Digital Envoy trade secrets case against Google

CNET News.com

"A lawsuit accusing Google of misappropriating trade secrets from geo-location specialist Digital Envoy may proceed, a district court in Northern California has ruled.

Last Friday, the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., denied Mountain View, Calif.-based Google's motion for summary judgment on claims that the search giant breached its contract with Digital Envoy, based in Georgia. However, the court dismissed several of Digital Envoy's charges, including claims of unfair competition, on the grounds that the two parties were not direct rivals, according to the court document."

Google Strategy > Interview: Google CEO Eric Schmidt Talks Business Technology

InformationWeek: "Google CEO Eric Schmidt Talks Business Technology May 26, 2005 The strategy involves putting more of Google's Web-site capabilities into low-cost appliances for the workplace.
By Thomas Claburn

Following the introduction of the Google Desktop Search for Enterprise software at the Gartner Symposium ITXpo in San Francisco on May 18, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat down with InformationWeek's Thomas Claburn to discuss his view of the business-technology market and how Google might change it. Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise business, was there, too. The interview began with a question about IT productivity, following Schmidt's public comments earlier in the day about "end-user dissatisfaction with IT.""

Growing pains at Google?

CNET News.com Charles Cooper writes: "Google reminds me a lot of Microsoft, especially during the early days before Bill Gates became a Davos fixture and started hanging with Bono. The common theme: loads of smart people running around chockablock with big ideas about how technology's going to change the world..."

He concludes: "One Google insider privately told me the higher-ups don't believe in sharing information they aren't required to by law (especially when it comes to a snoopy press). They're wrong about playing it so close to the vest, but I understand why. Google's on a roll now, but I guarantee that mind-set will get an update after the company's first lousy quarterly report hits the wire.

But these are mere quibbles, and people will forgive Google a lot because they love the story. There is a natural frisson surrounding the company, an upstart that has come so far, so fast. This is indeed an interesting company--arguably the best story to come out of Silicon Valley in the last decade.

How management performs will determine whether Google remains Silicon Valley's best story a decade hence."

Google Blog: on personalised home pages

Google Blog: A method to our madness: "A method to our madness: 5/19/2005 02:58:00 PM: Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products, and Jessica Ewing, Product Manager

Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a bunch of mad computer scientists running around building whatever we want? Today this question gets an answer: we've launched our personalized homepage via Google Labs. It's part of a strategic initiative we refer to as 'fusion' to bring together Google functionality, and content from across the web, in useful ways.

The personalized homepage is a complement to the existing Google homepage - not a replacement. Keep using the original Google homepage if you want to. (We expect many people will.) But if you're keen to organize and customize your information, take a stab at designing your own homepage. You can add Gmail, news, stocks, weather and more. Plus you can add great content from websites like the BBC and Wired. We're incorporating feeds from just a few other sites today, but we envision being able to accept any standardized feed very soon."

Google to Expand Overseas Business

BizReport: "Speaking at Google's first annual meeting since going public, chief executive Eric E. Schmidt told shareholders he anticipated that the company, which gets almost all of its revenue from advertising sales, would see a shift that would reflect its increasing global presence. The company's latest financial results show that it generates slightly less than two-thirds of its revenue domestically.
'This week, we got the necessary permit to open an office in China,' Schmidt said. 'As the Internet penetrates these countries, Google's market share will follow.'"

GOOGLE Buys Dodgeball.com,

MediaPost MediaDailyNews: "GOOGLE SAYS IT SNAPPED UP Dodgeball.com, a two-person start-up that created a mobile messaging service to enable users to alert friends as to where they're socializing. The service received plenty of buzz in New York City. The two guys who founded the company did so while they were New York University grad students. Dodgeball was uniquely promoted by the talented new media creative Doug Jaeger and his company, The Happy Corp. Dodgeball.com allows users to broadcast their location and send text messages to groups of friends. It can be used as a dating or hookup service, or just to let friends know which bar or party you're going to. It's the perfect social lubricant for 20-somethings and teens, those hard-to-reach, hard-to-target folks. "

Google Film Reviews: results

Mike Skweir writes at Slashdot: Google Adds Movie Ratings, Times and Reviews " He wanted to find out more about the movie 'Kicking & Screaming'... so he Googled it his results show several reviews, movie ratings and the ability to search for a theatre in the area. He adds that by entering your zip code, it returns movies on in that postcode area.

Example: Google Reviews: Kicking & Screaming (2005)

Google AdSense: New Features

Google AdSense - Google AdSense: What's New: "As part of our goal to improve the monetisation of your sites, Google has introduced a number of new features for advertisers, which will directly impact you as an AdSense publisher...

Site targeting: focusing on the audience...Site-targeted ads allow advertisers to select the specific sites they feel are most appropriate to their campaign, and to run their ads only on those sites

CPM bidding: a new way to generate revenue... set a maximum CPM bid - that is, the price they are willing to pay for every thousand impressions – and pay on a per-impression basis. This means that, unlike pay-per-click ads, you will earn revenue each time a CPM ad is displayed on your site.

Expanded text ads: testing new formats... text ads that expand to fill the entire ad unit, so that only a single ad will appear in that unit

More image ads: include a small number of Flash ads from a test group of advertisers...and ..wide skyscraper (160x600) format to make a total of 5 ad formats supporting image ads

Under 200 At 1st Google Shareholder Meeting

Forbes.com: "Google Inc. shareholders got a free lunch Thursday at the online search engine leader's first annual meeting as a public company. There were plenty of leftovers. Fewer than 200 people attended the meeting at the company's Mountain View headquarters...

Despite its unconventional reputation, Google put on a straight-laced show. CEO Eric Schmidt and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin spent most of the 90-minute meeting fielding a wide variety of shareholder questions, ranging from concerns about stiffening competition from Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to Google's policy on employee stock options...

Google's shares have more than doubled from the IPO price of $85, even after declining $2.57 Thursday to close at $228.72 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The lofty share price prompted a shareholder question about whether the company might split the stock to make it more affordable for individual prices. Brin said it's unlikely the stock will be split anytime soon."

Google Patent Analysed - SEO implications

wwwcoder.com: "Cracking the Google Code::Under the GoogleScope::Google's US Patent confirms information retrieval is based on historical data.

Publication Date: 5/8/2005 9:51:18 PM
Author Name: Lawrence Deon

Deon takes Google's definition of their United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005 abstract: "A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.” and concludes that:

"Google’s sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world… …if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out … guess again. He states that Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation...

