Inside Google Sitemaps

Google Blogoscoped

Google, the World, and the World Wide Web, Weblogged

Google has gone live with a big change to their result pages, at least for those of you who are logged in (if you're not seeing it yet, it may still be rolled out for your Google Account). It's called SearchWiki, and lets you edit the position of the results you're getting, and add comments to them. SearchWiki was in experimental stage for some time now. Specifically, you'll be seeing three icons accompanying results, and further options below the listing: Up vote: An up arrow, similar in functionality to what you may know from social sites like Reddit or Digg. Clicking it will turn the icon green and move this specific result up ...

EtherPad is a collaborative, real-time text editor created by, among others, two ex-Google employees*. An EtherPad document is quickly set up without any need for registration. You can then share the URL of the document, and others who will visit that page will then be able to see, in real-time, whatever you're typing**. This has an interesting feel to it because there's no "security buffer" as in typical chat programs: every letter you write will be shown as you write it, including occasional errors before you fix them. [Edit: I removed the link to the document now, but you can start your own EtherPad of course...] Please join this EtherPad to give it a try (n ...

Google announced that on December 31st they will shut down Lively, which was their 3D chat world, and somewhat of a potential competitor to Second Life. Room widgets embedded in other sites are then supposed to show an image but no more interaction, which would add Lively to the list of Google's canceled products. Google's post on this decision does not really give a detailed reasoning for this shut-down of a product which was just released this year, except that they're saying "we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business." In particular, this leaves some questions ...

The Shanghaiist reports: With political arrows still being shot back and forth between Beijing and Dharamsala [home of the exiled current Dalai Lama], China has been panning out its efforts to win the propaganda battle over Tibet (...) Lately we've been observing lots of Google ads pointing to the China Tibet Information Center appearing in places like Youtube ... and even our Google Reader. Given the massive reach of Google's self-serve contextual ads, this means anytime you're viewing something related to China or more specifically Tibet anywhere on the web, that ad may appear, pointing you to http://eng.tibet.cn/ where China's version of the Tibet story is presented. You'd think these state behemoths ar ...

A couple of months ago it was mentioned here that Google's web mail client Gmail might get themes, like a black-and-green terminal view, and the waiting time seems to be over soon -- Google announced they've started to roll out this feature. While I don't see it in my Gmail yet (the screenshots in this post are courtesy of Andris and Google), it's supposed to be added to a Themes tab in your settings. Note some themes are dynamic and may change throughout different times of the day. "We've also done a minor facelift to Gmail's default look," Google adds. < ...

LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com allows you to enter any search query, then grab the resulting permalink to share it with someone else. For instance, if someone in a forum would ask "What does 'AFAIK' stand for?", you could (somewhat impolitely) point them to this search, which would then interactively perform a Google search for "afaik" for the visitor. (Kind of the next version of this even more impolite site... and nope, neither site is an official Google site...) [Via Reddit.]

[Google Spreadsheet] Google released an app they call Search-based Keyword Tool. Google says this tool "generates keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website" and in doing so, "helps you identify additional advertising opportunities that aren't currently being used in your AdWords ad campaigns." (Google AdWords already has a keywords tool. Google says as opposed to the existing tool, this new one "generates keyword ideas based on your website, and identifies those currently not being used in your AdWords account".) You can enter ...

"For 3 years, you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them up on YouTube..." Genius comedy group Monty Python (from the BBC program Monty Python's Flying Circus, which started in 1969) now have their own official YouTube channel. The channel aims to collect better organized, higher quality videos -- like of Bicycle Repairman -- than what was previously posted to the site. [Via

... it would probably sound like this. [Thanks Dean!]

Google together with Life magazine has published a photo archive of, according to Google, around 2 million photos (with around 8 million supposed to be released in the future). Many of these photos have never before been published, Google says. The actual search behind this is a regular Google image but with the parameter source:life in the query. Colin in the forum writes "This is pretty cool to be able to browse through each decade of pictures" but notes you're "limited to 200 results per search". Colin adds: Once you click on any photo result, it will load a landing page giving you more details about that photo and the chance to rate the ph ...

