google posts

Filed under: Internet, Google, Microsoft

You spend more time on MSN Messenger than ANYTHING else

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 7th 2009

MSN Messenger, scraped right off the MSN site. Thanks, MS.

To some of you, this might be a shock. To the rest of you that prey on poor, unsuspecting girls with webcams... not so surprised.

Apparently 14.5% of all online time is spent on MSN Live Messenger -- 14.5% of 27 billion total hours.

To put it into perspective, the next biggest service is Facebook at at 5.2% with YouTube coming in third at 4.4% (and Google's biggest slice of the online pie.)

One has to wonder if people with Messenger logged in in the background counts towards the total -- I imagine it does. So the totals are probably somewhat skewed -- but in either case, you can find all of the data on the original comScore report. Perhaps most impressive is Facebook's 200% climb in usage since the same time last year!

[via SeattlePi]

Tags: google, microsoft, msn messenger, MsnMessenger, online

Filed under: Internet, Google

Google's new Commerce Search helps you find holiday gifts faster!

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 6th 2009

Google sure knows how to time its innovations. Just in time for the holiday rush, Google have a new search tool -- but not for shoppers like you or I, at least not directly. No, this one's for businesses themselves; it's an enterprise product that straps onto existing online shops! (Sorry, I like anything that sounds vaguely Star Trekkie.)

Citing the ol' chestnut that most visitors spend on average just eight seconds before deciding if it's the right site for them or not, Google's Commerce Search replaces any kind of built-in search engine that an e-commerce shop might already have installed. Rather than hosted locally, it's hosted up in the big Google cloud, so as business gradually increases in the weeks up until Christmas, the Commerce Search will remain quick and snappy, not buckling under the increased load!

And as you all know, Google prides itself on the accuracy of its results -- so being able to search a shop quickly and reliably for the gift you want can only be a good thing for us this Christmas.

There's a lot more info over on the Google Blog itself, so go take a look.

Tags: e-commerce, google, search, shopping

Filed under: OS Updates, News, Web services, Google, Open Source

Google's new Dashboard sure would tie in nicely to Android, Chrome OS

by Lee Mathews Nov 5th 2009

When a few blog sites yesterday happened upon Google's YouTube video of the new Dashboard, they moved quickly to pull it down. Though the original video is still MIA, Google made an official announcement of the new feature on their own blog last night and the video above is now ready for public consumption.

While Dashboard is now live -- you can check yours out at

https://www.google.com/dashboard -- what's being talked about by most sites is how this move is all about transparency and privacy controls. Heck, even the official post hits on those points: "In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard."

The post continues, "Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings."

That's fantastic, and I'm sure it's a big part of the story, but I can't help thinking that there's a tie-in to other Google projects. Perhaps Chrome OS and Android, for example?

Tags: android, chrome, chrome os, ChromeOs, dashboard, google

Filed under: Security, Web services, Google

Google hates passwords, wants you to sign up for sites without them

by Jay Hathaway Nov 4th 2009

Do you hate having to remember different passwords for every site you sign up for? Google sympathizes. They're working on a way to let you keep far fewer passwords in your life on the web. It's actually something that sites like Plaxo and Facebook already do: allowing you to register for a site by sharing information from an existing account (like your Gmail, for example).

The information never gets stored by the new site you're signing up for, so using your existing credentials is both convenient and secure. Plus, you don't get one of those annoying email messages asking you to confirm your account. (Is it just me, or do those things get marked as spam most of the time, anyway?)

Google's working on some code that will let companies offer this service - it's called "hybrid onboarding," technically - to their users. It's not going to have an immediate impact, but I hope this will cause more sites to get on board with hybrid onboarding and ditch the annoying signup processes and endless passwords.

[via AppScout]

Tags: facebook, google, password, plaxo, registration

Filed under: Internet, Google, Search

That annoying site-preview thing on Wordpress blogs -- now also on Google searches!

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 3rd 2009

... but, in true Google fashion, it's less annoying and invasive! Hooray!

