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December 10, 2006

Del.ici.ous Highlights



Success on del.ici.ous

Throughout the semester we have collectively been tagging websites through a social bookmarking site known as del.ici.ous. Founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003, Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking web service which allows users to store, share, and discover bookmarks through the use of “tagging”. Through this tagging, we were able to not only gather resources and information for our blogs – but learn more about our friends and even our entire class. Essentially del.ici.ous allows you to learn so much because of four things: a small learning curve, quick processes, social networking, and bookmark history.

Small Learning Curve. For the most part, del.ici.ous was relatively easy to learn and use. Obviously, just like any other part of technology, there was some learning to be had. However, anyone who played around for a half an hour would quickly understand how the system works. In fact, when creating your account the website asks if you wish to install the browser buttons. We highly suggest saying yes – it’s worth it as the buttons allow you to quickly and efficiently add new tags to web pages. This small learning curve allows everyone to at least trying the site and creates the base for many people to stay. Aside from typical, “what does this mean?” questions, del.ici.ous is extremely user friendly.

Quick Processes. Part of the quick processes stems from the use of browser buttons, but del.ici.ous’s ability to quickly take tagged sites and update them on your home page is vital to its success. Granted, sometimes it takes time to update (if servers are busy) but the relative speed is what makes the trendiness of the website work. At any given time, anyone can see up to date tags from anyone who is a del.ici.ous member. Quick search options for key words are available and even the act of tagging websites is fast – two simple clicks and a few words to type in. In fact, there may even be words suggested for you to use as a tagger – simplicity at its finest.

Social Networking. Obviously, this is the heart and sole of del.ici.ous. Without it, the tagging would simply not mean as much. The power behind the website from its’ social aspects are astounding. If you wanted to, you could watch as other people find the hottest news on anything you wish to know about. Or you can use other people’s tags to guide your search and your tagging. Or, you can be the tag leader! Think it can’t be done? Well, in a matter of a few months our class tag, “Bit200F06,” became one of the top 30 tags on the website – it even sparked outsiders to email our professor. Del.ici.ous really creates a community of fresh thoughts and ideas to numerous people around the globe. Language is no barrier and the fresh way to navigate information is exciting, interesting, and fun.

Bookmark History. Bookmark History essentially supports the social networking, but we felt it was extremely well put together and deserved to be mentioned as a del.ici.ous strength. The history can be viewed alphabetically or by frequency tagged and could also be bundled to help view important topics. For instance, Grant thought it would be interesting to see which websites he tagged the most – so he bundled some of the technology websites he tagged off of. It turned out he tagged news from BBC News the most with CNN.com in second and the New York Times third. What is really cool about the history, though, is the ability to click on the tag name to see every article or website you tagged with that specific tag title. This was extremely relevant to our project as we were able to quickly see what topic interested us and immediately find articles to write blogs on. It also allows us to look at how other people tagged with the same words, thus creating the social community and information highway.

With that in mind we have a few ideas for a better del.ici.ous. First, we think it might be cool to have an area where a community can place tags without creating a new account. For instance, we would like to have had a spot where we could see all of our team’s Google tags without having to go through each of our lists separately. We could have made a team account, but it might be interesting to think how del.ici.ous can do this in another way. Secondly, we thought it would be interesting to think about del.ici.ous implementing “staple tags” to websites. These tags would work similar to the recommended tags, but would not be a choice – they would automatically be a tag name. Obviously, you would only want constant tag names to be used in this way. For instance, if ESPN is consistently used as a tag for ESPN articles, del.ici.ous should make it a “staple tag” for all articles tagged from the www.espn.go.com domain name. These staple tags would do two things – first they would make it easier to gather similar information for people to find. Secondly, it could also provide del.ici.ous with a valuable amount of information they could use to fund their website if they begin to fall.

Regardless, Del.ici.ous was a fun thing to learn and very interesting to use and each of us plan on continuing our tagging!

Posted by grantrob at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

Google Summary



Summary of Our Google Blogging Adventures

As our Google blogging comes to a close, we have come to realize the developments Google has made through their expansion into new areas. As a team we have blogged on a few of these expansions:

These blogs taught us a lot about what it takes to continuously be among the top in business. No company is a hotter topic in technology right now than Google is. They are always expected to be the best; they almost never disappoint. How do they stay a leader? By constantly differentiating themselves from the rest of the market. Their creativity cannot be matched by competitors as they consistently stay one step ahead of their consumers wants and needs . This creativity can be seen through the wide array of areas Google developed through our three months of blogging. We went over some, but Google is on the crisp of literally hundreds of new developments including: the YouTube acquisition, Google's Teaching Partnership, Google Wikis, and much, much more.

