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The best feature of the experimental Google Maps City Tours may now be the “remove” button. But with some time and tweaks, this could be a great sight seeing — or business planning — tool.
Via Seach Engine Land and Steve Rubel comes word of a new Google Labs experimental project called City Tours (http://citytours.googlelabs.com/search). And by “experimental,” Google Labs really means experimental, as in it’s not ready for prime time and it may not become a real product. As I’ve written before, Google tries things all the time that don’t work and which they then discard — that’s a big part of why they are so successful.
Given some time to let the features evolve, I believe this could be an incredibly helpful tool — and not just for sight-seeing, but as a valuable logistics tool for certain kinds of businesses.
In essence, it mashes up several features already found in Google Maps: Google Maps advanced search features that most people never discover (i.e., map search queries like “category:”Museums” loc: Nashville), the personalization of “my maps,” the ability to override Google maps’ suggested directions by moving push-pins, data from walking directions and ratings and review data. City Tour takes all those mashed up features and presents them in a metaphor that results in what could be a helpful way to plan an itinerary of a multi-day of sight-seeing in any city. You start by merely typing in the name of a city or you can search for a specific address.
Because my hometown of Nashville is a tourist destination for many (locals, however, consider it a badge of honor to claim they’ve never visited many of the places tourists come to see), I decided I’d check out the default suggestions of a search of Nashville. Other than jumping in the car to drive out to something near the Opryland Hotel called the Willie Nelson and Friends General Store and Museum, I can understand why the default locations were selected. However, there is a means to override anything the map suggests (Add/Remove sights), so the default sites are merely placeholders. (I assume the sites recommended may change as the ratings data users contribute “vote up” or “vote down” specific locations.)
But this is a work in progress — early in the work’s progress: the “experimental”-ness of City Tours can be seen if you try to add a visit to one of Nashville’s museums that’s actually worth a visit — the Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson, the map assumes you’re referring to the Hermitage Hotel, home of the best restroom in America. (Hint: search for Hermitage Museum to get the real Hermitage.)
More importantly, by changing some metaphors related to what one can use a map like this for — in this case, it’s a vacation planning tool — this type of tool could evolve into a delivery planning tool for business that could provide a low cost (or free) alternative to super-expensive logistics systems certain delivery-intensive businesses need. Take some of the same set of features and call it “small business delivery planning map” and you’d have a hacked (but obviously, greatly simplified) version of the routing instructions a UPS delivery person is handed each day (actually, it’s on a computer in the truck) that, reportedly, is so efficient, it minimizes left hand turns in order to save gas and drive-time.
With a few tweaks, this could be an incredibly helpful — and extremely valuable (time=money) tool for helping small service businesses that dispatch workers (i.e., repair service companies, deliveries) plan their workers intenerary. It won’t challenge UPS and others who sell high-end systems for certain types of companies, but it could be a killer application for a fleet of 3-4 trucks — or larger.
In the mean time, the experimental version could be fun to play with in planning a trip — and even more fun for locals to criticize for what the default version suggests, or doesn’t.
I guess you could say this post is literally a Google search query. Ironically, it’s a question about Google that I can’t locate via Google — perhaps because I don’t know how to word it.
It’s a web development question that involves the Google Profiles feature I wrote about recently.
Here’s the question:
You know how there are ways to create badges or identity widgets (see left) or whatever we’re supposed to be calling them this week, from your Facebook profile or your LinkedIn profile? (I couldn’t figure out how to display it, but Linkedin has a way to hack a bigger version, as well.)
My question: Is there a way to create such a “badge” or widget that can display ones Google profile on a website or blog?
If not, is there an API that exposes any of that information found in ones Google profile? If not, why not? Isn’t ones Google profile a significant facet of the whole Open Social initiative?
Shirley there’s a way.
Earlier today, Google launched a redesigned interface on Google Books and added an “embed” feature (click on “Link”). Below, I’ve embedded Tolstoy’s War and Peace to give you something to read while waiting for my next post. Actually, I think it’s just a “preview” of War & Peace, but I’m not sure since I only read the first 1,000 pages while posting this. (Or, here’s where you can download a PDF of it.) However, another approach to “reading” the book could be downloading the new Cliffsnotes iPhone App of War & Peace when they add the title to their new collection. By the way, there are two different 99¢ apps that have the full text of the book for you iPhone reading pleasure.
Cool feature: If you want to embed a book and have it displayed first on a specific page, go to that page before selecting the embed code. That’s a little like being able to manipulated the timestamp on links to YouTube.
via/more: The Inside Google Book Search blog.
