Google said that it’s not going to release its tablet version of Android, Honeycomb, to the broader market for several months yet. This comes despite the fact that an onslaught of Android tablets using the software have been announced, some of which are now hitting the shelves (e.g., Xoom) Big mobile hardware makers and close […]
Google Maps. Google Places. Google Earth. Google Hotpot. Google Latitude. Google Street View. Different mobile and desktop versions of some of those. Different Android and iPhone versions of some. The list could go on. If you think Google has too many locally-oriented products, you’re not alone. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search who recently began […]
Last year at a conference in London I was told by someone that Google Maps’ John Hanke was changing roles and that Marissa Mayer had taken over Local. The latter was obviously proven out by very public announcements. An article in Forbes now confirms Hanke’s role as the head of a new Google “entrepreneurial lab” […]
News is traveling fast about a leaked slide from a Yahoo “all hands” meeting earlier this week that listed several products — including Delicous and AltaVista — to be “sunsetted.” Yahoo confirms that Yahoo Buzz will be closed, as will the Traffic APIs. Delicious seems likely to go, too.
Feeling Foursquare fatigue and perhaps wondering what’s the point of checking in at times? Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley sometimes feels it too — but he’s got plans to keep you interested. More on that as well as turning Foursquare into a “product building machine,” from my interview with him last week. Why Check In? I’ve […]
Late last month, Digg.com released version 4 of the popular social news site and the response was horrific. In a web poll from Mashable.com, users overwhelmingly selected the previous version as the better site with version 3 garnering 78.4% of the total votes. I have been an avid user of Digg since 2007, spending countless […]
There are a number of critical articles, even complaints, coming out of yesterday’s Yahoo press event featuring new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving. The main portion of the event had Irving and CTO Raymie Strata discussing Yahoo strategy and reiterating that Yahoo wasn’t simply a media company but a company with deep technology as well. […]
Although Bing is now powering Yahoo search, Yahoo has promised to continue developing new experiences in its search experience. That’s expected to be one of the focuses of “Yahoo! Product Runway,” an event that begins shortly at the company’s Sunnyvale campus. (Yahoo Mail and the Yahoo.com home page are also on the agenda.) Yahoo’s Chief […]
Google’s Instant Search might be a “fundamental shift in search,” as described yesterday by Marissa Mayer, but it’s certainly not new. Yahoo Instant Search On September 15, 2005, Yahoo launched an innovative search tool called Yahoo Instant Search. It was available at instant.search.yahoo.com, but that URL leads to a 404 page now. Danny Sullivan wrote […]
Last May Google Wave was unveiled as a new communication platform and positioned as a successor to both email and instant messaging. It was also a powerful, real-time collaboration tool. It did other things too. Perhaps that was the problem; it offered too many possibilities. Beyond that people didn’t necessarily see the need for Wave, […]
Still smarting from the privacy furor over Buzz and then the inadvertent collection of personal data from WiFi networks by its Street View cars, the Financial Times reports that Google is reconsidering how and whether it should use facial recognition technology: Eric Schmidt, chief executive, said a series of public disputes over privacy issues had caused […]
Last night the WSJ reported that Yahoo will spend an estimated $75 million to $85 million on a campaign to promote itself and its homepage. The initial TV spot (below) is critical of Google and sets itself up in opposition to the search engine as a more desirable homepage because it does more stuff. (see […]
One could argue that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz cut lots of fat at Yahoo and stabilized the organization after a period of takeover turbulence and uncertainty. To some degree she brought a kind of “vision” to the company (cut costs, focus on core strengths and content). However there’s also a sense that Yahoo is not […]
In the works for nearly a year, Yahoo Search Pad is to formally launch tomorrow for all users. The feature is a nifty “notepad” service that allows users to collect information from search results into a single page for reference purposes. I first saw a demo last November and immediately wanted SearchPad to be live. […]
Google is almost uniquely situated among tech companies in that it can reveal very little about an event or announcement and be all but guaranteed that most of the journalists and bloggers on the tech beat in Northern California will show up to cover it. That’s what happened today. Google brought bloggers and journalists into […]
This year is the 200th anniversary of naturalist Charles Darwin’s birth. I bring that up because Google’s approach to product decision-making has always struck me as “Darwinian.” The company introduces new products and services, generally without much promotion, and then it’s a version of survivor or “survival of the fittest.” Another appropriate metaphor here is […]
Google’s announced they’re closing or ceasing development of a variety of products as part of an already continuing move to keep efforts focused on other products with greater usage. These include an end to video uploads to Google Video, closure of Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball, the microblogging service Jaiku and the Google Mashup […]
Barry spotted this via Twitter: Google has, somewhat quietly, launched a Product Ideas Blog. A related effort is the company’s solicitation of ideas and their prioritization from users in a voting area. The first focus is on mobile.
Four days after it launched, Google SearchWiki continues to attract much attention from critics and fans alike. Meanwhile, there remain questions on how it all works, under the hood. Below, a follow-up to my Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide article from last week, answering some of the remaining questions. Oh, and for those looking […]
Google Maps recently introduced a new user interface for the Local Business Center. There were some issues with the upgrade and Carter Maslan, Google’s Director of Product Management for Local, agreed to answer some of my questions about the process in a phone conversation. Below, selected excerpts from our conversation:
After noticing a steady increase in the amount of mapspam (also documented by Mike Blumenthal) appearing on Google in universal search results, we decided to ask the company about the phenomenon and what measures it’s taking to combat the problem. Earlier this week I posed a series of questions to Google’s Director of Product Management […]
Last Friday, shortly after the Microsoft bid for Yahoo was made public, Danny and I had an opportunity to discuss the proposed acquisition with Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of strategic partnerships for Microsoft. Our questions to Mehdi often returned to post-acquisition “integration” issues. I brought up local, maps, and mobile as areas where both […]
With Jim Lanzone being replaced as Ask.com’s CEO, I thought it time to do a piece that’s been banging about in my head. Do successful search companies have to have CEOs or top execs who "grew up" from the search product side? The jury is probably still out, but it’s interesting to look back at […]
Former Blogger Googler Shellen joins LiveJournal from News.com reports Jason Shellen, the former Google Reader product manager, is joining LiveJournal as the vice president of product development. Shellen announced his departure from Google in July of this year. He said he left because he has the “entrepreneurial/start-up bug,” where he needs to be with a […]
Ever want to see all of Google’s products and services mapped out in icon view on one single page? Zorgloob has created a map of Google products, which is just enormous. If you click on a product image within the map, you are taking to a page that describes the product and enables you to […]
Two top Google engineers leave — to Benchmark Capital from VentureBeat reports Bret Taylor and Jim Norris, top Google engineers, have left Google to work at Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm. Taylor and Norris were largely responsible for the development of Google Maps as well as other Google products. Taylor was the project leader […]
Google Webmaster Central product manager Vanessa Fox is heading for pastures new — jumping over to become product team lead at real estate start-up Zillow. She’ll be overseeing the development of new ad, feed and email products there. Vanessa talks about the move more on her blog, saying:
Google Boosts Its GPA at Forbes rates each of Google’s products and then gives Google an overall GPA (grade point average). Overall, Google did better than last year, gaining a B- rather than a C+. Here is a look at how each product was graded.