They call it scraping -- when Web companies automatically harvest information from the likes of Yahoo, Google and craigslist. Now the Internet establishment is clamping down.

This is the second part of my series about bugs and usability issues with various Google services. My previous post was about Google Picasa and Google Checkout and also included some general comments to Google Storage, which is a paid service provided by Google to increase the amount of data you can have in your account and use for files and other things. Part II talks about the general Google Account, Google Desktop Search and Gmail (Hosted and Regular) as well is the migration of Emails from platforms like MS Outlook into Gmail. (more…)

It’s the end of the year and I have a little gift for Google for the year 2008. It’s a summary of issues and bugs I found in the various Google services, free and paid ones as well. Some are fresh and triggered this post and some others are older where I already send a feedback to Google in the past.

Google is obviously not used to deal with people and their best people for web usability must all be busy with the organic web search page. Okay, it is not easy to manage all the different new services and offerings that are partially in-house developed products and partially products and services that were acquired over the past few years. However, fundamental mistakes and errors should not happen, even under those circumstances. I was lucky today to bump into a whole chain of bugs and usability issues with Google’s Picasa, Google Checkout and Gmail. I also include some older issues, including ones with other Google services while I am at it. It comes down in total to SEVEN usability issues and FIVE real bugs for Picasa and Google Checkout alone.

It’s a long post, broken down into multiple parts and it is primarily written for Google.

If you encountered the same, similar or completely different issues, feel free to use this opportunity to let Google know about it by commenting to this post via the form provided at the end of this post. (more…)

When we launched our Lifehacker Top 10 series back in March we had no idea what a big hit it would be. That Letterman guy's really onto something! While we're milking this whole "best of 2007 list" thing, we compiled the top 20 most-viewed Lifehacker Top 10 lists of 2007.

• Top 10 iPhone Applications
• Top 10 Free Windows Downloads
• Top 10 USB Thumb Drive Tricks
• Top 10 Free Computer System Recovery Tools
• Top 10 Wi-Fi Boosts, Tweaks and Apps
• Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters
• Top 10 Free Wallpaper, Fonts and Icon Sources
• Top 10 Body Hacks
• Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better
• Top 10 Google Products You Forgot All About
• Top 10 Must-have Firefox Extensions
• Top 10 Ubuntu Applications
• Top 10 Ways to Clean Up Your PC
• Top 10 Mac OS X Tweaks
• Top 10 DIY Office Projects
• Top 10 Free Mac Downloads
• Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks
• Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007
• Top 10 Home Networking Tricks
• Top 10 PDF Tricks

This is a talk that was given in Norfolk Washington by an engineer that works inside a datacenter for google. He describes how their datacenters have progressed and how they maintain the machines in the datacenters.

Google has continued in its zeitgeist tradition with the release of a year-end trend summary at http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/index.html. The main page shows a listing for the fastest-growing search terms both in the US and across the world — the world list includes terms like second life and ebuddy while the US list includes heroes and transformers. (The [...]

My wife and I just got back from Christmas in Omaha with her family. It was both fun and cold. Some folks in Omaha go all out for decorating. Here’s one house that we drove by over the holidays:

Yes, I believe that is a full-size animatronic Santa in the window.

My wedding anniversary is in January, and last year my anniversary present to my wife was taking a nice trip and going completely offline for a week.

This year I’m repeating my attempt to go offline, so don’t expect any posts from me this coming week.

If you want something deep to think about while I’m gone, consider The Davos Question, which is “”What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?” I’ll post my suggestion when I’m back online.

