Google Blogoscoped

Monday, January 24, 2005

Google Video Search Coming Soon?

Dirson alerted me to the fact some hours ago, Google created both video.google.com and www.google.com/video*. There’s nothing there yet on either URL, but this might hint at a Google video search to be coming very soon. Possibly, this is John Battelle’s secret; he said “the coming week promises to be a big one in the world of search, if the birds flying around my in box are any indication.”

*Keeping with Google’s sub-domain style, “video.google.com” will be the final location of any video search. The URL “www.google.com/video” set up a permanent redirect to “video.google.com”, which has only a temporary redirect to “www.google.com”.

Yes, it’s here: see the follow-up.

Firefox Engineer Now Working at Google

According to this blog post from today, the Mozilla Firefox Lead Engineer Ben Goodger is now working for Google Inc. What’s interesting, and fuel to the fire of “Google Browser” rumors, is this statement of him:

“My role with Firefox and the Mozilla project will remain largely unchanged (..)

I remain devoted full-time to the advancement of Firefox, the Mozilla platform and web browsing in general. (...) While I will be spending more time at Google, I will work out of the Mozilla Foundation offices regularly as the need arises.”

What do you think is happening?
[Thanks Luke Baker and Steve Rubel.]

Understanding VORN

“Vorn” is German for “ahead.” It’s also an interesting little web app:

UNDERSTANDING VORN is an artwork in flux. Every five minutes it scours thousands of weblogs, searching for the four most recently posted pictures that begin with the letters ’V’, ’O’, ’R’, ’N’. Every five minutes, UNDERSTANDING VORN changes, filled with fresh words and pictures from the blogosphere.”

[Thanks Carl R.]

Recognition of Paid Results

“Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or “sponsored” results and unpaid results. And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not. This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results.”
Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1/23/2005

CC Mixter

CC Mixter, a site for Creative Commons sampling contests, features some more blowlinks (aka a weighted list).

Google Index Notification

[PHP]

GIN, the Google Index Notification, is a small PHP script you add to your server to see when the Googlebot indexed which pages.

Yahoo Baby a Hoax

This is a follow-up to the Yahoo Baby story featured earlier this month – apparently, it was a hoax:

“A Romanian tabloid says it has fired a reporter for making up a story about a couple who named their son Yahoo as a sign of gratitude for meeting over the Internet.

Earlier this month, major Bucharest daily Libertatea published a story saying two Romanians had named their baby Yahoo and printed a picture of his birth certificate. The news was widely picked up on the Internet.

“It was the reporter’s child’s birth certificate, which he modified,” said Simona Ionescu, Libertatea’s deputy editor-in-chief. “We fired him."”
– CNN: Reporter fired for Yahoo baby hoax, January 24, 2005

[Thanks to John M. for the tip.]

Escher Lego

Not new, but good: M.C. Escher’s “Relativity” in Lego. Did anybody ever do a Google logo in Lego?

Update: Yes, there is a Google lego logo. Thanks Nathan.

Kimbalina’s Ski Trip

Kimbalina posted her experiences at the Google ski trip in Tahoe.

Free Googlephone Coming?

“[Google Inc.] looks set to launch a free telephone service that links users via a broadband internet connection using a headset and home computer.

The technology that will enable Google to move in on the market has been around for some time. Software by the London-based company, Skype, has been downloaded nearly 54 million times around the world but no large telecommunication firms have properly exploited it. (...)

Although Google is reluctant to talk about its plans, the logical use of such a network would be to help to support a new telephone service”
– Elizabeth Judge, Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT (TimesOnline), January 24, 2005

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!