Sachin Tendulkar... 20 Not Out

Today the God of Indian cricket completed 20 years of International cricket. A feat which no other cricketer in the world has ever achieved. To celebrate 20 years of cricket, 20 Limited Edition autographed bats by the little master with the message 'Thank You India for 20 years of love', will be auctioned. To participate in the auction fans can log on to ibnlive.com/Sachin. The minimum auction price will start from Rs 50,001.The auction opens from Sunday, 15th Nov '09 and closes on Sunday, 22nd Nov '09. The proceeds of this auction will be given to the NGO "APNALAYA".

Current bid stands at Rs. 1,33,000. Bid now to grab this opportunity of a life time and contribute to a nobel cause.

Google Wave Invites Pouring

In my previous article I had mentioned me receiving invitation from Google for my Wave account on 30th October 2009. While I was expecting Google to send out next round of invites towards end of November 2009, they have proved me wrong. It seems they have sent another round of invites on 14th November 2009. Though this could be a part of delayed invitation process they started on 30th October 2009, what seems to be a coincidence is 2 of my friends ended up receiving their invitations yesterday.

This surely is a positive step coz most of the Google Wave account holders have been complaining about limited contacts in their Wave account thereby limiting their usage of Google Wave and at the same time many experts felt that Wave was loosing its fizz. Maybe its time Google went aggressive and offered invites to many more people.

Happy Waving!

More Google Wave invites.

As pointed out in one of my earlier posts, since the launch of Google Wave on 30th September 2009, Google has sent another round of Wave invites.

I was lucky enough to receive my own Wave invite from Google yesterday. This is exactly the same modus operandi which we had witnessed when Gmail was launched. In the coming year or so there is a high possibility that at least 50-55 percent of Gmail users will have their own Wave account.

Gmail has about 150 million users worldwide and with 20 additional Google Wave invites allowed per account, it wont take much time for Google to get their entire Gmail users to move to Wave. But lets not get too excited coz these invites will be sent by Google in a phased manner. There are also talks of Google replenishing invites of existing Wave users who have exhausted their earlier quota of invites.

One of the most notable things seen in the image above is 20 permissible invites which is up from 8 permissible invites at the time of launch. Also, for those who may not know email id for wave accounts are xyz@googlewave.com

Happy waving!

Apple takes a dig at Windows 7

With Windows 7 released on 22nd October 2009, Apple has taken a shot at Windows 7 in its new Ads.

Following Ad shows people queuing up at Windows 7 launch to upgrade from PC to Mac coz it is Number 1 in customer satisfaction.



Following Ad focuses on false promises made by Microsoft at each of its earlier launch.

Info Edge India Ltd. (Naukri) posts 6.3 percent increase in Profit Before Tax at 21.95 Crore for 2Q 2009-10

Info Edge (India) Limited posted a 6.3 percent increase in Profit Before Tax at 21.95 Crore for 2Q 2009-10.

Quarter Ended September 30, 2009
• Total Income in Q2 of FY 09-10 at 64.51 Crore, a 10.8 percent drop over the corresponding quarter in FY 08-09. Operating income is 56.16 Crore, which is 14 percent lower compared to the corresponding quarter last year.
• EBITDA is at Rs 23.51 Crore compared to 22.39 Crore being 5 percent higher as compared to the corresponding quarter in FY 08-09. Operating EBITDA is at Rs 15.16 Crore which is 2.17 percent lower as compared to the corresponding quarter in FY 08-09.

Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO and director, Info Edge India, has said, “The hiring environment continues to improve, albeit gradually. The drop in topline revenues and operating income reflects the changed scenario from the last year and is in line with expectations. However, the improvement is reflected in growth based on sequential quarter.”

About Info Edge (India) Ltd
Info Edge (India) Ltd (NSE: NAUKRI) is one of the largest internet company in India. Info Edge owns and manages Naukri.com - India’s no. 1 job site, Jeevansathi.com – India’s fastest growing matrimonial portal, 99acres.com - India’s No.1 real estate portal, Shiksha.com - an education portal, Quadrangle – an offline executive search firm, and Naukri Gulf – its foray into the Middle East market. Info Edge also owns Asknaukri.com, a career guidance site and Brijj.com, a professional networking site and Allcheckdeals.com, an online brokerage firm.

