Microsoft will just capture it all. Imagine this: How many programs have an internal search feature that sucks? If Google offered to just hand them some Google tech to make it better, most companies would take it. If Google doesn't, WinFS will come around with its powerful search algorithms, which program developers can use in their programs. Google has a powerful spell checker. Why isn't that offered to companies for their text editing products? If no one needs Google, what's going to keep Google around?

Is Google playing to win? Can Google win? Things certainly aren't as rosy as they looked back in April, when Gmail was released. Can anyone still argue that Google is untouchable?

This article was found via Search Engine Watch, which also noted this eWeek article which talks about the future of the search war, and argues that Google is on offense and Microsoft on defense. Really? You're only on offense if you have something to win. Google needs to solidify its territory while creating and expanding in other arenas. Microsoft is trying to take Google's territory. Which one sounds like offense to you?

Google Library Print Project Represents A Full Circle

2004-12-14T15:03:00.000-05:00

John Battelle has more on today's anouncement of Google's program to digitize the libraries of Michigan, Harvard, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, as well as this New York Times article. One interesting point is that to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin this represents them coming back to their roots, since Google began as a Stanford project to organize data. Maybe now Page and Brin can finally complete their Stanford degrees while they're at Stanford? Those freakin' slackers; taking a six-year leave from college to start a multi-billion dollar company.

Anyway, Battelle takes a look at other book-scanning projects, such as Amazon's and Project Gutenberg, as well as the revenue model for Google Print. If this takes off and Google scans a lot of books, they stand to make a lot of money, and finally diversify their revenue streams.

Google Announces Library Partnership

2004-12-14T13:45:00.000-05:00

The press release:

GOOGLE CHECKS OUT LIBRARY BOOKS

The Libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan,
the University of Oxford, and The New York Public Library Join with
Google to Digitally Scan Library Books and Make Them Searchable Online

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - December 14, 2004 - As part of its effort
to make offline information searchable online, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard,
Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as
well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their
collections so that users worldwide can search them in
Google.

"Even before we started Google, we dreamed of making the incredible
breadth of information that librarians so lovingly organize searchable
online," said Larry Page, Google co-founder and president of
Products. "Today we're pleased to announce this program to digitize
the collections of these amazing libraries so that every Google user
can search them instantly.

"Our work with libraries further enhances the existing Google Print
program, which enables users to find matches within the full text of
books, while publishers and authors monetize that information," Page
added. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information,
and we're excited to be working with libraries to help make this
mission a reality."

Today's announcement is an expansion of the Google PrintT program,
which assists publishers in making books and other offline information
searchable online. Google is now working with libraries to digitally
scan books from their collections, and over time will integrate this
content into the Google index, to make it searchable for users
worldwide.

"We believe passionately that such universal access to the world's
printed treasures is mission-critical for today's great public
university," said Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of
Michigan.

For publishers and authors, this expansion of the Google Print program
will increase the visibility of in and out of print books, and generate
book sales via "Buy this Book" links and advertising. For users,
Google's library program will make it possible to search across
library collections including out of print books and titles that
weren't previously available anywhere but on a library shelf.

Users searching with Google will see links in their search results page
when there are books relevant to their query. Clicking on a title
delivers a Google Print page where users can browse the full text of
public domain works and brief excerpts and/or bibliographic data of
copyrighted material. Library content will be displayed in keeping with
copyright law. For more information and examples, please visit
http://print.google.com/googleprint/library.

Google Provides Inline European City Maps

2004-12-14T01:47:00.000-05:00

Reader Mark O. points out that European versions of Google now have inline city map results. Search in Google UK for London, and you'll see the result pictured at right, with direct links to the city maps at two different mapping sites. One of the partners, Map24, says on their home page:

Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.com, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the correspoinding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.

I prefer Map24's results to Michelin's, since Michelin requests input from the user and loads a billion cookies before agreeing to load the page.

Details On Ask Jeeves Desktop Search

2004-12-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Andy Beal has the exclusive first word on Ask Jeeves Desktop Search, which will launch tomorrow. Jeeves will be going with an interface (and after seeing MSN's release today, I couldn't agree more), and interesting features will include privacy protection, cache and bandwidth control, a two-pane preview view, and integration with Windows File>Open type dialog boxes (a brilliant idea). Should be another huge news day.

Google And Harvard Team Up For Library Search

2004-12-13T23:23:00.000-05:00

One discussion that always pops up is how Google is limited because there are so many real-world resources it can't get at. Well, clearly Google is making an attempt to defeat that notion, by teaming up with Harvard to digitize their fifteen million book strong library. Similar deals are being launched at 9 a.m. tomorrow with Oxford, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library. You will be able to find a FAQ tomorrow at http://hul.harvard.edu.
(via John Battelle)

Google vs. Geico: Day One

2004-12-13T23:09:00.000-05:00

The Geico trademark infringement lawsuit against Google began with opening arguements today, and lots of people are talking about it. Geico's opening statement was pretty by-the-numbers, pushing the common trademark-protecting claim that trademark confusion, seperate completely from any monetary affects on the trademark holder, is still illegal. In my inexpert legal opinion, a stronger case could be made that Google is selling Geico's trademark to advertisers, but Geico attorney Charles Ossola decided to go the road more traveled. Google counsel Michael Page argued that the practice of selling trademarked terms to competitors is no different from a supermarket handing out coupons for a competitor's products when a product is purchased. Geico is seeking $8.65 million in damages. The trial is expected to last three days, after which Judge Leonie Brinkema can issue a decision or take the matter under advisement.

The Unofficial Google Weblog, referring to Geico's claims of confusion, says:

Yes, the confusion… then the inevitable tears and remorse, the lost hours and wasted dreams. Thank you, Geico, for your noble protection of the common person.

Yes, lost to competition. Heaven forbid that any company should capture market share through competitive advertising. The courts must intervene!

Gary Price of Search Engine Watch and Resource Shelf has posted the case docket here.
(via Associated Press, the Unoffical Google Weblog, Search Engine Lowdown, Search Engine Watch, Resource Shelf)

MSN Toolbar Suite vs. Google Desktop Search

2004-12-13T14:28:00.000-05:00

While I wait for indexing to complete, here's a comparison of the MSN Toolbar Suite vs. Google Deskbar / Toolbar / Desktop Search:

What Google has that MSN doesn't:
Deskbar has custom searches and API
Indexes AIM convesations
Has buttons for special searches, as opposed to only drop-down selection.
PageRank display
Advanced Google options (cache, translate, backlinks)

What MSN has that Google doesn't:
All the products are integrated, rather than a strange collection of disparate products
Can run Desktop Search from Toolbar and from Windows Explorer
Local Search
Mail notifier
IM status
Go to my MSN Space
More Form Fill options
Highlight search terms

Did I miss any?

