Last posts on Google

EU-Digest: Google and Globat - Customer service inadequate to solve basic technical problems

2008-05-27T13:10:00+02:00

For several years now EU-Digest has been one of the most widely read news blogs related to events impacting Europe. EU-Digest has used Google Blogger File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to publish EU-Digest on the Internet via its Europe House provider Globat. This publishing technology has not always been flawless, but acceptable. Unfortunately it has become steadily worse. Interruption of services lasting for over a week have become common practice, with limited recourse in the area of customer support. Sharing information digitally, often in the form of documents, media files or data files, is critical in today's world. It relies on collaborative teams in the public and private sector to efficiently share information, so that the customer can eventually benefit. When this flow of information becomes one-sided or is broken, it constitutes a breach of article ten of the European Court of Human Rights. This article warrants the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas. In the case of Google and Globat there seems to be a common feeling among customers that there is either incompetency in the technical support area, or not enough customer support staff. We dare not think that what might look like technical troubles, could in fact be indirect censorship from sources "higher up". In this case on the content of some of the copy published by blogs considered "unfriendly' to the Establishment. For Google, censorship might not be of too great of a concern to its management. In China, Google recently said it will censor its search services there in order to gain greater access to China's fast-growing market. The company has set up a new site - Google.cn - in China, which it says will censor itself to satisfy the authorities in Beijing. Google has, however, resisted efforts by the US Department of Justice to make it disclose data on what people are searching for.EU-Digest can also presently be accessed at http://eu-digest.blogspirit.com/ to continue providing readers an uninterrupted flow of information until the present technical difficulties at Google Blogger and Globat are resolved.

Salamat Inday!!!

2007-09-05T14:21:06+02:00

Have you ever had the chance of seeing your blog ranked number one in Google for a certain tag? Well, I had! Sadly, it's not for this blog. My other blog--The Vagabond Journals--ranked number one in Google for a certain tag. And what's that tag?

"Inday amo"

Haha! That blog has only one entry but it still ranked number one in Google for that certain tag. Hmmm... I'm starting to think that this blog sucks and I should rather use that other blog as my main... watcha think!?!

Anyway, for a fun read, check out my sole entry on my other blog and discover for yourself why it ranked number one (aside from the fact that the post was filled with the words Inday and amo). The content was actually from a forwarded email and its really funny if you'll ask me.

And thanks Inday, whoever you may be, for making my site rank first!!!

Why I like Google

2007-08-16T16:04:28+02:00

Google Maps

This has to be one of the best online mapping programs out there. I've been using online map programs for years, and this is, by far the easiest online mapping program to use. Not only can you view a traditional street map, but you can see a satellite view, or even a hybrid view of a map overlay on the satellite image. As well as driving routes to destinations of your choosing, it will also show you addresses and phone numbers of restaurants and businesses that you're searching for. It also has traffic overlays for most major cities, so you can plan your route around heavy traffic before you even leave your house.

Google maps are extremely interactive; you can pan by simply dragging the map. Zooming is just as easy; simply roll your scroll wheel up or down to change the level of zoom. Of course, there are buttons on the left of the map that you can use to perform these functions if you prefer. Personalizing the map is just as easy, simply click on My Maps, and you're given a plethora of easy to use options. You can add place markers, draw lines and shapes as well as make notes. Even if you don't like the directions that Google has given you, one can simply click and drag the highlighted route to a road that you want to use. You can also add multiple points and get directions from A - B - C - D. I honestly think you can plan an entire road trip with nothing else but Google Maps.

Google also recently added a new feature called Street View, which actually gives you a streets eye view of the road you're looking at. Yes, you heard me right; they have a fleet of Chevy Cobalts whose sole purpose is to drive around all day taking street level pictures. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to take a picture of every street in the US, but Google has taken on the task in living up to their motto of "to organize the world's information and make it accessible to our users". In the street mode, you can pan zoom, and even navigate forward or backward on the street.

Google Maps is also available on your mobile phone, so if even if you don't have access to a computer, you will still be able to access Google maps just as long as you subscribe to a data plan through you’re service provider.

Google Video

Google Video has completely changed the way people watch video on the internet. It also has created a new type of blogging, the video blog. Instead of typing out a blog post, people now use their web cams to record their blog posts and upload them to Google video to be published. Google video has opened a doorway for an amazing new way to communicate with people around the world. To show your cool video to a friend, you had to invite them over to your house and plug your camera into your TV. Now, you simply copy the video from your camera, and upload it to Google. Now even friends that live thousands of miles away can see you get some mad air on your skateboard.

