adamyntium

Category: google

  • Google can’t count! Here’s proof.

    That ?ber-smart search engine that whips through a bazillion pages faster than a speeding bullet… surely it can do something as simple as count, right?

    Yes and no. While Google could undoubtedly out-count the best of ’em, it chooses not to in order to speed up its searches. That’s the word from a senior Googler to whom I posed this puzzle.

    In short, Google was telling me it found [x] hits for the quoted string “Adam Lasnik”… and a number significantly smaller than [x] for the shorter string “Adam” — an unintuitive and clearly wrong calculation.

    I actually stumped several Googlers, who kindly ushered me up the chain to a Senior Googler. Even he wasn’t certain what was going on, so he promised to get back with me… and he did.

    The situation was caused by “an anomaly in our results estimation process that should go away in future releases.” And indeed, as you can see now from comparing the search results, either the problem has been solved or that Googler slyly did a bandaid fix on my name :D.

    * * *

    But Google’s aversion to counting is still evidenced in other areas.

    Check out these screenshots from a Google Desktop search on my machine for the (literal) string “sample.”



    “In this case, the number of results displayed is only an estimate” admitted one of the Desktop Googlers. Indeed ;-). But wouldn’t it make more sense for Google to say “>100, >1000, >10,000” etc.?

    When you get right down to it, Google’s like those overarchieving kids who are capable of doing all the mundane tasks of life we’re all expected to tackle… but prefer not to. They have better things to do. So they lie to those in charge and say, “Uh, yeah, sure… I counted 837” when, in fact, they just looked at the student council ballots and made a smart guess based on the thickness of the stack and the average dimensions of the balloting paper.

    Come to think of it, it’s probably those very kids who are running around creating kickass-albeit-counting-challenged things at the Googleplex, eh?

  • When smart companies do dumb things

    Heard the big announcement about Yahoo’s new music service?

    Check it out at (the logical) http://yahoo.com/music/

    Interested in being a publisher with Google’s AdSense (partner to the AdWords program which accounts for >90% of the company’s revenue)? Try http://adsense.google.com/ (which would match adwords.google.com and labs.google.com, etc.)

    What, those URLs don’t work? They don’t even *forward* to the appropriate page?

    My point exactly.

    Is it just me, or is that incredibly, massively dumb?

    P.S. — The correct URLs are http://music.yahoo.com/ and http://google.com/adsense

  • Private label Gmail

    I’ve heard again and again…

    “I’d love to use Gmail for my company mail and can POP mail *IN* but can’t send mail with my company domain *OUT*. I’d pay to be able to do this!”

    So this raises the following questions for me:

    Some questions:

    1. What size would the market be for this in the A) personal B) small/home-office and C) medium/large corporate spaces? Would individuals and companies really ditch Outlook/Exchange?
    2. Would this ‘private label’ version of Gmail still show ads?
    3. Would it cost money? If so, how much, and if not, would ads be the only revenue stream?
    4. When can we expect to see this new offering?

    My guesses:

    1. A) Not large. Individuals with their own domains probably want the extra features that geek-mail-software offers, or the integration with Palm and such that Outlook offers.
      B) Pretty substantial. Folks in this position may travel a bunch and really relish being able to check and send (branded) e-mail from any computer. Also, they’re not likely to have MS Exchange set up.
      C) Questionable. Such firms likely are too entrenched in an Exchange environment and have security / privacy concerns that have already been QA’d against Outlook.
    2. By default, yes, but you could pay (extra) to get rid of them.
    3. I anticipate a three tier set of offerings: Free (current version), Private Domains, and Enterprise, with only the latter having a fee based upon number of seats. No idea of the cost per seat, though.
    4. September 12, 2005 or April 1, 2006

    Your thoughts?

  • Useful weather forecasts without clutter

    1) http://www.weatherreports.com/ rocks. Simple, crap-ad free, and easy-to-grok at a glance.

    2) Also, try typing weather [your-zip-code] into Google — e.g., weather 94112. Nice, eh?

    My one complaint? I wish these two offerings would provide more info with one click (hourly forecasts, etc.).

