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Google Under Fire for Flawed Korea Maps

2008-01-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

Controversy has flared up as Google Earth, a satellite-image mapping service by Google, the world's largest search engine, has erroneously described several South Korean locations.

The controversial areas include Ongjin County under the jurisdiction of the city of Incheon, and some islands in Ongjin County such as Baegryeong-do, Daecheong-do, and Socheong-do.

While close to North Korea, all of these locations are in South Korea. Yet all of them are described in detail by Google Earth as belonging to North Korea. Even Yeonpyeong-do, in whose adjacent waters the 1999 West Sea battle was waged, is described as belonging to the North.

This is not the first time Google has mislabeled Korean geography. Google once incurred public protest by referring to the East Sea as the "Sea of Japan" and the Dokdo Islets as "Takeshima."

In September last year, Google Earth caused a stir with a notice that referred to Seoul as "Korea under Japanese rule." According to a study in June last year, Google Earth had a total of 133 erroneous designations for Korean geographical locations.

Google Earth currently refers to the Dokdo Islets as "Liancourt Rocks" with a note that South Korea calls them "Dokdo" but Japan calls them "Takeshima."

A Google official said it would take some time to update the maps, as the company needs the South Korean government's permission to send a Korean map produced by the South Korean government itself to Google's main office.

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AdBrite Ranked Among Top Four Ad Networks By comScore

2008-01-18T19:13:00.000-08:00

Fourth-Largest in US Page-Views, after Yahoo!, Google, AOL's Advertising.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- AdBrite is the fourth-largest ad network in the US, ranked by page-views, according to comScore's December 2007 MediaMetrix report.

comScore reported that the AdBrite network had over 25 billion page-views in December 2007. Only Yahoo! Network, Google Network, and AOL's Advertising.com had more U.S. page-views. The AdBrite network reached 79 million unique users during the month.

    Advertising Networks        Pages Viewed (MM)

     1) Yahoo! Network          282,320

     2) Google Ad Network       221,476

     3) Advertising.com         58,343

     4) AdBrite                 25,446

     5) ValueClick Networks     23,111

     6) Traffic Marketplace     10,770

     7) Tribal Fusion           10,159

     8) 24/7 Real Media         9,749

     9) Specific Media          8,804

    10) Casale Media Network    7,329

   Source: comScore MediaMetrix, December 2007

"AdBrite's scale is a testament to the rapid growth and efficiency of our transparent marketplace," said Ignacio Fanlo, CEO of AdBrite.

AdBrite brings together a diverse base of high-quality publishers in a dynamic marketplace that supports multiple ad types including text ads, banner ads, and AdBrite's proprietary Full Page Ad, BritePic, and InVideo advertising formats. Advertisers can reach a highly engaged audience, with fully transparent reporting on results, and the ability to buy and optimize campaigns on a site-level basis.

"Quality publishers -- from major Internet brands to engaging specialty sites -- are joining the AdBrite marketplace every day," said Fanlo. "AdBrite is the network of choice for savvy marketers who want to reach engaged consumers at massive scale."

About AdBrite:

AdBrite is the Internet's Ad Marketplace. The company makes it easy to buy and sell advertising online, giving advertisers and publishers more transparency and control than any other ad network. With banner and text ads, as well as innovative formats like BritePic, InVideo and Full Page Ad, AdBrite has created a simple and more effective advertising marketplace for advertisers and publishers of all sizes. AdBrite serve ads on over one billion pages a day.

AdBrite was founded by Philip Kaplan and Gidon Wise in 2002 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. AdBrite is backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures, and Mitsui Ventures. For more information, visit http://www.adbrite.com.

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Internet Maps Get Streetwise

2008-01-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

Start-up earthmine inc challenges Google and Microsoft with new maps that provide 360-degree panoramic views of city streets

Google took Internet maps to the streets when it launched itsStreet View feature in Google Maps. Rather than relying on satellite photos, Street View, which debuted in May, enables users to view and navigate 360-degree street-level digital images of 21 U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami and the Big Apple.

Now a Berkeley, Calif., start-up called earthmine inc plans to offer a similar Web-based navigation service that employs technology that NASA uses on the Mars Exploration Rover missions to help guide Opportunity and Spirit on their treks across the Red Planet's craggy surface. Earthmine last month announced that it had cut an exclusive deal with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that it runs for NASA to license software and algorithms that create 3-D data from stereo panoramic imagery.

JPL actually began developing these algorithms and software for autonomous navigation about a decade ago. "The technology can be used by any robots that need to take visual information about a physical environment and make navigation decisions based on that information," says Andrew Gray, deputy manager of JPL's Commercial Technology Program office.

Earthmine is using this Space Age technology for the more down-to-Earth purpose of creating maps designed to help travelers find their way in unfamiliar urban settings, government agencies create visual property catalogues for tax-assessment and other purposes, and real estate agents provide prospective buyers with true-to-life images of properties and neighborhoods.

"Our mission at earthmine is to index reality," says John Ristevski, who co-founded the company with Anthony Fassero in 2006. Fassero adds: "We get down to a level of detail so it looks like you're standing on the street." The two men met at the University of California, Berkeley; Fassero, an architecture grad student, was wrapping up a thesis on digital panoramic photography and Ristevski was conducting research for a PhD in applied laser scanning technology. They figured out that if they combined panoramic photos with geospatial data, they could capture and deliver photo-realistic 3-D environments that would accurately document the world.

Earthmine chose San Fransisco—a major city right in their backyard—as their test bed, prowling the hilly streets in an SUV equipped with an array of cameras and collecting stereo photographs at various locations along the city's 2,100 linear miles of road, including Front Street in the financial district and Union Square downtown. These photographs were combined to create three-dimensional, panoramic images. Using JPL's stereo-imaging technology, the data was then processed into three-dimensional coordinates for each pixel in the panoramic image. Each pixel used to create these 3-D images contains a data set of latitude, longitude and elevation information. The result is a series of seamlessly sewn panoramic images that offer a 360-degree view from any Web browser that supports Flash.

Fassero and Ristevski covered San Francisco in about three weeks and took another three weeks to create their maps. The goal is to expand this service to other major U.S. cities, build up a fleet of camera-equipped vehicles and eventually deliver their street-level maps to mobile phone users.

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Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association Ranks the Top Natural Search Engine Optimization Indicators by Importance

2008-01-18T19:07:00.000-08:00

roup to Present Findings and Answer Questions in Meeting on Monday, January 21 at Richardson Renaissance Hotel

DALLAS — Dallas is home to some of the world's leading search engine optimization experts, and on Monday, the public has the chance to come and hear their opinions on what factors are the most important as far as natural search engine optimization is concerned.

On Monday, January 21, search engine marketing experts from the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association (DFWSEM) will present "Top Natural Search Engine Optimization Indicators By Importance."

The board of DFWSEM has compiled and ranked the most important factors involved in search engine optimization and will present them in an open forum that is likely to initiate lively discussion. After the event, a full listing of the findings will be posted at www.dfwsem.org.

The networking event starts at 6:00 PM, and the speakers will begin at 6:30 PM, ending at approximately 8:30 PM. The event is open to all DFWSEM members and non-members, including marketing professionals and the general public. The event is free for existing members, and $20 for non-members.

Meeting location

The Renaissance Dallas-Richardson Hotel is located at 900 East Lookout Drive, Richardson, Texas 75081. The hotel is in the Richardson Telecom Corridor, on the east side of 75 Central Expressway, approximately one mile south of George Bush Tollway. The hotel phone is 972-367-2000.

http://www.google.com/maps?q=900+E+Lookout+Dr,+Richardson,+Texas +75082,+USA&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About the DFW Search Engine Marketing Association (DFWSEM)

The Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Organization (DFWSEM) is dedicated to education and promotion of the Dallas/Fort Worth search engine marketing industry, conversing various topics related to search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click search (PPC), as well as other emerging media. The group meets once a month at various locations throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area, and is open to anyone interested in search engine marketing, including in-house marketers, independent consultants, and agencies. Initially founded in 2003, DFWSEM is the oldest and longest running local search engine marketing group/meetup in the country. Member agencies include DexterityMedia, Vizion Interactive, iCrossing, Range Online Media, Key Relevance, MarketNet, AffGoo, Creative Support, Did-it, SearchDex, WrightIMC and Bridgepose.

Past presenters to the DFWSEM Association include Google, MSN, Verizon Superpages.com, ClickTracks, MIVA, Business.com, The Dallas Morning News, Dan Thies, AffGoo, Stephen Malouf, WebTrends, Catherine Seda / Seda Communications, Shari Thurow / Grantastic Designs, Vizion Interactive, Agency.com, ClickAssurance, iMediaConnection, and many others. The DFWSEM Association welcomes requests to speak to the group at info@dfwsem.org.

Joining DFWSEM

Corporate memberships are $175 for the first year and include three seats to monthly DFWSEM meetings, and individual DFWSEM memberships are $75 for the first year. Additional seats for a Corporate membership are $50/year. Checks, MasterCard, Visa, Amex, and checks are all accepted. For more information, visit http://blog.dfwsem.org.

The DFWSEM Association also maintains a blog to keep members and non-members informed of upcoming events. Visit http://blog.dfwsem.org for more information.

Sponsoring DFWSEM

DFWSEM Association members cumulatively represent over $90,000,000 in annual search engine ad spend, and sponsorship is a great way to get your message in front of this group of decision makers and key influencers. To find out how to sponsor a monthly meeting or other opportunity, contact Mark Jackson at mark.jackson@vizioninteractive.com.

