Google to Launch Open Sourced Operating System

Google announced yesterday on its blog it will be launching an open-sourced operating system, Google Chrome OS. Hotting up the race for first place with Microsoft, it’s a direct challenge to the dominant Windows OS.

Google Chrome OS will be separate to Google’s existing mobile operating system, Android, and will be based off Google’s web browser, Chrome, which is regularly used by 30 million people after only nine months.
The system, which is launching later next year, will initially launch with netbooks, and after that the code will be open-sourced, with Google leveraging the knowledge and ideas of the developer community.

Google’s aim is to create a simple, fresh operating system tailored for the internet age, with most of the user experience being based on the web. Ambitious as ever, it states “we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”

Being web based, information will be accessible to users wherever they are. Google claims the new OS will also do away with users having to worry about backing up their files or updating their software, making for an all-round improved computing experience, something which is certainly appealing to computer users of all levels of knowledge.

Watch this space.

- Sam

Google Wave - coming soon

Google is in the throws of developing what looks set to be a very useful tool for online collaboration and communication. Browser-based “Google Wave” allows people to communicate with each other while working together on documents, incorporating text, photos, videos, maps and more.

Wave is ‘live,’ meaning users will be able to see their conversation (in the style of messenger) while interacting and editing in real-time. As well as being embeddable in websites, allowing sites to become more collaborative, Wave will be open sourced, encouraging developers to contribute to the product’s evolving functionality.

Upon launch later this year, Wave promises to impact greatly on how, for example, we interact with colleagues across markets, or even in the next office. Imagine being able to do away with the endless to-ing and fro-ing of documents, updated using the untidy-looking ’tracked changes.’ This is something that will surely be useful for those working on documents which require a large number of edits and approvals.

However as it is browser-based, Google will perhaps have to work hard to convince users of the tool’s security.

- Sam

Major music company teams with Google to launch ad-supported video online service

Universal Music has partnered with Google to launch Vevo.com, a new ad-supported online music and video service. Vevo will act as a premium online music video hub, hosting Universal Music’s official music promo videos.

Additionally, Google’s YouTube has renewed its partnership with the record company to give users access to User Generated Content videos containing music from Universal’s artists. On YouTube, this content will be available exclusively through a new Vevo channel and branded video player. Google and Universal will share advertising revenue from both platforms.

Content creators are clearly still getting involved in the ad-funded content arena. It will be interesting to see what the take-up is for this new service, and whether the ad-funded model is still alive and kicking.

- Sam

Twitter Developments

Recent buzz around developments in social media has included a possible buy-out of Twitter by Google, suggesting the microblogging service’s content is valuable to the search giant’s search engine index.

The posting of millions of real-time comments, musings and announcements is clearly an important development in search and social media as a whole, as companies such as Google look at ways of mining data for information otherwise sought in a search engine.

Twitter recently launched www.exectweets.com whereby users can find and follow the insights of top business executives, including Virgin’s Richard Branson. Exectweets.com was launched in partnership with Microsoft, demonstrating how major brands can get involved in sponsoring the service. Given that Twitter hasn’t yet worked out how to generate revenue, despite being hugely popular, this is an interesting venture into third party advertising.

- Sam

Google’s StreetView has arrived

After a year in the making, Google has just launched its new mapping application, Street View service.

StreetView, which was launched in the UK yesterday, allows users to access 360-degree real-life views of 25 UK cities through their computers and mobile phones. Users click on the small yellow man icon when they visit Google Maps to activate the Street View service. Street View UK was the reason behind the odd sighting over the past year on UK streets of even odder Google branded cars complete with recording equipment on their roofs.

In terms of privacy issues, Google insists it will be removing photos it deems breach privacy issues or that display inappropriate content. Human faces and car number plates are blurred, while people who object to themselves or their homes being featured can raise their issue by submitting an online form.

Street View first launched in Sydney, Australia, with San Francisco and Paris quickly following suit.

It will be interesting to see how this new offering of real-life images has an impact on brands' advertising activities; will we see more emerging media trials, such as Augmented Reality and will there be an impact on search, for example.

- Sam

YouTube Pulls Music Videos in Royalty Fees Dispute

Google-owned YouTube yesterday began to block UK users’ access to some of the world’s most popular music videos on its site after failing to reach a settlement with the PRS for Music, the umbrella company representing UK composers and publishers.

The video sharing site and the music industry body have been in negotiations for several months to renew their contract allowing the PRS for Music to collect royalities on behalf of musicians. They collect fees each time a song is played or performed.

