Google Earth Preview Screen Shot

Here a sneak peak of Google Earth. Don't forget do see the multitude of layers who will be on it ! Wow... Hope will see Canada too, like in Google Maps ?

Mamma should be now call Mammaaaaaaaaaaaa

Here is the graph and there the story.

The bitter blog of the ex boss of Google France

Seem it was playing hard (in french) in the Google France office. Automatic translation link.

Link Harvester : Really nice link analysis tool

Very useful and bring you a new sight on your friends. The limit imposed by Yahoo Api is a bit frustrating but the mirror sites help.

Google PageRank is down : A fix after the Adsense hijacking ?

Since friday late afternoon, no more PageRank show up in any of the tools providing it. May be a solid fix for the 302 redirection who caused PR highjacking ?

Yahoo MindSet : Sort your SERP's

Yahoo MindSet use a slider bar to sort your result form Researching pages to Shopping pages. After a few dozains of queries, I admit it's working not so bad 50% of the times for the 10 first results. But the best results were found when you set it half way in Shopping or Researching Mode. If you go to the maximum of the two mode, the results will be worst.

Invisible to radar but in the sight of Google Maps

Here it is.

MSN Virtual Earth: Seem more appealing than I thought

This look more solid thant I thought when I first read on it. The idea of the whole screen interface with vertical information layer is attractive and be very popular with all the Google Maps mashup and scraping who get out every day. But, will this be under passport or a close system ? This will be for US only again ? This will be really release this summer ? We have to wait to see if Bill will finally produce something interesting and not to buggy with a good usability !

Will Google reinvent the Ads Market ?

After reading this first article I'm still skeptic. But Gary Price give more ammunitions to the first story.

Search going local : Apton seem to have miss the boat

Funny to read that in mid 2005. I talk to some of the marketers of YP Canada in 2003 and after our talks, they where still afraid to trully invest in Web for the local market. Now I think it's too late for them to get back in the market. Google Local and Google Maps already scan outside YP databases to provide more results to users. Not quite good at this point, but I bet my shirt this will improve in the next year.

Goog has reach 3 times his value in 9 months

It's seem the Goog can possibly make it to the prestigious S&P 500 Index.

This may be explain the recent Balmer fear and today Bill Gates annoncement you will see somewhere this summer. Yeah this summer. Seem there are a little panic in Seattle right now. Bill should convince Georges that Google have a mass destruction weapon ;-)

Craiglist & Google Maps hacks improved

You now have Rooms and Sublets option in the list plus three cities in the Canadian country (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Great !!!

First use of MyGmaps : Epicurious in my town

If you are hungry don't try this ;-)

Good news from Blogger

Finally something will improve here !

Google Maps hacks : Seem to be OK and may be a API

Really good news from O'Reilly Radar tonight.

Wikipedia getting more and more popular

From this MediaPost article (free sub required) we learn that Wikipedia got more and more surfers (600% over less than 18 months) and start to put shadow on search engine. Here a snippet :

The Hitwise report revealed something else intriguing: With nearly 600,000 "living" articles to date, Wikipedia's orderly collection of consumer-created content is becoming a high-powered magnet for Internet searches. A ranking of all Web sites based on the total volume of traffic received directly from search engines placed Wikipedia at 146 in June 2004. But in September 2004 it jumped in the ranking to 93; 71 in December 2004; and in March 2005, it was the 33rd most popular site in terms of visits received from search engines.

Nice move. But I think Wiki is A Web reference, but it's lack of pizzas style like Google Maps or other plus value sites, and it will reach its ceiling soon in a point a view of competition of search engine leads.

New High for Goog

It reach the 240$ this morning !

SEM Getting More and More Complex

Nice article on the new perpectives of the SEM. But the tendencies are more complex. Here a snip :

Luckily, it isn't that difficult to get your client listed in a local-search tool. The largest like Ask, Google and Yahoo have deals with the phone companies and publishers of the Yellow Pages to include all their listings, regardless of whether the businesses listed even have websites.

This is really not enough. The local (YP) listing give not much information and have not enough stuff in it. Some Map Engine like Google Maps, scraped yours internet page to try to found addresses and matching keywords to give results to users. Here is a good example. And here is a bad example.