Info Edge has ventured into newer businesses and territories and attracted investments from leading venture capitalists. Formerly an ICICI Ventures investee company, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures have also invested in the Company. Info Edge raised Rs. 1,703 million through an IPO in the month of November 2006. The company has attracted a very high quality list of institutional shareholders and had a total of 10,664 shareholders on Sep 30, 2009.

With its headquarters in Noida (NCR), the company employs over 1450 people and operates through 53 offices in 34 cities in India and overseas offices in Dubai Riyadh and Bahrain catering to the Middle East market.

Big Boss 3 Videos

Big Boss 3 is already drawing highest TRP thanks to Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and after yesterdays stunning fight by KRK (Mr. Kamal R Khan) the TRP is expected to reach new heights.

Following are videos of KRK's fight on 21st October 2009







Currently most of the videos of Big Boss 3 are available on YouTube however on http://biggboss.co.in one may get to see video of each episode.

Indian celebs too Tweet on Twitter

We all know how Twitter craze is spreading worldwide like a wild fire. Twitter today is being used by Hollywood actors, Football teams, Sportsmen, Celebs as a platform which allows them to interact with their fans on a daily basis. Going by the following list 1 thing is for sure, Indian celebs too are not far behind. Enjoy the following small compilation of some Indian Celebs on Twitter....

A R Rahman @arrahman
Aamir_Khan @Aamir_Khan
Aishwarya Rai @aishwarya_rai
Amrita Rao @Amritarao17
Barkha Dutt @bdutt
Celina Jaitly @CelinaJaitly
Chetan Bhagat @chetan_bhagat
Dino Morea @DinoMorea9
Emraan Hashmi @emraanhashmi
Gul Panag @gulpanag
Imran Khan @1mrankhan
Jacqueline Fernandez @jacquie_furr
Karan Johar @kjohar25
Konkona Sensharma @konkonas
Kunal Deshmukh @kunal_deshmukh
Lara Dutta @DuttaLara
Lisa Ray @Lisaraniray
Madhur Bhandarkar @mbhandarkar
Mahesh Bhatt @MaheshNBhatt
Mallika Sherawat @mallikala
Neha Dhupia @Neha_Dhupia
Pooja Bhatt @PoojaB1972
Pritish Nandy @pritishnandy
Priyanka Chopra @priyankachopra
Rahul Khanna @R_Khanna
Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep
Rajeev Masand @RajeevMasand
Ram Gopal Verma @rgvzoomin
Ranvir Shorey @ranvirshorey
Riteish Deshmukh @Riteishd
Rohan Sippy @rohansippy
Shashi Tharoor @shashitharoor
Shekhar Ravjiani @5hekhar
Sonam Kapoor @sonamkapoor
Sujoy Ghosh @sujoy_g
Uday Chopra @udaychopra
Vir Sanghvi @virsanghvi
Vishal Dadlani @V1SH4L

Google disappoints Indians. No Diwali Doodle

While earlier this week the US President, Barack Obama celebrated Diwali and lit a cermonial lamp at the White House to 'symbolize victory of light over darkness', Google seems to have given Diwali Doodle a skip. Google amongst many things is known for its Doodles. Over the years Google has celebrated important events, birthdays, holidays and festivals but what is disappointing this year is the fact that Google seems to have given a miss to Diwali (Festival of lights) celebrated by Indians across the globe.

While last year Google had celebrated the festival, this year it seems to have ignored it. (Image shows Diwali 2008 Doodle)

Following is comparison between Google Doodles for China and India this year till date.



The above clearly depicts absence of certain important events for Indians worldwide most of all are the Republic day and Independence day.

Bharti Airtel + Twitter = Choo Tweet

Social networking and Micro-blogging service Twitter has partnered with Bharti Airtel India’s largest mobile operator to enable its Indian users to send and receive tweets.

Following details are the details available on Airtel website
New User
• SMS Signup to 53000 @ Re 1 per SMS
• Follow instructions to go ahead and complete the registration

Existing User – Wanting to link their device to the Twitter A/c
• SMS Start to 53000 @ Re 1 per SMS
• Follow instructions to complete linking your Airtel phone to your Twitter A/c

Airtel is believed to have 4 weeks exclusivity for the same during which only Airtel consumers will be able to use the service on SMS across the nation.

Following are the details available on Twitter Blog
Twitter is committed to fostering the open exchange of information because we passionately believe it can have a positive global impact. When people can exchange information freely and publicly they are able to accomplish great things. As powerful as the Internet has become for the democratization of information, its range is limited when compared to mobile texting—a format uniquely native to Twitter. There are over one billion people with internet access on the planet but there are more than four billion people with mobile phones and Twitter can work on all of them because even the simplest of these devices feature SMS.