In a bold move, YouTube began a music video blackout on its site after blaming the PRS’ unrealistic increase in fees. Both sides have laid the blame in each others’ court, with the PRS hitting back by claiming the unexpected move by YouTube comes in the midst of ongoing renegotiations, with the main sufferers being the consumers and musicians themselves.

Whatever the genuine reasons, it’s a radical step by the US video sharing site, who are removing the videos by their own decision, not due to demands made by the PRS or the music publishers or songwriters they represent. Far more typically content removal is demanded by the content creators or owners, not the publishers.
- Sam

Google planning on becoming even more indispensable to computer users

Word on the street is that Google is planning on launching Gdrive, a hard drive stored on the internet which aims to replace the traditional hard drive. Users will be able to store the entire contents of their hard drive on any device with an internet connection.

Google currently already has an online data storage product connected to its email offering, Gmail, but this new service offers a much larger capacity, potentially powerful enough to run programmes.

However concerns over privacy have already been raised regarding just how secure such an operating system could be in terms of storing commercial and private data.

- Sam

Google to Lift Advertising Ban on Spirit Brands

Following on from the decision to lift its ban on advertising gambling sites, Google is to lift its restrictions on advertising alcoholic spirits on Google UK.

From January 2009 spirit brands will be allowed to run search campaigns relating to brand advertising but not direct response and demand generation campaigns that promote sales.

For the full story click here

- Sam

Google Launches In-game Advertising

Along the lines of Microsoft’s Massive and IGA, Google has stepped into the market of in-game advertising. The in-game ads will be sold via Google’s AdSense team and will initially target web games only, reports Brand Republic.

AdSense for Games, which is currently in beta and open only to publishers with 80% or more traffic from the UK or the US, will allow video, image or text ads to be displayed at any point in online games.

The news come on the back of the release of Comscore research which shows that more than 25% of internet users play online games per week, amounting to over 200m users worldwide.

Google's AdWords team will sell ad placements to top brand advertisers and games manufacturers will be able to see contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information. The first big name brands said to be taking part in AdSense for Games include eSurance, Sprint and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Digital/News/852103/Google-enters-in-game-ad-market/?DCMP=EMC-Digital-Bulletin

- Sam

Google Phone Details Leaked

TechCrunch has reported that with less than 12 hours to go until the launch of the first ever Google phone, G1, news has begun to leak about the phone's specifications.

Reports TechCrunch, "Images extracted from the depths of T-Mobile’s G1 site have begun hitting tip boxes, and now TmoNews has managed to get their hands on a bunch of specs and details.

What’s known so far:
In-store, immediate sales only available in stores within 5 miles of a 3G covered area. If a store is beyond that range, representatives will walk customers through a T-mobile.com purchase.

One touch access to: Search, Maps, Gmail, Youtube, Calendar, and Google Talk
Gmail account and data plan required
GPS
3.1 mp camera, no video recording
No stereo bluetooth (A2DP)
Dimensions: 4.6 x 2.16 x 0.63 in
Weighs 5.6 ounces
480×320 65K color screen
5 hour talk time, 130 hour standby time
Expandable up to 8GB"

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/22/t-mobile-g1-specs-leaked-prior-to-announcement/

Watch this space for the official announcement..

- Sam

Google Feels the Sting of Web Censorship

Google has been forced to lift its ban on religious organisations placing anti-abortion ads on its site after it was sued by a pro-life charity. Its previous policy banned advertising sites that mixed “abortion and religion-related content”. The Christian Institute, which sued Google, is now allowed to place paid search ads on the search engine.

Meanwhile YouTube is adapting to self-imposed censorship within the UK where it has banned the uploading of videos encouraging gang violence and gun and knife crime, after it came under fire for not regulating its video content enough to prevent the exposure of videos with violent material.

- Sam

Groundbreaking Deal Sees Google Act as Ad Broker to NBC

With TV and the internet moving closer together every day, Google has made a historic deal with NBC to become the cable channel’s third party ad broker. Only a few years ago, no television network would have considered letting any independent third party company deal with its advertising, let alone an internet-based search company, but with TV now trying to keep up with new technology, this may be the way forward.

The deal gives NBC a fresh take on advertising not to mention a bigger catalogue of advertisers. And with Google having to constantly keep up with the ever-evolving internet, they will provide NBC with a vital partnership that will keep NBC ahead of their competitors and up-to-date with technology and changing media.

