Is this the future of technology? The co-founder of Oblong, John Underkoffler, is the man who came up with the gesture-based interface used in the Steven Spielberg movie. And now he’s building it in real life.Welcome to spatial operating system:
I wanted to write an entry on my thoughts about google services. Don’t get me wrong, I love google. I really like it, its strategy of providing everything for free and try to find revenue through other ways (it took them a while), in their case adds is absolutely great and has marked a before and after, not just in the web business but in the general way of doing business.
Previously companies wanted to have maximum profit, now thanks to google and the Internet, companies trend to have the minimum profit to survive so they can provide free or cheap services, listening to their customers and being inventive and interactive about the way to gain benefits thanks also the the increase in sales and user pools.
Anyway, there is a very good read about this from a guy I like a lot Jeff Jarvis (twitter) called “What would Google do“. This book gives you a very good idea of how the new businesses are going. All you learnt in your MBA is obsolete.
Well, here I did not wanted to talk about Google philosophically, but just to give my thoughts about the way it is growing and even if they don’t have a shadow, how they should grow.
I am an apple fan. I like it because I also use Windows (at work and on my other laptop) and Linux (on my servers). The cloud services Apple offers are crap compared to Google.
The problem I see is that by buying and having so many products they are starting to spread too much. I found a couple of annoying problems:
They look to favor Gmail users over google apps one, which is stupid because the google apps ones are paid costumers (at least some) and companies (where google can grow profit), so it should be in the other way around.
I host the email from tokao with google. Norai I have it at home on my servers (tokao I use for newsletter and so, norai for the rest… I don’t trust anybody to host my stuff… but this is another chapter). Well I cannot use buzz with tokao. I cannot use many services in fact. Google app users have limited services. Google services are not extended to them.
By having so many services now integrations does not mean just to log in with the same user and password. For instance youtube is independent from picasa and picasa from gmail, and gmail from wave… and what if you have several accounts? I have an acount with norai, another with google apps with tokao and I have a gmail too. Why can’t I merge them? It is very annoying.
With norai I don’t have email with google, but I tried buzz in my iphone and worked! I wanted to use tokao instead. Now my norai login is starting to have a lot of friends in buzz, that I can only see in my iPhone (well there is a workaround: https://m.google.com/app/buzz?force=1 but it is not the right way).
From my iphone there is no way to upload photos to buzz either. If you follow people who is more or less famouse, they colapse your home screen, as comments push their conversations premaritally to the top… no filtering. You can mute a conversation (pressing M) but then is hard to have it back.
What do you think about google spreading that much? wave, buzz, … don’t we have enough with Facebook, twitter and foursquare?
The pool of user with gmail I thing is less 30 million users. Facebook around 400 million. Twitter might be around 80 Million. Buzz is limited to gmail users. Some people thinks that buzz can eat part of the Facebook share as well as twitter’s. What do you think?
They also thought that wave was going to be big. And it is a quite interesting tool, but once you are in… who do you use it with?? It is not like email that is cross platform… and in my case maybe less than 15% of my friends are in gmail while they are all in facebook. For shouting to the world, well, there are plenty of other alternatives, such as twitter.
I think buzz can be big, but we are starting to have a saturated market. At least google is reactive to people. They changed privacy settings quick, and they will add filtering. We cannot say the same of twitter. If twitter would be so reactive they would not have shadow. They could do so by creating something similar to brightkite.
Yeap! we are all (the three of us) going on holidays!
I will be blogging daily as we did in our previous trip around the world one year ago!
You will be able to follow our trip on by going to:
http://tokao.com/tag/caribbean-cruise/
It is our first trip with Kai. It is not like the trip we did last year but for a 2 month old is going to be a good test. We are planing to drive to Barcelona first, stay there for a while, then take the plane to Miami, rent a car at the airport, go to our hotel in Miami South Beach: The Clay Hotel, and then to Port Everglade (north of Miami) drop the car and start the cruise on board of the MSC Poesia, a 2008 cruise for 3000 people. You can make a virtual tour here.
