Mar 06

Google offer free DNS service

By jason The Google World No Comments »

Google will start pushing for a faster web next year, and there have been several rumors in the SEO and marketing world that google will add page speed to its SEO rankings algorithm.  They have announced that  Google will offer a free DNS service.

First off, this is great.  It should improve the speed of looking up the DNS info of many sites, and if the service takes off, it should take the load off your NS.

The focus on speed if very clear, the Google public DNS server lists this first as one of the advantages.  It also points to the speed problems caused by DNS latency.

Google Public DNS IP addresses

The Google Public DNS IP addresses are as follows:

  • 8.8.8.8
  • 8.8.4.4
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Nov 02

Google: You too could win millions in stock

By jason IT News World No Comments »

Google is once again dangling incentives before engineers.

Google’s Chrome browser earned its developers millions in stock bonuses.

The company threw open its doors Monday to the engineering community Monday, announcing that it granted a Founders’ Prize–"a multimillion-dollar stock bonus"–to the team that developed Google Chrome. "(The) future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We’re on the hunt for these kind of people — let us know if you think you’re one of them," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president for engineering and research at Google.

Google is still one of Silicon Valley’s most generous companies in terms of employee perks, but Google’s hiring slowed over the past year as the recession took hold and the company scaled back some of those famous extras. Google even was forced to cut employees in March, and has also suffered as a number of high-profile employees decided to seek (or expand) their fortunes elsewhere.

But CEO Eric Schmidt is ready to let the good times roll once again, announcing earlier in the year that Google was set to expand hiring and acquisitions, and backing up that confidence on Google’s most recent earnings conference call.

Google also announced that Chrome now has 30 million active users. The browser trails market leaders Internet Explorer and Firefox by a wide margin, but it’s growing faster than the competition.

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Oct 29

Music search is Google’s newest tune

By jason IT News World 2 Comments »

LOS ANGELES–Already the far-and-away leader in search, Google wants to be a big player in music discovery, too.

The pop-up MySpace player that will appear when clicking the ‘play’ button in a Google search.

(Credit: MySpace)

The search giant teamed up with News Corp.’s MySpace and streaming service Lala for the Wednesday debut of the new Google music search feature at the historic Capitol Records building in Hollywood. With the new music search, which had been internally code-named "OneBox" when news of the project broke earlier this month, search queries pertaining to something like a song, artist, lyrics, or album will bring up links to streaming songs from iLike and MySpace, as well as links to artist information on Pandora, Imeem, and Rhapsody. The lyrics search is provided through a partnership with Gracenote.

"It is directly embedded and integrated into Google search. There’s no special button to push," R.J. Pittman, director of product management for search properties, said in a phone interview with CNET News. Currently, due to licensing and availability issues, the music search is U.S.-only.

There also won’t be direct download links in Google: those will be handled through Lala and MySpace. "We push all the music engagement and commerce down through the partners," Pittman said.

Additionally, if a relevant music video is available, the MySpace window that pops up when someone clicks on the "play" button in search results will display a link to that video through MySpace’s new music video portal. That’s interesting, considering music videos are some of the most popular content on Google’s own YouTube–but YouTube video results will continue to show up independently of the new music results in Google searches.

Financial terms of the partnerships aren’t yet clear. "Everyone’s keeping their own revenues and we’re not messing with anything," Lala founder and Chairman Bill Nguyen told CNET News. But MySpace Music President Courtney Holt was a bit more tight-lipped, saying "we’re not discussing the financial details."

The MySpace deal is a little more complicated to begin with, though. Google had been in talks with music start-up iLike about integration into music search, but then iLike was acquired by MySpace in a deal that closed earlier this month. Indeed, a statement from Holt says that "this relationship was secured and implemented by the iLike team." But iLike founder Ali Partovi (who’s currently on board MySpace’s music team) explained that the partnership now has "MySpace branding, (and) MySpace content licensing." Through the integration of iLike’s technology, it’ll also have concert notifications if someone searches on Google for a band that’s currently on tour.

"I think MySpace, along with (Apple’s) iPod, is one of the most trusted brands in music, one of the most resonant to consumers," Partovi said. MySpace is also reported to be in talks with Microsoft to power a music feature on MSN.

Music search is something that Google could really dominate. According to traffic firm Experian Hitwise, 6 percent of Google’s top 1,000 search-related terms deal with music, and already 30 percent of traffic to sites that Hitwise classifies under the "music" umbrella comes from Google.