DFWSEM Association board of directors

President, Rob Garner, iCrossing; Vice President, Tony Wright, Dexterity Media; Chairperson, Christine Churchill, KeyRelevance; Vice Chairman, Web, Bill Hartzer, MarketNet; Secretary, Jeff Martin, CardsDirect.com; Treasurer, John Cole; Vice Chairman, Mark Jackson, Vizion Interactive; Vice Chairman, Dan Sturdivant, Creative Support; Vice Chairman, John Bagwell, Bagwell Marketing

DFWSEM Public Speakers

Many members of DFWSEM are actively speaking at various interactive marketing conferences, including SMX, Search Engine Strategies, ad:tech, and WebmasterWorld, among many others. If you are looking for someone to speak about search engine marketing related topics, or would like to interview a member, feel free to contact the group for more information at 214.459.3241.

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Microsoft's Mass. footprint grows

2008-01-09T18:14:00.000-08:00

Software giant is buying Fast Search of Norway - which has 200 employees in Needham - for $1.23 billion as it races to catch up with Google in the computer-search field

Software giant Microsoft Corp., chasing rival Google Inc. in the field of computer search, yesterday agreed to pay $1.23 billion to buy Fast Search & Transfer ASA, a Norwegian company specializing in helping businesses organize and access their internal data.

SEM Predictions for 2008

2008-01-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

Everything Search Engine Marketing

Let’s start with the most obvious one first…everything related to the search engine marketing industry is going to continue to grow, if not thrive, in 2008. “Everything” in this case includes search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), online reputation management (ORM), SEM PR and my favorite, social media optimization (SMO) which merits its own category (see below). ORM will rise to the top of the media buzz-o-meter with big brands and celebrities hiring firms like Anvil to make negative search results “disappear.” Online ad spending will continue to increase significantly (up $6 billion over 2007) as traditional ad spending levels off due to the fear of an economic downturn. If you’re not in the SEM industry now, you may not be able to ignore the pending recession.

Online Advertising Options Evolve

Display advertising may see a re-emergence as brand budgets move online in search of better measurability. While rich media ads will continue to have a seat at the table, in-text advertising will be the big winner in 2008. Key players like Kontera and Vibrant Media will cash checks when consumers test and accept the relatively new contextual advertising model. Google’s $700 stock price is proof that contextual advertising can work.

Google Cross-Platform Bid Management Tool

Google will launch (we hope) a cross-platform bid management tool (API based; to work across engine platforms including Yahoo Search Marketing & MSN AdCenter). This prediction is based on the move Google made this year to allow AdWords advertisers to opt-in to the new “Conversion Optimizer” and the technology/interface they have continued to develop with AdWords Editor. Watch out third party vendors like Atlas, SendTec, and SearchForce! Google could end up disrupting the bid management industry like it did with Web analytics when it purchased Urchin and gave away the platform as Google Analytics. It looks like Omniture could get stung twice as badly, offering products and services in both markets.

Mobile – No, Seriously This Time

Apple’s iPhone stole the show at CES in early 2007…and Steve Jobs and his phone weren’t even there. Since then, the buzz has set new standards and consumer expectations. Phone manufacturers and carriers are now forced to step up with more advanced technology that will get the US out of the Stone Age (in comparison to the rest of the world). That means SMS text messaging will gain in popularity and usage (especially by smart restaurants, hotels and retailers). Additionally, mobile advertising will reach $5 billion in 2008 (up from $3 billion in 2007), fueled in part by search-based ads.

Social Media

US ad spending on Web 2.0 social networks will climb to nearly $1.6 billion in 2008…which is a significant increase over 2007. That said, the long-term success of social media sites will rely on the ability to manage one profile (yours) across a multitude of sites. Lacking that key ingredient, only a handful of existing social media sites will survive. Assuming portable profiles don’t come to fruition in 2008, we predict MySpace, Hi5 and other spam-friendly sites will die on the vine (at least increase user growth at a decreasing rate), while other startups social media sites like Spoke, Doostang, Spock and Biznik will fail to find enough traffic or revenue to survive the year (certainly not beyond 2009). Facebook will struggle to find a viable business model (certainly the initial foray into advertising is generating a negative response from users), but the open API will continue to fuel growth. LinkedIn will gain ground and become the de-facto Web 2.0 social network site for business professionals (followed in a distant second by Plaxo). In a massive consolidation move, Google, MSN and Yahoo will continue to buy up social media properties, if for no other reason than to kill them off. Lastly, social media optimization (SMO) will experience significant adoption by B2B marketers, which is important because the Web’s significant growth has been fueled by businesses and not consumers.

Google/YouTube Television

With fanfare that will put MTV’s launch to shame, Google’s YouTube will launch their first foray into broadcast television. While initial efforts may be through a broadcast partner (RE: ABC or Bravo) but will eventually move to a dedicated cable station, where they will show the best and worst videos YouTubers have to offer. Even if the station doesn’t take off for a few years, it will likely fare better than Revver’s Fame TV in the UK.

Consumers Controlling Conversation

As companies look for additional ways to attract and retain site visitors, a new technology will emerge: Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML). APML will change the way advertisers target end users. As more companies adopt AMPL, users will be given the opportunity to control their own attention and share it with service they wish - giving advertisers the ability to target based on what the user wishes to see. Social media sites like BizRate and ePinions have demonstrated consumers own and influence brands with which they interact and identify, so the next logical step is for consumers to control the entire conversation. Only the biggest brands and most aggressive B2B companies will pursue this technology initially, but it will generate meaningful buzz in 2008 (although don’t expect much in the way of meaningful adoption or revenues until 2009 and beyond).

Googling Oneself Even More Popular

In 2007 we saw even more American’s flocking to Google themselves, friends, partners, and even co-workers. Pew Internet released a study earlier this month that said 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine. This is more than twice the 22 percent of users who did so in 2002. But with all this searching, 60 percent said they aren’t worried about the extent of information about themselves online. We think this statistic will change in 2008 when searchers realize that as Google and other engines get better at indexing and ranking all types of content in one screen (think Universal Search), then they had better clean up their act and make some information private. If it’s too late for some, please contact us at Anvil Media and we can do an Online Reputation Audit and develop a strategy to combat the negative results.

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Satellite Technology Being Used to Help find Missing Pilot

2007-12-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

The family of a missing BC pilot is getting some help through an unlikely source.

61-year old pilot Ron Boychuk went missing in October during a flight from Revelstoke to Qualicum Beach.

Some new technology is now being used to help with search efforts.

Volunteers can search online satellite imagery using Google Earth and files provided by a US-based satellite analysis organization.

Founder of Internetsar.org, Ken Barbalace, says once you are logged on, you are assigned a set of imagery that loads into Google Earth, "And it lays down new satellite photos taken after Boychuk went missing on top of existing Google Earth satellite photos that were taken before. What people do is they look between the old and new imagery and see if they see an anomaly in the photo and whether it's in the old photos."

Barbalace says they are also helping with the search for adventurer Steve Fossett, whose plane disappeared in Nevada.

You can log on for either of the searches at www.internetsar.org

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2007: The Year that Search Grew Up

2007-12-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, where we look back on the last 12 months and try to make sense of it all. As is customary in these instances, I'm trying to put a simple label on the year that will take into account all the various trends we saw in the search industry. It could be the "Year of Social Media," considering the explosion of sites like Facebook, Digg and Twitter.

Or it could be the "Year of Blended Search," considering the changes made by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com. For many, it might be considered the "Beginning of the End of SEO," since the rise of personalized and customized search results, as well as quality-based ad ranking, will change the way search marketers go about their jobs.

With these trends and others taken in total, it seems to me that the best way to sum up the events of 2007 is to call it the "Year the Search Industry Grew Up." Between the consolidation of players in the search and online advertising space, the increasing ability of search marketers to get the attention of the larger marketing groups, and the spread of search marketing to both very large and very small companies, many will look back on 2007 as a coming-of-age year for the industry.

The Year of Blended and Universal Search

One of the most significant changes for search engine optimizers (SEOs) this year was the introduction of universal, or blended search results. Instead of the familiar "ten blue links," searchers are now beginning to see more than just HTML pages mixed into search results. Video and images, news stories, blog posts, local business data, and more are now appearing alongside other sites.

The trend began in May with Google's launch of Universal Search. That was followed closely by Ask.com's blended search results in the form of Ask3D. Microsoft followed suit in September, and Yahoo added its blended search results in October.

The moves were alternately greeted with great enthusiasm or a yawn, but none denied the significance to advertisers. The need to get your sites in more places, consider the effects of personalized search and expand the traditional definition of SEO became more important, as did the need to work and play well with other marketers in your organization.

It's All About the Quality (Score)

On the search advertising side, the top search ad networks all incorporated a measure of quality into their ad ranking algorithms. Instead of competing solely on bid price, now search marketers have to take into account factors like click-through rates, as well as more ethereal factors like historical performance and an ad's expected performance relative to other ads.

Yahoo launched its ad ranking system in February as part of its Panama project. Soon after, Google updated its 18-month-old ad quality scoring algorithm. Microsoft followed in April, adding a quality score element to adCenter.

Year of Social Media

Looking at the surge in popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, social elements of networks like Flickr and YouTube, the rise and fall of social news sites like Digg and Netscape, and the beginnings of social search sites like Mahalo and Search Wikia, it would be fair to call 2007 the Year of Social Media. Even Google got involved, with the launch of its OpenSocial APIs.