The filing unquestionable provides SEO’s with valuable insight into Google’s tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google’s information retrieval is based on historical data.

He asks: "What exactly do these changes mean to you?"
Answer: "Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope!"

The article sets out further details of how Google determines link spam, on page spam, site age and many more ...

Article has been picked up by Slashdot Slashdot | Cracking the Google Code... Under the GoogleScope

Related posts:

Google in the news: United States Patent Application: 0050071741

Google in the news: New factor in Google Algo? Aging Delay for New Sites

Rand Fishkin has put together another detailed interpretation of the patent: SEOmoz | Google's Patent: Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data

Section one - Overview of the 5 Most Critical Concepts from this Paper - is a must read. It clearly explains his interpretation of the patent of:


1) Google's Concept of "Document Inception: Google will be using this data to rank documents and establish credibility and relevance.

2) How Changing Content can Affect Rankings: "for some types of queries, particular results are more valuable - stale results may be desirable for information that doesn't need updating, fresh content is good for results that require it..."

3) Spam Detection & Punishment:
"Watching for sites that rise in the rankings too quickly
Watching for registration information, IP addresses, name servers, hosts, etc that are on their "bad list"
Growth of off-topic links
Speed of link gain
Percentage of similar anchor text
Topic/Subject shifts or additions

4) What Google is Attempting to Measure:
Domain information
Information on User Behavior Online
Data contained on your computer

4) The Impact of this Patent he concludes that analysing Google results etc in view of the theories arising from this patent will prove/ disprove previous conjecture about Googles algos...

Google search down

Google search finds outage | CNET News.com: "Google's Web site was inaccessible for a brief time Saturday and some visitors reported being rerouted to another site, leading some to believe that the search giant had been hacked.
The site was down from 3:45 to 4 p.m. PST, Google spokesman David Krane told The Associated Press.
'It was not a hacking or a security issue,' Krane. He said the problem was related to the DNS (Domain Name System), which routes one's Internet protocol address to the appropriate Web site that the user wants to visit. If the DNS system goes down, Web pages requested usually do not appear or take a long time to load. "

Google isn't always No. 1

Google isn't always No. 1 - May. 3, 2005: "A new study of national advertisers and interviews with a handful of marketing agencies indicate that the Internet giant could have a customer service problem.

"Google has always been bad -- worse than bad even," said Dana Todd, the president of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)...

Independent media analyst Jack Myers, in his fourth annual 'customer satisfaction' survey of online sales groups, also found that advertisers aren't entirely happy with Google's service... as Google looks to broaden its services beyond paid search, Myers suggests the company first has some work to do with advertisers.

Google finished a solid No. 5 overall, better than its seventh-place finish in 2004. Yahoo! was No. 2. Of the nine categories measured, Google's sales team edged out Yahoo!'s crew in one category: product knowledge. Google finished third. Yahoo! ranked fourth.

What caught Myers's attention was Google's ranking in one of the most important categories: "responsiveness and accessibility." Google was No. 18, down from 11th place the year before...

Todd, the SEMPO president, attributes Google's poor image to the fact that the company has viewed itself as and acted like a technology company. Google has tried to automate as many processes as possible and that, according to Todd, doesn't work in the advertising world."

Thomson Directories ito sell Google AdWords to SMEs

Revolution Web Site: "By Daniel Farey-Jones - Revolution - Thomson Directories is to sell Google's AdWords targeted pay-per-click text ads service to UK small and medium-sized businesses. The alliance means that Thomson's 500-strong sales force will offer Google AdWords as an integral part of its ThomsonLocal.com online directory and WebFinder.com search engine marketing offerings...

Laurence O'Toole, business information and new media director of Thomson Directories, said: 'This partnership will allow our customers to take advantage of the extensive reach of the Google network, which will aid them in attracting more targeted leads.'"

Europe Uniting Against Schmidt's Google Print Project

Had to post this just because it references my favourite author/ book/ short story for a philosophical (fictional) angle on knowledge..... although the reporter does not mention the librarian...many of whose real life counterparts seem obsessed also with Borges.

Forbes.com: "In The Library Of Babel Argentinean erudite Jorge Luis Borges proposed the idea of a boundless athenaeum, where man could find any book at will. Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) announced a library-indexing project last year (see: 'Book 'em, Google'), but the search giant's Borgesian aspirations seem to have got a few backs up in Europe, which is rallying to an alternative. France's decision to create its online Babel of European literature received critical backing from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain this week. "

Search Engine News :: Optimise Web Sites for Organic Search

SEO Blog looks like blogs have had a PageRank update....

Guardian on Google local with Yell

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Google to go local with Yell: "Any company can access BT's directory of UK business numbers. But Google decided to make a deal with Yell rather than formatting BT's information itself."

Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart

Wired News: "By Adam L. Penenberg: On one hand, you have a company that rose up from modest beginnings to become one of the richest businesses in America (indeed, the world), and in the process revolutionized the use of technology to create a new way to do business -- helping people find what they want.

And then you have Google..."

Google Local Test Searches: hornsbury mill near Chard, Somerset, TA20

Google Search: taxis near northallerton

Google Search: hornsbury mill near Chard, Somerset, TA20

Google Local UK Beta Launched

Google Local

Google Search: taxis near northallerton: "Business listings provided by Yell.com"

Google Local Help: "Frequently Asked Questions: Google Local takes a new approach to helping users find geographic information online. We analyse the content in our index of more than 8 billion web pages and combine that information with Yellow Pages data to provide the most comprehensive local search experience available.

When you enter a search query on Google Local, your search results page will list all the relevant businesses we found. If you click the title of a business, you can view a map of the business's location. These maps are highly interactive—you can zoom in, zoom out, or drag them to view adjacent areas.

At the bottom half of the page, you will see a "References" section that shows general search results for the business you are researching."

Results change at Google:?

The SEO Blog: The Web We Weave, Linking for Google: April 2005: "Over the past week, SEOs and SEMs have noted some significant changes in the search engine results delivered by Google. Google appears to be actively cleaning its listings by targeting sites using suspicious link-building techniques. A couple of well-known search engine marketing sites have vanished from Google results under keyword phrases they dominated just last week....

If you or someone you know has been engaged in a link-building plan that relies on link trading between multiple sites that don't actually relate to or do business with each other, you might want to take a few hours to examine your link-building strategies."