    Oh, and here’s one by phone:

    3) From any U.S. phone (other than a payphone), dial 1-800-555-8355 (“TELL”) and say “Weather.” Then say a zip code or city name and you’ll get an detailed, often rather extended and informative forecast. TellMe offers lots of other great services, too, that you can glean from their main menu.

  • Otunica — Independent music via Google, Yahoo!, or Amazon

    THE PURPOSE OF OTUNICA

    Encouraging and facilitating the annotation, sharing, and discovery of independent music

    WHAT WILL OTUNICA CONTAIN?

    • People will be able to upload any music that they have created OR have the permission to distribute.
    • Otunica will also index all music content on the Web tagged with applicable Creative Commons permissions.

    WHAT FEATURES WILL IT OFFER?

    • Sophisticated searching
      Members will be able to search by artist, track title, style, key(s) (C# minor, F major…), beats-per-minute (“BPM”) ranges, dynamic contrast, meter (waltz, 5/4, 4/4), and more… gleaned both from composer-supplied metadata and automatic detection mechanisms. I know that, at the very least, programs exist today that are — if not altogether reliably — able to discern BPM and music keys, so the technology is already at least partly there. Additionally, I envision a Flickr-style tagging feature whereby both the original content creators and (optionally) their trusted friends or representatives can add descriptive and obviously searchable tags to tunes (“Piano,” “Hard-driving,” “Melancholy”…)
    • Easy sharing
      Members will be able to easily send links to streams or downloads of their favorite tunes (or playlists of tunes) to friends… perhaps directly via Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.
    • Multi-faceted discovery
      Via composer-supplied and automatically determined metadata, Otunica will identify highly similar tunes (“The following songs are very close-matches to [the current song]”), point out slight variants (“Find similar but higher-tempo songs,” “Find similar songs but in [x] meter…”), and also present collaboratively-filtered recommendations (“Members who streamed/downloaded this song also streamed or downloaded these songs.”)
    • OGG music format
      Given the recent frustrations with DRM’d and proprietary music formats, a powerful company like Google, Yahoo!, or Amazon could substantially improve the survival and even mass-adoption chances of an open source format like OGG… not only avoiding controversial solutions such as WMA and Fairplay’d AAC, but also bypassing MP3 licensing fees.

    WHY IS OTUNICA IMPORTANT TO THE FUTURE OF MUSIC?

    • It will offer in-depth exposure for independent artists
      It will provide, for the first time, a depository of independently created music that will be accessible, affordable, and both usefully and enticingly presented to encourage true sharing and discovery.
    • It will present a viable alternative to shackled “big music”
      Otunica will enable DJs, wedding planners, movie-makers, performers, and others in need of specific types of music to easily find what they need and then both affordably and legally gain the access to use it. No need to fret over confusing and byzantine licensing fees for distribution, performance, etc.
    • It will stimulate the creation of really cool new art
      As Law professor and Creative Commons guy Lawrence Lessig has noted (dang, I really need to blog the notes I took at one of his recent fab lectures!), one of the largest and most frustrating impediments to the creation of innovative art is the crippling state of intellectual property laws today. I’d add that, even with so many new songs being added to the Web nowadays with Creative Commons licenses, it’s still practically impossible for artists to find a particular type of song they’d like to work with (e.g., ska in a minor key with a BPM of 160 or greater)

    HOW WILL OTUNICA MAKE MONEY?

    • Purchases:
      Via purchase options (for a CD, uncompressed download, and/or extended performance/redistribution rights) to music, with most of the cash going to the artist and a cut going to Otunica
    • Tips:
      A virtual tip jar; members who like particular tunes will be able to make micropayments to artists, and — again — Otunica will take a cut. I expect that Otunica’s percentage will be substantially more artist-friendly than iTunes, Amazon.com, or even the already-rather-artist-friendly CDBaby.
    • Ads:
      Contextual and/or thematic ads (CD media, speakers, recording equipment…)

    WHAT ABOUT COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS?

