Google recently invited people to make short movies about their Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome Shorts features a collection of short films about the browser. Below are some of the best of Google Chrome short videos we enjoyed.

Google and Motion Theory craft the first video for Chrome’s arrival.

The video game shows simplicity of Chrome’s clean user interface

Internet is full of nooks and crannies hiding technological mischief.

On the internet you can do things, but you need the tools.

What makes a good browser?

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Need free business cards featuring your Google Profile? Google has partnered with iPrint.com and they are giving away 10000 sets of 25 Google profile business cards totally free to show off your profile.

Matt McGee says that people logged into their Google accounts can visit their profile and see the offer. However, I logged into my Google profile, but saw no offer. Moreover, the url which he posted turned 404. Firstly I thought that was because the offer is available in US only. But I realized my profile was not public as yet. So first create and update your  Google Profile, and see how to represent yourself on Google products to other Google users.

So I set up my public profile here

and then created a short display url.

And behold! On top of my profile was the offer

That link points to http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards

And that page displays a sample business card like this

Each person can get 25 free business cards like this, with the Google home page, with your name in the search box and your Google Profile URL below in green. But remember this offer is available to U.S. continental street addresses only, so though my profile displayed the offer, I cannot use it.

Anyway for US people - after that you need to create a free iPrint.com account and confirm the information on the sample business card, fill in your shipping and email information and your personal Google profile business cards should come in 10-12 days!

Update: I checked what some people noticed -  if you add the trailing slash at the end of the url, it leads to 404 Profile Not Found (only after logging into your Google Account)

Use http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards

and NOT http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards/

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BuddyPress 1.0 is released and you can download this suite of WordPress plugins and themes, which promises to extend WordPress MU (multiuser) with a whole range of social networking features.

BuddyPress is a package built on top of WordPress which transforms it into a social network with profiles, friends, messaging, groups, and activity streams. The  BuddyPress plugins can be themed to match your own style.  All of the plugins can help you create a complete social network or you can use specific plugins to add special features to your blog network. It’s 100% GPL and Open Source.

You can test drive the BuddyPress demo site, which is powered by the latest version of the BuddyPress software. You can sign up and see how BuddyPress works. I signed up too and the demo application is amazing.

Download BuddyPress. BuddyPress 1.0 requires you have a functional running WordPress MU version 2.7.1 or greater. Read this setup guide to get started.

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.tv is the official domain name from Tuvalu, and if you try to register .tv domain name at Godaddy, the alert box warns you that Tuvalu is sinking!

As a suggestion to why choose .TV, they remind potential domain name registrants about a sinking Tuvalu -  I am confused if they want people to register to support .tv, or they are warning us about what happens to .tv if Tuvalu happens to sink one day…

Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean. With a population of 11,992, it is the the third-least-populated independent country in the world. At just 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi) Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world.  At its highest, Tuvalu is only 4.5 m above sea level, and global warming threatens to sink this small island nation following  sea level rise caused by climate change. There are many reports suggesting this sinking threat.

So will .tv domain names continue to exist if Tuvalu sinks away?

Update: Apparently an old USA Today article says

VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin tells me that a defunct country’s Internet domain lives on. For instance, you can still find addresses on .su — the domain for the Soviet Union.

Anyway, as Galvin points out, Tuvalu would not necessarily cease to exist. Apparently, the laws of the sea say that a country is a country, even if underwater. Sopoaga has said in speeches, “Our sovereignty would not be threatened. Our claim would be maintained on this spot.”

Noticed via Wreck & Salvage

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Each year Millward Brown compiles its Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (pdf). For the past three years Google has sat atop of the list and this year has the distinction of being the first $100 billion brand.

Outside the Top 10, but showing impressive growth in brand equity, are Blackberry (#16, up 100%), Amazon (#26, up 85%) and AT&T (#28, up 67%).

The highest new entry is Pampers (#31). Pertinent don’t you think, considering our economy is down the crapper?

Microsoft has released the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), which is now available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Now Windows 7 is in final phase of development and getting ready for partners to develop new applications, device drivers and services.

