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Receptional Internet Marketing11 MAR 2010 12:08:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/13328?ns=guardian&pageName=Google+Reader+Play%3A+a+new+way+to+browse+the+web%3AArticle%3A1370371&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Google+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CDigital+media%2CMedia&c6=Mercedes+Bunz&c7=10-Mar-11&c8=1370371&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog%2CPDA+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FGoogle" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Google's new interface turns the web into an interactive entertainment magazine</p><p>Google has launched <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/play/">Google Reader Play</a>, an experimental feature that offers a new, highly visual way to browse the web. </p><p>The new interface displays only one story at a time, focusing on pictures, videos, visual statistics and maps. </p><p><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/finding-awesome-stuff-online-with.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">"We think Reader Play is a fun way to browse interesting items online that you wouldn't find otherwise," </a>said software engineer Garrett Wu in a blogpost announcing the new product. </p><p>Unlike the standard <a href="www.google.co.uk/reader">Google Reader</a> in which users have to subscribe to feeds, Google Reader Play requires no set-up. It learns new users' preferences by asking them to mark items they like with a star to read later.</p><p>"We designed it especially for people who don't want to spend time curating their own set of feeds," said Wu. </p><p>Google Reader Play is thus easy to use, and as the items are displayed in full-screen, there is one type of content it is perfect for: television. </p><p>As <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/tv-may-be-the-new-google-reader-plays-best-venue/">Nick Bilton of the New York Times puts it</a>: "Although Google doesn't address television in the description of the product, the promising use case for many people could be the ability to use Google Reader Play on a computer hooked up to a larger screen."</p><p>Launched a few weeks before Apple's iPad hits the stores in April, Google Reader Play makes it clear that the big tech companies are aiming to take on the consumer market. </p><p><em>Do you like the idea of Google Reader Play? Please have your say in the comments</em><br /></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mercedes-bunz">Mercedes Bunz</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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11 MAR 2010 07:30:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/48405?ns=guardian&pageName=Sony+gets+its+PlayStation+plans+on+the+Move%3AArticle%3A1370304&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Sony+%28Technology%29%2CPlayStation+%28Technology%29%2CGames+%28Technology%29%2CAmazon.com+%28Technology%29%2CIntellectual+property+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology&c6=Bobbie+Johnson&c7=10-Mar-11&c8=1370304&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FSony" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>• It's heading for a year since <strong>Sony</strong> <a href="">first unveiled its motion controller at E3</a>, in what most people considered a fairly hurried demo to combat Microsoft's Project Natal. But now the Japanese electronic giant has lifted the lid on the finished product: at the Game Developers Conference it said the device, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10467340-1.html">known as PlayStation Move</a>, will go on sale in the autumn for the US price of around $100. Is it more than the Eye? Or just another me-too attempt to cash in on the Wii trend?</p><p>• We mentioned software patents in yesterday's briefing (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/10/breakfast-briefing">courtesy of Jonathan Schwartz</a>), but here's a biggie: <strong>Amazon</strong>'s 1-Click patent - which has caused so much controversy over the years - has been <a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/03/amazons_1-click_patent_confirmed_following_re-exam.html">confirmed once again after being re-examined</a>. Looks like Amazon will be on top of that one for some time to come. Meanwhile <strong>Microsoft</strong> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/10/microsoft-i4i-court-decision">failed in its appeal against i4i</a>, which accused the company of infringing its patents. That's got to sting.</p><p>• Ever wonder whether <strong>Google</strong> would actually do anything to follow up its <a href="">threat to lift censorship in China</a> - or whether it was just posturing? You're not alone. Talking in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt said that <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703701004575113550674654886.html">"something will happen soon"</a>, though it's not clear whether that is a decision to take action - or an agreement with Beijing. Let's see how it pans out.</p><p><em>You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/guardiantech">@guardiantech</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/gdngames">@gdngames</a> or our <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/page/2007/dec/10/1">personal accounts</a>) or by watching our <a href="http://delicious.com/guardianista">Delicious feed</a>.</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/sony">Sony</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/playstation">PlayStation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/games">Games</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/amazon">Amazon.com</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/intellectual-property">Intellectual property</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/bobbiejohnson">Bobbie Johnson</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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10 MAR 2010 18:48:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/27566?ns=guardian&pageName=Google+partners+with+Italy+for+groundbreaking+book+scanning+deal%3AArticle%3A1370152&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Google+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CMedia%2CEbooks%2CBooks&c6=Mercedes+Bunz&c7=10-Mar-11&c8=1370152&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog%2CPDA+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FGoogle" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>Google and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage have reached an agreement to digitise up to a million out-of-copyright works at the national libraries in Florence and Rome, including some by Galileo.</p><p>And it's just two weeks after an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/24/google-video-italy-privacy-convictions">Italian court gave three Google executives suspended prison sentences</a> over a video of bullying on YouTube that had been removed once the company was told about it. </p><p>Google is not only to work closely together with the Italian libraries, but also with the Italian ministry of culture – the first time that the search engine has had a government department a such a close partner on such a project. Google called it a "groundbreaking deal". </p><p>"The libraries will select the works to be digitised from their collections, which include a wealth of rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of Italy's most famous poets and writers," says Google's strategic partner development manager, Gino Mattiuzzo, in a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/digital-renaissance-partnering-with.html">blogpost announcing the deal.