We have seen people use Twitter to help each other during fuel shortages, track the spread of wildfires, check in during earthquakes, organize major charitable events, spread urgent news efficiently around the world, and much more. In many of these scenarios, texting has been the key. People exchanging information quickly and efficiently with the device that has become essential to everyday life, their mobile phone. In many parts of the world people do not have Internet access but they can text—and that means they can access Twitter.

As we grow, we seek to partner with organizations that share our vision for positive global impact. Our partnership with Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator in India, means a huge population of people can now send tweets at standard rates and receive tweets for free. Bharti Airtel is offering people in every city, every village, every remote taluk and even the smallest panchayat the opportunity to connect to Twitter and enjoy the open exchange of information with no added fees. We are proud to have Bharti Airtel as our partner. Give Twitter a try with your Airtel phone by sending START to 53000. And spread the word!

Google Squared improvements

Google Squared has made a number of improvements to the amount and quality of information one can find with Google Squared as well as added new tools to sort and export the data.

At launch, Google Squared at most offered 30 facts. Now, squares display four times as much data — up to 120 facts. For example, instead of seeing only five presidents and three categories, now one can see a table with 20 presidents and up to six attributes.


The quality of the information offered is much better coz ranking is now based on both relevance to a query and availability of high quality facts.

In addition searchers can now sort columns, so one can rank, group and compare items. Squared will even convert units in the background to make sure the data is sorted properly.

Google Squared now also offers the ability to export data from Squared to a Google Spreadsheet or a CSV file.

Google Flu Trends available for 16 additional countries

As we all know Google has been working on project "Flu Trends" if we may call it in which they were monitoring flu related searches on Google. Through experience they have managed to achieve a high level of accuracy in identifying the true flu activity in a country.


All this while Google Flu Trends was available in the United States. One of the most important aspects of Google Flu Trends is that they filter out terms that may be popular because people hear about them in the news or read about them in newspaper but these may not be the people who actually have flu symptoms. So in the recent outbreak of Swine flu, they do not use in their models terms like "swine flu" since people are more likely to type that into Google because they want to know more information about it.

Since the model has fair level of accuracy, Google has announced the expansion of Google Flu Trends to 16 additional countries and is now available in 37 languages. So Google Flu Trends is now available for Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States

In November 2008 Google Flu Trends was launched in the United States after finding a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. This was achieved by tracking the popularity of certain Google search queries which now successfully estimates the level of flu in near real-time.

For more information you may watch following video:

Quick view of PDFs in your Google search results

During your search experience on Google you would have come across many links with PDF extension a click on which would have resulted in your Adobe or other PDF viewer application getting opened and you viewing the file. The catch here is that if you do not have any PDF viewer application, Google offered you an alternative which was to view the file as HTML in the browser itself. This though was a faster alternative it lead to loss of the formatting from the original PDF, such as graphics, tables, fonts and other elements.

Today, Google has added a new link to "Quick View" PDF documents in your browser itself with the formatting intact. The new links are based on the same technology that's available in Google Docs and Gmail. Google had rolled this technology out to the search results page since July, and as of today they have added "Quick View" links to more than 50% of the PDFs in their index.

For example, here is a search result for the term "Form 16"

A click on "Quick View" will open up the PDF right in your browser with graphics, formatting and tables preserved. Following is what it looks like after opening:

YouTube has a New Logo : 1 Billion Views Per Day!

If you visit YouTube today you will see a small but unmistakable change on the site. Look on the Top Left and you will see a new YouTube logo. Its basically the same Logo with '1 BN' appended to it with a Tag line below it which reads '1 billion views per day!'

Now that's what you call ATTITUDE. It speaks volumes for this site which became extremely popular post acquisition by Google.

New Minimalist Google homepage

Google is supposedly carrying out experiment for its homepage showing only logo and search box. There will be no links appearing on top and bottom of the page until you move your mouse over the page.

To try out this experiment visit google.com and type the following into the address bar (Mind you it should not be your local google site viz google.co.in, etc)

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=abac7a90f5a3784b:LD=en:NR=10:TM=1254990196:LM=1254990236:S=uB6F4jDnMP_DuxtT;path=/; domain=.google.com");

After typing the above into the address bar hit return and reload the page.