Some of the cool new features to look out for are
1. Remote Media Streaming. Remote Internet access to home-based digital media libraries from another Windows 7-based PC outside the home.
2. Windows XP Mode. Utilizing Windows Virtual PC, allows Windows 7 users to run many Windows XP productivity applications, launched right from the Windows 7 desktop.
3. Windows Touch. Controlling the computer by touching a touch-enabled screen or monitor is a core Windows 7 user experience.

Download Windows 7 RC

So what are the minimum system requirements for Windows 7?
- 1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 GB of RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
- 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
- DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or higher driver

In case you are not TechNet or MSDN subscribers, but still interested in previewing Windows 7, the Windows 7 RC will be publicly available May 5 on the Microsoft Windows 7 site.

Note: Windows 7 Beta was available earlier for a limited time earlier till January 24, 2009. The Windows 7 Beta software will expire on August 1, 2009.

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Apparently, Google’s engineers have adult attention deficit disorder. I’m being serious! Because of ADD, we now have Google Search integrated directly into the Gmail interface:

I used to have a problem. People would ask me questions, over chat or email, and I’d have to leave Gmail to search Google for an answer. Then I’d have to select the answer, copy it, go back to Gmail and paste the answer into the chat window or my reply. Sometimes I’d get distracted and forget to go back to Gmail, and I’d have to go through it all again when I remembered what I’d been doing.

Poor guy.

Anyway, head to the Gmail Labs tab in your account and you’ll see the option to switch on Google Search within Gmail. You’ll then get this in your sidebar:

And this handy pop-up with your search results:

Meanwhile, Twitter also decided today was a good day to better integrate its search tool with its interface. The previously announced changes should now be visible to all Twitter users.

It was only a matter of time but it appears as if the time has arrived. While the buzz from some folks inside of AOL is very positive about the addition of Tim Armstrong it is going to get louder as more major hires are announced. The first is the hiring of a new top ad sales executive for the company. Not a surprise considering Armstrong’s pedigree and the importance of showing that AOL is still in the business of generating revenue through its properties.

As reported by the WSJ

Jeff Levick, who has worked at Google since 2001, most recently as vice president of industry development and marketing, is the latest in a series of Google executives who have announced plans to leave the company.

The 38-year-old executive will become president of global advertising and strategy at AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. He will be responsible for Platform-A, AOL’s ad unit, and for developing global revenue strategies.

So there are several observations to make here. First, don’t get to comfortable in any new job. Levick is replacing Gregory Coleman who took the job of president of Platform under the previous AOL CEO in February. Two months doesn’t even give most people enough time to find all the restrooms at a company the size of AOL let alone work themselves out of a job. Coleman will be leaving the company. One thing that may be noted is that Coleman came to AOL from Yahoo, which may be a resume liability these days.

Of course, the other side of the story is another executive leaving Google. Need for concern? Too early to tell but traditionally Google has required exiting executives to sign agreements not to hire Google employees for one year. The terms of Armstrong’s agreement upon leaving Google are not known.

People familiar with the matter said AOL has interviewed other potential job candidates from Google as well. That suggests that Google has given Mr. Armstrong, a former senior vice president who was one of its earliest employees, more freedom to hire former colleagues than it has with other former executives.

With AOL now poised to spin off from the Time Warner mothership and new blood being injected in what many thought was a dying entity, could AOL get comeback player of the year honors? Or, will this be an overhyped flurry of activity that puts AOL back in the news but results in the same old, same old? Your take?

If ReadWriteWeb hadn’t looked at one of the newest players in the search engine game it may not have been found based on its name, Duck Duck Go. Before there is any further discussion about the merits of the engine one has to wonder why this name? Using a play on the name of an ages old kids game to represent results that are picked (I am guessing here) is a stretch at best and a brand manager’s nightmare at worst.

So what’s in a name? In this case it remains to be seen. The engine itself seems pretty cool. One feature that I found particularly useful was the ability to click on an icon and search a term on 27 other sites including Twitter, About.com, NY Times, cnet and more. On that front alone the search engine may be worth an occasional visit. Gee, I wonder what the chances of Google doing something similar?