Google adds local services and driving directions to mobile search

CNET News.com: "Google is doubling down on mobile search, and is set to offer new features for finding local services and calling up driving directions via wireless devices. On Tuesday, the search company plans to introduce two new search options for mobile phones. One feature lets people with browser-enabled cell phones use Google Local, a Web directory of local businesses and sights, by typing in a name and ZIP code. Using the second feature, people can text message Google SMS (Short Message Service) with the short code '46645' to receive driving directions to most locations. "

New factor in Google Algo? Aging Delay for New Sites

SiteProNews Scottie Claiborne writes : "I haven't seen any brand new sites with new domains appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP) since early in 2004. There seems to be a delay of about 6-8 months. I've checked with many site owners and SEOs and I haven't found anyone who's gotten a brand new domain ranked well in Google. If there's a magic bullet, no one's spilling the beans.

What happens is new sites get indexed, they appear for some obscure queries and they may appear at the top for a week or so, but then they drop to the bottom of the SERP for several months. The page shows a PageRank in the Google toolbar, as well as backlinks. Everything else works fine but it just doesn't rank well for any terms in Google. Many times, not even the company name."

Claiborne's "theory is that the age factor for new sites is Google's answer to mini-networks and other multi-site strategies intended to artificially inflate link popularity. Many people divide what should be a single site into multiple sites in order to capitalize on the links that are exchanged between them. Others build a series of small sites that are only designed to add link popularity to the main site.

By delaying the ranking of brand new sites, the mini-network strategy becomes more of a long-term strategy than a quick jump to the top. Site owners who might have started new sites are going to be more inclined to build new pages on existing sites in order to avoid that delay."

Claiborne's advice "if you are launching new sites for clients, make sure you set the expectation that it is likely to be 7-8 months before the site achieves any real results in Google.

We used to keep a site under wraps and launch it once it was "perfect." Now it makes sense to get a few pages up for your new site as soon as you complete them...When launching a new site, if traffic from Google is critical to your plan for success you need to plan ahead. Get the site out there and linked to as early as possible and plan to run an AdWords and/or Overture campaign for a few months until the site can be established in the editorial results. Yahoo and MSN do not have this delay built-in, so focus your early efforts on these engines.

Don't worry, Google will eventually give your new site the respect it deserves -- just give it time."

Google Q&A

Google SMS: "To get answers to questions that cover a broad assortment of topics, including authors, inventors, populations and more, just send your fact-based question or query as a text message to Google SMS. Google will scour the web to find answers to your question and include our information source so that you can learn more.
To get facts:
Enter the fact-based question or query
Sample queries:
india population
Mark Twain's real name
who wrote hamlet "

Discussed at webmasterworld.com: "Google News...New Google Answering Facts"

The Power of Google

Fool.com: Motley Fool Take Interesting: "opinion, Google's not really the innovator that many claim it to be. But it does things right. Every time. And figures out a way to make money off this advantage. Online Search. Online email. Desktop search. Newsgroups. News portal. Click-through ads. Blogging. Image browsers. These are all examples of computerized 'stuff' that had been around for a long time before Google invented a better way to do it, or simply bought another company that had already figured it out.

There's incredible opportunity in simplicity, and Google seems to be harvesting it better than anyone else."

Slashdot discusses | Google Founders Cut Salaries to $1

Slashdot : "GeneralCern writes "MSNBC Reports that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and CEO Eric Schmidt all [0]slashed their salaries to $1 last year. Since you do not have to pay FICA, Medicare, or income taxes
on the capital gains associated with stock sales, they stand to substantially decrease their tax burden. Is this a breech of the company's "do no evil" mission statement, or just an example of people who love their jobs so much they don't need to be paid to go to work?"
"

Google Budget Optimizer for Adwords

MediaPost: "GOOGLE THIS WEEK BEGAN OFFERING AdWords users a tool that adjusts their bids automatically, aiming to get the highest number of clicks for a given advertising budget. The feature, called Google Budget Optimizer, is aimed at consumers who want more automation, promising the maximum number of clicks for a given spend. Google cautions, however, that the Optimizer is not intended to gain a particular placement, but to achieve the maximum volume of clicks. --Shankar Gupta "

Why Google is Syndication Shy

Micro Persuasion Steve Rubel ponders his question leading to:

"an "aha" moment. Google views syndication drastically differently than its competitors. On the Web Google is all about driving people away from their sites. Once they've shown them an Adwords ad they had their opportunity to collect a dollar, so why not give the users what they need and send them on their way. However, when it comes to syndicated feeds they use it as a tool to drive users to their services and that’s why they are syndication shy. Remember Autolinking? I rest my case.

Feeds may be Google's greatest enemy. If Google did offer feeds that connected users with the information they are looking for from the Web they would miss the opportunity to advertise to them. What will remedy this? Google will incorporate contextual Adwords ads into these kinds of feeds, much like Overture has done. What’s taking so long? Beats me."

Google Integrates Keyhole Into Maps, Local

MediaPost report by Shankar Gupta...

"The idea, Keyhole General Manager John Hanke wrote on the Google Blog, is to let consumers see photos of what they're searching for--the beach in beachfront when looking for a hotel, or what the freeway exit on the way there looks like. When getting directions from Google Maps, Keyhole can overlay the path to the destination over the satellite photo...." snip

..."Google is not the first major search engine to incorporate images into its local search results. Amazon's A9 Yellow Pages local search incorporates block-by-block photos of businesses and residences. If a user searches for a coffee shop recommended by a friend, they can not only get the address, but also a photo of the storefront. Amazon accomplished this by equipping a truck with a digital camera and driving around thousands of miles of streets in several major American cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. Both AOL and Yahoo! have maps features--the former powered by MapQuest, the latter by a proprietary engine. Neither has incorporated digital mapping into their offering yet."

Webcast: Google: A Behind-the-Scenes Look

UWTV Program: "Google: A Behind-the-Scenes Look

Search is one of the most important applications used on the internet and poses some of the most interesting challenges in computer science. Providing high-quality search requires understanding across a wide range of computer science disciplines. In this program, Jeff Dean of Google describes some of these challenges, discusses applications Google has developed, and highlights systems they've built, including GFS, a large-scale distributed file system, and MapReduce, a library for automatic parallelization and distribution of large-scale computation. He also shares some interesting observations derived from Google's web data. "

Google .com.au site down

CNET News.com: "Google's indexing service dropped all Web sites with a .com.au extension for a few hours on Friday, effectively leaving millions of sites unattainable from the Net's most popular search engine. Australia's major second-level domains, such as .gov.au, .net.au and .edu.au seemed unaffected. However, Google's paid-for advertisements, which appear on the right of regular search results, displayed .com.au domains as normal.