Following would be the minimalist look and feel of your google.com

On mouse over the page following will be the normal look and feel of google.com

Internet problems plague India

There seems to be a problem with internet connectivity in India today. Since morning the speed of access strangely has been very slow. Though there is no official news on this yet but there is a possibility of another undersea cable cut.

As per Internet traffic report Asia's current index trend stands at 74 way below Global index trend of 84.

In the recent past we have seen number of massive internet disruptions due to undersea cable cuts.

Yahoo launches "Its Y!ou" campaign in India

Yahoo has lauched it "Its Y!ou" campaign in India with a bang. It has tied up with leading English language newspapers viz. The Times of India, Hindustan Times, DNA, Live Mint etc. to release an interesting front page print edition today. Its a huge yellow advertisement as can be seen on the left.

In an interview to Economic Times, Yahoo India’s MD Arun Tadanki said
"Through this campaign we want to clearly position Yahoo! as the centre of peoples’ online lives. Yahoo will be the focal point of everything that they do on the internet. It is important to see this not as a campaign or a burst of advertising but as a larger promise to users. What’s going to break in the coming days is the first step of an exercise spread over several years.

We are definitely not following any other major online brands in going for a revamp as in our case this has been in the works since the beginning of the year. We are doing this now because 2009 has seen a lot of internal re-energising of Yahoo! to make ourselves more relevant to consumers. The full roll-out will take place on October 5. Till such time, the changes are in the beta/trial phase."

Will Gmail sink in the Wave?

On 27th May 2009 Google publicly demonstrated Google Wave for the first time at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. This product was touted as "the email of the future". With Google Wave, Google tried to reinvent the inbox, blend e-mail, instant messaging and many more features. The very basic premise on which this product was born was how email would look if it was born today instead of 50 years back.

Now that the baby is born and we are looking at the possible present form of email service, would Google go ahead and kill Gmail? In the long run it would obviously not make any sense for Google to run 2 different websites. Promoting 2 separate brands offering the same core value is always gonna be a costly affair. Look at Android, after launching it Google decided to have Chrome OS. Eventually it will just have Chrome as their standard OS for all the platforms.

Make no mistakes, I am not suggesting that Google will replace our email ids to xyz@gwave.com coz replacing millions of email ids would be a daunting task. What we may end up witnessing is a convergence of Wave and Gmail. To make Google Wave universally acceptable, Google may discontinue www.gmail.com and force us to visit wave.google.com for login. This maybe the only change, but this one change may be bring up huge opportunities for Google. It may help them beat Yahoo, MSN, etc. in IM service. It may help them manage the increasing threat from facebook and twitter.

So is it time to say bye bye Gmail???

Skype to be blocked in India?

As per reports in TOI intelligence agencies have asked the government to consider blocking Skype. Skype is a very popular IM and mainly known for its VoIP service. Using Skype one can call anyone across the globe for free on their PC or alternatively for a nominal charge can call anyone on a land line or mobile phone.

As per reports Skype has refused to share the encryption code that prevents Indian investigators from intercepting conversations of suspected terrorists.

Post 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, intelligence agencies have been working round the clock to plug loop holes if any. 26/11 experience exposed the fact that terrorists are increasingly using VoIP services to make calls. The shift to VoIP service was prompted by the growing ability of intelligence agencies to intercept mobile and other calls.

In this service, VoIP operators send their signals under a specific code which makes it difficult for others to decipher. Without knowing the encryption code its not possible for intelligence agencies to decipher the conversation. As per reports Skype has shared its encryption code with the US, China and other governments but is refusing to accept similar request from Indian authorities.

Considering national security into account blocking Skype seems to be the only logical step available. However, it may not be a cake walk coz such a step may draw flak from number of users who use this free service to communicate and interact with their families and friends based abroad.

Google Sidewiki: A tool to help and learn from other users

Over the years Google has been synonym for Innovation and that's exactly what they did last week by launching a new gadget for online users viz. Google Sidewiki

As Google puts it, Sidewiki is a tool using which users can help and learn from other users as they browse the web. You and me visit tens and hundreds of web pages everyday and so do many other users across the globe who look for the same piece of information. In the process we would have come across many websites and blogs to which a small bit of additional information would have helped others users too. Google Sidewiki has been built around this very concept. If you have something to share about a website just pull on your Sidewiki installed on your browser as a sidebar and put your comment. This comment would be visible to anyone who visits that website or any other website carrying the same information. For example, an entry on a speech by President Barack Obama will appear on all webpages that include the same quote.