While much of social media is seen as a diversion, there are clear reasons for search marketers to get involved. The definition of what is and isn't search marketing began expanding to include other related disciplines, most notably social media. The skills developed by SEOs in linkbuilding, which themselves are similar to those of public relations, apply to social media marketing. It's also an important element of reputation management.

Social networks like Facebook have been eyed by advertisers for their potential targeting capabilities, but as evidenced by Facebook's missteps in implementing the Beacon program, advertisers need to tread carefully in that area.

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MOTC to Use Google Earth for Planning a Safe Journey

2007-12-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

After being the subject of many controversies and security concerns, Google Earth is finally finding some true admirers in the academic field. The Institute of Transportation under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in China has developed which will help the drivers to identify the dangerous curves in the road. The institute has taken the help of Google Earth for this job.

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. Since Google Earth was launched, users have been exploring our world and creating content overlays (KML files) to share their explorations with others.

According to a report in China Post, the officials of the institute stated, “Google Earth is free and offers satellite images from the bird's-eye view, much more realistic compared to regular maps, which only provide street names. So we are combining the benefits of Google Earth with our newly developed program to display different accident-prone sites.”

To maximize safety while travelling, users can download the system along with Google Earth, which is freely available, provided your internet connection can withstand the high degree of bandwidth usage by this application. The application alarms the motorists about the dangerous curves even before they get there and tries to avoid fatal accidents. The new system will be accessible with PDAs (personal digital assistants) or cell phones.

The Institute of Transportation has released some statistics which state that some areas like Minchuan West Rd. and Chunde Rd., Wanta Rd. and Mengchia Blvd. in Taipei are highly prone to accident. This partnership with Google can reduce the number of accidents in those areas as well as other areas all over China.

Almost a third of the system has been completed now and the institute will shortly include the National Police Administration's data into the system

Source

Google to rival Wikipedia

2007-12-27T07:37:00.000-08:00

Google is to go head-to head with Wikipedia, the web’s largest reference work, setting up a clash between two of the web’s biggest brands.

A new Google service, dubbed "knol", will invite individuals to write “authoritative articles” on their areas of expertise, the firm has revealed.

As on Wikipedia, content on knol (the name comes from “knowledge”) will be free to access. In a departure from the non-profit Wikipedia model, however, knol's authors will be able to attach advertising to their work and take a share of revenues.

Google hopes that knol articles will cover “all topics, from scientific concepts ... to entertainment.” Significantly, the project will see Google help generate new editorial content, a process its executive have previously said it is “philosophically opposed to”.

Knol, which is currently in a test phase but is expected to be opened to the public in the coming months, also pitches Google against yet another new rival in a fresh sector. Moving away from its roots in internet search, Google recently opened a new front against mobile makers such as Nokia by unveiling a new operating system for handheld devices.

It also has ambitions to compete with groups such as EDS in data storage and Oracle and Microsoft in business software. Last month it confirmed it will bid against groups likely to include AT&T for a portion of America’s airwaves that could be used to roll-out a wireless broadband network.

Wikipedia represents another similarly well-established incumbent. In October the online encyclopaedia, which relies on donations for funds, was visited by 107 million people, or a third of the "active global internet population", according to Nielsen Online, the analyst. That made it the eighth most-visited online destination.

Google's search engine was the world's most popular site, with more than 260 million users - though its own reference work, Google Scholar was only fifteenth in its class, with about 4.5 million users.

Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, who recently launched a rival search engine to Google’s, questioned whether knol would be able to generate enough “quality content”. He also suggested that knol articles would lack balance. “They are not going to allow collaboration and aren’t going to go for Wikipedia’s neutral style,” he said.

However, Google's determination that knol should turn a profit appears to have dictated a sharp departure from Wikipedia's editorial model. Where Wikipedia is based on collaboration between authors, knol will foster rivaly.

Contributors to knol will not be able to contribute anonymously and will not be able to edit each others' work - two of the defining characteristics of Wikipedia. Whereas in Wikipedia, readers find only one entry on, say, the First World War, on knol authors will submit separate pieces that will compete for advertising income.

Taking a cue from social network-style sites, knol will also invite readers to participate by rating the quality of entries and by adding “comments, questions, edits, additional content.”

Rebecca Jennings, an analyst for Forrester, said: "Google is setting out to compete in social media, where it is lagging rivals such as Facebook.”

"A knol ... is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read,” Mr Manber, a Google spokesman, said.

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and now has more than eight million articles in 253 languages - from Afrikaans to Zazaki. In contrast to Google, it has refused to alter its policies to operate in different countries - something that has led it to being blocked in states such as China.

However, anonymous and sometimes malicious edits have threatened to undermine Wikipedia's reputation. In 2005, in what Mr Wales termed "the worst" incident to hit the site, John Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of USA Today, was linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by a Wikipedia article. Attacking Wikipedia, Mr Seigenthaler called it an irresponsible haven for "volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects".

This summer, it emerged that a host of blue-chip companies had altered their entries on Wikipedia in an attempt to cover up embarrassing episodes in their histories. The discovery was made by WikiScanner, a site that traces the source of changes to the world's largest online reference work by matching edits to a database of the unique IP addresses of the computers that were used to make them.

Machines belonging to organisations including Wal-Mart, Disney, Sony, the Labour Party, the CIA and the Vatican had been used to rewrite entries, it was found.

Source: timesonline

Google's Net Jumps 46 Percent

2007-11-12T23:05:00.000-08:00

Web search leader Google reported on Thursday a 46 percent rise in profit that topped analysts' expectations, as revenues grew 57 percent and comfortably outpaced expense growth, reassuring investors.

Google said it would continue significant capital spending of about half-a-billion dollars a quarter on new data centers and networks, but that it had put in place controls to rein in hiring, with staff numbers growing about 15 percent a quarter.

Third-quarter operating profit margins improved over the previous quarter and analysts said Google's spending was more in line with growth than three months earlier, when it surprised the market with a jump in operating expenses.

Shares of Google inched into new record territory in extended trade after the results, trading up to $641.95 from a regular session close of $639.62. The stock is up 39 percent so far in 2007 versus 16 percent for Nasdaq.

"They seem to have grown better than anybody expected and seemed to have improved margins," said Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali. "I think they were more cost-conscious this period than last."

Net income rose to $1.07 billion, or $3.38 per diluted share, compared with the year-earlier quarter's $733.3 million, or $2.36 per diluted share. Excluding one-time items, profit was $3.91 per share in the latest quarter, versus the Wall Street average target of $3.77, according to Reuters Estimates

Revenue rose 57 percent to $4.23 billion, compared with an average analyst forecast of $4.13 billion. Ever-larger numbers mean its growth rate is down from 70 percent in the third quarter of 2006 and 96 percent in the same period of 2005. Excluding payments to affiliates carrying ads from Google, revenue grew 61.5 percent.

International business made up nearly half of revenue.

Google has moved rapidly over the past year to extend its reach beyond text-based, pay-per-click web search advertising into a variety of new markets, including online video, television, radio and print advertising.

"Television is one area that looks like it is going to grow very quickly," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told Reuters in an interview. Like existing online ads it delivers, digital cable and satellite systems make it easy to target and measure what advertising is viewed by which types of customers, he said.

Google has also expanded into enterprise software, the traditional fiefdom of Microsoft.

Analysts had expected fourth-quarter growth to slow to 47 percent, which is still four to five times faster than rivals Yahoo and Microsoft.

"The company continues to execute and outpace its competitors," Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto told investors in a research note. He said the results set the stage for analysts to push up forecasts on Google for 2008 and 2009.

Google plans to hold a meeting with Wall Street analysts at its Mountain View, California headquarters next Wednesday.

Operating expenses totaled $1.25 billion, or 30 percent of revenue, despite the fact that its headcount grew 15 percent to 15,916 employees during the three months ended in September.

The company put in place tighter controls on hiring in the past quarter that should help it further control cost increases from now on, Schmidt told investors on a conference call.

Last quarter, Google shocked investors when expenses shot to 31 percent of revenue from 27 percent in the first quarter. Stock compensation dipped to $198 million in the third quarter from $242 million for the second quarter ended in June.

Traffic acquisition costs, or payments to affiliated Web sites such as AOL or Ask.com to which Google serves up online advertisements, were $1.2 billion and 29 percent of total ad revenue, down from 30 percent in the second quarter.

Google led the U.S. Web search business with a 57 percent market share in September, up from 56.5 percent in August, according to comScore Inc. It is even more dominant globally, with more than 70 percent of the audience for Web searches.

SOURCE

Dutch satellite images of air quality visible in Google Earth

2007-11-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

Everyone can now follow the emission and spread of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gasses using Google Earth. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the Netherlands Meteorological Institute KNMI have made available the images from the space instruments SCIAMACHY and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument OMI via Internet.

Using Google Earth these images can be projected onto the globe and shown as short films. For example, according to Ilse Aben, head of atmospheric research at SRON, everyone can now see the relationship between the emission of methane and rice fields at a single glance.
The current interest in climate change amongst the press, the general public and politicians is greater than ever before. Google Earth enables interested parties, but also scientists, to quickly and simply gain an initial idea of what is happening in the atmosphere. Within just a few days satellites can gain an impression of the composition of the atmosphere over the entire world. They consequently play a vital role in research into the atmosphere and climate.