As well as personal videos, you can find many clips from TV shows and movies on Google Video. Although some companies have asked Google to remove videos due to copyright violations, most have not. So there is a good chance you can still see your favorite clip of your favorite show. Just don't expect to watch the whole episode.

Google Video has also spawned a new kind of viral marketing. Many companies have created funny clips and purposely post them to Google Video in hopes that people will spread the news of that video around to their friends. While similar to TV commercials, these videos are free to publish, and instead of forcing consumers to watch the commercial, it does the opposite. It seeks to entice the consumer to search out their video for entertainment. For example, the movie Snakes on a Plane was a success at the box office, mostly due to its occult like following on the internet.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Have you ever been away from your home computer wanting to work on a homework assignment, job project, or even get an idea for the novel you're writing? I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is an entirely different approach to word processing. Instead of a stand alone application like Microsoft Word, Docs and Spreadsheets simply uses your favorite internet browser. You simply log into your Google account, and open the Docs and Spreadsheets program, that's it. And the best part is it's free. So not only do you have a great program available to you where ever you have an internet connection, it allows you to save your documents online. No more lugging a thumb drive around with you. Just save it on Google and access it from anywhere in the world. And for those of you with privacy concerns, don't worry. Google's not in the habit of just handing over your personal information like most companies are. In fact, they even stood up to the Department of Justice when they requested something simple, such as search terms, imagine how they will fight to keep your personal documents safe.

You might be saying, "But I like Word, and I've used other free applications and still go back to Word, what makes this better?" I felt the same way when I heard about Docs and Spreadsheets. But, I decided to give it a try. The interface is very simple and easy to learn. Nothing really stood out at first, until I wanted to work on something I had left at the office. Now, I had to VPN into my work network, then remote desktop to my computer to get to the document. That's when it hit me, "This is just a pain." From that point on, I started using Docs and Spreadsheets and never turned back.

Oh yea, and no more syncing. Since your documents are in one location, you don't have to worry about constantly syncing them, or worry about overwriting a newer copy.

Google Desktop

Bring the power of the Google search to your desktop. This is a fantastic search program, not only do you have the power of the Google search engine right on your desktop, but it has a nice sidebar feature that allows for gadgets. Some of which include an RSS feed monitor, local weather forecast, calendar, clock, and many more to choose from. Once it indexes your hard drive, search results appear within seconds.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is an interactive calendar, which allows you to save appointments, meetings and more. It does everything that the Calendar in Microsoft Outlook does, but stores the information on Google's servers as apposed to your local PC. Again, like Docs and Spreadsheets, this allows you to access your appointments from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Also, with Google Calendar you can send appointment reminders to your phone.

The interface is extremely simple, like all of Google's products. There are tabs on the top of the page that allows you to change the view from single day, to week, to month. It also has a view that will give you the agenda for all the upcoming events. It's also easy to import your Outlook or iCal calendar schedule into the Google Calendar. Simply click the add button, and select import.

Google Calendar also allows you to have several calendars, and so it's possible to have a public calendar that's viewable by others, and of course a private calendar which is only visible to you. You also can add your friends or coworkers public calendar to so scheduling meetings can be done without having to try and find a date that you are both available. Just simply look at their calendar, and find a suitable date for the appointment.

Ken Hendrickson works for Network Liquidators which specializes in selling new and used network and telecom equipment; including Cisco, Foundry Networks, Nortel Networks, Extreme Networks, Avaya Telecom, Plantronics, GN Netcom and more.

Our Ebay Blog.

Search Engines Research Papers

2007-06-01T09:45:00+02:00

A famous paper : The anatomy of Large Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine to explain the Google Prototype

More detailed Research papers onto Search Engines are available here :

- Search Results for "Search Engines" from Stanford's Google

- Search Results for "Knowledge Management" from Stanford's Google

Is Google unbeatable?

