EU to clear Google – DoubleClick
March 6, 2008
Looks like Google may get it’s way and finally secure the acquisition of DoubleClick.
Will be interesting to see how this is handled and exactly what Google does to integrate tools and workforce when (if) if goes through!
Hooray! At last I can take my calendar with me!
March 6, 2008
I’ve used Google Calendar for ages, mainly for it’s ease of use and access from anywhere features. However, I still use Microsoft Outlook for work and have an install of it at home too.
So I am ecstatic about this new launch from Google! Google Calendar Sync (catchy) allows you to sync your Google calendar to Outlook and vice versa. Fantastic! All my calendar views can now be up to date, no excuses for missing an appointment anymore…
Google Docs vs Microsoft Office Live Workspace
March 4, 2008
Great comparison of the two online office suites here from ReadWriteWeb.
Certainly going to be an interesting battle as this arena hots up. I still side with Google for ease of use and true collaboration features, just want to see better integration with GMail and the arrival of a ‘real GDrive’ now!
Although having said that; some semantic understanding of my documents wouldn’t go amiss…
Google adds Gears to mobile
March 4, 2008
Google have announced the launch of Google Gears for Mobile.
I’m a regular user of mobile web apps on my phone, especially when travelling by train, and there’s nothing worse than finding your signal dies and you lose connectivity at a crucial point. Well no longer; now developers can make their mobile apps Gears ready which will enable you to keep working until a connection returns.
I can already think of some great ideas for it; an offline blogger mobile interface which allowed you to write your blog posts offline, then connect to upload. Or maybe an offline mobile email app. And better still a mobile download of Google Calendars (or other online office apps) with both online and offline synchronisation capability!
It’s currently only available for Internet Explorer Mobile so you’re pretty much stuck unless you have a Windows smartphone, but expect it to go to other phone platforms pretty quickly.
This could be a great addition to Android, imagine a phone operating system which allows full on/offline synchronisation with all your favourite web apps available. That would be very cool!
More here from Google Code, including the video below.
ComScore explains Google’s drop in click-through rate
March 1, 2008
ComScore have come out to explain a little more detail behind the release from a few days ago which announced the decline in clicks on Google’s paid search ads.
It seems that the reason for the decline in clicks is down to improvements made by Google to increase the click quality (such as only making text clickable instead of the entire ad unit).
One has to wonder whether a letter from Google has triggered this deeper analysis of the issue…
Anyway, with the recent news that click fraud is rising rapidly it’s timely for Google to remind us of these improvements. It will be telling to see the Click Forensics data for the 1st quarter 2008.
Jotspots back: Bringing it all together
February 28, 2008
Really interesting product launch from Google today! They’ve announced the resurrection of JotSpot (a company they bought some time back) in a new form as Google Sites.
Google Sites allows easy creation of collaboration based websites with wiki and team-site features. It’s tightly integrated into Google Apps allowing you to integrate spreadsheets, docs, calendars and other features into sites with uses such as intranets, extranet team sites and company portals.
Looks very cool and is a real alternative to Microsoft Sharepoint in my opinion. The video below gives a really good overview.
Google losing some favour?
February 26, 2008
ComScore have released some data showing that clicks on ads on Google were down 7% in January compared to December and flat year-on-year (actually down 12% qtr-on-qtr).
This is pretty astounding news after the growth Google has seen in ad clicks over the last few years. The thought is that this isn’t anything fundamentally to do with Google or any competitor taking market share away, rather analysts seem to think this is a sign of the economic uncertainty we are currently seeing. Times are hard so people click less on ads….
What would be interesting is to see the search volume data alongside this click data to see whether searches have declined or stayed the same.
Needless to say Google’s shares have taken a bit of a battering today because of this.
MicroHoo updates
February 23, 2008
Some updates on the Microsoft-Yahoo approach:
Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft Platforms and Services Division sent an internal email yesterday. The email was obviously designed to be leaked (and ended up on Microsoft.com after it got into the blogosphere) judging by the language in it and the mentions of looking after both companies employees in the event of the merger going ahead. Trying to stop people jumping off the ship? Or just a good PR exercise?
Yahoo are facing another lawsuit, this time from some pension funds who claim that by declining the Microsoft offer they are not returning value to shareholders and are actually risking their investments by dragging it out looking for other parties to strike a deal with.
Lastly, Sergey Brin has expressed his nervousness at the deal going ahead, saying that ‘when you start to have companies that control the operating system, control the browsers, they really tie up the top Web sites, and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways. I think that’s unnerving’.
So no progress really, rumours still fly about Yahoo trying to find anyone else to deal with and Microsoft seem confident as ever that the deal will go through in the end.
Google’s going to the moon…
February 23, 2008
Well, no it’s not Sergey going ballistic over the Microsoft bid for Yahoo, rather it’s Google’s competition to find a team who can land a robotic rover on the moon and send pictures back to earth.
Story here from the International Herald Tribune.
Google not quite the biggest ad revenue platform in the UK
February 19, 2008
But nearly…
Google has come in for the year at £1.3B of ad revenue from the UK alone. Estimates say that the TV channel ITV1 will come in at around £1.32B plus some £100M in sponsorship.
This is still pretty awesome from Google and they should take the lead next year as mobile expands and advertising moves to other platforms (and if they ever get DoubleClick properly into the fold).
More from the Guardian.