The company confirmed the problem in a statement. 'For a few hours today, Google experienced temporary problems showing .com.au domains. The cause was quickly identified and is now fixed,' it said. "

Google Labs: Ride Finder taxi locator

Google Ride Finder
Google Blog: "If you're like me, you use a mix of recommendations from friends, the phone book, or standing on the corner with your hand in the air (and hoping it isn't raining) when you need to find a taxi, limousine or shuttle service. With Google Ride Finder, you can tell us where you want to find a ride and we'll show you the actual positions of participating vehicles in that area, along with a phone number you can use to contact the fleet operator (e.g., Chicago)."

United States Patent Application: 0050071741

United States Patent Application: 0050071741 New Google : "United States Patent Application20050071741
Kind Code A1 Acharya, Anurag ; et al. March 31, 2005

Information retrieval based on historical data

Abstract
A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.

Inventors:Acharya, Anurag; (Campbell, CA) ; Cutts, Matt; (Mountain View, CA) ; Dean, Jeffrey; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Haahr, Paul; (San Francisco, CA) ; Henzinger, Monika; (Lausanne, CH) ; Hoelzle, Urs; (Palo Alto, CA) ; Lawrence, Steve; (Mountain View, CA) ; Pfleger, Karl; (Mountain View, CA) ; Sercinoglu, Olcan; (Mountain View, CA) ; Tong, Simon; (Mountain View, CA) "

webmasterworld.com Check out the forum for discussion of possible implications...17 pages and growing....

Google Acquire Urchin (web site analytics)

businesswire.com: "Google Inc. today announced it has agreed to acquire Urchin Software Corporation, a San Diego, California based web analytics company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Urchin is a web site analytics solution used by web site owners and marketers to better understand their users' experiences, optimize content and track marketing performance. Urchin tools are available as a hosted service, a software product and through large web hosting providers.

Google plans to make these tools available to web site owners and marketers to better enable them to increase their advertising return on investment and make their web sites more effective. "

All the news robots pick

CNET News.com It has been "a difficult week for Google's automated news service, which aims to best traditional newspapers with mathematical algorithms and robots crawling the Web. "

The lack of a business model is said to have left Google open to criticism on every aspect of it's news service and for me exposes the central internal contradictions of algfo based objectivity - itself a human concept after all.....

Google co-founders left out of bonuses

CNET News.com: "Google is awarding bonuses to four executives for their work last year, but will not give bonuses to its CEO or to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin."

Millions of Pages Google Hijacked using ODP Feed

Slashdot: "The Real Nick W writes 'Threadwatch reports that millions of pages are being Google Hijacked using the 302 redirect exploit and the ODP's RDF dump. The problem has been around for a couple of years and is just recently starting to make major headlines." Googleguys refutation gets ripped to shreds....

Google Loses French Trademark Appeal Case

Forbes.com: Google Loses French Trademark Appeal: " French appeals court upheld a ruling against Google's advertising policy in a decision published Wednesday, ordering the Internet search engine to pay euro75,000 (US$100,300) in damages to two companies whose trademarks it infringed.

The court in Versailles, west of Paris, found that Google Inc. was guilty of 'trademark counterfeiting' and ordered it to pay the damages originally awarded to French travel companies Luteciel and Viaticum, as well as costs.

The companies' founder, Fabrice Dariot, filed the suit because Google users carrying out searches on the names of their registered trademarks including 'Bourse des Vols' - which means 'Flights Marketplace' - were offered ads for rival companies such as low-cost airline easyJet. "

Google Responds to Cloaking Accusations

eweek.com

Report summarises this issue which has been rumbling around all week: "Google has taken the unusual step of removing some of its own Web pages from its Web index after reports that the pages used a search-optimization method frowned upon by the search engine.

Search-engine watchers this week widely noted the appearance of so-called 'cloaking' on a set of user support pages on Google's AdWords advertising program. The pages were displaying different title information to Google's Web crawler than to regular visitors to the pages."

Google personalises news site

This feature emphasises Google's user centric focus and is a move to let users organise search results according to their own criteria rather than by algorithmic determined ranking (or date in the case of news.)

This raises the question of when and how they will launch personalisation of the main index search results and how this will impact on search engine optimisation?

CNET News.com reports that: "Google began testing new customization features on its news aggregation site Wednesday in a salvo against competition from Microsoft...

Google's News: FAQ: "What is customized news?""We've made a number of improvements to Google News that allow you to customize your News front page by creating sections that focus on topics you care about, for instance, your favorite sports team, technology, or celebrity... "You can also design your custom front page by mixing and matching existing standard sections from the 22 regional editions of Google News from around the globe."

Google Search: adds weather feature

Google Search: weather palo alto, ca: "2 results stored on your computer - Hide - About
Google adds Weather feature - en q=weather palo alto%2C ca btnG - 10:56am
Google Web Search Features - 165 University Ave Palo Alto CA) in the - Nov 29"

Google in the News Listed...

BlogShares - Google

Google desktop search out of beta

CNET News.com: "Google has introduced a full version of its desktop-search software, with a developer's kit and support for the Firefox and Netscape browsers."

LSI - latent semantic indexing according to Google

Google Groups : SEM 2.0: "Google says...

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a novel, patented information
retrieval method developed at Telcordia Technologies, Inc. By using
statistical algorithms, LSI can retrieve relevant documents even when
they do not share any words with a query. LSI uses these statistically
derived 'concepts' to improve search performance by up to 30%.

http://lsi.research.telcordia.�com/ "

Reviews of listed businesses added to Google local search results

MediaPost

Google has added reviews of listed businesses to local search results, in addition to the recently integrated interactive maps.

Shankar Gupta writes:

"The reviews are pulled from other sites, such as CitySearch.com, Gayot.com, and Amazon.com. They include both editorial critiques and user opinions culled from those sites. But, unlike AOL and Yahoo!, Google does not offer users the chance to post their own reviews directly to the search site. In addition to reviews and maps, Google offers other information gleaned from sites it has indexed, such as business hours, payment types accepted, WiFi availability, restaurant menus, amenities, and even inspection data from the Department of Health's Web site. This most recent set of upgrades to Google's search offering is representative of the high-speed development of the local search area,

Google tech deals with hardware failure

CNET News.com

Article covers hardware and programming used by Google... "Google's secret of success? Dealing with failure...The technical wizardry behind Google's successful search engine may come down to a blindingly obvious insight: PCs crash"

Quirky rant about spam

Spam for the soul: "Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer

Who would have dreamed that spam holds the keys to enlightenment? Like many ignorant humans, I used to consider junk e-mail a nuisance. But once I opened my mind as well as my inbox, I discovered an amazing truth: All I really need to know I learned from those weird proverbs and quotations in spam messages.

