Gmail vs. Hotmail vs Yahoo

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch recently wrote a detailed review of Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail. Being a Google junky, I prefer anything Google and love the Gmail usability and tagging features but his article is a good read nevertheless.

The most amazing thing is the growth of Gmail users (51 million email accounts) is such a short period of time. It is now a legitimate competitor against Yahoo and Hotmail. With this new competition, Yahoo and Hotmail definitely needed to make changes to their system. Both now offer considerably more email storage space than before and recently got big make-overs. They even partnered together to allow MSN users and Yahoo chat users to communicate with each other.

But I still believe Yahoo and Hotmail are still (in my view) inferior in speed, usability and features than Gmail and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Wal-Mart Introduces Video Downloads

Wal-Mart recently launched a new video download service (Beta). The service allows users to purchase videos directly from the Wal-Mart website and download them to their personal computer or mobile device using the special Wal-Mart video download software. Because of licensing and copyright issues, this is only available in the US right now but will be expanding worldwide soon.

As Wal-Mart gets any bugs out of their service and it takes notice by the general public. I think this will have a huge impact in the computer and software industry and potentially revolutionize the entertainment business.

The "openness" by the major Hollywood Studios is also great news for Microsoft and computer manufacturers who are trying to push the acceptance of computer Media Centers in the living room.

Toyota selling a car you can never drive

I recently read an article on CNN.com about Toyota and their new "internet car model". The marketing tactic is quite innovative. Basically as CNN reports: "Toyota launched a redesigned Scion xB and a new model called the xD in Second Life -- an online community with 1.2 million "residents" -- and at the Chicago Auto Show Thursday, holding simultaneous press conferences in both the real and virtual worlds."

As I understand Second Life is a game that is played over the Internet. Users move around in a "virtual world" and buy / trade items and property. In this "virtual world" users use a currency called a Linden dollar. They can buy Linden dollars for real USD dollars. In late 2006, Business Week reported about a resident who became a real millionaire (in USD) as a result of this virtual world. They did this in two and half years starting with an investment of only $9.95 USD!

Toyota is really thinking outside of the box with this tactic. But with 1.2 million users and growing (who are probably very loyal) I think it is a very intelligent tactic, no different than Ford or Coca-Cola using product placement in your favourite shows.

Google Bombs Defused (for now ...)

In a recent post on Google's blog, they discussed an upgrade to their algorithm to minimize Google bombs. To those of you unfamiliar of Google bombs. Basically a Google bomb is an attempt by a large number of webmasters to influence the search rankings for a certain term.

The most talked about Google bomb to date is where thousands of website masters linked the keywords "miserable failure" up to George Bush. Finally, after two years the Bush Google bomb was recently defused in January. I am sure this is not the end of Google Bombs and just a temporary setback for webmasters interested in manipulating Google search results. I'll keep you posted in future postings on any other humorous/notable Google Bombs.

Google now checks for "badware" submitting websites

I just read an interesting article about a new Google partnership with StopBadware.org. They now cross reference their website search results with the StopBadware.org database and give users a warning message before visiting a bad ware website. This is great news for the average user who may accidentally download a virus when visiting a website they find on Google.

Stopbadware.org writes, "We're entering a new phase here at StopBadware.org. Google -- which is one of our partners -- is now presenting people with a warning before they visit websites that have been reported to StopBadware.org as sites that distribute badware. These warnings currently link to a general page on StopBadware.org, but as we finish researching sites, we'll replace the general page with one of our individual website reports (see an example here ). Hopefully this next step will bring us that much closer to fulfilling our mission of providing people with reliable, objective information about downloadable applications in order to help them make better choices."

The math behind google page rank

I came across this interesting article on another site that linked to an article written by David Austin of The American Mathematical Society who wrote about the math behind google page rank.

David writes: "Here's how the PageRank is determined. Suppose that page P_j has l_j links. If one of those links is to page P_i, then P_j will pass on 1/l_j of its importance to P_i. The importance ranking of P_i is then the sum of all the contributions made by pages linking to it. That is, if we denote the set of pages linking to P_i by B_i, then ..." - (makes complete since to me!)

Click here to learn more about this interesting theory and extremely complex calculation.

Can you DIGG it?

I had a conversation the other day with a prospect about how much the web has changed. I remember back in the days when we were one of the only companies offering websites with a Content Management System (CMS) in town and how big my client's eyes would light up when I showed them how easy it was to update a website in real-time.

Well ... times have changed and they'll continue to change much more quicker than I could have ever imagined.

I recently came across an article about a company who posted a news release on the web. When they logged into their website stats program a few weeks later to track the visitors and the response, two sites came up on top. Google News (which is expected as Google is a very big player) and Digg.com.

So what is Digg?

Digg is a user driven social content website. When you write an article on your website, you can ask other Digg members to vote for it. To do that, you need to first submit content. If a lot of people vote for you, your article shows on the top of the list on the first pages of Digg.com.