    Technology exists today that should fairly easily be able to identify clear infringements via a combination of aural and other fingerprinting and metadata. Community self-policing would also be likely effective (e.g., on Flickr, spammers and people posting photos that clearly violate the service’s rules are identified and seemingly dealt with quickly).

    And it will be made effectively clear from the start that Otunica isn’t the place to share or get Britney Spears’ latest junk.

    WHO WILL BUILD OTUNICA?

    Google — Why

    • Already getting into the (related multimedia) video space in at least three different ways
    • Google has already been indexing many other forms of information… images, books, various document formats (PDF, .doc), and — of course — Web pages… and could learn a lot about indexing multimedia from the project of Otunica.
    • Google has posteriorloads of space and bandwidth and is acquiring more all the time.

    Google — What Otunica could integrate with

    • Maps (see the location of fellow artists who fit certain criteria so you could jam in person…)
    • Groups (mailing lists on particular styles, fan lists for certain artists, etc.)
    • Mail (one-click send of stream/download links)
    • Answers (set a price on a particular composition, and have artists bid to create the piece for you)
    • Blogger (drag-and-drop a snippet of a piece onto a blog entry)

    Yahoo! — Why

    • Already an established (albeit currently small) community memberbase and structure with Yahoo! 360
    • Also, from recent acquisition, a hugely dedicated memberbase in Flickr
    • And of course, a humungous general userbase, complete with already-established sign-ins, cross-referenceable demographic information and preference settings, etc.
    • Experience with groups via Yahoo! Groups
    • Experience with multimedia via Yahoo! Photos and Launchcast

    Yahoo! — What Otunica could integrate with

    • Launchcast
    • 360 (network with other artists, include snippets of a song in your blog…)
    • Mail
    • Groups
    • Recently-acquired Musicmatch (useful for preparation, uploading, browsing, sharing, etc.)
    • Flickr (though this would seem tenuous at present, IMHO)
    • IM (great way to share streams!)

    Amazon — Why

    • A substantial userbase
    • Strong recommendation engine, coupled with a ratings system, already in place
    • Tie-ins with ‘established’ media (Members who liked Sting also enjoyed [independent artist] or visa-versa)
    • Payment processing and distribution strengths (“Buy a CD of [independent artist’s music] with one click!”)
    • May offer good synergy with Amazon.com’s upcoming social networking service / feature set (how do I know this is coming up? I saw an Amazon.com job requsition for social-networking experts)

    Amazon — What Otunica could integrate with
    I must admit, I’m at a bit of a loss on this one. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

    In general — why not

    • Possibly very expensive proposition (bandwidth, storage, actual staffing for monitoring, etc.)
    • Potential threat of rabid opposition from ‘professional’ content creators and management organizations, such as mainstream artists and record labels (particularly a worry for those with established relationships with these players, such as Amazon and Yahoo!)
    • Music sharing and discovery has, at least at the elemental level, already been done (mp3.cnet.com, mp3.com before that, etc.)

    WHY NOT THESE COMPANIES…?

    • Apple
      Too tied-at-the-hip with the major labels, not a search company, lacks the substantial bandwidth and storage capabilities of the major search engines.
    • Microsoft
      MS is a “me too” company, not an innovator, and I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. Overture and Google came out with paid search, now Microsoft is entering it. Nintendo –> Xbox. You get the idea (though I admit, I am slightly exaggerating the “me too” aspect to get a rise or at least a comment out of endearingly prolific Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble :D). Also, like Apple, Microsoft is too closely aligned with the major labels and has its own property, MSN music, which might present a conflict of interest (or, playing devil’s advocate, a cross-linking opportunity).

    SKILLSETS OF THE PEOPLE NEEDED TO ESTABLISH AND WORK ON OTUNICA

    • Musical abilities! (performer, composer)
    • Related management strengths (band manager, entertainment-related product manager, etc.)
    • Programming chops
    • UI design talents
    • Mad QA skillz
    • Online community planning and design
    • Online community moderation experience / patience of a saint
    • Social science smarts / social network structural and policy design knowledge

    * * *

    – Who will create Otunica? A major (or even minor) entity I’ve not identified?
    – What are some of the features I have overlooked?
    – How about the values to the world of music? Any I’ve missed? Or is this just a pie-in-the-sky utopia?
    – Particular implementation challenges?

