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Sergey Brin is telling employees to stop making old products and start improving new ones. "For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications."

"Having to change programs to perform simple tasks -- such as make a quick calculation or look up a definition -- it breaks your concentration, takes you away from the task at hand, and wastes valuable time," said Aza Raskin, president of Humanized and son of the late Jef Raskin, creator of the Apple Macintosh. " Humanized's Enso applications are designed make common computing tasks easier and faster to perform, without breaking focus or forcing the user to switch applications. Enso takes Jef's legacy from vision to reality, revolutionizing the way we use computers the way the Macintosh did back in 1984."

Google has seeped into many aspects of online life across the globe, but the Internet search engine has failed so far to make any notable inroads in one of the world's most-wired countries: South Korea. Users here are some of the most Internet-savvy in the world, with millions of people running their own blogs and taking advantage of omnipresent broadband hookups and Wi-Fi hotspots. South Koreans would seem like natural Google users, but the leading search engine is merely a bit player.

Experts say Google's struggles here stem from unique factors in the Korean market, as well as Google's reliance on its software rather than human expertise to get search results. The Korean slice of the Web is relatively small compared to the English-language chunks of cyberspace. Koreans often come up short when trying to find information in their native tongue. To remedy the situation, Naver — which is more like a Yahoo-esque portal than a mere search engine — came up with what it calls Knowledge iN, where users post questions that are answered by other users — creating a database that now totals more than 41.1 million entries. (...)

"Google's site is just not enough for everything. Their search results especially are too limited," said [a Korean student]. "I think Google is paying less attention to Korean Internet users' demands."

It’s the Saturday after major ownership changes have been announced in the online ad business. We have heard all the official reasons for the transactions. The true motivations remain with the players, namely Google, WPP, Microsoft, Yahoo, DoubleClick, 24/7 Real Media, aQuantive and Right Media.

So here's a quick puzzler. Try to match these players with the following "unquoted reasons" likely mentioned behind closed doors, in hushed tones. (Sorry, but answers will NOT be provided.)

Google now has “Sort by date with duplicates included” as one of its sort options — sorting by date now seems to automatically remove duplicates (wire stories, etc.) In some of the experimental searches I did sorting by date without duplicates cut the number of results in half.

New U of Iowa digital photo collection: http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070430/NEWS01/70430012/1079 .

Virginia Tech launches April 16 archive.

Online encyclopedia of wild plants in Malta.

The underwater life of the Long Island Sound. In an archive.

University of Vermont Libraries has launched the Center for Digital Initiatives .

New MP3s of Ezra Pound poetry readings.

A new specialized industrial search engine: find fabrics .

Google Reader for the Wii. Silly and fabulous.

New East London theatre archive starting up in 2009.

Upcoming database economic performance of West African countries.

Tony Blair has a posse … I mean a YouTube channel.

Househacker — terrific blog for home enthusiast geekery.

Upcoming digital archive of all films made in Quebec. About 800?!

On May 14, Ask announced Ask Mobile GPS, which it describes as a “GPS-enabled lifestyle application” (uh-huh) which hooks up Ask, Citysearch and Evite. I enthusiastically went to http://gps.ask.com to check it out.

There are some screen shots on the site, and they look great — search Citysearch from your phone, get walking and driving directions around town (with voice prompts) and even, if you’re into it, broadcast your location to folks in your contact list (Twitter gone frighteningly 3D).

The enormous downer unfortunately is that Ask Mobile GPS is available for a very limited number of phones — so limited I’m surprised it’s even been released. I consider my phone to be pretty good, and it wasn’t on Ask’s lists. I don’t get to try it.

Ask is taking a different tack from other search engines by actually offering this as a fee-based service — $9.99 for a two-week trial period. (Plans are in the works for a $2.99/mo version with less features.) It’s a refreshing change from search engines that offer everything for free, confident that advertising will cover it (maybe it will, but such thinking gives me 1999 flashbacks). I think they’ll need more phone models to make it work.

Hong Xiaowan points out in the forum that Google Life Search China, which was first hinted at one month ago, is now live.

According to Google’s machine translation, Google Life Search allows Chinese users to select their location and search for Housing, Work (Jobs?), Train (Train Times?), Items and Food (Recipes?) by searching Google Base.

Add your comments in the forum...

See also: Google Rebang Live and Google China’s New Directory

[By Tony Ruscoe | Original post]

Capping off a busy week of acquisitions and search engine upgrades comes the ‘news’ that Google will be acquiring Feedburner for $100 Million.

If the rumor is correct, then Feedburner will enhance not only Google Analytics & Google Reader, but also Google’s relationship with bloggers.

Yahoo made a smart move with its purchase of MyBlogLog, a social network for bloggers built on the back of a simple analyitcs platform, but Feedburner is also a very established RSS feed consolidation & tracking service which also brings a monetization factor to the table in its RSS feed ads program.