Recently, Google and iPrint.com gave away sets of 25 “business” cards to promote Google’s integration of Google Profiles into its search results. According to Matt McGee at SearchEngineLand.com, the card sets were given to the first 10,000 people who requested them.
I assume I made the cut because my profiles.google.com/rexhammock cards showed up today.
This is, of course, yet another example of an online social media idea being promoted with print.*
By the way, my real business card covers a wide swath of my online identity.
*Please, no e-mail. It’s a joke.
Recently, Google and iPrint.com gave away sets of 25 “business” cards to promote Google’s integration of Google Profiles into its search results. According to Matt McGee at SearchEngineLand.com, the card sets were given to the first 10,000 people who requested them.
I assume I made the cut because my profiles.google.com/rexhammock cards showed up today.
This is, of course, yet another example of an online social media idea being promoted with print.*
By the way, my real business card covers a wide swath of my online identity.
*Please, no e-mail. It’s a joke.
According to this article on NYTimes.com, the Associated Press is “taking aim at major search engines like Google, Yahoo and their competitors” by demanding that Web sites obtain permission to use the work of The A.P. or its member newspapers.” However, I’ve tried reading the story a couple of times and I can’t figure out how this has anything to do with Google or Yahoo!. Maybe I just don’t get it.
Quote:
Associated Press executives said the policy was aimed at major search engines like Google, Yahoo and their competitors, and also at news aggregators like the Huffington Post, as well as companies that sell packaged news services. They said they do not want to stop the appearance of articles around the Web, but to exercise some control over it and to profit from it. The A.P. also said it is developing a system to track news articles online and determine whether they were used legally.
Again. I’m sorry. I must not be following something.
How is this targeting Google? Google already pays AP to license and display content from the news service. And so does Yahoo!
So how is it that Google and Yahoo! are the target of this action if they are licensing content from AP?
Surely they are not suggesting that Google stop driving traffic to AP member sites?
Actually, I asked that rhetorically. I am never shocked by anything AP does.
[Note: A guessay is an essay comprised mainly of guesses.]
In a post on Friday (when rumors were swirling about the possibility of Google acquiring Twitter), I suggested that the acquisition of Twitter could add tremendous value to Google search results by adding real-time data from our (all Twitter users’) collective stream-of-consciouness. I suggested (as have many, many others) that Google’s PageRank algorithms could benefit greatly from all of the real-time linking that millions of Twitter users do.
In my post, I included a line that made some people think I was suggesting that the number of followers a Twitter user has is an indication of the authority Google might award links shared (or, as Dave Winer terms it, “pushed”) by that user. I got a few e-mails from people disagreeing with what they thought I was saying: “The number of followers one has is not necessarily a measurement of someones link-sharing skills,” is typical of what the e-mailers said.
First things first: Despite implying it, I didn’t actually say nor mean the number of followers indicates authority. Indeed, I whole-heartedly agree that the number of followers one has on his or her Twitter account is NOT in and of itself, a measure of authority. Lots of followers on Twitter may be an indication of authority, however it is likely rather a measurement of popularity, celebrity, strategy or an annointment from Twitter’s management.
So no, if Google owned Twitter, the PageRank of links would not be based on such an easy-to-game or manipulate (or what would be called “optimized” by people seeking fees to manipulate it) thing as having lots of followers. If that were so, a tweet-turbo’d Google would be handing over search results to @the_real_shaq and whoever ghost-tweets for @britneyspears.
No. If Google owned Twitter, there would be a great mystery surrounding exactly how Google measures linking authority on Twitter — and likely it would merely turn the whole thing over to its pigeons to figure out. And by pigeons, of course I mean Google’s secret-sauce PageRank algorithms the company describes this way:
PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results. PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.
I (and anyone else who writes using lots of hyperlinks) have served as one of those Google voters for a long time. So I have developed my personal theories about what goes into PageRank algorithms. (There’s a whole industry called Search Engine Optimization that, figuratively speaking, sacrifices virgins to please the Google PageRank Algorithm Gods.) Based on my vast experience (translation: guesses and theories), here are some factors I think would be be applied by Google in determining the relative value of a link pushed via Twitter — if Google owned Twitter.
1. The number of followers your followers have would be more important than the number of followers you have. And that measure would cascade out several levels. This is somewhat akin to the “strength of schedule” factor in the BCS formula.
2. Extreme ratios of followers to following and vice versa would cause authority to fall. Discounting (or ignoring) high follower/following users would lessen the influence (i.e., ability to game) of celebrity Twitterists. And kicking out high following/follower users would undermine Twitter spam efforts.
