Google Voice.

The time has come


Google seems to always surprise so it should not really be a surprise anyone that Google is entering the phone business. The real question is why? This doesn’t seem to be even marginally connected with Googles core business model. Why is Google going into the Phone business?

The overall reason that Google seems to go into new businesses that don’t seem to make it more money has to do with customer satisfaction. Google wants people to stay on its site knowing full well that the programs that do make it money will be used. But beyond its macro strategy there is some direct money making tools that Google Voice will activate.

Management in one word is what Google voice is all about. No one needs to juggle many phone numbers anymore. One number on every business card and website. The user decides which of his phones will ring when Google voice is accessed. The user decides that a number from a business associate will ring on his business phone and the call from his mother will ring on his home phone. He can decide that cold calls hear a prerecorded message so spam calls will never bother him again. He can direct people he does not want to talk to a voice mail that he can choose not to ever return. All these conversations will be recorded on a g-mail like page that any messages ( or even spoken conversations) can be accessed at a later point . These pages Google will leverage with its core product Google adsense that brings Google in billions. Google will be preparing millions of new pages where ads can appear based on page content.

Google is very likely going to integrate all this very seamlessly into its g-mail system and mobile capabilities.

This is a brilliant stroke by Google once again.

New Linkedin Feature

Linkedin subgroups


Those who use linkedin may also use the very valuable tool of groups on the site. Creating your own group or even joining a preexisting group gives enormous marketing power to the users of the group. You can belong to up 50 groups at a time with the ability to start discussions and get the word out to focused groups. It is a very powerful tool for those that know how to use it properly. The problem with this tool of linkedin is its popularity. This means that a very good group will have hundreds if not thousands of members making more focused discussions difficult. Linkedin has addressed this problem with creating a subgroup option that will focus discussions much better. Let me try to make this more clear by using an example. I have a SMO professionals group that has 80 members but I would like to start a subgroup that focuses just on news on internet developments. I can choose ( or they can choose depending on your setting) which members of my group would most benefit from my subgroup. This will focus marketing needs to members who will need them the most. Only the manager of the group can start a subgroup making his power over the group stronger than ever. Many up till now saw not a great difference between the manager and members (there are major differences) but this feature will encourage new groups to be formed to utilize the subgroup feature.
It’s a feature that will help the Groups section in linkedin provide much better marketing capabilities to its users.

Search in Real Time

Collecta.com is a new search engine that already is making serious waves. This is all for a good reason. The concept of searches that list breaking results will be at the forefront of all web search activity in the future. This is all the vision that Twitter is based on, immediate relevant information. That’s what people want and are looking for. Collecta takes all the real time comments and remarks from everywhere and provides results. Anything put up on facebook or twitter or any other social network will be automatically cached and given priority on Collecta. Its almost as if Twitter launched this for Collecta as this is an identical idea. How will the big boys integrate real time search into there mammoth search engines, no one knows that yet.

If you really want to test this new service go to Collecta and look for this article. It should be at the top of the list

Twitter, its changing the world

Twitter, Larger than life


What hasn’t been said about Twitter. Incredible innovative revolutionary . Twitter has even had effect on the latest world crisis, the Iranian election. Microbloging has figuratively and literally taken the world by storm. The ability to gather immediate information in real time has made Twitter not only the talk of the high tech world but even the talk of the entire world. The mostly totalitarian regime of Iran is very worried about the proliferation of internet news sources. They have tried to stop these sites but can’t seem to stop reports from Twitter. Now they are just threatening those who use these sites. Twitter can be accessed in so many different ways that blocking it has become impossible. A probable scenario is being played out by those who are the most against Twitter. The Iranian government has its own twitter account and is following those twitter accounts that they think are coming from local users. They are doing this to track these users for prosecution or worse later on. At the same they are making stronger the sites they seek to stop. Crazy isn’t it? In addition the very fact that they target these sites makes them popular in other twitter user’s eyes and they also start following them. This all means that fighting these sites makes them stronger. That would make any totalitarian regime completely crazy. This fire that the Iranian government is trying to put out is just getting bigger.

When Twitter came out many thought it was a joke.

Achmadenijad certainly doesn’t think so

Bing is getting bonged

Bing, getting bad press

Well by the looks of what people are writing on different blogs Bing is not doing that well.

Here seem to be some of the main problems.

1. The site is under construction. This sounds innocent enough but some users in different parts of the world get a different home page than others. Sound incredulous? Well it’s true. The majority of users receive on their home page the “Tour Bing “ option while others have no such link on their page. That’s not under construction that’s just bad planning.
2. If you did manage to get to the “ Tour Bing “ page you see that Bing seems to be zeroing in on 4 main categories . Travel, Shopping, health and local with a bizarre even more option. This unintuitive page seems a bit bizarre.
3. There is no integration with e-mail or calendar services that are available with Google and Yahoo
4. In General it is not a very exciting Search engine.


Not sure what Microsoft was thinking.

Google has nothing to worry about.

Bing, not better than Google.

The main problem with Google or other search engines is a very simple one. They do not think. This means that they give results based on many factors but have not yet been able to incorporate results based on the overall meaning of a search query. Bing claims that in fact it has incorporated this thinking concept and that is essentially the real change in Bing.

It is very hard to see this change.

I have searched for the following term “cheap watches in Boston “ as my watch has stopped and am looking for places in Boston to buy a watch. Neither Google or Bing ( I don’t even bother with yahoo any more ) do not give relevant results for this query. Once again it’s just a list of sites that seem to have been optimized for cheap and watches and I receive no info on where in Boston I should buy a watch,

For another term “ scuba equipment in Bel-Air “ Bing does seem to have better results for this term but overall results are not spectacular enough to chase people away from Google. Bing should have incorporated a search company like "Mahalo" or others like it that actually seem to understand the entire search query and give appropriate results.

With all of Googles services even if results aren’t great few will leave the engine giant for Bing.

Bing is good but not good enough.

Google wave

Google wave, Google's newest splash


The next generation of communication? A Twitter expansion of sorts? A collaboration communication tool? All of the above?

Communication on the web has not really changed ostensibly since the inception of e-mail. Instant message use did change the communication medium by mimicking phone calls or even allowing phone calls thru the VOIP breakthrough. The conceptual problem with all this is that e-mail was created to mimic snail mail and IM to mimic phone conversation. Nobody really thought what the best way would be to communicate thru the web. A system where there would be a smooth integration between e-mail users and chat options while allowing for real time documentation in a virtual meeting setting was not really thought off. Well not just yet that is. Until Wave came along..

Google is trying to make us think a little bit differently. Many people were confused when g-mail started using threads to organize e-mails. To many it was cumbersome and difficult to understand but those who have become accustomed to g-mail know now that it’s the only way to go. Wave is also in that category. It may take a while for us to get accustomed to the advantages but when we do it will be something we won’t be able to live without.

It is of course open source which may push the new concept into directions not thought about by others. It will also allow easy maneuvering between all known web communication options and their combined usage if needed. The ability to drag and drop pictures easily makes this tool all that more exciting.

Great name as well.