Archive for: google
iPhones seem to be everywhere these days and even the release of the G1 phone hasn’t really had an impact on their growing marketshare. Palm have also announced that they will soon be launching their new smartphone called the Palm Pre, which is getting a huge amount of buzz at the moment. Thus bringing us to the final major player in the market who is yet to release a smartphone that can actually take marketshare and thats Nokia.
Nokia announced about three months ago that they will be releasing the N97 which is their rival to the iPhone. The N97 will be release in the 2nd quarter of 2009 and its sure to raise some eyebrows.
Here at Crenk we are still yet to get our hands on a new N97 test version, but I thought I would provide our readers with a basic overview of the phone and how it compares to iPhone and G1.
Nokia N97 – compared to the iPhone3G and G1
3.5 inches screen size
( iPhone3G : 3.5 inch ; G1 : 3.2 inch )
640 x 360 pixel resolution
(iPhone3G : 320×480 pixels ; G1 : 480×320 pixels resolution)
16:9 Aspect ratio,the same as that of TV,PC Monitors etc
(both iPhone and G1 have aspect ratio of 3:2 )
Resistive touchscreen display with tactile feedback
(both iPhone & G1 boast a capacitive touchscreen(feather touch sensitive) )
Sliding QWERTY Keyboard
( iPhone : No physical keyboard ; G1 : Sliding QWERTY Keyboard )
Inbuilt WiFi,Bluetooth,HSDPA,A-GPS,3G
( Both iPhone and G1 have it )
32GB Onboard memory (expandable through microSD card upto 48GB as total capacity)
(neither iPhone nor G1 go beyond 32 GB as total capacity )
Battery : 1500 mAh (Heavy duty ! )
(iPhone : 1400 mAh ; G1 : 1150 mAh )
5 MP Digital Camera (DVD quality video capture)
(iPhone : 2.0 MP ; G1 : 3.2 MP )
OS : S60 5th Edition
(iPhone : iPhone OS 2.2 ; G1 : Android 1.0 )
Weight : 150 g (approx.)
( iPhone : 133 g ; G1 : 158 g )
Price : $550 (before network subsidies so expect it to go way cheaper than this)
(iPhone : $199(min.) ; G1 : $179(min.) )
Conclusions:
After a direct comparison with all the feature of the n97, G1 and iPhone3G the Nokia is by far the leader from a hardware perspective. However, it terms of the software and the OS, Nokia is a long way behind Google and Apple but this is expected.
The key also is that the App Store has made a huge impact on making the iPhone such a big success, and with the Android Market just being launched I’m sure that the G1 will slowly gain more and more marketshare. Where does this leave Nokia? Nokia really need to think hard and long about how they are going to open up their software to outside developers and then allow the average user the ability to pick and choose the applications that are right for them. OS has never been a strong point for Nokia, but it is about time they actually improved this sector if they are going to continue to be a major player in the smartphone market.
Also that the ‘App Store’ is something that has played a very critical role in making iPhone a worldwide success and now the same thing is occurring in the form of ’Android Market’ for G1, Nokia(being ‘new’ to open developer support for apps) can’t afford to reach the standards set by the other two veteran smartphones(specially iPhone)
Google has just release Chrome (its internet browser) to the world in beta stage. If you are interested in testing out this new browser then head here to download.
So, what does a Google Chrome beta bring? Speed, and lots of it. According to Google, it’s 25 percent faster than the stable build of Chrome, which is nothing short of amazing given that Chrome is already blazing fast.
Other new features are form autofill, full page zooming and autoscroll, as well as a way to get a side-by-side view by dragging out tabs to the side of the browser window, which you can see in the amazingly short video below.
There has been a lot of talk overnight about YouTube (owned by Google) not being able to come to a royalty deal with the PRS in UK, thus leading to all music videos being removed from YouTube effective immediately. Here are links to the statement about the situation from YouTube and the PRS.
I don’t want to just run through what many other sites and news sources are writing about, I wanted to discuss why a solution didn’t happen and what is going to happen next to both the PRS and YouTube.
YouTube and the PRS couldn’t come to a royalty deal mainly because the PRS were asking for a lot and they were providing no real information in return. The PRS were asking for blanked royalties but weren’t able to specifically say what artists would receive the royalties and what amounts they would receive. YouTube stated the following:
“PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before…we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the license they can provide so that we can identify those works…that’s like asking a consumer to buy an unmarked CD without knowing what musicians are on it.”
