Tag Archives: google

Twitter, Google, and search

By Mack D. Male ·

For some reason, the “Twitter is a Google killer” hyperbole has sprung up again in the last week or so. And this time, there are some important thought leaders like John Battelle chiming in. Here’s what he wrote in a post called “Twitter = YouTube”:

So why did Google really buy YouTube? My answer, which of course looks brilliant given it’s 20/20 hindsight: YouTube was a massive search asset. Fast forward to today. What’s the most important and quickly growing form of search on the web today? Real time, conversational search. And who’s the YouTube of real time search? Yep. Twitter.

I’ve been writing about Twitter Search since the early days of Summize – I’ve always loved it. It’s no surprise to me that others are finally starting to see the value in it. Here’s what I wrote in October, for instance:

Lots of people already contribute to the noise on Twitter, and I think their user base will only continue to grow. So they’ve got that covered. Increasingly it seems that Twitter is working to extract value from that noise. That’s the area they need to focus on most.

The improvements to Twitter Search have been minimal – the addition of the “source” parameter to results, and testing integrated search on the main website. I’d love to see some additional improvements to the service.

Others who have discussed the “Twitter threat to Google” idea include: San Jose Mercury News, Fimoculous, Search Engine Journal, and The Blog Herald. AllFacebook looks at it from another angle.

What should you take away from this? Essentially, that Twitter Search is becoming increasingly important. If you’re not already using it, start now. And don’t expect Google and others to ignore it forever.

Where am I?

By Mack D. Male ·

Though I consider myself a netizen, I don’t live online (yet). I remain tethered to the real world, in real physical space. The lines are beginning to blur somewhat however, thanks to the increasing popularity of location-based online services.

A good example of this is Brightkite, a service I’ve written about a couple of times. In a nutshell, Brightkite gives you a way to say “here I am in the real world!” For example, when I get to work in the morning I “check in”. You can see this action in two ways: on my profile (or at any service that sucks in my profile, such as FriendFeed) and on the place itself. Each place inside Brightkite has a unique ID which means every real world location has a corresponding digital representation. That’s powerful!

The problem with Brightkite is that I need to manually check in. This is where Google Latitude comes in. The service was launched on Wednesday:

Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you.

Ready to share your location? If you have a mobile smartphone, visit google.com/latitude on your phone’s web browser to download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude.

It’s annoyingly basic, but it works. I’ve got it running on my BlackBerry so my location is updated in real-time everywhere I go. That means that Google Latitude knows I am in the office before I actually get on the computer to check in on Brightkite.

Obviously it would be better to have Latitude and Brightkite work together. The Brightkite team have said on Twitter that they’ll look into it as soon as Latitude has an API. I hope that happens relatively soon!

Why does all of this matter? Because location is vitally important. Today it might seem geeky to broadcast your location on the web, but in the not-to-distant future, I’m betting it’ll be completely ordinary. Your social graph and location-aware services will be the first beneficiaries of this information, but others will follow. It’s exciting to consider!

In the meantime, feel free to add me on these services. I’m mastermaq@gmail.com on Google Latitude, and mastermaq on Brightkite.

Google Native Client: ActiveX for the other browsers

By Mack D. Male ·

Today, Google announced Native Client, “a technology that aims to give web developers access to the full power of the client’s CPU while maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability and safety that people expect from web applications.” Basically it’s a browser plugin that hosts a sandbox for native x86 code. So instead of writing a web page, you’d write a normal application and execute it in the browser.

I admit that I’ve only scanned the documentation and research paper so perhaps I’m missing the details, but Native Client seems entirely unnecessary for a bunch of reasons:

  • There are lots of ways to accomplish this already – Java, ActiveX, Flash/Flex, Silverlight 2, Alchemy, etc. Why do we need another one? Will it be very different or better? Heck even ClickOnce seems better than this.
  • What’s the point of running native code inside a sandbox inside a browser? Unless the sandbox is super efficient and our browsers improve by an order of magnitude, it would seem to me that the benefits of native code would be erased.
  • Similarly, with the performance of Javascript/HTML/CSS in browsers consistently improving, why write native code at all? Web apps are becoming very fast.
  • I don’t really want to install yet another plugin. The classic “chicken and egg” plugin problem will be in effect here (users won’t install the plugin without great apps and developers won’t create great apps if no one has the plugin).

