Google introduced three new products today during its press day in Mountain View. The new product launches are part of Google's refocus on its search and advertising business after an internal audit showed an overcommitment of resources to auxiliary products such as Blogger and Gmail. Google Co-op introduces social recommendations and tagging to the search process. You can "subscribe" to a friend or data provider's content to receive a special OneBox with information from these companies or individuals. It's similar to Google's Enterprise OneBox and its partner experience combined with personal subscriptions. Users can also can add tags to…
Google's GData format is a" new protocol based on Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0." It also includes OpenSearch elements. It's too late in the day for me to dig into the format right now, but you might enjoy having a look….
The latest version of Google's Firefox toolbar adds support for feed subscriptions to online aggregators with just one click. Users are able to choose from a list of five popular online aggregators as well as Firefox's own Live Bookmarks option. The icon was located right below the address bar feed icon in my Firefox window and seems like the least confusing place for the button even though it's odd to see two options. I was able to choose between Bloglines, Google Personalized homepage, My Yahoo!, NewsGator Online, and Pluck. It would be nice to provide advanced users with the…
Google just signed an exclusive deal with Clear Channel to provide its search services across all of the radio conglomerate's web sites. Clear Channel is the dominant radio network in the United States. The partnership is for text-only ads at the moment but Google has been interested in extending its advertising reach to radio and print media. Google currently advertises its jobs site on NPR stations….
Verizon's SuperPages.com has partnered with Google to turn the phone company's yellow page advertisers into sponsored listings within Google Local. It's a huge development in a fragmented local search advertising space. Verizon will act as an authorized Google AdWords reseller using its 3,000 local sales people and existing small business portal to connect merchants to a larger audience….
In this week's episode of Om and Niall PodSessions Om and I talk about Google Finance, the latest piece of the search company's portal play. According to Hitwise, 10% of Google UK's visitors clicked out to Business and Finance sites last week. Yahoo! Finance received .02% of those clicks. Is Google in denial about its move towards a portal service? I liked the new Google Finance, especially the chart overlays and integration with other Google products. Om found the new product lacking a few of his favorite features from Yahoo! Finance such as institutional holdings and insider trading. A search…
Google just unveiled Google Finance aimed at private investors. The new service correlates stock quotes, trading volume, executive bios and information, top news, blog posts, and Google-hosted moderated message boards. Check out the information page for GOOG for example. The site uses Flash technology to create interactive graphs. You can hover over any data point on the graph for more information and adjust a date-range slider beyond the default 3-day view. Blog data from Google Blog Search appears above message board content for selected blog. Given the frequent posts about a given company it makes sense to filter the…
Google built a feed platform that is freely available for any user with a Google account. The first implementation of the Google feed platform is the Google Reader lens, already used by thousands of Google users. The Google feed platform is web-based and therefore works with any operating system. It can be used as a pass-through for one feed at a time for small implementations or a full aggregator backend. It's running on the Google's expansive (and expensive) back-end hardware and network, creating fast response times and high reliability. Atom 1.0 output The Google Reader platform outputs all data in…
Sony Ericsson announced a new lineup of mobile phones today with Google integrated as a blogging and search platform. Sony Ericsson's new K800 and K790 phone models include a 3.2 megapixel camera with a xenon flash and the ability to upload photos and text to Google's Blogger service. Google will become the default search engine on all Internet-enabled phones from Sony Ericsson. A Google search bar will appear as a part of the default browser but hopefully won't take up much space on the small 2″ screen. Tags: sonyericsson…
I was walking around Google tonight after a party and noticed Udi Manber, formerly of A9, working late. A few offices down from Udi was Andy Hertzfeld. That's just one hallway in Building 43 but I'm sure there are seriously smart people all over the place. I kept an eye out for Guido but no luck….