2007-05-31T13:28:01+02:00

Google impressive financial quarterly results seem to confirm the tremendous power of its model. Furthermore, despite his increasing domination on the Internet, Google manages to still be perceived as a cool user friendly start-up, as opposed to Microsoft often depicted as the Big Evil. However on a closer look, Google situation is somewhat fragile. First of all, 99% of its revenues come from advertising, and above all from AdWord. On the other hand, AdSense is facing a more challenging situation in terms of returns. Outside the comfortable cocoon of its search engine, Google indeed has some serious difficulties to generate actual efficient ads returns. AdSense semantic engine is regularly pointed out to show poor outputs, resulting in disappointing click through and transformation rates.Furthermore, so far, all attempts of Google to diversify were failures. This includes in particular video, email, cartography, storage or shopping guide. In these areas, Google has not been capable to grab a significant market share compared to its main competitors. For video, the failure of Google Video has even forced them to acquire YouTube. This acquisition has also made Google to discover the charming world of copyright infringements. Eventually, the power of Google is due mainly to its amazing market share in search. Its domination in this area is particularly strong in Europe. The question is therefore: can anyone ever challenge Google search domination? Google’s power is due to the fact that the search industry has not evolved in the last seven years. No one has indeed succeeded to come out with any disruptive technology. Still, disappointing experience of search engines shows that some serious improvement should be expected sometime down the road. We all experience ourselves that any search results are not exploitable. The day a brilliant start-up will invent a revolutionary approach, the position of Google will soon become uncomfortable. Either Google will manage to copy very quickly the new algorithm of the intruder, or the shake-up will soon proved very serious. Indeed, nothing is less sticky that a search engine. Barriers to change are pretty low. In two clicks, you can loose a user you had for years. Irony is that it's precisely this way Google started his irresistible growth in the early days, passing by incumbents like Yahoo! who were incapable to react.

OPML Google

2007-05-29T09:35:00+02:00

"Google" as keyword entered into the following search tools :

- ResearchBuzz (Kebberfeg)

- MonitorThis

- MSN Live OPML generator

- KeoTag

and aggregated into one single OPML containing all the flows found : Google_general.opml

Where is the bubble?

2007-02-16T19:58:49+01:00

Following the take-over of YouTube by Google last fall, we have seen many comments on the return of the Internet bubble. This 1.6 billion dollar deal for a company with virtually no revenues was illustration that irrational thinking was infecting us again.Well, 6 months later, it does not look at such a bad deal for Google. On the contrary, the fast growing on-line advertising market shows that it should not be such an issue for Google to monetize this extra inventory.On-line advertising growth is very much connected to the growth of Internet itself, especially of broadband access. And this broadband access is accelerating in all major countries. As a result, e-commerce is also growing at a nice 30% rate per year with no sign to cool down. This strong and steady e-commerce growth is financing portals, media and community sites with profitable advertising budgets. This makes the whole picture much healthier than in 1999 & 2000. This is why there is not much to worry about a bubble bust as so far, there is no bubble at all, just plain fast growing market. Remember all those crazy IPOs in 99. Anything similar today? Not really. Not only companies are getting profitable much quicker, but investors are also much more selective. It looks like for the first time they show some memories of the past to keep the market at a reasonable and healthy level. Not bad at all. ;-)

All Google : Inside Google , Google Co-op and other Google Tools

2007-02-06T12:55:00+01:00

Do you search information about Google with Google ? you could maybe use Google Inside, a Google Co-Op CSE (Custom Search Engine) designed for that purpose (expert system). I ve uploaded the interface in the right menu and you can use whenever you like.

A co-op search engine is typically a Google Search onto specialised sites. A way to find the List of all the Co-Op Search Engines would be to submit this request onto Google.com : "inurl:cse site:google.com inurl:coop"

Other tools can be associated to perform a deeper or more specific search : Subscribed links ; OneBoxes...

For info, see also the Official Google Blog, or more unofficials sources : Indicateur , InFlux...and on the french side GoogleInside

A Good Books

2007-02-06T02:45:00+01:00

If you want to read a really good book that has everything you could want, read Between the Bridge and the River. Scottish comedian/late late show host, Craig Ferguson is the author. Read it, you'll thank me latter. Eragon is a pretty good book too. Of course you would have to be a fan of fantasy to read it. Another one of my favorite books is the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you loved the movie, trust me, you'll love the book ten times more. I'm writing a book myself so to speak. It has everything in it so far: Romance,Comedy, fantasy, Sci Fi, Adventure, and even a little bit of horror. It comes in a line of three books like lord of the rings, and I've already finished with book one. When I'm done with book three then I'll see about publishing it.

