"google" in Weblog

Not to be outdone by the likes of Google, A9 have launched their own maps site. Why would you use this one instead of Google? Well, check over on the right hand side… For several major cities they’ve got photos of BOTH SIDES of all the main roads! You can find out what the place you’re trying to find actually looks like…

Now I wonder what the photographer thought when he got that phone call.

“Hi, we’d like you to take photos of New York” “Which bit?” “All of it.”

So, Google vs Microsoft then? It sounds like this is going to be more interesting than I was expecting… The leader in findability and online advertising vs the leader in consumer platforms.

While I was setting up my brother’s computer a couple of weeks ago I had to unplug my desktop from my home network… Until that point I hadn’t really noticed how little use I have for a computer without the internet. I reckon that about 80% of the time I spend at my computer relies on an internet connection. Now I come to think of it, the ease with which I adjusted to my iBook bears testimony to this as well. Once I had my mail and internet connection set up, with a bit of synchronisation here and there, I felt at home.

So for me, and probably many others, useful computing depends on the internet. All I need is a few key apps and I can work on any platform…

My money’s on Google.

I’ve not really been following this, to be honest but this story just doesn’t feel right to me: Yahoo helped jail China writer. The ‘China writer’ has been sentenced to 10 years because ‘he was found guilty of sending foreign-based websites the text of an internal Communist Party message’. Christ almighty! That must sit very uneasily with the conciences of those in the Yahoo boardroom.

And they’re not alone. If I remember correctly, Google allows the Chinese government to limit their search results and Microsoft also censor their MSN Spaces blogging service.

I suppose everyone has to decide where to draw the line and for Yahoo it was at the $1 billion mark. I don’t know how much the others cost.

Now, there are a couple of things that spring to mind, beyond the moral issue.

Firstly, I don’t understand how the Chinese government can do all this, technically. The resources they’re pouring in must be enormous.

Secondly, censorship destroys the single greatest (and worst) thing about the internet - there is information for everyone out there, no matter what they’re into. Working at Wordtracker has given me an insight into what people are looking for on the internet, and while most of it is legit, some of it really, deeply disturbing… And I’m quite laissez faire. Still, the internet, at its heart, is about putting folk in touch with other like-minded people. Without that, how much benefit do the Chinese people really get from the digital revolution that has changed the lives of so many?

Anyway, over at Wordtracker we call it ‘online behaviour’ and it’s a facinating step into cyber-sociology. The internet takes up so much of so many peoples’ lives but we know so little about what’s actually going on. I guess the Chinese have realised that and have developed the world’s first cyber-dictatorship.

I seem to have turned into a Google fan-boy recently but the good folk at the big G justify my impression of them again and again… And again: Google Moon. They went to all the trouble of writing a mapping engine so why not apply it? But how easy is it to hook new maps into their system? How about a start chart with interactive labels? Or an evolution tree for all the animals on earth with search to find how humans are related to donkies? Or map complex molecules?

Oh, and zoom in to the highest detail level on the moon for a little surprise…

It’s going to be short posts round here for a little while because I’m concentrating on my Content with Style articles. Sorry about that…

Anyway, I just stumbled on this: Housing Maps. It’s the amalgamation of Google Maps and craigslist, and it’s absolutely brilliant. It plots the locations of properties to rent and buy for many of the USA’s biggest cities. I don’t live in New York but I just spent quarter of an hour looking at flats near Staten Island! Is this the shape of all things map-shaped to come?

With everything that’s going on with Google at the moment it’s worth revisiting EPIC: “It’s the year 2014, the New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate’s fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is EPIC?” Now read The Google File System and Welcome to the Google Twilight Zone…

Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, who put together the EPIC movie, appear to have been pretty much bang on with their predictions. The idea of the Google Grid is facinating and entirely plausible… Could Google be the new Microsoft? Is Bill Gates worried?

I first saw Bitflux’s LiveSearch last year when Colly implemented it on CollyLogic. I thought it was very cool but didn’t think much more about it. When Google Suggest came out I was impressed again - it’s an incredibly clever feature, but I still couldn’t see the protential of this no-refresh approach. Now Google Maps, on the other hand, along with a few other similar apps has really got me thinking… Web functionality becomes far more like an APPLICATION as soon as you take the browser out of the equation. Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications by JJG is a great intro and I think it may have persuaded my current employer to give it a go. Fingers crossed.

In a fit of self-indulgence I decided to Google my Zen Garden entry, Postage Paid. And I got some quite interesting results!

There was Dave Shea’s initial post about the batch of designs that Postage Paid occurred in. Nothing too much to write about that but it seemed to be a good place to start.

The result that I’m most pleased with is Shaun Inman’s comment on Andy Budd’s blog. I saw this at the time, being an avid reader of Andy’s, but I’d forgotten about it. I absolutely love Shaun’s work and for him to say that he was influenced by Postage Paid is just incredible. I know it’s a small thing but I really appreciated it.

I have no idea what the folk over at StijlStek.nl said about Postage Paid but I think it was something nice so I’m going to include it here. Maybe something about an original theme?!

By far the funniest mention was on a college kid’s site. Apparently Postage Paid was set alongside ZunFlower and Stone Washed for a design critique! And it was slated! I’m not too bothered about that - I didn’t expect the design to appeal to everyone. I wanted to break a couple of rules and turn out something a bit different, likely alienating my audience in the process. Having said that it was slated, I’m pretty chuffed to have been discussed in class, even if I did come off badly!