MSN Desktop Search Expected Today

2004-12-13T00:52:00.000-05:00

Speculation has reached a head, and it is everything short of confirmed that the MSN Toolbar Suite, containing MSN Desktop Search, will launch today at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific. Follow all the developments at InsideMicrosoft.

Related posts:
Microsoft Desktop Search Revealed 11.14.2004
Desktop Search: Unauthorized Disclosure 11.15.2004
It's Coming 12.11.2004
MSN Desktop Search Toolbar Suite Coming Today 12.13.2004

Way Off Topic

2004-12-12T00:24:00.000-05:00

I love boxing.

Congrats, Vitaly Klitschko, for making boxing exciting again. Now lets unify some belts!

Google Suggest Tools

2004-12-11T19:20:00.000-05:00

It certainly appears some people took my suggestion to create tools for Google Suggest to heart. Patrick Gaskill has created a page that automatically displays the Google Alphabet (and he cites me when introducing it, so I'm not entirely full of myself). The page will always display the current alphabet, refreshing the list every time you load the page. Meanwhile, Kendall Willets notes in the comments that he has found the JavaScript code powering Suggest, which he describes as spaghetti code.

Also, Google Blogoscoped has created a page, Google Suggests, that queries Google Suggest for results and returns a page of URLs. Could the code (which he makes available) be used to create "active lists" that websites can display when useful? Of course it could. And that makes me realize the true best use for this technology: Google News Suggest. If a site could list the ten most popular results for a Google News query, perhaps in ticker format, it would be very useful. So Google, can we see the JavaScript made available for Google News? It would only take a minute to implement, and I know you're listening.

Check out the Google Blog, which has a new post by Kevin Gibbs, creator of Google Suggest. He explains that he put it together in his 20% time (when Google employees can do anything not in their job description). Gotta love that program, which has shown some solid results. As he says:

The project stemmed from an idea I had a few months ago, and since then I've been working on it in my 20% time, which is a program where Google allows their employees to devote 20% of their working hours to any project they choose. What's really amazed me about this project is how in a matter of months, working on my own, I was able to go from a lunch table conversation to launching a new service. In my opinion, this is one of the things that really makes Google a great place; that the company's systems, resources and, most important, people are all aligned to make it as easy as possible to take an idea and turn it into something cool.

Plus, we have Segways.

Google Suggests Goooooooooooooooogle

2004-12-10T14:17:00.000-05:00

Commenter kzinti at Slashdot discovered what happens if you use Google Suggest and type "G", followed by "o", followed by "o", followed by "o", followed by "o", followed by "o", followed by "o", followed by "o",... Of course, Google Suggest keeps suggesting an obscene amount of "o"s, never quite satisfied with how many you enter, further exascerbating the Goooooooooooooooooooogle oddity I mentioned in September. Also, one poster, loconet, dug up the code Google uses to power Suggest. Every time you type a letter, Google "a special modified version of the search tool which only returns the necessary javascript data". You can see that modified Google page by going to http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&js=true&qu=QUERY (replacing QUERY) with whatever letters you've typed in. Sample code (for a request for "slash"):

sendRPCDone(frameElement, "slash", new Array("slashdot", "slash", "slashdot.org", "slash dot", "slash fiction", "slashdot rss", "slash and burn", "slashdot.com", "slash fanfiction", "slashdotorg"), new Array("8,960,000 results", "2,770,000 results", "1 result", "389,000 results", "802,000 results", "2,540,000 results", "470,000 results", "1 result", "132,000 results", "966 results"), new Array(""));

Cool stuff. Someone should devise a page that requests that data and uses it in some other, inventive way. I'm sure something can be done with it.

Also, we finally have an ABCs of Google. Poster Hatta lists the first result for each letter:

A is for Amazon
B is for Best Buy
C is for CNN
D is for Dictionary
E is for Ebay
F is for Firefox (yay!)
G is for Games
H is for Hotmail
I is for Ikea
J is for Jokes
K is for Kazaa
L is for Lyrics
M is for Mapquest
N is for News
O is for Online dictionary
P is for Paris Hilton (wtf?!)
Q is for Quotes
R is for Recipes
S is for Spybot
T is for Tara Reid
U is for Ups
V is for Verizon
W is for Weather
X is for Xbox
Y is for Yahoo
Z is for Zip Codes

Gotta love the WTF he put by Paris Hilton. Guaranteed that P and K won't last forever. Dissapointing, though, that I'll have to beat "News" if I ever want to be the number one N.

Postscript: Google Suggest makes for a decent spellchecker, allowing me to spell "exascerbating" properly.

Google Suggest

2004-12-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

So, waddaya want?

Google has launched a new feature in Google Labs called Google Suggest. Now, Google can offer suggestions as you type, guessing at what you're looking for. As Google says:

By offering more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make searching more convenient and efficient, because it eliminates the need to type the entire text of a query. In addition, the service can connect users with new query suggestions that are useful, intriguing, and fun.

Google Suggest is constructed similar "Did you mean?" spell checker technology, using PageRank weighted usages of words throughout the internet to come up with the most likely guesses for what you're looking for, as well as drawing data from the "aggregate popularity" of Google searches, like the Google Zeitgeist.

Using it is quite simple. Just start typing into the search box, and a drop down list of suggestions, complete with the number of results, shows it. It's on a slight delay, so searches will take you a bit longer. It's a great way to go exploring. If you're not sure what you're looking for, start with a subject and let Google suggest where to go. If you want to go back to the Google Suggest page, you'll need to hit the back button, since there's no link to Google Suggest from the search results page (alternatively, you can edit the URL box, erasing everything after "complete=1", and hit enter).

Even though Google Suggest is located at labs.google.com/suggest, when you click on it, you actually find yourself at http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en, which should mean that Google Suggest is a new option built directly into the Google search engine, and not just a different engine. Will Google allow Google Search API developers usage of this data in programs based on the API? I hope so.

Do you like Google Suggest? Well, if you have an opinion, you can suggest your suggestion about Google Suggest to the Google Suggest guys at the suggestion email address for Google Suggest: labs+suggest@google.com

One bug: Once you've typed something in the box, you can't select it. Anything you select is instantly deleted for some reason. Must have something to do with the way the Suggest box selects the suggestions.

Google vs. Geico Trial Ready To Start

2004-12-10T04:34:00.000-05:00

The Google / Geico trial is scheduled to get underway on Monday in Alexandria, VA. Google's defense? Since the keywords that trigger the ads are invisible, and the ads do not contain the word Geico, no law was broken. National Underwriter has a great summary of the details of the case.
(via Search Engine Watch)

Take A Look At Google's Japanese Offices

2004-12-10T04:15:00.000-05:00

Google's blog has a post looking at their new Japanese offices. The offices, located in Shibuya, Tokyo, will serve as an R&D center. Google held a kickoff party, and there are plenty of photos. Also, seven new versions of Google News (Argentina, Chile, Canada Français, México, Österreich, Schweiz or Suisse).

