Did Google Just Get a New Favicon?
Not much of a news story, but I just noticed a different favicon for Google in my browser. Is this new?
The Last Podcast Opinionated Web 2.0 News and Commentary
Google Adds Website Traffic Comparison to Trends
Google has decided to jump into the Web Traffic comparison business by releasing a new layer to Google Trends names Google Trends for Websites.
Very few people these days take the data from publicly available website traffic comparison tools like Alexa and Compete too seriously. At best, both can be used to analyze trends, as their [...]
Gmail Gets a (not so exciting) Lab
TechCrunch has been teasing us all afternoon with the announcement of a ‘Labs’ tab in Gmail that was supposed to go live around 6pm PST, but seemed to be running a bit late. By now, it seems most Gmail users should have access to it (Settings –> Labs).
As Mathew Ingram writes, this is a nice [...]
Google Reader with Notes – reinventing the wheel
The fact that Google Reader now allows you to share any webpage in Google Reader through a bookmarklet (how many bookmarklets do you have installed already, btw?) and with the revolutionary feature of adding notes to that is, in too many ways, yet another example of Google reinventing wheels it already has (and just adding [...]
Google Docs now available offline through Gears
Scoble has the scoop that Google Docs is now going to be available offline in a video over at fastcompany.tv (Update: and here is the official Google announcement, too).
As expected, it is running on top of Google Gears (meaning it’s available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, but doesn’t work with Safari) and looks and works [...]
Can’t find Google? You are not alone
Here is an interesting piece of data via Jakob Nielson:
If you thought it’s easy to get to Google, think again. In our current round of usability research, only 76% of users who expressed a desire to run a Google search were successful. In other words, 1/4 of users who wanted to use Google couldn’t do [...]
Google offers free GrandCentral voicemail to SF homeless
Update: the more I think about this, the more I do actually feel cynical about this after all. See TechCrunch for a posting that goes behind the PR and looks at the politics involved here. In the end though – no matter the politics – I still feel this is a useful initiative in the [...]
Google sets JotSpot free as Google Sites
Just a few days after opening up GrandCentral again, Google has now released a new version of the wiki-based group collaboration service JotSpot which is fully integrated with Google Sites. If you use Google for Domains, you can add this app to your services now.
Much to the chagrin of TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, BusinessWeek broke [...]
Hail Google Video Ads (and kill the pre-roll)
So Google has finally opened up the floodgates to video ad heaven. Within a few days, you are bound to see more videos with text ads popping up at the bottom of the page or “InVideo” ads that also appear at the bottom of the video – courtesy of Google’s AdSense for Video (which is, [...]
Beware of the FeedBurner
Mashable is running an interesting post about FeedBurner right now that highlights the trouble not only with the service itself, but also with a large number of recent Google acquisitions.
As Louis Gray noted on the weekend, FeedBurner had removed part of the FeedBurner statistics that many bloggers and podcasters heavily rely on. By now, that [...]
Rumor: Google Likes Your 404 – Reality: Not Really
According to a number of reports today, Google’s latest beta of the Google Toolbar hijacks 404 pages and reroutes them to a Google 404 page with ‘Suggestions,’ including some hints for what to do next and, of course, an option to search on Google.
The reality though is different: Google isn’t taking customized 404 pages and [...]
Shared Feeds, RSSmeme and Ecosystems
<rant>
If the beginning of this year is any indication for what is still to come, it seems like 2008 is going to be the year of the linkblogs.
When Scoble started pimping his linkblog in pretty much every single one of his posts earlier last year, I really didn’t get it. Today, I am not only [...]
Google’s forgotten stepchildren – Jaiku and GrandCentral
Whenever I hear that Google has acquired this or that company, I can’t help but fear that Google is just going to forget about them in the long run.
Today, Google teamed up with Twitter (which seems to have stayed up so far) to provide coverage of Super Tuesday through a mash-up with Google Maps.
That’s great [...]
Google calls out Microsoft/Yahoo! deal – Is Google scared?
Google just issued a statement about Microsoft’s bid to buy Yahoo! The basic tone is rather aggressive (maybe even paranoid?):
The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It’s [...]