    What do you think of the whole idea in general? Please add a comment below 🙂

    (and hey, Google, Yahoo!, and Amazon.com people — please forward this entry to people at your company who can make Otunica happen! As a musician, Lindy Hopper, and budding jack-of-many-dances, I would be incredibly overjoyed to see something like this come to fruition!!!)

  • A wonderful Google quote from Danny Sullivan

    “Yahoo says, ‘Where is the mountain? Let’s climb it,”‘ Sullivan said. “Google says, ‘Maybe we want to go up the mountain, and maybe we want to go surfing.”‘

    – Search Engine Meister Danny Sullivan, quoted by Saul Hansell in this New York Times article

    IMHO, there’s something to be said about both approaches and attitudes. And personally, I know a mix of hardworking and fun-loving people at both companies.

    How’s that for non-commital? 😀

  • Once again, the battle against spam results in high collateral damage

    Google has announced that they’ve added a special “no-follow” tag option for links that is intended to curb comment spam. What is comment spam? It’s the disgusting — often pornographic — crap that lowlife spammers spew in blog comments so that Google will perceive their sites as ‘more important’. After all, Google Page Rank is partly dependent upon how many sites “link” to another site, even if that link is added by a spammer. The new no-follow tag is designed to thwart that incentive by telling the googlebot “Hey, this link wasn’t added by the Webmaster… so don’t interpret it as a popular vote for that other site.”

    Other search engines, including Yahoo and MSN, have quickly decided to support this new tag. And I believe all of their intentions are good. Unfortunately, I think that this is a bad solution.

    As background, let’s look at e-mail: all the major e-mail players (AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Gmail, and even software like Outlook, etc.) have added significant anti-spam components to their systems… but has this stemmed the tide of spam? Not one iota. Instead, the spammers simply were cornered into dramatically increasing the volume to make up for the filtering.

    The same, I expect, will sadly happen with comment spam. Since there’s practically zero cost for comment spamming AND no penalty (albeit no gain) for spamming a ‘no-follow’-protected blog, comment spammers will simply redouble their efforts and intensify their comment spamming campaigns.

    But that’s not the only reason why I’m not very fond of this no-follow thing. From a selfish perspective, I believe that I’ve contributed quite a few thoughtful comments to many blogs, and frankly, I welcome and appreciate the Google whuffie that I earn for my blog. Forgive my sense of entitlement here, but when I’m contributing to the content of the Web, why shouldn’t my own little corner of the Web gain a bit from my efforts?

    * * *

    So once again, we have anti-spam techniques penalizing the vast majority of us who ethically contribute to private and public conversations.

    Personally, I wish that people had just focused on handicapped-accessible captchas (or however you spell those things), MT/Blogger account signin requirements, and so on. At the very least, I hope authenticated comments still get Google whuffie.

  • Next Google acquisition: Flickr + Picasa 2.0 = Fotoogle

    Okay, so I’m kidding about the Fotoogle name (yuck!), but — mark my un-insider words — Google is going to buy community photo service Flickr or perhaps Fotki early next year and integrate it tightly with the upcoming Picasa 2.0.

    What problems would this solve?

    1) Bridge the offline – online photo gap.
    Right now, via Google’s Picasa software and similar products, people can easily catalog, browse, and search for photos on their hard drive. But, one-at-a-time postings to blogger.com notwithstanding, there’s no point-and-click-easy ways for folks to get their photo catalogs online.

    2) Enrich the Google Images database with a plethora of (IPTC-based) metadata.
    The vast majority of amateur photographers (and probably the bulk of professional photographers) have neither the know-how nor the availability of non-geek tools to add IPTC title, description, and category information to their photo files. This, then, makes it extremely hard for Google to return useful hits in its Image search, since it relies on fuzzy contextual clues like jpeg alt-text, general surrounding text, and so on. By making it rewarding and easy for people to enter metadata for their photos and have them uploaded to a site online, Google will reap a humungous windfall of annotated photo data… greatly improving its Image search database. And such annotations will also provide a monumentally stronger hook for effective AdWords advertising on the Image pages ;-).

