Tag Archive for 'Search Engines'

Collaborative software gets hotter!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 1/11/2006
in Search Engines, Technology and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

A lot has already been written about Jotspot’s announcement that they were acquired by Google yesterday - congratulations to Joe Kraus and the team.

JotSpot is a wiki application with builtin functions for adding calendars, spreadsheets, blogs, photos, etc.

JotSpot wiki interface

This was a predictable enough move on Google’s part as they had no wiki software in their arsenal of Live web applications.

This acquisition by Google gives Google access to wiki software for its enterprise play. The list of Google’s applications in this space is becoming unassailable and their acquisitions strategy is extremely smart - they are buying proven applications with intact and enthusiastic customers already in place.

Interestingly, I see Jeff Nolan and Zoli Erdos are pointing out that JotSpot’s two main competitors, SocialText and Atlassian, are offering free migration for JotSpot customers to their respective platforms!

This acquisition only goes to further prove that collaborative software is here to stay.

I loved Dan Farber’s throwaway:

I doubt that JotSpot will be renamed Gspot

Sometimes it pays to listen

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 29/10/2006
in Search Engines, Web 2.0 and video
. 1 Comment

I wrote, shortly after Google bought YouTube, that this purchase was a potential windfall for YouTube copyright claimants however recent happenings are proving me wrong (imagine that!).
Prof Tim Wu (Professor of Law at Columbia) wrote recently in an article in Slate that YouTube (or GooTube as people are now taking to calling it):

is in much better legal shape than anyone seems to want to accept. The site enjoys a strong legal “safe harbor,” a law largely respected by the television and film industries for the choices it gives them.

Prof Wu went on to say:

if Jon Stewart notices an infringing copy of The Daily Show on YouTube, Comedy Central can write a letter to YouTube and demand it be taken down. Then, so long as YouTube acts “expeditiously” and so long as YouTube wasn’t already aware that the material was there, YouTube is in the clear.

This comment was very prescient because Boing Boing has posted news that YouTube has taken down all copies of the Daily Show!

ComedyCentral have their own online video site where people can view the Daily Show but as the blog An Unreasonable Man said of Comedy Central:

the YouTube video player works. Your video player? Not so much… Here’s why:

1. You have tiny little videos that can’t be resized. It’s like watching TV from the next room through the keyhole of a closed door.
2. You use javascript to launch a popup window. Therefore, I can’t send a link to my friends or put a link on my blog to direct people to the video highlight I want them to see.
3. Your popup window can’t be opened in a tab or resized. Give me control of my browser back.
4. Your popup window has an obnoxious background that I’m afraid is going to give me a seizure.
5. Next to your video, there’s an ad that’s bigger than the video. Firefox blocks it, but I can’t decide which is worse: the hole that remains in the background, or the background.
6. When I open a YouTube page, the video starts to play. Isn’t that cool? On your page, I sit and think about how much you suck while the video buffers. The video plays for about 3 seconds until it over-runs and starts buffering again. …and that’s with DSL. It must be completely useless at slower connection speeds.
7. With YouTube, I can embed the videos in my own website. When I visit a site I’m more likely to watch a video if its right there and I can just push play. You’re at least five years away from developing that technology.
8. YouTube’s search feature also works, conveniently allowing me to find what I’m looking for. At your site I end up looking through a list of videos.

If ComedyCentral are no longer going to allow YouTube to distribute the Daily Show, they should at least have a credible alternative in place. If they don’t, people will go elsewhere for their entertainment. In the era of the Long Tail, it isn’t as if we are stuck for choice.

Sometimes your users know better than you - sometimes it pays to listen.

Google get asinine

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 26/10/2006
in Search Engines
. 11 Comments

I see Google are now telling us when we can and when we can’t use the word Google in our everyday speech!

we do have a brand to protect, so we’d like to make clear that you should please only use “Google” when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services

I actually think they are serious too - if this were April 1st, I’d understand why the post was put out there but as it is not, I am bemused by the company’s trying to stop people using its name (use of its name, even as a verb, instead of a noun, by definition increases its brand awareness).

Plonkers.

Google’s windfall for copyright claimants

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 10/10/2006
in Podcasting, Search Engines and video
. 2 Comments

In case you haven’t heard (where have you been?) Google announced that the rumours were true after all and that they have agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65bn.

Yep. You read that correctly, $1.65bn.

Unsurprisingly, this is the top story on TechMeme.

It looks like Google believes video on the web has a real future and YouTube’s legal troubles (they are being threatened with litigation for copyright infringement) are a price they are willing to pay.

For the people thinking of suing YouTube this has got to have them down on their knees thanking their deity of choice! Instead of suing YouTube - a company with no significant assets, they now get to sue Google - one of the world’s wealthiest companies!

Google Blogsearch adds ping

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 9/10/2006
in Blogging, Search Engines and Web 2.0
. 3 Comments

Thanks to Niall Kennedy for pointing out Google’s new ping service.

This is great - one of the biggest problems I had with Google’s blogsearch was how slow it was to pick up on posts. Several hours after posting an article, typically it still wasn’t up on Google whereas the post is often up on Technorati within minutes.

You can manually ping Google’s Blogsearch here or alternatively you can add the following address to your blog platform to automate the ping (in WordPress add it Options -> Writing -> Update Services)

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping

For more see the Google Blog Search ping FAQ

Google Maps and Google Earth images updated

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 4/10/2006
in Search Engines
. 6 Comments

The Google Earth blog notes that there has been a significant update to Google Earth and Google Maps images.

On checking Cork, I found that it has been significantly updated with recent high-res images. However, Rushbrook, where I am based, is still only available in low-res. In this screen you can see Rushbrook is on the West side of Great Island and just to the right of where the high-res image ends!

So close!

Tom Raftery’s Social Media is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache!