The latest development channel release of Google Chrome contains the ability to sync the browser’s bookmarks. The feature will let you keep the same set of bookmarks on multiple machines as well as store them in your Google Docs. Interestingly enough, Google already has a web-based bookmark service that goes by the name of Google Bookmarks. I wonder whether the plan is to eventually use Google Bookmarks as the back-end sync destination instead of Docs (a much better fit, wouldn’t you say?). If that is the strategy, then it is my opinion that we should get ready for a huge overhaul to the Google Bookmarks service. Read more »
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Bookmarks,
Chrome,
Cloud Computing,
Featured,
Google,
Strategy
Back in 2008, Microsoft announced Office Web Applications – the web-based version of its ever-popular productivity suite – Microsoft Office. We’ve come across more details recently, with the beta release of Office 2010: the online suite will be made up of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, will be capable of synchronizing with the desktop, will be platform and browser-independent, but will contain less features than the desktop versions of those programs. That should not be an issue, however, since most Office users use very few features in Office.
The suite will be available to everyone for free via Windows Live and to corporate users through different distribution channels. Since the announcement, such questions as “How would this affect Google Docs/Apps and the Zoho office suite?” have been widely discussed topics. Let’s take a pragmatic look at what we should really expect from Office Web Applications. Read more »
Posted in
Apps,
Business,
Decisions,
Featured,
Microsoft,
Office,
Software,
Synchronization,
Web apps
Earlier in May, word got out that Apple is planning to invest $1 billion in a server farm. The facility, to be located in the State of North Carolina, will follow a similar (albeit smaller) $600 million undertaking by Google. As could be expected, analysts, bloggers, and the Twitterverse the world over speculated about the possible uses for the investment, but I don’t think anyone hit the nail squarely on the head. I think Apple will use its new server farm to completely cut the cord between its iPhone product line and the desktop. And it will do so in a big way. Read more »
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Apple,
Cloud Computing,
Featured,
Mac,
MobileMe,
Speculation,
Synchronization,
iPhone,
iTunes
Google Voice (GV) is the new version of GrandCentral from Google. It is a service that gives you one number for all your phones. Currently, it is only available to existing GrandCentral users, but it will be available to new users within the next few weeks. The service, in its current guise, is completely free, so you don’t have to worry about your wallet screaming at you. Google Voice comes packed with many features. The basic premise is simple: to start things off, you pick your own international number and register your existing phone numbers, be they landlines or cell phones. From there, you use your existing phones to call into GrandCentral, from which you can call the entire United States for free. For a nominal fee, you can make calls to the rest of the world. The rates are often less than traditional international rates and are more in line with what Skype charges for its international calls.
In late 2005, GrandCentral was founded by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet. Fed up with having to run to the other side of the house to answer the home phone, they wanted a way to take all their phones and voicemail in-boxes and unify the experience. In essence, GrandCentral never aimed to replace your phones, but to glue them together and give them more features, all to make your voice communication easier. In July of 2007, Google acquired GrandCentral for $95 million. The founders were happy to accept the partnership knowing that they could do more with Google behind them. Just a few weeks ago, Google officially announced Google Voice, which is the new version of GrandCentral.
So what exactly can Google Voice do for you? Read more »
Posted in
Cloud Computing,
Companies,
Web apps
Dropbox – the awesome storage, synchronization, and sharing application – is getting some much-requested changes. In an email to current users, the Dropbox Team announced that it will be making changes to the service’s undo history, introducing a new feature called “LAN Sync,” and making numerous performance improvements. The team also announced the forthcoming of an iPhone app. Read more »
Posted in
Apps,
Cloud Computing,
Software,
Synchronization,
Web apps
YouTube has just released YouTube XL, which is YouTube – formatted for your big screen. Over the course of the last few months, competitors such as Boxee and Hulu have been increasing the quality of their videos, with Hulu on Boxee on Apple TV (did you get all that?) seen as the ultimate set-up in streaming on-demand web video. Today, YouTube has upped the ante with its aptly-named XL version. Read more »
Posted in
Cloud Computing,
Entertainment,
Redesign,
Social Media,
Social Networking,
User experience,
YouTube
Google Docs now supports uploading of documents in Microsoft’s most recent file format: the XML-based .docx and .xlsx that comes with Office 2007 (Windows) and 2008 (Mac). This means that whenever someone sends you a Microosft Office Word document or an Excel spreadsheet with a file extension that ends with .x, you no longer have to convert it to a .doc or a .xls format just to upload it to Google Docs. This also continues down the path of further removing the barriers of using Google Docs as one’s primary document-editing suite/repository.
No word yet on when Google’s online office suite will support .pptx files for PowerPoint presentations encoded in the XML goodness.
Posted in
Cloud Computing,
Google,
Web apps
The sole purpose of this post is to test the effect of site framing. Specifically, we are testing the DiggBar and how a website’s traffic is affected by it. We will report openly to the web community with the results of this mini-experiment. Please follow the guidelines below. This is the only way our experiment can work and for the results of this test to be accurate (very important):
- If you are logged into Digg, please Digg this story and visit it through the DiggBar. Don’t click through to the original.