It is important to note that the entries in Sidewiki are not arranged in order recency but in order of relevancy. To achieve the same Google ranks Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.

Google Sidewiki is released as a feature of Google Toolbar (for Firefox and Internet Explorer) and will soon be out for Google Chrome too.

Google remembers Mahatma Gandhi

Google is known for changing its logo (Google Doodle)and most often it marks an event of historic significance. More recently their logo signified Google’s 11th birthday before which they celebrated Chinese philosopher Confucius’s birthday .

So after celebrating its own birthday and birthday of a Chinese philosopher it was time to remember the Indian great and celebrate 140th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of India. Mahatma's face appeared as 'G' for Google and 'G' for Gandhi on the logo with a backdrop of Khaki color.

About Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi born on 2nd October 1869 was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon Ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhiji is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi and in India also as Bapu . He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October is celebrated worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Google Wave Review

Following are 2 of the many reviews available online about Google Wave. There is a cool video too. Enjoy!!!

Google Wave crashes on beach of overhype
I just got my Google Wave invite. No, I’m already out, so I can’t send one to you, sorry.

But this service is way overhyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity. Click here to read more


Google Wave: Early Impressions
.....Just be aware this useful and potentially nifty tool will probably not, in fact, change life on the planet as we know it. And if by some chance it will, it’s going to change it in a bland and practical way. In short: perspective would be nice. Click here to read more

More Google Wave invitations expected before 31st October 2009?

Lets first try and understand how Gmail invitations evolved over the years.

Gmail
Gmail was a project started by Google developer Paul Buchheit several years before it was announced to the public. Initially the software was available only internally as an email client for Google employees.

The project initially was known by the code name Caribou, a reference to a Dilbert comic strip about Project Caribou.

For Gmail, Google started a unique way to offer access to public viz. through invites. To cut down on spam in the early days, Google used viral marketing by allowing only existing users to invite new users.

* On 21st March 2004 Google invited about 1,000 employees, friends, and family members to become beta testers.
* On 25th April 2004 active users from the Blogger.com community were offered the chance to participate in the beta-testing.
* On 1st May 2004 one round of invitations was sent out to all active users which they could extend to their friends.
* On 1st June 2004 another three invitations were given to all active members.
* By mid-June 2004, the number of invitations had increased, with many users receiving between three and five daily.
* On 2nd February 2005 the invitation interface was changed to make it easier to give invitations by simply entering an e-mail address.
* On 3rd February 2005 some Gmail users were awarded 50 invitations and later it was increased to 100 invitations
* On 7th February 2007 - It was made public and anyone could vist gmail.com and register for their Gmail account without the need for any invite.

Google Wave
Google Wave is "a personal communication and collaboration tool" announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009.

* On 28th May 2009 started allowing developers to send requests for sandbox account.
* By July 2009 Google Wave had over 6000 sandbox account.
* On 30th September 2009 Google Wave was extended to about 100,000 users. Each of these users can invite 8 more users which takes the total strength to about 800,000 users. However, these users who do not have a direct invite from Google will not be able to invite anyone else.

Now if we try and draw a parallel between Gmail and Wave invites, its quite probable that before end of October 2009 Google may grant additional invites to all the existing 800,000 users of Wave and such grants may be given every month.

Bid for your Google Wave invite

With Google supposedly have rolled out about 1,00,000 invites today to access Wave, many not so fortunate can try and bid to get an invite.

Currently on ebay.com we have a seller who has offered to sell his Google Wave invite the current bid for which stands at $157.50 with about 31 bids. There are still 2 days left for the bid however if you are crazy enough to quote a much higher price, the seller is ready to negotiate offline.



Though Terms & Conditions of Google Wave clearly prohibit users from selling or trading the services for any commercial gains only time will tell if such bids/ listings get retracted and cancelled by ebay.

Seems the Google Wave craze has already begun.

Can Twitter ride the Wave???

With Google Wave being launched today there is buzz around that it may be the next Twitter killer. Wave is a one stop package offering a combination of email, instant messaging, and many other collaborative features. It offers a cool drag and drop feature thereby allowing users to share a piece of information, photos, videos, etc among other users.

Most of the features we see in Twitter today viz. search engine, search trends etc are already available with Google and they are the masters of it. Since Wave is their own product chances are that Google may offer much better feature than twitter. Also, host of other features like games, sharing videos etc may just make the entire experience much more exciting than twitter.

