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November 30, 2005
Microsoft Live Fremont
According to PCMag, Microsoft is testing it's answer to Google Base and Craigslist. Codenamed Fremont, the service will allow people to post listings, which will be indexed and made available via Microsoft's search engine. It's unclear, as with Google Base whether they will allow other crawlers to index these listings. It seems to be currently only available to MS employees.
Michael at Techcrunch thinks it's cool and will shake things up. That's enough for me to treat it with respect. Also reported by BetaNews, SearchEngineWatch and eWeek, and also discussed on Slashdot.
Related post on Live Custom Domains. Here's their blog.
Windows Live previously covered here.
November 28, 2005
Let's catch up ..
Long weekend's over. Lots of catching up to do ...
November 22, 2005
Two-way RSS
Microsoft announced yesterday the specification for Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) that "extends RSS from unidirectional to bidirectional information flows". Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's CTO talks about it in his blog. The spec itself is available on MSDN as is the FAQ.
A VC calls it the second coming of RSS, as does Richard MacManus from Read/WriteWeb. Dave at Scripting News likes it as well. Dick Costolo from Feedburner also has a good post on the subject. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch thinks it's cool and also that new companies will be built with SSE.
I guess this needs to be checked out!
Gotta dig diggdot.us
digg + slashdot + del.icio.us = diggdot.us .. pretty cool :) TechCrunch was amongst the first to cover it of course. Digg covered earlier here and here.
November 18, 2005
Google Mania
So Google's stock price hit 400 yesterday. WSJ questions (subscription reqd!) the merit of this mania. Either way, I should have bought the stock post IPO. The problem was, the stock always seemed too overpriced, even for a company like Google, whether it was 200, 300 or now 400.
In a related vein, Henry Blodget from Internet Outsider attempts to solve the mystery that has baffled even me time and again - Who exactly clicks on Google sponsored ads? For some weird reason (in an attempt to not let "them" win maybe), I'll NEVER click on a sponsored link. If the link is useful, I'll mouseover to get the URL and then type it manually in the address bar. Although I must admit, I'm changing this behavior lately for all free ad supported websites I like.
November 17, 2005
Google to acquire Riya?
Techcrunch is reporting on rumors that Google may be looking to acquire Riya, previously discussed here.
Digg to bury Slashdot?
Wired is running a piece on how Digg might bury Slashdot. Pretty bold statement, except that I don't think that's going to happen. Just because it's catching up with Slashdot in site traffic doesn't mean users are migrating from Slashdot to Digg. Plus the professional editorial board at Slashdot adds a huge value that Digg will never be able to provide.
Previously discussed here. This is also being discussed on Slashdot, which in turn is disussed on Digg :)
November 15, 2005
Microsoft feels the heat, mulls free, ad supported desktop software
CNET is running an article on how Microsoft is considering offering free desktop applications, supported entirely by ads. This is the clearest indication so far of the software giant feeling the heat from Google and Yahoo and of their willingness to accept the challenge head on. Microsoft's core strength is in the desktop business, and if they manage to integrate the desktop with this online model, they very well might be on the verge of a" disruptive wave".
Windows Live, is their first step in that direction (although technically MSN was supposed to be that). But as noted earlier, they clearly need to take the battle to the desktop where they can kick butts of the likes of Google anyday.
The CNET article also talks about AdCenter (code named Moonshot), unveiled almost 8 months back, and Microsoft's reply and more to Google AdWord.
November 14, 2005
Google Analytics
Ars Technica is running an article on the new Google Analytics service that provides traffic metrics and other website analysis features, especially useful for marketing purposes. It also claims to provide easy integration with Google AdWords to help find out the usefulness of the campaigns.
Web sites that don't use AdWords can add a small javascript snippet to the pages they wish to track.
Google is using the Urchin web analytics technology, a company it had earlier acquired.
Also discussed on Slashdot here.
More on this once I've integrated it with this blog.
Update: Brief coverage on TechCrunch.