A few examples:

'Never play leapfrog with a unicorn...."

Google: A $50 Billion "One-Trick Pony"?

www.businessweek.com

Ben Elgin asks if Google's focus on text based advertising, key to it's success, could also prove to be it's downfall
"Google remains almost entirely dependent for growth on search -- a business that's poised to slow... Its focus on Web-searching -- an increasingly limited arena -- may be blinding it to big opportunities elsewhere"

Google gets dodgy - new toolbar feature slated

CNET News.com
"Google's browser toolbar is raising eyebrows over a feature that inserts new hyperlinks in Web pages, giving the Internet search provider a powerful tool to funnel traffic to destinations of its choice. "

Google insiders make millions on sales

marketwatch.com
"It was a sweet Valentine's Day for Google insiders, who collected billions in stock sales this week following the last big lockup expiration after the company's initial public offering six months ago, according to regulatory filings."

Google blazes trail to Oregon

CNET News.com Google has bought 30 acres of land from the Port Authority of The Dalles, Oregon, for a new technology infrastructure facility, the Web search giant said Thursday.

Google to host some Wikimedia projects."

Google hosting - From Meta; discussion about Wikimedia projects

"Google Inc. has made a proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects.

The terms of the offer are currently being discussed by the board. The developer committee has been informed of some of the details via email. A private IRC meeting with Google is planned for March, 2005.

Please note that this agreement does not mean there is any requirement for us to include advertising on the site."

Google Blogger booted

Internet Daily Frank Barnako MarketWatch

"Postings to Mark Jen's blog, 99zeroes.blogspot.com, ended Jan. 27. On the Web log, he wrote about his work. An example: "I spend the bulk of my time thinking of new features or products that customers would want (read: stuff that I want) and then I organize people to build it. It's great!"

Jen's removal from the Google (GOOG: news, chart, profile) payroll was confirmed by a company representative, to Cnet. Jen's not the first person to lose a job because of blogging...

Bottom line: While Microsoft has shown itself to be tolerant and supportive of blogging by employees, Mark Jen apparently found his new bosses weren't quite so with it.

By the way, one of the tenets of Google's corporate philosophy is to encourage expression. "Democracy on the Web works," is how it's worded. Here's the rest of it."

Google Discusses Strategy With Analysts

Forbes.com

Google met withWall Street analysts "to review a wide range of topics, including their financial outlook.

Reflecting its iconoclastic culture, Google has banned its management from projecting profits - a policy that limited the disclosures made to the roomful of analysts who make the earnings estimates that influence the company's stock."


"Key points:

Google is likely to require its users to begin providing personal information to use some of its products and services,

Google executives operate under the assumption that 70 percent of the company's resources should be focused on its search engine, even though it accounted for virtually all the company's 2004 revenue of $3.2 billion. Another 20 percent of Google resources is devoted to search products, such as the shopping comparison site Froogle, and the remaining 10 percent is focused on experimental services, such as a three-dimensional mapping program called Keyhole and an online social networking site called Orkut.

Don't be surprised if many of Google's products, including its widely read compilation of recent news stories, remain in the test phase known as "beta" for as long as five years. Page said the "beta" tag is a sign that Google engineers still anticipate making significant improvements to the service.

A hiring spree that has added 2,300 employees in the last two years still hasn't been enough to satisfy Google's expansion plans. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the company would like to hire employees at a more rapid rate, but has trouble finding enough applicants that meet its high standards.

Page downplayed recent media reports that the company is preparing to branch into new directions by introducing a Web browser, a service for registering Web domains and telephone service over the Internet. "Most of the things we read are a surprise to us," Page told analysts""

Google Maps

Google Maps beta
Note local search and directions buttons...anyone fancy testing and comparing to Yahoo, mapquest and TT map providers if they provide similar for USA???

Goodbye Mapquest (by Jeremy Zawodny) who says little but gets lotsa comments...

Gizoogle - Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit

Gizoogle - Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit

Bootylicious Britain Total Travel Guide: Research, Plizzan & Book Hotels ...
Bootylicious Britain travel guide & directory of accommizzle & attractions wit photos, maps & transport 411 fo' England, Scotland & Wales. Book hotels, ride ...
www.totaltravel.co.uk/

Wales Travel Guide: Visitor Info & Accommodizzles Directory
Bootylicious Britain. Wales region guide. Tha country of Wales has always been fiercely independent. These days gangsta a gangsta of Welsh thugz ...

Google Search: Hornsbury Mill

Google Search: Hornsbury Mill compare and contrast FP to stand alone....


"Accommodation, Function Venue Hornsby Mill
... County Ground. Hornsbury Mill Eleighwater Chard Somerset | Reservations: 01460
63317 | Email. � 2004 Hornsbury Mill and Totalwebsites.
www.hornsburymill.co.uk/ - 8k - 7 Feb 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

Hornsbury Mill - Location
Add your link here! Email us. Hornsbury Mill Eleighwater Chard Somerset | Reservations:
01460 63317 | Email. � 2004 Hornsbury Mill and Totalwebsites.
www.hornsburymill.co.uk/site/links/ - 6k - 5 Feb 2005 - Cached - Similar pages


Hornsbury Mill
Welcome to Hornsbury Mill a charming 19th century working water mill set deep in
the heart of Somerset, where contemporary capability blends effortlessly with ...
www.totaltravel.co.uk/travel/west-country/ somerset/southsomerset/accommodation/hotels/hornsbury-mill - 16k - Cached - Similar pages "

Latent Semantic Analysis Explained

Major Google Changes: Latent Semantic Analysis?: "LSA/LSI"

Google update buzz

digitalpoint.com

Earliest post I have found...Google is updating: "I see real movements in the keywords I track , more than the usual slight movements ... I think its the time for the google dance "

Update Allegra - Google Update 2-2-2005
webmasterworld.com/forum30now 66 pages from 8 on 03/02/2005.

Major Google Changes: Latent Semantic Analysis?
9 pages; graywolf sums up "So in a nutshell it's looking for the most unique pages with the most links from pages with similar topics?"

seochat.com conclusions depend on how the posters site has been affected....