The advertising factor, its reputation and its loyal group of publishers makes Feedburner the ultimate sandbox for Google to tackle the RSS monetization puzzle, which has not quite successfully been solved by anyone yet. Although Feedburner and its competitors like Pheedo (which Yahoo may go after if Google does buy Feedburner) can help some publishers earn some extra revenue, Google’s AdSense (contextual, image & video) and DoubleClick properties may ultimately find a permanent home in the world of RSS aggregation.

Vecosys reports that Google could be buying FeedBurner in a deal that other sources are saying could be worth around $100 million.

Not only would this deal allow Google to provide better stats for feeds – which they could then integrate into their new version of Google Analytics – but they could also allow users to more easily include AdSense (or DoubleClick) ads in their feeds and provide better support for Blogger and all their other services which produce RSS or Atom feeds.

Personally, I’ve always thought FeedBurnder would be more suited to Yahoo! but if this acquisition actually goes ahead for Google, it could very valuable to their service offerings.

[Via Techmeme.]

[By Tony Ruscoe | Original post | Comments]

Microsoft is acquiring the online advertising powerhouse aQuantive, parent company of Internet & Search Marketing firm Avenue A/Razorfish, for somewhere around $6 billion in cash (largest transaction in the history of Microsoft) in an effort to expand Microsoft’s role in the Internet advertising market and keep up with recent moves by Google and Yahoo.

Google was the first to make its move in the recent online advertising landgrab game, acquiring DoubleClick for a whopping $3.1 billion. Then Yahoo countered with their buyout of online ad exchange Right Media Inc. for $680 million.

Microsoft was in the running for DoubleClick, and had been rumored to be acquiring 24/7 Real Media; but also lost out on that opportunity as 24/7 was acquired by the UK based WPP Group yesterday.

“The advertising industry is evolving and growing at an incredible pace, moving increasingly toward online and IP-served platforms, which dramatically increases the importance of software for this industry,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live, and now to the full capacity of the Internet. Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all.”

More on the aQuantive acquisition from the Microsoft Press Release:

The aQuantive acquisition enables Microsoft to strengthen relationships with advertisers, agencies and publishers by enhancing the Company’s world-class advertising platforms and services beyond its current capabilities to serve MSN. The acquisition also provides Microsoft increased depth in building and supporting next generation advertising solutions and environments such as cross media planning, video-on-demand and IPTV. Combining aQuantive’s technologies and services with Microsoft’s portfolio will provide value for the industry’s key constituencies as follows:

• Advertisers and ad agencies will benefit from a world-class media planning, buying and campaign management solution to drive maximum ROI and optimize their reach to audiences across the increasingly fragmented, interactive media landscape.
• Media owners/publishers will gain access to best-in-class inventory optimization and monetization solutions across a full suite of rich media, video and targeting capabilities.
• The broader advertising ecosystem will benefit from the leading interactive advertising agency, Avenue A | Razorfish, continuing to serve its impressive client roster, while also embedding the voice of the marketer into Microsoft’s next generation advertising solutions and services.

Founded in 1997, aQuantive, Inc. (NASDAQ: AQNT) is the parent company of one of the industry’s most successful families of digital marketing service and technology companies, encompassing three primary brands.

• Atlas provides a set of advanced tools for both advertisers and publishers. The Atlas Media Console is an industry-leading toolset providing agencies and advertisers with capabilities to maximize ROI. The Atlas Publisher platform enables publishers to maximize monetization opportunities for their content.
• DRIVEpm provides services to publishers and advertisers that match advertiser campaigns with publisher inventory enabling all parties to maximize ROI.
• Avenue A | Razorfish is one of the largest interactive ad agencies in the world, providing advertisers with industry-leading digital marketing consultation, media planning and buying, and creative services that help advertisers use the online channel to build meaningful, profitable relationships with their customers.

“Combining the talented people and deep technology and service expertise of these two companies will help make buying and selling media simpler, smarter and more cost effective for advertisers, agencies and publishers alike,” said Kevin Johnson, president, Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. “Joining the capabilities of these groups is an important step toward our goal of becoming an industry leading, Internet-wide advertising platform.”

“aQuantive’s mission has been to leverage the power of digital marketing services and technologies to drive measurable results for our clients,” said Brian P. McAndrews, chief executive officer of aQuantive. “Microsoft has set a leading example in prioritizing industry partnership, transparency, measurement and quality, and we look forward to combining forces and bringing the value of our combined assets to bear for the benefit of advertisers, ad agencies and publishers.”

The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2008. The acquisition is not expected to have a significant impact on the financial guidance previously issued by the Company.

aQuantive, which has approximately 2600 employees, will continue to operate from its Seattle headquarters as part of Microsoft’s Online Services Business. The combination of Microsoft and aQuantive takes the Company’s advertising platform to the next level in its ability to serve Microsoft’s first party audience assets like MSN, Windows Live, Xbox Live, and Office Live, as well as for third party publishers and applications such as Facebook and Activision game titles.