</a></p><p>While the costs will be covered fully by Google, the company will pass the scans on. The books will be available to groups including <a href="http://www.europeana.eu/">the EU's Europeana project</a>, which already has scanned 6 million digital items of cultural value. </p><p>"We believe today's announcement is an important step, and we look forward to working with more libraries and other partners," says Mattiuzzo. </p><p>Google has similar arrangements with Oxford University, Madrid's Complutense University, the Bavarian state museum and others. </p><p>However, it's not clear whether Google is creating the world's biggest library or the world's biggest bookshop. Some fear the search engine is exploiting cultural heritage as a cheap context for advertising. </p><p>Recently, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/17/google-books-copyright">a New York judge postponed a decision</a> on whether the company should be allowed to display parts of books still in-copyright. </p><p>Google on the other hand claims good intentions: "We envision a future in which people will be able to search and access the world's books anywhere, anytime. After all, Antonio Beccadelli and Anastasius Germonius – like Shakespeare and Cervantes – are part of our human cultural history." </p><p></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/ebooks">Ebooks</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mercedes-bunz">Mercedes Bunz</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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10 MAR 2010 14:35:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/49901?ns=guardian&pageName=Google+launches+app+store%3AArticle%3A1369936&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Google+%28Technology%29%2CMicrosoft+%28Technology%29%2CSoftware+%28Technology%29%2CCloud+computing+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CDigital+media%2CMedia&c6=Mercedes+Bunz&c7=10-Mar-10&c8=1369936&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog%2CPDA+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FGoogle" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Web giant takes on Microsoft with Google Apps Marketplace offering cloud-based applications</p><p>Google has announced that it has opened the <a href="http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/home">Google Apps Marketplace</a> to developers. </p><p>More than 50 companies wil be involved in the Apps Marketplace, which will offer business software such as a project management application, a tax and a payroll program, an electronic fax program, an e-signature service, and a design tool for Google Docs. </p><p>The third-party cloud-based applications will be integrated within Google to work like native <a href="http://www.google.com/apps/index1.html">Google apps</a>. It will charge developers 20% of the revenue from sales on the marketplace site, apart from a one-off fee of $100.</p><p>"The Google Apps Marketplace eliminates the worry about software updates, keeping track of different passwords and manual syncing and sharing of data, thereby increasing business productivity and lessening frustrations for users and IT administrators alike," said product manager Chris Vander Mey in <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/open-for-business-google-apps.html">a blogpost that announced the move</a>.</p><p>Google is challenging Microsoft with the aim of becoming the operating system of the web. Up till now the search engine offered users and businesses several <a href="http://www.google.com/apps/index1.html">web applications such as Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs</a>. It already has 25 million Google Apps users, with 2 million of them businesses. </p><p>"More than 2 million businesses have adopted Google Apps over the last three years, eliminating the hassles associated with purchasing, installing and maintaining hardware and software themselves," says Vander Mey. </p><p>Cloud computing applications, which are internet-based rather than desktop-based, were looked upon as promising but have been slow to take off. Computer users tend to choose names they already trust, and seemed to be confused about cloud-based applications. For a long time the market position of Microsoft seemed secure. </p><p>But Google might now be changing the game. It might also have found a new revenue stream – 97% of its income currently comes from advertising. As it already has released the Google Chrome browser and is working on a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html">Google Chrome OS</a>, the App Marketplace is the next logical step towards becoming a software company.<br /></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsoft/">Microsoft</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/software">Software</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/cloud-computing">Cloud computing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mercedes-bunz">Mercedes Bunz</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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10 MAR 2010 14:34:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/81318?ns=guardian&pageName=Microsoft+launches+campaign+to+promote+Bing%3AArticle%3A1369971&ch=Media&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Advertising+%28media%29%2CBing+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CMedia%2CSearch+engines%2CDigital+media%2CTechnology&c6=Mark+Sweney&c7=10-Mar-10&c8=1369971&c9=Article&c10=News&c11=Media&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FMedia%2FAdvertising" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">TV marketing push for search engine will run for three months and aims to end Google's popularity</p><p><br />Microsoft will today launch its first TV ad campaign to promote Bing, the search engine the software giant is backing to be a Google killer.</p><p>The TV campaign, created by JWT, forms part of a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/08/microsoft-bing-tv-ads-google" title="multi-million marketing push that will run for the next three months">multi-million marketing push that will run for the next three months</a>.</p><p>The first of three TV ads launches today. The second ad will launch next week and the third the week after. Microsoft, which is also launching an major digital campaign to support Bing, is running a concentrated marketing push for the first month to be followed by two-week bursts until mid-June.</p><p>Microsoft's TV ads aim to show that Bing simplifies the "information overload" that accompanies the results of many searches. The ads feature ordinary people asking for information and receiving nonsensical, "speaking-in-tongues" answers; one early spot has a woman seeking directions to Euston station.<br /><em><br />• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.<br />• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".<br /></em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/advertising">Advertising</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bing">Bing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines">Search engines</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/marksweney">Mark Sweney</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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10 MAR 2010 12:01:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/31665?ns=guardian&pageName=Engage+your+users+to+survive%2C+Google+tells+newspapers%3AArticle%3A1369797&ch=Media&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Media%2CDigital+media%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CNewspapers%2CCharging+for+content&c6=Mercedes+Bunz&c7=10-Mar-10&c8=1369797&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Media&c13=&c25=PDA+blog%2CTechnology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FMedia%2FDigital+media" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Charging might work with specialist content, says Google's chief economist – but engaging readers with online content during their leisure hours is a more promising strategy</p><p>The key to most newspapers' survival online is engaging more with readers, rather than seeking to charge them directly, Google argues. </p><p>The case was put by its chief economist, Hal Varian, yesterday at <a href="http://ftc.gov/opa/2010/03/news2010.shtm">a workshop of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington on "The Future of Journalism".