Blog, Internet, Technology

Several months ago Google publicly said “A” by including paid links among forbidden methods of SEO. Users were encouraged to report pages using such links and the spam fighting team, which has Matt Cutts in the ranks, worked on an algorithm to detect such pages.

Regardless of clear signs that paid links, as one of the techniques used to cheat search engines are not allowed, during those months Google AdWords and AdSense still allowed the companies working in paid links business to run ads. The problem was widely commented on many sites as a sign of duplicity from Google, on one hand fighiting with illegal SEO in organic results and on the other allowing the same companies to run ads via AdWords/AdSense and indirectly making money on the business.

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Google started a new funny project – a group video advertising Gmail. The idea is that users create short flicks (up to 10 seconds) where the red envelope (Gmail logo) moves from left to right edge of the screen. After joining the videos one will get something symbolising the long way an e-mail must travel.

Together with Iza I have just created our proposal, we'll see if it gets chosen to the final movie…

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A strange slip-up in the Polish version of Google is still visible online for at least two weeks and nobody seems to care to fix it. When you go to the advanced search page, you'll see the “Usage Rights” option with a select box, with the first line reading (my translation): “The purpose of the auction is to collect money to fund the holidays for children from orphanage in Mosty and to realize the statute goals of the Foundation”. The text comes from animatica.org website and seems to be a result of accidental copy-paste operation in the translation database. A screenshot is posted below.

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Until now, when you wanted to embed Google Maps in your website you had to apply for an API key and put some JavaScript code. Starting today, the maps can be embedded in a similar fashion to YouTube videos – all you need to do is to click the “Link to this page” link from Google Maps interface and you'll get the HTML code to copy and paste. Embedding is done using HTML mechanism called IFRAME (inline frame). I think it's a great help for users and it will get popular quickly.

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Some people have seen that Google decided to expand Gmail mailboxes to 9 GB. Not that I would ever plan to fill my current mailbox, but it's still a nice feature. As a matter of fact, when I was at Google I used to get so much mail, that the standard Gmail's 2 GB could be filled quite quickly (but employee's mailboxes had 15 GB at that time anyway). Anyway, the reality is that Google is now offering a shared storage service for both Gmail and Picasa Web Albums. If you have bought 6 GB extra storage for Picasa already, then your Gmail account will show 9 GB total storage now. Additionally, the price of the extra space has dropped a bit – for 6 GB you'll pay $20/year (earlier $25/year). It's a great offer for those who store a lot of pictures/e-mail and a prelude to the anticipated GDrive file storage service.

Gmail has 9 GB, the screenshot comes from Blogoscoped

Wah-Wah-Wee-Wah! – that would be Borat's reaction to the new feature of Google Maps – click & drag interface. Thanks to the new function, when searching for directions we're no longer limited to only one route selected by Google's algorithm. Although in most cases it was quite robust, but sometimes it is nice to make manual corrections, e.g. when you want to visit a certain place in the middle of the route or you want to avoid toll highways (not a big deal in Poland at the moment though :-)).

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It's incredible how prophetic was the article titled “answer machine” from the book Childcraft Volume 6: How Things Change published in 1964. Have a look at the scanned page below and read more info at Web Owls blog.

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It was a pleasure to test the new view available for Google Maps users. The product is called “Street View” and it offers something, which might be called an extreme zoom view. Instead of a simple map with street and building outlines you can get actual photos of the given place, just like you were there. The feature was introduced during Where 2.0 conference organised by O'Reilly.

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Philipp Lenssen, owner of Google Blogoscoped site wrote a nice and comprehensive article about paid links economy. This is one of the followups after some recent moves Google made regarding the SEO technique. See the Webmaster Central post and Matt Cutts' blog entry.

Most of the SEO crowd is getting nervous about the idea of demoting paid links by Google, which just shows how much power they currently have. I think that this method of search engine optimisation is simply cheating and in my opinion those who use it are wearing black, or at least gray hats.

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First they announced a spectacular purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion and today it was announced that DoubleClick will be acquired for (<strong>) $3.1 billion (</strong>). Whew, I wonder if in order to cover the cost of this transaction, the new DoubleClick will go back to the famous Punch the Monkey ads :-)

Every year about this time Google reveals yet another April Fools' joke. Today is no different, though I think we had a real wealth of jokes this year.

TiSP system after installation

The first thing to mention is obviously the new groundbreaking invention: Google TiSP, i.e. Toilet ISP. The technology solves the well known problem of “the last hundred yards”, which is the PITA of most Internet providers. Google put into reality the famous metaphor of US Senator Ted Stevens, who almost a year ago when speaking about net neutrality called the Internet “the series of tubes”. Thanks to the deal with most plumbing and sewage system companies, the service will use existing pipes which reach the toilet of every single apartment. The idea is simple and genius at the same time. And what's more important, the basic broadband service is going to be free, like other Google services!

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The “G” company cares about its employees. That's a known fact. For gadget lovers (who is not a one?) I present some of many items I have managed to collect so far.

Let's start with a big bang – a computer geek without a laptop feels like without a hand. In Google we can choose between Thinkpads (originally IBM, now Lenovo) and Macs. The former ones come with Windows, but one can of course install Linux if preferred. Nevertheless, I chose a Mac, tada! It's so smooth, shiny and nice to touch (hmm...) ;-)

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As you might know, some countries will soon celebrate Halloween. One of them is of course Ireland, and that was the theme of today's TGIF. By TGIF I mean a Friday party for Googlers, which is about drinking beer and having some snacks. But not only that – often we have some presentations of new products and interesting facts, new employees are introduced, video conferences with executives from Mountain View are held, etc.

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Before Polish Google Video launch on 11 July 2006 the Video team was looking for native insiders who could help with testing and translating the new service. I volunteered for the Polish part and it happened that I was also given the opportunity to select Google Picks for the Polish section.

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