Googling Google

February 7th, 2010

Google wouldn't have run their ad if it wasn't for statistics

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 7:29 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Super Bowl, Advertisement, Scientist, YouTube Inc., Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Garett Rogers

Google is run by scientists, definitely not by marketers. In fact, even Larry Page is so anti-marketing that one year he only gave marketers within the company a total of 8 hours for meetings, press conferences, speeches or interviews according to one unnamed executive in a pretty good book called “Googled. The End of the World as We Know It.”

“Google is run by three computer scientists. We’re going to make all the mistakes computer scientists running a company would make. But one of the mistakes we’re not going to make is the mistake non-scientists make. We’re going to make mistakes based on facts and data and analysis.” — Eric Schmidt

Even Eric’s blog post about the ad on the Super Bowl kind of suggests the same thing — this decision was based on facts gathered throughout the months it was already available on YouTube. If there was any doubt this ad would be taken in anything but a positive light, it would not have aired.

In fact you might have watched it before, because it’s been on YouTube for over three months. We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience. — Eric Schmidt on Official Google Blog

You can watch their commercial on YouTube called Parisian Love.

What do you think of their commercial? Does it make sense for the audience watching Super Bowl?

February 6th, 2010

Chrome v5.0.317.0: Another reason to ditch Firefox

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 5:40 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Mozilla Firefox, Web Browsers, Internet, Garett Rogers

Do you still use Firefox? I am still a Firefox fan, however the latest release in the Dev channel for Google Chrome has me really excited. One of the best extensions for Firefox was one called NoScript — a really easy way to make sure browsing stays secure.

Javascript is a vital piece of the web today — but at the same time, it’s another tool that hackers can use to steal your information through what’s called XSS (Cross-Site Scripting).

Google Chrome v5.0.317.0 now officially supports NoScript-like behavior, where you can prohibit all javascript from running, except the scripts you explicitly authorize. This new version also lets you selectively choose which cookies, images, plug-ins and pop-ups are allowed as well.

At first, this feature feels like Windows Vista — asking you if you want to allow scripts every time you click on something — but it doesn’t take long for your exemption list to become fairly robust.

You can also control your content settings from the address bar. If there is any blocked item on the current web page, a small icon will appear in the address bar, and users can manage settings by clicking on it. This feature is similar to NoScript, where you can control settings from the status bar icon. — <a href=”“>Techie Buzz

Google Chrome is almost irresistible now — I can’t think of any reason, other than Firebug, why I should use Firefox anymore. Can you think of anything Google Chrome doesn’t do well enough to switch from your current browser?

February 6th, 2010

Google says "hell is freezing over"

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 2:46 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Hell, Games, Marketing Research, Advertising & Promotion, Personal Technology, Marketing, Garett Rogers

In a tweet by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, we’re instructed to watch out for something during the 3rd quarter of the big game tomorrow.

Google hasn’t ever spent much money on marketing their own company or products — but is that about to change? It will be interesting to see what he’s referring to when he says:

Can’t wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said “Hell has indeed frozen over.”) — Eric Schmidt

February 6th, 2010

Apple bans "Android" from app store

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 10:09 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Developer, Apple Inc., App, Garett Rogers

One more jab to report — It appears that Apple has decided that any references to Android in App Store applications should be immediately removed, or risk being taken down. A developer of a small app called “Flash of Genius”, which was named as one of the finalists in the Android Developer Challenge, was unable to leverage that fact for marketing purposes on their iPhone app. Is this really necessary?

As much as I dislike the way Android Market has turned out, I can’t help but think Apple may very well contribute to Google’s success. Apple’s very strict review process does two things — it ensures quality of apps, and royally ticks off developers. Developers are what make the App Store successful, and by treating them this way, Apple will ultimately suffer.

Imagine a developer spends 6 months building an app, and only after it is complete Apple says “no” to his or her application. Why would that developer ever potentially waste that much time again by doing it all over?

The absence of a review program is not the answer though — reviews are an important way to make sure quality of applications stays high. I’m contradicting myself by saying this, right? Good eye — How can I argue that there should and shouldn’t be a review process?

Well, how about a hybrid approach?

1) Allow people to submit and download any application regardless of their approval status?
2) Ones that have been “approved” (by Google, or better yet, the community) are placed into a “Premium” market
3) As food for thought, perhaps the “non-approved” applications should be required to be free, and similarly, “Premium approved” apps should be required to charge at least $0.99 cents.

A requirement to charge for apps will make developers happy, because they aren’t competing with free apps at that point — and if every great app costs at least a little bit, users will get used to it, great developers of Android apps will actually make money.

What do you think?

February 3rd, 2010

Google pinches Apple's head

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 7:48 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Apple Inc., Tablets, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Garett Rogers

This could turn ugly — it seems that Google and Apple are beginning to turn on each other. Apple is saying that Google’s “Do No Evil” mantra is “bulls**t”, and that Google stepped into their arena (the mobile phone space) rather than the other way around.

Pretty much directly after that news broke, Google did two things that seem to be perfectly timed. A prototype of what Google envisions their own tablet will look and behave like, and a suspicious software update to Google’s Nexus One phone.

Though I don’t really think the UI for Google’s proposed tablet is particularly great, I’m looking forward to see what it comes out like on the other end.