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

• How to Track Down Anyone Online
  "When you're trying to find someone online, Google's not the only game in town."
• The 20 Best iPod Utilities
  "With a new generation of iPods on the market this holiday season, your reliable old iPod may not seem as shiny as it once did."
• Lifehacker's 2007 Guide to Free Software and Webapps
  "Throughout Lifehacker's archive of over 14,000 posts, we've mentioned hundreds of free web and desktop apps that help you get things done--but which are the best?"
• How to Set Up Your New Computer
  "So Santa left a brand-new computer under the tree this year, eh? Lucky you! If you're spending the holiday setting up a new Mac or PC, it's time to get filled with free software cheer."
• Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007
  "When it comes to new technology, 2007's destined to be remembered as "The Year of the iPhone"--but a whole lot more went on in the past 12 months besides Apple's much-hyped gadget launch."
• The 23 Best iTunes Add-ons
  "iTunes may not be the best media player on the market, but let's face facts: with its tight integration with our iPods and its excellent playlisting tools, it's very likely the digital jukebox you're using every day to manage your music."
• Top 10 Free Windows File Wranglers
  "You spend a whole lot of time each day moving, copying, trashing, browsing, and otherwise fiddling with all the files stored on your PC, and you should have the most efficient power tools to get those jobs done."
• Slim Down and Speed Up Linux
  "While Linux is pretty efficient with a computer's resources out of the box, there are still ways you can make it run leaner and meaner on your desktop."

Ionut was digging around through the source code in Gmail when he stumbled across some pieces of text he thinks indicates “updates” for your friends could soon be part of the integrated Google Talk module. The source code he found includes snippets of text including the following: Add comment Remove <something — probably a name> from chat and [...]

Wikia: coming January 7th… Amazon SimpleDB is on the way… Yup, I’m old: The Archie Clients page on DMOZ is empty.. Wal-Mart shuts down online video service. Ooo! Boston Public Library undergoing all kinds of groovy digital archiving projects. One Laptop Per Child in Peru. TwitDir — Twitter Directory. Nice interface to making a chart using the Google API. Looks [...]

Webapp Flight Wait takes the guesswork out of flight tracking by providing you with a map of FAA flight delays in real time. Simply input the city or airport code and let Flight Wait determine whether there are any traffic delays that you may need to be aware of. If all lines are green, the wait is a maximum of 15 minutes. If the lines are yellow, your airport or area is reporting delays between approximately 16-59 minutes. A red line indicates a wait of an additional one to two hours, and if the line is black, you're stuck for at least two hours. You can already track your flight with Google and view delays with previously mentioned FlightStats, but this application gives you an overall picture of whether an entire airport or city is affected by weather conditions or other delays.

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New agreement includes 24/7 alarm maintenance and a full-time technician stationed at the hospital. (PRWeb Dec 29, 2007) Post Comment:Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/TWFnbi1NYWduLUNvdXAtU2luZy1Mb3ZlLVplcm8=

In a word, if you don't want that "secret" item you've read via Google Reader to spill out in a way that your friends, family, enemies, or anyone can find it, DON'T SHARE IT! Here's how...

Hugh Pickens writes "A prototype solar tree that recently went on display on a busy street in Vienna, Austria has passed a key test by providing light during the night-time even when the sun had been blocked by clouds for four days in a row. The branches of the solar tree were decorated with 10 solar lamps, each one powered by 36 solar cells. The tree included rechargeable batteries and electronic systems to measure the amount of light in the atmosphere and trigger the solar lamps to go on. 'Not just trees but other objects could be decorated with solar cells and so keep streets well lit at night time,' said Christina Werner from Cultural Project Management. Google uses a similar concept to light their parking lots with 3,000 solar panels that provide up to 10 percent of the Googleplex's power demand. We discussed Google's solar initiative last year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every once in awhile its good to see other metasearch engine come out of the web. While the top five major search engines battle it out, day in and day out in outclassing each other introducing new features here and there, answering privacy concerns of users, its a breather that something like SearchSalad came out of hybernation.

In a nutshell SearchSalad is all about crawling the top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and wikipedia for relevant results related to a user’s search keyword. So, instead of searching those search engines one by one, SearchSalad crawls through the top search engines and displays the most relevant results, even eliminating duplicate results along the way.

Working as a metasearch engine, SearchSalad does not have a database of its own and relies on the top search engines database properties. SearchSalad even queries product databases of non-search sites such as Kelko and Ebay as an added bonus to search results.

To give users additional flexibility through personal customization. SearchSalad gives users the option to select the search engines to be included in their search, choose search results based on the strenght of the search engines, upload personalized background picture and play music through its My Salad facility.

Paul Sago, Director of Lemon Interactive, SearchSalad owner best summarizes what SearchSalad is all about:

“This is the future of search and we anticipate bringing many new innovations to the site over the coming months.”