Google Wave goes live

Today, 30th September 2009, marks the launch of Google Wave.....lets not get too excited coz not everyone would be lucky enough to get their hands on Wave. Google has decided to go back the Gmail way of offering access through invites. Wave is a stunning product offering a combination of email, instant messaging, and many other collaborative features.

So how does one get access to Wave?
1. You signed up early for a Google Wave account : Anyone who visited http://wave.google.com and was among the first few to sign up to use Wave may end up getting an invite.

2. You have an account on the Developer Preview of Wave : For the developers, Sandbox version of Google Wave has been active for several months allowing them to test Wave, report bugs, and build Wave APIs. They will all get Wave accounts.

3. Paid users of Google Apps : Some schools and companies using paid version of Google Apps may get an invite to use Wave.

4. You are invited by someone using Wave : Google has gone the Gmail way of allowing users having access to Gmail account to invite friends and family to use Wave. Though the exact number of permissible invites per account is not revealed yet.

Google Wave to be launched on 30th September 2009

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web expected to be opened for use to about 1,00,000 users on 30th September through invites.

Here's a preview of just some of the aspects of this new tool










What is a wave?A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.

Google Microsoft browser battle heats up

Google had decided to take on Microsft in the browser war by launching Chrome. But just as we thought the craze for Chrome was dying out, Google had other ideas and there is now a twist in the story.

As per Google, its new ambitious and highly anticipated real-time communication platform viz. Google Wave does not seem to work well with Internet Explorer. To rectify the same Google has come out with Google Chrome Frame, a Google plug-in for Internet Explorer that seamlessly brings Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer.

It seems Wave is Google's newest weapon in the browser war against Microsoft.

On first login to Google Wave, Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 users will see this message:

Following is mentioned on the Google Wave blog
"Google Wave depends on strong JS and DOM rendering performance to provide a desktop-like experience in the browser. HTML5's offline storage and web workers will enable us to add great features without having to compromise on performance. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer, still used by the majority of the Web's users, has not kept up with such fairly recent developments in Web technology. Compared with other browsers, the JavaScript performance is many times slower and HTML5 support is still far behind. Likewise, the many different versions of IE still in use -- each with its own set of CSS quirks and layout limitations -- further complicates building rich Web applications.

In the past, the Google Wave team has spent countless hours solely on improving the experience of running Google Wave in Internet Explorer. We could continue in this fashion, but using Google Chrome Frame instead lets us invest all that engineering time in more features for all our users, without leaving Internet Explorer users behind."

Happy Birthday Google

Google celebrated its 11th birthday yesterday on 27th September 2009. To celebrate the same, the company had changed its logo to depict '11' instead of the letter 'L'

Wishing many more years of innovation and success.

Google very strong in India

ComScore has released a report on 14th September 2009 confirming Google’s strong relative position in the two emerging Internet markets of India and Brazil. As per the report in July 2009, 29.8 percent of total time spent online in Brazil was spent on Google Sites while in India it was 28.9 percent.

In India, Google sites share of total time spent in search related activity accounted for 88.4 percent, Orkut - 68.2 percent, Google Maps - 63.9 percent, YouTube - 82.8 percent, Blogger - 47.6 percent and Gmail - 46.8 percent.

Only time will tell if Bing can googly Google

Bing 'O' takes on Google.... Search market share up

As per "U.S. Search Engine Rankings" report released by ComScore on 22nd September 2009, Bing is slowly and steadily eating into Google search market share.

As per the report Americans conducted over 13.9 billion searches with Google accounting for 64.6 percent search market share followed by Yahoo sites with 19.3 percent and Microsoft Sites with 9.3 percent market share, a 0.4-percentage point gain versus July.



To some extent this increase in traffic share can be attributed to the aggressive ATL advertising campaigns undertaken by Microsoft. Following are some the Ads

Bing Search Overload Syndrome: Pregnant


Bing Cashback- Making You Money


Bing Travel: Price Predictor


Considering Bing was launched in the month of June 2009, 3 months of existence with close to 10 percent market share is extremely commendable. Also, if Antitrust body clears Microsoft-Yahoo deal, we may soon see Yahoo using Bing as the primary search engine thereby catapulting Bing to the second spot.

Microsoft with its huge cash balances has promised to take this fight to the death. Maybe in a year from now we will know whether a real fight is in store or its just a fizz waiting to die out.

