Folks... year ending and such have kept me real busy this year... resulting in a virtual non existence on the blogosphere from my side...
We shall commence the ride in the rabbit hole bright and chirpy from Jan 2, 2008. Will be too sozzled on the first to think straight!
Have a great time, enjoy the festive spirit and make merry. Don't step on others toes.
Cheers
Mobile location based search gaining importance. Probable revenue streams. As reported by emarketer this is one place where consumers are willing to accept ads in favour of paying a fee.
"IDC found that one-half of US
adults surveyed preferred ad-supported location-based mobile search,
instead of paying fees for such services.
" The reason? The behavior patterns exhibited by most US mobile Internet
users indicate that they are interested in task-oriented content, according to an iCrossing study. Maps, weather, local
information and news above entertainment and sports as the content
categories they searched. Read the full article here.
Security was a concern expressed in the survey which was against the use of this platform. If that wa met, more than one-third of respondents said
they were likely or very likely to subscribe to child-locator services
in the next 12 months.
Was reading about the Zeitgeist conference where Google got some stars in... well almost!
Former President Bill Clinton (via teleconference), former Vice President Al Gore (in person), and Britain’s likely contender for the prime minister post, David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, who has his own channel on YouTube.
Plus media barons, captains of industry, as well as entrepreneurs and other sutch glitteratti ...
It was the words of one speaker that struck a chord in my mind. I am sure it would've done so there on the spot as well.
Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor clothing maker Patagonia. He said he's never used a keyboard yet and neither does he have a cell phone.
He said that he
opposes consumerism and argued that technology tends to homogenize
people and societies.
He acknowledged that every company, including his own, is increasingly wired. “But that doesn’t make it right,” he said to the BlackBerry- and iPhone-toting audience.
Mr. Chouinard's urged everyone to think about the consequences of all their actions and take responsibility...
Fundamental thought if you don't have principles and values and solid grounding Digital or intra dimensional or from outer space... whatever, you're bound to hit the barrier at some point of time! And whatever you started out to do might seem good in the short term but eventually miss the whole point!
We've been around tom toming the numeric differentiator beta, 1.0, 2.0 and a bit about the differences... but one thing that's been taking precedence in my thought has been why isn't there a web browser that stands true to making the experience really available to the user?
Well someone's done something about it and its fresh, its new and its real cool. Its called Flock. While its built on top of the Mozilla Firefox platform it adds a few very interesting features which directly make it a connector to some of the actions ones been doing on the web already... and what's more, its got the looks.
To quickly touch upon what Flock add-ons are
First and foremost it has an integrated Flickr functionality. This is pholobrowsing and phoblogging at its best. You can edit your stream, watch popular streams, view them like never before. So if you are a heavy Flickr user, I don't think you need any other reason to get on to Flock. This is it.
Second it has an integrated tool like del.icio.us right in the browser. So bookmarking is really on the fly... a “+” button on the top left of the toolbar and the page is added, albeit, its now called breadcrumbs. Obviously you can also tag bookmarks as well.
And that's not all, you can build you own “watchlists” and groups. The former is about building your fav list of people who's booking habbit you'd like to follow, and the later being your defined categories and who is flocking at em.
All of these have RSS feeds as well...quite thought through.
Third is the blogging tool which works like nothing I've seen so far. I've been using (or rather trying to use some of the pop stuff available) all of which need to be downloaded and at best allow offline drafting and wysiwyg functionality.
Flock creams em all. Setup is dummy proof. It can edit a post even if was not created with Flock, previewing is real easy, and what if I say you can now drag and drop photos from flickr photos into your post and manipulate them plus tag on technorati. Incredible.
Try it, use it, recommend it. Works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
You can get it here.
Microsoft value adds to its web search. Its effort to try and inch closer to Google.
It unveils its version of the universal search tool box... this battle is getting interesting. Refer to my earlier posts on Universal search, the possible dreams of Google and Microsoft...
While they've been at it and have failed rather miserably to unseat the undisputed king of search Google. As I see it the difference is probably in the approach. Developing Software to aid connectivity or Archiving data on human activity? The former is obviously MS while the later is Google's.
But this time, the statement from MS seems a little more mature. They want to first be credible before making claims. Yeah, now you are talking building a brand not another search product.
A quote from Reuters: "The Redmond, Washington-based company also focused on improving four specific areas of search: entertainment, health, shopping and local. Those four segments account for about 40 percent of all searches, according to Microsoft.
For example, a search for "Justin Timberlake" yields news, videos, images and even the "buzz" ranking of the singer versus other celebrities. For shoppers, Windows Live will aggregate reviews, prices and other information about a product."
For the full article do click here.
How about starting an agency and getting the single largest brand name globally in the internet business as your client?
And what if the business that created some of the money making norms of the medium decides on starting it?
The answer to both is the same. Its a Googly.
Google is launching an in-house agency to handle all of its own advertising needs and. Andy Berndt co-president of Ogilvy & Mather, New York, moves in to lead it.
This along with the recent onslaught of PR initiatives done by Google marks a distinct change in the search giant's approach to market itself.
By its own admission, brand Google hasn't been a high priority in its brief 10-year history.
There are those who advertise and there are those who go town saying they don't advertise! And Google was very much part of the latter!
However, that's changing now and cause of this change? It's got 15 or more products now and has entered the mobile domain and I am sure there will be tons more to go... Therefore more means more promotion?
Sounds kinda cliched to me. But here's what I think the agency could be doing. It will sure have communication ideas that will make Google more endearing, make it more Cultish...
If you ask me they're already up there ... and all they want to create is a stir, change in drift. Well Sir Martin Sorell is upping the ante on Digital in one of my recent posts. Here's the trip wire straight back at you...
Round one results as I recorded in one my earlier posts that Google has finally overtaken the Seattle giant in the visitors numbers game...
Round two, the giant shows its not really sleeping. Microsoft it seems is in talks to buy a stake in Facebook. Google is also interested in the same property...
Facebook? Well what's the money spinning logic behind it? Bunch of people passing time fooling around with so called applications and widgets? If you ask me here's a poser. Have you wondered what could be the real reason for the applications on Facebook? What behavioral data is actually being collected about people? What patterns of human behavior are being diagnosed? Or maybe these same applications are completely different from the front and back end. While you are throwing a sheep at a friend you are actually creating a record at the back which is making a note of human beings ability to start a war... straining to think?
The article which examines what Google and Microsoft are doing on Wall Street Journal. The opinion above obviously is my personal one!
Well, quite recently, HSBC was taken to task. And who did it? People power of course. And what enabled the power of the people to come to force? Facebook. Innocuous networking tool or the the sling shot of David? This is a real life demonstration of how people used connectivity as a tool and came together to take Golliath head on. The guys who did it? Well it was the student community in the UK and their protest against interest charges for their student loans. Read the full story from Times Online.
Give it try will you? See how many stumbling blocks emerge. Here's a kickass video that tries to do the trick and that too in less than 5 minutes... enough words, let the show begin.
Change is good
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