This project feels a lot like Google is reinventing the wheel. Or at the very least, throwing something else out there to see if it sticks. I hope developers think about this before jumping in. A bunch of the comments on Google’s post suggest that will happen, such as this one:

Um, isn’t this called desktop software?

That kinda says it all, I think!

When you get right down to it, Native Client is just ActiveX for browsers other than Internet Explorer. Sorry Google, but that doesn’t sound very appealing to me.

Use Google Maps to find Edmonton Transit schedules and trip plans

By Mack D. Male ·

Earlier today I stumbled across this thread on Connect2Edmonton which pointed out that Google Maps Canada now has Edmonton Transit schedules and trip planning features. I immediately jumped over to the website to check it out, and sure enough, it’s all there!

The ETS website has offered trip planning for quite some time now, of course (an average of 89,000 trips were planned each month in 2006). It works well enough, but it’s awkward to use. Everything you do seems to open a new window/tab, and it’s not the fastest service in the world. But the main drawback has always been that you have to know far too much information in advance.

When you need to get from point A to point B, you typically know the address of each, but you don’t know the bus stop number near each one and you certainly don’t know which bus to get on!

That’s where Google Maps absolutely destroys the ETS website. Here’s an example.

I need to get from my apartment building to the current Questionmark office in the west end. I live at 10350 122nd Street, and the office is at 11434 168th Street. Let’s start with the ETS Trip Planner:

  1. Date and time of travel are no problem. The “arrive by” feature is particularly nice.
  2. Enter Starting Bus Stop # or Choose a Landmark. Uh oh, what’s my bus stop number? I could go outside and look or I could try to look it up. Let’s look it up.
  3. Okay not bad, enter my address and click Get Bus Stop #. Okay wow, now I have to choose from 14 different stops! I’m not entirely sure which direction I want. The office is northwest from my house, but do I want a westbound stop or northbound? I’ll choose the first one, heading west.
  4. Now I repeat the same thing for the office address. This time I have a list of 7 stops. Again, I’ll choose the first one.
  5. Now I can get my trip plan! Or not…some sort of error just popped up – “Error in Trip Solution Results”. Excellent. Honest I’m just doing this as I write.
  6. I’m really not sure why I got that error, but I did the whole thing again and after about 30 seconds or so, I got my trip plan – six different route options. Shortest time is 46 minutes.

Now let’s do that with Google Maps:

  1. I enter my home address.
  2. On the pin that comes up, I click “From Here” and enter the office address.
  3. Next I click “Public Transit” on the left pane.
  4. That’s it! I have three suggested routes. Shortest time is 34 minutes, and each one includes walking directions too.

If you want, you can do a few more advanced things as well. Clicking “Show options” will let you choose the “Depart at” or “Arrive by” times, just like the ETS website.

directions

And it gets better! There’s no way for me to get back to that trip plan I made using the ETS Trip Planner. Unless I printed it right there, I’d have to do it again. With Google Maps however, my plan has a permalink! Very nice.

I would love to see ETS link to the Google solution. Competition might be a concern, but it’s probably a better use of resources to help Google improve their system than to continue building an inferior one. I think it’s funny that the “Local agency information” link at the bottom of the results pane is broken. You can thank the new Edmonton.ca website for that!

Of course, the Google Maps solution isn’t yet perfect. It doesn’t seem to contain as much information as ETS, nor does it include Strathcona Transit or St. Albert Transit (as Michael Wilson pointed out to me).

Still, if you need to look up transit information in Edmonton I’d highly recommend you look at Google Maps before trying your luck with the ETS Trip Planner.

UPDATE: Found the official list of cities with transit information at Google Maps. Edmonton is not on the list yet. The currently listed Canadian cities include Vancouver, Fredericton, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Revisiting iGoogle

By Mack D. Male ·

igoogle Like most people who spend a lot of time online, I sign up for new services all the time. Some of them I end up liking quite a bit and using regularly (such as Twitter, obviously) while others I just forget about. Until recently, iGoogle was firmly in the latter category.

iGoogle launched in May 2005, according to Wikipedia. I’m not sure when I signed up, but it likely wasn’t long after that. As you probably know, iGoogle features gadgets that you can drag around the page. Each gadget has a specific purpose – for example, a weather gadget or a calendar gadget.