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130970

- Antonia Lim

Google Launches Free Browser in its Ongoing Battle with Microsoft

Following straight on from Microsoft’s announcement of its latest version of Internet Explorer with its “InPrivate” setting, (which can block third parties accessing users’ browser habits), Google has announced it is launching its own free web browser in 100 countries, Google Chrome.

Google Chrome will also feature its version of "InPrivate," "Incognito Mode," which it says is for “times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays. Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows.”

Microsoft's Internet Explorer currently accounts for 72% of the installed browser market, followed by Mozilla Firefox (of which Google is a key partner) with 20%. Google and Firefox recently renewed their partnership agreement until 2011 which contains a clause for Google to be the default search engine within Firefox.

There is whisper that Google’s next step is to partner with OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to create Windows-free PCs. Google’s strategy of launching internet based applications, such as its Google documents and spreadsheets, aims to shift its users’ habits away from Windows applications, but of course means it is increasingly reliant on browser technology, as acknowledged by Google vice-president of product management, Sundar Pichai, "We realised that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build."

Check out the official Google Chrome blog site here.

- Sam

Microsoft’s latest version of Internet Explorer challenges click-through advertising

Microsoft has launched an updated version of Internet Explorer (8) to include “InPrivate” settings which allow users to visit websites without disclosing their browsing habits, thereby eliminating unwanted ads.

“InPrivate,” available on Explorer 8 and currently only in Beta version, lets users see in advance what content is being delivered from third party sites. Users can then choose to block the content, including advertising and software. Web cookies are then deleted when the tab is closed.

It certainly proves a challenge to the advertising models of its rivals, including Google’s DoubleClick, which delivers targeted advertising to users based on their browsing behaviour.

- Sam

18 ways to target search on Google (The Inquisitr)

http://www.inquisitr.com/2314/18-ways-to-power-search-google/

Great article on ways that you can target your copy sets and keywords on Google:

Everyone uses Google, but most people search Google by entering the term or word they are looking for without ever using any of Google’s built in features. Google is great as it is, but as the web gets bigger even Google, once famed for its great results, is delivering poorer results for basic search terms.

Google power users know the tricks, and they aren’t hard to pick up at all. Using Google’s built in features helps you find what you’re looking for faster, and that’s always a good thing. Here’s 18 ways to power search Google that you can use today to improve your Google experience.

Not: adding a minus (-) allows you to narrow your search, for example if you wanted to search for New York but not City you’d enter New York -City

Either/or. Google looks for the combination of terms you type in, but you can tell it to look for multiple words, for example Olympic or Gold. The short cut is so Olympic Gold works as well

Specific Document Types use the modifier “filetype:” if you’re looking for documents or pictures, for example blogging filetype:pdf delivers pdf documents that include the word blogging.

Quotation marks: I use this trick regularly. If you’re looking for the exact phrase, not the words entered, do your search like this “I did but see her passing by”

Wildcard: old DOS users will remember doing directory searches using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, and Google supports wildcard entries as well. Example: blogging *.com.au

Definitions: stuck on a word you don’t understand? in Google, it’s as simple as define:word to deliver you a list of definitions

Similar terms: ~ in front of a word tells Google to look for similar terms to that word, for example ~blog web 2.0

Site Specific Search: another shortcut I use regularly. To search within a specific site, start the query with site:name.com term. Other rules can be used in the search.

Calculator: who would have thought you could use Google as a calculator. Google supports /*-+ for a result.

Phone Listing: Want to know who your missed call was from? type phonebook:555-555-5555 for the answer. Works primarily in the United States.

Links: want to know who is linking to your blog, or even specific post? enter link:url.com into Google for the answer.

Format specific search: sometimes finding what you want in Google can be difficult, but Google offers a range of format specific search sites. Google News, Blog Search, even Video are a few Google sites you can use to find what you’re looking for.

Area Code Lookup: type in the US area code into Google to find out where the area code is.

Movies: Get the latest movie times at your local cinema by typing movie:movie name zip.

Stock Price: enter a valid stock symbol for the latest reported stock price, for example YHOO.

Music: want the details of a song? use music:song name for Music specific search on Google

Metric conversion: convert imperial measurements to metric and back again quickly via the Google search box. For example: 100 lbs in kg

Term location: use inurl:, intitle:, intext:, or inanchor: to tell Google where it should look for the term your looking for.

Cache: Google keeps a comprehensive cache database of many websites, and you can search this database by starting your search with cached:

Naturally, many of these features and more, including the ability to define the date rage for content, can be access via the advanced search link next to the Google search button.