Considering Google’s reach, it’s a big win for both MySpace, currently struggling to redefine itself as a pop culture powerhouse rather than a social network through its MySpace Music service, a joint venture with major and independent record labels, and Lala, which also has a new song-gifting deal with Facebook. "We think (Google’s music search) going to have a thousand percent increase in our sales, an order of magnitude more," Lala’s Nguyen told CNET News.

This also means that music-related search results are getting a sheen of legitimacy on Google. With official partnerships, Google’s most prominent music search results will be from sites that have licensing deals in place with the major labels, rather than potentially pirated content. Google’s history with the music industry is spotty at best: it’s had to strike its own deals with the major record labels, and relations haven’t always been positive. Music search puts it all into order, partners in the deal say.

"Instead of ending up with a pirate site and a page with a bunch of ads or random lyrics sites, you wind up with a play button," Nguyen said.

Updated 4:30 p.m. Just after Google and Lala made the announcement official (in what was probably not a conincidence) Yahoo released a blog post designed to point out that they’ve been offering this kind of music search for a while. "We’ve made it easier to find music videos, artist information, and play full length songs from within the search results page. This is just one of the many ways Yahoo! is enhancing the search experience for music lovers," said Larry Cornett, vice president of consumer products for Yahoo Search.

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Oct 07

Microsoft’s top lawyer: Relations with Europe improving

By jason IT News World No Comments »

Microsoft’s top lawyer said that a tentative agreement with Brussels announced earlier Wednesday could potentially allow the software maker to move out of the regulatory crosshairs, perhaps paving the way for regulators to shift their attention elsewhere.

"It’s important for us to get closure in Europe on issues that have obviously been controversial for over a decade," General Counsel Brad Smith said in an interview. "Today’s decision takes us an important step closer to doing that."

Smith

Microsoft initially took a much different approach to the European Commission’s assertion that the inclusion of a browser in Windows violated antitrust law. The company had initially proposed just stripping out the browser from Windows 7 entirely, leaving users the prospect of trying to get a browser on their own. The software maker eventually backed down after indications that that approach was unlikely to fly.

While not final, Microsoft’s moves would appear to resolve all of its outstanding regulatory issues with the Commission and were greeted warmly by regulators on Wednesday.

Although most of the early attention focused on the agreement around a browser "ballot screen," Microsoft also announced on Wednesday an agreement around product interoperability. Under that deal, a 10-year commitment by Microsoft, the software maker agrees to publish communication protocols and adopt certain standards as part of Windows, Windows Server, Office and other high market share products. Companies could also purchase for 5,000 euros a warranty that would subject Microsoft to court oversight and monetary penalties if it doesn’t live up to its commitments.

Smith said that the approach Microsoft took with regard to interoperability was designed to adopt methods that Nellie Kroes, commissioner for competition, had outlined in a speech last year for how companies with high market share products should behave.

"I actually think this in effect implements the model that the Commission has been advocating," Smith said. Moreover, he said it is a model that other software companies should pay attention to, he said, noting that there are lots of companies that have high market share. He noted that Google has 78 percent of the paid search market and IBM has 100 percent of the mainframe market, while Adobe also has dominant positions in certain areas, such as Photoshop.

"It is important we believe to create a level legal and regulatory playing field," Smith said. "Everyone that has a high market share needs to respect the same set of rules. I think a number of these rules are likely to be applicable to other companies and other products."

Settling now with Brussels also could help Microsoft in its effort to win approval for its search deal with Yahoo, Smith said.

"This certainly isn’t going to hurt when it comes to the Yahoo-Microsoft agreement," he said. "It’s not necessarily going to make a huge difference. We didn’t feel a particular step was needed to help it along."

Microsoft is in the process of trying to ascertain whether the deal needs approval from Brussels or from individual European antitrust authorities. It also needs approval from U.S. regulators, who have asked for more information on the deal.

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Oct 05

Google lets 100 artists paint on Chrome canvas

By jason IT News World No Comments »

I’m a little confused. Is Chrome supposed to be a minimally intrusive window to the Web or a splashy showcase for your favorite graphical style?

If you’re in the latter camp, the type of person who picks desktop wallpaper carefully and reskins every software that can be reskinned, you’ll be pleased with Google’s unveiling Monday of artist themes for its Chrome browser. If you’re the more utilitarian sort, avoid clicking on the Themes Gallery page.