Three things prompted me to give iGoogle another shot. Many of my coworkers use iGoogle as their homepage, and I kept noticing it during LiveMeetings and such. The second thing was Sharon talking about her favorite iGoogle theme (she calls it “so cute!”). And finally, Google launched an update today:

Google’s startpage, iGoogle, is spreading its wings. Today it is rolling out a new design that shifts tabs to a column on the left so that more Google gadgets and sources of content can be accommodated. But the biggest change is the ability for content partners and developers to expand each gadget to take up nearly the whole page.

Since I only used the old version a couple of times, I can’t really say whether or not the new release is a step forward or backward. I can say that I like it though! The only hiccup at the moment is that dragging gadgets around using Opera 9.6 doesn’t seem to work properly.

I’m giving iGoogle a real chance this time, and I’ve made it my homepage. Any amazing gadgets I should add? All the ones I have right now are fairly mainstream, such as the Google Calendar gadget or the Weather gadget.

Thoughts on Google Chrome

By Mack D. Male ·

As you probably read or heard today, Google has released a beta version of their very own browser, named Chrome. You can download it today for Windows XP or Windows Vista, and Google promises that Mac and Linux versions are coming soon. I downloaded it as soon as it was available, and have been playing with it all day. Here are some of my impressions and thoughts so far:

  • The interface is surprisingly simple. I like it.
  • Chrome is fast. The two sites I’ve noticed the greatest speed difference with so far are Google Reader and Buxfer.
  • I love the “Create application shortcuts” feature. The first thing I did after testing that out was uninstall Mozilla Prism. This feature is what will keep me running Chrome.
  • I like having the status bar at the bottom of the window, so the fact that it is missing in Chrome will take some getting used to. Fortunately a box still appears when you hover over a link.
  • Firefox made an effort to look more “native” to the operating system with version 3, and I wish Google had done the same with Chrome.
  • A couple of my favorite Opera features are built into Chrome: paste and go, search shortcuts (such as “g” for Google”), and the “Speed Dial” page, though it is automatically created in Chrome vs manually created in Opera.
  • As a web developer, I’m incredibly grateful that Google built Chrome atop the WebKit rendering engine, rather than creating yet another one for us to test against.
  • I find it amusing that the Google Chrome logo has the same color scheme as the Windows logo.

Google very creatively launched Chrome with a web cartoon written by Scott McCloud. It’s quite long, but worth a look.

If you’d like to read more about Google Chrome, I suggest the following:

And for my own reference, here is the NYTimes launch article.

I’ll be sticking with Opera for now, but I’ll definitely keep my eye on Google Chrome.

Extremely Handy: Google SMS

By Mack D. Male ·

google mobile I’m a little surprised that I’ve never blogged about Google SMS before, because it’s a wonderfully useful service that deserves more attention. It’s amazing how few people know about it! What is Google SMS? Basically, it’s Google via text messaging. The power of Google in your pocket!

Using Google SMS is really simple. All you have to do is send a text message to 466453 (GOOGLE). There are a bunch of built-in commands you can use, but the default is just a local search. For instance, when Sharon and I were in Calgary last weekend, we used Google SMS to give us the address of Tubby Dog. I sent the following message:

Tubby Dog, Calgary

And Google SMS replied immediately with:

Local Listings: Tubby Dog 1022 17 Avenue SW Calgary, T2T 0A5

I’m not exaggerating when I say immediately either – Google SMS is incredibly fast.

The built-in commands or “search features” include: weather, glossary, dictionary, stocks, directions, flights, translations, calculator, currency conversion, sports, and more. There’s a full list with examples and an interactive demo here. The ones I use most are local search (as above), movies (such as “get smart t6p”), and the calculator (such as “0.45 lb in kg”). The weather search (“weather edmonton”) is also handy.

I’m fairly dependent on Google for looking stuff up, so Google SMS is great because I don’t need to be at a computer. Do yourself a favor and program 466453 into your phone now!

Twitter the next Google? Not likely!