Also I think the vertical search market will suffer, -- and the services business will be first to bit the dust---, from the mapping search engines.

She also not speak about the RSS. RSS will have a huge impact on SEM. For now, almost only blog and Newspaper sites using it. But that will change soon.

MSN to China with Mobile technology

MSN received approval from Chinese government agencies to deliver MSN products and services to consumers throughout China.

Cheap Gas in US over Google Maps

Update: The site have been put down by the Internet provider ;-(
Update V2: Site is back online!
A new scraping of Google Maps for US drivers. I still continue to update the Google Maps Timeline. Also a scraping of movies and cinemas of 10 american cities.
Seem I will have a lot of job to follow it ;-)

Pay-per-click fraud proposition

An excellent story about India scam on ppc from Tim Yang.

IBM in the wind

Seem the Big Blue have an younger management team ! After the last week Firefox promotion to his workers , they now want them to go blogging.

Clicktracks was caught using black hat seo practices

I don't understand thoses practices ?
MY2C : If you look at any company site envolved in the Web Marketing or SEO and if you checked their numbers of linkdomain ( 972,000) in Yahoo for a newbies company (2002 with only 710 pages indexed), and if you compare it to one of the oldest source (1997) of SEO and Web marketing like Search Engine Watch who got (1,020,000) links and 43,000 pages indexed, that should you ring a bell of black hat linking!!!

Yahoo! News Tag Soup : The popular words of the day

Really nice application where you can saw what's hot today in the news, in a very fast way. The Web is a bit more semantic today !

Why Bush promote so much virtue ?

May be for this;-)

Gigablast add a directory to his offer

Gigablast now have a directory similar to Dmoz, but with a bit more entries in it. You also have a stripped copy (without images) of the page , the date when the page was indexed and sometimes the last modified date. Has Research Buzz mention it, the possibility to search ; the entire directory, the entire category, the pages in the base category, or the site in the base category is a good addition.

Google bizarre acquisition ? Not so !

Google buy Dodgeball.com who is a mobile networking company. At first thought, it seem a weard move from the specialist of the Web information, but when you look at the best last move Google make with Google Maps, it seem to me a not so bad buy. Google will simply focus more and more on ads and local services. It's a huge market and not well operate by techies cie.

Google Going Evil

After the flop of the Google Web Accelerator, Google seem to going to enrole us in anyway they can.

When I go to the Google site this evening, after the black out of Blogger for almost 2 hours (why they don't make maintenance between 1 to 6 am ???), sometimes I saw that information on my screen :




It's looking like when I was login when I tested, really briefly, the My Web History of Google ? When I sign out, the "Sign in" remain on my screen all the time. Even if I deleted the My Web History in my account (I use Gmail and I got an API key) if I click again the "Sign in" link I back in the My Web History ???

If this is still there at the end of the week, bye bye AdSense, Blogger account,and Gmail. Yahoo will have an happy new user !!! I know by my log a few Googleplex peoples read my blog, take this message upstair !

Google Maps Timeline

Oct. 2004 : The inspiration's source site who gave us Google Maps

Update: October 25

8 feb 2005 : Launch of Google Maps
9 feb : Only a day after Google Maps Reversed Engineered
16 feb: First application to localize by GPS your Google Maps
25 feb: Under Google Maps study : Nice paper on AJAX.
3 march: Integration in Google Local of Google Maps US and Canada
7 march: First Unofficial Google Maps Standalone Viewer
11 march: Google Maps Hacking and Bookmarklets
22 march: MyGmaps allow you to create your own Google Maps!
31 march: Google Ride finder allow you to find a taxi, or a limo, in real time in a dozain of US cities!

6 april : Google Maps add satellite pictures to Google Maps.

