Google has been busy registering several domain names in recent days that could be signs of things to come. A couple seem to relate to some kind of lab-related project(s), some are AdWords-related and others are related to the Google Screenwise program that I wrote about earlier this week. Here's a look at at least some of Google's recent domain registrations: Lab Domains These two domains were registered on February 6th: GoogleWebLab.com ChromeWebLab.com Neither resolves to an active web page as of this moment. Last summer, Google announced the closure of Google Labs, the expe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Labs | Google: Screenwise | Top News

Light bulbs that connect to the internet? Elevators that reach into space? Robots that show up for work in your place? These are a few of about 100 ideas that Google is reportedly toying with inside Google X, the name of a "top-secret lab" somewhere in the Bay Area. The New York Times wrote about it this weekend after speaking to a dozen people that are aware of the project. According to the Times, robots (and I don't mean the .txt file) play a big part in Google X: Robots figure prominently in many of the ideas. They have long captured the imagination of Google engineers, including [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Cars | Google: Labs | Google: Other

Buzz was a great learning experience, says Google, but in a few weeks it will be shut down and all such efforts will be focused on Google Plus. The move will likely come as no surprise to Google-watchers, who noted that Buzz integration with Google+ was minimal. Additionally, the Google Labs page, as previously announced, will disappear after today. "We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google Plus," Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google, wrote in a blog post. Buzz had a relatively short [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Buzz | Google: Google+ | Google: Labs | Top News

Several more Google Labs projects have learned their fate as the company continues to close down Google Labs as part of a larger streamlining effort. Here's a look at the latest group of decisions. Google Labs Survivors Page Speed Online - A tool that launched earlier this year, Page Speed analyzes a given URL, gives it a score and offers a list of ways to make the page load faster. The URL for this tool still works via the GoogleLabs.com domain, but Google says Page Speed "will be hosted with our other developer tools." There's no indication exactly where, but Webmaster Tools seems t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs

Google has just announced the closure of several well-known products, including Fast Flip, Sidewiki, Aardvark and Subscribed Links. Some of these are part of the ongoing purge of Google Labs products, while others that are being shut down were not part of Labs. And Google has also announced that other Google Labs projects have "graduated" out of labs and survived the chopping block. Confused? Here's a recap of what's coming and what's going. Google Fast Flip Fast Flip launched in 2009 and offered a more visual, print-like way to view news on the web. The story goes that Google's [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Labs | Google: News | Google: Sidewiki | Top News

Another week, another round of updates from the slow phase-out of Google Labs. This week, good news for fans of one keyword-related tool, but bad news for fans of another. Google Correlate Added To Google Trends Google Correlate has survived the chopping block. Previously available at correlate.googlelabs.com, it's now been given a permanent home as part of Google Trends and can be found at www.google.com/trends/correlate. Correlate has been described as "Google Trends in reverse." With Trends, you provide a search term and get back data related to the term. With Correlate, you provi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Google: Correlate | Google: Labs | Search Marketing: Search Term Research | Top News

The slow demise of Google Labs has put a few more Google tools/services on the chopping block, including Google Squared and Google News Timeline. Those are two of the most recent experiments that Google has listed for shutdown on the Google Labs home page. Google Squared Google Squared launched in 2009 and offered search results in tables, with data presented across rows and down columns. That, at least, was the typical visible form of what Google Squared does/did. But the underlying technology also enabled Google to offer things like related searches and answers to questions, like th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs | Top News

Three weeks have passed since the surprising news that Google would be shutting down Google Labs, its playground where experimental product ideas went to live or die. We now know a little more about which ones will live and which won't. Over the past several days, Google has been updating GoogleLabs.com with the status and decisions on several current labs projects. Here are the decisions that have been made since the larger July 20th announcement: Google Labs Survivors Google Books Ngram Viewer: Google just announced today that this product will be incorporated into Google Books. F [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs

Is there any doubt that things at Google have changed under new CEO Larry Page? Today the company has announced the impending closure of Google Labs, its experimental playground where many popular Google products were born. In its announcement, Google says the decision to shut down Google Labs is part of its new focus on product efforts: While we've learned a huge amount by launching very early prototypes in Labs, we believe that greater focus is crucial if we're to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead. The announcement is extremely light on specifics -- no date is given [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs | Top News

I love search data. Being able to mine through millions of search queries to find out what people are really interested in is fascinating (and useful!). Google provides search data a number of ways, including Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, and via the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, and Microsoft has some great stuff via its Excel Advertising Intelligence add in (if you have Office 2007 or higher running on Windows). Google has also done some cool things with search data, including forecasting Flu Trends and predicting the impact of the Gulf oil spill on tourism in Florida. Now, t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Features: Analysis | Google: Correlate | Google: Labs | SEM Tools: Keyword Research | Top News