It is kind of like the PRS just expected YouTube to meet their demands no matter what they asked. In addition, on the PRS statement for some reason they mentioned Google’s last quarter revenues for 2008 in which have completely no relevance in this case. The PRS still seem to be using old methods to try to force companies into agreements that just simply aren’t realistic in this current economic climate. Remember that Pandora is not in the UK anymore because the PRS couldn’t offer them a decent agreement and forced them to basically close up shop in this country.
This leads me to believe that there is now a potential for YouTube to launch a spinoff site as already reported with all four major labels, which will attract high levels of advertisers and also possibly sidestep old music companies like the PRS.
It seems these days everyone is starting a twitter account. The newest company who has joined Twitter is Google. If you are keen to follow Google on Twitter then head over to their account. Additionally, if you arent following Crenk on Twitter then why the hell not!
Alternative search engines seem to be popping up everywhere lately. Oneriot is yet another alt search engine but this one seems to actually provide some useful results. Like most other search engines Oneriot provides basic search results in a basic format. However, unlike other search engines, they prioritise their information based on its current popularity within their community. Popular results are a great idea, cause on Google I’m sick of seeing search results that are sold old they are now just obsolete.
Oneriot pushes our revelant, fresh, friendly and search results with real time energy. When using Oneriot you might notice that there is a search result above the others and this is because of their pulsing service. Pulsing is what they define as a search results that is getting buzz right now. The more real time buzz you get the higher on search results those articles will be and thus more traffic for your site.
Oneriot is a clean and very user friendly search engine that I expect to be hearing more about in the coming years. Im just a little worried about their current revenue model, cause there doesn’t seem to be one.
Torrent giant The Pirate Bay has launched an interactive map showing where people are seeding and leeching torrents around the world, with data for every country giving a percentage of users, and how many connections are going through that country.
It’s a Google Maps mash-up, which is already serving up some fascinating data. “In the near future more statistics will be added, such as the type of BitTorrent clients people use, and the average download and upload speeds per region,” claims TorrentFreak, which reported the news.
Today it was repoted by Torrentfreak that according to a report in the Norwegian press today, some companies have reacted uncomfortably to the news that their Google Adwords text ads have been appearing on IsoHunt, the world’s third largest BitTorrent site.
Google has a policy of not displaying ads on sites that are involved in or linked to copyright infringement, with many torrent sites previously excluded from the scheme. Of course, some still carry Google ads, purely because Google is unaware of the nature of those sites, but with IsoHunt the situation is different. On IsoHunt the Google ads aren’t directly served by Google, but by Ask.com, a Google AdWords ‘reseller’.
Ask.com, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, works with several other BitTorrent sites. Only on IsoHunt have they displayed search based ads that came from Google AdWords campaigns. They have been doing so for several months, perhaps years, but up until now nobody complained, or knew.
In a statement, Jan-Henrik Ohme, head of digital marketing at Sony BMG said “We have stopped the section of the campaign that goes to the third party until Google cleans up the issues. We have contacted Google, and they took immediate action.”
For its part, Google Norway has apologized for the situation, and said that the advertisers should not be held responsible for the placement of the ads, since due to the 3rd party involvement, they had no way of knowing where they would appear. The campaigns are not limited to Norway though, and Ask.com certainly has something to explain to Google.
This situation was bound to happen but some of the companies dont really understand why it happened. Ask.com was only allowed to have their ads on Isohunt because the deal they started with Google was done after the Isohunt deal. Thus, Google allowed all historical deals to continue as normal. Therefore, it is impossible to now have Google ads on new bittorrent related sites.
Additionally, the ads are not done through Ask.com, they are from Ask.co.uk. This is because Ask.com sell their own adwords type program still and Ask.co.uk controls the Google Adwords reseller program.
I have been wondering for a long time now “what makes a good startup page”? How does an internet user determine what will be their start page and what just doesn’t do it for them? In this article I’m going to run through some of the basic types of startup pages out there today and see what characteristics are good for me and what aren’t.
The first type of startup pages are the ‘add your own modules‘ type of startup pages. About a year and a half ago these types of pages were being developed left right and center, but lately they seem be going into liquidation very fast.
Netvibes - Netvibes is a module based startup page that has been growing from strength to strength recently. They are based in France but have been able to build up traffic worldwide. All modules can be customised in whatever style the user sees fit. Netvibes is the leader in this type of startup page and I every time I head back to their site they seem to have made improvements.