Yahoo Announces Desktop Search

2004-12-10T04:02:00.000-05:00

Yahoo announced yesterday plans to release its desktop search product in about a month, in early January. Yahoo's desktop search will be free and based on X1's desktop search technology, meaning (a) it's more advanced than Google's and (b) it's not really a Yahoo product, no more than this story is about Yahoo DVD players. Still, its another check mark Yahoo can claim, and in the current phase of the search war the emphasis is on having all the products everyone else has, so I guess its a good thing. It is also a good thing for consumers, since we get a (likely slimmed down) version of X1 for free.

MSN Desktop Search, an in-house product that integrates with the operating system, is expected sometime this month, and leaked info pointed to a powerful product. Google Desktop Search, despite making a big splash in October, has fallen from the public interest as better (but not free) products received major press, free publicity they owe to Google. Will we see a GDS 1.5 upgrade by February? Considering that the MSN Toolbar quickly overtook the Google Toolbar despite not being a better product (and tied to a bad search engine), its a given that MSN Desktop Search will beat Google's if GDS doesn't see a new version.

As for Yahoo? We'll have to see how it differs from MSN and regular X1 before predictions can be made. Yahoo released a slide comparing it to "the competition", and here's the data:

	Yahoo	Competitors
Relevance	Ability to pivot data by any dimension: recency, creator, recipient, type, etc.	Ranking only by date and relevance
Comprehensiveness	Ability to index 225+ data types, email attachments	5 data types, attachments not indexed
Freshness	V1.0 Beta: Scheduled in increments V1.0: near real time	Near real time
Presentation	Rich native user-interface Search-as-you-type, previews, post-search actions	Limited to HTML rendering

So, what have we learned? More ways to search and sort data, more file types, email attachments, an interface, search-as-you-type. No real-time indexing (and don't expect the final release to be real-time, just smaller increments), no explanation of how it searches the more file types (does it list them, or can it read meta-data?), and I don't like search-as-you-type (unnecessary, slow, and annoying). Does this list make a better product than Google's? Yes and no. It's more usable, but how much more usable is unclear. It's certainly not as good as Apple's Spotlight, and I expect MSN Desktop Search to be more similar to Spotlight than either Yahoo or Google. Of course, this info is still very vague, and the product we see in January could be the best yet, making us look at out MSN Search that we installed weeks before and consider switching.

Notice that when Yahoo says "Competitors", its clearly working off of Google's feature list. I hope this doesn't mean they're only looking to Mountain View for competition, because they'll just get clipped from behind.

Coverage so far:
Financial Times - Like Google's desktop tool, the Yahoo product will initially make it easier to find email and files stored on the hard drive of a PC. The internet company then plans to extend the software to draw in other personal information stored on servers over the web, said Mr Weiner.
Yahoo's search tool is based on technology developed by X1, a start-up created by Bill Gross, head of internet incubator Idealab.
Mr Gross was also the architect behind GoTo.com, which later changed its name to Overture and was bought by Yahoo last year for $1.6bn. By giving advertisers a way to link their messages to relevant internet search results, Overture has been core to Yahoo's effort to create an alternative to search juggernaut Google.
CNet News.com - The Yahoo-branded application, available in early January, will let people search their PCs as well as the Web via Yahoo Search, but future iterations will include navigation for Yahoo's instant messenger archives, address book and free e-mail service.
Associated Press - ... and Ask Jeeves Inc., which runs several online search engines, plans to unveil its
desktop offering next Wednesday.
Washington Post

John Battelle - ... the FT, which I think (inadvertently, I am sure) broke an embargo to publish this (I have seen a demo and was planning on posting late tonight or in the morning)... (By the way, I'm told that Ask will launch its desktop search product next week, Dec. 15th, to be exact.)
Seattle PI

UPDATE: AOL's desktop search, based on Copernic, is coming:
And AOL? The company plans its own desktop search application that is packaged as part of the new AOL browser that's in beta testing. Any AOL member can access this by signing into AOL, then using the keyword "beta" to reach the beta download area. I've just downloaded the beta but haven't had a chance to play with it. But the desktop search is powered by Copernic, another well regarded desktop search app. It was CNET's editor's choice in a recent review of desktop search apps. (Google Desktop was unrated in that review because it was too new but drew plenty of praise).
Andy Beal says X1 is very slow and processor consuming, while Copernic is much easier on the system. Did Yahoo pick the wrong dance partner?

Google Opens $300 Million Data Center In Georgia, But Its A Secret

2004-12-09T14:34:00.000-05:00
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story (registration required) about Google opening a new, $300 million data center in a Douglas County industrial park, but the real story is that the complex is a big secret. Google applied for no tax breaks (even though it was entitled to them), told the county economic develoment team that they could not talk about their visit or publicize the search giant's arrival, and even refuses to admit to visitors that they are even there. The building, which has 100 employees, has no sign, no logos, nothing to indicate a mega-billion dollar company has arrived. According to the article, part of the reason is that Google doesn't want the site to go down. Their data centers are their lifeblood, and Google figures its best that people don't know where they are. Well, this secret's out. Sorry, guys.
(via Search Engine Watch)

How Would You Run The World's Largest Search Engine?

2004-12-09T14:10:00.000-05:00
Danny Sullivan has assembled a panel for next week's Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference that will answer the big question: If you ran search, what would you do? The fictional scenario has the five participants in charge of GooHoo! (snicker, snicker) the company that has emerged from the merger of the two largest search engines, with 97% of the market share. The basic premise? Now that you're running the whole show, and every website on earth is wholly focused on marketing through your engine, what do you do to address the concerns of site owners and eliminate spam, as well as deal with issues of controversy and questionable legality. Should be a thrilling discussion. For more information, check out the thread Danny created to ask the panelists questions. Also, rustybrick at SEO Roundtable has handicapped the field for you.

Personally, I would have called it Ask GooHooSoft!

Is Loyalty All That Matters In Search?

2004-12-09T13:49:00.000-05:00
Charlene Li at Forrester reveals some of the results of their survey on search usage and loyalty (survey only available to Forrester clients). What's most fascinating is how vulnerable Google is. Even though it is the most popular search engine, and even though it gained market share this year, it is in a position to lose it all very rapidly. Among Google loyal searches, a significant number have Yahoo or MSN pages as their home page. I know I do (of course, I am an MSN customer, so that's the real reason why).

Since Google hasn't established itself as a portal, users figure they can have a different home page and just use Google for search. If those portals' search engines gain a reputation as a decent alternative to Google, you'll see a lot of people just using the search engine on the page they're already on. God knows I wish I could get a decent search from MSN. Well, when MSN Search Beta becomes the new engine, there's a good chance I'll start using it, since it's built into my MSN client. Google faces serious problems since it has nothing to compete on that level.