While the signs for climate change are unmistakable, the complexity of the climate system is also becoming increasingly apparent. Climate researchers are continuously searching for associations between different data sets, says Ilse Aben. For example, with the help of Google Earth, the SCIAMACHY measurements of the air pollutant carbon monoxide and the greenhouse gas methane can now be easily correlated with forest fires and rice fields. According to Pieternel Levelt of the KNMI, principal investigator of OMI, Google Earth is also highly suitable for the presentation of the intricate measurements of OMI. Now we can see which cities or valleys are hot spots for nitrogen dioxide. It turns out that large volumes of pollutants continue to hang above the Po plain in Italy. Nitrogen dioxide is an air pollutant but also plays a role in the formation of greenhouse gasses. The big advantage of Google Earth is that everyone can now access the information in an easy to use manner and compare different types of information with just a single mouse click.

Geography lesson
In future, an increasing number of images from Earth observation satellites will be used in Google Earth. Apart from being useful for scientists, it also opens up options for many educational applications, in geography lessons for example.

With the space instruments SCIAMACHY, on the ESA satellite Envisat, and OMI, on the NASA satellite EOS-AURA, the Netherlands plays a leading role in atmospheric space research. KNMI and SRON are currently working with the Dutch space industry on the preparations for a new space instrument, TROPOMI, which will combine the best of SCIAMACHY and OMI.

SCIAMACHY data for use in Google Earth are prepared for SRON by Matthijs Krijger. They can be downloaded from: http://www.sron.nl/google_earth.

SOURCE

The Perils of Duplicate Content

2007-11-12T22:58:00.000-08:00

Duplicate content comes in many flavors and varieties. Sometimes companies I've spoken with have no idea what they're doing is wrong. In fact, that's the case most times. Before I get into the "what" regarding duplicate content, let's first discuss the "why" of duplicate content.

Remember how much trouble you would get into at school if you turned in a paper that looked plagiarized? Well, as we knew then it's a bad idea to copy someone's work. Since search engines try to emulate human behavior (you've heard me say this before), they too dislike copycats. The search engines want to give credit for the original work to those people/Web sites that originated the content.

Now for the what: types of duplicate content.

Scraper Web Sites

There are many Web geeks out there who will build numerous Web sites, load them with automated content and run what many in our industry refer to as "Made for AdSense" (MFA) Web sites. MFA Web sites are about finding any tactic necessary to get these Web sites to rank for search phrases which, in most cases, are costly on a cost per click basis.

These sites generate revenue through a content advertising partnership with Google to sell advertising on their Web sites. Since they are often run by one person, these sites rarely offer unique content for all of their sites. So, they scrape (steal) content from other sources to post on their own Web site to increase their sites' ranking for specific keywords. Most search engines have put in filters to look for instances of borrowed/stolen content so the search engine (ideally) rank the Web site that originated the content.

Inadvertent URL Issues

This is the most common form of duplicate content. Because of how common this is, the search engines do their best not to penalize for this type of duplicate content. The best strategy: always correct these issues. URL issues commonly occur when a company owns several domains and just posts the same version of their Web site on multiple domains. I can't tell you how many times I've had clients say to me: "That's not duplicate content." Well, in the eyes of a search engine (for the reasons mentioned above), this qualifies as duplicate content.

Search engines are very literal. They don't necessarily know you own all of these domains. I've seen instances when I corrected these issues (and have done nothing else) and seen rankings increase. Besides, if you redirect all of your domains (301 redirect), you will be passing along any value these other domains may have had to the one domain you have decided to focus on.

I've also seen instances where someone has tried to use a URL rewriting program (ISAPI Rewrite/Mod Rewrite) and unintentionally ended up with two versions of their URLs (the rewritten version AND the old version). Again, work with your SEO firm and determine which URL is the right one to keep long-term and redirect any others to the keeper.

Same content applies to several categories within a Web site

We have a client which has several services that can be found under several categories within their Web site. It's a fact. The content does apply to all categories. However, we have requested they modify the content so it is unique for each page. It doesn't have to take a lot of effort. At a minimum, rewrite the first paragraph and ensure the title tags are unique. You should be in good shape.

Press Releases

This form of duplicate content isn't really "bad." It is what it is. The search engines will give credit to the version of the press release they deem the original source of the content. So, in most cases, the "originator" is PRWeb, Business Wire, or whichever distribution/syndication tool you might be using.

Bottom Line

Proper search engine optimization is much more than tossing title tags, META descriptions and META tags into a Web site. Issues such as duplicate content (intentional or otherwise) can have a profound impact on your search success. You can easily address simple issues like duplicate content that will make or break a campaign. As I tell my team each month, "success is in the details!"

SOURCE

Google's Paid Search vs. Organic Results - A Rickety Wall of Separation

2007-11-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest…"

Investopedia.com

"While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results."

Google's Webmaster Help Center FAQ

"NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part."

Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004

The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results – that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?

You don't hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as "Google Hits Chinese Wall" or even "Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China" were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?

What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders?

It has long been rumored that Google will offer technical assistance in achieving better organic search engine placement to those who spend more for paid search results. I know for certain that these rumors are true in at least two instances. In fact, I actually have the minutes from one of these technical assistance meetings after the company met with Google engineers. While the identity of these two companies is irrelevant, suffice to say that they are companies that you have almost certainly heard of and that they spend millions of dollars on paid search words each year.

To be fair, based on the meeting minutes I have, the advice that the engineers gave to the company does not include anything groundbreaking. It is mostly common sense advice that a good search engine optimization firm already knows about organic search engine placement and other issues, and much of it is already covered in the publicly-available Google Webmaster Guidelines. This, however, is beside the point. Google has obviously decided that it must offer perks to its big paid search spenders to keep them happy (or rather, happy enough to not pull their advertising). Clearly, one of these perks is access to Google engineers and the ability to glean information about organic search engine placement, a luxury that smaller advertisers do not enjoy.

Organic Search Engine Placement for Sale – The New Google Reality?

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense, of course. Big-dollar advertisers make up the bulk of Google's revenue for paid search, and any intelligent business will take whatever steps they deem necessary to hold on to their most valuable customers. This is why larger advertisers already have a designated account representative from Google. I am willing to bet that this perk was not Google's idea. Rather, it almost certainly stemmed from the sense of entitlement that those spending large sums on paid search felt and the fact that technical help with their organic search engine placement is what they demanded.

Unfortunately, this reality leaves an advertiser with a small budget for paid search at a disadvantage. If Google is willing to offer this secret perk to larger advertisers now, what might they do in the future? Offer price breaks to larger paid search spenders? Increase the minimum monthly spend to squeeze out smaller companies and please the larger ones? It certainly has the potential to become a slippery slope, and I am interested to see where it goes next.

One final point – since Google is willing to give advice about organic search engine placement to companies that spend a great deal of money on Google advertising, is the phrase "While Google never sells better ranking in our search results…" truly accurate? I suppose this is open for interpretation. It may be technically true, but offering advice regarding organic search engine placement straight from the horse's mouth in exchange for millions of dollars in money for paid search results isn't far from selling rankings, in my opinion.

Conclusion

Please don't get me wrong – I still believe that Google is the best search engine out there, I greatly admire the way that they are continually reinventing themselves, and I think they are still the target for those seeking the most benefit from organic search engine placement. They have the folks in Redmond constantly guessing and always three steps behind, and I love how they have started from humble beginnings to take on one of the biggest corporations in the world (and consistently win). I simply believe that they have played the underdog, anti-corporate card for too long, and that even if it has not outlived its usefulness, it has outlived its truthfulness. Google is now a huge multinational corporation that answers to its shareholders. To pretend anything otherwise is silly, but it seems that, for now at least, the charade will continue.

Google's overriding principle, one that they have been happy to espouse to the media, has long been "Don't Be Evil." Whether they still adhere to this principle since they have become a public company is another question that is open for interpretation. If you are a smaller advertiser and feel that Google's favoritism toward larger paid search customers regarding organic search engine placement is evil, it probably seems as though the "Don't Be Evil" principle no longer applies. You may conclude that the principles of "Don't Be Evil" and "Keep Shareholders Happy" are mutually incompatible, and that the latter has gained the upper hand.

SOURCE

Google, The Anti-Advertising Advertising Company

2007-10-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

Google's a bit of a mystery to many marketers; how does a company rise to the position Google is in within the advertising industry without doing much advertising themselves?

This AP article goes into detail about how little Google spends on advertising compared to giant competitors like Microsoft and eBay, but neglects that Google does focus a bit on product placement and business-to-business advertising.

Anytime you see the Google logo in a movie or on TV, that's product placement, usually on the other side of an Apple notebook. Google advertises with WebProNews, for example, a business-to-business publication.

As for the business-to-consumer side of things, well, Google doesn't do much. Painfully little, actually. The aforementioned article paints it as a good thing – they keep some nice margins being the anti-advertising advertising company.

Perhaps Google is still a search company at heart, and not admitting its newfound role as advertising and media powerhouse, but the truth is, search and search advertising is the only space the company dominates.

And they've done that via word-of-mouth, winning the public by providing a search engine that works better than anybody else's. But what about the rest of their products?

Remember Google Base? Nobody outside this room does. It was never a contender, not even for a second a challenge to eBay. But that may be because Google relied mostly on what it most often relies on – word-of-mouth and press coverage.

Google Checkout is a bit more successful. Why? Because the company rather heavily promoted it last Christmas, and you can expect that again this Holiday Season, I'd imagine.

But in general, Google tosses products out there to sink or swim – Marissa Mayer just last year noted how they expected 80 percent of their products to fail. That's a really interesting way of going about your business, but not necessarily a good way.

They can afford a certain volume of failed products because their core product is and always will be search. But it seems strange to abandon good ideas by not promoting them. Heck, if Google's running two-thirds of all searches, it wouldn't be difficult to throw some text out there to promote other products.