</a></p><p>Google denies any responsibility for the problems newspapers face. "The news industry's financial problems started well before the web came along," Varian said in his speech, which he also published as <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/03/newspaper-economics-online-and-offline.html">a blogpost</a>. </p><p>Google estimates that charging for access is only a solution for news organisations with specialised content, since competition for generic news is too high. </p><p>A more promising approach, Varian argues, is to increase the involvement of readers with news during leisure hours, when they have more time to look at content and advertisements. Google recently introduced several experiments in displaying news differently, <a href="http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/">such as Fast Flip</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/feb/17/digital-media-google-living-stories-open-source">the open source project Living Stories.</a> </p><p>According to Google, declining print circulation hadn't been offset online because news readers tend to look at a disproportionate amount of online content during working hours, <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/04/print-is-still-king-only-3-percent-of-newspaper-reading-actually-happens-online/">when people have little spare time</a>. "The average amount of time looking at online news is about 70 seconds a day, while the average amount of time spent reading the physical newspaper is about 25 minutes a day," Varian says. </p><p>Furthermore, analysing search clicks, Google finds that the traditional cross-subsidization model of newspapers is broken. While before, in print, advertisements in special interest sections such as motoring, travel, or home & garden helped finance the general news production, now most of the search clicks are in categories such as sports, news and current events, and local. </p><p>According to Google, which doesn't display any advertising with its overview page Google News, there is money to be made in the sectors of travel, health, shopping and computers and electronics while news is hard to monetize, despite being frequently accessed. </p><p>In general, Google's outlook for newspapers isn't too good. "The transition to a fully online news will be difficult, but there's a good chance that we will emerge with a significantly more compelling user experience," Varian says. </p><p>Newspapers don't exploit fully the information they have and use their analysis and statistic tools, Google argues. A more direct measure of what users seek and read such as reviews, video and local news would improve online news, as would better advertisement measurement and a more intense contextual targeting.</p><p>Google, which wants the world to know that it is "keen on working with the news industry", sees some hope in new devices – such as the iPad – that could make online reading more attractive in leisure hours. </p><p>Therefore, Google's strong advice for newspapers is to increase user engagement, summed up clearly in <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28084224/030910-Hal-Varian-FTC-Preso">one of Varian's bullet points</a>: "Engagement is currently low, need to increase it".</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/newspapers">Newspapers</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/charging-for-content">Charging for content</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mercedes-bunz">Mercedes Bunz</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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09 MAR 2010 16:30:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/89072?ns=guardian&pageName=The+US+is+not+at+cyberwar+%7C+Tim+Stevens%3AArticle%3A1369411&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=China+%28News%29%2CInternet%2CTechnology%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CPrivacy+and+the+net%2CUS+news%2CWorld+news%2CDigital+media%2CMedia&c6=Tim+Stevens&c7=10-Mar-09&c8=1369411&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=CIF+America+%28Blog%29%2CComment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FCif+America" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Comments by the new US cyber tsar Howard Schmidt are a welcome antidote to hysterical claims about online attacks</p><p>Last week, the Obama administration's most senior official with responsibility for the internet and cyberspace made a significant intervention in the increasingly hysterical US debate over cyberwar.</p><p>Since Google announced in January that it had been the victim of a series of cyber attacks originating in China, the prospect of imminent threat from foreign states and terrorists has been repeated time and again by senior figures in the security establishment. Now, the man who is charged with shaping US policy in this field has shown that he at least will not be a vehicle for hyperbolic rhetoric and scaremongering.</p><p>On Wednesday, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8971408" title="Guardian: Few details in White House summary of cyber plan ">Howard Schmidt</a>, appointed by President Obama in December 2009 to co-ordinate the development and delivery of national cybersecurity policy, <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/schmidt-cyberwar/" title="Wired: White House Cyber Czar: There Is No Cyberwar ">stated baldly that the US is not in the midst of a cyberwar</a>. This directly contradicts the statements last weekend of Mike McConnell, formerly director of national intelligence and currently vice-president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a major defence contractor.</p><p>In a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022502493.html" title="Washington Post: Mike McConnell on how to win the cyber-war we're losing">national op-ed</a>, McConnell claimed that the US is fighting a cyberwar today, one it is losing. Using a range of examples to make his case, including the recent Google China affair, McConnell proposed that the internet effectively be re-engineered to serve US national security interests. He went on to suggest that success in the Cold War would serve as a template for victory in the current cyberwar.</p><p>Schmidt debunked this flawed analogical reasoning, calling it both "a terrible metaphor" and "a terrible concept". Moreover, "there are no winners in that environment", he said.</p><p>In a media space in which the US public has consistently been told that cyberwar is an existential threat to American society, this marks a significant change in discourse. Schmidt's <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/cyber-war-hype/" title="Wired: Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet ">statement is one in the eye for vested interests</a> in the US security community and a clear sign that he believes inflammatory rhetoric to be distinctly unhelpful, if not counterproductive.</p><p>Although this is a positive move, it does not mean that we can expect only fluffy bunnies and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat" title="Wikipedia: Lolcats">Lolcats</a> from now on. Schmidt is not the only player in town and neither industry nor security agencies will roll over and play nice just because of his words. There are simply too many perceived security benefits to information technologies and billions in federal contracts to be made from them.</p><p>Also this week, Schmidt announced the declassification of parts of the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/cybersecurity/comprehensive-national-cybersecurity-initiative" title="The White House: The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative ">Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative</a>, a previously top-secret document that shows how actively the US is pursuing the deployment of "intrusion, detection and prevention systems".</p><p>The National Security Agency is at the heart of these internet monitoring schemes and the offensive and reactive capabilities to which they aspire are likely to raise serious questions about their legal and ethical status.