Why would you make Google your home page? My Yahoo has RSS feeds, stock quotes, weather, sports scores, comics, and breaking news. My MSN home page has 217 customizable modules, including integrated Hotmail, headlines (and News Alerts), stock quotes, horoscopes, sports scores, comics, movie listings, Nielsen ratings, eBay auctions, favorites, recipes, even the freakin' traffic report. Google has a funny logo every few weeks.

Competitive? No.

I'm not saying Google should become a portal. I don't like portals. But maybe Google has to, whether it wants to or not. At the very least, leave the Google home page as is, and offer a portal within the site, for those who want it (maybe at my.google.com). At the very least, Google should offer a customizable page, offer up an API, and let the user community create whatever they want for it.

Did you know that the MSN Toolbar is more popular than the Google Toolbar? Yup. This despite the fact that Microsoft has not bundled it with Windows, or even with MSN. People just saw it, wanted it, downloaded it. That's a very ominous first sign that Google is not as ubiquitious as once thought.

Who does Google even inspire loyalty in these days anyway? I've seen many geeks lose faith in Google as soon as it had its IPO (a typical "they got rich" internet reaction). Regular users may like the search engine, but they may not know its any better than Yahoo, and may switch eventually. Google needs to get out there and say "Hey, we're Google, and we're better." If users don't get that message, they will get somebody else's.

Do you see Google ads on TV saying "The World's Most Accurate Search Engine"? No, and you should. Being viral is nice, but it can't last. It's time to put some of those billions to work on spreading the word that Google is still number one, before it no longer is.
(via Search Engine Lowdown)

Page & Brin On Barbara Walters "Most Fascinating" List

2004-12-08T23:02:00.000-05:00
Barbara Walters had her "10 Most Fascinating People Of 2004" show tonight, and on it were Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. From ABC's website:
Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Larry Page and Sergey Brin are not your typical billionaires. In fact, if you type billionaire into Google, the picture that emerges — fancy cars, private jets, mansions, jewels, supermodel girlfriends — isn't anything you'd find in the lifestyle of the Google guys. Page drives a Prius, which costs around $21,000. Brin gets around for the most part on in-line skates, and he still lives in a rented apartment.

Since taking Google public earlier this year, each is worth an estimated $6 billion. Even the way they took their company public was innovative. They let ordinary people bid on shares in their initial public offering, not just the big banks, because they thought it was fairer.

In fact, they see their work as more of a vocation than as a means of getting rich. "We feel like we're making a difference in the world — giving people information that they want really quickly and effectively," Page said.
Andy Beal got the screenshot. Anyone have a transcript (or a .torrent link)?

The Most Cited Reference?

2004-12-08T20:47:00.000-05:00
Dr. C. Lee Giles, professor at the School of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University, stops by in the comments to declare that the most cited reference on Google Scholar is:
[BOOK] Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual - Library Search - Web Search
J Sambrooke, EF Fritsch, T Maniatis - Cited by 46350
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, 1989
I'm inclined to agree. Including the 46,250 citations noted in the number one result, I found a total of 56,934 citations, just in the first 100 results. I challenge anyone to find a more cited book or paper. As Dr. Giles said, "Nothing else we could find even comes close". Dr. Giles made this finding with the aid of two graduate students, Isaac Councill and Eren Manavoglu.

What is so special about Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual? Well, according to Amazon, it is a three volume set which provides details on 250 laboratory protocols in DNA science. The books have been a mainstay of molecular biology for nearly twenty years. Don't think you'll find it cheap; the thousand pages of "unrivaled" DNA research cost $249.00. More info on the books can be found at its website, Molecular Cloning.com.

This Week In Blogs

2004-12-08T17:28:00.000-05:00
So, our News Editor decided we should have a small portion of the paper dedicated to technology, and, knowing how obsessed I am with this stuff, asked if I was interested in contributing, even just a sidebar. I came up with "This Week In The Blogosphere". Surprisingly, the whole thing took only fourty minutes to put together, and I'm quite happy with the way it looked in print. Here's the original column, before she butchered it (just kidding, Amy).
Blogger In Major Jeopardy
Blogger Jason Kottke [kottke.org] was hit by the threat of a lawsuit from Sony this week for posting a scoop about Ken Jennings Jeopardy loss. Kottke had been the first to report that the record-setting Jeopardy champion was going to lose way back in July, but early last week Jason posted an audio clip of Jennings losing on a question about H&R Block. Even though many news organizations reported the news, Kottke was hit with suit, in his opinion, because as "an individual weblogger with relatively limited financial and legal resources", he cannot afford to fight this in court, and has made him question his willingness to continue blogging.

Voting Begins In 2004 Weblog Awards
Voting has opened in the 2004 Weblog Awards. With this being the "Year of the Blogger" (see [related article about Webster's declaring "blog" word of the year]), the awards represent a significant step towards recognition of the top bloggers. Leading the vote for the title of "Best Overall Blog" is Markos Zuniga, writer of Daily Kos [dailykos.com], with 24.6% of the votes. Kos is known for, when discussing the killings of four American contractors in Fallujah, saying, "I feel nothing... Screw them". Behind Kos is right-wing blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs [littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog], Media Matters for America fellow Duncan Black of Eschaton [atrios.blogspot.com], National Review's John Derbyshire [nationalreview.com/thecorner], University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit [instapundit.com], and Powerline [powerlineblog.com], which is written by three attorneys. Voting continues through December 15.

Blogging For Bucks
Content Management System company Marqui, in an effort to increase visibility of their company, began a first-ever pay-for-blogging program. Bloggers receive $800 a month for simply mentioning the company at least once per week, and placing a link to their website. Marqui is attempting to circumvent traditional advertising and market directly to consumers by joining the blog conversation, with product placement on 17 blogs, including this author’s own.

New York Times Begins Blogging
New York Times tech guru David Pogue, who has written a weekly column for the Old Gray Lady’s Circuits section since 2000, has become the newspaper’s first blogger, posting every weekday at Pogue’s Posts [http://www.nytimes.com/technology/poguesposts/]. Pogue posts about technology that catches his eye, like the Toyota Prius hybrid and Netflix, and media coverage of the same. It is part of an expanded online strategy by the Times, which includes making the entire archive of the Circuits section free of the $3/article fee the rest of the paper charges, and weekly videos showing the latest gadgets in action.

Microsoft Launches Blog Service
MSN this week launched Spaces, a free service that allows users to write their own blogs. The service, called MSN Spaces [spaces.msn.com], is designed to compete with Google’s Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, and Xanga. Spaces, besides posting their thoughts, can share music playlists which friends can download and personal photos. Spaces integrates with other Microsoft services, including Hotmail and MSN Messenger, to allow posting from anywhere, and to update readers when their favorite blogs have new posts. Microsoft is hoping to capture the vast amounts of people who are interested in starting blogs, but have neither the technical expertise nor the time required for more established blog services.
Obviously, I added the formatting now, since there are no URLs in print (what is the preferred way to print URLs without breaking up a column?). Anyway, I enjoyed breaking a little of the wall between my blogging life and my professional life, and I might see this become a regular feature in a few weeks, if it goes over well. I'll be soliciting you guys for ideas if and when it does happen, so don't let me down.