Pageflakes - Pageflakes is a startup page very similar to Netvibes except they don’t have the adoption levels of Netvibes. Pageflakes was acquired by Live Universe about either months ago because they were struggling and running out of liquid funds.
iGoogle - iGoogle is basically the Google version of Netvibes but with the Google search option at the top of the page. iGoogle has very limited themes, but it is simple to integrate with everything Google of course.
These types of startup pages are good for the user because they allow you to place whatever modules you want onto the page, but there is such a thing as information overload. Personally, Im not so sure about these types of sites as startup pages, because they are simply just ugly to look at because everything is a base size module and they just take too long to setup!
The next type of startup pages are the ‘one page aggregators‘. This type of startup page brings together some of the most popular rss feeds from around the internet and puts them all onto one page. Basically it is a rss reader for the lazy.
Popurls - Popurls is the original startup aggregator which brings together some of the best sites in the tech industry. Sites include Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz, Metafilter and more. The site has a very simple layout showing the top 10 from each site. Additionally, they have added videos from Youtube and photos from Flickr.
Alltop - Alltop is a new site from Guy Kawasaki (evangelist at Apple), in which he takes the idea of popurls and spreads it to pretty much every time of market. This is basically an rss reader for every type of industry for the most basic of internet users.
Original Signal – Original Signal used to be one of the leaders in this space, but recently they have been losing market share fast. Original Signal covers mainly tech and business topics, but they have seemed to update the service in many years.
These startup pages are great if you just want to have a quick look at one site in the morning and see what is happening around the world on a specific topic. However, they don’t allow users to choose the rss feeds you want to read, this can be done easily by using an rss reader.
Finally the other type of startup page is the simple search engine and 99% of the time its Google. Personally Google is my startup page but mainly because I find it easier to click the home button at the top and then type in my search, instead of typing it into the top of Firefox. Google as a page is so simplistic and it provide immense functionality behind that basic exterior.
Overall, what makes a good startup page? This is probably a different answer for every single person. However, I do think that startup pages need to be simple, have a good search option and allow the user to customise if they wish. As always simplicity and functionality are the keys.
What is currently happening with Feedburner stats? Is Google somehow updating the service, because in the last few days I have seen a huge drop in Google Feedfetch numbers within Feedburner. I thought I would also spend sometime trolling around the web to see if other sites have been affected by this situation and what I have noticed is that all sites have been affected by this. I was hoping Feedburner might be able to let us know if they are updating this system and why there are such drastic changes.
Not too long ago the guys over at Killerstartups launched a new service called Dataopedia. Dataopedia is a basic solution that allows users to type in any url and find quickly key metrics from various sources.
Metrics that are measured include Google PR, Alexa Numbers, Compete and Quantcast analysis, Social media breakdowns, Twitter news, Technorati links, Friendfeed and url registration information. Currently, Dataopedia pulls in all this information from various partners including Crunchbase, Compete, Digg, Getsatisfaction and more.
There’s also something interesting buried at the bottom of the site profiles: an ability to comment on the site using Disqus. While that’s not likely to have the reach of a Google Search Wiki, it provides yet another way to gather details about the site and its reputation.
Dataopedia does a great job of pulling all the key quantitative and qualitative site measures required in todays world of web 2.0. There is still a lot of improvements that can be made with the user interface, but over it is probably already leading in this specific market, even thought market is very small.
Probably more than six months ago now I noticed that iWebTool’s Google Pagerank predictor stopped working correctly. I know that no one has really reported about this issue but it just a well known fact that it no longer works. However, it really makes me wonder why no one has actually contacted Google and tried to get this service back up and running. Google Pagerank is know for providing a basic authority ranking for their search engine, these days it probably has not as much affect on search results as it previously had, but it is still very important. Can someone get this back up and working!!
No more just Google Adwords CPC ads on YouTube cause they have just added a sponsored videos section. Anyone can now start and run a campaign for their videos directly on YouTube and they all based on CPC.
Concerned about costs? Don’t worry – Sponsored Videos puts you in complete control of your spending. There’s no minimum spending requirement–the amount you pay for Sponsored Videos is up to you. You can, for instance, set a daily budget of five dollars and a maximum cost of ten cents for each click on your ad.
Currently they only support users in the USA, but im sure that they will be expanding this very soon to other countries.
