The Republican edition of the CNN/YouTube debates is 50 days away, and two major candidates are still planning on skipping it. Both Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson (known to most of Americe as ThatMormonGuy and Law&OrderGuy) have neglected to RSVP, hoping to avoid the sillier questions posed by YouTube’s more human audience. Hopefully, they’ll reconsider.
I almost get Romney, but considering Thompson’s ease in front of a camera, what’s he afraid of? Got problems working without a script?
photo by chetlyzarko
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
YouTube, Services |
no comments
Google Video has been added to Google Alerts, letting you subscribe to email alerts of the latest videos featuring a keyword of your choice. Toss in a “site:” command, and you can get seperate alerts for YouTube videos, Metacafe videos, wherever you want to keep an eye on.
As Philipp points out, The links in these emails point exclusively to the page with the Google Video wrapper, so every time you click on one you get a page with Google video stuff in a frame at the top, which is getting really annoying. Google should give you an option in the preferences to turn the damn thing off, a benefit at the least for signed-in Google Account users.
Also, expect sploggers to begin using these alerts to create crappy spam blogs filled with videos, just like they’ve been doing for years with Google Web Alerts and News Alerts and Blog Alerts.
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Google Video, Services |
no comments
One developer has created an application that lets you access all your Google Analytics data in a powerful Adobe Integrated Runtime application. If you wanted something a little more snappy than the web interface and enjoy using AIR, this could be for you. Even though Google Analytics doesn’t actually have an API, Google is working with the developer to stabilize it and elminate security concerns.
(via TechCrunch)
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Analytics, Services |
no comments
Google has released an iPhone-formatted version of Google Calendar. Just visit calendar.google.com from your iPhone’s web browser to enjoy it.
Google also improved Gmail on mobile phone browsers, letting you hit checkboxes and a drop down to perform certain operations on a number of messages, including archiving, deleting, masrking as spam, adding labels and marking as read.
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Calendar, Services |
no comments
Google announced this morning the acquisition of Jaiku, a messaging service not unlike Twitter. Like Twitter, you write a very short message and send it to all your friends or specific friends, but Jaiku also has an application for a very limited number of mobile phones and a better looking interface.
It has been pointed out before that Twitter was created by a number of guys who worked at Google (on Blogger) and left after being dissapointed with the experience of working there. While Google could have had Twitter if it had encouraged their creativity, hopefully it will be happy with what it gets from Jaiku. Twitter is an extremely basic service that is built more on its API than the actual website, so perhaps a Google-backed Jaiku can develop in ways Twitter has not.
In the meantime, where are the integration points? Jaiku could be used as a means of updating presence throughout Google’s planned social networking growth. Facebook right now has the most popular means of broadcasting presence, but its presence info is locked within Facebook’s walled garden. If Google builds Jaiku into Orkut, Gmail, Google Talk, Blogger, iGoogle, and everywhere else, it can be a powerful tool in Google’s plans.
Screenshot by Brian Solis
UPDATE: Left this out, but Google recently acquired similarly named Zingku, a mobile social networking platform. Zingku lets you send invitations and mobile flyers, and there are some interesting integration points for Google’s growing social aspirations.
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Services |
no comments
Google is going to announce today a partnership with Multiverse Network, maker of virtual world platforms (like Second Life), that will let anyone create a virtual 3D environment using Google Earth terrain and Google SketchUp 3D models. Using the technology, you could grab an area from Google Earth, like the Grand Canyon, and populate it with your favorite landmarks, tossing in the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower and Wrigley Field, creating a unique 3D world quickly and more easily than ever before.
The article also discusses SceneCaster, a new feature that allows the creation of 3D “scenes” in SketchUp that can be uploaded to the 3D Warehouse and embedded in blogs, Facebook pages or shared to Flickr. The article is not clear of the exact implementation of the Multiverse 3D virtual world product, or even if it will be free (though it appears it will), but it does say that each virtual world can have up to 1,000 users running around, which should make it fun to use as soon as we get our hands on it.
(via Ogle Earth)
In recent weeks, there had been rumors Google was prepping a Second Life competitor and that Niniane Wang was leading the project
October 9th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
SketchUp, Google Earth, Products |
4 comments
giuliani | 
ron paul | 
mccain | 
hilary | 
obama