The Nexus One update on the other hand is equivalent to a slap in the face for Apple. It might seem like a fairly innocent piece of functionality they added, but it’s not. Google added the ability to pinch and un-pinch the screen — zooming in and out of websites and photos.

Why is that so interesting? Well, the whole reason it wasn’t included in the Android operating system in the first place was because Apple holds the patent for that type of interaction. Google now appears to be willing to play hard ball if Apple has the nuts to take them to court. That said, I’m willing to bet Google has a few patents they can throw at Apple if it comes to that.

February 1st, 2010

Google Chrome now officially supports Greasemonkey

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 6:51 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Google Chrome, Web Browsers, Internet, Garett Rogers

One of the ways you can extend the functionality of Google Chrome browser is through “‘user scripts” as part of a Chrome extension. This is great, but what about all those great Greasemonkey scripts that have been available for a really long time? Seems strange that we need to reinvent the wheel doesn’t it?

Well, I guess Google thought the same thing — Greasemonkey scripts are really useful, and there are over 40,000 to choose from. It only makes sense for Google to officially support these scripts, since they are essentially exactly the same thing as what you can build with Google Chrome extensions.

Today Google announced official support for Greasemonkey scripts. That said, 15% to 25% of existing scripts available may not yet work with Chrome according to Aaron Boodman — but Google is working hard to bring their implementation of user scripts closer to Greasemonkey to try and reduce that number.

If you want to see what kind of scripts are available, try going to userscripts.org — installing them is a one-click process. These scripts are essentially converted to Google Chrome extensions, so managing them is exactly the same.

Extending Chrome has never been easier — now there’s even fewer reasons not to switch to Google Chrome from Firefox or Opera.

January 30th, 2010

Google dangles the Chrome carrot

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 10:06 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Security Expert, Web Browser, Web Browsers, Open Source, Security, Internet, Garett Rogers

Do you think you can find a hole in the Google Chrome browser? Google’s willing to pay you between $500 and $1337 (clever) for each and every one found. This challenge is Google’s way of showing confidence in their browser, and at the same time getting security experts to once-over the open source browser.

Any security related bug classified as high or critical priority in the open source Chromium or Google Chrome branch (stable, beta and dev) qualify for the prize.

That said, $500 - $1337 isn’t a lot of money though — some zero-day exploits can be sold on the black market for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It will be interesting to see if security experts take the bait on this one.

January 27th, 2010

Google rolls out Social Search

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 4:30 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Google Inc., Social Search, Garett Rogers

Recently I was digging around through Google’s language tools to see if there was anything noteworthy — and there I found several references to what they are calling Social Search. This feature was already a “Google Experiment” at the time — but what these translations were hinting at was a more broad roll-out.

Google has announced that this new feature will begin showing up in your search results over the next couple days.

This feature basically gives more weight to results of things that appear in your social circle — stuff that your friends have talked about. You’re not going to see social results on every search you make, but when it does show up, you can be sure that it’s going to contain information you will find interesting.

If you want to check out your “social circle”, use this link. It can be a bit creepy seeing how much Google knows about your connections to people, but I guess that’s life in 2010.

January 24th, 2010

How would no iPhone exclusivity affect Android?

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 8:24 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Apple iPhone, AT&T Corp., Exclusivity, Carrier, Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Garett Rogers

On the same day the iPad is unveiled, it sounds like Apple’s exclusivity deal with AT&T may be expiring. If true, I can imagine Steve Jobs making this an important part of his announcements on January 27th:

“I’m excited to announce that starting today, the new iPhone will be available for any carrier in the United States to sell.”

What does this mean for Google though? One advantage of Google’s Android strategy is that it’s not limited to only one carrier — it’s available where the iPhone isn’t, and so far, that has worked alright. On the other hand, I don’t believe they have tapped the potential that exists outside of AT&T.

On Wednesday, Android may be directly competing with the iPhone. The question is what percentage of people who want to buy an iPhone has already left their carrier and moved to AT&T, and how many are looking to jump ship as soon as possible from the carrier.

Considering the Nexus One flop (some say only 20,000 units sold on the first week), it will be interesting to see how no exclusivity for iPhone could make it even more difficult for Android to gain momentum.

If the non-exclusive thing happens, what do you think Android’s future looks like?

January 20th, 2010

Could Apple risk iPhone popularity with Bing?

Posted by Garett Rogers @ 10:09 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Apple iPhone, Google Inc., Apple Inc., Smart Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Garett Rogers

It’s one of those catch 22 situations where Apple feels it needs to do something before Google becomes too much of an enemy, but risk making some of their loyal users unhappy. The two companies can definitely be called “frienemies” as they both compete in the mobile space now, but iPhone users generally don’t have any problems with Google.

To start moving away from their dependence on default applications like Google Maps and Google Search, Apple is in the process of striking deals that will replace these popular Google-branded applications. The most interesting is still in the works — but it sounds as though Apple wants to partner with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine for the phone.

Let’s analyze that for a minute. First, close to 70% of iPhone users like Google enough to have it as their search engine default in their web browser on their computer. In addition, there is a decent number of “mac users” that own iPhone — I don’t think they will be impressed if apple makes a decision like this either.

Changing to Bing, and providing a replacement for Google Maps may be a bad decision by Apple — what do you think?