Consim India Pvt. Ltd. sues Google

As per reports on CNBC TV18, Consim India Pvt. Ltd. has sued Google for trademark infringement. In its petition filed with Madras High Court Consim has said that it had trademarked tamilmatrimony.com, telegumatrimony, bharatrimony.com, bengalimatrimony.com and muslimmatrimony.com hence Google should not allow ads on those trademarks. Currently if any Google user searches for "Telugu Matrimony", Google displays ads of bharatmatrimony's competitors viz. shaadi.com, jeevansathi.com, etc.

Consim has asked Google and its competitors like shaadi.com, jeevansathi.com, simply marry.com to surrender all creatives which infringe Consim’s trademarks. Consim has also asked for Rs 10.05 lakh towards damages.

Google OUT...Internet traffic DOWN

As the headline suggests and if assertion of Arbor Networks' Craig Labovitz is to be believed, a problem in Google leads to a slow down in Internet traffic. On Thursday 14% of Google users experienced slow services or interruptions which as per Craig Labovitz led to a 5% slow down in Internet traffic.

Following graph shows a 5% dip in Internet traffic on Thursday. It shows average traffic across 10 tier1/2 ISPs in North America from Google’s network (ASN 15169). Outage began roughly at 7:48 am Pacific time.


So whats the big deal if Google is down and why should there be so much of a hue and cry about it?

Well the answer may not sound to be so simple. To start with, we all use Google everyday to search for stuffs and consequently Google constitutes 65% of search traffic. So if Google goes down, this 65% of search traffic gets affected which is huge. Also, when me and you use Google to search for products or information, what are we actually looking for? We are looking for links to those other websites which will provide us with the required information or product. So if Google is down, our access to those websites also gets affected.

Apart from Google we use lot of other services offered by Google like Gmail and Youtube. During this outage it was observed that even these services were affected.

But more importantly lets not forget the Google Adsense from which it generates huge amount of revenues. Google uses its Adsense network to display advertisement on millions and millions of websites. Also, Google Analytics is very popular tool used by webmasters to study the traffic to their website. During this outage all these sites were also affected.

These affiliate or third party sites embed code for Adsense and Analytics on their webpages. Since Google was slow, these webpages would contact Google server again and again to retrieve information. Consequently they too were slow or unavailable.

Google Killer? Wolfram Alpha goes live

Wolfram Alpha has finally gone live. We had reported earlier this week on its 15th May launch date and carried an article on what Wolfram Alpha is all about.

During their testing earlier this week there were reports of some technical glitches and unexpected issues popping up, however now everything seems to be working fine.

On the very first day Wolfram Alpha was running very slow all day which means they are already successful. This clearly demonstrates the number of people out there waiting eagerly to get their hands on this new search engine.

Wolfram Alpha is already creating a lot of buzz however experts believe its not gonna be a Google killer.

Cashback working well for Microsoft Live Search

With e-commerce on a rise and more and more people buying online, everyone still looks at avenues for saving money. We all hunt for online retailers who can offer us the product of our choice at the least possible cost. It was last year that Microsoft realized this and came out with a Cashback program. Microsoft saw opportunity in this buying pattern and offered to actually pay buyers who used their search engine to buy products they found.



New data out from Nielsen shows a 615% unique audience growth in Microsoft Live Shopping Search over the past year. Even more impressive: it was one of only two Top Ten Shopping Search Providers to grow their audience from April 2008 to April 2009.

Search to Cash conversion ratio
Though 615% unique audience growth may seem huge, all this is of no use unless the searches are turning into referral traffic for the retailers. As per data shown below Google and Yahoo still lead Microsoft Live on percent of visits and percent of dollar share. Microsoft Live can surely claim more efficiency than any other provider on a dollar per visitor basis, driving 8 percent of visits but 12 percent of dollars.



Having said this it is important note that shopping related activity constitutes only about 2 percent of total search activity. So, though Microsoft Live may show huge improvement in Shopping Search, it may not be good enough to close the gap to Google and Yahoo.

Source : Nielsen Wire

Google Revises Trademark Policy - More class-action suit?

Google has revised its trademark policy thereby allowing advertisers to include brand names in the text of their ads. Earlier, companies could not run ads with a trademarked brand name in the text if they did not own the trademark. Starting next month this new policy would come into effect. Google believes that this change will help both their users and advertisers by reducing the number of overly generic ads that appear across their networks in the U.S.

Google uses a newspaper analogy to explain the reasoning behind the move: "Imagine opening your Sunday paper and seeing ads from a large supermarket chain that didn't list actual products for sale; instead, they simply listed the categories of products available - offers like 'Buy discount cola' and 'Snacks on sale.' The ads wouldn't be useful since you wouldn't know what products are actually being offered."