6 april : A bunch of sites on Google Maps are appearing on the Web
6 avril : First really amazing scraping site who combine Google Maps+Craig List and make a lot of noises ! Even Google Engineers say Wow!
13 april: Google Maps Mania A great site devote to all mashups, scrapings and other thing about Google Maps
19 april : Google Maps jump over the Atlantic and put the country of fish & chips and Guiness beer on the map!
1 may :Another scraping Google Maps + Yahoo Traffic. A bit long to load but useful in US only.
21 april: Dasnet Terraserver Topographic Maps over Google Maps
2 may: Really nice scraping of Google Maps + Flickr! It's have a huge potential.
3 may: Seattle MLS real estate on Google Maps
12 may: Firefox+Greasemonkey script to automate Geotagging
14 may: Foundcity a urban (New York) tagging tool!
17 may: Chicago (done) and Boston project of Transport Map layer over Google Maps.
17 may: Cheap Gas in US. A really nice integration à la Paul Rademacher!
17 may: 10 US cities Movies and cinemas database (same guy as Cheap Gas above)
17 may: Chicago Crime Geolocation tool
17 may: Miami Real Estate Locator by ListSomething. Poor local copy of Paul Rademacher Craig List & Google Maps
18 may: The first state to do it. Sexual predators list in Florida.
19 may : Seem to be OK to hack Google Maps. The good news, from O'Reilly, is Google may be developing an API to clarify this !
20 may: Google Maps Wallpapers : Not a hack using a layer over it but a tool to merge the small tiles to create a wallpaper.
21 may: My own epicurius scraping with MyGmaps
22 may: Dating Services on Google Maps (US only)
22 may: Craiglist & Google Maps hacks improved and cross the border with three new canadian cities, and with rooms and sublets rental for all the cities !
24 may: Weird embedding of Google Maps in... Flash !?!
25 may: Sex offender in Texas (not working at this moment)
25 may: BBC News on Google Maps. I knew that one will coming up one day !
31 may: Sport Maps for UK with the BBC Backstage data.
June 2: Piggy-Bank is a open source project of MIT to scrap information and turn your Firefox in a Semantic Web Browser. Lots of pootential !!!
June 3: A new tool to easily build your own Google Maps !
June 5: gTraffic.info for UK.
June 9: Seattle Bus Monster. Highly pratical site if you plan to pass by Seattle ! All the Seattle bus information, traffic cams and border data.
June 13: Zoto make a Geobloggers clone !
June 13: Census over Google Maps = gCensus
June 15: Google Maps UK Datasets! Great integration.
June 16: Canadian Real Estate Cytadia
June 20: The One-Way appears now as a blue arrows on maps. Also zoom-out on all the world (just main rivers and country borders are now defined).
June 21: Google Maps add satellite images for the rest of the world. Roma Italia.
June 27: Soon a Open WorldCat scraping to show you where to find your nearest spot for books !
June 29: Google finally release an API for Google Maps
June 30: Wheather over G-Maps
July 8: Irak Casualties
July 10: Gmaps transparencies
July 10: Google Maps Pedometer
July 11: US cities free Wi-fi.
July 11: Real time GPS Tracker over Google Maps
July 11: Been Mapped : Bookmark your best spot on Google Maps and let others vote for it.
July 14: Wifi Hot Spot in US
July 14: Google Maps add Japan with maps and satellite images
July 14: Bod Dylan tour over Google Maps
July 14: GreaseMap An Firefox GreaseMonkey Script to display Google Maps over Web page who contains geolocation data
July 18: Google Maps Control Panel
July 18: Airport Code
July 20: Not a new apps, but a funny story : Google Maps used to fight a fine !
July 20: Google Maps to the moon.Pssst: Zoom at the maximum level.
July 21: HotOrNot.
July 21: Events & Venues Mapper All kind of events and venues in US.
July 22: Find your neighbors (US only). Put your neighbors data with the name, address, and phone number of everyone on that street.
July 22: Google Maps add a Hybrid view. Borders over satellite over all the world and cities and provinces (CAN)/states(US)/county(GB) except for Japan. This may be inspired by Gmaps transparencies
July 23: New hack who help to zoom in. I pretty sure Google will implement that feature soon.
July 23: Wheather in UK on Google Maps.
July 23: WhereIs is a WhoIs (geo-location of server) on Google Maps.
July 25: Really nice integration of a few Vancouver pictures galleries with Google Maps by Pixel Development. Via Google Maps Mania
July 28: Gmdir. A Google Maps Directory
July 28: Google Maps & Virtual Earth side by side.
July 29: KMaps allow Google Maps to work on a Treo 650.
August 2: Oodle An real estate mashup like Paul Rademacher done with a nice tabs integration.
August 2: TLabel, an Google Maps API extension to display text or graphic small window over Google Maps.
August 10: GVisits is mapping your site's visitors on G-Maps with a simple javascript embedding in your page.
August 20: Map your Ancestors
August 20: Wheater Bonk : Professional Weater Maps
August 23: Blackberry can now use Google Maps with HelloWorld apps.
August 30: Over 150 years of hurricane and typhoon data and path.
Sept 9: New Orleans Flood Map with levels of water
Sept 9: Exmouth to Seaton Cycle ride tracklog demo. (Work better in IE than Firefox)
Sept 26: Zip code mapping service. Really nice apps where you can either click on a map's zone or enter data in the zip code box.
Oct 25: Chat with Google Maps. Wow !!!