Google's fixation on page speed continues with today's addition of Page Speed, a new analysis tool in Google Labs. The tool analyzes any URL, gives it a grade (on a score of 0-100) and then offers a potentially long list of ways to make the page faster. The suggestions are divided into High, Medium and Low priority. The test, appropriately, runs in a matter of seconds. Search Engine Land has scored an 85 and 84 in the two tests I ran within a couple minutes of each other. Here's a look at the suggestions provided to us: That's an analysis of desktop page speed; you can select to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Labs | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search

In April 2008, Google launched its Public Data Explorer, a fantastic tool that allows you to visually explore and analyze very large data sets. Since then, it has curated 27 datasets including more than 300 data metrics. The Public Data Explorer now enables people to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to gender balance in parliaments (UNECE) to government debt levels (IMF) to municipality population density (Statistics Catalonia), with more data being added every week. Today, Google is opening up the Public Data Explorer for anyone to upload, share and visualize data sets. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Labs | Wolfram Alpha

The subject of "Google Me" has been discussed and debated and picked apart at length already. It's already tired and the "product" hasn't even launched. A new round of rumor and speculation has emerged from Quora (and TechCrunch). The supposed internal-testing name for Google Me was reported to be "Emerald City" but is now actually, supposedly, "Emerald Sea." But wait, it could also be called "Google + 1" and be a toolbar or browser extension that will try and duplicate the function of Facebook's Like. It's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma -- or rather that was Russia. H [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: General | Google: Labs | Google: Orkut | Google: Partnerships | Google: Social Search

Google's mission is "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Their next step into that realm is making auto driving cars. The Google Blog announced Google has "developed technology for cars that can drive themselves." Yes, auto-driving cars, like from the movies and high tech TV shows. Google's reasoning behind this move is to make the roads safer and reduce accidents. Google said they have been testing this for a while and have already driven 140,000 miles with trained safety drivers who can override the system at any time. Google explaine [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Cars | Google: General | Google: Labs | Google: Mobile | Google: Transit | Top News

A month ago in this space, I wrote up a a fairly lengthy article -- How To Find The Right People To Follow On Twitter -- that listed numerous tools and tips for finding the the right Twitter users to follow. Google, which wants to be involved in pretty much any search-related activity you do, wasn't mentioned. If I were writing that article today, I'd include a new tool in Google Labs called Google Follow Finder -- it was just announced this afternoon. It's based on Twitter's @anywhere platform and, like many similar tools out there, it analyzes your following/follower lists and compare [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Labs | Twitter

Google has announced a new lab-type area called Google Ad Innovations, which is where it'll "show you some of our latest ideas around advertising technologies and get your feedback." Think of it as Google Labs for Ads. There are currently 10 "innovations" listed, and each one has its own landing page with additional information, a demo video, and an invite to give Google feedback. Google says it'll regularly add new tools to the site. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Labs

Google has announced a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer that's now available in Google Labs. The tool is a follow-up of sorts to last year's announcement that a limited amount of public data would be used in response to certain Google.com search results. The Data Explorer tool includes data from the original three sources Google announced last year -- the US Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the World Bank -- as well as five new data providers: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) California Department of Education Eurostat US Cent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Google: Labs

What is it? Google's answer to Twitter? Email and IM replacement? Personal communications and collaboration platform? These were questions and characterizations that emerged as Google announced Wave at the company's May developer event in San Francisco. (Here's a bit more context from my related post at the press conference.) It's a shapeshifter, a new species and something of a rorschach test for people because it crosses boundaries and isn't easily defined. Google Wave's API has recently become available to developers. And now some first "hands on" impressions are out. Ben Rometsch wr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Apps For Your Domain | Google: Chrome | Google: Labs | Google: User Interface

City Tours is a new addition to Google Labs that puts Google squarely in the tourism business: Give it a city name, and Google not only suggests sites to see, but it also maps out a multi-day itinerary and proposes a minute-by-minute travel schedule for you to follow. And what's really impressive is that City Tours doesn't only cover the standard travel hot spots like New York, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. You've probably never heard of Kennewick, Washington, but Google has a three-day tour in mind if you ever want to visit my neck of the woods. Whoa. That noise you hear is the soun [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Labs | Google: Maps & Local | Top News

I'm in the Google Wave press conference, following a dizzying keynote -- dizzying, at least, after a night of little sleep. As he did yesterday Google co-founder Sergey Brin joined the discussion and similarly apologized for arriving late. Danny live blogged the keynote earlier this morning. He jokingly compared Wave to Lotus Notes. In some respects that's not an entirely inappropriate comparison, given the scope of the product and the emphasis on collaboration -- though the Google folks would probably disagree. Wave seems to be conceived as a total communication and collaboration to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: General | Google: Gmail | Google: Labs | Google: Mobile | Google: Orkut | Google: Outside US