Google by the Numbers

Business 2.0
"FUTURE BOY
The blowout quarter proves that it pays to share the wealth.
By Erick Schonfeld, February 04, 2005 "

Excellent article on Googles strengths..

Forbes.com: Time Warner Reports $1B-Plus Google Stake

Forbes.com
TW "holds more than $1 billion worth of the Internet giant's stock. "

Google Gets Domain Name Registration OK

Forbes.com: "Google says it sought approval as a way to potentially save thousands of dollars yearly in transaction fees for the names it already owns or will buy.

The status also could give Google access to internal data on domain name ownership, which the company could use to better evaluate the credibility of Web sites indexed by the search engine, said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products... the domain name registration was purely meant to protect Google's brand."

Google algo tweaks...

searchenginewatch.com

By the buzz on forums Danny Sullivan reckons Google is "tweaking and changing things that can have an impact on search results, sometimes in a big way. And one of those big ways seems to be happening, based on chatter on our forums."

Major Google Changes: Latent Semantic Analysis?
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
Compilation of Anti-Sandbox Tactics"

Who links to your website?

Come on Google, Fix it !!!
Danny Sullivan posts: "Wow -- wrong advice from Google. Searching for your URL as a text search will find anyone who uses your URL as the anchor text, say http://www.yoursite... But if they link to you like "Cool Site" with the URL embedded in those words, that won't bring it up. Which suggest that this part:

Quote:
To obtain a comprehensive list of the links that point to your page, perform a Google search on your URL.

Should be changed to:

Quote:
To obtain a comprehensive list of the links that point to your page, perform a link search on one of our competitors, Yahoo, MSN or Ask Jeeves. "

Google shares hit new high after upbeat Q4 report

marketwatch.com Bambi Francisco on the Google financials: " If there were any doubts left that Googlemania has spread from Main Street to Wall Street, the reaction of analysts and investors to the search icon's fourth-quarter earnings should erase them."

NB This giant of online advertising spends how much itself on advertising? Miniscule compared to MSN's plans...word of mouth viral channels reign supreme.

Google seeks more marketers

CNET News.com reports that Google "recently introduced an affiliate program that pays $20 to any Web site for referring a new advertiser or publishing partner. Google is likely the last search engine to introduce such a program. Rival Overture Services runs an affiliate program, which was popularized by e-commerce giants Amazon.com and eBay.com.The move also comes after Google rejiggered its advertising system to suppress multiple bids for terms promoting the same Web site, in what critics see as a blow to affiliate advertisers."

Join the Google Referral Program

"Join the Google Referral Program Program Home - FAQ - Apply Why Join?

The Google referral program (beta) is for businesses whose customers and visitors include small to medium-sized businesses, and who want to help those companies become more successful by running Google AdWords, or serving ads with Google AdSense. The program works by giving approved sites unique links to Google, then compensating the referring site for passing on a new AdWords advertiser or AdSense publisher.

Joining is easy, and free
Apply.
Once you're approved, place a Google referral program link on your site.
Earn $20 for each advertiser or publisher you refer. "

Micro Persuasion: Googlegate Rumbles Around the Blogosphere

Micro Persuasion: Googlegate Rumbles Around the Blogosphere: "Googlegate Rumbles Around the Blogosphere"

New Google perk: Awards worth millions | CNET News.com

New Google perk: Awards worth millions | CNET News.com: "Google has begun giving out an award that could be worth millions of dollars to employees who work on outstanding projects, the company said Monday."

Slashdot | Google Eyes Domain Registration Market

Slashdot | Google Eyes Domain Registration Market: "1sockchuck writes 'Google is now an ICANN-approved domain name registrar, an intriguing move that could be tied to its blog hosting service, Blogger. Yahoo recently dropped its domain prices to $4.98, as hosting companies use domains as a cheap way to lure customers. Registrar status could allow Google to compete aggressively on price. "

Google Survey

Results of the first ever Google Survey

Supplemental index

forums.searchenginewatch.com
Discussion: " Supplemental index "

1/11/05 - BayCHI - Google UI

1/11/05 - BayCHI - Google UI: "Abstract The User Experience at Google Marissa Mayer, Google...

Question: Is user experience a sustainable advantage?

No, in theory In practice, yes. 5 years of ongoing advantage from Google’s user experience

--> Why? 10x-20x as many services/words/visible characters/lines/scrolled pages as other major brands (Yahoo? MSN?)

What they strive to do:
Only introduce services that will have millions of views/day
Only put a feature on a page if 20% of the users will want to use it
Only on prefs page if at least 5% of users will want it..."

Update re one-ad-per-domain rule

clickz.com

" Kevin Lee | January 28, 2005: It's been a few weeks since Google implemented its one-ad-per-domain rule. The rule was designed to provide a better user experience for searchers by eliminating multiple ads that lead to the same domain. Affiliates may bid on direct links, but they compete with merchant sites and other affiliates in the auction. This competition results in an invisible bidding war within the AdWords system."

Concludes that: "Any pages that contain duplicate content (served via a Web service or data feed) without value-added content could encourage search engines to change their organic algorithms to ferret out and penalize sites with duplicate content. The merchant site itself may be penalized if the product copy sent through the data feeds and APIs (define) is the same used on the primary site.

A few merchants and affiliates who take advantage of paid search and pushing the line on acceptable practices may cause major algorithmic changes at Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Search engine marketing may become an industry where the unintended consequences result in a cure worse than the disease."

Google blogger reappears, redacted

CNET News.com

Comment re: Google Makes AdWords API Available

Search Engine News :: Search Engine Lowdown

More rumours - Google - Mozilla Browser Speculation

MediaDailyNews 01-28-05
"Google Snags Mozilla Developers, Fuels Browser Speculation"

Google offers tool to advertisers - rumours confirmed

CNET News.com
"The search giant called the API beta program an 'open invitation to developers to explore new concepts and then write great software' to manage their AdWords campaigns. Google said the API will allow advertisers to more closely tailor ad content to reflect specific needs. The API, for example, will let advertisers create customized reporting tools that offer more detail on how successful their ads have been. "

Google Plans Free VoIP In the UK

Slashdot
"jarich writes 'According to this news article, Google may be preparing to offer free Voice Over IP telephone service in the UK. This sounds related to a previous Slashdot article about Google starting to buy dark fiber. So what are they planning? A free service like Skype (computer to computer only) or more along the lines of Lingo or Vonage?' "

Adwords API for more control and better targeted ads

SiliconValley.com

" As quietly as it could, Google gathered about 1800 marketing and sales people at a secret location in San Francisco this week to brief them on the next iteration of its wildly successful Adwords/Adsense program, and it's quite a bit different from the contextual ad delivery system we know today."

