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What IS in the water at Google’s grotto?
Google have been way busy. It is only October 6 yet this month they have so far: been rumored to be talking to YouTube and, have released Google Groups, Googles Blog Search Pinging Service, CodeSearch, Literacy Project, SearchMash, and of course Google gadgets.
From the top:
Google/YouTube Rumors (October 6) It all began with Michael Arrington posting “ Completely unsubstantiated Google/YouTube rumor” on TechCrunch last night and by this morning the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and Reuters had the story as well. According to the mainstream press, Google is in talks with YouTube Inc and the numbers they are talking are about $1.6 billion. WSJ says the talks are “sensitive”.
Beta version of Google Groups released (October 6) The Google Groups team launched a new beta version of Google Groups. Designer Brett Lider said he loved working on the team responsible for making the current Google Groups better – apparently, its cool and sexy. With its new cleaner look it lets group owners create group welcome messages, web pages, files, and has a member area. Take a tour of Google Groups.
Googles Blog Search Pinging Service (October 5) Blog hosting services and bloggers will have an easier time notifying Google of new blogs or changes to existing ones. This services is for people that want their blogs crawled by Google and then updated on its blog search engine. If your blog has recently changed and you would like Google to crawl it submit your blog URL at Google’s Blog Search Pinging Service.
Code Search (October 5) Joining Koders, Krugle and Codease, Google Code Search is meant to give programmers a single place to search publicly accessible source code. So, if you are bored and want to play, try these words at codesearch. 1. Ugly|hack|fixme 2. “backdoor password” (don’t forget to include the quotation marks) 3. <.*@.*\..*> or if you like Microsoft especially try <.*@microsoft\.com> 4. The F word…, you know which one.
Global Literacy Project (October 4) At the world’s largest bookfair in Frankfurt, Germany, Google announced its Global Literacy Project. The Google press release tells us: “From Bollywood-inspired e-learning tools and book clubs, to classic children’s books and scholarly articles about phonological awareness – users can find books, videos, articles, blogs, and groups about literacy, as well as share all of their own ideas and projects.” Excellent! But Silicon Valley Watcher Tom Foremski points out it’s little more than a home page. “Take a look at the so-called portal and you realize that the so-called development is little more than a landing page and some predefined searches” And; “Google’s effort is development via press release, essentially a half-day school project for a web design student” You be the judge.
Google Gadgets for your web page (October 3) Those cute gadgets that you could put onto your Google homepage are now available freely to use on your web pages. Create your own or use theirs but it’s a pretty neat trick to make your site a little more interesting. Interactive maps, weather reports, news clips, and entertainment news are some of the gadgets available. See Google Gadgets or if you want more information on how Google Gadgets work.
Google Search Mash No Google branding, but still a new Google search site. According to Google, they want to use SearchMash to test user interface ideas without Google’s brand somehow skewing the results. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch got some answers from Google about SearchMash. Check out Google Search Mash.
