Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts

Monday, 24 November 2008

Google Chrome Rocks

Despite it still being in beta Google Chrome is turning out to be a web browser to rival the rest of the options out there. Currently, we're finding it more stable than Mozilla Firefox 3; faster and generally nicer to use than IE7; and less buggy than Safari for Windows.

Thanks Google.

Wednesday, 3 September 2008

Google Web Browser

Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser is designed to be fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

"We realised... we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google's Sundar Pichai in a blog post.

The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs.

Saturday, 31 May 2008

Google Android

Google has made no secret of its ambitions in the mobile space. There are mobile versions of all its key services, such as search, e-mail and calendar.

But the company is going much further. At the end of 2007 it lifted the lid on Android, an open mobile operating system that is being used to power a new generation of devices under the Open Handset Alliance, a group which involves firms like HTC and chip designer ARM.

Android is the creation of Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms.

He believes that a lack of openness in the mobile phone space has stifled innovation to date.

"What Android enables for third party developers is the kind of programming we see on the internet," he says.

"What it enables is agility and rapid innovation and the same kind of innovation that happens on the internet."

Mr Rubin says that by opening up the phones - from the operating system, released under open source, to the drivers and the application framework - developers will have more freedom to innovate, and more scope also.

But if you talk to Symbian and Microsoft, two companies that also build mobile operating systems, both claim to be open also.

Mr Rubin says: "There's a distinction we have to make - and it's an important one - between open source and open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).

"APIs are essentially documentation, they're the way that somebody like Symbian or Microsoft will allow third party developers to develop for their platform.

"Open source is a mechanism by which the source code of the operating system is actually for free and that way the carriers and OEMs are not really locked into a single vendor, nobody really owns this.

"It means they are free to take it into the direction that's important to them; they can fix bugs, add enhancements so in the end the consumer has a better experience."


Posted by Ion e-Business Web Design Sunshine Coast.

Friday, 18 April 2008

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tools

I thought I'd share with you a few tools that I use when going about my day-to-day search engine optimisation (SEO) business.

This tool tells you how your website ranks in a variation of Google data centres. Usually, if your ranking results differ through the data centres then this means that indexing is usually taking place.

Link popularity is important because it is a major factor used by search engines to determine a website's position in the search results.

This tool will automatically check the Google page rank of any website.

This tool will query Google's various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL. Usually all data centers will output the same, but if queried during an update, you might get a glimpse of any upcoming changes in your chosen URL's PageRank value.

A website’s age is one of the major factors used to rank it in the search engines. Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase. Older domains may get a slight edge in search engine rankings.

I hope these tools prove useful.



Friday, 4 April 2008

Google Announces Job Losses

Google has announced its first sizeable cuts, with the axing of 300 jobs at its online advertising unit DoubleClick.

The lay-offs make up about a quarter of DoubleClick's 1,200-strong workforce in the US. Worldwide, DoubleClick has about 1,500 employees.

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that overseas operations, employing a further 300 people, will also be affected at a later date.

It is a first for Google and perhaps not one they want to trumpet too much.

In a statement, Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organisational plan for the business.

"As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in head-count at the acquired company."

Privacy concerns

Some workers have been laid off already, while Google says others are being offered transitional roles, or contract jobs, which are expected to end after the two companies are fully integrated.

In a blog posting in March, Mr Schmidt gave a heads-up that job cuts would be likely and that those outside the US would be made "in accordance with local law".

At over $3 billion (£1.5bn), Google's purchase of DoubleClick is its largest to date and completed less than a month ago, after being held up by regulators for a year.

At the time, the deal was heavily criticised and resisted by non-profit privacy groups which argued that it would give Google unprecedented access to information about consumers' online behaviour.

Microsoft and AT&T also opposed the transaction, which was approved by the Federal Trade Commission in December.

Conflict of interest?

On top of the news of the lay-offs, Google says it also plans to sell a DoubleClick unit called Performics Search Marketing.


That arm of the business helps marketers place adverts on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals in the field, Yahoo and Microsoft.

It has always been felt that this represented a conflict of interest for Google.

In an official Google blog, Tom Phillips, director of DoubleClick Integration, writes: "It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business.

"At Google, maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users."

Industry watchers maintain that the decision to sell off Performics Search Marketing makes good business sense and that Google's primary focus is to get paid as much as possible for the adverts that appear on its pages.

Rumours abound that Google is already in talks with a third party to sell the business for an undisclosed sum.

Although on his blog Mr Phillips maintains no buyer is waiting in the wings, he does concede there has been quite a bit of interest "from a number of current partners".

Danny Sullivan, editor of SeachEngineLand.com, praises the much anticipated sell-off and says it was not unexpected.

Google said the business would continue to run as a separate entity until the division was sold.