Google is letting you get personal with your search results. The Internet company plans to introduce today a new feature, called SearchWiki, that allows users to change their results from Google searches. You can move items up and down in the rankings, remove them entirely, leave notes about whether you found a particular site useful and add sites that either don't show up in the search results or are buried. Then it remembers those changes the next time you log in. And that is a catch, with privacy implications: You must be logged in to use the service so Google...
Every once in a while we show some of the stats about the feed readers people are using to access TechCrunch content. Since we recently passed a million daily RSS readers, now is a good time for a new update. In June 2006 Firefox, Bloglines and Newsgator were the three largest readers, in that order. Feedburner did an analysis later in 2006 with similar results. Long ago Google reader eclipsed all of those readers. And recently, Outlook has surged as the feed reader of choice. Of our roughly 1.4 million RSS readers, 520,000, or about 38%, come from Outlook. 390,000,...
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Only two and a half months after announcing Picasa 3 beta, Google has done the uncharacteristic and has committed to a full product release. Here's the clincher: Picasa 3 (download it here when Google updates the file) is the exact same desktop organizer and editor it was under the beta flag. (This is a good wagon for the Gmail team to climb aboard--Google's e-mail service has been in beta since 2004 and its latest releases have been earthshaking themes and emoticons.) Although Version 3 beta users won't see changes in this release, those switching from Version 2.7 will enjoy...
Not all Google endeavors turn into gold. Case in point: Lively, a virtual world launched less than five months ago, albeit in "beta." Google announced on its blog late Wednesday that it would shutter the product at the end of the year to focus on its bread-and-butter search business. Here's an excerpt from the post: Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it's the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people's lives. But we've also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet...
We think both Seattle and Silicon Valley are hotbeds of technological creativity. It’s not a winner-loser, either-or, single-elimination business tournament. Without both, the world would be far less prosperous and productive. There are big differences between The Emerald City and The Valley; but they just do things their own way. We’ve picked up on five stereotypes that define the Seattle-Silicon Valley rivalry. Soul on Ice: Silicon Valley is portrayed as a soulless, mechanistic place where monomaniacal technologists write software code 24 X 7. Seattle, meanwhile, is seen as an idyllic quality-of-life haven where hikers take precedence over hackers. Seattle is...
I like the idea of GMail Themes more than the initial batch of available themes (though I am sure more are coming). While there are several “cool” themes, my eyes can only tolerate a couple of the color combinations. That said, there are little tweaks that are as impressive as they are fun. The Ninja theme is too colorful and hectic for daily use - but the attention to small details is great. Look at the GTalk pop-up boxes and how the edges are mildly raised / angled. Small touches like that have be strangely excited for the eventual wave...
Google Mobile lets you search the Web using your voice in a way that is technically off-limits to iPhone developers, according to a report.(Credit: Apple [App Store]) If Google wasn't Google, there's a fair chance that its new mobile application for the iPhone wouldn't be allowed ......
Disagree with Google's search results? You'll be able to do something about it with a change the company plans to release starting Thursday. Google's SearchWiki is a feature that lets people elevate, delete, add, and annotate search results. Google remembers the changes a person made to search results, so repeat searches will show the same customizations and notes. Google has been offering SearchWiki as an experimental feature to some people for months, but starting Thursday it will become available to anybody who's searching while logged in with a Google account. "This is a search feature that gets a user...