Silicon Valley Watcher

"The Google API is only available to advertisers and not to online publishers carrying Google ads... Silicon Valley Watcher also learned that Google assembled its global salesforce of about 1800 people in San Francisco this week to brief them on the new technology, and how it will be marketed. It represents a complete revamp of its Adwords/Adsense text ads program. More details HERE."

Google to Branch Into Television

Forbes.com

"Google Inc. is using its popular Internet search technology to find information and images broadcast on television, continuing a recent effort to extend its reach beyond the Web.

The Mountain View-based company planned to introduce the new video search service Tuesday in an index that will be operated separately from the market-leading search engine offered on its home page. The feature pinpoints content previously aired on a variety of television networks by scanning through the closed caption text that many programmers offer.

Google's index, which began storing information last month, includes programming from ABC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN. "

Google query length extended

Google Search "we limit queries to 32 words"

AdSense Teetering?

John Battelle's Searchblog: Traffick

Writes about an: "Interesting post on Traffick positing the theory that Google's AdSense 'faces extinction' unless Google does something about it. The author notes that AdSense doesn't work so well for publishers with strong repeat audiences (I can attest to that), that click fraud is growing "

Battelle reckons that he doesn't "think we'll see AdSense going anywhere, but I agree that upgrades are due, and I sense they are coming shortly. First up might be verticalization - so you can buy in large consumer verticals like autos, travel, etc. Second might be opeing up the network to let developers build mini-networks of endemically related sites."

Google loses trademark dispute in France

CNET News.com
"A French court has ruled that Google must refrain from using the trademarks of European resort chain Le Meridian Hotels and Resorts to trigger keyword ads. "

Google rules out comment spam

Rumours and buzz by the cartload have been flying around between bloggers about the possibility of action against the curse of blog comment spam this week.

It has now been made public that a new tag has been proposed by Google and agreed to by Yahoo and MSN. The code will be built into blogging software to prevent the spam bots which auto add links to blog comments having any value as the links will not be followed and so not influence rankings.

Official Google Blog

"Preventing comment spam"

Matt Cutts runs through a few guidelines. A main feature is that this is to be built into blog software by a large number of blog service providers and will automatically be applied to links in comments. He also states that it will applied more widely than just blogs: "We think any piece of software that allows others to add links to an author's site (including guestbooks, visitor stats, or referrer lists) can use this attribute. We're working primarily with blog software makers for now because blogs are such a common target."

Cutts explains that "Any link that a user can create on your site automatically gets a new "nofollow" attribute. So if a blog spammer previously added a comment like

Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.

That comment would be transformed to

Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site."


Blog and press coverage about this story

CNET News.com cover the official Google announcment and comments from around the blogosphere.
"Google will introduce new technology controls to thwart people using blogs to manipulate rankings in its search results. Otherwise known as "link" or "comment spam," the ruse is as old as Web marketing. Such Web site promoters use the comment form on forums, blogs or any Web page to place or gain a link pointing back to their own Web site."

CNET quote Danny Sullivan "said that Google plans to give publishers a new control, or tag, that they can insert onto a Web page to indicate that comments or links are not their own or of lesser value to the search engine. Called a "no follow" tag, the control when placed before pages of blog comments will signal to Google as it indexes the Web that the pages are to be overlooked. That will render comment spam ineffectual."

Sullivan at SEW Blogcontinues: "the indexing tag will be the first innovation in almost 10 years for publishers. The last was a tag to avoid being indexed entirely by the search engines. "It's nice to see the search engines give Web authors a new tool to control how we're indexed"

Sullivan concludes: "I'd recommend using it as intended for now -- as a means to flag that there are certain links on your web site that you didn't place there."

He warns against using it to "hoard" PageRAnk or otherwise artificially manipulate within your own site and watch out for potential link partners who use it to avoid you beifiting in terms of PageRank. It may be useful if you need to link to a page that you have doubts about.

Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion: Report: Google to Put Kibosh on Blog Comment Spam
Provides links to the build up to the official announcements by MSN, Yahoo and Google stating "several bloggers have reported that Winer was testing a new Google linking mechanism that might put an end to blog comment spam by omitting all links from its PageRank calculations that have a rel='nofollow' attribute tag. This would change the economics behind why people comment spam popular blogs - to boost their Google search rank."

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger
Robert Scoble makes two pertinent points:"

1) It will encourage more people to link to their competitors
2) Anyone notice how Google got its competitors to do something without needing to get a standards committee involved? All within hours? Hmm, why doesn't everything in the industry work like this?


Yahoo! Search blog: A Defense Against Comment Spam

Working Together Against Blog Spam

Google Releases Photo Organizing Software

Forbes.com
"Google Inc. released free software Tuesday for organizing and finding the hundreds or thousands of digital photos often stored on a computer's hard drive. Using technology developed by Picasa Inc., which Google bought last year, the new software will try to make keeping a photo collection and editing pictures simple even for beginners, said Lars Perkins, Picasa's general manager."

Main features:

Does not use folders and files, uses proprietry search instead
Very easy to use tools
IE 5.01 or higher, or Mozilla Firefox

It seems to me that Google are intent on changing the way users organise their data, making storage and retrieval as easy as possible for the public especially. Once you get mass take up of such tools or features outside the techie sphere reaching tipping point and taking over the desktop should be a doddle.

Affiliates and Adwords - TBC

SEO Blog Brad Fallon

Summarises the new policy: "Google changed their AdWords policy so that only one ad will display for any one 'displayed URL' for any given search term.

Huh? Simply, this means that when you search for, say, the title of a book, only one ad can appear that shows Amazon.com as the URL in the ad. "

He comments that "by all objective standards (and the most important 'user experience,') this change was a good thing.

The interesting thing to me is that for the first few days many commentators couldn't decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing for those affected by it the most -- affiliates and merchants."

Whoops!

Google Search: allinurl:beta.totaltravel.co.uk
"Results 101 - 110 of 110 for allinurl:beta.totaltravel.co.uk"

Blog Business Summit

Blog Business Summit

"This event will show you how your business can leverage current real-world blogging techniques, tools and platforms to promote and enhance your ventures."

