Entire Internet Goes Crazy Over April Fools
As usual, April Fools day was the internet’s Christmas, with many major and minor websites getting in the holiday spirit, most with unfunny fake news stories. A few were interest or stood out:
YouTube turned all the Featured Videos on its front page into links to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. The video, already the center of the Rickrolling meme, is now the unofficial anthem of April Fools day, with multiple pranks involving it somehow. The video pulled 6 million views in just one day.
Phillip listed a ton of others from Google, including a retread “We’re going to space” joke from Google (this time with Richard Branson and Mars and YouTube videos, but even less funny than when they did it in 2006), scratch-and-sniff Google Book Search, Google Talk auto converting everything you say into acronyms, a paper airplane template in Google Docs, custom email time in Gmail, Google Calendar’s Wake Up Kit (which pours a bucket of water on you if you ignore the alarm) and I’m Feeling Lucky button (random blind dates), Orkut renamed Yogurt, and more.
Blogger launched “Google Weblogs”, essentially a look at what a blog service by Google would have looked like in 2002, before Google discovered UI design
Andy talked about a Google USB Search Watch. Yes, a watch, as in what you wear on your wrist.
Google Docs Finally Gets Gears Offline Access
Google Docs, the most obvious candidate for offline access, has finally been enabled to work with Google Gears. You can now access and edit your text documents (but not spreadsheets or presentations, yet) without an internet connection, provided you’ve installed the Google Gears plugin. Wonderful news, and hopefully the start of a wave of Google products taking advantage of Google’s offline platform.
Here’s a video about it:
Google Spreadsheets Adds Gadgets Google Spreadsheets has added a directory of Google Gadgets you can use to extend its functionality. It includes charts, new table functionality, pivot tables, maps, search results, organization charts, and many other features Spreadsheets lacks. It also now has email notifications, autocomplete and a new visualization API. Unlike Docs, Spreadsheets is one area where the majority of users won’t be satisfied with an underpowered Microsoft Word, and any way Google can get advanced features in there, the better.
Google’s Search Lead Continues To Grow comScore saw Google share of the search market grow in February (surprising no one), reaching 59%. Yahoo fell to 21.6%, Microsoft slipped slightly to 9.6%, and Ask added .1% to reach 4.6%.
Viacom Will Not Get Punitive Damages Vs. YouTube A judge ruled that if Viacom prevails in its lawsuit against Google-owned YouTube over copyrighted videos, it would not be entitled to punitive damages. Instead, Viacom will have to prove actual damages, with each successfully proven “willfull” violation costing Google up to $300,000, and other costing as little as $750. Gonna have a hard time getting $1 billion out of Google that way.
Google To Layoff DoubleClickers Tuesday Valleywag reports that Google intends to hold its first round of layoffs of DoubleClick employees, trimming headcount at its acquisition to get the most value out of the buy. The layoffs should start this Tuesday, the first day of the second financial quarter of the year.
Of course, that day is also April 1, the day Google usually publishes a funny prank to amuse web surfers. If Google tries to be funny while firing hundreds, if not thousands of good people, laying them off in the middle of a recession when the job market isn’t going anywhere, I don’t think I’ll be laughing a whole lot.
Barry Diller Wins IAC Trial
In the case for control of IAC and the right to decide the company’s future, Barry Diller has defeated John Malone and won the right to break up the company into five seperate firms. Considering the hard work Diller has put into screwing up Ask.com the last few months, his victory is everyone else’s loss.
Google Israel Goes Black for Earth Hour
Google’s website in Israel turned its background black Thursday, marking off Earth Hour, some sort of awareness campaign where people turn off their lights for an hour to save the planet. While the message was nice, it was still strange to see Google ignoring its own research that clearly showed a black Google wastes more energy than a lit Google.
YouTube Showing Advanced Video Stats YouTube has launched a new feature, called Insight, which shows you more advanced stats for your own uploaded videos. It features a Google Finance-type graph that shows viewing over time, so you can see which days viewing spiked, that sort of thing. Click About This Video on your videos page, or add “http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_insight?v=” before any video ID (it won’t work if it isn’t your video).
Video Ads Make it Into Google Search Google has started showing video ads in its search results, adding a “watch commercial” or “watch demonstration” or “watch testimonial” link beneath AdWords ads. Click the link, and a video expands and plays right there in the sidebar. The video is tiny (160×140) and is about 30 seconds long, and the advertiser pays if the user watches the video, not if they click the link to go to the ad’s landing page. I saw one of the ads in action, and if they don’t cost too much more than regular ads, they seem like a good deal.
Google Documents Revamps Interface
Google Docs’ word processor application has changed its interface, adding drop-down menus and getting rid of the old tabbed toolbar interface. The old interface was a poorly implemented middle ground between the old interface paradigm common in document apps like the older versions of Microsoft Office, and the new Ribbon used in Office 2007, and Google finally wised up and junked the confusing system.