</p><p>Nevertheless, Schmidt's words are a welcome bulwark, temporarily at least, against an institutional tendency to portray the internet as a high-risk environment that demands immediate and drastic action. Schmidt is right to say that there are real issues of e-crime and cyber-espionage that need to be addressed, but claims that the US is on a war footing in cyberspace are overblown and inaccurate.</p><p>Given the global nature of the internet, we should all be glad that the US debate over cybersecurity has taken a more positive turn than it has done for some time.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china">China</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet">Internet</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/privacy-and-the-net">Privacy and the net</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa">United States</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tim-stevens">Tim Stevens</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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09 MAR 2010 11:38:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/91592?ns=guardian&pageName=Why+do+we+ignore+%27real-time%27+results+from+Google+search%3F%3AArticle%3A1369245&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Google+%28Technology%29%2CTwitter+%28Technology%29%2CSearch+engines%2CBing+%28Technology%29&c6=Charles+Arthur&c7=10-Mar-09&c8=1369245&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2Fblog%2FTechnology+blog" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Eye-tracking shows that tweets added into search results don't get much attention. Too soon to be useful, or never going to be useful?</p><p>Users ignore "real time" results in searches. That's the conclusion of some eye-tracking studies carried out on people doing usability studies with Google results, and it might not be good news for Twitter - which has done <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/07/google-realtime">deals with Google</a> and Bing to let them index its content and serve it up in the results for searches. Google is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a1jwVtGQmErk">reckoned</a> to be paying $15m, and Bing $10m - though the length of the deal isn't known.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.oneupweb.com/landing/10_realtime_results_eyetracking/?source=sus_realtime_030310&guid=97A9C954-EE26-DF11-811E-00A0D1E31666">study</a> is unequivocal: tweets are the gorillas in the passing game of search results.</p><p>Come again? </p><blockquote><p>"It was right in front of you. Why didn't you see it? That's what a group of researchers investigated over a decade ago when they asked their study subjects to watch a video of a group of people passing a ball around. For the study, the participants were asked to count the number of passes completed. The participants were surprisingly accurate in their counts. And what about the gorilla? (Well, not a real gorilla, but a woman wearing a gorilla suit). In one group, less than 10% of the participants reported seeing a gorilla pass through. It is precisely what the study participants didn't see – a woman in a gorilla suit – that interested the researchers."</p></blockquote><p>The news will bring a quiet smile to Nick Carr, the author and blogger who has been <a href="http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/03/nowness.php">compiling</a> his sardonic Realtime Chronicles (like the Martian Chronicles, but more terrestrial) about the faint whiff of idiocy that attaches to attempts to orient the web, and particularly search, around the leavings of folk on Twitter. </p><p>But why don't we care about real-time results? Over at Scripting News, ur-blogger Dave Winer <a href="http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/03/05/realtimeSearch.html">suggests</a> that it's because </p><blockquote><p>"It's impossible to convey much information in 140 characters. So when a search hits a tweet you get at most a soundbite, telling you something you probably already knew. When you search you're looking for information you don't have but want."</p></blockquote><p>He adds: </p><blockquote><p>"I have a collection of Google Alerts that report once a day or immediately, via email, telling me about occurrences of my name, products I've made, other topics I'm interested in. These used to be pretty useful until they started including tweets in the body of stuff they search. Now the alerts are mostly useless. So in this case, adding real-time stuff actually subtracts value. "</p></blockquote><p>(Though I've also heard separately from other people that Google Alerts are becoming useless to them because of the prevalence of SEO efforts which push useless results into the alerts. Now the interesting point: I heard it on my Twitter stream, without searching it out.)</p><p>To which Josh Young's <a href="http://twitter.com/jny2/status/10040028849">comment</a>, also linked by Winer, makes sense: "Yes, real-time results in search suck because the feed is what's important, not the individual tweet."</p><p>The intriguing thing is that Google's senior vice-president of search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer, sounded absolutely certain <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/08/marissa-mayer-interview-full-text">when I interviewed her in the middle of last year</a> (before the deal with Twitter was signed) that real-time search would be really useful, and was something that Google absolutely should include. Here's the relevant quote, in response to the question: </p><blockquote><p>"We think the real-time search is incredibly important, and the real-time data that's coming online can be super-useful in terms of finding out whether – something like, is this conference today any good? Is it warmer in San Francisco than it is in Silicon Valley? You can actually look at tweets and see those types of patterns emerge, so there's a lot of useful information about real-time interactions that we think ultimately will really affect search."</p></blockquote><p>But it's already looking as though stuffing Twitter results high into the search results isn't quite the way to do that "useful information". Possibly Google - and Bing - will need to have a rethink about how results are presented: should "real-time" results (stop sniggering, Carr) be roped off in their own space, as sponsored results and text ads already are? But in that case, where? How does that gel with Google's aim of having plain, simple pages that load fast and also lead you to the information that you really want?</p><p>There's an associated question: are real-time search results any use? When you're trying to find out about breaking news that affects you, they'll definitely look damn useful - for instance, if you've heard about a natural or other disaster at a location where you know a relative is living or visiting, you'll want to search and find out what's happening. (Assuming the telephone system isn't working.) Possibly if you could see a flow of tweets from that region, it would go some way to helping. </p><p>For the other situations, though... harder to make out. Over to you: can you frame a use for real-time search results from services like Twitter (and perhaps even, who knows, Facebook), and can you solve Google's presentation problem?