Soul Patrol

2007-02-06T02:10:00+01:00

I think Taylor Hicks and Jack Black should come together and form an r&b band. They can call it the Soul Patrol. It would seem something along the lines of the Blues Brothers. I do see a lot of John Belushi in Jack Black, his comedy and everything. After all John Belushi was a rocker too, as do both have the soul. Taylor Hicks is a lot like Dan Aykroyd in the same respect as well. Their both very tall, have a love for r&b music, and can both play the harmonica quite well. It's something to think about at least.

Thought of the day: Chicago Bears

2007-02-05T18:40:00+01:00

I don't have the normal thought of the day. All I can think about right now is how could the Bears lose the super bowl? I can't even think of that because I get a lump in my throat every time I do. It is just heartbreaking. I must tip my hat off too the Colts though, because they did win the game. Even though nobody on either team played like it was the super bowl. I thought the bears had it when they got a touchdown not even 12 seconds into the game for kickoff. It was a beautifull sight, I even recorded it. But by games end, it was heartbreaking. I should have known better, these are not the '85 Bears. No one can ever be the '85 Chicago Bears.

Top ten songs I think are the greatest-Ever

2007-02-02T20:45:00+01:00

I put up a post the other day called Top Ten Greatest Songs-EVER. However I was not being biased when I did the post. So to only be fair, here is a list of what I think are the greatest songs ever. 10: Sister Golden Hair - America 9: Faith - George Michael 8: Piano Man - Billy Joel 7: Renegade - Styx 6: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For -U2 5: Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me - Live George Michael version 4: Spirit In the Sky - Norman Greenbaum 3: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham! 2: Sweet Home Chicago - the Blues Brothers 1: Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Thought of the day: UFO's

2007-02-01T19:27:07+01:00

I think UFO's are people from the future. That's why the government keeps it hush hush. Therefore in the future time travel will be possible

Thought of the day:Snowflakes

2007-02-01T05:30:00+01:00

Thought of the day:I wonder what snowflakes really do look like under a microscope? I'm sure by the time someone actually got a snowflake under the lens of a microscope it would melt. Therefore we will never know

Israel Tourism Ministry launched Google advertising campaign in US, Britain and Germany markets

2006-11-01T14:10:00+01:00

Israel Tourism Ministry launched a NIS 360,000 ($84,000) Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign on search engine Google. The online advertising campaign, which started in early October, has exposed surfers in the US, Britain and Germany, to sponsored links that lead to the marketing websites of the Tourism Ministry.

Religious topics dominating the searches in the first month of the Google campaign, according to the analysis of the Tourism Ministry. Approximately 42% of surfers in the US were seeking Jewish-related information and 29% on Christian subjects, whereas 24% of UK searches were Jewish-related and 20% linked to Christian topics. Some 15% of the total sought specific information on Eilat.

In studies conducted by the American Travel Industry Association (TIA), 91 per cent of respondents said that they purchase travel products exclusively online. In 2004, Americans spent $68 billion online for travel-related products and services, while Europeans spent 10 billion Euros.

Sponsored Links – Atlas Hotels in Tel Aviv | Hostel in Nazareth | Israel Tour Tips & Maps

What Companies Should Google NEVER Buy?

2006-10-24T23:23:13+02:00

hris Mesinna provides a rant about how Google is evil and their integration of Dodgeball with Google Accounts is the latest sign of their evilness.

"Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but now when you try to log into your favorite neighborhood spyware, you’ll be greeted by a prompt to login with either your old skool Dodgeball account credentials or your Gauth account (the one that you use for Docs, Gmail, Gcal, Orkut, or other Google Services like YouTube (whoops — did I just say YouTube?)."

After reading this, I commented on Chris' site mentioning that I couldn't think of any companies Google could buy and integrate with my Google account that would really freak me out. Having now given it a bit more thought, a few may come to mind:

1. Fair Isaac: Would I want the company behind credit scores to have access to my online purchase behavior?

2. Blue Cross: Do I want Blue Cross tracking how often I go out to eat? Would my Dodgeball profile cause my premiums to skyrocket?

3. The Government: okay, Google isn't going to buy the government, but the government would sure love access to Google's data. Here is one perspective on that from Mother Jones:

Over the years, Google has collected a staggering amount of data, and the company cheerfully admits that in nine years of operation, it has never knowingly erased a single search query. It’s the biggest data pack rat west of the nsa, and for good reason: 99 percent of its revenue comes from selling ads that are specifically targeted to a user’s interests. “Google’s entire value proposition is to figure out what people want,” says Eric Goldman, a professor at Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara School of Law and director of the High Tech Law Institute. “But to read our minds, they need to know a lot about us.”

