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Monday, December 13, 2004

Google Inventions of the Future (3 of 10)

Number 3. Google ImageSpy. Many big bosses around the world have a common problem: they don’t know how to monitor their employee’s internet usage in meaningful ways. One of the biggest causes of delayed projects since the invention of that world wide web (which will be completely lower-case by 2020) is a staff busy looking at videos of dogs wearing clothes, tripping housewives, drunk teenagers jumping off the balcony into trees, subservient Presidents, or scantily clad, mud wrestling ladies battling for no prize at all to the soundtrack of “I will survive”. In the near future, Google ImageSpy will try to solve this disturbance by analyzing company web traffic and reporting dubious saucy & funny imagery straight to the CEO.

What went right: Large software projects suddenly got finished in half the time. Global internet traffic decreased by 40% and System Administrators didn’t need to remind co-workers to stop sending large attachments.

What went wrong: Some of the bosses were so busy looking at all the stuff Google ImageSpy dug up, they forget to lead the company and steered right into even bigger chaos.

[Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5]

MSN Toolbar Suite Released

Blogspace has been buzzing with today’s announced Microsoft revelation, and here it is: The MSN Toolbar Suite. Mainly, this brings desktop search to Windows, replacing the somewhat broken standard Windows search and competing with Google Desktop. Other features include auto-completing forms, popup-blocking, and search term highlighting for any page on the web.

Though the MSN Toolbar Suite may be a welcome fix to the current Windows search for some, I feel it comes a little too late – many who already installed the Google Desktop might feel reluctant to install this new app, too. And while it is a sign the Redmond giant still has the power to move fast (according to Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble, the MSN Suite was implemented in 7 months with a largely new group assigned to it), it also shows Microsoft admits their actual search shipping with Windows needs this fix – and therefore must be broken.

Newsweek’s Alpha Bloggers

Newsweek has an article on the “a-listers”, authors of highly popular and influential tech blogs. Doc Searls, who gets mentioned, replies:

“For what it’s worth, I’ve never thought of myself as an “A-list” blogger, and I’ve disliked the distinction ever since I first heard it uttered.

I was on academic and social Z-lists from kindergarten through college. Lemme tell you, there’s nothing like belonging to an out caste to give you a lifelong disdain for all caste systems”

Woot!

The Woot online shop offers exactly 1 item per day until it sells out (or is replaced by the next item at midnight). “Our warehouse manager thinks we are insane."

German Google Links to Railway System

If you enter the name of two cities (e.g. Stuttgart Trier) into Google.de, you will get a little train icon with a direct link to German Bahn.de. [Thanks Justin F.]

PubSub LinkRanks

At PubSub’s LinkRanks page, you can get an estimate of how popular your blog is. (For example this blog ranks in at number 1532, while authority hub BoingBoing is placed at 19.)

The Inventor of Wikis Invents the Wiki

“From: ward [Cunningham]
To: stevep
Subject: New Service on PPR
Date: Thursday, March 16, 1995 11:06AM

Steve – I’ve put up a new database on my web server and I’d like you to take a look. It’s a web of people, projects and patterns accessed through a cgi-bin script. It has a forms based authoring capability that doesn’t require familiarity with html. I’d be very pleased if you would get on and at least enter your name in RecentVisitors. I’m asking you because I think you might also add some interesting content. I’m going to advertise this a little more widely in a week or so. The URL is http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki. Thanks and best regards. – Ward”

Ten CSS Tricks

Trenton Moss shows off 10 CSS tricks you may not know.

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