Oh, and I hope Marqui feels like its getting its money's worth. I'm only obligated to mention them in my blog, and here I gave them some real-world press. For those that have forgotten, Marqui is paying me to mention them here once a week. There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Corporate Cultures At Google And Yahoo

2004-12-08T14:12:00.000-05:00
MSNBC takes a look at the different cultures that have developed at Google and Yahoo. While Google attempts to invent lots of things no one has seen before, and then hopes to one day find a way to make money off of it, Yahoo starts with a business plan and will then try to put together the technology that makes it possible. The article likens Google to Intel and Yahoo to Proctor and Gamble, (although I think of Google as more of a 3M). Ultimately, Yahoo's approach winds up with more fun products, like Yahoo Personals and Launchcast (which is the way everyone at our paper gets their music), while Google's approach winds up with more (geek) cool products, like Google News and Google Scholar.

Of course, everyone at both companies wears jeans and a t-shirt.

Google News Spreads To Six New Countries

2004-12-08T13:55:00.000-05:00
Dirson reports that Google News in now available in six new countries:
Argentina
Austria
Chile
Mexico
Switzerland (in German)
Switzerland (in French)
Overheard at the GooglePlex: "Soon, the world will be ours for the taking!"

New MoreGoogle-- Oops, I Mean LostGoggles, Released

2004-12-08T02:07:00.000-05:00
The latest version of MoreGoogle is now out. Of course, since Google asked them to not call it MoreGoogle (and made them surrender the moregoogle.com domain name), it will be forever known as LostGoggles. The newest version is more Google friendly. It no longer removes the AdSense ads, although it still adds Amazon.com information to earn a few affiliate dollars. If you haven't heard of the program, it's a tiny DLL that makes Google display thumbnails and other added information during web searches without slowing down the browser (although the images do take a little time to load). If an Amazon.com related item shows up in the search, it displays lots of extra information culled from Amazon's API. All in all, a cool hack that you might want to consider. I liked it (although I eventually uninstalled it because the slower page loads weren't worth the benefits, not when my job requires lots of Google searches).
(via Search Engine Journal)

Filtering Corporate Email Through Gmail

2004-12-08T01:39:00.000-05:00
rustybrick reports at SEO Roundtable that ~~someone~~ Shawn Hogan came up with the brilliant idea of filtering all of his corporate email through Gmail to take advantage of its spam filter. All he did was forward his email through Gmail, then pick it back up through POP, and send email through his regular corporate email account. While this is a great idea, I'm more interested in finding out how well it worked out. Did Gmail catch most of the spam? Google certainly doesn't want people using Gmail that way, but it could be a great advertisement for the spam filter.

UPDATE: Shawn responds on his blog to my question as to how succesful his idea is:
It works pretty well. So far zero false positives, and less than 1% of the spam getting through.

Yahoo Parties Hearty

2004-12-08T01:33:00.000-05:00
Yahoo had its end of the year party celebration last Saturday night, and Nancy Evars talks about it at the Yahoo blog. They had ice sculptures. Nancy is just thrilled that she got to see her coworkers in something other than jeans and a t-shirt.

In my world, for the first time since we started having our Tuesday free newspaper bowling, I finally won. Notwithstanding the fact that the top two bowlers were absent, and the fact that the bar was closed (which certainly improved my game), I am still proud of my accomplishment. Now that I have beaten a group of equally bad bowlers, I only have to learn how to be a good bowler.

Dear Playboy Letters

2004-12-07T16:04:00.000-05:00
Lots of search experts have been writing to Playboy, and they aren't regaling the skin mag with tales of their latest bedroom conquests. Danny Sullivan, Daniel Brandt (of Google Watch) and Andreas Heldal-Lund of Xenu.net all contributed letters responding to Playboy's interview with Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Danny has included his original, unedited letter on Search Engine Watch, and you can see a scan of the letter here. Brandt's letter is here, and Heldal-Lund's is here.

Google Stealing Microsoft's Quality, Not Quantity

2004-12-07T16:03:00.000-05:00
The Seattle Times reports that Google has stolen people from Microsoft. Not too many, mind you, but Microsoft says it is losing some very good people. Jim Allchin, group vice president of the Windows platfrom division:
We lost some people who went to Google, who we didn't want to lose.
Link

AdSense Adds Animated GIFs

2004-12-07T16:02:00.000-05:00
Google AdSense has a page laying out the new features I reported on yesterday, with one feature I missed: animated GIFs. The info:
Google will soon be expanding its image ad program to include a wider variety of creative formats. We'll be accepting animated GIFs from a small test group of advertisers, and you'll be able to display these ads on your pages! The new ads will still adhere to the 50KB size limit, and will be reviewed according to our editorial guidelines for image ads. You can opt in to image ads from within your publisher account – for full instructions, please refer to the AdSense FAQ.
I'm going to be honest and say how little I like this idea. Animated ads suck, plain and simple. I don't plan on activating them when or if they become available, not unless Google has very strict guidelines (no "hit the monkey" ads).
Link

Bill Clinton Shills For Search Company

2004-12-07T16:01:00.000-05:00
In what Cnet is calling the return of dot-com hype, Accoona hired former President Bill Clinton to type in the inaugural search on its new search engine. Clinton's appearance is reminiscint of William Shatner's hawking for Priceline, and similar to Microsoft's recent hiring of Jeapordy champion Ken Jennings. Is Accona any good? Gary Price weighs in.
Link

How To Get To The Top @ AdWords

2004-12-07T15:59:00.000-05:00
You may notice that on some Google searches, there is an ad above the search results, in addition to the ones on the left. One advertiser wisely asked why he never gets up there, and the answer is here. The reason? The only ads that get up there are the ones that perform exceptionally well. The idea is that if an ad is so relevant that it might as well be a search result, then it deserves to get put with the search results. A very good idea, and much more honest than simply charging more for them.
Link

The Incredible Vanishing Google Blog Post Returns

2004-12-07T01:56:00.000-05:00
The Google Groups Google Blog post from last week finally returned, looking almost exactly the same as before. The post did have one addition, this postscript:
P.S. In related news, we have restored advanced date search to Google Groups. As for the post above, we had a publishing snafu last Thursday, so you may already have seen this item.
Well, based on who I've seen covering this, it basically means someone at Google read either my posts or Google Blogoscoped, and felt the need to respond. Tres' cool.