"The Blog Business Summit is being organized by Steve Broback, who says that among the 100 registrants so far is Tom Peters, the management consultant and author. The conference is aimed at meeting the interests of three audiences: marketing and public relations people who want to understand blogging, bloggers who want to know how to make money, and entrepreneurs who see an opportunity in another "new media." "

The shampoo effect : 'Did you mean' feature added to Google's search page instantly doubled usage

Internet Daily remarks about Alan Williamsons evening with Googles Marissa Mayer:

"A project manager at Google spoke at a Silicon Valley meeting Wednesday and said the addition of a 'Did you mean' feature to Google's search page had instantly doubled usage of the site. Marissa Mayer also told the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of ACM SIGCHI the 'I feel lucky' button is rarely used. In trials, though, it was found that removing that option would compromise 'the Google experience,' Alan Williamson reported on his blog. Mayer also said Google has the largest network of translators in the world.. "

The shampo effect? "Rinse and repeat" = double sales....

An evening with Googles Marissa Mayer

alan.blog-city.com

Alan Williamson blogs about "the BayCHI lecture at PARC given by Marissa Mayer (Product Manager for Google). A very well attended (standing room only session), Marissa took us through a presentation geared around the user experience at Google and the efforts/lengths they go to. "

His account of the lecture ends with a "Quote: Give Users What They Want When They Want It"

Google settles SEC, California charges over options

CBS Marketwatch
"The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Google Inc. with failing to register $80 million in option grants to employees when the search engine was a private company. "

Google begins recruiting in India

CNET News.com
"Search giant Google has begun head hunting in India. "

Opening The Backdoor To The Google Platform

Techdirt
"In a move that looks much more designed to be about getting publicity than actually being useful, someone has released, as open source, code needed to scrape Google, and present a Google clone -- sans ads."

Techdirt's Mike writes "this does highlight the legal question of whether or not compiling a database of publicly available info is copyrightable itself. It's probably in Google's best interest to simply let this one lie."

Google readies budget search appliance

CNET News.com
"Google on Thursday is expected to begin selling the Google Mini--economical-size hardware for corporate-intranet search--in a move to diversify its business"

Affiliate ads policy changes

Traffick

Andrew Goodman writes about his own experiences with promoting affiliate programs using adwords and he concludes that: "For those affiliates who actually build their own websites, this policy change does not affect them at all. It's mostly aimed at the types of advertisers who are playing the 'Google Cash' game of sending searchers directly from an AdWords listing right to a parent site, with an affiliate code on the URL."

He also blogs about enforcing policies across the board, reckoning that about 0.25% of all breaches will go undetected and unresolved. Take this figure alongside his estimate of 95% of sites that comply versus 5% that knowingly violate policies to gain unfair advantage and it is still a large risk to break policies. For sites aiming at long term success it is just not worth it. If on the other hand the business is willing to continually pay to rebuild, change domains and urls the % advantage is probably worth it.

Google is the gorilla of search and search ads policies both explicit and implicit and it is questionable whether they can ever detect most policy violations, even to 90% either purely via algorithms or with human input. The frustations of seemingly successful spam techniques is not likely to dissappear soon.

Google's New Ad Policy to Affect Affiliate Marketers

clickz.com

Reports that "The new policy, which will be implemented over the coming weeks, is intended to create a cleaner interface for users, increase the diversity of merchants represented in the links, and reduce duplicate ads, all while recognizing the important benefits affiliate marketers bring to the table, said Salar Kamangar, director of product management at Google."

See Search Engine News Blog for "Google's official AdWords Announcement "

Google riches outed on the Web

CNET News.com

Due to " a rarely invoked securities law" Google has has to "report stock sales of hundreds of employees, rather than just top shareholders."

The article continues "the SEC filings have struck something of a nerve inside the company by offering an unusually candid look into the wealth of co-workers. That's creating unaccustomed tensions inside a workplace that has long projected an image of collegial egalitarianism to the outside world"

Google is seeking an ad agency rumour

New York Post Online Edition
"As rumors persist that Google is seeking an ad agency for a traditional marketing campaign, it appears that hot creative shop Crispin Porter Bogusky may have the inside track.
Despite reports that Google has handled its marketing efforts in-house, it turns out that Madison Avenue outsider Crispin has already done some work for the company.
Google, the most popular Internet search engine, hired the Miami ad agency earlier this year to come up with some clever billboards to help it recruit math and computer whizzes. "

Google to launch charitable foundation

Google readies charitable foundation | CNET News.com: "Google's founders have announced their intention to create the Google Foundation with their April 2004 'owner's manual,' and now the company is in search of an executive director to head the group...

The new foundation will have 1 percent of Google's equity and profits to distribute, the company promised last year."

The article lists personal and company foundations:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation
eBay
Salesforce.com

60 Minutes Google Fluff Piece

CBS News | Defining Google

Mostly derided as being PR fluff the progarm did have a couple of notable points:

"John Battelle, an author and entrepreneur who has been following Silicon Valley companies for 20 years... says, "Google has a brand image to maintain...

"If anybody got a Porsche or a Ferrari right now at Google, they’d probably be drummed out of the company...But trust me," he adds. "There’s a Mercedes convertible in every one of their heads. There is. And it will…come out. Over time, it will come out." "

The MSN V Google "war is on, with Google betting that its troops can innovate faster than Microsoft’s."

" To this day, Google has still never run a TV commercial. Their popularity has spread literally by word of mouth around the world."

"Google is hiring about 25 new people every week, and receives more than 1,000 resumes a day. But they’re determined to stick to their rigorous screening process"... via various aptitude tests and Brin and Page "personally approve the hiring of nearly every new employee. "

"Battelle describes another advance potentially on the not-so-distant horizon. Users would, he says, "have a device which is in your pocket, which looks like a phone, and you go to a supermarket and you see a potentially overpriced box of pasta. And you take that device and you wand it over the product code, and you see comparison prices from Google of three other stores that are within a mile, OK? That’s power. That’s search. But no one has quite figured out that. That’s also the future."

Larry Page And Sergey Brin: Profiles

businessweek.com

"Larry Page And Sergey Brin...found no buyer for their technology and had no clue how to turn it into a business. Initially they scorned the notion of accepting ads. But after a competitor began selling ads around search results for sizable profits, Google followed suit. Its superior technology brought in hordes of users, igniting ad sales. Today, Google is a $2 billion advertising juggernaut..."