Google said it would limit the use of trademarks in text ads to three types of companies: resellers, component sellers and information providers.

Its all about money, honey!!!
This policy shift is expected to be highly beneficial for Google and could improve its bottom-line.

Google's Ads are displayed through a keyword auction process which involves a combination of bid amount for per click and quality score. The quality score of an Ad is largely dependent on the click-through rate. Currently, most of the advertisers are forced to write generic ads leading to a low click-through rate consequently hurting their quality score. With this new policy third party vendors get the right to use brand names and this may ultimately force companies interested in preserving their brands to bid higher for per click to make sure their ads appear on those searches. This in effect will significantly improve Google's bottom line while companies themselves may see a huge dip in their ROI from Google.

Class-Suit action
We had reported yesterday that FirePond (FPX), a US based software company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court in Texas. Reason being, a search for their company name on Google shows their company’s site as the top search listing but just above it, Google shows ads of competitors who paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark. Google has already settled similar suits with Geico and American Airlines.

With this new policy, Google stands in great danger of getting sued by many more companies. It will be interesting to see what revolution this new policy brings up.

Google sued again

FirePond (FPX), a US based software company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court in Texas. Reason being, a search for their company name on Google shows their company’s site as the top search listing but just above it, Google shows ads of competitors who paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark.

FPX sued Google saying that Google had infringed on its trademark and is challenging Google’s policies on behalf of all trademark owners in the state.

Google policy on such misuse of trademarks has irked many other companies. In the past, likes of American Airlines and Geico had filed suits against Google but was settled.

Inspite of all recent episodes Google this month expanded its policy of allowing anyone to buy someone else’s trademark as a trigger for an ad to more than 190 new countries. Google acknowledged that some advertisers may be upset by the new policy but feels such a change would result in ads that are more relevant to users. For instance, someone who types “Mahindra” in Google may see not just the corporate site of Mahindra appear on top but also details of all sites who offer review of Mahindra products and also the dealers who sell Mahindra products. This in effect is bound to help the company (Mahindra in this case).

For Google their Ad business is bread and butter, its the only cash cow for company and any relaxation in policies would result in huge drop in revenues.

The buzz is Google’s new policy is likely to raise the prices that advertisers pay their company to appear higher on searches. Since Google sells it search advertisement through an auction system, it is bound to increase the bid value from rival companies for a trademark. However, advertisers complain that this new policy would compel them to pay Google more for their own ads to appear ahead of their competitors.

Tweet from space. How scary is this?

Believe it or not but human beings on earth are not the only users of Twitter.

In continuation to the article I carried yesterday on "Twitter from space", we finally have received a tweet from Mission specialist Mike Massimino.

Massimino, who is a mission specialist on the shuttle flight for Hubble mission tweeted yesterday "From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!"

Few hours back he tweeted "From orbit: Getting more accustomed to living in space today and getting ready for our big rendezvous with hubble"

With this we can easily claim that Twitter is popular in space too!!!

Google Squared

Currently there is too much data available online and the biggest challenge for search companies today is their ability to store and present data in a structured format. It is always easier to comprehend and get answers out of data which is neatly labeled, structured, and categorized. Adding structure to all the data online makes a lot of sense and Google has started working on this problem with a Google Labs project called Google Squared.

Google Squared extracts data from Web pages and presents them in search results as squares in an online spreadsheet. It is launching later this month maybe on 25th or 26th May in Google labs.

Google Squared returns search results in a spreadsheet format. It structures the unstructured data on web pages. So a search for Roller Coaster returns results with name, image, description, height, length, number of inversions, etc., in columns and rows. Google is looking for data structures on the web that imply facts, and then grabbing it for Squared results.

Following is a video available on youtube demonstrating Google Squared

Twitter from space

Mission specialist Mike Massimino Twittered this yesterday before Hubble mission liftoff that his next Tweet will be from space.

"I'm going to put my spacesuit on, next stop: Earth Orbit!!" wrote Massimino, who has been Twittering about his mission training for the past month. A few weeks ago, he announced at a press conference that he plans to keep his more than 226,000 Twitter followers updated from space.

Massimino, who is a mission specialist on this shuttle flight, has said he will Twitter from orbit when it doesn't interfere with the astronauts' busy schedule. He will be one of the four astronauts making a total of five spacewalks on this mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.