AdSense Adds Features

2004-12-06T20:54:00.000-05:00
AdSense has some new features today (and a new front page). The most interesting new feature is URL channels (AdSense account required for this and most links), where you can limit channels by URL and see which specific pages or areas of your site are performing best. Within two days of creating a URL channel, you get reports on the domain, directory, or page specified. The number of possible channels is now also increased to 60. AdSense (for search only, not content) is also now available in five new languages: Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. AdSense for Content is currently only available in these languages: Danish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, English, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Chinese (simplified), Korean, Polish, and Turkish). My real question is if the ridiculous "logout after a few minutes" problem is finally fixed.

"Black Friday" Great For Online Ad Business

2004-12-06T14:31:00.000-05:00
Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch has some great numbers for the online advertising business from this DoubleClick Press Release. On "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving that is the biggest shopping day of the year, DoubleClick reported some great gains, including an 85% gain in overall clicks.
(via Search Engine Guide)

Picasa Site Defaced

2004-12-06T13:57:00.000-05:00
zone-h reports that the website for Google's Picasa was defaced on Saturday by Brazilian defacer Xfaulz. The attack was the fault of the old Picasa servers, which are not part of the Google network. The defacement consisted entirely of replacing the front page with the words "Xfaulz again" (screenshot here). Not very inventive, if you ask me. If I could mess up a website, I would've put up some funny cartoon, or something. zone-h says that according to their database, this is the only succesful attack ever against Google, whcih mean the Google network has still never been cracked.
(via Search Engine Lowdown)

Google: Best Portal?

2004-12-06T11:41:00.000-05:00
I noticed that the 2004 Weblog Awards (vote today!) ran a test poll back in November just to make sure the site worked. The poll? Best Portal. The winner? Google, with 75.8% of the 149 votes, versus 24.2% for Yahoo. I'm sure Google would be pleased to learn it is more popular than Yahoo, but I just know there's some guy at Google yelling, "We're not a portal!"

Weird Google Quirk

2004-12-06T08:32:00.000-05:00
Zorgloob has hatched on to a very strange phenomenon. Type in the address of any Google domain plus six slashes (example: http://www.google.com//////) and compare it to the regular Google home page. Weird. Any idea why that happens?

In other news, the Groups link on Google search pages finally links to the new Google Groups. Sure took awhile. Now, are we ever going to find out what all the craziness was about?

Should Companies Fire Bloggers?

2004-12-06T08:26:00.000-05:00
Wired News has an article about bloggers who were fired when their employers discovered they were talking about the company (and in most cases, dissing their bosses and coworkers) behind their backs. This, of course, raises the question of whether these people deserved to be fired.

Reading beyond what the article actually says, I discover that one of the fired bloggers had photos on her website of coworkers, talking about them getting drunk and losing their lunch at company parties. So yes, I'm afraid to say, that if you use your blog to embarrass innocent coworkers, then too bad if the company fires you. In fact, I would go so far as to say that posting any photos taken on the job would be a terrible idea for any blogger.

Now, as for talking about your job, that's a pretty big risk as well. If you praise a competitor, or note that "our product sucks," you're treading in some pretty dangerous waters. Some guys can get away with it because their company supports their blogging, and even views it as a major plus for the company (Zawodny and Scoble leap to mind). On the other hand, if a Bush staffer were blogging about what goes on behind closed doors, he or she would not only be fired, but arrested.

I gotta say, if you are going to bring your workplace to the blogosphere, you're probably making a mistake. We may want to talk about freedom of speech and of the press, but these companies have to consider how harmful a blog can be in the hands of the wrong employee. What company would hire someone if they knew that person was also a reporter for the New York Times, and that the reporter was likely to write about the job in a major newspaper? No one would argue that the company had any obligation to hold onto that employee, so why a blogger?

Obviously, the blogging community needs to support its own. Even so, anyone who has a job and mentions it in their blog is nine times out of ten taking a risk they can't afford.

Google Registers Some Domain Names

2004-12-05T02:16:00.000-05:00
Gary at Search Engine Watch has done some digging and found that Google registered some domain names on December 1. The list:
+ GOOGLESHOPPINGLIST.COM
++ Google has also registered: GoogleShoppinglist.org,.net, .info, .us, .biz
+ GOOGLEREVIEWS.COM
++Google has also registered: GoogleReviews.org, .net, .info, .us, .biz
+ GOOGLEWISHLIST.COM
++Google has also registered: Googlewishlist.org, .net, .info, .us, .biz
Obviously, Google is just covering its bases with the first and third ones, since Froogle already has them. As for Google Reviews, could we see a Froogle feature or Google site that allows reviews of products or services? Maybe. Time will tell.

Google Used To Break New Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal

2004-12-04T23:07:00.000-05:00
The Associated Press is reporting that new photos have surfaced showing U.S. soldiers "sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head". How did the AP find these photos? Google, of course! The reporter found the photos through Google on the smugsmug.com site and paid 29 cents apiece for reprints. The photos have since been password protected, although AP says they remain in Google's archive. Many of the photos can be found on this page. Once again, Google makes a big mark in a story.
(via Google Blogoscoped > Boing Boing)

Integrate Froogle Wish List Into Blogger Profile

2004-12-03T15:44:00.000-05:00
You can now put your Froogle Wish List into your Blogger profile. Just enter the URL into the Wishlist URL halfway dow the Edit User Profile page. Oh, and remember that moronic "email address in the URL issue"? Google fixed it. Here's my wish list.
(via Zorgloob)

Google Recants Google Groups

2004-12-03T15:17:00.000-05:00
Yesterday's big news (from Google that is) was the promotion of Google Groups to big league status. Well, Google wants you to forget it ever happened. It pulled the Google Blog entry and put the old Google Groups back on the front page. Why? I have no idea, but somebody better release a statement. This is looking mighty embarrassing.

Marqui's Cute Flash Demo

2004-12-03T01:21:00.000-05:00

This post sponsored by Marqui
Do you want to know what exactly Marqui does? Well, they've created a Flash movie that shows what they do. The short story: Companies that use Marqui can deliver a message instantly, coordinating a press release or similar message accross various mediums (press release sites, blogs, mailing lists, newsletters, corporate websites) in perfect sync. While this is something every company has to do, Marqui's system is designed to let a small company work as well as a large one with much less staff (or, theoretically, to let a large company fire a lot of workers and let the system handle all the time-consuming work). Anyway, I encourage you to watch the Flash demo, not just because you'll get a good idea of what they do, but because its kind of funky. Is it just me, or are they ripping off the Jetsons?)
Oh, and you may notice the obnoxious border. It's so, if you really don't trust me, you know when I'm talking about Marqui's product. It won't go around posts about the program, since they may count in the program, but nobody worries about what I say there, just posts about their business. But seriously, if you don't trust me so much that you need obnoxious red borders, maybe this isn't the blog for you.

Google In Fortune Magazine

2004-12-02T23:49:00.000-05:00
Gary reports at the Search Engine Watch blog that Google founders Page and Brin made the cover of the new Fortune magazine. Since only subscribers get to read the article online (although you can read a web only interview here), Gary has a rundown of what's discussed in the article so you know what to expect. If anyone wants to scan it in and email it to me, your copyright violation (which I am not advising!) would please me greatly. Hehe. I'm such a bastard.