</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/twitter">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines">Search engines</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bing">Bing</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charlesarthur">Charles Arthur</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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09 MAR 2010 09:41:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/66348?ns=guardian&pageName=Google+%27trialling+TV+search+service%27%3AArticle%3A1369175&ch=Media&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Digital+media%2CTelevision+industry+%28Media%29%2COnline+TV%2CMedia%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CSearch+engines%2CTelevision+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology&c6=paidContent&c7=10-Mar-09&c8=1369175&c9=Article&c10=&c11=Media&c13=&c25=PDA+blog%2CTechnology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FMedia%2FDigital+media" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Company working with satellite provider on feature that would let users search both TV content and web videos on set-top boxes</p><p><a href="http://paidcontent.co.uk/"><img src="http://paidcontent.org/images/site/logo_pc_main.png" style="float: right;" alt="Covering the UK's Digital Media Economy | paidContent:UK" align="right" height="25" /></a> </p><p>Once again, rumours are making their rounds that Google is going to make some sort of set-top box play. The latest: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109912574043580.html?mod=rss_Technology" title="reports">the Wall Street Journal reports</a> that the company is working with Dish Network on a new feature that would let users search both TV content and web videos on set-top boxes "using elements of Google's Android operating system".</p><p>The tie-in direct with <a href="http://www.dishnetwork.com/">Dish Network, a broadcast satellite service provider, </a>makes sense, since both companies already have a close relationship on the TV, where <a href="http://www.google.com/adwords/tvads/" title="Google TV Ads">Google TV Ads</a> counts Dish Network as one of its primary partners.</p><p>But there are some big caveats and unknowns: It's unlikely that the service will come to market soon, since the WSJ makes a point of emphasising that the tests are limited for now to a "very small number" of Google employees. </p><p>Also, no set-top boxes that run on Android are currently on the market. But as far back as November 2007 <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/20/the-google-set-top-box-think-android-for-tv/" title="there were rumours">there were rumours</a> that Google was working to build an app platform for set-top boxes. Nothing has come of that, although that effort would presumably be related to this one in some way.</p><p>If Google did go ahead and launch some sort of "Google TV search", competitors would include Clicker, the much-hyped (<a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-clicker-gets-11-million-for-online-video-search-engine/" title="and funded">and funded</a>) online video search engine which has deals with set-top boxes like Boxee and popbox, so that users can search Clicker from their TVs.</p><p>A Google spokesman said the company does not comment on rumour or speculation. </p><p><strong>Related stories</strong><br /><ul class="related"><li><a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-clicker-gets-11-million-for-online-video-search-engine/" title="Clicker Gets $11 Million For Online Video Search Engine">Clicker Gets $11 Million For Online Video Search Engine</a></li><li><a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-googles-android-is-moving-into-the-digital-home/" title="Google's Android Is Moving Into The Digital Home">Google's Android Is Moving Into The Digital Home</a></li></ul><br /></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/television">Television industry</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/online-tv">Online TV</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines">Search engines</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/television">Television</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paidcontent">paidContent</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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09 MAR 2010 07:30:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/38963?ns=guardian&pageName=Apple%27s+secret+developer+agreement+revealed%3AArticle%3A1369154&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Apple+%28Technology%29%2CiPhone%2CSoftware+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CMobile+phones+%28Technology%29&c6=Bobbie+Johnson&c7=10-Mar-09&c8=1369154&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FApple" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>• Despite the squillions of iPhone apps out there, <strong>Apple</strong> has worked very hard to keep details of its contract with developers under wraps. No longer: the Electronic Frontier Foundation used <a href="http://flyingsinger.blogspot.com/2010/02/free-nasa-app-for-iphone.html">Nasa's iPhone app</a> as an avenue to file a Freedom of Information request to get a <a href="http://www.eff.org/files/20100302_iphone_dev_agr.pdf">public copy of the contract</a> (PDF). And the organisation <a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-program-license-agreement-all">isn't happy with what it sees</a>: including a ban on public statements, certain reverse-engeineering restrictions and Apple's lack of liability in case of something going wrong. </p><p>• <strong>Google</strong> is <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=3&ved=0CBAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748704869304575109912574043580.html&ei=IeSVS43gDqKy0gSDqe3wCw&usg=AFQjCNFp_rWMQTvDaPHzh-w08hGOxpJ9Yw&sig2=rC0PQOfGGYdbyAfiLkqfLA">testing a TV search service</a>, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It suggests that there's a pilot scheme for an embedded set-top search service linked to a US satellite TV provider - not the first time that Google has shown television ambitions (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/dec/07/news.googlethemedia">here are</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/07/google.internet">two examples</a> in the UK). But still worth watching.</p><p>• Also in Google, meanwhile, ZDNet brings news of <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1783">this Goldman Sachs note</a> reducing expectations of sales of the <a href="">Nexus One</a> - drastically. It now thinks the company will sell 1m handsets in 2010, down from a previous estimation of 3.5m. Why? "Possibly due to limited marketing and customer service challenges" - or, in other words, the decision to sell it online-only.</p><p><em>You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/guardiantech">@guardiantech</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/gdngames">@gdngames</a> or our <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/page/2007/dec/10/1">personal accounts</a>) or by watching our <a href="http://delicious.com/guardianista">Delicious feed</a>.</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/apple">Apple</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/iphone">iPhone</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/software">Software</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/mobilephones">Mobile phones</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/bobbiejohnson">Bobbie Johnson</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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08 MAR 2010 07:30:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/46414?ns=guardian&pageName=Microsoft+and+Apple+start+new+advertising+blitzes%3AArticle%3A1368644&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Microsoft+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CBing+%28Technology%29%2CSearch+engines%2CApple+%28Technology%29%2CiPad%2CDigital+music+and+audio+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology&c6=Bobbie+Johnson&c7=10-Mar-08&c8=1368644&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FMicrosoft" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>• The never-ending war between <strong>Google</strong> and <strong>Microsoft</strong> stepped up another gear today, as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/08/microsoft-bing-tv-ads-google">Bing starts running UK TV ads</a>. We've seen Google looking more towards traditional advertising channels recently, so it looks like the latest front could open on the airwaves - not the net itself.