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Friday, November 6, 2009

Dan Siroker: CarrotSticks, Google Chrome, and Obama

Dan Siroker is the founder of kid's learning games site CarrotSticks.com. Before that, he was involved with the Obama campaign transition as deputy new media director; prior to that, Dan was a product manager for Google Chrome. This email inte ... (more...)

Dan Siroker: CarrotSticks, Google Chrome, and Obama  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Google Social Search Live

Google now lets you opt in to the Social Search feature they recently announced. Google explains, "If there's relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a ... (more...)

Google Social Search Live  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

New: Google Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki is an app you can install for Firefox and Internet Explorer as part of the Google Toolbar. It lets you discuss any webpage out there with others -- by adding messages in a side bar displayed on a given page. If you're not a toolbar fa ... (more...)

New: Google Sidewiki  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Google Chrome Frame: A Canvas (and More) Plugin for Internet Explorer

Oh sweet: Google released a plug-in for Internet Explorer which brings Canvas and a couple of other things (like Chrome's fast JavaScript engine) to Internet Explorer. It's named Google Chrome Frame, and the "couple of other things" could act lik ... (more...)

Google Chrome Frame: A Canvas (and More) Plugin for Internet Explorer  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Friday, September 18, 2009

When Google Gets Musical

Here in China I'm amazed by the Google Music site... I can search for all kinds of bands and musicians and get their albums, with songs fully playable in an easy interface (songs playable in China only, that is!). The scope of featured artists doesn' ... (more...)

When Google Gets Musical  | By Michael Liang Zhang | Comments

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Google Acquires reCAPTCHA

Google has just announced that it's acquired reCAPTCHA, the company that not only helps to reduce spam, but also helps to digitize books by improving Optical Character Recognition technology through the use of CAPTCHAs. As Wikipedia explains, ... (more...)

Google Acquires reCAPTCHA  | By Tony Ruscoe | Comments

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Google's Data Liberation Site

Google is emphasizing their proclaimed goal to let you easily import and export your Google data when moving services via a new site -- DataLiberation.org*. The mission statement from the Data Liberation Front -- named after a Monty Python skit a ... (more...)

Google's Data Liberation Site  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Google Fast Flip Lets You Quickly Browse News Pages

Google's latest Labs experiment is called Fast Flip. Opening the site you'll be presented with snapshot images of articles from lots of different news sites. You can then scroll through these snapshots or click on any snapshot to be taken to a la ... (more...)

Google Fast Flip Lets You Quickly Browse News Pages  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Google Promoting Social iGoogle Gadgets

Google is currently pushing social gadgets via a link from their homepage. The promo reads "New! Post updates and play games with friends on iGoogle", and points to a special page listing gadgets with social features -- like multiplayer games or ... (more...)

Google Promoting Social iGoogle Gadgets  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Ron Talks About Building a Video Site for Kids... and Clashing With the Laws of YouTube

Ron is the creator of Totlol.com, a site for kids and their parents which uses the YouTube API. When he sent me the pointer I blogged about it, and his approach inspired a site of mine, and Ron and I had been periodically emailing since then. On ... (more...)

Ron Talks About Building a Video Site for Kids... and Clashing With the Laws of YouTube  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Google Lets You Preview Their Search Infrastructure Update

Google announced that they're opening up a new results infrastructure for testing. You can view it at www2.sandbox.google.com, and give feedback on differences to normal web search by clicking the "Dissatisfied" link at the bottom (you are supposed t ... (more...)

Google Lets You Preview Their Search Infrastructure Update  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Friday, July 24, 2009

Not All Of Google May Be Available In Your Country

The name is "world wide web", but it's not always. What are some of Google's services that will only work in one country, or a limited set of countries? (Unless perhaps you route around the block -- geolocation by IP, as it's often implemented, i ... (more...)

Not All Of Google May Be Available In Your Country  | By Tony Ruscoe & Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Google Korea With Dropdown Search Menu

The Google Korea homepage, already different from Google.com for some time, is now showing a dropdown search navigation menu to the left of the search box. Translated it reads All Search - Image - News - Map - Dictionary - Blog - Shopping - Video ... (more...)

Google Korea With Dropdown Search Menu  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Monday, July 13, 2009

Microsoft Announcing Web-Based Office

A web-based Word As rumored before, details are now surfacing that Microsoft is planning to release a suite of web based office tools for MS Office 2010 (the thing they probably should have done with "Windows Live" some years ago). For instance, ... (more...)

Microsoft Announcing Web-Based Office  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Google Announced Their Operating System: Chrome OS

Google announced an open source OS called Google Chrome Operating System. Google's aim seems to make this a lightweight operating system that has a browser running web apps at its core. Many web apps being Google's of course, or at least, that's ... (more...)