These two possible attitudes aren’t mutually exclusive, but they do live awkwardly together in Chrome. For an artistic canvas, Google’s browser has only a minimal menu bar across the top, and it’s often obscured by tabs. The best opportunity to show off some graphical pizzazz is the new-tab page, which perhaps someday will become some all-purpose Google portal page but for now is just a means to getting to some other Web page as fast as possible.

But Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience, enjoys any opportunity to promote her fondness for fashion and art. Who else could have been behind the Oscar de la Renta, Chloe, Kate Spade, and Dolce & Gabbana themes?

A total of 100 new themes are now an option alongside the less eye-catching themes that Google already offered on its own. Mayer’s status as patron of the arts only goes so far, though: several artists declined the opportunity to give their work to Google for free, according to The New York Times.

Themes are just eye candy, though perhaps HTML5’s built-in audio support will add another dimension some day. Nevertheless, plenty of people care passionately about themes as a way to lighten up their computing experience or display loyalty to some cause. (Any Porsche fans out there?) One feature in Firefox 3.6, code-named Namoroka and about to enter beta testing, is the advancement of the Personas visual customization tool from plug-in to built-in.

I ran into a few snags. The menu-bar text of Mariah Carey’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel theme was only visible on a very wide monitor, with Chrome not maximized and few tabs showing. With the Takora Kimiyoshi Futori theme, I couldn’t read status bar pop-up text such as a Web address I hovered over with my mouse. And switching from one theme to another changed the menu bar but not an already visible new-tab page, producing an even more jarring opportunity for visual cacophony.

I generally don’t use themes, but I have to say I’m glad they exist. They enable a certain whimsy and help add a bit of spice to a computing experience that can be very impersonal.

Sixteen of the hundred themes now available for Chrome.

Sixteen of the hundred themes now available for Chrome.

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Sep 09

Google shows off videos in text ads

By jason IT News World No Comments »

Google showed off video trailers inside text ads for financial analysts Wednesday.

Google sought to remind financial analysts Wednesday that despite all the attention it devotes to projects like Google Apps, staying on top of search and search advertising is what really matters.

The first in a series of investor Webcasts was held Wednesday by Google CFO Patrick Pichette and several other executives, and while the company did not unearth any ground-breaking shifts in strategy or new products, it did cast a spotlight on some recent improvements that the company believes have enhanced the search experience. Perhaps the most notable was the recent addition of video ads directly below text ads on the top or right-hand side of the search results page, which can be played directly on that page.

This started to emerge for some users last week according to ReelSEO, but Google is now offering advertisers a chance to insert a video trailer into their text ads. "In many cases, the best information is video," said Nick Fox, business product management director on Google’s AdWords team.

For example, Fox demonstrated how Electronic Arts is using a video trailer inside an ad for the new Tiger Woods video game. The result is a marriage of the text ad format that Google has used to rise into a dominant Internet company with the display ad style that others, such as Yahoo, are hoping to finally make a success.

"Google hasn’t made many changes to its text ad format and now sees this as a big opportunity," wrote J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan in a research note distributed after the Webcast. It can charge either by the click through to the advertiser’s Web site or by the play of the video, therefore adding a revenue stream that didn’t exist before.

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Sep 06

Google’s mystery UFO doodle finally explained

By jason IT News World 1 Comment »

I know there are some people who have not slept for fear that Google had finally committed itself to some alien culture.

Well, some outerworldly alien culture. Well, some outerworldly alien culture where all beings were green and no one used phrases like "market segmentation" and "41 shades of blue."

You see, a mysterious doodle appeared on the Google home page. It showed an alien spacecraft making off with the second "O" in the word "Google."

Were we really expected to merely gogle now? Didn’t that sound uncomfortably close to ogling?

Though there were no references to the Church of Scientology, Google’s first pronouncement on the subject did not quell the concern.

The questionably benign company declared: "We consider the second ‘o’ critical to user recognition of our brand and pronunciation of our name. We are actively looking into the mysterious tweet that has appeared on the Google twitter stream and the disappearance of the ‘o’ on the Google home page. We hope to have an update in the coming weeks."

The world continued experiencing the occasional shudder, until Google’s Twitter page produced this revelatory tweet on Friday: "1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19."

Well, it was revelatory to those who think in a certain way, one to which I can only aspire.

"Yes, of course," those who think that way said to themselves, while simultaneously slapping their heads with a fly-swatter. "It’s a reference to that wonderful Japanese video game of the 1980s, Zero Wing."

