Google Docs Gets Lots of Updates Google Docs added lots of new stuff, including saved searches, offline Google Gears access for spreadsheets and presentations, custom document stylesheets (using CSS), speaker notes in presentations, and embedded YouTube videos in presentations.
Move Your Life To Gmail With Gmail Uploader Google released last month the Gmail Uploader, a free application that moves your email and contacts from Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird (on Windows XP and Vista only) to a Google Apps Gmail account. Considering the huge number of limitations (only three email programs, two operating systems, and one very specific and less popular edition of Gmail), you may never get the chance to use it, which is a shame, because most new Gmail users would love the easy migration method.
Google Charts Now Does QR Codes
Google has been trying out QR Codes (a type of 2D bar codes) in its print ads, and now they’re making it easier to generate them on the web. Before, you’d have to use a web app or software to create a QR Code, then save the image to use on your website, but now the Google Chart API can be queried to get them automatically. Right now, all you get are website URLs, though hopefully Google will extend the API to handle more complex data.
Here’s an API-generated image for this site, using the URL http://chartserver.apis.google.com/chart?cht=qr&chs=300x300&chl=http://google.blognewschannel.com/:
Blogger Adds Future Posts
Google’s Blogger has added the ability to schedule posts to be published in the future by specifying a date yet to come for your post. This feature was tested in Blogger In Draft, and is yet another feature to make its way into the ever improving Blogger.
Google Invests In New Clearwire Google entered into an agreement with Sprint and others (Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners), investing half a billion dollars in a new formation of wireless ISP Clearwire. The new company will be 51% Sprint-owned, taking Sprint’s Xohm WiMax business. Google’s a wireless provider of sorts, now, and will help get open devices, including Android devices, on the network, and provide search and applications for the network.
Google Me - A Documentary About Search
This documentary features a guy searching for others with this same name as him. A concept we’ve heard before, though it seems to have resulted in an interest project.
Google’s Head of PR Goes to Facebook
Elliot Schrage leaves for Facebook, costing Google its vice president of global communications and public affairs. Of course, Google’s corporate PR policies haven’t been that smart the last few years, so maybe this isn’t great news for Facebook.
Google Maps Interface Slimmed Down
Google has finally trimmed some of the cruft building on Google Maps, combining and simplifying an interface that was getting too complicated and cluttered.
Blogger Gets Integrated Analytics
Google has integrated Google Analytics into Blogger for Blogger users that are interested, giving access to stats inside the Blogger Dashboard along with special stats tracking relevant to blogs. They’re also letting Measure Map users roll over their accounts into Google Analytics now.
Google Letting Apps Run On Their Cloud Google has announced a new service, Google App Engine, which lets web developers build their internet applications on top of Google’s technology. Developers will be able to use the Google File System and the Bigtable distributed data storage system in their applications, resulting in a strong backbone to compete with Amazon’s S3 service.
It’s free during the preview period, but the number of accepted applications and available resources are limited in the beginning. Let’s hope Google doesn’t leave it in a beta limbo for four years and make things impossible for some budding Web 2.0 companies.
Ex-Googler Bret Taylor has a very interesting article about opening up data sources so application developers can better take advantage of them, and so they can be free for innovation. Google could make App Engine a no-brainer for app developers if it has access to data source normal Web 2.0 companies normally go through hell to get access to.
Google Selling DoubleClick Performics Google has made a very popular decision, announcing it will be selling off the SEO business of Performics, a business of DoubleClick it received in the recently completed acquisition. Performics handled SEO and affiliate management for its clients, and a search engine doing SEO would have created a giant conflict of interest. The reaction has been almost nothing but positive, as many are glad to see Google eliminated this before it becomes a problem. However, Performics affiliate business will remain at Google, possibly creating a new area of the market for Google to dominate.
Googlers Leave For Facebook (and other places)
Some Googlers are jumping ship, heading for seemingly greener pastures (with stock options that aren’t already underwater), like Facebook. About 40 Facebookers, or 10% of Facebook’s entire workforce, used to be Googlers, showing that a definite shift is underway. Google’s director of social media, Ethan Beard left the company become Facebook’s new director of Business Development. Facebook’s new chief chef is Josef Desimone, formerly one of Google’s makers of free food, but Valleywag’s hearing that he won’t be missed.
A much bigger move than a chef changing jobs is that of Douglass Merrill, Google Chief Information Officer. He’s leaving for music giant EMI, becoming their new president. Now, leaving from a major exec position at a top Silicon Vallley company to become president of a big music company is almost certainly a step up, but given the music industry’s woes, you’d think Google could have had more to offer him than a top company in a failing industry could.
New Version of Google Talk in Testing
Google has finally remembered it has an IM client, releasing a Labs test of a new version of Google Talk. The first version of Google Talk was released over 2 and a half years ago, but Google has barely updated it at all in the meantime. The new version, dissapointingly, drops the calling feature, implying that Google has abandoned the original intent of the “Talk” name, but it does add tabbed browsing. I still use Talk every day, but I have no faith at this point in Google actually maintaining the software like it should.
Google Finance Adds Stock Screener
Google Finance now has something called a stock screener, essentially a type of sort/search site for the stock market, letting you narrow down through criteria to find stocks with specific attributes. For example, you can specify stocks within a range of market caps, dividend sizes, 52-week gains or losses, and others, and combine the criteria to discover the perfect stock. This being Google Finance, it’s all accomplished with fancy AJAX sliders.
I used it to discover that there is only one company on the market bigger than Google that also does not pay off a dividend: Berkshire Hathaway. Good company to be in, but Google hasn’t been as good at the market as Buffet in many months.
Google, Facebook and Plaxo have joined the DataPortability Workgroup, pledging to allow users to export their contacts from one social network to another. Facebook has been particularly bad in this regard, hijacking your data and not letting you export it, as witnessed when Robert Scoble tried to export his data to Plaxo and had his account shut down for a few days. With these companies joining up, their pledging to do better by their users, and that’s good news for everyone.
Whether Facebook makes available usable data or just the basics is a big question. Currently, there are Facebook-approved methods for applications to pull data out of Facebook, but they are not given enough access to be usable. Usually, you get the picture, the name, and a tiny sliver of actual data. Hopefully, Facebook lets you pull out enough data that switching social networks is as simple as pressing a button, and enough that you can put all your Facebook contacts into Outlook.
I’m really surprised with Facebook. It seems like every time its users complain about privacy or permissions, Facebook always gives in and hands the users what they want. This is very different from the attitudes at major tech companies, who will only buckle under the worst of damage control scenarios. If Facebook always gives in to its users, it’s going to survive as the rare company that puts the user first, and it definitely won’t fall into the “evil” category that most growing companies find themselves in.
Google may be trying to get Facebook application developers to use OpenSocial, but they’re also trying to get those who keep using Facebook to use AdWords to drive users to their applications. They’ve been emailing Facebook app devs, inviting them to sign up for AdWords Pay-Per-Action ads in order to get more users. PPA ads only charge if the user completes an action, like installing the application, so it’s perfect for their purposes.