What do you think? Are their other companies or industries that would be poor fits for integration with Google Accounts? What comes to mind? Or, does the benefit outweigh the privacy concerns when it comes to credit scores, health records, or government intelligence?

Eureka! Your own search engine has landed!

2006-10-24T23:03:17+02:00

Wouldn't it be cool if you could easily build a search engine on your blog or website tailored to the topics and areas you know and love the most? You're not alone if you'd like that -- we've heard from partners large and small, and users across the web who want access to the Google search platform, and want to customize and make it their own.

We're thrilled to tell you that the search for your own search engine is over. Today we are launching the Google Custom Search Engine. As you might imagine, it's a simple and straightforward product to use and understand. In a matter of minutes you can create a search engine that reflects your knowledge and interests; looks and feels like your own; and, if you choose, you can make money from the traffic you receive through Google's AdSense program. You can even invite your friends and trusted community members to add to and help build your search engine.

Finding specific information has never been so easy, and there's no programming knowledge or cost involved. We worked with a few initial partners to demonstrate the power of the customization features. Check out the search engine RealClimate.org built to better connect their users to the environmental science information they are looking for. Intuit created a search engine for their JumpUp.com site, finding that it met the needs of their small business customers. But the Custom Search Engine is not just for businesses. Since Shashi is passionate about wine, he created a "wine search engine" and put it on his wine blog so his friends can search for wine-related topics from there.

You can build a Custom Search Engine on any topic you like. Give it a try.

YouTube names names: why is anyone surprised?

2006-10-24T22:58:56+02:00

MarketWatch ran a story last week about YouTube that's been making the rounds. In the piece, MarketWatch reveals that YouTube turned over user data to Paramount so that the film studio could file a lawsuit against a young filmmaker who had produced a 12-minute version of Oliver Stone's Twin Towers using his own actors and working from a leaked script. It's an interesting story, but not for the reasons you might think.

The case itself is old news. Paramount filed their complaint against Chris Moukarbel on June 16 of this year, alleging copyright infringement that caused the studio "great and irreparable injury that cannot be fully compensated or measured in money," according to court documents. Moukarbel settled with Paramount, and Judge Royce Lamberth signed off on the settlement on August 1. The case itself was straightforward: shooting a film based on a "bootleg" script currently being used by another director is going to get you in trouble. Surprise!

But it's the YouTube angle that has people talking. For whatever reason, people have convinced themselves that YouTube is different. Posting copyrighted content, though it remains illegal, is widely seen as behavior that cannot get the uploader into trouble. So YouTube takes down the infringing clip when someone complains—big deal, right?

When YouTube also turns Moukarbel's information over to a movie studio, people are shocked, but they shouldn't be. In fact, that this case has aroused comment at all is interesting, because it's the sort of thing that happens every day to companies across the country.

What is behind eBay and Google partnership?

2006-09-07T19:30:00+02:00

Following the announcement of the partnership between eBay and Google at the end of last August, eBay stock has gained a steady 1.86%. However, on second thoughts, this giant deal seems rather surprising. What is really behind this deal? As with Yahoo! for the United States, the king of auctions chose Google to fill its international sites with ads. This astonishing decision will create a new form of competition for all the small sellers on eBay. While seeking for a new revenue stream, eBay takes the risk to angry its most valuable asset: those thousands of small eBay sellers. It is likely that the recent pressure on eBay bottom line has push toward this delicate choice. The other part of the agreement is also symptomatic. The deal consists in developing with Google a common click-to-call offer on its site, by leveraging on Skype. The trouble is that most click-to-call experts say that the vast majority of customers (almost 85%) prefer to use landlines rather than computers to call. Thus Skype ends up to be rather a barrier than anything else for the deal. This seems to illustrate the difficult integration of Skype into eBay. Skype is a formidable telephone operator. Its economic model of voice over IP is very strong. On the other hand, synergies with eBay are far from obvious. That is for two reasons. First able, a large part of Skype customer base is located in Brazil and India, that is to say very far from eBay customer base. The second reason is that allowing buyers to call sellers (which was the main rational of Skype takeover in the first place) was not welcome by those very precious sellers. Indeed, sellers are already having a hard time to cope with all the emails from buyers. The idea of having to answer buyer queries by phone gives them nightmares. The future of eBay seems rather in pushing quickly towards Web 2.0 and smart collaborative filtering, as is doing Amazon. By offering a much more systematic usage of its fabulous “Long Tail”, eBay will greatly boost its powerful community of sellers. And as a result, securing its long term bottom line.

