Google Blogoscoped
Sun May 9 22:32:55 EDT 2010
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Google's New Look - Google has been testing this redesign for a long time, and today it's going live globally. You will see a new logo and a new left-hand side bar in results. The logo feels brighter and flatter than the old one, the search results have become less minimalist. I'll wait to see if I grow used to the side bar, I get a feeling that for the most part I will simply ignore it as I don't need it (I rarely do a web search and then want to switch to book search, or videos; often when I want a maps or image search, I go straight to that particular search). But who knows, perhaps it's useful for certain types of research tasks, and it does make the different Google sites discoverable f ...

Google Acquiring BumpTop - VentureBeat writes that Google is acquiring BumpTop: BumpTop launched its first product about a year ago. The idea, as founder and chief executive Anand Agarawala described it during a talk at the 2007 TED conference, was to do away with the "same old crap" found in the layout of both the Windows and Mac operating systems. By turning the desktop into a three-dimensional space, users can arrange things more naturally and creatively. They can pile things up, just like they can on a physical desk. [Thanks Jérôme!]

Google Android-based TV Software? - The Wall Street Journal writes: Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter. The technology -- designed to open set-top boxes, TVs and other devices to more content from the Internet -- is attracting interest from partners that include Sony Corp., Intel Corp. and Logitech International SA, which are expected to offer products that support the software, these people said. (..) [Google] is currently planning on sharing some details about the technology with more than 3,000 developers expected to attend its Google I/O conference in San Francisco May 19 and 20. [Thanks ...

Captcha Advertising - The illustration explains the idea pretty well: a captcha that is also an advertisement. Techi.com writes (quote linked): Currently, there is only one company that is actively working as the middleman between advertisers and webmasters in order to display CAPTCHA ads -- that company is AdCopy. (...) AdCopy is currently beta testing the new form of internet advertising. Advertisers and website owners interested in trying out the service can request a beta invite into the system on AdCopy.com by filling out a short form. The site boasts of a self-serve advertising platform that will allow advertisers to create and upload their ads dir ...

Should Gmail Alert You to Misspelled Names? - Would this make a good Gmail feature? When you address a recipient but you misspell the name, Gmail would alert you to it. Implementation-wise this could perhaps mean that if the first line contains a word that is close to the recipient's name but a couple of letters off, it counts as misspelling. First and also last names could be handled like this. For instance, if the recipient's name were "Roger", and I'd be writing "Hi Riger", then Gmail before sending would ask me "Did you mean: Roger"? Once you answer this question with "no", then this spelling could be added to a whitelist for that recipient (for instance, when you always and intentionally address a friend with a nickname). Admittedly Gmail already has a spell checker but perhaps an implementation like this could additio ...

The Hands That Search - These hands are from an uncredited photo at viral marketing site Startup Signs: Can you make the sign? [Via khallow at slashdot.]

Geocitisize a Site - The Geocities-izer will make any web page look "like it was made by a 13 year-old in 1996". [Via Reddit.]

On Google Street View Car Logging Wifi Networks - The Register writes: Google's roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it's got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users' unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along. Germany's Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he's "horrified" by the discovery. "I am appalled... I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View," according to German broadcaster ARD. German news site

Google Reveals Some Government Requests Data - Google is starting to do a very good job at making their government involvements, like legal requests to have information removed, more transparent. A new site titled "Government requests" shows a world map along with information for many countries in regards to how many government requests were received. Clicking on a particular number breaks this down into request types, such as "94 Web Search (court order)" or "70 YouTube". Limitations to this data apply, as Google explains. Knowledge of the situation is the basis for analysis and coming to a conclusion as to whether something is right. Makin ...

Experiences Sending 14,000 Emails - The Goal: Some of the websites I create or co-create have a lot of one-time visitors -- people who may like the project, but due to the type of the site don't find much of a reason to visit it daily. Take WhatHappenedInMyBirthYear.com, or TurnMyNameIntoaFace.com, for instance, sites which you probably use once, then maybe tell your friends, but don't look to for updates. My sites also rarely to never require registration. So at one time, my friend and I wanted to stick in a little email subscription box which says "get an email alert when we release new fun projects", so that people who are interested in news would have a chance to hear about them. The Subscription Form: The subscription box we picked was the most simple we could think of. Just a short sentence of explanation followed by an ...

Above Google's Webmaster Guidelines and Elsewhere: "Make your website Google Chrome-friendly" - Google at the top of their webmaster guidelines page -- which instructs people on what to do to be found, indexed and ranked by Google search -- added a blue box reading: Turns out this box (worded in a way that gives preferential treatment to Google's own software) is now stamped across a whole lot of Google's webmaster help pages -- the particular appearance on a page about Google's rankings, which I guess Google wants to appear neutral, causes an odd juxtaposition. [Thanks Zoran!]

Google Follow Finder for Twitter - A Google Labs experiment called Follow Finder analyzes following and follower lists on Twitter "to find people you might want to follow." Entering mattcutts, for instance, finds randfish, laughingsquid, aaronwall and dannysullivan. [Thanks WebSonic.nl!]

Google to Open Source VP8 Video Codec? - Ryan Lawler at NewTeeVee.com gives a background on the politics and fights behind video codecs. He says "Google will soon make its VP8 video codec open source, we've learned from multiple sources ... Google has controlled the VP8 codec ever since it finalized the acquisition of video codec maker On2 Technologies in February. ... The move comes as online video publishers are gravitating toward standards-based HTML5 video delivery, bolstered in part by the release of the iPad. However, that acceptance has been slowed by the fact that the industry has yet to agree on a single codec for video playback, with some companies throwing support behind Ogg Theora and others hailing H.264 as the future of web video."[Thanks AGift2theSil ...

Google's Chief Java Architect Criticizes Direction Java Has Been Taking - PC World reports that Google's Joshua Bloch at a conference said the Java platform has "appeared rudderless for the last few years". A malaise has fallen over the community "and the end is not in sight," with "Technical and licensing disputes over the last few years" having been highly detrimental. "They've sapped the energy of the community and caused plenty of bad press". [Via Reddit.]

Site Speed Influencing Google Ranking - Google announced that a website's speed is now one of the many signal's used to determine that site's ranking in Google results. Google in their blog post suggests a couple of tools with which you can test your site speed -- which they define as "how quickly a website responds to web requests" -- including the Webmaster Tools → Labs → Site Performance app. (Ironically, some of the speed optimizations that app will suggest revolve around minimizing DNS lookups... caused by external resources like Google's own Analytics tracker script.) Google Code Speed offers more resources. On the surface this signal seems ...