It takes hard work. It takes determination. It takes a team of individuals with the desire to stay the best who work together for the good of the firm. Is it always easy? No, we saw this though their difficulties in China which Li blogged about. But they always find a way to get it done. They collectively come together and solve important issues and continue to move the company forward.

Google is about more than a search bar. They affect the lives of people across the globe, from the United States to France to China and back. This effort is proved through their project choice. One of their latest hit projects, the Google Book Literacy Project, has been thriving. Both Bret and Grant blogged on this topic and described its' in and outs, but the Google team is not even close to done with it as they continue make more books available for everyone to enjoy. They reach to new places, such as universities like the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. Projects like these make us step back and really re-evaluate our thoughts as to what Google is. Ten years ago, no one had any idea one company could alter the globe's information like Google does now. We are in a new age of technology because of their innovation. They work endlessly to go above and beyond what people expect and make a difference in the world around them.

Why?


Because they are committed to being the best.



Posted by grantrob at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)

Google Blog #7



Google Inc. to Take BSkyB Under its Wing

“I've been waiting for this for a while," Google Chairman and Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt said at a meeting in London detailing it’s new global partnership with British satellite broadcaster, BSkyB. While Schmidt might have been waiting, this was nothing the public didn’t already anticipate, given Google’s continuing expansion in the media world.

This deal will enable BSkyB to provide Google’s type of search portal, mail and video services to its broadband customers. In return, the revenue generated from pay-per-click advertising links on the BSkyB site will be shared between the two companies. More concrete financial arrangements have yet to be released. According to Schmidt, this partnership is just the first of what Google hopes to be many deals with other media firms, “If we can get this structure right over the next few months and it rolls out, then it becomes the index case for every other country and every other operator."

This deal is a significant example of the growing importance of Internet search-based advertising to media companies. As we have seen in previous examples, Google is on the cutting edge of online advertising and through this partnership they will only strengthen their firm. BSkyB will also help to strengthen the connection to European Google users and continue to help Google meet their ever expanding consumer base. We all believe BSkyB will be big for Google -- especially since they have had past troubles overseas. Li showed us some of these troubles in a previous blog the troubles with China; by continuing to match up with firms such as British Sky Broadcasting, Google continues to prove their global committment to meet every consumer around the globe.

Posted by eath at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2006

Google Blog #6



Google Begins Testing Audio Ads

Google's financial successes primarily stem from its profitable advertisements. As Brett, Grant, and I continuously find information, we are all amazed at the power Google and its ability to generate healthy cash flow from just simple advertisements. However, just today, Google announced that it will begin a new form of advertising through audio.

Google Begins Testing Audio Ads

Google plans to extend a system of audio advertisements through radios. This could be a bold move for the search giant. To diversify its financing strategy through audio ads, Google is essentially reducing risks to keep up with technology.

"Google Audio Ads is working with more than 700 radio stations covering more than 200 metropolitan U.S. markets, Google spokesman Mike Mayzel said.

We're happy to announce that the integration is now complete and we've recently begun a U.S. beta test of Google Audio Ads with a small group of AdWords advertisers," Google said in a statement on its official advertising blog.

Just as pay-by-click online advertisement, radio ads reach a wide variety of people in the market. "Audio Ads offers detailed reporting, targeting by demographic, location and station type, and provides easy access to the huge market reached by radio programming," Google said in discussing the project on its AdWords sales site.

This step for Google could prove to be profitable, however, it is still risky as the name Google does not seem to blend well radio stations. We believe that this is the challenge Google would have to face.

It is particularly interesting to see the extent what large technology companies are doing to keep up with fast-paced technology. As Brett, Grant, and I continue our career search for certain industires and specific companies, we realize that tech firms such as Google might not be a bad idea. However, we also realized that working for a technology company may be exciting, yet risky.

Posted by lisun at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2006

Google Blog #5



Google Management Struggles in China

Grant, Brett, and I all acknowledge the power and influence of Google. However, little did we know the search engine's influence in other countries such as China.

Google Loses Top Ad-Man in China

Though Google has been the dominant search Engine in the United States, it might not be so indomitable in China. Yesterday, Google's top Chinese sales executive, Johnny Chou, is officially resigning his role. This could possibly indicate "a change in direction for the Internet search company."