Google keeps rolling out the big guns to their search service -- which is good, as people might've been beginning to think that Google has their attention on other things. But no, Google has their attention on everything. Fingers in every pie.

Today, if you're in a subset of Google's users, you can now choose even more ways to display your search results. You've probably noticed that 'More Options' button in the top left corner -- well now, at the bottom of that list, there are now the following options:

More text -- you can get a good 50-100 words from each page now, without having to click through!
Images from the page -- this option shows you a couple of images from each search result. I'm sure there's a good use for this, I just haven't worked it out yet.
Page previews -- the big one! Now you get a little thumbnail showing you what the target page looks like.

And that's about it. Some of you will have none of the above options -- and if you're like me, I have all of the options on my laptop, but only two of them on my desktop. I have no idea why -- I guess they are all being gradually unfurled.

Tags: google, search

Filed under: Internet, Google, Open Source

Google come in peace... Wave Federation now activated

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 3rd 2009

I'm not quite ready to reveal just how geeky I am, so I'll spare you the massive deluge of Star Trek jokes. My apologies in advance if one or two slip past your shields.

Anyway... Over on the Google Wave Developer Blog they've just announced that they're ready to start implementing the federation of Wave servers. This doesn't mean a whole lot to most of us, only that it means the Borg Collectiv-- er, The Google Wave Team, is plodding ever onwards, driven by its impulse engines towards some kind of epic singularity where all email servers will be wiped out and replaced with Wave servers.

And what a glorious day that will be. But yeah, if you're a developer -- or ISP? -- now's the time to get in there and integrate your experimental Wave server with Google's sandbox! With the open specification and open source nature of Wave it will be interesting to see what other developers are hiding up their sleeves

[On a side note, our great Google Wave invite giveaway was a great success. There should be more news about that later today -- and the lucky winners should start to receive their invites in the next few days!]

Tags: communication, federation, google, wave

Filed under: Internet, Google, Search

Don't stop believing. ANOTHER Google search enhancement -- music this time!

by Sebastian Anthony Oct 28th 2009

Did you know that 'lyrics' is the most searched term on Google in the last five years? Lyrics! Of all things! Not porn, not news, not even games -- but lyrics. And Google, de facto masters of search, know that there's more to search than merely quality or quantity or veracity -- it's about getting the results, when you want them -- i.e. right now. They call it 'time to result': How long does it take to find what you're looking for? If you search for 'Journey', there's a fairly good chance that you're looking for a Journey video or lyrics, and not a journey-planning site -- and that's what their latest search feature brings you.

You don't even need to know the song title -- if Google can match your lyric fragment against a song, it'll pop up at the top of your search results. Neat.

Google might've been developing this one for some time, but instead of implementing their own library of music and needlessly repeating a vast wealth of data already out there on the Internet, Google have partnered with Pandora, imeem and Rhapsody to give you direct links to the songs and artists you're searching for. Rejoice! No longer are we limited to shoddy-quality live videos on YouTube! But how long will it be before Google sets its sights on the music equivalent of YouTube? Lee called this one a yawner -- but I think this might be the best of Google's newly-released features.

Tags: google, google music, GoogleMusic, music, streaming

Filed under: Utilities, Google, Mobile, Android

Google Maps brings GPS navigation to Android 2.0 phones

by Jay Hathaway Oct 28th 2009

As if we weren't already excited enough about the next version of Google's Android mobile OS, Google has now announced that Android 2.0 devices will offer GPS navigation with 3D views and turn-by-turn directions. Google Maps Navigation looks great, and it's a smack in the face to Apple, who seem to been distancing themselves from Google after buying their own mapping company. The iPhone is cool, but it's hard to beat Google Maps at its own game.

It's especially hard when Google's offering practically everything you get from a pricey GPS navigation unit, right in your Android phone. 3D maps, live traffic updates, and voice directions are all included, along with Google's Street View and Satellite view. When it comes out next week, the Verizon Droid will be the first phone to support the new navigation features. For right now, it'll only work in the United States, but other countries with Google Maps should get it eventually.