Then again, they've made it to over $600 per share by doing what they do. Who am I to criticize? They're a big target and I've got a big mouth, but it seems to me a waste of product and opportunity for growth.

SOURCE

YouTube videos arrive in Google Earth

2007-10-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Google has added a YouTube layer to Google Earth allowing users to zoom in on any location on the planet and view YouTube videos related to that place.

For example, a trip to Maui offers videos of surfing, snorkelling and exotic sea life, while users who fly to Chamonix-Mont Blanc in France can watch videos filmed at the highest points of the Alps.

The YouTube layer is available in the Featured Content folder of Google Earth.

Google said that the integration offers a new way to experience destinations as seen through the eyes of YouTube users who have visited them.

The new service enables people to watch, hear and feel what is happening in locations they may never have otherwise visited.

Armchair tourists to Rome can now watch YouTube videos filmed at the Coliseum, for example, providing a "holistic experience and adding a new perspective for users" who enjoy looking at noteworthy locations from above through satellite imagery.

Users need to download the newest Google Earth client to use the functionality.

SOURCE

Number five is alive

2007-10-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Google has rolled out the fifth generation of its yellow Google search appliance, which give enterprise content systems secure search capabilities.

"When we launched the first Google search appliance five years ago, we had a vision to make search inside of business as simple and effective as searching on Google.com," said Dave Girouard, Google Enterprise boss in a statement.

"By combining Google's deep knowledge in search with more understanding and control for environments behind the firewall, we are helping businesses keep pace with the velocity of information."

The yellow rack-mount has come of age, according to Google's spin doctors, and now happily searches across 220 file formats and almost anything you can connect to server.

The fifth birthday announcement included talk of 'significant performance increases' in the SAML(Security Assertion Markup Language) -based authentication API (Application Programming Interface).

A new site has been rolled out for Google Enterprise Labs, which gives yellow-box-users a heads-up on new technologies, like DIY KeyMatch to pick particular pages for search terms.

SOURCE

Vodafone chief says Google phone will get lost in the crowd

2007-10-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, questioned the logic of a Google mobile phone yesterday, suggesting that it would struggle to distinguish itself in an already crowded handset market.

Mr Sarin claimed it was unclear what a “Google phone” would offer consumers. “What is it that is missing in life that they are going to fulfil?” he asked. “You can reach Google already through a number of devices. You don’t need a Google phone to do that.”

Speculation over a big push into mobile telecoms by the internet search giant has reached fever pitch over recent weeks. The group looks poised to launch its own, internet-enabled mobile handset equipped with tailor-made applications.

It has already fostered relationships with mobile phone companies including Vodafone, which offers Google internet search on its handsets. However, a much bigger push into the area seems likely, More than 20 per cent of mobile subscribers are set to have access to mobile internet at broadband speeds by the end of this year, making mobile the next battleground for advertisers.

Research by Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that the market for advertising on mobile phones is set to be worth more than $11.3 billion (£5.5 billion) a year in 2011.

Some analysts believe that Google could seek to bypass the mobile carriers and go it alone in mobile. Such speculation has been further fuelled by the internet giant’s recent indication of a potential $4.6 billion bid for a licence for wireless spectrum in the United States, which could be used to launch a mobile broadband network.

Alternatively, it could seek to persuade mobile phone companies to work with it. It has held talks with at least one mobile operator about its plans for a potential “GPhone”.

Arash Amel, an analyst at Screen Digest, said: “While the mobile companies and Google may see the benefits of working with each other, both sides will also be slightly suspicious of each other. At present, mobile operators very much have control of the end user in terms of the services they offer and what they charge. It is not as democratic as the internet, the traditional home of Google.”

Google, Mr Amel said, might be looking for a deal similar to that which was negotiated by Apple with O2 for the iPhone.

SOURCE

Multiply by seven: Google stock tops 600 dollars

2007-10-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AFP) — Google's stock price burst the 600 dollar barrier for the first time Monday after favorable reports on its business potential stoked investor appetite for its already pricey shares.

The Internet search giant's shares closed up 2.6 percent at 609.62 dollars after smashing through 600 dollars in morning trades. Its share price has now been multiplied by seven since its debut just over three years ago.

It latest price gains came after analysts at Bear Stearns, a Wall Street investment bank, said in a research report Friday that Google's stock could soar to 625 dollars by the end of the year.

The analysts said Google is continuing to gain market share in the highly competitive online search marketplace. They believe Google's stock price could strike 700 dollars by the end of 2008.

Other industry analysts are also ratcheting up their expectations for the Mountain View, California, based technology firm.

Analysts at Nollenberger Capital Partners said in report, also released Friday, that Google has been performing so well that it's prior earnings estimates for the company were likely too conservative.

"Beyond the near term there remains a wealth of untapped opportunity for Google in both the mobile advertising arena as well as in display advertising," the Nollenberger analysts wrote.

The upbeat assessments could not have come at a better time for Google which is due to release its third quarter earnings on October 18.

It reported profits of 925 million dollars in the second quarter and earnings per share of 2.93 dollars. Analysts expect its forthcoming profits to be even fatter.

Google makes the bulk of its money by selling online advertising. It collects lucrative revenues by charging advertisers every time an Internet user clicks on an advert displayed on Google's websites.

Its name has also become a verb, to Google, among computer users surfing the Internet for information.

Google has ballooned at breakneck speed since its founding by two former Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, into a multinational corporation with a market value of around 187 billion dollars.

Page and Brin incorporated Google in September 1998 using a garage in northern California as their first corporate base. Both men are members of Google's executive management group and have become billionaires since Google went public.

When the two founders took Google public in August 2004 its shares initially sold at 85 dollars. By the end of 2006, its stock had rocketed to 460 dollars, marking a staggering leap of 441 percent in just over two years.

The company has fueled its expansion through its own growth as well as mounting aggressive takeovers.

It is vying to take over online ad targeting company DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars, although the potential deal is being reviewed by government regulators.

Its growth is also being powered by its 2006 takeover of the popular video clip sharing website YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars. Google began running advertising on YouTube in late August.

Google announced a new initiative Monday with IBM which aims to promote new software development methods to better address large-scale computing. Several US universities are supporting the project.

Google started offering readers of its Internet news service direct access to AFP news stories in August after the two companies signed a licensing agreement.

SOURCE

Israeli and Indian nuclear and sensitive defense sites on Google Earth – should terrorists get a glimpse of the same?

2007-10-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Google Earth uses civilian satellite imagery to portray the details on the earth. It is now easy to find the key Israeli and Indian nuclear reactors. It is also easy to find key military and air force bases.

The biggest question hover in the minds of Israelis and Indians – ‘Given the fact both the countries are surrounded by Islamic Jihadists and terrorists, should Google Earth not reveal secrets of these countries?’

The Israeli defense ministry is concerned. So is the Indian military. Both countries are equally in danger of sabotage. While Google Earth is a great service for the common people, should the sensitive part be blocked from the common people?

Freedom speech and information revolution is great. But it has that gone too far to aid the terror operators in the world. Why do we go through severe checks before boarding a plane? We never mind because the last thing we want is to get blown up or hijacked by a terrorist.

SOURCE

Keep an eye on: Microsoft

2007-10-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

A $6 billion deal for online ad company aQuantive seems to have whetted Microsoft Corp’s appetite for big-ticket acquisitions. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, continuing to make headlines from his big European tour this week, says he won’t rule out new purchases of a similar size.

Are these the words of an even bolder, maybe bigger Microsoft? The same Microsoft that has been reportedly interested in buying a 5 percent stake in Facebook, before its too late, for $500 million?

All we know is that we keep populating our morning MediaFile notes with Microsoft moves, from a new and improved Zune music player to Ballmer’s expectation the company will dig deeper into the media world and cultivate about 25 percent of its business from advertising. The news hasn’t stopped rival Google from coming within kissing distance of a record $600 share price.

Keep an eye on:

Distributor Paramount Vantage delays release of the film “The Kite Runner” as it tries to get its three young stars out of Kabul for fear they will be targeted for their roles in the film about ethnic clashes in Afghanistan. (New York Times)
Verizon Communications is sued for overstating subscriber numbers to its FiOS video service and inflating advertising rates. (Reuters)
How soon they forget: Radio shock jock Don Imus is in talks with ABC Radio owner Citadel Broadcasting to return to the airwaves (Variety)
The three women whose complaints of discrimination at news and data provider Bloomberg LP spurred a federal lawsuit last week say Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is involved in running the company despite his public statements to the contrary. (NYT)
Gary Forsee, chief executive of Sprint Nextel, and other directors of the wireless carrier are coming under fire from activist investor Ralph Whitworth over large investments in the relatively untested WiMax technology and what he calls weak attention to its core cell phone business. (WSJ)
Yahoo, eBay work together to block e-mails bearing fake credentials to lure information from unwary users known as phishing attacks. (Reuters)

SOURCE

Germany seeks to derail Google DoubleClick deal

2007-10-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is the latest party to throw a spanner in the works of Google's proposed buyout of online advertising firm DoubleClick.

Thilo Weichert, Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, claimed that the $3.1bn (£1.52bn) merger will threaten user privacy.

Weichert insisted in an open letter to European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes that the merging of the two companies' databases would represent a real threat.

"At present we have to assume that, in the event of a takeover of DoubleClick, its databases will be integrated into Google's, with the result that fundamental provisions of the European Data Protection Directive will be violated," he said.

Weichert maintained that the link-up contravened the EU's fundamental data privacy principles, such as limited specific use, transparency, the right to object, the protection of sensitive data and the right to have data deleted.