3. User accounts that crank out high numbers of tweets will be discounted unless the tweets are posted from various third-party clients. In other words, high volume tweeting would be thought to be automated unless there are markers indicating the user is an actual human named Scoble or Brogan.
4. Tweeting about a limited number of topics would probably be rewarded. I am not a fan of directories of Twitter users. I find them an easy target for gaming schemes. However, I have one thing to praise about a recent entry to the Twitter directory category, WeFollow.com. It requires a Twitter user to do something akin to declaring a major. To be listed, your must limit where you Twitter feed will appear to three categories. For example, I limited my account @r to smallbusiness, nashville and another category I’ve forgotten. Seeing WeFollow force Twitter users into defining the category of their “authority” makes me think Google would likely tweak the PageRank algorithm to anticipate the categories of links in which Twitter users might have authority, rather than giving any link they add on any topic the same weight.
5. While “re-tweeting” and “replies” may appear to be indicators of authority, I think they would be discounted due to factors related to “celebrity” or automation.
6. The real golden goose (or golden pigeon) that Google would use to juice up its algorithms would be actual clicks. Google knows more about measuring, analyzing and making money from click throughs than any other company will ever know. If, in a scenario that was merely rumor on Friday, Twitter was bought by Google, it would throw lots of a resources into understanding which Twitter users generate the most clicks-throughs on links they “push” out via Twitter.
Sidenote 1: Dave Winer demonstrates and explaines a means of measuring the relative clickiness o links he pushes out via Twitter.
Sidenote 2: Here’s a Greasemonkey script (and a demo from Doc Searls) that shows related “tweets” on a Google search results page. This is not exactly what I’m talking about in this post, but is cool, nevertheless.
*A guessay is an essay comprised of guesses.
Robert Scoble has jumped into the debate over the new interface design of Facebook. Scoble’s piece expresses an insight I believe is too often missed by those who confuse the concept of “pleasing the user” with “creating breakthrough ideas.” In his post, Scoble does a tremendous job of describing why “like” is the breakthrough idea that is the foundation of the new Facebook design. Of course, the whole “like” idea is not Facebook’s idea (more on this later), but making “like” and “comment” central to the idea of what Facebook is is (to quote a former President).
Scoble (and I) are fans of Kathy Sierra, creator of O’Reilly’s Head First book series and a presenter extraordinaire. Over the years, in evangelizing what software developers need to do to create “passionate users,” she has addressed the need to create “breakthrough ideas” instead of merely better products. Last week in Austin, I was able to catch Kathy presenting to 1,500 of her fans and was reminded once more of how she can explain in a polite, yet explicit way, that focus groups and user research has its place, but that place is not in helping you design great software. It helps you tweak software, she says, but it’s no help when you want to create breakthrough ideas.
Another incredible discussion thread that is bouncing around the tech blogosphere this week about “research-driven design decisions” vs. “break through ideas” was started with this essay by Douglas Bowman, in which he announced his departure as the lead visual designer at Google. Design, of course, is merely one aspect of breakthrough ideas, however, the process of design at Google, as Bowman describes it (and as revealed in recent profiles of Marissa Mayer), seems obsessed with research into iterative changes (as in, what shade of blue gets more clicks) rather than creating something that changes everything. Bowman admits (who wouldn’t?) it’s hard to question anything Google does, as they have the users and money to prove they’re right and everyone else is wrong. However, as someone who uses Google products to the point of considering turning everything over to them (heck, even moving this blog to Blogger.com), I’m more impressed by their ability to make products solid and simple than with their ability to come up with anything new. (And, frankly, to me making web applications solid and simple is a breakthrough idea.)
I say all this to emphasize that I agree with Scoble: What Facebook is doing is not necessarily original, but it is building on a foundation they have that will help create the opportunity for breakthrough ideas. While most of the analysis I’ve read has compared the new Facebook design to Twitter, I believe that comparison is wrong. To me, it seems obvious the benchmark for “the new Facebook design” is FriendFeed. (As those who’ve made it this far likely know, FriendFeed was created by some Google alumni and is one of many services — but the most popular among the A-List geeks — that aggregates ones creations, comments, jestures or expressions from across all the social media he or she uses (i.e., sharing a photo via Flickr, favoring a video on YouTube, reviewing a restaurant on Yelp). If you’re reading this on my blog (vs. via an RSS reader or on Facebook), over on the right you can see a sidebar box (widget) that displays the headlines from my FriendFeed account, something I call jokingly, “The River of Rex.”