Can Google kill Office?

2006-09-06T18:45:00+02:00

With the opening a couple of weeks ago of Writely and the launch of Google Apps, Google takes a new step to offer a complete Office solution. There was already Google Spreadsheet versus Excel, Google Calendar and Gmail versus Outlook. With Writely versus Word, it still needs to offer (soon) a clone of Powerpoint and the panoply will be complete. The idea is of course to offer a credible alternative to the 800 pound gorilla Office. And in the backstage, with the will to challenge, via Office, with the very principle of traditional PC (which made and to still make the fortune of Microsoft). Is this strategy poised for success? I move on quickly on the fact that this supposes to have a permanent high speed connection each time one wants to work. With the generalization of Wifi (and soon of Wimax), it is reasonable to think that within a few years, high speed Internet connections will be as usual as electric plugs. The problem of Google is above all to fight against the inherent inertia of any user. To make a user change his habits (what an absolute horror), one should offer enormous incremental value. However on the functional side, even overpowered with Ajax, Writely remains definitely below Word. But, given that 90% of users master 10% of Word functionalities, it is not really important. Paradoxically, the interest of Writely lies in fact within two characteristics not connected with the text processing itself: centralized data storage (which protects from the system crash) and the option to share a document among several users (a little like a wiki). Will that be sufficient to lure tons of Office users? In the short term, that appears not very likely. Indeed, the concept of centralized data storage is challenged by spectacular progress of external flash memories, say nothing of the delicate issue of data privacy. To accept that all ones private and professional life be to stored by the king of keyword search, implies very strong trust. Regarding sharing documents, even if this functionality is rather extraordinary, its usage is justified only in very specific (mainly professional) situations. In short, Microsoft should concentrate at last on the eradication of its eternal crash issues (which still occurs too often on Word) rather than on endless increase in new functionalities. And if in addition, Microsoft keeps its soft policy on licences, Office should be able to resist fairly well against Google new assault.

In-Text advertising provider Kontera Secures $7 million from Sequoia and Lehman Brothers

2006-07-09T20:50:00+02:00

In-Text advertising solutions provider, Kontera, has secured a $7 million in their first round of funding from Sequoia Capital and Lehman Brothers. This investment will be used to accelerate the company´s rapid growth, enhance product development and expand sales and marketing efforts. The company is also launching several affiliate and market-specific In-Text Advertising solutions in the coming months. Kontera’s flagship product, ContentLink, is an In-Text ad unit, based on a patent pending real-time contextual analysis technology that finds relevant keywords on a publisher’s web page and automatically turns them into a link to the most relevant ad from among Kontera´s thousands of advertisers. “After our analysis of the media sector, we became aware of two major industry trends - the inventory scarcity problem in online publishing and the explosive growth of user-generated content,” said Thomas Banahan, Managing Director, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners. “We invested in Kontera because they have a proven service that offers online publishers an actionable and profitable solution to the problem of inventory scarcity. In addition, because Kontera´s content analysis technology works in real-time, it is the monetization solution for the burgeoning user-generated content market." Trying to sell a technology that competes with Google, Kontera In-Text Advertising technology is analyzing web content and serves contextually relevant keyword links in real-time. Kontera’s solution is positioned to generate revenue for publishers vis-a-vis the growing user-generated content market including forums, product reviews, blogs and social networking websites.Blog Marketing Ad – EPOS Digital Stylus | Device Block | File Sync | Mobile Rich Multimedia Solutions

Video sharing community site MetaCafe raised $15 million from Benchmark and Excel Partners