The proposed merger has been criticised by the Electronic Privacy Information Center which filed an official complaint to the Federal Trade Commission in April.

Advertising rival Microsoft called for an antitrust investigation into the deal in April 2007, and the FTC announced a month later that it would investigate the merger.

SOURCE

Google Removes AdWords From Orkut!

2007-10-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Back in August, we reported that, "Google.br Might Face Shut Down For Not Releasing Orkut Users' Details" also, there was news about how "Google Removed Fake 'derogatory and malicious' Orkut Profile of Indian Chief Minister".

Now, WSJ reports, that, "Google said advertising appeared on only 1% of Orkut pages and represented a "test" of online marketing on the social-networking site, which is especially popular in Brazil and India. The move came after a Brazilian nonprofit group, SaferNet, lodged a complaint with a Brazilian advertising body."

Loren Baker says that, "Pulling the AdWords ads in Orkut is a smart move by Google until they can learn how to better police the content being served on the Google property, and target their advertising accordingly."

Microsoft softens tone on Doubleclick/Google deal

2007-10-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

Microsoft on Tuesday softened its criticism of Google's planned $3.1 billion (1.5 billion pound) acquisition of online advertiser DoubleClick which it had claimed earlier would give the search engine group a dominant position.

"The question is not for Microsoft to have specific views (on this deal)...As in all markets, it is for the regulator to see if the competition is right," Jean-Philippe Courtois, head of Microsoft International told journalists in Paris.

Last week, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said Google's deal would make the web search company "the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of advertising" and it would be "bad for consumers."

Courtois on Tuesday said Microsoft was keen to take an active part in the $40 billion digital marketing market which he said, citing analysts, was forecast to double in three years.

He forecast the online advertising market was growing between 15-20 percent a year worldwide while the global advertising market gained only between 2 percent and 3 percent.

"We plan to participate in this big market," Courtois said.

Microsoft recently bought DoubleClick's competitor Aquantive for $6 billion, one of the largest deals in a recent wave of consolidation in the sector.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who delivered a speech on innovation at the French parliament on Tuesday, declined to comment on whether the US software giant planned to appeal a fine imposed by Brussels.

"We have nothing to say," he told Reuters.

Last month, the European Union's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg upheld a landmark 2004 European Commission decision and a 497 million-euro fine against Microsoft for illegal business practices that violated antitrust law.

"We respect the decisions that have been taken by the European Commission," Courtois would only add after Ballmer refused to comment.

SOURCE.

A Scavenger Hunt Google Earth Style

2007-10-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

Google updated a "significant amount" of its Google Earth satellite images today with new high-resolution images. Most of the images are concentrated in the U.S., Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Australia and New Zealand, Google says.

This could means the Google Earth image of your house that was previously blurry or outdated may be sharp enough to make out you barbecuing in the backyard.

Google however isn't making it easy for those interested in flying over new satellite imagery. Instead Google is only hinting where the updates are. If you find any of new imagery let me know.

Here are Google"s hints:

1) I don't mean to "flatter," but this remote Northwestern cape is very beautiful.
Answer: Cape Flattery (Google Earth coordinates: 48.343200, -124.609000)

2) You can now explore the ruins of this ancient Mayan city, first discovered in 1934.

3) This small Peruvian village attracts many tourists each year for the Incan ruins atop nearby hills.

4) This city claims to be the southernmost city in the world, with approximately 64,000 residents.

5) Home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, this city is also Russia's largest Pacific coast harbor.

6) Named after Saint Irene, though sometimes referred to as Thera, this island is a popular Greek tourist destination.

7) The Trojan horse from the 2004 movie Troy is visible in this city.

8) This city is the second most populated metropolitan area in Africa, second to Cairo.

9) For better or for worse, the testing done at this site changed the world forever. In 1965 it was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

10) Odessos was the original name of this large city, then a trading colony.

11) This was the first port on the Shandong peninsula to be opened to the west in the 1800s.

Google says the images will be available through Google Maps shortly.

SOURCE.

How Is MSN Losing $1 Billion A Year?

2007-10-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

According to Henry Blodget (I know, I know, Henry Blodget on a Web company losing money -- insert irony here), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s MSN is losing $1 billion a year. That's right, $1 billion.

How on earth is MSN burning cash like this? Here's a look:

Did you know that MSN is currently losing about $1 billion a year (run-rate)? That's right, $1 billion. On about $2.2 billion of advertising revenue. (See this page for details). Unless Microsoft's disappearing access business is losing a lot of money -- which we doubt -- all of the division's losses are attributable to the advertising and media business. That means that MSN is losing nearly $.50 for every $1 of advertising it sells.

How does this compare with MSN's online rivals? Terribly. Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s profit run-rate is $4.4 billion on $16 billion of revenue. Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)'s run-rate is $750 million, on $7 billion in revenue. Even fellow-cellar-dweller AOL is printing cash: $1 billion profit pace, on about $2.1 billion of revenue. All those companies are making money hand over first. Microsoft is shoveling it down a rat hole.

If you follow Blodget's link to his handy-dandy Google Spreadsheet, you can see that MSN was profitable just two years ago. Then in 2006, it jumped the shark into the red and hasn't looked back. At its current rate, MSN could well lose $1 billion this year.

Given the explosion of the online ad market, this is insane. Given that Google will make $4.4 billion on $16 billion and that Yahoo will make $750 million on $7 billion, it's even crazier.

What I find really interesting about this post is that it reveals the disconnect between the business realities of MSN and the blogosphere. If you were to ask most bloggers which of these three businesses -- Google, Yahoo, or MSN -- should be scrapped, most would answer Yahoo (I base this estimate on the amount of anecdotal feedback I have received every time I ask this question to a well-intentioned Webhead). But based on these numbers, MSN is clearly the business that's most in trouble and in need of an intervention of a sell off.

What's scarier is that Microsoft doesn't seem to have any kind of clue about how to save MSN. I guess this explains why Microsoft hasn't been competing with Google or Yahoo on the acquisition front these days. How can you justify buying a company to add to an operation that loses this kind of money?

How can Microsoft continue to throw money down the drain that is MSN? Should the company just call it quits and sell off the assets? Or should it focus on running a profitable business and leave the rat race to Google and Yahoo? What do you think?

SOURCE.

OpenURL Referrer (3)

2007-10-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Overview: Converts bibliographic citations to URLs. Compatible with Google Scholar, Google News Archive, and any site containing COinS. There are many web sites that include citations to scholarly works. It would be useful to producers of such sites to have their citations be clickable, taking the reader directly to the fulltext of the source being cited.

Of course, these sources may be copyright-protected, and only available on the web via subscription-based services. However, you may be able to access these resources through your local library's Web site if it subscribes to such a service. OpenURL Referrer is a Firefox browser extension that can take certain kinds of citations on the Web and convert them to direct links to the cited resource in one of your local library's databases.

This can be accomplished thanks to OpenURL, a powerful technology that packages bibilographic information into a format that many internet services can understand. OpenURL Referrer will insert OpenURLs into the results pages for Google Scholar and Google News Archive, and can also activate COinS (Contect Objects in SPANs). This version is the first release on CNET Download.com.

(Is this item miscategorized? Does it need more tags? Let us know.)

Samsung CEO Yun Picks Google as New Role Model

2007-10-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Google's newly launched virtual telescope service might have impressed Samsung Electronics chief executive as he looked for a way to explain the reforms taking place in the company.

Yun Jong-yong, CEO and vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, said Monday in his monthly speech that Google Sky, a free navigational package of celestial images, was a product of a ``creative corporate culture'' _ a theme that he and Chairman Lee Kun-hee has been stressing all year.

``Vice chairman Yun stressed that the company should create new values with unique products and services that can fulfill the customers' potential needs, and he took Google Earth's Sky service as an example of this,'' the company said in a release on Monday.

In its early days, Samsung took Sony as its role model and tried to imitate the Japanese company's success in the electronics manufacturing industry. But after its revenue finally exceeded that of Sony in 2005, Chairman Lee urged the firm to adopt the mentality of a leader instead of that of a fast follower, while looking for a new role model for the firm.

Yun's remarks also came at a time amid rising tension among employees of Korea's largest company. As its profit shrank from last year especially in its semiconductor business, Samsung is going through a series of intense audits and restructuring, letting go hundreds of mid-level managers and shuffling top executives.

The mood of urgency heightened last week. Chairman Lee Kun-hee, a usually reserved person, was reported to have reproached Hwang Chang-gyu, chief of the semiconductor team, for more than 10 minutes in public while they were attending an in-house exhibition in July.

Hwang and Yun have often been the subjects of rumors that they will be made scapegoats at the end of the year for the division's stagnant performance. Yun has long served as the right-hand man of Chairman Lee, retaining the title of vice chairman for nine years and raising the company into one of the world's most respected electronics makers.

``All executives and employees have to get rid of their old habits, and exert themselves to create and implement creative ideas,'' Yun said in the monthly speech, according to the PR office. ``Creativity comes from failure. We should reform our corporate culture to forgive failure if workers did their best.''

Samsung is known as a hardcore manufacturing company notorious for its long working hours, while being highly popular for handing out handsome bonuses to workers based on the performance of their department. On the other hand, Google is considered an archetype of the Silicon Valley-style, with a relaxed corporate culture, as shown in its popular slogans such as ``Don't be eveil'' or ``You can be serious without a suit''

Google Sky is the latest add-on to Google Earth, the famous free satellite image service. Using high-resolution photos obtained from observatories and giant telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the service allows users to navigate through constellations and zoom in on more than one million stars and 200 million galaxies as if a person is looking into a giant telescope from his backyard.