SearchSalad covers the web, video, audio, image, news maps by crawling Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, Wikipedia as well as non-search sites such as eBay, Kelkoo, Engadget, Review Centre, CNET, YouTube, Blinx and Ciao.

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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....

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This week has been incredibly slow. It's the last week of the year and everyone is having holiday celebrations whereas us Search Engine Roundtable folk (Barry and I) have been working diligently to keep you informed of the latest in...

Gmail’s sign-up form is very forgiving. If you leave the first and last name fields blank and enter something like “123456” as user name, you can hit the “check availibility” button. As 123456 is taken, Google will start to be very creative and return randomized login name suggestions for you. “General Rough” doesn’t sound too bad eh?

[Thanks Andy Schneider!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

[Advertisement] Quintura helps you control your web searching and find what you want much easier.   [Advertise here]

One of my long time blogging friends, Amit Agarwal, produced this video on how Google AdSense helped him become the first independent blogger in India, after the advertising system gave him the chance to move back home and become his own boss.

The video was selected by Google to become featured on the Google AdSense blog.

Google AdSense also gave me the initial financial freedom to become a full time blogger, and then the opportunity to pick and choose my career path in search marketing. Search Engine Journal currently does not run Google AdSense (except in some select posts), but it’s always good to know that if I have to, I can fall back on AdSense to fill remnant space.

I found Amit’s video inspirational, if not Digital Inspirational, and worth sharing.

So, yes, Google AdSense has led to mass spamming of the Internet via made for AdSense sites and splogs, but the opportunity it has given many of us .. and it’s fueling of the problogging movement, has to offset its negatives.

So, how has Google AdSense changed your life?

There's no better time to develop your scheduling habit than the start of a new year, and few tools are as easy to pick up and get productive with as Google Calendar. While you can quickly get from beginner to black belt scheduler with just the web interface, the real value in GCal is that it's accessible no matter where you are—work, play, or the grocery store—and can help you decide what happens next.

Whether you're a GCal newcomer or seasoned user, there are a ton of ways to further integrate your calendars into your routine, and I've rounded up Lifehacker's wealth of GCal syncing guides, organizers, and other GCal tools for your desktop, mobile device, Firefox, and even iPod. Read on for advice on staying on top of your schedule this year.

Load up GCal with your existing calendar

First things first: If you've already got an Outlook, iCal, or even Yahoo Calendar already stuffed with events for the upcoming year(s), Google offers a few helpful guides for importing your events. Even if you plan on syncing your desktop calendars to GCal, it's a handy first step.

All Platforms: Two-Way Sync with GCalDaemon, Thunderbird, Plaxo

If you're willing to step into a little text file editing and run a simple server on your system, GCalDaemon is your best bet for setting up continuous two-way, online/offline access to Google Calendar. And with Gina's easy walk-through, setting it up isn't too much of a hassle. Once you're set up, you can sync up GCal to Thunderbird/Lightning, Mac iCal or Rainlendar.

On Windows, Mac, or Linux, Lifehacker favorite email app Thunderbird can be made into a full-fledged GCal interface using two add-ons, Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar. Those who like to keep their email and scheduling separate can also check out the stand-alone Sunbird calendar app, which can also use the Provider add-on for GCal syncing.

Free web app aggregator Plaxo can also provide free synchronization between Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, mobile devices and lots of other environments, but (usually) requires installation of extra toolbars and feeling comfortable with having all your data stashed at one site.

Windows

If you're an Outlook 2007 user, you can already integrate Google Calendar events into your calendar, but you can't publish back to it. For full syncing on 2007 and earlier versions, you've got a few choices in joining the two calendars, or simply keep one within easy reach:

• Show Google Calendar in Outlook's "home page"
• Synchronize Outlook 2003 and later with gSyncit
• Add GCal to Outlook (recommended for those who use only one GCal for separate purposes)
• Two-way syncing with SyncMyCal (Limited free version, full version $25)
• For a robust solution that could sync up home and office Outlooks, Google Calendars, non-Touch iPods and cell phones, check out a detailed guide to using ScheduleWorld.