- If you are not logged into Digg, click through to the original story without the DiggBar. Then go ahead and log in. Digg the story but don’t click through a second time.
We are basing the baseline (constant) traffic that we should be getting on the amount of times the post gets Dugg. For example: if the post is Dugg 100 times and fellow Diggers follow the above instructions, we should be able to tell how much traffic the DiggBar added/subtracted from overall site traffic. So if we get 90 pageviews, it would means that 10 pageviews were stolen from us by the DiggBar.
Just in case you were referred here through a different site (not Digg), here is the link to Digg this post:
http://digg.com/tech_news/How_much_traffic_does_the_DiggBar_frame_steal_from_your_site
Why all the fuss?
As we discussed on the TNR Podcast over and over again (as well as countless others in the industry) we don’t like sites that frame other sites. So we’re putting our traffic where our mouth is and want to find out what effect frames have on overall site traffic. Frames are the underlying technology behind website bars such as the DiggBar, the Facebook bar, and the Hootsuite bar. We’re starting our experiment with Digg (being the most tech-savvy place on the web in our opinion 
) ).
Since this is an open experiment the results of which will be available freely to everybody, we will post them on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 on the home page of TechNestReport.com. We will be using the above instructions as the baseline of the experiment and will be collecting traffic data using Google Analytics.
Posted in
Cloud Computing,
Digg,
Experiment,
Exteme Geek,
Featured,
Numbers,
Social Networking,
Web design
Last week, I was checking my bacn account on Yahoo! Mail and noticed that Twitter’s new follower email looked different. The newly-redesigned email (pictured below) sent out by the ever-growing social network is a winner – both from a design and a functionality standpoint.
For starters, the new email that left Twitter labs has Twitter’s logo on it (something the old email was missing – pictured below) as well as the familiar “cloud” background – which makes the message instantly identifiable. On top of that, the email now includes a lot more useful information about your new follower: the amount of followers the user has, how many updates the user has posted, as well as the number of other Twitter users your new follower is following, are all displayed to the right of the user’s Twitter avatar. Rounding out the newly-redesigned email is a link to the user’s profile, a link to block the user, and a link to turn off email notifications altogether. All around, this is a much-needed update to Twitter’s new follower email notification. Read more »
Posted in
Cloud Computing,
Decisions,
Social Networking,
Success,
Twitter
A standard iPhone notification window
Now that we know what’s taken Apple so long to roll out its Push Notification Service (PNS), we can begin to look forward to all the new functionality it will bring to the iPhone. One of the most disruptive features that the PNS will enable is the ability to be notified of Twitter updates directly through iPhone’s standard notifications – all courtesy of iPhone Twitter apps such as Tweetie, TwitterFon, Twinkle, or all the other Twitter clients available in the App Store (iTunes links). What does this mean for iPhone-using Twitterrers? It means that Twitter updates delivered via SMS/text message are a thing of the past. It also means instant Twitter updates. And herein lies the rub.
Given that Twitter users follow more than a handful of other Twitter users, it would seem problematic to receive all the updates of different Twitterrers at the same time – especially if the Tweets are in the form of an iPhone notification – it would be like getting 20-30 text messages at the same time. In fact, it can very quickly lead to information overload – which in itself can cause headaches, screams for desperation, and the much-feared technology addiction so many of us try to avoid. In either case, instant push notifications to the iPhone will cause a big shift in Twitter usage – leading users to carefully select which Twitter users’ updates they would like to be notified of on their phone instantaneously. And from then on, the usage scenarios will get very interesting and – dare I say – new: whose Tweets will I pick as a Twitter user to be delivered to me at any time? Why will I pick that particualar Twitter user? What is that perfect Tweet-to-notification balance for a Twitter to be on my instant-notification list?
What’s so colossal here? It’s not immediately apparent – but its the fact that Twitter users will now carefully pick whose updates are actually important enough to interrupt them throughout the day via an iPhone pop-up notification. In that regard, I can see only a few Twitterrers per user being on this super-important “instant update” list and these users will have higher levels of interaction with those who get their updates. The opportunities for companies and organizations to market real-time (such as last-minute promotions) is greatly increased as well.
What do you think? Will the ability to get instant push notifications of Twitter updates to your iPhone change your following habits? Will you follow only certain people or will you allow only the updates of a few be pushed to you and thus give them the ability to interrupt you in whatever you’re doing? Talk to me in the comments.
PS: the ability to receive push notifications via the Apple Push Notification Service will save money for the user (no SMS charges to worry about) and Twitter (same here – only for outgoing). The carriers are the ones to suffer here. I know this last piece brings tons of joy to some.
Posted in
Microblogging,
Social Networking,
Twitter,
iPhone
The latest development channel release of Google Chrome contains the ability to sync the browser’s bookmarks. The feature will let you keep the same set of bookmarks on multiple machines as well as store them in your Google Docs. Interestingly enough, Google already has a web-based bookmark service that goes by the name of Google Bookmarks. I wonder whether the plan is to eventually use Google Bookmarks as the back-end sync destination instead of Docs (a much better fit, wouldn’t you say?). If that is the strategy, then it is my opinion that we should get ready for a huge overhaul to the Google Bookmarks service. Read more »