We will be cruising around the Caribbean in the floating city for 15 days. In fact this is two 7 day cruises in one, so two circuits, passing by Port Everglades in the middle of the stay.
After, once we are back on the 13th of March, we will rent a car again (still have to do that, and in fact still have to do the first one too), and go around as we will have 3 days. We might go to the National Parc of the Everglades in the south of Florida… we have to see.
Then back to Barcelona arriving on the 17th March, and probably drive back home on the 22nd or so.
Here you have a map with markers of all the places we are planning to go. Click on the marker to find out more information.
The productivity suite empire Zoho launched a simple invoicing tool, unsurprisingly called Zoho Invoice. Now, the startup is releasing a new version of its Invoice, dubbed Invoice 2.0, that has a fresh user interface and provides a more open application.
The fact is that over the past two years, there have been a plethora of online invoicing startups that have popped up and Zoho is catching up to its competitors with version two of its offering. With this update, Zoho has redesigned its UI making it easier to navigate and customize to fit the look and feel of a business’ design. Zoho Invoice will also allow users to record separate expenses they incur while serving particular clients (like travel, material etc).
The version also has full organization, multi-user support so that several employees can access and collaborate on invoices for a particular account. And Zoho has opened up the API for Invoices to that developers can integrate the application into their own applications. Additionally, Zoho features useful bells and whistles such as multi-currency support and email history which tracks your email exchanges with your clients and other users.
The plus of using Zoho’s invoicing application is that it ties into its other productivity applications seamlessly. And its affordable, with a free version and the most expensive version coming in at $35 per month. Last year, we wrote that Zoho has continued to implement an intelligent strategy to launch new products and add-ons to its existing offerings, partly to keep users from flocking to Google Apps and Microsoft’s Web-based version of Microsoft 2010. It looks like Zoho is continuing this strategy in 2010.
Last year, startup unveiled a new version of Zoho Reports; launched a deeper integration with Google Docs; rolled out Zoho Discussions
, a online forum tool for businesses; and debutedZoho Recruit.
And over the past two years, Zoho has added support for Sharepoint, mobile, Google and Yahoo IDs and group sharing. According to out latest states, Zoho has definitely reached over 2 million users is even catching the attention of its competition. Hopefully, 2010 will be as fruitful as 2009.
(from techcrunch and zoho)
As you saw in a couple of previous posts, google released his social tool called google buzz (not to be confused with yahoo’s one…).
I tried though it still does not work in google apps, and it is pretty good. It is sort of twitter with location and photos, in fact if you read me, you will see that in a way this is what I was looking for… well no.
Yes, it does have all the ingredients: location, you can follow people and in a way is like twitter on steroids (which is great), you can have it in your gmail, there is a cool mobile version too… but…
Well the but is the but I had with google wave. A lot of people can follow you but you need a google account. Like wave, where ended up being a very promising tool but from the moment that it is closed to google users (or wave users which is worse) then is meant to have a difficult future. With buzz the pool is bigger, as there are a lot of google users, but it is still not like email where you can send email across systems, or like twitter where you can just shout and everybody can see it, and follow you.
Did we need another social tool?
Most of us are happy with facebook and twitter. Twitter is limited as I said in the past (location, photos, etc…) but it is big.
Do you think buzz could be a twitter killer? Maybe…
We are starting to have a bit of fatigue on social tools. Recently I posted an article on location based apps, well I got several emails from little companies and I tried all their products. Some are good, but it will be difficult to beat foursquare which looks like is the most established.
For the time being I stick to facebook (for my friends), twitter (for the world), and brightkite to post in both (location and photos). For location foursquare and tellmewhere.
I keep trying buzz and latitude, that by the way, how do they live together? Looks like they don’t know each other…
By the way, google should work harder on integration. I would like to merge all my accounts under one profile and for the time being is not possible…
There is a very cool service called OpenTable.
OpenTable is the leading supplier of reservation, table management and guest management software for restaurants plus www.opentable.com, the world’s most popular website for making restaurant reservations online.