SOURCE.

Google Earth Forces the Navy to Do Some Remodeling

2007-10-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

The Naval Base Coronado near San Diego has gone unnoticed since it's groundbreaking in 1967. Then Google Earth had to come in and ruin everything. The satellite mapping site revealed to the public that, from the air, the structure was shaped like a swastika (oops!). Turns out that the Navy knew about this all along, but since the airspace over the Navy yard is restricted they thought no one would ever notice. Well, the Anti-Defamation League did. According to the New York Times:

“We told the Navy this was an incredibly inappropriate shape for a structure on a military installation,” said Morris S. Casuto, regional director of the organization. He added, however, that his group “never ascribed evil intent to the structures’ design.”

Now the Navy is speding $600,000 to tweak the roof via landscaping and structural adjustments. May I suggest a green roof?

SOURCE.

Google, Microsoft To Spar Over DoubleClick Deal

2007-10-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Google Inc. (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) traded barbs Thursday over the antitrust and privacy concerns raised by Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick Inc.

In prepared testimony released before a Senate committee hearing, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith assailed the deal. Allowing Google to acquire DoubleClick, an online advertising broker, "raises serious questions," he said. "If [they] are allowed to merge, Google will become the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising," Smith said. "It will substantially reduce the ability of others to compete."

Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, also in prepared testimony, said the deal doesn't raise antitrust concerns. Google and DoubleClick are complementary businesses that do not compete with each other, he said.

"DoubleClick is to Google what FedEx or UPS is to Amazon.com," Drummond said.

Both Drummond and Smith are set to testify Thursday afternoon before a Senate judiciary anitrust subcommittee that is reviewing the deal. That oversight is in addition to a review of the acquisition by antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission.

The hearing is being overseen by Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat whose reaction to the testimony is important to the future of the deal. Earlier this year, Kohl criticized the combination of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XMSR) following a similar hearing.

Microsoft, which lost out to Google in trying to acquire DoubleClick, is one of a number of Internet and telecom companies that oppose the deal. Joined by firms such as AT&T Inc. (T), Microsoft contends the merger would give Google control of the expanding online advertising market.

"Given the nature and economics of online advertising, this concentration of user information means that no other company will be able to target ads as profitably," Smith said.

Drummond noted in his testimony, however, that there have been a number of recent deals involving online advertising firms - including Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive.

"These acquisitions are strong signals that the market believes this space has lots of room for growth and competition," Drummond said.

In addition to antitrust issues, Smith also raised concerns about the potential Internet privacy concerns raised by the merger. Both companies compile a significant amount of consumer data, and critics have been wary of one company maintaining control over such a large database of information.

"With this merger, Google seeks to record almost everything you see and do on the Internet and use that information to target ads," Smith said.

Drummond outlined a number of steps Google has taken, and will take, to ensure the privacy of consumer information.

"Google's bottom line is this: We believe deeply in protecting online users' privacy," Drummond said in the remarks.

Standard & Poor's kept its "hold" rating on shares of Google ahead of the hearing, noting the political pressure to rein in the Internet giant.

"Importantly, we believe there is a risk that this critical transaction will be blocked," S&P analyst Scott Kessler said in a note.

A backdrop to the hearing is an ongoing feud between the two firms. This summer Google filed a complaint with the federal government over Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, contending it violated the terms of Microsoft's 2002 antitrust settlement. The complaint was resolved after Microsoft agreed to update Windows Vista to accomodate other desktop search functions.

AT&T is opposed to the combination in part because it is one of the largest advertisers in the U.S. Additionally, the telecom tian has sparred with Google over the issue of network neutrality. Google has been one of the most outspoken tech firms in favor of government legislation on the issue, which AT&T opposes.

SOURCE.

What is Google AdSense?

2007-09-25T08:47:00.001-07:00

Google AdSense is a free advertising network that lets you sell advertising space on your website. Whenever a visitor to your site clicks on an advert, you earn money. The adverts are not just randomly chosen ads - they are relevant to your site's content.

As you can see on this website, the adverts are contextually chosen relative to the page content by the Google index spider / crawler. Also, they are dead easy to implement - just choose a few settings like colour from Google and copy and paste the HTML code it generates.

Where do Google AdSense ads come from? They come from the massive Google AdWords network. Whenever you perform a Google search or view a message in GMail, target ads appear at the side and top which are sponsored by the millions of AdWords advertisers. The advertisers bid on specific keywords for their adverts to appear for and each time your ads are loaded, there is an auction to see which ads for the keywords on your site will give you the best return. When somebody clicks on one of your ads, Google gets paid by the advertiser and a secret percentage is given to you, the publisher (apparently it is about 50%).

This is a great way to make money online from blogs and other websites. There are many factors in creating a successful ad-supported web site which will be covered soon.

Google Adsense Revenue Equation

2007-09-25T08:46:00.001-07:00

There are many factors that govern how much money you can make. These can be summarized in the following equation. Although not all of the factors are equal, you need to make sure that you work on all of them:

Google Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels × High Paying Ads × Ad Position × Relevant Ads × Ad Design

Traffic Levels:

It seems simple enough - the more traffic that you get, the more chance that somebody will click on an advert. Try and write some pillar articles that get high on search results for certain keywords. Also, try to get Slashdotted. Having an article Slashdotted will bring a day of seriously high traffic (hope your server can cope). A lot of image ads and site-targeted ads as well as text ads are CPM. This means that your are paid for each time the advert is viewed. Having regulars is important as well, so write GREAT CONTENT.

High Paying Ads:

Obviously, the more paid for an ad, the more you get. You need keyword targeting! You might like to follow the AdWords set up and see what sort of prices are paid for certain keywords. You need to select a high-paying topic (about technology not toothpicks!). Also, make sure you sign up for image ads which have a larger CPC. Have a go - it's mainly trial and error and won't be easy.

Ad Position:

Don't hide your ads! Make them close by. You have the choice of where to place your Google AdSense ads. Put them in text flow or at the end of long articles.

Relevant Ads:

You really need to make sure that your ads are relevant to the topic or your CTR will be way low. Without keyword spamming, try using the tips in the keyword post. Make sure there are ads for your topic out there, check your sidebars for unneeded text, and use section targeting. That should be it.

Ad Design:

The amazing thing about AdSense ads is that you choose the design. One Adsenser said that all ads should be on a bright red background with yellow text as the colors of McDonalds bring out an urge to buy. Contrasting ads work but the way most people make money is by making the ads blend and look like part of the site. Experiment with all different shapes, colors and sizes. Only you can find out what works for your site.

WARNING: - You may not see an instant increase in money and your income will be limited by the weakest element. If you have great ad visibility but badly paying ads, you won't make money.

Google X

2007-09-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Re-designed Google search homepage, using a Mac OS style interface. It appeared in Google Labs, but was removed the following day for undisclosed reasons.

Writely

2007-09-24T09:46:00.002-07:00

Web-based word processor created by software company Upstartle, who were acquired by Google on March 9, 2006. On October 10, 2006, Writely was merged into Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Google Mini

2007-09-24T09:46:00.001-07:00

Reduced capacity and less expensive version of the Google Search Appliance

Google Search Appliance

2007-09-24T09:45:00.004-07:00

Hardware device that can be hooked to corporate intranets for indexing/searching of company files.

Zeitgeist

2007-09-24T09:45:00.003-07:00

Collection of lists of the most frequent search queries. There are weekly, monthly and yearly lists, as well as topic and country specific lists.

Trends

2007-09-24T09:45:00.001-07:00

Graph plotting application for Web Search statistics, showing the popularity of particular search terms over time. Multiple terms can be shown at once. Results can also be displayed by city, region or language. Related news stories are also shown.

Gapminder

2007-09-24T09:44:00.001-07:00

Data trend viewing platform to make nations' statistics accessible on the internet in an animated, interactive graph form.

Google Analytics

2007-09-24T09:43:00.002-07:00

Traffic statistics generator for defined websites, with strong AdWords integration. Webmasters can optimize their ad campaigns, based on the statistics that are given. Analytics is based on the Urchin software and the new version released in May 2007 integrates improvements based on Measure Map.

Web Search

2007-09-24T09:43:00.001-07:00

Web search engine, which is Google's core product. It was the company's first creation, coming out of beta on September 21, 1999, and remains their most popular and famous service. It receives 1 billion requests a day and is the most used search engine on the Internet.

Web History

2007-09-24T09:42:00.002-07:00

Web page tracking, which records Google searches, Web pages, images, videos, music and more. It also includes Bookmarks, search trends and item recommendations.

Voice Local Search

2007-09-24T09:42:00.001-07:00

Non-premium phone service for searching and contacting local businesses

Google Video

2007-09-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

Video search engine and online store for clips internally submitted by companies and the general public. Google's main video partnerships include agreements with CBS, NHL and the NBA. Also searches videos posted on YouTube.

U.S. Government Search

2007-09-24T09:40:00.002-07:00

Search engine and Personalized Homepage that exclusively draws from sites with a .gov TLD.

University Search

2007-09-24T09:40:00.001-07:00

Listings for search engines for University websites.

Google Suggest

2007-09-24T09:39:00.001-07:00

Auto-completion in search results while typing to give popular searches.

SMS

2007-09-24T09:38:00.003-07:00

Mobile phone short message service offered by Google in several countries, including the USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, Spain and formerly the UK. It allows search queries to be sent as a text message. The results are sent as a reply, with no premium charge for the service.

