Posts Tagged Google
Google now lets you search images
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Search Engine Optimisation, Thoughts & Opinions on July 27th, 2010
Google has debuted their new visual search for Google Images (images.google.com). It looks a lot like the image search function in Microsoft’s Bing. Rather than a rip-off, though, Google’s search goes a step further than Bing and includes a lot of useful information that goes along with each image.
From the index of over 10 billion images in Google’s databases, Google has cross-referenced images as often as possible in order to more thoroughly identify what’s in the picture. For instance, if you post a photo of The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, but do not label it (even with a descriptive file name), Google will likely figure out what it is by comparing it to other photos of the hotel that have been labeled. This is also true of many other types of images, even down to sub-species of animals.
When photos are displayed on the Google search, they pop up as a box over the top of the original page they’re on and this box has other information about the picture. It tells you the size, weight (file size), any image information embedded (titles, photographer, usage rights, etc.) and gives you its best-guess if there is no labeling. You can also use that image as the basis for a new search to find more like it.
You can even specify a color you prefer when searching for an image in the Advanced Search area. So if you’re looking for Volkswagencars , but only want to look at red ones, you can include that and Google will do its best to only return red VWs. Now that is pretty neat!
All in all, there are a lot of cool new things in Google’s new Image Search. It’s now become on-par with Bing and then one-upped the competition.
Who will rule the world? Facebook or Google..
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Thoughts & Opinions on July 6th, 2010
You can be sure that one of them will. But both have conflicting strategies toward achieving supremacy.
Both are incredible companies. There is no doubt about that. They have changed the world. But each has a profoundly different vision.
At it’s core, Google believes that at the end of all this, the world will be centred on computers, and computers will be doing everything. This may well be why Google has potentially missed the boat on social-networking.
The Facebook model is radically different. As far as they are concerned, humans must maintain mastery over technology, rather than the other way around. The value of Facebook stems from the fact that people are the most important thing.
Facebook has come under so much scrutiny recently for its privacy-related initiatives. But under all that scrutiny, many of the founder’s objectives have been missed.
Facebook is all about transparency. It was founded on the premise that transparency will take over modern life. Indeed, you know that if you google your own name, you can’t always control what information is available on you in the public domain!
Facebook is trying to build a safer, more trusted version of the internet. By holding people to the consequences of their actions and requirements to use their real identity.
But is it right for a company to decide on whether people should be responsible or not for their own actions? Who do Facebook think they are some would say? There is now so much data that resides about us on Facebook. Should any one company control and aggregate so much information about its users? We do not even know how it will be used in the future. This can be quite scary for some people, and understandably so.
Facebook uses some of this data for its own commercial gain, by making it available to advertisers. Is this the right thing to do?
So many questions, and in truth, I still have not made up my mind. I am not sure that a world governed by computers is the answer. So Facebook. Its vision to empower the individual is an admirable one. If they can give us the tools to enable them to communicate more efficiently, then that is not such a bad thing.
But what scares me, is that all this power is in the hands of one organisation. Soon, they will have as much information on us as governments do!
Food for thought..and if any of you can see the end result, please do let us know.
The social future of loyalty rewards programmes
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, M-Commerce, Online Marketing, Social Commerce, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions on July 2nd, 2010
A new social twist on loyalty rewards programmes has been announced – the launch of Topguest, a new service that will allow people to use their favorite location-aware social networks for something more than tricksy points, badges, mayorships and the odd mobile voucher; reward points and air miles from loyalty rewards programs of which they are members.
We think this fusion of loyalty rewards programs with location-aware social networking is smart – and an idea that is worth considering for brands with loyalty or CRM programs. By ‘checking in’ to hotels, bars, stores and other destinations on location-aware social networks such Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrl, TriOut, Loopt, Yelp and now Twitter, Google and Facebook, customers could earn reward points, bringing them to stores selling your wares, whether online or traditional.
For TopGuest, who are looking to become middleware between location-based services (LBS) and travel/loyalty rewards programs, their service is in preview mode, with a partnership with luxury hotel chain, Standard Hotels (reviews on TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and Cnet). What’s appealing about the TopGuest service is it’s simplicity, there are no apps to download, you can just ‘check-in’ with your social networking site and start getting rewards. Whilst there is a natural fit between an emergent category of location-aware loyalty rewards programs and travel, we think non-travel brands could develop similar services.
Imagine, for example, if Sony ran a contest during the World Cup in which people checking in to bars screening matches on Bravia TVs won reward points for the SonyStore (if they posted images of the match to TwitPic). Or if every time you checked in and picked up a car at Avis, points were added to your Avis First rewards program. Or, whilst following the travel tips of luxury brands on Foursquare such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Coach, you won loyalty points for following the tips and visiting stores.
Social Networking via your Smart TV…the future is closer than you think:
Posted by Paul McSweeney in E-Commerce, Facebook, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Traditional Marketing, Web Development, World News on May 18th, 2010
A year from now, according to Intel, television will have been reinvented by a concept it calls, Smart TV. Google and Intel are widely expected to announce a significant breakthrough into consumer electronics and the broadcast industry with the announcement of the launch of a “Smart TV” platform.
Intel says it’s chips and software will enable not just internet video streaming but could also allow operators to turn set-top boxes into video game consoles with games served over their connection.
Grid-style TV guides will be replaced by interfaces blending broadcast TV with internet content.
Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio, Sharp and Panasonic are all releasing internet-enabled TVs this year with features such as Skype video calls, Netflix movie streaming and on-screen widgets that offer news, weather, financial quotes, social networking and internet radio.
With TV’s, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes rapidly adding wired or wireless internet connectivity to their features, a host of companies are tailoring and integrating web-based content for living room entertainment.
Apple has yet to mount a serious challenge to. It’s Apple TV box allow users to buy and rent movies from its iTunes Store to play on their TVs. But apart from YouTube videos and Flickr photos, it’s access to the wider web is limited.
Intel Chief Executive, Paul Otellini, told analysts last week that “The revolution we’re about to go through is the biggest single change in television since it went colour”. It already has a backlog of 1m units for its latest Atom Chip; which offers better audio and video performance, wider and open software support and is cheaper than the competition.
For it’s part, Google is expected to call on its Android developer community this week to create applications for TVs and its software could prove popular if it also promises advertising revenue for TV manufacturers.
AOL make $850m mistake!
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, World News on April 21st, 2010
In 2008, the couple that set up the social networking site Bebo, sold out to AOL for $850m. Not bad for a few years work! It was an eye watering figure at the time, but this seems a lot worse, now that AOL have decided to cut their losses and close it. Bebo is popular among the youth, but none of these social networking sites, have so far shown, any great propensity to make money. Facebook has roughly 400m users worldwide, but barely breaks even. So what chance did Bebo have? Bebo is yet another example of how big media conglomerates jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon with disastrous consequences. They try and jump on the wave of social media and get it horribly wrong. I am just glad I am not a shareholder of AOL…or come to think of it ITV…they lost £145m on Friends Reunited. NewsCorp shelled out megabucks for MySpace…that does not look like a master stroke either at this stage. So what is the answer..the acquisition of young companies by large “old-world” players never seems to work..perhaps the model to follow is Google’s. They listed on the stock market through an IPO, and continue to make money for shareholders. And, possibly most significantly of all, they still get to control their destiny…
More world domination from Google ….
Posted by David Harrison in Useful Stuff on July 8th, 2009
One of my my more informative feeds, SearchEngineLand has posted an interesting article on Google’s new operating system …
Will they ever stop?
