Google Launches A Location-Based Android App

Google has just launched a new Android app that lists the places around

Places Directory is a straight-forward app created by some Googlers as their 20% time project. When you launch it, it looks up your location and gives you a directory of the types of establishments around. If I click on “Bars” for example, I’ll then get a list of the bars around me complete with a thumbnail image, the location’s distance from me and a star rating. Clicking on any of the listings will take you to a page with an overview of the place, including its address and phone number. You can also read reviews of the place by Google local users and see more pictures of the place.

While there are no shortage of apps on the iPhone that do basically the same task, there are less available on Android. And while some of the apps that do exist focus mostly on restaurants, Places Directly can also find things like ATMs or museums. And even the best apps out there that do these place listing suffer from a lack of information in smaller towns. That won’t be an issue in NYC, but could be in my hometown of Pepper Pike, Ohio. But Places Directory has Google’s huge database of information at its disposal, which means that even in remote towns, you’ll likely have some information about local places.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/google-launches-a-location-based-android-app-to-save-tourists/

Google upgrades custom search box on Blogger

Google’s blog publishing platform, Blogger, is bringing its Custom Search Box gadget out of its beta version, also known as Blogger in Draft. The search gadget a blog’s readers search posts, web pages linked from the blog, other blogs on the blog roll, as well as pages on the shared links list.

Google initially launched the gadget on its Blogger in Draft platform, which offers users a version of Blogger where Google tests out features and new interfaces. Google says it has upgraded the search gadget to provide simpler defaults as well as the ability for the box to integrate with the aesthetics and color of your blog. The Search Box gadget uses AJAX Search APIs to power the feature and also automatically updates the custom linked search engine when you update your blog, blog lists, or link lists.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

Search Smackdown: Bing Vs. Google

That was fast. Irish programmer and SEO specialist Paul Savage has made this very basic web service, which lists all results for search queries on Google and Bing side by side so you can compare which one produces the best results for the keywords you enter on one single page. We've played around with it a bit and found that the tool proves that the user experience for both search engines really is very different:

- searching for 'Google'

Google will show news results about themselves first, and a link to their homepage later, which makes sense since people are probably already on there. The rest of the results consists of Google products and local versions of the search service. Noteworthy difference is the presence of a button that lets you drop down a widget displaying information about Google's stock without the need to leave the page.

Bing, on the other hand, provides a list of possible extended search queries on the left sidebar, and a list of useful direct links to Google services below the first result. It also lists 'similar' searches on the right sidebar (not visible in this screenshot) with alternative services - Bing being the first one they recommend. It also displays a box that you can use to jump to Google search, and it keeps track of your search history right on the page, unless you turn that feature off.

- searching for 'Linux'

Using Google, you get much better results for this query, period. Google lists at least five very relevant links (Kernel.org, Debian.org, RedHat.com, LinuxJournal.com and LI.org) that you will not find in the first 15 search results on Bing. No nifty sidebars, nor any amount of spot-on similar results will help Microsoft here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060200550.html