With more than 12,000 customers throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Japan, the OpenTable hardware and software system replaces pen-and-paper at the host stand. It automates the process of taking reservations and managing tables, while allowing restaurants to build robust diner databases for superior guest recognition and targeted e-mail marketing.
For diners, concierges and administrative professionals, the website provides a fast, efficient way to find available tables that meet desired criteria for cuisine, price and location at a specified time. Reservations are free and can be made around the clock. The website is directly connected to the thousands of computerized reservation systems at OpenTable restaurants. Search results reflect actual, “real-time” availability and reservations are immediately recorded in the same electronic reservation book used by the maitre’d.
Unfortunately there are only 2 restaurants in Geneva, but I see the potential of a tool like this, which has an iPhone app and also manages reviews (like other location apps such as tellmewhere or tripadvisor).
The nice thing of this one is that allows restaurants to manage bookings, and you can go and see who in a specific area and cusine has a free table at 8.30pm, click and book it. Pretty cool. True that you can always grab the phone and call, but here you can do much more: search, etc…
[ By Marc in weburbanist ]
While the majority of consumers are content to purchase the newest brand of name brand shoes, in the same color and style they always get, this doesn’t hold true for everyone. In our daily lives we only come across the occasional individual who truly works at expressing their personality via their shoes. Here are 13 groups of the wildest shoes you wouldn’t even see on the most outrageous free spirit:
Fur coats are common, but fur shoes, not so much. In the Native American tradition of using every part of an animal, some creative shoe designers have taken this philosophy to the next level… creating shoes that appear animalistic to an extreme.
Designers are always pushing the boundaries between form and function, in the hope of inspiring new lines that can be sold to a wider audience. Some designers add new features, while other try to go so minimalist that they remove entire sections of a shoe to reveal what’s beneath.
Almost all shoes are designed in the same boring fashion, but there are definitely exceptions. Whether a designer utilizes a smoother, waving form, or manipulates the shape into something that hardly resembles a shoe, they all let their creativity go wild.
There aren’t any rules when it comes to design, and some creative innovators try to redefine what we consider set in stone. Some of the results are too radical for most people’s taste, but the occasional design will strike a chord with a larger audience (or a wealthy customer), and become a true success.
When you’re dressing up in costume, it’s important not to forget your feet. You can go for the realistic, disgusting look, or put on a pair of rats that look way too real. Either way, you’ll leave a trail of groaning friends in your wake.
High heels give a graceful, elegant look, and the height of a model. Just like anything, though, extremes can be ridiculous. Incredibly tall high heels can add an artistic flair to a model walking down the runway, but there is an element of very real danger. A lot of women have twisted their ankles, and taken bad spills.
Some shoes are made out of alternative materials in order to be more environmentally friendly, or add an interesting twist to a typically mundane clothing item, but this isn’t always the case. Necessity breeds invention, and sadly, this means that some of the poorest people are forced to make shoes out of any materials they can get their hands on.
Not all mainstream shoe makers are boring. Shoe makers will make special edition shoes that appeal to a niche group of consumers, and advertise the brand as something unique. Form fitting shoes are meant to give better feedback to one’s feet, while still protecting them from the elements, but they look as out of this world as a pair of a dinosaur sneakers, or as ridiculous as a tennis ball shoe.
While it may not be incredibly functional, shoes can be a fantastic medium for artistic endeavors. There’s something inherently interesting about a common, and typically boring, element from our everyday lives being turned into something creative and unique.
Quirky and outlandish shoes are a great way to stand out in a crowd and express an artistic spirit. You can search high and low for rare and exotic designs, or add to an already existing model and make it your own. The true DIY fanatic will find a way to make anything unique.
Like a novelty clown nose, or gigantic foam hands and hats created for sporting events or special occasions, there’s a seemingly endless variety of shoes meant to cause a laugh. The stereotypical clown shoe is just the beginning, as almost any item can be turned into a semblance of a shoe, though it might not be the most comfortable thing to wear.
Most people who have worn high heels will attest that they’re not the most comfortable clothing item in the world, but some designers express this in an industrial, and blatant way, by adding heavy, painful looking spikes and metals, and turning an elegant item into something intimidating.
As social media has become a game changer for industries across the board, you can bet the experts at this year’s TED conference will have their sights set on peeling back the hype and getting at the core of what social technology has in store for this year and beyond.
Perhaps the best part of the TED conferences is that videos of the talks are archived and free to view right on the organization’s website. Given the wealth of insight we’re sure to see tomorrow, we thought we’d whet your appetite by highlighting a few recent and exceptional talks from TED’s past, with a focus on social media.
We’ll start things off with a real-life social media parable about how the biggest and most effective forces on the web usually take shape by accident. Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com tells the quick and hilarious story of how the social web provided some unexpected help to Greenpeace in halting the Japanese whaling industry. Internet marketers take note: The meme is all powerful, and it cannot be controlled.
In this talk, consultant, professor and author Clay Shirky discusses the unprecedented immediacy of real-time citizen journalism made possible by social media and the nearly ubiquitous access to mobile web technologies. From the election crisis in Iran to the massive earthquake that shook China in May of 2008, Shirky discusses how media is made on the ground, as-it-happens, via the social web.
With a couple of anecdotes building the ultimate social media case study, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams discusses how a little side project called Twitter became a game-changing phenomenon with the help and input of the very users who made the service a success. From innovative marketing uses to core functionality, Williams provides the evidence for what we knew all along: Users know best.
As social media changes our social lives, speculation has abounded for years on how the web may be disconnecting us from intimate interactions in favor of meaningless quests to rack up followers and “friends.” Not so, says Stefana Broadbent, who explains that social networks function the same way online as they do in real life. While we may have lots of friends, we only really communicate regularly and meaningfully with a handful of them, and social technologies like e-mail, texting, and tweeting allow us to do so more often across time and space.
From professional sports mascots to balloon animal makers, some communities are so extremely niche that they could only properly thrive on the Internet. So argues blogger and author Seth Godin, who believes that our revolutionary new connectedness has brought human culture back to its roots, and that tribes (groups of people mobilized around a shared interest) are the present and future of all web content.
(from mashable)
Google has just unveiled its latest attempt to become more relevant in the social media space: Google Buzz. The product is integrated within Gmail and will be rolled out gradually to all of the webmail service’s users over the next few days.
You’re busy. Between meetings, social events, and hopefully a workout or two, your schedule’s packed. Don’t you wish you could hand off simple tasks so you could have more time to play?
Take a look at Siri, your personal assistant. Just like a real assistant, Siri understands what you say, accomplishes tasks for you and adapts to your preferences over time.
Today, Siri can help you find and plan things to do. You can ask Siri to find a romantic place for dinner, tell you what’s playing at a local jazz club or get tickets to a movie for Saturday night.
Siri is young and, like a child taking its first steps, may be awkward at times. Siri may occasionally misunderstand things you ask it to do even within its range of understanding.
Nonetheless, Siri will improve quickly by getting to know you better and understanding a broader set of tasks. In fact, right now, Siri’s learning how to handle reminders, flights stats and reference questions. Our vision is that, over time, you’ll trust Siri to manage many personal details in your life – from recommending a wine you might enjoy to managing your to do list.
The current version of Siri is built for iPhone 3GS and requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later. Soon, Siri will run on the iPod Touch, iPhone 3G and additional mobile platforms, as well.
Google could be launching later today a social status update feature in Gmail. The Wall Street Journal reports that it is a new Gmail module that could integrate status updates as well as content from YouTube, Picasa and potentially other social sources.
Google is organizing at its headquarters an event where they will “unveil some product innovations in two of [its] most popular products.”
The description fits very well with the WSJ report. Gmail is one of Google’s most popular products, and this new social status update feature would be a “product innovation” within Gmail.
Recent Comments