November 10, 2005
Riya
Wired is running a piece on Riya, an online photo sharing and management tool that uses face and text recognition to automatically tag photos. The premise is that once you've sufficiently trained the software with your family pictures, Riya automatically tags any new pictures you upload and identifies each person it recognizes. From the article, the software has proven sensitive enough to tell the difference between twins and recognize members of the same family. It can even read street signs for clues about a picture's location. Pretty neat!
The software was first reviewed at TechCrunch. Following are some of the first review of the alpha release: Hulleye Comes By, David Castera, Letters from Lex, Calm Computing and Software and Tools
Munjal Shah, the CEO of Riya has a blog here.
November 09, 2005
Cisco to venture into the wireless mesh arena
Cisco Systems is set to launch a line of products for setting up indoor and outdoor wireless networks using wireless mesh network technology. According to the article, they plan to use their proprietary Adaptive Wireless Path Protocol - a mesh routing technology designed to allow the wireless network to self-configure, self-optimize, resist interference and network downtime, and reduce network deployment costs.
Google had earlier announced to offer free WiFi network for San Francisco using mesh networking.
Also discussed at Slashdot here.
What is the Digg!
TechCrunch reports that Digg might soon overtake Slashdot in website traffic. Pretty neat considering it hasn't even been a year since the site was launched. Slashdot is still my personal favourite, but I also like Digg's more Web2.0 concept. What is Digg? From the website:
Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.
November 05, 2005
WYSIWYG
OK, I finally found time to enable a WYSIWYG editor on this blog using the Ajaxify EnhanceEntryEditing plugin. Another one that looks good and I might try is FCKeditor.
November 04, 2005
xMax kicks WiMax's ass
Techworld reports a demonstration by xG Technology - a Florida based start up - of wireless broadband technology that is 1000 times more efficient than WiMax. The technology, they claim, could make wireless LANs run for years on watch batteries.
The Techworld article can be found here. They also have an investigative report on the validity of the claims. This is also being discussed on Slashdot.
Now it's Amazon's turn
Close on the heels of Microsoft's announcement (covered earlier) to digitize the world's books and make them available for online searches, Amazon plans to introduce two programs next year that will allow consumers to buy online access to entire books, and to individual pages or chapters. As opposed to the Google Print program, where they are scanning copyrighted books, in some cases without the permission of publishers or authors, Amazon plans to work with the publishers and essentially provide them with another way to generate revenue.
This is very similar in many ways to Apple's ITMS where individual songs are available for purchase for $0.99. Judging by the success of that program, this seems like a good move, and would especially appeal to students and researchers. I can't however imagine people wanting to buy entire books to read online. Earlier efforts in this direction have failed miserably.
November 03, 2005
Intel Mac OS X catches up with its older brother
According to the OSx86 project, the Intel version of Mac OS X has finally caught up with its older brother, the Power PC version. The significantly stronger TPM protections will ensure the OS is locked to Apple hardware. As if anybody would want to run it on a non-Apple machine! :)
Yahoo! Maps is here
And it's not bad at all! The use of flash instead of AJAX is an interesting differentiator from Google maps. But they also have the AJAX version available as part of their APIs, along with a simple and flash version. They seem to have done their homework, their beta version being much more advanced than Google's at launch.
As always, TechCrunch has an indepth review, as does Y! Search.
I'm loving this. More later ...
November 02, 2005
Begun the AJAX desktop wars have
Not unexpectedly after their recent reorganization, Microsoft yesterday launched two online services Windows Live and Office Live in an apparent effort to take on Google in this space. The desktop looks very similar to the Google personalized home, with the ability to add custom feeds and content. The gadgets have an uncanny resemblance to Mac OS X dashboard widgets :) The VOIP IM is quite interesting.
I won't be surprized if plans include integration with the Windows desktop version in some way allowing MS to cut down on time to market and offer software more and more as a service.
More on this later ...
Michael from TechCrunch who covered the announcement has a detailed review of the services.