Not everybody wants to jump onto the behemoth that is Outlook to stay synced up, however. For a lightweight solution that integrates into your desktop, check out Rainlender, which—in the "Pro" version costing 15 EUR—can display GCal (and Outlook) events and to-dos in a handy widget display. There's also free and paid versions for Linux.

Mac

OS X's built-in iCal tool can already read from Google Calendar's iCal feeds (more on that here), but achieving two-way sync takes a bit more work. The GCalDaemon method mentioned above does for free what Spanning Sync charges $25 per year or $65 for a permanent license to do, although having been a one-year Spanning Sync customer, the two-way hook-up is hidden, swift, and painless.

Linux

Your best bet in Linux remains the combination of Thunderbird/Lightning/Provider, although there are attractive alternatives for staying synced. Newer versions of Evolution, the personal information manager built into Ubuntu and other distros, can easily integrate Google calendars (here's a quick guide to doing so) and get at-a-glance access using a one-line terminal commad. If you're really friendly with the command line, you could set up gcalcli (which also works in OS X with a bit of tweaking) to have quick access to calendars, reminders, event additions and daily agendas

Firefox

Since Firefox is highly extensible and works on all three major platforms, it makes sense that Google Calendar extensions have steadily cropped up since GCal first launched. Those who spend a good deal of time inside a browser can display GCal in a sidebar, have any Gmail message added to a calendar, use an anywhere keyboard shortcut to make additions, and add a lot of useful tools using Lifehacker's own Better GCal Greasemonkey extension.

Mobile phones

Any mobile phone that can send text messages can add calendar events and get agendas delivered to it. Register your phone number at Google Calendar's "Settings"->"Mobile Setup" tab, add "GVENT" (48368) to your contacts and send it a standard "quick add" line (such as "7pm Saturday Dinner at Sara's house") or one of the following codes by text message:

• "next" (Receive your next scheduled event)
• "day" (Have today's agenda sent)
• "nday" (Receive tomorrow's events)
You can also add GCal events by voice with Jott or through micro-blogging tool Twitter if you prefer.

Those with browser access on their phone should check to see if GooSync or GCal Sync support their models. Both services can integrate GCal with your phone's built-in calendar, although not without occasional hiccups. BlackBerry fans, Google's got you covered with Google Sync.


iPods / iPhone


Owners of iPhones and iPod Touch models can get connected to Google Calendar with a simple two-step: Their devices easily sync with Outlook, iCal, or Entourage through iTunes, and all three of those applications can be synced or subscribed to Google Calendar. Unfortunately, those who don't use any of those programs have to rely on Google Calendar's mobile web interface for now, as there's no way to force a calendar sync without jailbreaking, hacking into and generally running a whole lot of terminal commands—not that we might not cover how to do that at some point.

Those with non-touch iPods and Macs have an easy solution in iCal, which can subscribe to Google Calendars and sync through iTunes. Windows users with older iPods—the kind that still have "Enable Disk Use" as an option in iTunes—can sync through Outlook or try a stand-alone solution:

• GetCals, a tool that requires a bit of configuration
• iPodCALsync, an automatic tool that seems to work with most iPod models

What hacks have I missed? Which tools do you use to make Google Calendar your ultimate scheduling and reminder tool? Let us know in the comments.

Kevin Purdy is an associate editor for Lifehacker who adds just about everything, including reminders to relax, into Google Calendar. His weekly feature appears every Friday on Lifehacker.

Spellify is a script.aculo.us/prototype based spell checker for form fields that utilizes Google as its spell check engine. Spellify version 1.0 has been released, officially taking the application out of beta and bringing it to prime time.

Nick Farrell the Inquirer, Friday 28 December 2007. 16:00:00

Google toolbar feature back in the dock

GOOGLE IS still facing patent infringement charges over its Autolink toolbar feature after a US appeal court overturned an earlier ruling which cleared the search engine giant on all charges. According to PC World, Hyperphrase Technologies sued Google in April 2006, claiming that the Adsense and Autolink functions, both of...

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It is that time of the year again and Search Engine Journal is holding the Search Blogs Awards of 2007 now. I cannot express how important these awards are to me personally, so please take the time to vote for...