The core results are apparently sourced for the most part from Wikipedia and Yahoo’s BOSS. While the initial reaction to the Wikipedia source was a visible cringe and an audible sigh (the accuracy factor of Wikipedia data is always a potential gotcha) the way the information is presented helps to overcome that concern (after all it is just a concern since measuring the actual accuracy is difficult). The results pages are very clean, easy to read and the results were helpful for the few searches I con-duck-ted (get it?).

The RWW article points out one of the great strengths of the engine

Duck Duck Go also does a great job at providing users with options for disambiguation, which also look like they are based on Wikipedia’s disambiguation pages. If you search for “Berlin,” for example, Duck Duck Go will ask you if you are looking for the German capital, an album from Lou Reed, or a town in Connecticut.

Add in an iPhone app and the ability to add the engine to the Firefox toolbar and I am a convert of sorts. Of course, the question always comes back to how can another search engine survive with Google being the 800 pound gorilla in the space. Since there are a ridiculous amount of people using search to get around the Internet it may not take a big percentage of overall users to make the business go.

One nagging question that seems to be popping up a lot lately regarding Internet business is that annoying need to know how they plan to make money. While that is not readily apparent some quick information is that the company is based in Valley Forge, PA and its founder is Gabriel Weinberg. It may be worth keeping an eye on this entry into an already crowded field. Having options usually is a good thing especially when the other major search engine options outside of Google are more well known for their questionable business moves than actually doing search.

While it is no surprise that Yahoo started announcing the layoffs of between 600-700 people this week (the number varies according t the source) there is a bit of a surprise in what business units were targeted. The biggest surprise comes from the cuts made at Flickr.

Om Malik of Gigaom gives some interesting insight into these changes by sharing the announcements he picked up from various engineers through tweets. While layoffs do seem to be a part of it there seems to also be some voluntary exits that go along with the forced reductions. While this is completely conjecture on my part, the experience I have had is that when there are voluntary exits that coincide with layoffs that is not a very good sign. Most people are happy that they didn’t get let go and move on with their jobs and just deal with the ‘survivor’s guilt’. If folks are jumping ship of their own accord in conjunction with the layoffs then you have to wonder what is actually happening there.

Malik’s statement below poses an interesting thought.

Frankly, cutting the Flickr team is a bit of a head-scratcher: That group is one of the few pockets of future-thinking tinkerers at Yahoo, especially when it comes to building new media experiences around “social objects” such as photos.

If that is truly the case then there is a talent leak occurring. Of course, the changes that have come with the Carol Bartz era could simply be too much for some to handle. It certainly isn’t the same Yahoo that existed just a few short months ago. Talent that liked a loose culture and atmosphere may be having a negative response to the decidedly different culture that is going to result from Bartz’s leadership.

As can be the case, some of the comments that follow this post exhibit the Yahoo supporters coming to bat for the new Yahoo world order while others wonder if they need to move all of heir photos from the service. There also appears to be a debate about how much, if any, money Flickr generates for the company. All good questions for sure that will only be answered with the passing of time and not opinions.

Disney has announced it has acquired a stake in Hulu that is thought to be as high as 30% according to the folks over at Mashable. Disney has now joined NBC Universal and News Corp. in this venture.

The momentum this gives the video site is very real as it looks to jump on a position in the market that perhaps YouTube may be too late to the game on. YouTube has just started to strike deals with the major media producers and their lineup of available programs to watch is not as impressive as Hulu’s.

Another player that may be left in the dust is CBS. They currently show their productions on their own site and through TV.com. While they may feel like they have more control they are now on the outside looking in as FOX, NBC and ABC can be viewed on Hulu. For now this service is only available in the US much to the consternation viewers elsewhere in the world.

Now ABC shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives will be available to view online via Hulu. The sheer volume of the offering on Hulu by striking these big deals is far bigger than just the straight network plays. The days of the TV only companies are long gone. The shows on ABC are just one part of the gigantic Disney media machine that is searching for ways to get distribution in the widely decentralized market that exists in the Internet age.

In what can be viewed as a statement that shows the maturation of the media industry and the realization that they may actually be able to help each other, Jeff Zucker, president and CEO, NBC Universal said

“Hulu has shown that if you make quality content available on the web and combine it with an unbeatable user experience, viewers will come, and so will advertisers. The addition of some of the best content Disney/ABC has to offer will only enhance Hulu’s standing as a top site for high quality video entertainment.”