Even though Google praised Mr. Chou "in making an important contribution in setting up an excellent local management team," Google is urgently looking to expand its sales and management division, which can only spark from leadership and creativity. Losing a key leader in this role will impact the search engine giant immediately.

Criticized with its failure to grasp the use of Chinese language, Google's market share in China dropped from 33% to 25%, behind Baidu.com, a Chinese based search engine. Unfamiliarity with the Chinese advertising business, Google will began facing tough challenges as it strives to penetrate the Chinese Market.

Well, you can't win them all. Google has climbed from a no-name start-up to the world's biggest search engine with over 200 billion market cap and $500/share. Though it might remain a dominant force in the West, it might not be so hot in other countries such as China. As technology changes in fast paces, Google's unique capability for innovation and excellence may create solutions -- it might just take a little time. What this does show is Google's continuous efforts to stay a leader not only in the US but worldwide. Through hard work, patience, determination, and innovation, we think Google will reach this goal in time.

Posted by lisun at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2006

Online security?



How Much is too Much?

After reading Richard O. Mason's article outline the threat of the information age through the acronym PAPA (Privacy, Accuracy, Property, and Accesibility), We believe online stores such as amazon unethically use consumer information. The article inspired Bret, Li, and I to think of the security debates within the PAPA framework:

“What must one person reveal about themselves, under what conditions?”
“Who is responsible for the information and who will be held accountable for errors?”
“Who owns the information?”
“What information do people or an organization have the right to obtain?”

The best way to understand the situation further is to simply go through each area of this. To create an amazon account we must provide numerous amounts of private information, including: email, name, mailing address, city, state, zip code, and phone number. We do have the option of using false information and thus have control of the information accuracy. Who is in charge of the Errors? Yup, you guessed it, we are. Amazon probably won’t be too forgiving if we happen to accidentally put in the incorrect mailing address (good luck with that phone call if it ever happens). But who owns the information? Well, we d...or do we? Yes, the information is ours. Yes, we control its’ accuracy. But it’s on Amazon’s website – and they have the ability to do numerous things with it. They run the domain and you chose to put your information into their databases. Aside from information ownership, accessibility provides some interesting debates for this Amazon example. Obviously we have accessibility to our account, and there is some security because we cannot directly look at other member’s homepages...but what about Amazon? They have free range on any information on us they want and we would never know. This is where market efficiency has led to less privacy. By having our information accessible, it makes transactions and purchasing problems less prevalent. However, by keeping tabs on everything we do, Amazon (and potentially other people) learns numerous things about us. They learn what we like, what we are looking to purchase, our purchasing habits, and much more. They are able to manipulate this and make themselves more profitable while making their consumer more vulnerable.

This shouldn’t be the case. Online stores should not be able to use information on the consumer unless explicitly allowed by the consumer themselves. Consumers should know exactly where their information is going, because in the big picture, it is the consumer's information.

Posted by grantrob at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2006

Google Blog #4



Searching through Google

As we continue through our Google blogs, we felt it was important to go over some neat searching characteristics which people can use through Google and other search engines (you may have forgotten by now, but searching IS Google’s main function). We found two articles in particular which were very informative and interesting to go through:

“Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches” from informit.com

and

“Advanced Google Tips” by Cyberwyre

Both of these articles explain searching tips which most people are aware of, such as: using the either / or function and searching for exact phrases by using quotation marks. However, there were numerous things which we found insightful and different that how we typically search. One of these things was the “site, related, and link” functions.

Essentially, these search functions heap you go through resources in a more efficient manner. If we were performing a college search and we liked the University of Michigan, we could use google and search “site:http://www.umich.edu” to find websites which only reside within this domain (128,000 total), “related:http://www.umich.edu” to find websites which are very similar to it (10 total), or “link:http://www.umich.edu” to find all websites which have the U of M homepage linked in their own websites (25,600 total).

What is the next step? Well, as it says in the Cyberwyre article, we can begin to combine searching methods. For instance, think about a person who is looking for information on College Football on ESPN.go.com. They can search:

“College Football” site:http://www.espn.go.com

What does this all mean? Well, if means Google and other search engines are constantly making information pathways stronger and stronger. Gone are the days of shelved information; today we can find information on the most miniscule subject from thousands of miles away in a matter of milliseconds. On top of that, our searching has become better-organized and more capable to find our desired subject.

The evolution of these search tools is what keeps the engines themselves fresh, and their core strong. Do you think Google still be Google without them?

We don't.

Posted by grantrob at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)