Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 6:15PM http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye-to-old-friend-1-800-goog-411.html
November 12th, 2010 Google is shutting down Goog-411...it's a real shame...but there is an unlikely alternative... Bing411
Spread the word.
Friday, September 24, 2010 at 10:14PM Source: Google Fusion Table - Candidate counts aggregated by party
It's an interesting example of what Google Fusion Tables are all about. Ever wonder about Business Intelligence (BI)? Have a data set you could mine and learn more about your business? Give it a look.
The chart is interactive, click on the bars to reveal the counts.
Saturday, December 26, 2009 at 1:09PM Ok, I know I am in the middle of a series on iPhone apps...and we will continue that series...but for just a moment let's talk about the other real player in this market. Android, notably the Motorola Droid. Yes as much as we all hoped RIM would make the Storm (btw, if you have experience with the Storm2, post a comment and tell us what you think) into something - no go. Then we all wanted the little guy, well the first guy to market - Palm...the Pre looked so promising, small, keyboard and touch screen, run multiple applications at once: failure...simply because as they copied and improved the form factor...Apple changed the game...."its about the apps stupid."
But don't fear, soon there will be an app store everywhere. Ugh, can't wait to see how Apple will zig.
Google released Google Googles (GG) {on Android ONLY for now, not that I can blame them}. Hopefully by now you have read some of the great reviews. If not, do so, it's worth it.
So my take is unscientific, just a guy who is really interested in this space. Here we go:
The Google Goggles core concept: Visual Search - Just like we can search for information by typing in text or as in the Google iPhone App [Free] you can search with your voice by speaking into your phone. Now you can search for what you see, via the camera, as a still picture, or even via live video. Google Goggles does an image match and within seconds, you get the info about that object. Think of some of the possibilities. Business card scanning - now you truly connect, digitally. Art and landmark information? Awesome, you can connect the virtual summation of the world (also known as Google) and attach it to your reality. That's the definition of cool!
So you maybe thinking, why does Google care? It's very simple if Google knows what you want, they can sell that information to advertisers. They know you have an immediate need. Is that bad? Heck no, it saves you time and gives your relavent information. Remember what we did in the past when we needed to make a purchase? What did we do in the past? Drive by? Use the Yellow Pages (Rest In Peace). The concept is brilliant and it helps us. (Now we all need to be adults and make our own decisions - it's just advertising, don't let it be brain washing.)
Local (as in: right in front of you) business information. See what they have...see what others have to say (is the rumor true, did Google buy Yelp?)...hmmmm perfect match. It's all very open and clear. I believe it's a win-win...now if that changes (i.e.. if Google becomes evil), we make a change - vote with our businesses.
The bottom line: This is software/hardware to the next level. We have some amazing minds among us, seems smart to leverage this new technology to improve your business.
What are your thoughts? How will this effect your business? Post a comment.
Monday, March 16, 2009 at 10:20PM As you may have heard, Google announced “Google Voice”. Way back in early 2007, I stumbled upon a great serviced called “Grand Central” The idea behind Grand Central was a really clever one. Grand Central would give you a phone number. That number was a virtual phone number that you could use to collect voice mails, or forward to one OR MORE ‘real’ telephones. So you give out this number and when someone calls, you can have it ring your home and cell.
It actually can do a lot more than just forward your calls, you can have groups that are treated differently. For example, if you are a family member calling the virtual number it can ring your home, and cell and have a customer message. If it’s a business call and it’s between the hours of 8-5, it goes to your desk and cell and has a professional greeting.
Anyway, it’s cool stuff. In July of 2007, Google acquired Grand Central...and to be honest we haven’t seem much since. Well, until now. Right now Google is re-branding Grand Central as Google Voice. In addition to the re-branding they are rolling out some great new features. Of the new features, the one I am most excited about is voice message transcription. Yes, you leave a voice mail and Google converts that voice message to an SMS and/or email message and send it to you (there is no better way to know what is going on when you can’t take a call).
With features like:
It’s great stuff. The ONLY bad news...right now it’s a closed Beta. So if you don’t have a Grand Central number already, you will need to wait...but from what I can see in my Beta account - it’s worth the wait!