While the FriendFeed creators seemed purposeful in not trying to replicate or compete head-on with Facebook (Exhibit #1: The service has no user profile page), they obviously served as a proof of concepts that didn’t go unnoticed by Zuckerberg & Co. Concept #1: You don’t need lots of complicated “invite and display” applications to get users to aggregate every social media thing they do. Concept #2: Those “like” and “comment” fields make every tidbit of content a launchpad for conversation and insight.
Unlike past attempts by Facebook to change the service in ways that violated principles of trust or privacy, I believe the new design will actually be of great benefit to Facebook users — after they get over the whinning. So put me in the 5% group: I like the new Facebook design. I believe it serves the user (rather than screws them like the previous changes). In fact, I like it a lot.
However, I think soon the word “like” will be as confusing as the word “friend” is today.
Technorati Tags: facebook
Whenever Google launches something new, there’s always a flurry of techosphere blog posts about it being a “-killer” product, meaning, it’s from Google and so therefore, it’s going to kill whatever else is in that category.
But longtime observers know, “The Google” starts and acquires lots of products (and products that were actually features) that never really catch on. Google products fail, in other words. All the time. But that’s okay. You’re not learning if you’re not failing.
Tonight, on The Official Google Blog (its main blog), the company announced it will “stop active development” on a product called Google Notebook. In software-eze, the phrase “stop active development” means “let it die.”
I don’t know why they announced it publicly on their blog. I thought they would just send me an e-mail, as I was under the impression that I was the only person who actually ever used Google Notebook. And I used it a lot. However, it was sort of confusing to figure out the difference between Google Notebook and Google Bookmarks and now some to-do stuff in Google Docs and Gmail.
However, for me, the real Google Notebook-killer had nothing to do with Google.
It’s a killer-of-an iPhone app/desktop software/web app product called EverNote.
During the holidays, I spent time getting familiar with EverNote and I never looked back at Google Notebook. It’s about as amazing as any software I’ve ever used. I’ve hesitated to blog about it because I’m still in the fan-boy stage of using it and can’t believe it can do some of the stuff it does — like allow me to do a key-word search on photos of whiteboard notes I’ve filed in it.
I’ve been planning on doing a screencast on why I love Evernote, so I’ll skip the reviews for now. All I wanted to say tonight is this: Even if you’re Google, when you see a competitor innovate at product like Evernote and then look at your lame-ass offering that even you can’t figure what it does, you’d be crazy not to wave the white flag.
Update: Google made similar announcements about several other products. There are lots of links related to them on Techmeme.
Update II: Google taketh away, Google giveth: Cool new transit overlay for 59 world cities. What, no NYC?
Google helps bring more magazine archives and current magazines online, partnering with publishers to begin digitizing millions of articles from titles as diverse as New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Ebony. In November, Google announced another magazine-related project to digitize the photographic archive of Life Magazine in order to make it available via Google Image Search.
Via the Official Google Blog:
“You can search for magazines through Google Book Search. Try queries like [obama keynote convention], [hollywood brat pack] or [world's most challenging crossword] and you’ll find magazine articles alongside books results. Magazine articles are tagged with the keyword “Magazine” on the search snippet.
Over time, as we scan more articles, you’ll see more and more magazines appear in Google Book Search results. Eventually, we’ll also begin blending magazine results into our main Google.com search results, so you may begin finding magazines you didn’t even know you were looking for. For now you can restrict your search to magazines we’ve scanned by trying an advanced search.
Later: As always, the zen-master of search, Danny Sullivan, has the details on Google’s plans, along with some tips on how to use the advanced search features.
This post has
nothing to do with
Google Gears.
I just ran across this WSJ.com headline that says, “Google Gears Down for Tougher Times.”
That shocked me. Why would Google shut down Google Gears, I wondered. It seems a bit core to what they’re trying to do to compete longterm with Microsoft, I thought. Obviously, I clicked through to the story to seek an understanding of why Google would shut down software that allows me to work on Google documents on my computer while I’m offline.
Ohhhh! I get it. Google gears down is what the headline writer means. As in, the entire Google enterprise is trying to figure out what big companies do during lean times — like by not hiring everyone who walks through the door with a ubber-high IQ.
OK. Got it.
Note to WSJ.com: That headline failed.
Thank you, Marshall Kirkpatrick. You’ve made another wise observation about what’s wrong with Google SearchWiki: It’s not a wiki!
Of course, this isn’t the first time Google’s branding of new products has perplexed me. The most dumbfounding one is still iGoogle, but, as Marshall explains in great detail, putting the suffix “wiki” on Google’s new feature is a disservice to those of us who want to see the concept of wikis expand beyond their close association with a gigantic encyclopedia that includes the term in its name.