The new interface is pretty familiar to anyone who has been using Microsoft Word since the Windows 3.1 days, with drop down menus and a simple toolbar. The new menus do include a list of the keyboard shortcuts, making it easier to use those timesavers, but the changes don’t bring anything new to the table. Guess this is one area where Microsoft can claim to be bolder and more innovative.
Blogoscoped also found this, an Easter Egg (or possible prep for April Fools Day), making fun of the old Microsoft Office feature, Clippy. It’s funny, but Clippy is a remnant of Office’s past, and Docs is looking more and more like Office used to, so maybe the joke’s on Google.
Google Japan Parametron Doodle Google ran this Doodle logo in Japan last week, honoring the anniversary of some Japanese computer:
YouTube Releases API for Customizing Player YouTube released an API for customizing its embeddable player, letting you change the look of it to match the look of your website. You can write completely customizable video player, changing any element and putting together anything your mind/code can come up with.
Here are the logos ran by the major search sites yesterday in honor of St. Paddy’s, courtesy of Barry:
And Yahoo’s Flash logo:
Interestingly, yesterday was not St. Patrick’s Day! The church moved it to last Saturday, so as not to fall out during Holy Week, so everyone got it wrong. Based on how many people told me “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” yesterday, it looks like a lot of people ignored the church.
Ask.com is having a terrible week. The company laid off 8% of its workforce, or about 40 jobs, and remains in a state of confusion about its future. Ask’s parent company, IAC, is mismanaging the search firm, panicking because the company isn’t Google, when it should be satified to have a successful, stable, revenue-generating player in a highly competitive market. Why isn’t it enough to be doing a good job?
The fate of Ask is up in the air, as reports are coming through that it plans to become a housewife-focused search engine, centering on recipes and other items. Since 65% of their users are women, Ask boss Jim Safka decided to focus entirely on them, a pretty damn good way to lose 35% of your users. The response has been overwhelmingly negative, with most analysts dissapointed at the company giving up just as it was starting to gain momentum.
After years as the also-ran Ask Jeeves, Ask.com reinvented itself, focusing on quality search results and an innovative interface, and doing some good outreach with the internet community. Ask managed to hold onto its search market share, which, sinc the market is growing at a healthy pace every month, meant Ask had more users, more searches, and more ad views everymonth, regardless of however the hell Google was doing.
Still, IAC’s big boss, Mr. “I don’t know anything about the internet” Barry Diller, was unable to let Ask keep fighting the good fight. He removed Jim Lanzone, after years of good service, and now he’s pushing the company in directions that frankly don’t make a whole lot of sense. If Diller isn’t removed from IAC, Ask.com is probably done for, and even if he is, the damage might be too severe.
What saddens me the most is that among those laid off is Gary Price. Gary has to be one of my favorite people in this entire industry, and I had good hopes for Ask when they hired him. While layoffs are never good, being stuck at a mismanaged company can suck, too, and Gary’s talented enough to wind up somewhere better, soon, so I wish him the best of luck in the future.
Barry has a roundup of reactions to the news, and it seems universal dissapointment is in order. Many of us were rooting for Ask to be the little search engine that could, and it’s clear that Diller was the albatross that couldn’t. There are a lot of people declaring Ask dead, and with some reports that Ask is already using Google in its search results (and for what possible reason?), they might be right.
As for Ask.com going all female, the latest rumors from Valleywag are that Ask is reconsidering the plan, and may have shelved it altogether. Keep running around in circles, not knowing what the hell you’re doing, and I’m sure success will be right around the corner.
Ask.com has a useful Binoculars feature in its search results that shows a preview of websites as well as some information about them. The preview now adds a tab with statistics from Compete.com, showing a graph of average users over the last 12 months and site rank, with a link to see more detailed stats at Compete.
I think it’s clear that Compete was surpassed Alexa, carrying more believable and trustworthy stats and none of the mismanagement and ill will that has plagued Alexa the last few years. Adding Compete’s stats to search results was a smart move for Ask, and it underscores the gains Compete has been making lately.
Google is running this special Doodle logo for Valentine’s Day:
That’s actually pretty sweet. Last year’s Doodle was a mess, with a lot of sites reporting that Google had forgotten the “l” in Google:
Here’s the 2005 Valentine’s logo:
In 2006, Google did not celebrate Valentine’s Day because February 14 fell during the Winter Olympic Games, and Google runs special Olympic Doodles during those days.
If you forgot to get your special someone (or your pet, whatever) something for V-Day, might I recommend hitting up Rite-Aid on the way home? There’s always something there that says “I’m not a thoughtless jerk”.
Philipp notes that Google Docs is pink today, the Google Maps Street View guy is standing on a heart-shaped platform, and YouTube’s logo is heart-shaped.
