Twitter is faster than Google!

I want to say a few words about how I've discovered that asking Twitter can be faster than searching Google, if you want a question answered.

As my Twitter network has grown (currently 378 followers), I've come to rely on Twitter more and more. Nowadays, if I have a question about just about anything, and especially anything tech, I'll ask Twitter first. Then I might turn to Google to search, while Twitter is pondering the answer.

Usually I don't get far past bringing up the search window before I have several great answers from Twitter, and then a few minutes later there will be many more. Sometimes it even sparks a discussion on the topic. You just can't beat that. As I keep saying, Twitter is faster than Google.

Trust the twitter, the twitter knows all. The wisdom of crowds.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Got any good examples of this?

Australia's First Social Media Election

What's on your mind?


On Friday Google launched a 2007 Australian Federal Election page, and an Australia Votes YouTube channel. From the election page users can add election content to Google Maps and Google Earth, access YouTube videos and add various feeds using iGoogle Gadgets.

Inside the Australia Votes channel you are encouraged to "Get involved and have your say" by submitting video responses and leaving text comments. Voters are also being encouraged to ask questions about political issues, and presumably some answers will be offered.

Apart from the various political sites and content already launched, The Australian has reported that Ninemsn is going to launch an Australia Decides 07 site with live video feeds, opinion polls, blogs and a "taxi poll", which will feature a cab driver interviewing voters. Apparently the The Age and News.com.au are also planning similar sites with multimedia news and opinion feeds and blogs. I wonder if Australian politicians will also begin to make use of Twitter, as U.S. politicians Barack Obama and John Edwards have.

How much of an impact do you think online and user generated content in particular will have on the upcoming campaign? If you live in Europe or the U.S., how much of an impact do you think it has had in politics there so far?

Peter Garrett talks about the role of the web.

Google What's Hot List

Google has just launched a new service called Hot Trends. The feature displays what people are searching for in large numbers on any particular day.

This follows on the heels of Google Trends, which displays the popularity of search terms in relation to each other over time, and the relative interest in different locations.

As Problogger points out, Hot Trends "could be a useful tool for those writing blogs on current hot topics". At the time I looked, I was surprised to see that fellini film was the second hottest search.

via Googleblog

Homer Simpson On Google Earth

Here's another item related to the Google privacy issue :)

Google Tracking Your Searches

I'm in two minds about new Google Web History which launched about a week ago. The new feature lets you store your entire Google web history online.

I have been using it, and I must say that it's a pretty useful service, in terms of being able to find something you've searched for and didn't bother to bookmark, only to discover you need it later.

In terms of the privacy issues involved, Google says they encrypt all the data and that you're the only one who can access it. You can also pause the service at any time and delete items. However, the obvious question is: do you trust Google enough to give it your complete personalised search activity? When combined with Google Bookmarks, Gmail and other services, this gives Google access to a great deal of your personal information and preferences.

The future advantages for advertising are clear. Apparently Google will eventually layer on a tagging capability to enable individuals to categorise and share searches (in a similar way to existing social bookmarking sites I imagine), and then it will be possible to begin Tagvertising.

People do tend to tell their search engines some things about themselves that they probably wouldn't tell anyone else, or at least they might tell their search engine first.

It could be argued that, unless you have something to hide, the new features are harmless, and you can always choose not to use Google (if it's possible to do that online these days) or any of its personalised services.

What do you think? Does it disturb you to see all your search activity stored and displayed by Google, and that Google knows so much about you? Do you trust Google to hold and use your information in a way that is only beneficial to you, or does it hand Google too much power? I'd love to know your thoughts.

Google Buys Web for $2,455 Billion

I won't add to the numerous news items and opinions about Google now buying ad serving company DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion, after acquiring YouTube last year, and recently in-game advertising company Adscape Media. Instead, I'll just point you to this amusing blog post over at Google Blogoscoped. The blog is reporting a slightly different story (circa 2017):

Google Inc today announced they’ve acquired the internet for the astounding sum of $2,455.5 billion in cash...

...This is in line with our vision to make information more accessible to end users,” says Eric Schmidt. “With the acquisition, we can increase the speed of indexing as everything will already be on our servers by the time it’s published.”...

..In a conference call earlier today, Larry Page explained the strategy behind the acquisition. “We realized it’s not very cost-effective to buy the internet in smaller portions.” During the past two decades, Google had acquired YouTube for $1.65, DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, AOL for $12.5 billion, and last year, Microsoft for the record sum of $120 billion...

UPDATE (Monday 15 April) : The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google's rivals, including Microsft, AT&T Inc, Time Warner Inc and a few other companies are seeking antitrust scrutiny of the Google/DoubleClick deal. They are saying the deal would give Google a tight hold over the booming online ad market.

How Will Twitter Make Money?

Many people believe that Twitter is a flash in the pan and will disappear as the novelty wears off and people move on to the next new thing. One very similar competitor site (Jaiku.com) has already emerged. For now however, according to Steve Rubel, Twitter has over 100,000 users and the size of the community is doubling every three weeks.

The main challenge for Twitter moving forward will of course be its ability to generate income. Rubel asserts that Twitter's most active users are quite influential (including him), and that many users voluntarily receive messages via IM and mobile phones. He maintains that if Twitter's parent company (Obvious Corp), or possibly a company that acquires Twitter, can think of a way to let the community opt-in to commercial mobile messages, Twitter could turn into a real cash cow. He points out that over 1700 users already opt-in to receiving messages from Woot on Twitter, so it's not mere speculation, even at this early stage.

Rubel makes some good points. It's true, many users don't seem to have a problem with receiving constant messages by IM and mobile phone via Twitter, although this could become quite selective as the number of users escalates, say to YouTube or MySpace levels.