Google Analytics tracking is now available for Flash as well. "This feature is a translation of the current Google Analytics tracking code into the ActionScript 3 programming language," the Google Analytics blog says, adding that this is a "joint collaboration" with Adobe. [Hat tip to Elisabeth and Vinoaj at Friendfeed.]

ConsumerWatchdog released a video in which they criticize certain aspects of Google products which they consider to be privacy problems. Here are their points of focus: Gmail's auto-save features, which submits unsent drafts to Google's servers Chrome's desktop shortcut feature, which removes the URL from your view Google's context-targeted ad-serving in Gmail The inability of people sending email to Gmail users to opt-out of Google data storing Your thoughts?

Clive Thompson at Wired says "Playing Mirror's Edge will make you vomit." He argues that it's because you can see your "own" (your avatar's) body while moving -- e.g. the feet when jumping, or the hands when running. The game's available for the PS3 and the XBox360. [Wired link via Reddit.] ...

Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider writes: Google launched step-by-step public transportation directions for Google Maps in September. To advertise the feature, Google bought ads in New York's subway cars. The ads are cute. They give directions from Grand Central to Madison Square Garden. The only problem: they're wrong. [Thanks Grega M.!]

Simon Canning of The Australian IT today writes (my emphasis): Stuart Smith, a former planning director at advertising agency Wieden and Kennedy in London who worked on brands such as Nike and Honda, joined Google's recently formed advertising division two months ago and is now working on ideas to expand the brand. Smith (...) says Google remains driven by engineers but there has to be a shift in the development process, which will be led by the Creative Labs group. "What typically happens is it is just a load of engineers producing a load of things and then refining until it finds an audience," Smith says. "What they have never really done is to look at audiences and understand audiences an ...

CNET News.com

Tech news and business reports by CNET News.com. Focused on information technology, core topics include computers, hardware, software, networking, and Internet media.

Google pressures policy makers with an updated analysis arguing that government and business can clean the U.S.'s energy supply while stimulating the economy.

Do you know a legitimate e-mail from a phishing e-mail? A security vendor says many people do not.

The search giant's Google Gadgets platform is adopting the open authentication standard for controlling privacy. Move follows June move to use OAuth for the Google Data API.

Christmas comes early for Yahoo, according to a TechCrunch report, as the ailing Internet search company sells its comparison-shopping to Jamplant for less than $125 million.

Representative Waxman dethrones Dingell in energy post, Boxer calls for quick action on climate change, and 'hypermiling' is Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year.

The Dark Knight will soon have the dubious honor of being the most-pirated movie of 2008, which means we may soon get what we pay for.

Advertising optimization firm Yieldex takes the top prize: $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in Amazon Web Services credits, and a potential investment from the online retail giant itself.

The latest software update offers several improvements to Google maps as well as over-the-air downloading for podcasts.

Security vendor warns that cybercriminals are targeting teens and young adults with social engineering.

In the tech industry, holiday parties aren't getting canceled left and right in the face of cost-cutting, but things are certainly being done differently this year.

With a remake of the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still coming next month, it's time to examine whether depictions of extraterrestrials reflect our hopes, our fears or both.

After three years of development, upstart Boston-Power is expected to announce a customer that will include its premium batteries in laptops early next year.

Apple's device is feature-rich, well integrated, well supported by independent software developers, and fun to use. But it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

RIM announces more downloads in the first week for their BlackBerry-compatible MySpace application than for any before.

Blog platform company improves comment system, offers it for free to everybody.

Verizon Wireless tells Obama reps that workers improperly accessed records of a cell phone the president-elect used recently, exposing calls and phone numbers but not e-mail, according to a CNN report.

CNET Car Tech takes a look at the new hybrid powertrain shown off by Hyundai at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show.

NASA scientists find what they believe are huge water ice glaciers sitting just beneath the Martian surface.

Senior directors of online payment site E-Gold, who had pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, received small fines and no prison sentences. A judge said it was due to a lack of criminal intent.

One of the most visually stunning search applications on the iPhone has just been updated to support YouTube videos. Go get it.

There's just a week to go before retail outlets reveal their seasonal tech price cuts. But this year's Black Friday is going to be a lot different from previous years, for buyers and sellers alike. On the CNET News Daily Debrief, Charles Cooper and Erica Ogg examine why.