    Why Flickr?
    – It’s already well-respected and well-liked by bloggers, including at least one prominent Blogger.com team member.
    – Open API!
    – Small, smart, dedicated team behind the service.
    – Flickr already uses AdWords 🙂
    – It’s not evil; Flickr strongly considers member concerns and interests.
    – Flickr uses tags, very similar in concept to Gmail’s labels.
    – Strong focus on community: groups, live chats, etc.
    – It’s based in Vancouver, not all that far from Google’s new Washington office.
    – Flickr’s often-Flash-based UI is creative, useful, fun. And — while lately inexplicably deemphasized — their Flash-based chat is especially brilliant. Maybe something to integrate into Blogger or Google Groups? (“Chat live about this [blog | topic]!”)

    Why Fotki?
    – Offers photo printing.
    – Already reads and works with IPTC info.
    – Seemingly strong backend in terms of computational power, storage, and bandwidth.
    – Also focused on community: blogs, contests, even a personal Image server for sharing photos from one’s hard drive.
    – Based in New York City, relatively near Google’s NY office.

    Why not a ‘major’ player like Ofoto or Shutterfly?
    – Too big. Google likes smaller, more nimble firms.
    – They’re focused on printing and commerce far more than photo sharing and discovery.
    – They have minimal community aspects.

    Why not a wildly popular site like fotolog?
    – Rudimentary permissions structure.
    – Focuses more on skin than art.
    – Large non-English-speaking audience (which — no xenophobia intended! — merely presents an early hurdle in terms of documentation, community building, and so on).
    – Very little community underpinnings.

    * * *

    So here are my bottom line guesses:
    1) Picasa 2.0 will be out in beta by February 15, 2005.
    2) Google will announce a partnership with or — more likely — an acquisition of Flickr simultaneous with Picasa 2.0, or alternately about 45 days later.
    3) Soon after the Flickr deal, Yahoo will acquire or partner with Fotki.
    4) Microsoft will be steadily working on making MSN Spaces photos integrated with its current software tools and MSN Search. I expect an announcement in this context around May 2005.

    You read it here first ;-).

    —

    Related links:
    Added 12/19/04 8:54pm
    – Salon.com article on Flickr (free daypass or paid subscription required)
    – Conversation on Flickr

    —

    Edited on 1/2/05 to add:
    I’m honored that my prediction has been written up a bit in the blogosphere; however, I’d like to reiterate one word from this entry to make sure things are clear: “un-insider.” My speculation is based upon my broad understanding of the areas of blogging, digital photography, Google’s past acquisition behavior, etc. If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read my disclaimer.

    Edited on 3/20/05 to add:
    Well, well, well… so I was wrong about Google (it ended up being Yahoo!), but I was only 10 days off in my estimate. Not too shabby, eh? BTW, nice poker face, Jeremy 😉

  • "Google Suggest" service — Now Google reads minds

    Try out the Google Suggest tool, a new Google feature currently in the Labs.


    I’ve long been amazed at the computational power and speed of Google, but this real time demonstration of the company’s muscle is simply astounding.

    How is this latest offering useful? From my perspective, it will come most in handy with searches in the following contexts:
    – Names
    – Narrowing down from general to specific topics
    – Webmaster on-the-fly search engine optimization efforts (finding / measuring most-searched phrases)

    I’m curious to hear from my readers on this one. What are other ways in which this new Google service will be particularly useful… or especially fun / entertaining?

    [Yes, I admit, I’m a bit embarrassed that I’m so often gushing about Google stuff… but this particularly offering is just too cool to ignore, IMHO :D]

    Edited to add:
    – 12/10/04 11:02am: Forgot to give credit to Waxy.org (specifically their links page) for the heads-up!

  • Google classifies sex abuse as Entertainment

    Ah, the perils of relying on automated classification!

    Mind you, I think Google News is quite impressive and useful overall; I’m just pointing out the blip above as example of how automated technologies can cause situations that are either particularly incongruous or even uncomfortable.