Google Answers Reborn... in Russia

Seems that Google has not given up the Q&A fight that it lost to Yahoo last year, and is resuming a new version of Google Answers. The clever part is that you get points for providing answers, and then you can use those points for asking questions - kinda like my idea for creating a spam-free email system...

Nowhere does the announcement mention paying for answers, which was the basis for the old Google Answers site. Instead, it’s free to ask questions, like at Yahoo! Answers. However, when asking a question, you must specify how many points you wish to spend on asking the question – and you must have these points available. Presumably, these points then get awarded to the best answer. (I got 100 points just for signing up and could gain more by answering questions.)

Panama just not as good

Yahoo is very proud of Panama, their clone of AdWords. After all this time, being able to offer Canadians ads that will only show in Canada, or having muliple ads per keyword, are hardly achievements. An example of why AdWords rules is their naviagtion. After all the improvements at Yahoo, it is still awkward to use.

Example - how to change a campaign name:

Yahoo:
1. Log into your account. You will be presented with your account dashboard.
2. Click on the name of the campaign you wish to change
3. Click on "Edit Campaign" in the top right.
4. Click "Edit" at the top right of the "Campaign General Information" box.
5. Change the account name.
6. Click "Save Changes".
7. Then click "Dashboard" to return to where you were.

Google AdWords:
1. Log into your account. You will be presented with the "All campaigns" view.
2. Click the checkbox beside the campaign you wish to rename and click "Edit Campaign".
3. Enter a new campaign name.
4. Click "Save Changes" (also brings you back to where you were).

Desperate Measures get Google's Attention

One block in the middle of nowhere (Boise, Idaho, USA), who believes he has a million dollar idea that Google would like, visited the GooglePlex to tell them - but failed to get a meeting with any Google staff member.

So he created CanGoogleHearMe.com - and Google have now heard him, and he has signed a non-disclosure agreement, so things are looking up.

Unfortunately dozens of other people will try this as well, but will fail to get the required publicity...

...unless of course they make sure "google" is in their domain name, because Google looks at every one that exists, to see if they need to send them a cease and desist order.

Google News Searches

Google does not let on who their 4500 news sources are, so a resourceful company has decided to provide some useful info themselves:

1 New York Times
2 Washington Post
3 Houston Chronicle
4 Bloomberg
5 Los Angeles Times
6 Reuters
7 Forbes
8 Monsters and Critics.com
9 Guardian Unlimited
10 Voice of America

Their Top 25 list is based on how often news services appear on the Google News home page.

Interestingly, a news source that was at #7, yet didn't seem to belong (playfuls.com) has since been removed by Google...

NewsKnife offers a similar service

Google Checkout Expanding

Slowly but surely Checkout is gobbling up the opposition like a geriatric Pacman. Of the Top 200 e-commerce sites (in the US):

Bill Me Later commanded 28 percent market share with PayPal and Google Checkout representing 26 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

More...

Google now has library referals

If the book you search for has not been digitized yet, Google will offer links to buy the book or find it in a library near you. More here.

Google & eBay - no longer friends

eBay have stopped using Google Adwords, and about time - mostly the ads are irrelevant and a waste of space. And eBay forbids the use of Google Checkout - which makes sense seeing as they bought PayPal because of the great synergy. So what does Google do to try and piss eBay off?

Google has even sought to pressure eBay into offering consumers Google Checkout as an alternate payment method by reaching out to disgruntled eBay merchants and hosting a "protest party" in Boston. The event coincides with today's eBay Live, eBay's annual conference where merchants can network and learn more about business-building products and services.

Durzy acknowledged eBay's annoyance with Google's decision to hold the protest party, saying "we are disappointed that Google has chosen this time to detract from our annual event ... it's not the kind of activity one partner normally does with another."

Sergey Brin marriesSergey Brin, the billionaire co-founder of web search leader Google, married his long-time girlfriend Anne Wojcicki in a secret cer

Sergey Brin, the billionaire co-founder of Google, married his long-time girlfriend Anne Wojcicki in a secret ceremony in the Bahamas.

They tied the knot in a Jewish ceremony held on a sandbar off the coast, wearing swimsuits because they swam to the location.

Other guests were conventionally attired and made it to the ceremony via boat, the report was quoted by DPA as saying.

The couple met when Wojcicki`s sister rented Brin and business partner Larry Page the garage in which they got Google off the ground in 1998.

Street View could be illegal

It's probably fine while it is a gimmick, and I doubt it will be popular enough for the number of streets/cities to be expanded - which means Google is unlikely to get into trouble in Europe...

Struan Robertson, of law firm Pinsent Masons, said although Google will remove identifying photographs on request, that may not be enough for European courts.

He said: "The law demands explicit consent for sensitive personal data. That means when taking pictures of someone leaving a church or sexual health clinic – which could reveal a religious belief or an illness – camera cars might need to pull over and start picking up signatures."

Safer searches on Google

According to McAfee SiteAdvisor (well worth installing by the way), a search on Yahoo (5,4%) or MSN is more risky than Google - although the safest search engine is AOL (2.9%). The risky sites are defined as:

- distributing adware
- sending lots of spam or non-spam email
- make unauthorised changes to users' computers.
- displaying many pop-up ads
- prompting a user to change browser settings

So, install SiteAdvisor, and glance at it before interacting in any way with the website you are visiting!

Here Comes Face Recognition Searching

Following on from Google's purchase of Neven Vision last year, we can soon expect a "facial recognition" capability embedded in Image searching. It will allow you to search only for faces. Presently adding the following to an image search URL will demonstrate it:
&imgtype=face

Trying it for a search for "cat" shows off how good it really is!

NZers Want To Make Bombs

According to Google, more New Zealanders per capita search for the term "make bombs" than any other country. Given that you'd be hard-pressed to find any terrorists there, one presumes it is due to high levels of boredom. Once upon a time they were also the highest purchasers of books, per capita.

New Purchase: Panoramio

It must be nice having all those billions of dollars just itching to be spent...

Google have purchased Spain-based Panoramio, a geo-tagging photo site, for the standard "undisclosed sum".

Panoramio is a community photos website that enables digital photographers to geo-locate, store and organize their photographs -- and to view those photographs in Google Earth.