By Mack D. Male ·

twitter One of my favorite blogs to read is the Four (or Five!) Reasons Why blog, written by Mark and Sean Evans. Sometimes they post serious entries (…Earth Hour Is Legit And Significant) and sometimes they post funny entries (…Aquaman Is The Lamest Superhero Of All Time). Today they posted an entry titled …Twitter Is The Next Google, But Better. I can’t tell if it’s funny or serious.

Their main argument is that Twitter is a new, better approach to search:

2. Twitter has accomplished what nobody, not even Google, has yet to figure out – crowdsourcing search.

4. Not only has Twitter inadvertently taken crowdsouring to search, it has actually taken it a step further into friendsourcing. In fact, it has created the first personalized and trusted search engine in the world.

All five statements are very bold, like the two I’ve pulled out above. Google is a giant – it’s difficult to compare anything to Google, let alone Twitter. Not surprisingly, the comments on the post are mostly shock and ridicule – “You’re out of your mind”.

I love Twitter. I’m completely enamored with it, and I recommend it to everyone I know. I get extremely frustrated when they have reliability issues like everyone else, but I always come back. I think Twitter has tremendous potential, but I’d be very hesitant to declare it the next Google.

I remember when Twitter first launched. At the time I was heavily involved in podcasting and I tracked every bit of Odeo-related news that came up. When I saw them launch Twttr (as it was spelled at first), I remember thinking they were getting sidetracked by useless little projects. Who would ever use a service that only allowed 140 characters at a time?

Clearly I was wrong. Twitter turned out to be far more interesting (and useful) than Odeo ever was. Today, I wonder how I ever got along without Twitter. I use it in a number of ways – to display my “status” on the web, as a public instant messenger, and yes as a way of searching without searching. It’s amazing how interesting stuff just comes into the river.

Twitter is new, shiny, and useful. You can definitely use it as a personalized search engine of sorts, and who knows how it’ll be used in the future. The sky is the limit. To say that it is the next Google is a bit of a stretch, however.

Read: …Twitter Is The Next Google, But Better

Don’t worry about undersea cable cuts

By Mack D. Male ·

inet Remember all the undersea cables that were cut last month? I still haven’t come across a definitive reason for the disruptions, though a February 19th article at The Inquirer claims it was sabotage. I’m not sure about that, but the one thing that is clear is that everyone has moved on. For instance, Google announced a few weeks ago that it was joining a consortium building a new $300 million undersea fiber optic cable linking the US and Japan:

The new cable system – named Unity – will address broadband demand by providing much needed capacity to sustain the unprecedented growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and the United States.  Unity is expected to initially increase Trans-Pacific lit cable capacity by about 20 percent, with the potential to add up to 7.68 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across the Pacific.

Om Malik has a good roundup of reasons for why Google got involved.

Just a few days ago, AT&T announced big investments in data centers here in Canada as well as undersea cables in Asia and Australia:

“Recent cable cuts in Europe and Asia show we need to further improve resiliency and re-routing capability,” he says.

AT&T has the largest private fleet of cable-laying ships in the world, and operates its global network on 71 undersea cables laid over 450,000 miles…

If you do a quick search you’ll find a bunch of other announcements for cable systems, such as this new one in Africa, and this upgraded one that links Singapore and France.

Maybe new cables are being laid faster than they are being cut after all :)

Also – check out this post at the Royal Pingdom blog:

Over 260 ISPs, including major network providers like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, all cross-connect in a single data center in an office building in downtown LA.

This has been going on for 20 years. So much for not having a single point of failure.

A few cut cables seems kind of irrelevant compared to that.

Yahoo and Google become OpenID providers

By Mack D. Male ·

Post Image The OpenID single sign-on project got a major boost this week when Yahoo announced it would enable it’s 250 million users to use their Yahoo logins for authenticating at OpenID websites. And just yesterday, Google announced that Blogger accounts can now be used as OpenID logins. OpenID is definitely gaining momentum.

So what is OpenID?

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.

You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.

It’s a really good idea, and works fairly well in practice. I think a major question new users will have is, which provider should I use?

See I think most users have a Yahoo account and a Google account, and many others. There are tons of sites that act as OpenID providers. Which one should you choose? How do you decide which to use as your provider?

I guess it wouldn’t matter if you could combine them somehow. I don’t know enough about OpenID to know if that’s possible. Anyone reading this have any idea?

Read: OpenID