Now, look, I’ve heard of Vera Wang. But somehow Zero Wing passed me by, though I think it would be an excellent name for a fashion designer.

However, those on the inside (of the spacecraft) tell me that Zero Wing is terribly cool and features extremely characteristic English translations.

Apparently, Cats, a villain even greater than the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, makes this declaration at the beginning of Zero Wing: "How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us."

Well, when you take all those numbers in the Google tweet and turn them into the corresponding letters of the alphabet, you get: "All your O are belong to us."

Why would some Googlies want to feature Zero Wing now? Well, it’s the game’s 20th anniversary.

So there. The problem is solved. The world is safe. Google has not been taken over by aliens.

Or can we really be sure of that?

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Aug 19

Google near Book Search deal in France

By jason IT News World 1 Comment »

Google is about to sign a deal with the French national library to grant patrons access to Google’s archive of scanned books, according to a report.

France’s La Tribune reported Tuesday (spotted by The Times Online) that the Bibliotheque Nationale de France has all but given up on its own attempt to create a digital library in partnership with other European countries, paving the way for Google Book Search to get a foothold on the continent. Google declined to comment on whether a deal had been reached, providing this statement: "Like we’ve always said, we’d be delighted to work with a prestigious institution such as the BNF and are currently in talks with them, but have nothing to announce at this time."

At one point, the BNF had hoped to create a counterweight to Google’s digital book ambitions, fearing that English works would dominate those created by non-English speakers and "place interpretation of French and other continental European literature, history, philosophy and even politics in American hands," according to a 2005 New York Times article. But Quarero, the result of that initiative, has not really gotten off the ground and on a limited budget, couldn’t really hope to compete with the resources Google has devoted to scanning books.

So, the BNF is taking a "if you can’t beat them, join them" strategy, according to the reports. A BNF representative told The Times Online that it won’t stop its own digitization efforts but plans to add Google’s archives to its own.

Back in the U.S., the waiting period for Google’s settlement with book publishers that will enable the project to move forward is almost done, with a September deadline for authors to opt out of the settlement looming. A final hearing is scheduled for October.

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Aug 09

Apple, Google agreed not to poach each other’s workers

By jason IT News World No Comments »

Apple and Google are said to have had an unofficial agreement not to poach each other’s employees–or at least they did while Google CEO Eric Schmidt served on Apple’s board, according to TechCrunch.

Unnamed sources told TechCrunch that no formal, written agreement exists, and that employees of one company were welcome to apply for jobs at the other, but that the two companies said they would not actively pursue hiring away each other’s workers.

It is unclear whether any such agreement would still be in effect now that Eric Schmidt has stepped down from Apple’s board of directors.

Such an agreement could stifle competition among companies that rely heavily on top-notch engineering talent. The Washington Post reported in June that the Justice Department had launched an industrywide investigation into whether companies, including Apple and Google, had violated antitrust laws by negotiating the recruitment and hiring of each other’s workers.

Tech companies have waged fierce battles to keep top talent in their ranks. In one closely watched case, Microsoft sued Google in 2005 after it hired Kai-Fu Lee away from Microsoft. The two parties eventually settled out of court. In May, IBM filed a lawsuit in federal court to prevent its former head of mergers and acquisitions, David Johnson, from joining Dell, saying it would be a violation of his contract. And last year, the company sued Mark Papermaster to keep him from joining Apple. IBM and Papermaster settled a few months later, and Papermaster eventually did start working at Apple.

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Aug 08

Google Voice to be retooled as Web app for iPhone

By jason IT News World No Comments »

Even though Apple prevented it from listing Google Voice on the iPhone App Store, Google is planning on retooling the application as a Web-based app, according to The New York Times.

In David Pogue’s Friday column regarding the ongoing saga of Apple and Google Voice, he reveals that Google has already found a loophole:

Already, Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app–except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.

Google Voice is a free application that lets users assign a single number to ring their home, work, and cell phones, and also get voice mail as text transcriptions. There’s speculation that AT&T is behind the decision to block the application since Google Voice allows cheap international calls and free text messages.

It’s not clear if simply making Google Voice available as a Web app will change Apple’s mind, but there is precedent. Apple also rejected Google’s Latitude for the iPhone until it was remade as Web app.

A Google spokesperson did not say how close to completion the project might be, but reiterated a previous statement. "We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers."

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