</p><p>• Talking of ads, after <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/05/apple-ipad-sale-dates">announcing the first iPad launch date last week</a> iPad advertising push has started, with <strong>Apple</strong> <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/07/apple-airs-first-ipad-commercial-during-oscars/">running its first spots</a> during Sunday night's Oscar ceremony. But while Kathryn Bigelow and her film the Hurt Locker came out as the night's big winner, it isn't a big mover and shaker online: according to TorrentFreak it was District 9 that <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/and-bittorrents-oscar-goes-to-district-9-100307/">was the most torrented movie</a> up for an award.</p><p>• Bit of a quiet weekend by all accounts, but if you're looking for something to chew over, there's a really interesting piece in the New York Times about the online music service <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/technology/08pandora.html"><strong>Pandora</strong> - and how it rescued itself</a>. The site's struggled for most of its life, but after all that it could look to go public soon. A few questions remain, but plenty to learn there too. </p><p><em>You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/guardiantech">@guardiantech</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/gdngames">@gdngames</a> or our <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/page/2007/dec/10/1">personal accounts</a>) or by watching our <a href="http://delicious.com/guardianista">Delicious feed</a>.</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsoft/">Microsoft</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bing">Bing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines">Search engines</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/apple">Apple</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/ipad">iPad</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/digital-music-and-audio">Digital music and audio</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/bobbiejohnson">Bobbie Johnson</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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08 MAR 2010 06:58:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/23840?ns=guardian&pageName=Microsoft+%27takes+on+Goliath%27+with+Bing+TV+ads+mocking+Google%3AArticle%3A1368154&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Bing+%28Technology%29%2CAdvertising+%28media%29%2CDigital+media%2CTelevision+industry+%28Media%29%2CMedia%2CMicrosoft+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CSearch+engines%2CTechnology&c6=Mark+Sweney&c7=10-Mar-08&c8=1368154&c9=Article&c10=News&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FBing" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Microsoft's 'Bing and decide' campaign, starting on television this week, attacks 'information overload' of rival's results</p><p>Microsoft is to launch a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign for its search engine Bing, as part of a major marketing push designed to challenge Google's dominance of the UK search market, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.</p><p>The campaign to promote Bing, the so-called "decision engine" that Microsoft is backing with $2bn, begins with a series of TV ads this week.</p><p>"This is a big moment – we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath," said the managing director and vice-president of consumer and online at Microsoft UK, Ashley Highfield, adding that he believed Bing met a real desire from both consumers and advertisers.</p><p>The three-month campaign, which includes three TV ads created by the agency JWT, starts on Wednesday and uses the strapline "Bing and decide".</p><p>The ads aim to show that Bing simplifies the "information overload" that accompanies the results of many searches.</p><p>"People feel overawed by the internet and what they turn up when they are searching," said Highfield. "We are also in a world where people have forgotten there is an alternative search engine."</p><p>Microsoft will certainly have its work cut out winning over consumers – it currently holds about a 3% share of the search market while Google controls about 90%.</p><p>The ads feature ordinary people asking for information and receiving nonsensical, "speaking-in-tongues" answers; one early spot has a woman seeking directions to Euston station.</p><p>The TV campaign will run solidly for a month and then in two-week bursts until mid-June. It will be backed by a digital campaign across Microsoft's network and on media including social networking websites.</p><p>Highfield said that a key aim of the campaign was to contrast the "visually rich" Bing with the relatively austere-looking Google.</p><p>"It is a battle not just of mind but of heart as well," he said. "We are wanting to make an emotional connection – we are ploughing a different furrow here."</p><p><em>• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.</em></p><p><em>• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".</em></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bing">Bing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/advertising">Advertising</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/television">Television industry</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsoft/">Microsoft</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines">Search engines</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/marksweney">Mark Sweney</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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08 MAR 2010 00:05:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/77529?ns=guardian&pageName=It%27s+a+Shambles+*+but+it%27s+the+most+picturesque+street+in+Britain%3AArticle%3A1368567&ch=Travel&c3=Guardian&c4=Yorkshire+%28Travel%29%2CGoogle+Street+View+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CMuseums+%28Culture%29%2CTechnology%2CTravel%2CCulture+%28Travel%29&c6=Helen+Carter&c7=10-Mar-08&c8=1368567&c9=Article&c10=News&c11=Travel&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTravel%2FYorkshire" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Cobbled York thoroughfare with roofs so close they almost touch wins inaugural Google Street View awards</p><p>It has a name that belies its quaint medieval beauty – Shambles. But the winding York thoroughfare that attracts millions of tourists every year has been voted the most picturesque street in Britain.</p><p>The distinctive, narrow, cobbled street is lined with wooden-framed buildings, some 600 years old. They lean together in the middle with roofs that are so close they almost touch.</p><p>Shambles with its variety of shops and cafes has been voted the most picturesque street in the inaugural Google Street View awards after more than 11,000 cast their vote in February.</p><p>The name is no reflection on the physical state of the street – Shambles originates from a medieval word shamel (meaning bench.) Pavements on either side are raised to create a channel which butchers would wash their waste through. It is one of the most visited areas of the UK and has shops, restaurants and tourist attractions, including seven evening ghost walks and tours and was mentioned in the Domesday Book, making it Europe's most well-preserved medieval street.</p><p>A reviewer on Tripadvisor who used to live in York wrote: "Inevitably whenever I was trying to get through this street I'd have to dodge several people taking photos, stopping suddenly in front of me and tutting if I got in their shot. Yes, it's a pretty street, yes it's old, but it's not a museum people."</p><p>York is also well known for its Jorvik Viking museum, the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe, Roman remains and its railway museum. Each year, York attracts more than 4m visitors spending more than £330m and tourism is vital to the city's economy with 10,000 jobs in the tourist sector. Many visitors take a trip to Shambles.</p><p>The Royal Crescent in Bath and Grey Street in Newcastle-upon-Tyne were voted second and third in the most picturesque street category. In fourth and fifth place were New College Lane in Oxford and Pen Cei in Aberaeron, mid-Wales.</p><p>Ian Addyman, who owns a shop on Shambles, said the area was full of historic charm. "There is a real feeling of community among shopowners and I think we all feel privileged to work in such a beautiful place. The shops here are all strikingly different and unique."