AskJeeves Sponsors Search Engine Lowdown

2004-12-02T22:49:00.000-05:00
Search Engine Lowdown has picked up AskJeeves as its sponsor, since Jeeves wants to get out the word on AJinteractive, the new ad sales division of Ask.com The MaxOnline Network, Excite and iWon. It's always cool when someone gets an advertiser (*cough*Marqui*cough*).

"Google Groups is a poor release"

2004-12-02T21:34:00.000-05:00
The Unofficial Google Weblog has a scathing review of the new Google Groups. Brad Hill just hates it. He says that unlike most Google releases, it does deserve its beta label, and will until Google fixes a lot of problems. Among the ones he cites are no file uploading, community calendar and that there are basically no non-message posting features. Also, the direct linking issue is more complicated than originally expected. Just because you can link to a post now, doesn't mean that will actually keep working. Since the URL starts with groups-beta.google.com, as soon as it comes out of beta, every link breaks. Did no one realize that? Gmail isn't gmail-beta.google.com. It seems like this was just a mistake that needs correcting, and the big public release is when Google should have done it. Also, Usenet posts take 19 hours to show up on Groups, which is only half as long as forever. The lack of a search-by-date feature is cited, as with posts going back more than a decade this is a feature that is sorely needed. The summary:
Shockingly, Google Groups is a poor release that (unlike many Google test projects) deserves its beta standing. The lack of date-sensitive searching flaunts a stunning disregard of the historic value of Usenet. Display properties, while much faster than the original Groups, lack essential Gmail characteristics that seem ideally suited to newsgroup interaction. Sorted displays can be confusing. Archival time lag is, if anything, worse than before, and it was always a serious problem. (This fault might get quickly straightened out as Google’s complete array of servers comes aboard.) Homemade groups lack features that Yahoo! made standard years ago.
On the plus side, Google Groups remains the best free Usenet archive, and user-created groups offer a workable alternative to Yahoo!’s infuriatingly ad-glutted presentation. But these passive traits do not justify a major product release, even in beta, and Google has much work to do before Google Groups is up to speed.
Clearly, Brad must be a regular Groups user to be that familiar with what the service offers and what it needs, so go read the whole post for a deeper understanding.

Who Takes The Pay-For-Blogging Bait?

2004-12-02T21:09:00.000-05:00
So, today was the second day of my three month contract with Marqui, which will get me some nice funding for this little blog of mine. More details on the program are here, and you can read the contract here (so you know its on the up-and-up). I've been talking to some people, wanting to see what the reaction to this whole thing would be, and there's no consensus, but three opinions stand out. The first is that this is selling out. No one's said it my way, but I've noticed it, and I gotta say this: Only rock bands sell out. Journalists are supposed to make their money from ads. The second point is that this all comes down to trust. If you can trust me to be objective, it doesn't matter that I'm being paid, so long as you know I'm being honest. I've never shilled for anyone (except Findory :D) and since the contract doesn't require me to, I signed it.

I'd like to make this dialouge as useful as possible, so if you have any experience in the CMS arena, comment or IM me, so I can get into that. If this becomes an opportunity to discuss an area of the net, with simply an assurance I put Marqui into the conversation, it'll prove quite informative. I don't want to be stuck writing about press releases. Lets have some fun with this!

For the moment, I thought I'd look at my fellow bloggers and note what they're saying.

Marc Canter (blog)
the head lemur (Allen Herrel) (blog)
Jonathan Abad (blog)
Nathan Weinberg (blog)
Molly E. Holzschlag (blog)
DL Byron (blog)
Lucas Gonze (blog)
Mitch Ratcliffe (blog)
Paolo Valdemarin (blog)
Jon Lebkowsky (blog)
Susan E. Kaup (blog)
Richard Murray (blog)
Richard MacManus (blog)
Robin Good (blog)
Eric Rice (blog)
Peter Caputa IV (blog)

Marc Canter has been the guy who arranged the whole ad campaign, so he's been talking about this the most. One point he makes is that, at $800 a month for one mention a week, it's "$200 per post". I disagree. If I want to do a half-assed job, fine, I'll put 20 minutes a week in. However, if I want to put some real work in and make this a value not just for my wallet, but for my readers, this has to have more effort than a simplistic $200 a post. Also, want to know how this got started, Marc explains:
Anyway - so I was sitting there one day in August when they asked "how can we get into the blogosphere."
At that point I had heard that request like a 1,000 times. So I looked around the room and said "what the hell, let me give it a shot".
What was the most outrageous idea I could throw at them?
"Pay Bloggers to Blog"
and they went for it!
Not exactly an evil plot to discredit the blogosphere...

Despite the link in the official list, Alan Herrell, the head lemur, is actually blogging for Marqui over here. He's already jumped into things and begun testing the hell out of it, to the point of already finding what appears to be a bug, although it is simply a popup blocker conflict (god, these days it seems so many sites have these conflicts. I lost my net connection for five hours Tuesday because of one.). His strategy? Use the product "the point of breaking it" and write about his experiences. Sounds like an excellent plan to me. (Wonder if he's related to the other lemur I know...)

Jon Abad makes this point: Marqui isn't even paying bloggers for their opinons or good ideas. "Those are free". Marqui pays to point our eyes in their direction, and to get their name mentioned. The reason this will work better than that is because once a blogger sees something, most bloggers will comment on it no matter what. You can't compromise your credibility when you are volunteering it. I'm not being paid for my opinion, but you're gonna get it anyway.

Nathan Weinberg? Who's that guy?

Molly Holzschlag is posting about Marqui under a "Blog Slut" category. Damn, I wish I could categorize my posts. Freakin' Blogger.

DL Byron says:
We don’t plan on posting just to plug Marqui. We do plan on putting it in context of what we talk about and evangelize. As the program process, we’ll also offer metrics on how it’s working.

Lucas Gonze describes Marqui's motives as simply trying to get into the conversational flow. That makes good sense to me. He also says "My motives are complicated". He's not sure if he's motivated by the fact that it is simply a good offer, or by the fact that he needs some extra money to cover storm damage expenses for his wife. I hear that. I don't know if I'm doing this for myself (maybe), my girlfriend (probably), or my blog (partially). As long as I'm not doing this for eeevil, there's no harm in making a few bucks.