2006-07-03T21:20:00+02:00

Free video sharing portal, MetaCafe, has completed a second financing round, raising $15 million from Benchmark Capital and Excel Partners. The Israeli Web 2.0 video entertainment firm raised $4 million from Benchmark Capital and private investors in its first financial round. Metacafe, that competes with two largest video sharing websites, YouTube and Google Video, serves over 280 million videos or Media Snacks a month. Established in 2003, Metacafe currently employs more than 50 people with plans to add an additional 20 workers.In April 2006, YouTube has received $8M in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital. Founded in February 2005, The Company completed an initial $3.5 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital in November 2005. YouTube currently delivers more than 40 million video views every day with 35,000 new videos uploaded daily.In May 2006, Vpod.tv, a Paris and Madrid based online video sharing site, has received $5.1 million in funding fron the French VC firm Innovacom and Jazztel founder Martin Varsavsky. Besides features simialr to what other video sharing sites have, Vpod includes the ability to integrate advertising in videos, a wide variety of output/device formats, and editing tools. Also, the service seems to have a more editorial focus in terms of videos on the site.The venture capital rush to invest in online video sharing sites is based on the growing advertising spending on internet video. According to the Online Video Advertising report from eMarketer, advertisers will be spending at least $1.5 billion for online video ads by the end of the decade. eMarketer predicts that internet video has the potential to blend several hot marketing elements: paid search, branded entertainment, viral marketing, consumer generated media, behavioral targeting, website site brand marketing and online gaming.Last month NBC and YouTube announced a strategic partnership that will combine NBC's quality programming with YouTube's vast audience to enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube while engaging viewers in innovative new ways to promote NBC's Fall program lineup and other preferred shows over the next year.Israel Digital Blog Ad – EPOS Tablet PC Pen | File Sharing Application | Portable Storage Devices

Is there a risk manager in-house?

2006-02-24T11:30:00+01:00

This week should be a week to remember in corporate gouvernance. Amidst disturbing news, we have heard about the resignation of RadioShark CEO, David Edmondson, under investigation for "errors in his resume", harsh criticisms for the way U.S. companies conduct their business in China. This has later led to Google business legitimacy being questionned over ICP licence validity (Internet Content Provider licence) in China and in the U.S. over ethical matters. But perhaps the worse of it all is the crucial day for RIM (Research In Motion, Blackberry) in the U.S. as it awaits from a court decision on whether or not they have to discontinue their operations there. Now all these tragic events, which have a direct impact on brand image for RadioShark and Google or strategic business results in the case of RIM, but certainly financial ones for both could and should have been prevented if risks had been managed appropriately.

Google rely on its "niceness" image to appeal to users and should have therefore done everything to protect it. Instead, to say the least, they have put themselves in a delicate position. On one hand, they are now under scrunity of their users to see if they sticks by their own ethics and on the other hand, Google have lost tremendous bargaining power in their negotiations with the Chinese government who has legal ground to potentially shut down Google.cn website. Google's move to display the message that the search results were being censored in China, is certainly seen as a defiant one by the Chinese authorities and not a sensible one in a country where "loosing face" is the worse possible offense. No surprise then in the response made. Google headquarters might be tempted to fight this one off on legal ground but no doubt that their Chinese Operations CEO knows better and will try to convince them to return to the negotiations table. The ten-year-old company has already learnt one valuable lesson in doing business in China: Do not force an issue publicly upon your negotiating partner.

RIM... How on earth could a company put in jeopardy their very existence?! Has RIM ever considered the risks other than immediate financial provisions during the four-year raging legal license infringement battle that opposed them to NTP? Well they might now! As they face a threat to be shut down in the U.S. in just 30 days. Customer confidence would be destroyed beyond repair in the U.S., brand image will suffer as legal actions might be looming in other countries, and yes immediate financial distress will materialise.

Risk management is not a useless/meaningless function. It is there to assure the continuity of a company. Management at sight or in a constant lower possible costs only lead to aggravated management issues and escalated financial distress. Hoping that this will be remembered as corporate strategic decisions are being made.

Google blacklisted BMW coz of unethical use of SEO

2006-02-07T00:25:00+01:00

Investigations by Google found that BMW's German website influenced search results to ensure top ranking when users searched for "used car".

Google has now reduced BMW's page rank to zero, ensuring the company no longer appears at the top.

BMW admitted using so-called "doorway pages" to boost search rankings, but denied any attempt to mislead users.

BMW's activities were revealed in a blog by Google software engineer Matt Cutts.

If Google says all doorway pages are illegal we have to take this into consideration

BMW spokesman

BMW's German website, which is heavily reliant on javascript code unsearchable by Google, used text-heavy pages liberally sprinkled with key words to attract the attention of Google's indexing system.
However, once a user clicked on the link displayed in Google's results window, they were redirected to a regular BMW Germany page, which contained far fewer of the key words.

'Do not deceive'

A BMW spokesman admitted the company used the doorway pages, a practice known as search engine optimisation and banned by Google.

But the spokesman insisted the company's intentions were honourable.

Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users

Google website guidelines

"We did not provide different content in the search results to the final website," Markus Sagemann told the BBC News website.
"However, if Google says all doorway pages are illegal we have to take this into consideration."

On Google's own website the company lists a series of quality guidelines.

First among those is a requirement to design websites for users, not for search engines.

"Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as 'cloaking'," Google says.

Google confirmed that BMW.de had been removed from search results, adding that it would not tolerate any attempts to manipulate searches.

"The quality of our index and search results is of the utmost importance to Google," the company said in a statement.

Google would continue to strive to protect the accuracy and quality of its results, it added.

Google at work on desktop Linux

2006-02-03T22:55:00+01:00

It wasn't long ago that we were all excited about the possibility that Google was going to get into the office suite software business. Then, the theory was that Sun and Google would get together and make OpenOffice.org the king of the world.

Instead, we got "Google Toolbar as an option in its consumer downloads of the Java Runtime Environment."

"Gag me with a spoon,"as Moon Unit Zappa used to say. This was not real news.

Then, there were the stories about a Google operating system. That turned out to be Google Pack. This was Google's most uninspiring software offer to date. If, of course, you don't count the stillborn Google Accelerator, which was, in a word, awful.

Now, we have a story from the Register in which freelance journalist Ben King proclaims, "Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop."

According to the report, it will be an "Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution, based on Debian and the Gnome desktop, it is known internally as 'Goobuntu.'"

King goes on to state, "Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project."

However, entering the desktop software world would be a huge step. Making Goobuntu as easy to use as XP will require a lot more development. It's unlikely to be ready for showtime any time soon, and it's possible Google itself hasn't finalised where the project should go.

Whatever Google's intentions, the input of Google engineers and developers, writing new features and fixing bugs, will be a huge boost to the Ubuntu project.

Ubuntu, funded by the South African internet multimillionaire and occasional cosmonaut Mark Shuttleworth, is already emerging as a leader in the desktop Linux world.

It has built considerable momentum in the Linux community, and is starting to appear more widely. Shuttleworth is seeking to persuade white-box PC manufacturers to start shipping machines with Ubuntu preinstalled.

It is top of the Distrowatch download chart, is installed on up to six million computers, and doubling every eight months, according to estimates from Shuttleworth's company, Canonical.

It has spawned a number of different offshoots, including Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu (for schools).

The word Ubuntu means "humanity to others" in several African languages, including Zulu and Xhosa. It's one of the founding principles of post-apartheid South Africa. The origin of the word 'Goobuntu' is not clear, though it does not appear in online Zulu dictionaries.

The Goobuntu.com domain has been registered in the past couple of days, though presumably not by Google. It now redirects to a Cuban portal. Perhaps Google will have to think of a new name for the system before they launch it to the wider public.

When market leaders behave like followers...

2005-11-10T11:05:00+01:00

Far from me the desire to feed an 'anti-microsoft" campaign. I have praised its strategic management decisions. However, one could not stop from wondering what is going on in Redmond? We can put aside the frequent internal communication leaks, understand the need for numerous reorganizations, and forgive the delayed software releases but, I am personnaly confused over Microsoft positionning right now. Until today, I thought the Redmond company was the global market leader. I am stunned to learn that Microsoft is not only admitting to poor strategic management but, announces proudly that they are aiming to replicate strategies developped by challengers such as Google, Skype and Salesforces.com as per the article published in RedHerring(1).

Is it not a follower attitude? Not even a challenger one since they are not announcing improved strategy just replication. I immediately went to www.microsoft.com to find answers regarding positionning, mission & vision, and so forth, and suddendly it became obvious to me: it is just a product company. The first page of their website say that much. It doesn't go further. When most market leaders entered a solution era, Microsoft got stuck in the product era.

In order to survive the next decade, Microsoft Inc. need to take three simple steps: 1) shape up a new strategy based on a more inspiring mission and find a new vision. Today they have no vision which explains why they are accumulated reorganization after reorganization. 2) reposition their brand. Despite a second place in the Top 100 Global brand ranking published in BusinessWeek(2), their brand equity is erroding fast due to negative brand perception. Their current marketing ad campaign does not address this key issue. 3) Communicate internally and externally around their strategy. That will give focus to the company and mobilize all stakeholders behind Microsoft.

(1) Gates Memo Rocks Microsoft, November 9th, 2005 - RedHerring

(2) Global Brand Scorecard, August 1st, 2005 - BusinessWeek