</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/yorkshire">Yorkshire</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google-street-view">Google Street View</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/museums">Museums</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/cultural-trips">Cultural trips</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/helencarter">Helen Carter</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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07 MAR 2010 10:20:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/16814?ns=guardian&pageName=Hard+times+for+venture+capitalists%3AArticle%3A1367517&ch=Technology&c3=Obs&c4=Internet%2CTechnology%2CFacebook%2CTwitter+%28Technology%29%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CAmazon.com+%28Technology%29&c6=John+Naughton&c7=10-Mar-09&c8=1367517&c9=Article&c10=Feature&c11=Technology&c13=The+networker+%28series%29&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FInternet" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The spectacular coups that made billions are a distant memory and the chances of finding lucrative new deals are slim</p><p>Spare a thought for the poor venture capitalists of the world. Well, perhaps the word "poor" is not entirely appropriate, but there's no doubt that they seem to be having a torrid time at the moment. Over the past decade they have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into start-up technology companies – and have emerged with an average figure for five-year returns that has oscillated around, er, zero.</p><p>This will come as a surprise to those who subscribe to the cartoon image of the venture capitalist as a hatchet-faced investor who invests in someone's dream in order to wind up effectively owning it – and then flogging it to anonymous shareholders by floating the company on the stock market.</p><p>The stock scenario is simple: man (or woman) has Great Idea but lacks the money to develop it and bring it to market. Venture capaitalist has money, and provides it in return for a generous slice of the company's shares, thereby "diluting" the founder's stake in the venture. Because of Murphy's law, it always takes longer to get stuff to market than the business plan predicts, so the VC puts in more money by buying more shares at a lower price, thereby diluting the founder still further. And so it goes on until the company is floated, with the VC owning 98% of it and the founder trying to get by on the proceeds of selling his remaining 2%.</p><p>I exaggerate, but not much. One of the things you learn from being in the technology business is that company founders regard venture capitalists as – at best — a kind of necessary evil. In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Thing-Youve-Never-Changed/dp/0340766999" title=""><em>The New, New Thing</em></a>, Michael Lewis told the story of how Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, became so convinced that he had been screwed by one of the VCs who had bankrolled the company that he refused to allow the same individual to invest in his next start-up, Netscape – with the result that the chap in question committed suicide.</p><p>Our view of venture capitalists is skewed by the fact that it's only their spectacular coups that attract media attention. Most of these date from the original internet boom triggered by the flotation of Netscape in 1995. In 1996, for example, Silicon Valley venture capitalists put a few million dollars into a telecom-equipment startup called Juniper Networks. Three years later, Juniper floated and at the end of the first day of trading was worth nearly $5bn. Within months, it was valued at nearly $50bn. The original investment had yielded a 10,000% return. Similar stories can be told of the $50m that John Doerr and Michael Moritz between them invested in Google – or of the stake garnered by the $100,000 that Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim gave the Google boys before their company had even been incorporated.</p><p>But that was then and this is now. It's only in a bubble that VCs appear to be like alchemists – able to turn the dross of technology start-ups into pure gold. During the first internet boom, pension funds, banks and institutional investors – desperate for a slice of the alchemical action – showered money on those who ran venture capital funds. The result is an industry that still has far too much money – together with a dwindling number of ways of investing it which offer any prospect of the returns that their clients were hoping for.</p><p>This is not because technological innovation has ground to a halt – au contraire: if anything it's accelerating, at least in the internet space. But this explosive innovation isn't offering VCs much comfort, for two reasons. One is that the conventional way for them to cash in – stock market flotations – has more or less disappeared.</p><p>The second factor is that technology start-ups now need less investment than they used to. In the 1990s, a new internet company needed to buy large numbers of servers and computing infrastructure – and spend fortunes on conventional advertising – in order to gain market presence. Nowadays nobody buys servers and infrastructure – they just rent it from cloud-computer providers like Amazon, so the big players in a web 2.0 world such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype spend astonishingly little on kit and advertising. Their main requirement is investment that enables them to employ and reward talented staff, and that is orders of magnitude less than what the first wave of internet companies required.</p><p>So what will happen to VCs? The most likely answer is that the industry will gradually shrink to more sustainable levels, and institutions that invest in venture funds will have more realistic expectations. Which, in the end, will benefit everybody. Except, of course, the poor founders of companies, who will still wind up getting screw… er diluted.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet">Internet</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/facebook">Facebook</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/twitter">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/amazon">Amazon.com</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/johnnaughton">John Naughton</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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07 MAR 2010 00:05:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/68779?ns=guardian&pageName=It%27s+time+for+Google+to+lower+the+Jolly+Roger%3AArticle%3A1366362&ch=Books&c3=Obs&c4=Books%2CPublishing+%28Books%29%2CEbooks%2CTechnology%2CGoogle+%28Technology%29%2CCulture+section%2CDylan+Thomas+prize+%28Books%29&c6=Robert+McCrum&c7=10-Mar-07&c8=1366362&c9=Article&c10=Feature%2CComment&c11=Books&c13=Robert+McCrum+on+books+%28series%29&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FBooks%2FPublishing" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Only belatedly are publishers confronting the implications of the digitisation of literature</p><p>William Caxton first set up his "shoppe" in the precincts of Westminster Abbey in the autumn of 1476. Nine years later, he was printing the first edition of that medieval bestseller, Thomas Malory's <em>Le Morte d'Arthur</em>. <em>Mutatis mutandis</em>, just over 500 years later, at the turn of the millennium, Google planned its digitisation of the world's great libraries. So, by analogy, we are now approaching the moment when this momentous paradigm shift should start to yield fruit.</p><p>Electronic time can seem faster than real time. The transformation of the literary landscape has happened at warp speed and it's not over yet. Not remotely. So it should come as no surprise that the publishing business, a slave to real time and long lunches, should have been so slow to adapt. The book trade has always been intrinsically conservative. The prospect of some California geeks with laptops upending time-hallowed traditions is no one's idea of fun.