Google Announced Their Operating System: Chrome OS  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Google China Removes Auto-Suggest Following Gov't Anti-Porn Initiative

Fingerpointing towards Google in a report by state-controlled CCTV; the user shows how he enters [xing], later stumbling upon scantily clad people in Google Images. The search auto-completion feature on Google China's homepage was recently remov ... (more...)

Google China Removes Auto-Suggest Following Gov't Anti-Porn Initiative  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Monday, June 22, 2009

Google Adds Facebook Friends to Results

I'm not sure how new this is, but when a Facebook user's profile is returned in Google's search results, you can now see the user's location (or network) and a random selection of their friends, as shown on their public profile. I'm not seeing ... (more...)

Google Adds Facebook Friends to Results  | By Tony Ruscoe | Comments

Friday, June 19, 2009

Google Product Ads Beta?

Someone who'd like to remain anonymous forwarded an email from Google, confidentially referring to a product called "Google product ads beta". From the mail: We are pleased to invite you to participate in an exciting beta program with the Google ... (more...)

Google Product Ads Beta?  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Friday, June 12, 2009

How Facebook Uses Your "Skipped" Webmail Contacts

Yesterday, Facebook suggested two people to me through its "Suggestions" feature which usually includes friends of friends, co-workers and people I used to go to school with. The odd thing about these two suggestions was that although I knew both of ... (more...)

How Facebook Uses Your "Skipped" Webmail Contacts  | By Tony Ruscoe | Comments

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Google Translator Toolkit

Google Translator Toolkit is a new tool being launched today to help translators organize their work and benefit from shared translations, glossaries and translation memories, the Google China Blog reports (English translation by Google). Evidence ... (more...)

Google Translator Toolkit  | By Tony Ruscoe | Comments

Monday, June 8, 2009

Wasted PageRank Sculpting, and JavaScript Links Needing Nofollow

Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable a couple of days ago highlighted two interesting points from the SMX Advanced conference. Based on information Google's Matt Cutts offered, Barry says (but please take this with a grain of salt until Go ... (more...)

Wasted PageRank Sculpting, and JavaScript Links Needing Nofollow  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Blind Search: Compare Search Engines and Cast Your Vote

Blind Search is the name of a site that lets you enter a search query, and then shows you three result columns where you can vote on the best one. Because you don't see where the particular results are coming from until after you vote, you will n ... (more...)

Blind Search: Compare Search Engines and Cast Your Vote  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Saturday, June 6, 2009

StackOverflow's Karma Bounty, Data Dump, and Sister Sites

Karma Bounties Programming question & answers site StackOverflow.com has a system based around karma and badges, and karma acts as a kind of in-site currency. One nice extra feature are bounties. When you don't get a good answer to your qu ... (more...)

StackOverflow's Karma Bounty, Data Dump, and Sister Sites  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Friday, June 5, 2009

Google's Tetris Logo

Google Australia, China and some other places where it's Saturday already are displaying a special logo doodle celebrating Tetris. The alt text reads "Celebrating 25 Years of The Tetris Effect - courtesy of Tetris Holding, LLC", and the logo is l ... (more...)

Google's Tetris Logo  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Google Squared Declares the Living Dead

Google Squared, one of Google's fun but more problem infested products, has the macabre habit of declaring random living people dead. Take the query actors, for instance, which will automatically include a column titled "Date of Death" telling yo ... (more...)

Google Squared Declares the Living Dead  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Google Squared Is Live

Google Squared is live, and it's a lot of fun... albeit the info presented is far from always being accurate. Here's how you use it: just enter the name of a group of things, say, I entered comic book character. Google Squared then calculates for ... (more...)

Google Squared Is Live  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Monday, June 1, 2009

Microsoft's New Try At Search Is Live

You might have heard the news of search engine Bing -- Microsoft's rebranding effort after Live failed to take over the search crown from Google -- going live. Expectedly, the web search results are often copying Google's style but are of [edit]s ... (more...)

Microsoft's New Try At Search Is Live  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Barcode-scanning Your Bookshelf for Google Books

Google's Matt Cutts shows how he adds books to his Google Books "My library" feature... using a below-70 bucks barcode scanner which he USB-connected to his computer. Why would you want to do that? One reason is to make your book shelf searchable ... (more...)

Barcode-scanning Your Bookshelf for Google Books  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Friday, May 29, 2009

Google Increases White Space Around Logo on Result Pages

It looks like Google increased the margin above and below their logo on the SERPs. Anyone dares speculate why? I asked ex-Google employee and Gmail (and more) designer Kevin Fox to guess about why Google did the change, and what effect it migh ... (more...)

Google Increases White Space Around Logo on Result Pages  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

Thursday, May 28, 2009

A Sneak Peak at Google Wave

Over the last years the web has moved towards more real-timeness and collaboration, with plenty of online communication forms to choose from. Google now is showing off a preview of a new product, framework and protocol called Google Wave. I've not se ... (more...)

A Sneak Peak at Google Wave  | By Philipp Lenssen | Comments

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