I've noticed that a few well known news organisations including The New York Times, CNET News and BBC World Service have already started to deliver messages on a very regular basis, so the potential for a wide variety of corporations to use the site is obvious (so to speak). None of them really have a decent following at present, but it's still very early days.

What is significant about the nature of Twitter, is that a lot of users seem to be keen to tell others which products they use and trust, and where in the world they themselves are located. It will be possible for marketers to act on this information in various ways. This will have to be achieved in ways that are not intrusive, or the tech and media savvy users could be turned off.

Twitter could go down the route of displaying banner advertising and user profile branding on the actual site, which have become ubiquitous on YouTube without denting its popularity. There is always Google advertising, and Google the company to take into account. Could Twitter become another acquisition target for Google in the near future? Google is undoubtedly interested in the mobile space.

See you on Twitter.com/jjprojects

Google In-Game Ads?

Back in February it was discovered that Google was buying Adscape Media, a company that specialises in advertising within games. Not surprisingly, it seems that Google has also been working on ways to collect specific information on the game user and to display ads relevant to them while they play.

Webpronews is reporting that Google has filed a new patent application in relation to this. It takes into account a user's interests and gaming behavior by monitoring their online gaming experiences. The Patent states :

"Information about a person's interests and gaming behavior may be determined by monitoring their online gaming activities (and perhaps making inferences from such activities). Such information may be used to improve ad targeting. For example, such information may used to target ads to be rendered in a video game being played by the person."

This is quite a significant development when you take into account the success Google has had with targeting relevant ads to users on the web!

Do you think gamers will easily accept this kind of advertising during game experiences, if it doesn't interrupt game play and the ads are relevant? If you're a gamer, how do you feel about in-game advertising?

Update: MIT Avertising Lab has spotted a new book called Advergaming and In-Game Advertising: An Approach to the next Generation of Advertising if anyone's interested in reading up on the subject. It's available on Amazon, but quite pricey.

Google Homepage Themes

Google has placed a Select theme link on the personalised homepage. The theme panel allows you to choose from one of six themes for your homepage. I'm sure there will me many other options to follow, surely even customisablle options.

These new theme options may seem like a minor event, but if you follow the thinking a little further down the road, is could lead to much more significant features in the future, such as branded themes. Many publishers around the world already offer this feature to advertisers on their homepages.

via Google Blog

Google Homepage Live TV

CamMap has new widget that enables you to watch live tv from your Google homepage. You can view live updates from CNN and other networks. LabPixies has one as well.

Thanks to Steve Rubel for this one. As he says, this is surely a sign of things to come.

Google Earth V4

Have you checked out Google Earth lately? Version 4 was released on January 8th. The new version combines search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and even 3D buildings. Take a look at the Google Earth Showcase to see some of the new features and possibilities.

The new version has some powerful features which will undoubtedly have many applications for many people, companies and organisations. However, you will need a fairly powerful machine to really appreciate the new Google Earth experiences, especially Google Earth Plus and Google Earth Pro.

Brandchannel Readers Choice - Top 10

The results of the annual BrandChannel's Reader's Choice Awards are in. As you can see, Google owns 2 of the top 3 places.

4 out of the top 10 are less that 10 years old, and it's certainly no coincidence that 4 out of the top 5 companies have digital media, technology and the web at their core. Rounding out the top 10 globally are: Nokia, Skype, Ikea, Coca-Cola, Toyota.

It's also difficult to see how Apple could be nudged from the top few in the coming year, with the iphone hitting the market. Then again, the number 3 spot is held by a company that only began in 2005, so I'll keep and open mind. It's possible that a company that hasn't even started up yet could be in the top 5 next year! Google would probably buy it though.

Earth Wallpapers

Earthwallpapers.org is a growing series of desktop wallpapers created from Google Maps images. I like this idea. I've always loved aerial photographs and now the possibilities are endless and accessible, thanks to Google Maps and Google Earth.

Notice the disclaimer (or rather plea) at the bottom of the site though: "This site claims no ownership of any of the images used. We are just trying to share. Please don't shut me down Google".

The above image is of a New Zealand volcano, Mt Egmont. Even though I've lived in Sydney for many years, I was born and raised in NZ, so images like this are close to my heart.

YouTube Payola

Speaking of GooTube, you might have heard that the site might start paying users for their videos. Co-founder and Chief Exec Chad Hurley says that they will definitely be heading in that direction.

He states this in a video, apparently shot at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Presumably the more views a video gets, the more money the uploader will earn. This seems fair given the number of ads now on the site. If any company can make Youtube economically viable in this way, Google can.

Now they just need to improve the search functionality on the site. I'm pretty sure Google has the inhouse skills to make that happen as well!

Australia Day Snaps

January 26th is Australia Day and a public holiday in these parts. Australia Day marks the occasion of first european settlement, or colonisation. The occasion is by no means celebrated by everybody. Events usually include a Sydney Ferry race on the harbour, fireworks and various protests by aboriginal groups.

With all the outdoor activities going on around the city and harbour, both Google and Microsoft are taking the opportunity to fly over the city to snap high-res photos. Microsoft is encouraging people to form objects and shapes to be seen from above and Google is going to shoot the area in detail for Google Maps.

If you live in the target area, it might be a good opportunity to stand on your roof and say cheese, or give the one fingered salute, whatever takes your fancy.

Australian Hotspot Mashup

While I'm on the summer heat theme – the bushfire season in Oz this summer looks to be a record breaker. Some of the fires have been burning for more than 7 weeks now, with no let up in sight. February is traditionally the hottest month of the year here.

Although Google maps went live for New Zealand and Australia back in May '06, Googlemapsmania tells me that Australia now has its own domain for Google Maps. Here's a new map mashup that tracks the current Australian Fire Hotspots.