Google employees confirmed in person today plans for local advertisements within Google Maps, including their Web APIs. Google will overlay blue markers on the map to highlight local business advertisements directly within the graphical search result. A corporate logo and advertising message will be displayed inside of marker info windows complete with a paid link. API developers will have the option to display the ads or to signup for a commercial relationship with Google. Combining local search targeting with graphical ads should yield extremely high payouts for Google. Google is currently paying data fees for maps used in a…
I had lunch today with the Google Reader team and learned a bit more about the group, their success and challenges, and how new projects at Google are sometimes formed. This is the story of how a side-project intended for someone's blog became a feed aggregator integrated into one of the largest Web properties in the world. It all started with a love of blogging. Jason Shellen and Chris Wetherell were both members of the Blogger team and working on different ways to trick out their personal blogs. Jason kept various blogs including a link blog and wanted a way…
Google Toolbar version 4 allows developers to create custom buttons using a custom XML descriptor and extended functionality using RDF, RSS, and Atom feeds. The Google toolbar button API can be used to display the latest entry titles from a feed, execute a keyword or URL search, or continuously communicate data at a glance. I created custom buttons for this blog and Technorati. The Google Toolbar can now serve as a feed reader for any feed with a custom Google Toolbar icon. You can even specify in your button file a different icon you would like to display when new…
Google just introduced version 4 of Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer including support for centralized bookmark tagging and notation from multiple computers. The new feature allows any toolbar user with a Google account to store bookmarks within their Google search history for synchronization and editing. Google bookmarks can also be added and edited via a web interface. You can add a new Google bookmark anywhere on the web when logged in by passing Google a few URL-encoded values. http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark title the title of the bookmark bkmk the bookmark URL labels comma separated labels or tags annotation A note or…
Google co-founder Larry Page is a keynote speaker at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. The Los Angeles Times reports that Google has been in talks with large retail stores such as Wal-Mart to carry a computing device called the "Google Cube" running a Google customized operating system and applications. Page was a late addition to the keynote roster, so Google might actually be ready to announce something. This week will be full of announcements for sure. Update 1/03: News.com reports both Google and Wal-Mart denied the rumor. Google issued a statement saying "we see no need to…
John Battelle had conversation with Google's Marissa Mayer this morning about the affect of the deal between Google and AOL on Google's search results. John posted a loose transcript of the conversation, but what interested me most was the discussion around OneBox results on Google's search result pages. What we normally do on the OneBox, like on our stocks page or travel, where we have links to a few providers, we look at Media Metrix or PageRank data, and generally they agree and corroborate themselves (as to) who are the top three or five providers. And those are who we…
Google plans to offer a feed reader API to allow third-party developers to build new views of feed data on top of Google's backend. The new APIs will include synchronization, feed-level and item-level tagging, per-item read and unread status, as well as rich media enclosure and metadata handling. Google Reader PM Jason Shellen and engineer Chris Wetherell both confirmed Google's plans after I posted my reverse-engineering analysis of the Google Reader backend. The new APIs will allow aggregator developers to build new views and interactions on top of Google's data. Google currently has at least two additional Google Reader views…
Matt Cutts wrote a quick primer explaining Google search to librarians. He walks readers through how Google discovers pages, indexes, and later analyzes a user's query across a network of analytics servers. For each search that someone types in, over 500 computers may work together to find the best documents, and it all happens in under half a second….
I may have a Technorati version of the Blogger Web Comments Firefox extension running on my machine right now. Google directs users through a terms of service for the extension that asks users to agree to not modify the code, so I can can't confirm my hacking… You can download the Blogger Web Comments Firefox extension directly without passing through the terms of service if you would like. Under part 4 of Google's Firefox tools terms of service, proprietary rights, they claim full ownership over all released plugins and prohibit all modifications and derivative works. Except as expressly authorized…
Google just introduced an extension for Firefox that allows you to see the latest blog post linking to any page as it's viewed. The extension brings up a small window in the bottom right-hand corner of the browser window with the most recent reference to the page. You can click on the box to extend it to the last 6 posts or view the entire result set on Google Blog Search. Users can also add their own comment about the page by clicking a special "Add Comment" button linked to their Blogger account. The Google FAQ mentions they hope…
Yesterday Google announced an API to add content to the Google personalized homepage using a custom XML file. Last night I coded my first Google homepage widget to display a Technorati Mini on my personalized homepage with a pre-populated value of my blog URL. Here's how you can check it out: Go to the Google personalized homepage and sign-in. Click on "Add Content" in the top-left corner. Create a developer section by adding a feed URL of "developer.xml." You will now see a new "My Modules" section. Add a module by entering with https://www.niallkennedy.com/gmodule.xml in the URL field. You…
Google has decorated its advertising sidebar with a strip of peppermint candy cane for certain holiday searchers. Try a search for Christmas, peppermint, or candy cane to see the modified search results page. Tags: easteregg…
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Berkeley professor Hal Varian wrote an article in the latest issue of Newsweek about Google's approach to managing the knowledge worker. Google's extensive perks program is their way of removing things that may get in the way of their employees. Schmidt admits Google's problems of "techno-arrogance" and "the not invented here syndrome." The company also needs to adjust to a workforce of varying ages and motivations as it looks towards long-term growth. One of our not-so-secret weapons is our ideas mailing list: a companywide suggestion box where people can post ideas ranging from parking procedures…
Google is gathering as much information as possible about our online activities in the interest of serving up more targeted ads across more and more locations. Google continues to introduce new services limited only by what can have an advertisement placed alongside the content. Future products might include data gathering and targeting as a primary business goal with the intent of collecting higher advertising revenues elsewhere on the network on a future visit. Yahoo! just announced they will serve advertisements based on surfing behavior. Where does Google stand in its behavioral targeting? Google is already well on its way to…