Ask has launched a new news site, called Big News, that uses a complex algorithm to rank news, then displays it in a bold, modern interface. Big News ranks stories according to a “Big Factor“, a ranking score that takes into account how fresh the news is, the amount of links it has in articles, multimedia and blogs, the amount of rich content in the article (images and video), and the amount of discussion the story is getting on social sites.
The site was developed at least partly as a partnership with Digg, though that is not immediately apparent when using Big News. The amount of Diggs and comments a story has on Digg is a factor in the Big Factor algorithm, and the bottom of the homepage contains a Digg footer. Half the footer shows the current top five stories on Digg, the other half contains the top five Big News stories that have not been Dugg yet, inviting the user to be the first to Digg them.
The site strikes the right balance of using Digg without copying Digg or trying to co-opt Digg’s community. It allows Digg some more publicity, as well as giving Diggers some ideas of stories to Digg, and leverages Digg’s data for a better news ranking algorithm. The design is bold and fun to use, not being too boring or too cutesy. The story selection seems varied and well-chosen. Looks like Ask has launched a solid site here, hopefully one that will find an audience.
Time Warner announced it is planning on splitting apart and selling its AOL division in multiple parts, getting rid of all or most of the ISP/internet portal/software/communications company. First to be sold will likely be AOL’s online service, the ISP that used to be king of the internet access world. Many are theorizing that once unburdened by AOL’s past, AOL’s search and portal might be served up as an acquisition target for Google.
Should Google buy AOL, if offered at a decent price? Probably not, unless we’re talking super cheap, like under $3 billion. Otherwise, AOL would be a better fit being bought by IAC. AOL Search could be redirected to Ask Search, and AOL.com could become the portal of IAC/Ask. AOL has a lot of properties IAC could use a lot more than Google, if IAC has the cash to go for it.
photo of the Time Warner Center, another beautiful photo by wallyg under CC license
Google is running this Doodle today in China (tomorrow on the calendar), celebrating the Chinese New Year.
This year is the year of the rat, by far my favorite year. The rat is the protector and bringer of material prosperity, and represents aggression, wealth, charm, order, death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. To me, though, the rat is scrappy, a fighter, who manages to survive and prosper no matter what the world throws at him, so while I don’t want to run into a rat, as a human, I do want to be the embodiment of some of its qualities.
(via Zorgloob)
InterActive Corp, the parent company of Ask.com, reported earnings today, despite warnings that the legal battle between Barry Diller and John Malone would make things difficult. The company went from a profit of $15.3 million a year ago to a loss of $369.9 million this quarter, underscoring the need for change at the company. Whether that change involves splitting into five divisions or getting rid of Diller, the courts may have to decide.
Revenue was up 8% to $1.86 billion, and that loss was the fault of a $475.7 million impairment charge on LendingTree, thanks to the failing housing market. The division that includes Ask.com reported impressive growth of 42% in revenue, to $226 million, and 55% in profits to $31.2 million. Ask may not be a mammoth Google-level money printing machine, but it is a successful, profitable company with a bright future and healthy growth.
photo of the IAC building by wallyg under CC license
I missed Martin Luther King Jr. day while I was on vacation, but Barry has all the logos put up by the big search companies that day.
Google’s Doodle:
Ask ran this full-page logo:
If you’d like the logo, perhaps for a desktop wallpaper, or even to use with Ask.com’s new skinning capability and make your permanent Ask skin, here’s the original file:
John Malone, a partner with IAC Chairman Barry Diller in various ventures since 1992, has started taking steps to have Diller removed from the board of the company he built. Diller has been working for months on splitting up InterActiveCorp into multiple smaller companies, and Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. wants the media veteran taken out, by force if necessary, in order to stop his plans.
While Liberty only owns 30% of IAC’s stock, it controls 62% of the voting power. The structure of the stock gives Liberty all of the Class B shares, which have ten times the votes of regular shares, as well as 23% of all regular shares. However, an outstanding agreement gives Diller full voting control over Liberty’s shares, and he isn’t about to vote himself out anytime soon.
Malone wants the voting rights to be reclaimed by Liberty so he can show Diller the door, claiming that Diller’s plans are contrary to Liberty’s interests. If he succeeds with his lawsuit, he won’t need anyone else’s help removing Diller from the company, which owns many internet properties, including Ask.com.
Normally, any company would love to be owned by a mogul like Diller, since he is a very successful businessman. However, Diller’s actions at IAC prove that he has no knowledge of the tech industry and no interest in building innovative or even successful companies. Diller buys floundering firms, gives them enough resources to become healthy (but not necessarily successful), and sells them for a tidy profit.
