Please Share

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Find Twitter Tweeps To Follow With Google's Help

Google seems to be paying some attention to Twitter these days, perhaps the Jaiku acquisition hasn't quite paid the dividends they were hoping for. Google has announced a couple of tools aimed at Twitter this week. First, they announced a replay feature that helps you search the public archive of updates from Twitter, and now from Google Labs, Google Follow Finder to help you identify tweeps to grow your Twitter network. The tool uses public following and follower lists to generate it's list of tweeps that you may wish to follow. It's not really ground breaking but it is interesting that these announcements come as Twitter announces it's plan for generating revenues through promoted tweets via it's search feature.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Twitter Takes A Shot At Revenue Generation

Well, Twitter has finally dipped it's toes in the advertising pool but they have done so ever so carefully. Twitter is taking things very slowly in an attempt to not affect the user experience, the ad must first be tweeted by the advertiser and then it will show up in search results as a featured tweet. However only tweets (ads) that are popular with users, in that they are retweeted or replied to, will be kept in the queue. “The one thing we are most excited about is these are simply tweets, not ads,” Chris Buzzo a Starbucks spokesman said. “There is one big difference between a promoted tweet and a regular tweet. promoted tweets must meet a higher bar — they must resonate with users. This means that if users don’t do the things with promoted tweets that would normally do with a regular tweet such as reply to it, favorite it, or retweet it and so on, the promoted tweet will disappear.”

I find it intriguing that they are only displaying the promoted tweets in the search results, only because I have recently discussed with a colleague my use of Twitter to discover relevant recent information via search, over even Google in some situations... 

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Google's Schmidt Tells Party Goers That Google Will Challenge The iPad

The NYTimes is reporting that Eric Schmidt of Google fame has eluded to a Google Android based tablet to rival the iPad. This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone but the interesting talk that revolves around the Google slate is that it is rumored to support Adobe Flash, something that Apple has refused to do and that will have many developers heaving deep sighs of relief.
Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.
 I, for one, am likely to want to give the iPad a try but will definitely be waiting to see what Google's offering is! I truly do love my HTC Dream and would not trade it for an iPhone, ever!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Google Docs Updated

This is a timely piece of news for me as my new employer extensively uses Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Calendar in day to day operations. If you've followed this blog for any length of time you'll know that I am a big Google fan boy and this discovery was a very pleasant surprise... not to mention the fact that my Android phone integrates very nicely with these Google offerings. The news... well Google Docs has just gotten better with new collaborative tools, reminiscent of Google Wave, and speed enhancements. Here's a video compliments of the Official Google Blog:

Search

Google