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A WebmasterWorld member noticed a strange Yahoo address in his logs and was wondering if anyone had ever noticed it: alchemy.corp.sp1.yahoo.com According to Yahoo, this is a URL that they use to test the relevance of landing pages. There are...

We really do love your software. And we appreciate the fact that you introduce valuable new features so frequently. But please: slow down a little, and spend a bit more time on bug testing.

In the time-honored model of software development (call it "pre-Web 1.0"), teams of programmers worked for years to craft scores of subroutines, knit them together into a megalithic "major release," and then test and re-test the application on a variety of software and hardware platforms. The application would often be "pre-released" to internal and external teams of alpha and beta testers who would run the software under an even wider variety of conditions.

All this methodical testing slowly but surely eliminated major software bugs until the "release" could be dubbed "Golden Master." Only then would it be released to the buying public, hopefully with only minor bugs remaining. Thus Word 2.0 begat Word 3.0, etc.

That model, though still practiced widely for PC- and server-based applications, seems almost anachronistic in today's environment of high-velocity incrementally-released Ajax-based web applications. New features – minor and major – appear overnight, often with little or no warning, explanation or documentation. And all too often, with minor and major bugs.

Click to read the rest of this post...

The nominations for the Search Blogs Awards of 2007 have been compiled and we’re ready to have you vote for your favorite Search Blogs, Communities and other search related categories for 2007.

This year, we have 19 voting categories and had to condense a few due to the new blogs and themes which have become common in our industry. We also have some new additions to the search communities and added search blog tools like Wordpress Plugins into the mix.

We were going to host a vote for the best search marketing post of 2007, but after reading Techipedia’s post on the subject, we decided to give Tamar her due (don’t let this influence voting).

You can vote by using our form on SurveyMonkey, you’ll then be redirected back to Search Engine Journal when finished. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed to be alerted of the winning blogs and voting results.

OK, so please vote for your favorite Search Marketing Blogs of 2007. (more…)

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A number of people are trying to set up Google AdSense video units via YouTube and are running into a really strange error: AdSense error: The publisher must be associated with the developer account before the developer can invoke operations...

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Karl Ribas spotted a great find the other day: Wal-Mart is now offering Search Engine Marketing services at this sign-up link. The offering seems to be a $100 per month PPC service led by a Redmond Washington SEM agency. Forum...

Tis the season for everyone to chime in with their predictions for the upcoming year — and here are mine. The past year was a good one for Google, their stock gained $200 per share, several new products/services/features were launched, their market share rose to nearly 60%, they have managed to keep their advertising [...]

Looking back on 2007, you can't say there was a shortage of new products and services. While the word "beta" became a synonym for "new and free," there were a few projects launched this year—including TV-watching site Hulu, Pownce, GrandCentral, and Joost, to name a few—that remain invite-only, and others, like Google's to-do list, the full Windows Live suite, and third-party iPhone apps, set to drop after the new year.

What productivity tools, web apps, or software are you most looking forward to seeing unveiled or made fully public in 2008? Which products have you gotten in on the ground floor of and are eager to have your friends start using? Give us your predictions, thoughts, and user experiences in the comments.

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Matt McGee made a really cute 2007 search marketing quiz that you can take until later tonight. So far, I probably am the winner, but I challenge you to a duel. Here's a sample question: What color monkey is Rob...

What's behind the latest cockup?

Google can count itself fortunate that a serious privacy storm it caused took place in the run up to Christmas - when world+dog was otherwise occupied. By altering the behaviour of one of its web-services, Google ran foul of its own Privacy guarantee - and continues to violate it.…

If you've thought about the damage of having your Google account disabled or hijacked—like with the script vulnerability that left one designer completely out of the loop—it might be time to do something to ensure all your Google tools can't be taken away in one fell swoop. The Google Operating System blog recommends a few moves to ensure uninterrupted access to your web apps, such as cloning your email into a new account, sharing Google Calendar and Reader, and creating extra authorized accounts. It's not a total solution, but as the author points out:

... You'll still be able to read your email, send messages, post blog posts, check your calendar, add new events, access important documents etc.