Diller bought and sold Ticketmaster seven times in the last decade, including three seperate times just in 1998. The man doesn’t want to build the next Google (or, more accurately, the next FOX), he wants to buy low, sell high, and doesn’t care what he leaves behind. It may work for him, and has worked very well, but it isn’t good for the industry, the economy, or for most of the employees at IAC.
Recently, Diller let go Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone, reportedly because of delays with Ask’s news site. While Ask hasn’t made huge market share gains, no one can deny it is innovating, and if not for the efforts of dedicated employees like Lanzone was, Ask.com would likely be completely gone from the market today. Diller wanted a bunch of projects done quickly, probably so he could sell some of it off, and his strategy only hurts the company and cost it a valued exec.
I won’t be sad to see Diller go. Liberty may very well lose this battle, but if it doesn’t, hopefully Ask will be much healthier under Malone than it ever was under Diller.
photo of Barry Diller by JD Lasica under CC license
Ask.com expanded the skinning feature of its homepage, now letting you choose from a large gallery of homepage skins, or even upload your own image for a completely personal look. Just hit the dropdown arrow on the homepage, and either click to browse the gallery or Upload Your Own. Choose any image (under 6 megabytes), give your skin a name, mess with the text color, align it properly, and, tada, a completely unique search engine homepage.
Here’s a homepage I made, using a photo from my recent vacation:
It’s not great, but it took about 90 seconds, and it’s in the Skin gallery right now. Try uploading some cool ones, and let me know how it goes.
Jim Lanzone is out as Chief Executive Officer of Ask.com, replaced by Jim Safka, CEO of IAC’s Match.com. Valleywag is reporting that Lanzone was fired by parent company IAC’s CEO Barry Diller, who was reportedly frustrated with delays in launching Ask’s new news site. Even if a product is well-delayed, there’s no one who can doubt that Ask.com was a much improved company under the stewardship of Lanzone, and Diller’s decision really looks like a mistake to me.
From what I’ve seen of Jim, he certainly seemed passionate about the company we worked at the last six years. Jim started as Ask’s VP of product management, was promoted to Senior VP and general manager of Ask.com, and made his way up to CEO. He was a real Ask.com guy, the type of guy who either sits comfortably and does nothing, or is excited by the job and tries to innovate and makeover the company. Lanzone was clearly the innovating type, as evidenced by Ask’s great progress in search engine design and relevancy, and the loss of him is a loss for the entire company.
A commenter at Valleywag says it just right:
… irrespective of the Google empire factor, no one (including Safka) will be able to make Ask perform to its outdated, aged front-facing icon…and I ain’t referring to Jeeves.
Yes, he’s talking about Barry Diller. Diller is too old-school, and he’s from the wrong industry, to understand that Ask.com was doing things right. If he isn’t going to let innovators be innovators, he is going to keep hurting the good companies he’s bought. Let the tech experts run the tech companies, and let the 65-year old media experts stick to what they know, not what they mistakenly think they know.
And Ask.com? They’ve got a bunch of balloons at the top of the page.
EXCEPT…
Take a good look at the source code for their homepage. If you were paying attention last week, you’ll remember a lot of the same code from the falling snowflakes. Yeah, I’m thinking that it would be a good idea to come back to Ask.com at midnight tonight, see some fun stuff.
(via Gary)
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TechCrunch has an overload of charts showing the end-of-the-year numbers for Yahoo and Ask.com.
For Ask, Ask.com’s unique visitors increased for the year by 54%, from 29.8 million in November 2006 to 46 million last month. Ask may still be having market share troubles, but more users means a healthier company that isn’t going away anytime soon.
Ask’s other properties mostly enjoyed decent growth, with search results pages going up from about 20 million to about 30 million, Image Search up 91%, Spain and German up 2063% and 844%, respectively, AskCity up 548%, and the only down properties are Maps (really replaced by AskCity) and Weather (replaced by the same functionality in Ask’s 3D search results). Ask’s new search results are pushing traffic to its search verticals, growing them in a disproportinate way that Google wishes it had.
For Yahoo, TechCrunch had to run two seperate charts, showing the top growing properties and top declining ones, since there are so many. Yahoo’s U.S. properties are mostly on neither list, with small percentage raises (and a few small drops) leaving them stagnant. Yahoo Answers is one major exception, more than doubling its traffic. Yahoo’s biggest success was in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where search was up 7,452% and 6,763%, respectively.
As you can see, Yahoo Mail went slightly up and down, and finished 3.21% up for the year. On that same page, projections show Gmail topping Yahoo Mail at current growth rates by November 2010. However, that projection assumes you are an idiot, because it also shows Yahoo Mail with the same amount of growth.
Yes, growth is common, but Gmail can’t take over the market completely without Yahoo losing users. Plus, growth never continues forever, especially at rates like this. More likely, Gmail will take some users from Yahoo and Microsoft, both of its competitors will grow slightly, and this war will still be going on well past 2010.