Tags: android, google, google maps, google maps navigation, GoogleMaps, GoogleMapsNavigation

Filed under: OS Updates, Google, Op-Ed

Clearing the air (again) about what Google Chrome OS is and isn't

by Lee Mathews Oct 28th 2009

Thanks in no small part to an errant Gizmodo post this morning, the blogosphere is once again atwitter with musings of a "leaked" Chrome OS build that we can all download and enjoy.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. First and foremost, the "build" they're talking about is a fan-built Linux distro with Chrome bolted on created using SUSE Studio. Second, no official Google project is going to be hosted as a subdomain on Google Sites. No way. They've already got a domain registered for ChromeOS.

Third, it's not really that close to what Chrome OS is going to be.

Don't count on any desktop apps - such as OpenOffice and Gimp - to be included. The aim as I understand it from sources at Google is to provide a portable computing experience that relies very heavily upon access to the cloud.

Google's vision is for you to boot, sign in to the OS using their single sign-on cookie which preps your browser to access all your Google goodies (GMail, Docs, Picasa Web, etc.), and get down to business with the Chrome browser. Sign out of your session on your netbook, sign in on your desktop onto which you've managed to get Chrome OS installed and your desktop will look exactly as you left it on your netbook. Your sessions are saved in the cloud and follow you from machine to machine.

For users who want a fast-booting alternative with quick access to a browser, Chrome OS might be the right choice. Personally, though, my Windows 7 and Fedora installs resume very quickly from sleep and I'd rather have access to my full-blown desktops.

Bottom line: we won't know how cool Chrome OS is until Google gives us a peek - whether that's a genuine leak or a developer build.

Tags: chrome, chrome os, ChromeOs, google, google chrome, GoogleChrome

Filed under: Office, Web services, Google

Set your Google Docs free with the new Convert, Zip and Download feature

by Jay Hathaway Oct 28th 2009

One of the first moves from Google's Data Liberation Front is the option to take your documents out of Google Docs with a new Convert, Zip and Download feature. You'll find the new feature under "export" in the More Actions menu. You can download multiple docs at once - wouldn't be music of a data liberation feature otherwise, right? - and that includes text documents, presentations and spreadsheets in the same batch. Downloads are limited to 500MB at a time, which shouldn't be a problem for the typical Docs user.

The Data Liberation Front is an engineering group within Google, pushing to make it easier for users to get their data out of any Google service quickly and for free. Google Docs exporting is just the first: in fact, they've got a whole list of Google services and the best ways to move your data into and out of them. Currently, about 2/3 of Google services meet the Front's standards for data exporting, so they still have plenty more work to do.

Tags: convert, data liberation, DataLiberation, export, google, google docs, GoogleDocs

Filed under: Google, Social Software, Search, web 2.0

Google's Social Search is now live

by Jay Hathaway Oct 27th 2009

Last week, at the Web2.0 Expo, Google demoed a new Social Search feature that delivers targeted search results based on your social circle. Now, this feature is available in Google Labs, so anyone with a Google account can try it out. When social search gives you "results from your social circle," who does it mean? Google looks at your Gmail chat buddies and contacts, as well as your Twitter and FriendFeed buddies and your Google Reader subscriptions to find relevant results. So far, it doesn't seem like Social Search is for everyone, but you should definitely give it a look if you're a social networking junkie.

Social Search results show you which of your connections a particular result came from, and how you're connected to that person. For example, I searched for Download Squad, and found a blog post from fellow Squadder Nik Fletcher, who I follow on Twitter. Results aren't limited to direct connections, though, Social Search also finds more obscure stuff, like your friends-of-friends on Flickr. It's clearly still a work in progress, but right now it's great for finding blog posts by people you know, and keeping up with your friends across the various networks they're signed up for.