Those who want physical copies of their Google data should check out Adam's guide to backing up your Google apps.

Launched about a year and a half ago, Otavo is famous as the intention engine. Headquartered at Canada, the engine is loosely coupled around search results and result seekers. Founder Amanuel Tewold named it after “Organizing Text, Audio and Video” which is what Otavo seeks to do of course, but with a social twist.

The basic premise is this : You get to start a search or a quest and add links to it. You could also join in a quest. So by way of social participation and tagging, Otavo creates a database of quality links on keywords.

Its a social angle to the activity of searching but has its share of criticism. Most of online searches are done for instant results. Starting a quest and waiting for the results to come from the community does not fit in the reality of a fast paced world. (more…)

Web designer holds out against extortion

Web designer David Airey has succeeded in recovering his domain after hackers exploited flaws in Gmail to trick his hosts into authorising a fraudulent transfer.…

Google’s precursor in 1996 was called “BackRub,” a search engine research project headed by Larry Page at the computer science department at Stanford. BackRub might have been a reference to the underlying algorithm which counts backlinks as affirmative votes, the same approach that was then turned into PageRank.

In August 1996, according to a cached copy of the BackRub engine from C63.be, the number of “HTML URLs” this “web search engine” indexed was 75 million, with 30 million HTML pages downloaded by the crawler. BackRub was written in Java and Python based “on several Sun Ultras and Intel Pentiums running Linux.”

On the backrub homepage, Larry Page thanked Scott Hassan, Alan Steremberg and Sergey Brin for their help. Larry Page was still pretty much the owner of the project at the point. The hand in the logo was his own, scanned. And as the FAQ stated, if there was any question unanswered, his email address and phone number were available for you to directly reach him.

Later, BackRub turned into “the Google Search Engine,” which may have looked like the following in 1997, though it’s quite possible the logo back then was different than the one in the screen shot:

I’m using a gray background color as default as the HTML doesn’t serve its own color, a color set-up which wasn’t too unusual in 1997, and the white background color on the logo may be another indicator the logo file as used by C63.be isn’t the original (Google was not able to confirm this in either direction).

As the cached copy shows, searching Stanford was still a priority over searching the web – or at least, it was listed first. Also, Larry and Sergey found themselves with 1.7 million crawled email addresses in their hand back then... though utilizing those would have become quite a different, more shady business model than the one of search ads introduced in 2000.

[Thanks Beussery, Colin Colehour and Tony Ruscoe!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

[Advertisement] Stephen Arnold's in-depth analysis of Google's patent strategy is now available as a download from Infonortics   [Advertise here]

Doug Caverly of WebProNews is reporting that Google News has added coverage of the U.S. 2008 elections. The Official Google News Blog has announcement about this new feature last week.

To provide direct access to extensive coverage of the candidates, the campaigns, and the issues, Google News has launched a new Elections section on our front page. This brings you the top stories on national, state, and local elections throughout the United States.

Although this new feature may seem temporary and would last only until the elections, it is still a useful feature for readers who want their daily dose of elections news. The Google News portal would feature top stories on anything and everything about the 2008 elections so it would be a good source of information.

Just like any other part of the Google News Portal, you can add the Elections Coverage into your personalized pages. It will become part of the other news categories and would be update as often as the news items in the portal are updated.

Interestingly, Yahoo News treatment of the U.S. 2008 elections is more comprehensive than that of Google. The 2008 Presidential Election on Yahoo! News is a full sub-portal coverage and is induced with heaps of news and information about the incoming U.S. elections.

I wonder which web portal would gain more traction in terms of reader visits and page views? And which would matter in terms of helping U.S. voters decide on who to vote in the elections?

ericatcw brings us a Computerworld article about how businesses are still hesitant to switch to Google Apps as an alternative to Microsoft Office. While a Google spokesman claims "millions of active users", only "several thousand organizations" have paid for the Premier service, which was launched earlier this year. From Computerworld: "'If we deploy it correctly, Google Docs can replace some [of] our Office apps -- but not all of them,' said Les Sease, IT director of Prudential Carolina Real Estate in North Charleston, South Carolina. Sease would like to switch everyone over completely to Google Apps. But first h