Note to readers and users of the API: I will not included commercial stuff in that list and/or apps that, IMHO, is not useful -e.g. apps like tagzania-.

Tags: Google Maps , Timeline

Google Web Accelerator : Security Mistake

Seem all the negatives data and the really bad target of this idea have make Gootgle put a hold on this ! Nice move!

Update 8 may : With Internet Explorer it show me the Google Toolbar page ! With Firefox this is appearing :

Thank you for your
interest in Google Web Accelerator.
We have currently reached our
maximum capacity of users and
are actively working to increase
the number of users we can support.

Legal abuse of a black hat SEO company

Here the guy who just tell the facts !
Here is the cache of his previous post!
Here what's John Batelle say about the case.
Here what Inside Google say about this.
Here is the 33,600 links that "SEO" get from Google !!! No comment. I'm getting sick !

Seem to be another security warning with a Google product

Here the story! No surprise.

Google Web Accelerator

Here a few good points to explain why I will never use it.

Google Maps and Flicker : The New Scrapping Who Combine Yahoo & Google

The brand new GeoBloggers -- why not GeoFlickr ? -- is a beta (almost alpha because it is 2 day old) prototype but it can have a huge future if you just think for movie locations.

This scrapping combine the Google Maps and Yahoo (newly acquired) Flickr pictures site and handle the position on the Google Maps with the the geolocation tags (latitude, longitude plus a geotagged flag) you put with your picture in Flickr.

It's far away from the Craig List & Google Maps scrapping user experience, but the idea to combine the two rival search engine is bold and venturesome. Let see...

Sometimes I got to admit Flash can be useful

... Not to be found in search engines in the first page, but when it's a very creative design it can be a nice viral marketing way of promotion.

Monster have less money than Google for China

Google.CN
*Read the previous post and this thread of SEW.

Chinese hijacking Monster Job domain name ?

Seem the Monster Jobs site will have to go around to take the Chinese market. And the company who redirect users using monster.cn or monster.com.cn domain name is not related to Jobs business but is in the email and IM market.

Microsoft learns to crawl : The hard road to build a search engine

Really nice story, by the seattle Times, on the last years at MSN Search Engine Division. Here a funny snips :

Moss and the developer, Keith Bernie, set an ambitious goal of indexing 5 billion Web sites. They unleashed their primitive crawler on the Internet, hoping to build a vast collection of Web pages that could be searched by an engine. But after a week, they were stuck at 24 documents.

"It was driving me nuts," Moss said.

... MSN's Web crawler had been fixed and was scurrying through the Web, boosting the index to 1,100 documents, and then 24,000. By the summer of 2003, it had reached 500,000 pages.

Thoses confirmed my first impressions on the beta in 2003. But I'm really surprise on that hard beginning if you compared it to Yahoo when they leave Google and crawled one or two billion pages in the first weeks !

Via SEO Scoop.

Copernic Win Again the Benchmark Study of Desktop Search Tools by UW

This really complete study (2.2M, 15 pages), from the University of Wisconsin-Madison E-Business Consortium, who tested 12 desktop tools on six criteria; usability, versatility, accuracy, efficiency, security, and enterprise readiness.

Again the winner is Copernic. With no surprise the second is the Yahoo desktop search.

But the third one, is a new player for me : Wizetech Archivarius 3000. A another Canadian software firm from Vancouver who also involved in; music, MP3 and font catalog. I will come back on this soft later.