Sets

2007-09-24T09:38:00.001-07:00

List of items generated when the user enters a few examples. For example, entering "Green, Purple, Red" produces the list "Green, Purple, Red, Blue, Black, White, Yellow, Orange, Brown."

SearchMash

2007-09-24T09:37:00.001-07:00

Search engine that means to "test innovative user interfaces." Among its features are the ability to display image results on the same page as web results, feedback about features, and continuous scrolling results. Aside from its privacy policy and terms of service, there is no Google branding on the site.

Scholar

2007-09-24T09:36:00.002-07:00

Search engine for the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and scholarly fields. Today, the index includes virtually all peer-reviewed journals available online, except those published by Elsevier, the world's largest scientific publisher.

Rebang

2007-09-24T09:36:00.001-07:00

Google China's search trend site, similar to Google Zeitgeist. Currently part of Google Labs.

Product Search

2007-09-24T09:35:00.002-07:00

Price engine that searches online stores, including auctions, for products.

Patent Search

2007-09-24T09:35:00.001-07:00

Search engine to search through millions of patents, each result with its own page, including drawings, claims and citations.

News Archive Search

2007-09-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

Feature within Google News, that allows users to browse articles from over 200 years ago.

Google News

2007-09-24T09:33:00.002-07:00

Automated news compilation service and search engine for news. There are versions of the aggregator for more than 20 languages. While the selection of news stories is fully automated, the sites included are selected by human editors.

Music Trends

2007-09-24T09:33:00.001-07:00

Music ranking of the songs played with iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player and Yahoo Music. Trends are generated by Google Talk's "share your music status" feature.

Movies

2007-09-24T09:32:00.002-07:00

A specialised search engine that obtains Film showing times near a user-entered location as well as providing reviews of films compiled from several different websites,

Life Search

2007-09-24T09:32:00.001-07:00

Search engine tailored towards everyday needs, such as train times, recipes and housing.

Language Tools

2007-09-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

Collection of linguistic applications, including one that allows users to translate text or web pages from one language to another, and another that allows searching in web pages located in a specific country or written in a specific language.

Image search

2007-09-24T09:30:00.002-07:00

Image search engine, with results based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image and text adjacent to the image. When searching, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed.

Image Labeler

2007-09-24T09:30:00.001-07:00

Game that induces participants to submit valid descriptions (labels) of images in the web, in order to later improve Image Search.

Groups

2007-09-24T09:29:00.002-07:00

Web and e-mail discussion service and Usenet archive. Users can join a group, make a group, publish posts, track their favorite topics, write a set of group web pages updatable by members and share group files. In January, 2007, version 3 of Google Groups was released. New features include the ability to create customized pages and share files.

Finance

2007-09-24T09:29:00.001-07:00

Searchable US business news, opinion, and financial data. Features include company-specific pages, blog search, interactive charts, executives information, discussion groups and a portfolio.

Experimental Search

2007-09-24T09:28:00.003-07:00

Options for testing new interfaces whilst searching with Google, including Timeline views and keyboard shortcuts.

Code Search

2007-09-24T09:27:00.003-07:00

Search engine for programming code found on the Internet.

Checkout

2007-09-24T09:27:00.001-07:00

Online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Webmasters can choose to implement Google Checkout as a form of payment.

Catalogs

2007-09-24T09:26:00.002-07:00

Search engine for over 6,600 print catalogs, which are acquired through Optical character recognition.

Book Search

2007-09-24T09:26:00.001-07:00

Search engine for the full text of printed books. Google scans and stores in its digital database. The content that is displayed depends on the arrangement with the publishers, ranging from short extracts to entire books.

Blog search

2007-09-24T09:25:00.001-07:00

Weblog search engine, with a continuously-updated search index. Results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger. Results can be viewed and filtered by date.

Google Base

2007-09-24T09:24:00.000-07:00

Google submission database, that enables content owners to submit content, have it hosted and make it searchable. Information within the database is organized using attributes.

Google Alerts

2007-09-24T09:23:00.002-07:00

E-mail notification service, which sends alerts based on chosen search terms, whenever there are new results. Alerts include web results, Groups results and news.

Accessible Search

2007-09-24T09:23:00.001-07:00

Search engine for the blind and visually impaired. It prioritizes usable and accessible web sites in the search results, so the user incurs minimal distractions when browsing.

Google Transit

2007-09-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Public transport trip planning through the Google Maps interface. Google Transit was released on December 7, 2005, and is currently available in nine cities.

Google Ride Finder

2007-09-24T09:21:00.002-07:00

Taxi, limousine and shuttle search service, using real time position of vehicles in 14 US cities. Ride Finder uses the Google Maps interface and cooperates with any car service that wishes to participate.

Google Maps

2007-09-24T09:21:00.001-07:00

Mapping service that indexes streets and satellite imagery, providing driving directions and local business search.

Webmaster Tools

2007-09-24T09:20:00.003-07:00

Sitemap submission and analysis for the Sitemaps protocol. Renamed from Google Sitemaps to cover broader features, including query statistics and robots.txt analysis.

Mashup Editor

2007-09-24T09:20:00.001-07:00

Web Mashup creation with publishing facilities, as well as syntax highlighting and debugging.

Google Gears

2007-09-24T09:19:00.003-07:00

An extension for Firefox and a plug-in for Internet Explorer that supports offline access to web applications.

Google Co-Op

2007-09-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

Platform for users to expand and apply Google Search to specific sites and topics, using Custom Search Engine, Subscribed Links and Topics.

Google Code

2007-09-24T09:18:00.001-07:00

Google's site for developers interested in Google-related development. The site contains Open Source code and lists of their API services.

YouTube

2007-09-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

Popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. In October 2006, Google, Inc., announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion USD in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.

Questions and Answers

2007-09-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Community-driven knowledge market website. Launched on June 26, 2007 that allows users to ask and answer questions posed by other users.

Shared Stuff

2007-09-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Web page sharing system, incorporating a Share bookmarklet to share pages, as well as a page for viewing the most popular shared items. Pages can also be shared through third party applications, such as del.icio.us or Facebook.

Google Reader

2007-09-23T08:43:00.001-07:00

Web-based news aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds. It allows the user to search, import and subscribe to feeds. The service also embeds audio enclosures in the page. Major revisions to Google Reader were made in October 2006.

Page Creator

2007-09-23T08:42:00.001-07:00

Webpage-publishing program, which can be used to create pages and to host them on Google's servers.

Orkut

2007-09-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Social networking service, where users can list their personal and professional information, create relationships amongst friends and join communities of mutual interest. In November 2006, Google opened Orkut registration to everyone, instead of being invitation only.

Marratech e-Meeting

2007-09-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

Web conferencing software, used internally by Google's employees. Google acquired the software from creator Marratech on April 19, 2007. Google has not yet stated what it will do with the product.

Notebook

2007-09-23T06:08:00.001-07:00

Web clipping application for saving online research. The tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from pages while browsing, save them online, access them from any computer, and share them with others.

JotSpot

2007-09-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

Application wiki company that offers enterprise social software and was founded by Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer, co-founders of Excite. The product is targeted mainly to small and medium-sized businesses. It was acquired by Google on October 31, 2006.

Joga Bonito

2007-09-23T03:35:00.001-07:00

Soccer community site, similar to services such as MySpace, in that each member has a profile, and can join groups based on shared interests. The service allows a user to meet other fans, create games and clubs, access athletes from Nike, and watch and upload video clips and photos.

iGoogle

2007-09-23T03:34:00.003-07:00

Customizable homepage, which can contain Web feeds and Google Gadgets, launched in May 2005. It was renamed to iGoogle on April 30, 2007 (previously used internally by Google).

GrandCentral

2007-09-23T03:34:00.001-07:00

Free voice communications product that includes a POTS telephone number. It includes a follow-me service that allows the user to forward their GrandCentral phone number to simultaneously ring up to 6 other phone numbers. It also features a unified voice mail service.

Gadgets

2007-09-23T03:33:00.003-07:00

Mini-applications designed to display information or provide a function in a succinct manner. Available in Universal or Desktop format.

FeedBurner

2007-09-23T03:33:00.001-07:00

News feed management services, including feed traffic analysis and advertising facilities.

Dodgeball

2007-09-23T03:32:00.003-07:00

Social networking site built specifically for use on mobile phones. Users text their location to the service, which then notifies them of crushes, friends, friends' friends and interesting venues nearby.

Google Docs

2007-09-23T03:32:00.001-07:00

Document, spreadsheet and presentation application, with document collaboration and publishing capabilities.

Google Calendar

2007-09-23T03:31:00.000-07:00

Free online calendar. It includes a unique "quick add" function which allows users to insert events using natural language input. Other features include Gmail integration and calendar sharing. It is similar to those offered by Yahoo! and MSN.

Blogger

2007-09-23T03:30:00.004-07:00

Weblog publishing tool. Users can create a custom, hosted blogs with features such as photo publishing, comments, group blogs, blogger profiles and mobile-based posting with little technical knowledge.

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What is Google AdSense?

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Google X

Writely

Google Mini

Google Search Appliance

Zeitgeist

Trends

Gapminder

Google Analytics

Web Search

Web History

Voice Local Search

Google Video

U.S. Government Search

University Search

Google Suggest

SMS

Sets

SearchMash

Scholar

Rebang

Product Search

Patent Search

News Archive Search

Google News

Music Trends

Movies

Life Search

Language Tools

Image search

Image Labeler

Groups

Finance

Experimental Search

Directory

Code Search

Checkout

Catalogs

Book Search

Blog search