Says Marshall:
“We wonder why Google would choose to call this feature a wiki when it’s pretty evident that’s not what it is. You can’t edit anyone’s text in SearchWiki. You can’t collaborate intentionally - perhaps in effect users are collaborating by voting search results up and down, but that’s hardly the kind of collaborative behavior that every other wiki in the world makes possible. There’s no way to reach consensus, or stasis, in SearchWiki. You can’t see the past history of anyone who contributes. Documents don’t change, they just get bigger. There’s no discussion of the “wiki” document, just the document itself.
As a lot of my speaking and presenting and writing is focused on educating those who could benefit from social and conversational media tools like wikis, I can tell you that “wikis” are a hard thing to convince marketers to embrace — especially those not currently utilizing the platform. If a company like Google slaps the word “wiki” on something that isn’t a wiki, it adds to the challenge.
Bonus link: While he’s wrong ;- ) , Robert Scoble actually likes Google SearchWiki.
I’m in total agreement with Michael Arrington: the now-removed Google SearchWiki was an unnecessary “fix” for a problem that didn’t exist. An apparent knock-off of Wikia Search (which I like) with a little Digg thrown in, the feature allowed Google registered users to “comment” on and “vote up or down” search results. While the voting did not affect general Google results (except on the Google user’s view of results when logged-in), any registered Google user could see all of the user comments.
Yet, as Steve Rubel notes, Google SeearchWiki had none of the identity and reputation management safe-guards you’d expect Google would require before letting anyone have the ability to spam and vandalize the Goose that’s laying close to $20 billion in golden eggs this year.
After about 72 hours, the SearchWiki feature is missing.
Perhaps another iteration of the feature — maybe one that limits the logged-in user’s view to comments and recommendations of people they follow or trust — might make more sense.
However, if Google brings back the too-sweet version of New Coke Google that SearchWiki was, it will discover the thin line between user generated content and user generated discontent.
Bonus link: Google Operating System blog explains how to disable Google SearchWiki.
I’m in the midst of a great meeting (really, no kidding) so I don’t have time to give this LIFE photo archive hosted by Google a proper shout-out. I’ll try to later. Very cool.
Later: Staci Kramer at PaidContent.org has the details about the LIFE photos indexed by Google. Says Staci, “Time Inc. describes it as ‘one of the largest scanning projects ever’ with millions of images available today and the rest on the way. Some caveats: The images are free for personal, non-commercial use with Time Inc. retaining the copyrights and ownership—and its commercial syndication business. The archive only includes work that Time Inc. owns, so many images that have appeared in the magazine will not show up.
(via: waxy.org links)
One of the greatest gifts the web has given me is the ability to have video chats with my children who are in school far-away. Indeed, for my wife, if Apple video iChat were the only application on her computer, she would still think the computer was the greatest device ever. For me, video chat is the fulfillment of the long-promised “picture phone.” Even when you can’t actually be in the same physical space with them, there’s something about seeing your children eye-to-eye that communicates more than a voice conversation.
Apple iChat is great, but…
If both (or all) parties have enough bandwidth in their connection to the Internet, Apple iChat works intuitively and, frankly, never fails to awe me, despite having used it for years.
That’s the good part. Here’s the bad: It takes lots of “ifs” to make it work with ease and intuitively: iChat is only available for the Mac OS. If everyone has good bandwidth. If everyone knows how to manage firewall features, then it’s a marvel, but…
If you’re using iChat and want to video chat with someone not using a Mac and iChat, using, say, a PC and an AIM account, it’s supposed to work. However, if you’re like me, you’re going to find yourself never being able to quite get all the parties with the right versions and camera setups and preference settings and correct bandwidth, etc. I’m sure it works great for somebody out there, but not me.
Looking for alternatives
I’m always looking for solutions that will make video chatting with someone using a PC as easy as it is for someone using a Mac. Skype reportedly works pretty good, but I’ll admit that I’ve only used it with people who have Macs on the other end, so I’m not sure about the PC bridge. And now, Google has rolled-out gmail video chat, so that might be the answer. I can’t wait to try it out, but my first attempt required the other person to upgrade an OS version and that’s not in the cards.
Today, Lifehacker has a round-up of five video chat applications. Maybe one of those will be the perfect solution.
One day, I hope video chat is as ubiquitous as text chatting or voice-chatting (something we used to call talking on the phone).
And one day, I hope we’ll have the other futuristic gizmo promised my entire life: flying cars.
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