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YouTube is Dead – Maybe

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:50:45 +0000

Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz, a white label video streaming service has lit up the blogosphere with his prognosis that YouTube is doomed and is currently on life support.

His opinion was based on a recent Credit Suisse report shed some light on how much money Google is using on YouTube and he believes that the search engine giant won’t continue to hemorrhage money indefinitely.

I find this interesting given the recent announcements about the ease through which the new iPhone 3GS and other devices can post content directly to YouTube. It would seem that because of the high operating costs of streaming video and the challenges of monetizing it, YouTube will become consumed by it’s own success.

Google Toolbar: Take your tools with you

A Googler — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:15:00 +0000

The Google Toolbar team has release a new version of the toolbar for Internet Explorer. This blog posting higlights some of the great new features.

[W]ith the latest version of Toolbar, you can save your settings online, and then get all of your bookmarks, custom buttons and AutoFill information from your different computers -- like when you're at home, or at work, or if you get a new computer for the holidays. It's kind of like carrying your Toolbar with you, but without the hassle of cardboard and string, and a lot more useful.

And, yes, there are some new reasons for you to carry your Toolbar with you, too.

You can accessorize with Google Gadgets: We first released custom buttons with search and feed functionality, and now we've added support for many Google Gadgets. In Toolbar, gadgets can even interact with the pages you're on, like with the Google Product Search gadget, you can just highlight the name of something you'd like to buy on any page and do a quick price comparison right there.

Google Notebook is built in: We realized that saving links as bookmarks to come back to is great, but not quite enough. So now you can collect text and images, too and put them into notebooks right from the Toolbar.

You'll get suggestions instead of error pages: If you mistype a URL or a page is down, now the Toolbar will give you that familiar "Did you mean" with alternatives, like when you do a Google search.

We still have the original Toolbar features, like automatic form filling, pop-up blocking and spelling correction, too, so give it a try and let us know what you think at http://toolbar.google.com/T5.

Google’s (and parents’) role in keeping kids safe online

Karen — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:37:00 +0000

From Google's Blog:

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist

We know that technologies like the "v-chip" can be used to keep kids from seeing inappropriate content on TV. And while technology has an important role to play in protecting kids online, it's as important that parents implant a symbolic "v-chip" in their children's minds to guide them when it comes to deciding what online content is and is not appropriate.

That was one of the observations I shared this week at the Family Online Safety Institute's conference in Washington, D.C. The Internet provides an amazing opportunity for young people to express themselves creatively and access immense quantities of useful information. Kids are using geospatial, mobile and social networking technologies, for example, to learn in new, interactive ways. The Internet also provides unparalleled opportunities for free expression, enabling kids and adults alike to deliver tremendous benefit to society by voicing sometimes unpopular, inconvenient, or controversial opinions.

At the same time, there is some online content and activity that is unsuitable for younger users. Google is dedicated to supporting parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when they go online. We've invested in developing family safety tools that empower parents to limit what online content their children can discover. Our SafeSearch filter, which users can adjust to block explicit content from their search results, is an example of this type of technology.

On YouTube, where we host user-generated content, we aim to offer a community for free expression that is suitable for children and protects them from exploitation. Our work to keep YouTube safe for children includes clear policies about what is and is not acceptable on the site; robust mechanisms to enforce these policies, such as easy tools for users to police the content by flagging inappropriate videos; innovative product features that enable safe behavior; and YouTube safety tips.

We've also partnered with child safety organizations, including CommonSense Media, i-Safe, iKeepSafe, NetFamilyNews, and, of course, the Family Online Safety Institute to increase awareness about online child safety. In addition, we cooperate with law enforcement and industry partners to combat child exploitation and help minimize the uploading of illegal content, offering training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials and providing groups like the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children with technology tools to help them be more effective in their work.

Keeping children safe on the Web is the shared responsibility of parents and families, educators, industry, and government. We have a shared responsibility to help teach children the media literacy skills they need to become savvy online and offline information consumers and, working together, we believe this goal is attainable.

I personally use OpenDNS for my DNS provider. It allows filtering of Internet content through blacklists. It's a quick and easy way to add some layer of protection for your web surfing kids.

Tracking Santa, then and now

Karen — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:45:00 +0000

From Google's Blog:

Posted by Carrie Farrell, Veteran Santa Tracker

It was more than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1955, that a Sears Roebuck & Co. store in Colorado Springs advertised a special hotline number for kids to call Santa. What the company didn't know at the time was that they had inadvertently misprinted the telephone number. Instead of Santa's workshop, the phone number put kids through to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the U. S. and Canada. Worse, it wasn't just any number at NORAD: it was the commander-in-chief's operations hotline. In the spirit of the season, Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations at the time, had his staff check radar data for any indication of a sleigh making its way south from the North Pole. They found that indeed there were signs of Santa, and merrily gave the children who called an update on his location. Thus, a tradition was born, and NORAD has continued to help children track Santa on Christmas Eve ever since.

It just so happens that Colonel Shoup is my grandfather, which is why I'm so excited that, 52 years later, Google is joining the effort. This holiday season, NORAD has partnered with Google to use technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube to track Santa. I can remember tracking Santa with my grandfather as a child, and I'm so proud to see my company carry on his vision of doing something this special for kids around the world.

The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's website, where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December 24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time. You can download Google Earth and add the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget to your iGoogle page anytime, but make sure to come back to noradsanta.org on December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience.

I fondly remember many Christmas Eves (sp?) watching Santa tracked on radar on our local ABC affiliate. It's nice to see this tradition continue.

The anatomy of a search result

joecotellese — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:14:00 +0000

A video from the Google Webmaster Tools Blog showing what you see in a search result and how to improve your sites appearence on results pages.

This talk covers everything you'll see in a search result, including page title, page description, and sitelinks, and explains those other elements that can appear, such as stock quotes, cached pages links, and more.

If you like the video format (and even if you don't), or have ideas for subjects you'd like covered in the future, let us know what you think in our Webmaster Help Group. And rest assured, we'll be working to improve the sound quality for our next batch of vids.

[tags]Google,SEO[/tags]

Google Tip – A dictionary as close as your browser search bar

joecotellese — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:27:38 +0000

While writing, I am often looking for the best word to use. Rather than checking dictionary websites or dare I say, break out a paper dictionary, I turn to Google.

The define keyword allows you to check Google for the definition of a word. To use it, simply type define:wordname and click Google Search. You are then presented with definitions from various internet sources.

So, the next time you are at a loss for words, fire up Google. It’s better than your English teacher.

Technorati Tags: Google, Search, Productivity, Tips

Google Tip – Narrow search to a single site

joecotellese — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:13:30 +0000

I often am looking for particular information on a website. Rather than spend time navigating through the site. I let Google find what I need for me. This is easily accomplised with the Google site command.

The site command let’s you limit your search to a particular URL. For example, recently I found my self needing to contact Verizon. Rather than even going to their website, my first stop was Google.

Typing in the line site:verizon.com Pennsylvania contact phone number in the Google search window and view your results.

You should see a few contact pages on the first search result page. About half way down the page is a link to Residential contact numbers.

Another use of site is to see which pages are indexed by Google. Using the same website as before, change the search line to read site:verizon.com * and click Google Search. What should come back is a list of all the pages that Google has crawled. If you run a website and want to see if Google has hit your site, this is an easy way to do it.

As you can see, site is a useful feature which if used properly will save you time when hunting for information on the Internet.

Technorati Tags: Google, Productivity, Search