Google launches first TV ads

Chrome launched last September in a direct bid to lure users away from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Google has famously avoided traditional marketing routes in the past, however it is now desperate to promote Chrome.

Since the initial burst of publicity, Chrome has failed to provide serious competition to rival browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox.

 Chrome is used by just 1.4% of internet users compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, used by 66% of users, according to Net Applications market share statistics. Mozilla’s Firefox comes in second place, as the browser choice of 22% of web users and Apple’s Safari program comes in third, with 8%.

On the official Google blog, the company explained that the video was originally made by a team from Google Japan as a YouTube clip, but had proved so effective, that it had decided to take it onto traditional TV.

“We designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser, and also help us better understand how television can supplement our other online media campaigns,” said Mike Steib, director, Google TV Ads.

The Google TV Ads system allows Google to act as a broker to sell advertising time on the US TV networks. By using its to book its own TV ad, it is thought the company is trying to promote the service – which has enjoyed limited success since launch two years ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/5307663/Google-launches-first-TV-ads.html

Twitter like functionality could be added to search

While taking questions yesterday about alleged violation of anti-trust laws, Google execs including CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly told press that the company is, in the words of Reuters scribe Alexei Oreskovic, "looking at ... ways of integrating microblogging capabilities, such as those popularized by Twitter, into its search product."

That's news to us. Everything these days is about Twitter, though. Go to a party--talk about Twitter. Have a blog? Talk about Twitter. Use Twitter? Talk about Twitter. Apparently we can add to that: facing legal pressure over allegedly anti-competitive business practices? Talk about Twitter. There's absolutely no more information available about this - but below are three possible scenarios we can imagine for Google integrating microblogging into its search product.

The fact that Schmidt said what he did is just one reason to believe Google is going to do something with microblogging. There are several - most important is the fact that status sharing and activity streams are really useful, compelling and potentially valuable for both users and companies that dabble in them. Here's how it might go down.

Real Time Search

The most logical integration of microblogging and search would be microblogging search. Google already indexes Twitter messages, in some ways better than Twitter does. We can imagine "real time" being an option just like web, news, images and blogs on Google search. Here at ReadWriteWeb we use this tool to have that experience already. There is a whole lot that can be done with something like Twitter search if the user accounts tweeting the twits and twats are taken into account. Check out the nascent awesomeness at Twazzup, for example.

This probably isn't going to happen, though, as long as Twitter is the only microblogging game in town. There just isn't a meaningful data set of publicly available status updates elsewhere. Facebook status messages would be great to search but that would contradict the fundamental nature of the site - and Microsoft has a lot of skin in the game there.

We're hoping that open source microblogging technology from Laconi.ca will spread throughout the land and give engines something other than Twitter to search.

Source:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_says_microblogging_coming_to_google_sea.php

Google Mothers day Logo

But for their first year, Google has been changing its home page logo every Mother's Day in a tribute to mothers everywhere. And although the images for the years 2000 and 2001 don't look very different, take a closer look (images below) and you'll find a small but interesting distinction.

We took this years image from Google Australia, but you should see it on all of Google's sites very soon.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/

Create your Google profile

We recently announced that Google profile results now appear at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. Creating a profile gives you greater control over what people find when they search for your name on Google. Your profile can include online photos, links to your blog or other online profiles, and ways for people to contact you -- and you can restrict contact information like your address and phone number to only the people and groups you choose.

When creating a profile, you have the option to use your Gmail username as a your profile URL (profiles.google.com/yourusername), so it's easier to remember and share. Some examples:

http://profiles.google.com/mattcutts 

 

If you want people to be able to contact you, but don't want to reveal your email address to the world, you can hide your username and use a 24 digit number instead. Turn on the 'Send a message' feature, and anyone with a Google Account can send you a message through your profile, without having your email address revealed to them.

Don't have a profile? Go to www.google.com/profiles  to get started.

source courtesy:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gmail Suffers Yet Another Outage

Gmail users were greeted with a "Temporary Error (500)" message today, making the service temporarily unavailable.

Calling the outage another Gfail, Twitter buzzed with complaints from all over the world, with some complaining that Google Apps too was down. The Google Apps page confirmed with a red cross against Google Mail, that there was downtime on Friday.

http://tech2.in.com/india/news/internet/gmail-suffers-yet-another-outage/67052/0

Google search right in Gmail

I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I'd have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I'd have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I'd get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I'd have to go through it all again when I remembered what I'd been doing.

With the new Google Search experiment in Gmail Labs, my problem is solved. When you turn this feature on from the Labs tab under Settings, you'll see a new search box on the left side of your inbox, like this:

ype your search in, and a window (like a chat window, but a bit bigger) appears at the bottom of your screen with the first few search results. 

You can click on a search result and it'll open up in another window (or another tab) so you can make sure it's what you're looking for. Once you're sure it's a result you need, moving your mouse over the result back in Gmail reveals a pull-down menu that lets you do stuff with the search result.

What's in the menu depends on what you're doing in Gmail:

If you're reading a message, you can start a reply to the message with the search result as the first thing in your reply.

If you're writing a message, you can paste the result, or just the URL into your message.

If you're chatting with someone, you can send the result via chat.

You can also always compose a new message to send the search result.

If you have keyboard shortcuts turned on, typing g and then / will take you to the search box when you're not composing, and Ctrl + g will do it when you're composing (that's ⌘ + g for Mac users).

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-google-search-right-in.html

Twitter keeps on growing especially in australia

Twitter loves celebrities.

We know that Oprah Winfrey's brought a lot of new users to Twitter in the U.S., but according to Hitwise, the popular microblogging service is currently seeing some of its most impressive growth outside of America. In Australia, where Oprah Winfrey doesn't command the same kind of daytime television audience, Twitter grew over 1,000% since the beginning of 2009, and its annual growth since last April tops 3,200%. In Australia, Twitter is now the 37th most visited web site.

According to Hitwise, 38% of the top 50 searches for 'twitter' in Australia include the name of a celebrity. Lindsay Lohan leads the charge, followed by Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, and Australia's own Hugh Jackman. While Kutcher's much publicized race to 1 million followers increased Twitter's share of daily visits in Australia by 10.6%, Oprah's first tweet only registered a 2.46% increase

Twitter is also seeing similar growth in other Asia Pacific markets. In New Zealand, the official home of RWW, Twitter's share of daily visits increased 305% in 2009, and it is now the 49th most visited web site there, and its growth rate in Singapore is comparable. Only Hong Kong is lagging far behind these other markets.

Twitter is Sticky

One interesting phenomenon about Twitter is that new users tend to stay on the service. In Australia, according to Hitwise, the single largest spike in visits came one day after the queens land election n March, and interestingly, Hitwise did not record a drop in numbers since then. This bodes well for Twitter, which, thanks to the hype around Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher, was able to pick up a lot of new users who typically wouldn't have been too interested in joining Twitter.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_keeps_on_growing_-_especially_in_australia.php