Here is the best part - according to Digg.com - they are one of the top 100 websites in ANY category. Which ultimately means lots of visitors back to your site (where the full article is actually located).

Digg is just one of many other social driven content sites out there.

So do you Digg it?

IE 6.0, IE 7.0 and Firefox 2.0 from a web designers perspective

I remember the issues we used to encounter with Netscape and Internet Explorer when we started making websites back in 1999 . A web designer would spend days building a site only to find out a lot of what they made looked one way in Netscape and another way in Internet Explorer (IE). Gradually as fewer people started using Netscape and IE got better and the web evolved, the cross-browser issues stopped being an issue.

Well ... now in 2006 - it has become an issue again. This time it is three browsers instead of two.

Welcome Firefox 2.0, IE 6 and IE 7.

So here is the problem. Way back in the old days a thing was created called W3C. The goal was to create web standards that all web designers would adhere to. IE decided because they "owned" the market. They could decide what their software adhered to.

Of the three browsers people mostly use, Firefox follows more closely the W3C standards for websites than IE does. IE 6 is really "loose" and would let you write crappy code and get away with it. In addition IE 6 is installed on over 80% of computers.

So Microsoft had to make an executive decision and fix what they could fix, but still allow certain non-compliant code to display in IE 7. Why? Because a large percentage of websites are written with non-compliant code including many Fortune 500 sites and quite possibly Microsoft's.

So just as a back-up they issued a warning to businesses to check their site out and make sure it works in the new "more compliant" IE 7.0.

You would think in 2006, software makers would be more responsible than this ...

Blogging isn't what it used to be.

My favourite NHL team, the Ottawa Sens aren't doing too hot these days (they lost 5 straight for the first time in 10 years) and I have found myself checking the "trade rumour blogs" a lot more than I used to. It got me thinking about how much our world has changed in the last 3 years and how blogs are starting to play a bigger role in how people get new information.

Bruce Garrioch from the Ottawa Sun is known to grab or borrow rumours from bloggers and posters on HTR and HockeyBuzz.com

Mark Cuban is also a blogger junky frequently updating his blog on a daily basis.

Now with RSS integration in most major blogs, I can skim the blogs much easier with my Google Personalized homepage.

Here are a few of my favourites:

- Google Operating System - A blog that talks about upcoming google trends.
- Ajax Blog - Talks about the latest Ajax technology developments.
- GigaOm - A blog from technology veteran Om Malik.
- Seth Godin's Blog - A blog by marketing genius Seth Godin.
- Donald Trumps Blog - A blog by the Donald and friends.
- Small Business Canada - interesting business articles for Canadians
- Directory of blogs for Canada

Google Ads Go Offline ...

Reuters is reporting that Google has invited 100 of its advertisers to take part in a pilot project where they will be able to buy and manage online ads in 50 major US newspapers from their Google Adwords account. This is an interesting venture for Google. If it works, I am sure it would see them getting involved in other media like TV and Radio, ultimately taking on a Virtual Ad Agency role. I am not sure how well this will work for them, but even if they get a tiny piece of the off line advertising world it could mean big bucks.

Utube sues YouTube.com

Utube - or Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation recently has sued Youtube.com - conveniently after Google.com purchased the company for 1.6 billion.

According to the age - UTube.com, "a US company that shut down its website because it was overwhelmed by millions of people looking for YouTube has sued the online video-sharing portal."

They stated that the number of people accidentally typing in Utube.com has increased their hosting costs dramatically since Youtube.com has become the number one video sharing site on the Internet. As a result they are losing sales - and need to move their website to a new domain name (and want compensation from Youtube.com - and will sell them the utube.com domain too).

I think this is a win-win for all parties. But could be a lose-win for YouTube.com if they don't play it right and Utube.com sells to Microsoft or some other player.

Just like www.ie7.com mysteriously links to Firefox (but of course the domain owner has no affiliation with Mozilla Firefox at all ...)

Google Personalized Home Page Adds Tabs

As many of you know I am an information junky. Google recently made my life better (or worse?) with the addition of tabs to their personalized home page feature. If you are not already familiar with their personalized home page - basically it is accessible from Google.com. You can log in using your gmail account or you can just save your changes to your cookies. The tool allows you to add unlimited amounts of information from thousands of content sources. The content is automatically updated by the providers as well. The interface has a slick drag and drop feature allowing you to easily customize the page to your needs. Recently they added tabs to allow you to better sort your content (eg Marketing, Personal, Finance, Technology etc.). You can even drag and drop your content between tabs and add unlimited tabs.

See screen shot below:














Content providers allow you to add their content or Google Gadgets to your home page for free. A lot are just RSS feeds but some are actually small apps like - checking the weather, checking movie times, showing your google calendar, managing gmail or watching videos.

You can search and find your gadgets here:


The last cool feature is your ability to just select any RSS feed on the web (like this Blog ...)

All you do it click Add URL and type in the full feed web address like:

http://toddjamieson.blogspot.com/atom.xml

I highly recommend giving this feature a try.