</p><p>At first, when the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/30/google-library-project-books-settlement" title="">Google Books Library Project</a> was launched in 2004, senior UK publishers were in a funk about how to respond and instinctively found an ostrich-like default position. If they had understood the digital revolution better, they might have resisted Google's piracy with an articulate common purpose.</p><p>As it was, only Nigel Newton of Bloomsbury had the wisdom to pull his head out of the sand and raise the alarm. Much good it did him. Gail Rebuck of Random House also delivered a remarkable speech at Stationers' Hall in 2008, but hers was a rare voice of sanity.</p><p>Similarly, in the library world, only Robert Darnton of Harvard really understood what Google was up to and argued the case for copyright with tenacity and intelligence. As a historian of books, he knew that texts have to be robust to survive. Digitisation produces oodles of content for the worldwide web, but electronic copy is much frailer and more vulnerable than printed type, while at the same time susceptible to mass transmission.</p><p>This is a paradox that has confused the trade's response to Google. But now the fog of war is clearing from the digital battlefield. American and European courts have begun to do in law what the publishers failed to do in business practice. Since the new year, a succession of sharp judgments has demonstrated to anyone who has followed this story that Google can no longer fly the Jolly Roger.</p><p>Simultaneously, some key figures in the Anglo-American book business are beginning to find their voice on behalf of writers. Mark Le Fanu, the respected general secretary of the Society of Authors, has suggested that the ongoing US court settlement of the digitisation dispute should "solve the conundrum" of how to give greater access to the public, in the age of free content, "while retaining control on the part of author and publisher and securing a potential revenue stream. At a time when piracy is rife, this is one way forward".</p><p>While the book trade's policemen stand saluting at the intersection of Grub Street and the information superhighway, Jason Epstein, a guru of old-style publishing, has made a brilliant analysis of where we are now in the latest <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/" title=""><em>New York Review of Books</em></a>.</p><p>Epstein, who used to run Random House in New York, is clear that the shift to digital files is "irreversible", but points out that "no one today can foresee except in broad and sketchy outline the far greater impact that digitisation will have on our future".</p><p>He does not say this, but Epstein implicitly supports the industry's current policy of wait and see. Most US and UK imprints today are like the character in the AA ad: they don't know how to fix the machine, but they "know a man who does". Usually, the man in question is 23, with the pallor of the net-surfing techie.</p><p>Meanwhile, with guidance from commentators such as Ep1stein and other students of information technology before and after Gutenberg and Caxton, everyone is slowly positioning themselves for the future. Amid some fantastic talk about the "free commons" and "digital clouds", there is just one certainty: this wake-up call to Google is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.</p><h2><strong>Is that still or sparkling spinach water, sir?</strong></h2><p>Advice to would-be bestsellers: write about food, but not like the Americans do. Michael Pollan's <em>In Defense of Food </em>was one of the success stories of 2008. Now he's at it again, this time with <em>Food Rules</em>, a compilation of advice from folklorists, nutritionists and various grannies. Even for Middle America, it's desperately sappy stuff. "Eat only food that has been cooked by humans," is one of Pollan's pearls, which is only a sliver less nutty than: "Eat only food that will eventually rot." The sage of Long Island also advises: "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk" and – this is really bonkers – "Drink the spinach water." It's high time that some bright young British food writer reclaimed the kitchen table in an intelligent way.</p><h2>There'll be a rumpus in the hillside<br /></h2>You might think that junior literary prizes would learn from the annual troubles of an established trophy like Costa. Not, apparently, in Wales. The Dylan Thomas prize (£30,000 for the best writing anywhere in the world – in English – by an author aged 18-30) has run into a row about genres. At the prize's official launch in Boston, Massachusetts, Tessa Dahl and poet Robert Pinsky found themselves trapped in an impossible dispute over the relative merits of novels, novellas, plays, screenplays and poetry. In some desperation, a spokesperson for this hapless trophy commented that Thomas was best known as a poet but "excelled in a wide range of literary forms".</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/publishing">Publishing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/ebooks">Ebooks</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/dylan-thomas-prize">Dylan Thomas prize</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/robertmccrum">Robert McCrum</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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11 MAR 2010 12:08:
<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/13328?ns=guardian&pageName=Google+Reader+Play%3A+a+new+way+to+browse+the+web%3AArticle%3A1370371&ch=Technology&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Google+%28Technology%29%2CTechnology%2CDigital+media%2CMedia&c6=Mercedes+Bunz&c7=10-Mar-11&c8=1370371&c9=Article&c10=Blogpost&c11=Technology&c13=&c25=Technology+blog%2CPDA+blog&c30=content&h2=GU%2FTechnology%2FGoogle" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Google's new interface turns the web into an interactive entertainment magazine</p><p>Google has launched <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/play/">Google Reader Play</a>, an experimental feature that offers a new, highly visual way to browse the web. </p><p>The new interface displays only one story at a time, focusing on pictures, videos, visual statistics and maps. </p><p><a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/finding-awesome-stuff-online-with.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FMKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">"We think Reader Play is a fun way to browse interesting items online that you wouldn't find otherwise," </a>said software engineer Garrett Wu in a blogpost announcing the new product. </p><p>Unlike the standard <a href="www.google.co.uk/reader">Google Reader</a> in which users have to subscribe to feeds, Google Reader Play requires no set-up. It learns new users' preferences by asking them to mark items they like with a star to read later.</p><p>"We designed it especially for people who don't want to spend time curating their own set of feeds," said Wu. </p><p>Google Reader Play is thus easy to use, and as the items are displayed in full-screen, there is one type of content it is perfect for: television. </p><p>As <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/tv-may-be-the-new-google-reader-plays-best-venue/">Nick Bilton of the New York Times puts it</a>: "Although Google doesn't address television in the description of the product, the promising use case for many people could be the ability to use Google Reader Play on a computer hooked up to a larger screen."</p><p>Launched a few weeks before Apple's iPad hits the stores in April, Google Reader Play makes it clear that the big tech companies are aiming to take on the consumer market. </p><p><em>Do you like the idea of Google Reader Play? Please have your say in the comments</em><br /></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/google">Google</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/digital-media">Digital media</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/mercedes-bunz">Mercedes Bunz</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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