Tags: google, google labs, GoogleLabs, social search, SocialSearch

Filed under: Web services, Google

Google adds mobile tracking and intelligent alerts to Analytics

by Jay Hathaway Oct 23rd 2009

Google has announced some major improvements to its Google Analytics traffic tracking package, mostly focusing on improving the way it tracks mobile devices. Adding a new snippet of code to the mobile version of your site will get you traffic analysis from mobile devices, and it works regardless of whether a visitor's mobile browser supports Javascript. Google has also added features for iPhone and Android developers to track how users are engaging with their apps. Aside from these mobile features, users will also be able to customize which variables Analytics will track.

The other big news is something called Analytics Intelligence. Analytics Intelligence watches the traffic patterns on your sites and alerts you if anything changes. It handles huge spikes or drops in traffic, but it can also drill down to look at changes by location and other factors. Alerts are customizable, so you'll only get email about changes you actually care about.

[via CNET]

Tags: analytics, google, statistics, tracking, Traffic

Filed under: Google, Social Software, web 2.0

Waver, a cross-platform Google Wave application for your desktop

by Sebastian Anthony Oct 22nd 2009

There's Tweetdeck for your Tweets, Seesmic for your Facebook stalking -- and now Waver for your Waves!

Waver is simply an Adobe AIR application that hooks into your Google Wave account. From there, you can create new waves, or update existing ones.

Adobe's Javascript implementation seems to do surprisingly well, rendering Waves as quickly or quicker than Google's own V8 -- though this could be due to the fact that Waver uses the cut-down iPhone UI output from Google Wave. Also, a lot of the UI seems to actually be, er, missing. And a lot of the shortcuts don't seem to work yet.

Try as I might, I could not get Waver to look like their sample picture -- perhaps it's because I'm running Windows 7 instead of OS X?

But let's not forget the most important thing here: in this case, Waver is merely rendering Google Wave using WebKit -- the same engine powering Chrome, Safari, and several other web browsers.

Is it really worth installing AIR and running a separate application to access your Wave account? Why not just open another tab in Chrome?

[via Life Rocks 2.0]

Tags: adobe-air, Google, social-software, Wave, WebKit

Filed under: Google, Search

It's not just Bing - Google makes Twitter search deal, too

by Jay Hathaway Oct 21st 2009

When Microsoft partnered with Twitter to allow its Bing search engine to index tweets in real time, it looked like they had finally gotten the jump on Google at something. Just hours later, Google VP Marissa Mayer announced that the big G had made a Twitter deal, too. Although Bing's Twitter product is out today, Google's won't be too far behind.

It looks like Google intends to use tweets to augment search results for up-to-the-minute data. In the official Google blog post on the subject, Mayer gives the example of weather conditions at a ski resort. Getting access to tweets is good for Google, but Bing still has the advantage of being the first to snag the Facebook deal. How long until Google gets one of those, as well?

Tags: bing, google, real-time, realtime, search, twitter

Filed under: Audio, Google

Update: Google "music service" sounds more like an affiliate link program. Yawns ensue.

by Lee Mathews Oct 21st 2009

What was originally dangled by Mike Arrington as a possible iTunes-like streaming and/or download service turns out to be something far less exciting.

No, apparently Google is not planning something that "big." Rather, they're working to add functionality to Google Search. And by functionality, I mean something that sounds like revenue-generating links for Google without the complexity of creating a digital storefront.

According to an update from CNet, One Box will add links to existing digital music services like iLike and Lala. You search for a musician, album, or song title on Google - you get artwork thumbnails, playable audio clips, and links to buy tracks alongside your search results. iLike, of course, already embeds YouTube videos for songs people search for (example), so this is a bit like "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

To me, it also sounds like referral bucks for Google. It's closer to their core competency (search and advertising) than rolling out a full-blown iTunes competitor. And they can always buy iLike or Lala later on if things are going well. Google does love the acquisitions.

I don't know about you, but I'm way less excited about this than the original TechCrunch rumor. What do you think?

Tags: google

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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