Mitch Ratcliffe, who has always made his living as a writer, explains how he wants this to succeed so that when he retires, he knows there will be money in blogs:
Maybe when I am 64, I'll be making what I do today solely through blogging, which would be a great way to spend my "retirement," because when I stop writing I expect the very first thing I'll do is die.
Oh god, sounds so much like me. I can't even be sure we'll still have an internet when I retire, but I need an outlet for my writing. I started blogging because I needed to write, and I just wan't getting to write about as much stuff as a liked, or as much about stuff I liked. What makes me able to write close to a thousand posts in the last four months is the penny or two I get from those (well, I actually can't say who or where I got the money from, so look up, right and down). A few pennies for what I view as better work than a few pennies deserves was enough for me. However, knowing there's $2400 coming over the next few months, and the possibility that this will spur on further companies acts as a little voice in my ear saying "It's okay, you're not wasting your time". If you'd prefer I not receive a bit of cash for this blog, I can't guarantee I'll be writing a blog at all. A tiny motivation goes a long way.

Jon Lebkowsky's company is actually a competitor of Marqui's! How's that for objectivity? He can't shill for Marqui because he could lose his job, and he can't bash Marqui because he could be accused of taking their money despite a preexisting bias. Jon says he'll simply do what they want, divert his attention their way so he can write about whatever catches his eye, which he thinks is "commendable that they would do so, without trying to control the message".

Susan Kaup isn't doing it for the money, but for the experience. Companies ask her all the time to write about them, and she typically ignores them because they want something for nothing. But, if some company "wants to pay me to ocassionally talk about their products and services, why not?" Every company pimps the blogosphere for free ads; at least Marqui is giving bloggers some compensation. We're all doing this blogging thing for free, whether or not we get paid. No one's blogging for money, we're just focusing on Marqui for money. And this is some grandiose experiment, and you know what is the first qualification of an experiment? They're prepared for it to fail. Marqui knows there's an equal chance this will get them nowhere, and they will be throwing away their money, so, so what if we don't shill for them? They won't care. They're goals are smaller, and that lets everyone just be themselves.

Richard Murray references why I've received roughly a billion emails since I signed up earlier this week:
This whole Marqui thing is a bit quirky…
It’s an approach that we’re all trying to work out how things happen, and convincing the Marqui people to start writing their own views as well, so that we can open a bit of a dialog for all of this writing that we’re going to do… be able to trackback to the corporate blogs, etc.
The quirky bit is that we’re all communicating using “Reply to all” in our email clients, and not the blogging tech that we’re all trying to push.

Richard MacManus knows Marc a little from before, having interviewed him in March, and loves the social networking possibilities this program offers. It's true. I get to meet 16 new bloggers (and one company), including Marc, the man who founded what would become Macromedia back in 1984. You guys get to find out about 16 new bloggers (and one company), any of whom you may start reading, which could be really cool. Plus, if I'm checking all these guys out, that means some of them are checking me out, and we can expand the conversation here. Maybe I can even find the programmer who's excited about the "big idea" that's been fomenting in my head these last few months.

And, finally (although I left out two or three who haven't said anything yet), Eric Rice is giving away his money! Well, not all of it, but $1000 for starters. $500 goes to Doug Kaye's IT Conversations, and the other $500 will support some podcasting cause. Cool idea.

You can also check out the Marqui bloggers TopicExchange site, which should be a way to keep track of what's being said. If someone can create a unified RSS feed, lets do that too. Marc has indicated we'll hopefully see a Marqui corporate blog soon, so that should be interesting as well. It's strange that I'm spending all this time talking about the program and not the company, but technically that counts, too. Still, I'm going to check out Marqui's system so you all know what it's about.

Google Blog Censored?

2004-12-02T13:48:00.000-05:00
Google Blogoscope discovers that the Google Blog post on Google Groups I linked to mere hours ago is no more, taken down by parties unknown. Of course, Phillip still has the text of the post:
A new gaggle of Groups

Are you interested in learning how to build a bird house, or discussing Linux with other partisans? Or maybe in your spare time you want to make single-layer graphene sheets using Chemical Vapor Deposition.

Whether your interests run to knitting or brain surgery, chances are good other people out there share them. The new Google Groups not only helps you find information on millions of topics; now you can actively share ideas and opinions with others about each and every obsession of yours.

And if you don't find a group already focused on your passion, by all means start one. Invite others to join your group so that all interested parties can read and respond to messages, share opinions and ideas via email or your own group's web page. If you're looking for a group to join, we could definitely use some thoughtful insight (or idle speculation) over at my space elevator group.

Shannon Bauman
Associate Product Manager, Google Groups
I can't find anything on the other side of those links that would be a reason for PR to take it down, so we can only wonder why. Anyone got any theories? I guarantee the post will be back up, but it should be interesting to see what they change.

UPDATE: The post is back up. The change? There was no link to Google Groups! So they added it and put it back up. How silly.

UPDATE 2: This story is, surprisingly, still developing. Read on at this post.

Slashdot Goes Crazy About Google Groups

2004-12-02T13:29:00.000-05:00
Slashdot commenting on the launch:
Among the various 'improvements': ability to search by date has been eliminated, as has the ability to deep link to a single post.
Ouch...

Well, Slashdot is really pissed! Why is everything so mellodramatic over there? Seriously, they're acting like not having deep linking is the end of the world, and that Google is looking to eat our souls.
Damn you google!
Google just used up all its goodwill with me.
I think I can safely cross Google off my "cool geeky things" list.
Google just took a HUGE step backwards in my opinion.
Luckily the rot hasn't spread to the national Googles yet, so you can still use Google UK [google.co.uk] if you need it.. at least until they ruin that too.
This is a major step in the wrong direction in my book.
Hey Google: you're being evil...
This is a sad day, to see a useful tool become so f**ked up for no apparent good reason. I can only hope and pray for a reversion.
This is a disaster.
It seems that google has completely lost its sense. This is one hell of a killer mistake by google.
Never mind... for now, Goodbye Google.
Wow, it's the end of the world!

Google Announces Plans To Cut Back On Logo
Google announced today that it would eliminate the color red from its traditional blue, red, yellow and green logo, saying it wants to "focus all its efforts on making the other three colors the best they can be".

From Slashdot:
Oh no! Google is evil!
Google's crazy! How dare they tell us what colors to use!
red is so 337, goggle is 57_*)
I say good riddance!
Google is secretly caving to the CIA, who want to drive out all communist influences...
I have a secret mirror of Google, that still has the red. Viva la resistance!
This is the beginning of the end for Google. IPO greed has brought this upon us.

Craziness. That's Slashdot for you.

In fact, the whole discussion is completely useless, since you can direct link to a post! Slashdotter aridg actually decided not to rant, and discovered this:
You can still do a deep link to a single article, if you like....

Navigate to the thread, for example this [google.com] comp.arch thread. Choose the post you want to link to, and click on "Show Options". Two of the options are "print", which is a link to a "printable" version of the article, and "Show original", which is a link to the article with all the headers.

One more step (or simple URL hack) from this display is "view parsed" which gives a friendly HTML version -- for example, try this link [google.com].
To prove it works, here's a post I'm linking to, and here it is as a singular Groups post page. Wow, all that drama for nothing. You think they'll read that post and recant the gloom and doom? Please.