Maybe it’s as true in business as in reality where all ships do actually rise with the tide. By grasping that fact and working with it rather than fighting against it the future of broadcast content delivery may be more wide open than anyone imagined. Keep tuning in to find out.

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

You've been blogging for your company for a while now, but the effort is going nowhere. You have little traffic, and other than the time you replied to your own post, you've never gotten a single comment. You feel betrayed for buying into all the hype about blogging and social media and are convinced that it's all a buncha overblown crap.

Of course there's another option, that you simply have a crappy blog. Here's five signs that your company blog sucks:

1 - You use your blog as a billboard. Billboards are pretty and everyone loves them...in Times Square. Your blog isn't in Times Square, so don't treat it as an 'in your face' promotional tool. Don't use your blog as a tool to promote yourself, use it as a tool to create value for your readers. Tap into the 'bigger idea' behind why your customers buy your products and want to interact with your company. Patagonia does a good job of this by having The Cleanest Line focus on environmental issues and activism, instead of their products.

And the payoff? If you position your blog properly as a tool to create value for your readers, then they will promote your blog to others. So your blog ultimately DOES become a promotional tool for your company, but not if you attempt to promote it directly. Go the indirect route.

2 - Your don't answer or encourage comments. Who needs comments when you have the right keywords targeted in your posts, right? Groan. The great thing about a blog is that it gives companies the ability to get feedback from their customers. Why wouldn't you do everything possible to encourage and promote this feedback from your customers? This is a great way to get insights into what your customers want from you and your products/services.

Encouraging and acting on comments from your blog's readers is also a great way to positively promote yourself among bloggers. This helps raise positive awareness of your blogging efforts, and that ultimately reflects well on your company. If you are having trouble deciding how your company should handle comments, the Air Force has created a wonderful flowchart that simplifies this process.

3 - You rarely have new posts up. What's your posting pattern? If it's 'whenever I get a chance', then you're in trouble. You have to 'train' your readers to let them know when you will have new content up on your blog. Write a set number of posts each week, and publish them on the same days. If you can only do 2 posts a week, try to run them on the same days, such as Tuesday and Thursday. That way, your readers will know that they should check your blog a couple of times a week to see your new posts. And yes, if someone subscribes to your blog this isn't an issue, but you can't assume that they will.

Get your posting on a pattern, and stick with it. If you can only post once a month, then make it the same day every month(and please try to post more than once a month).

4 - Your blog has little or no pictures, and is visually boring. We are visual creatures. We want to see bright and pretty pictures. And, believe it or not, we want to see what the people writing your blog look like. Trust me here, if we can see your picture, that makes it easier for your readers to connect with you, and ultimately trust you.

Look at HomeGoods' OpenHouse blog. Pictures everywhere. Of the bloggers, from customers, of the company's products. Visually, this is a gorgeous blog.

5 - Your blog creates little to no value for your readers. This usually ties back into point #1. Most blogs spend too much time promoting themselves, and not enough time creating valuable and relevant content for their readers. Always look at your blog and ask the question 'why would anyone give a damn about reading this?' If you can't immediately answer that question, then you have problems. Kodak doesn't blog about their cameras, they blog about helping you become a better photographer. Graco doesn't blog about their products for parents, they blog about parenthood. Think about the type of content people would want from your blog, think about what the 'bigger idea' is behind your products and services.


So there's some suggestions for making your company blog less sucky. If you want to see how the very best blogging companies are doing it, check out my list of the Top 10 Company Blogs.

Pic via Flickr user mynameispaul

Does anyone else see the similarity between Facebook’s attempts to raise additional funds and last week’s episode of The Office?

A quick re-cap. Michael Scott’s paper company is offered a buyout by his old employer. On their way to the negotiation table, everyone is eager to ensure that Michael Scott doesn’t reveal that his company is actually flat broke, and desperate for the money.

(click to watch the clip at Hulu.com)

Enter Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg:

“We absolutely do not need to take money,” she said. “We might take money, but it doesn’t mean we need to.”

OK, while Facebook is not exactly flat broke, it is playing a game of brinkmanship with venture capital firms–which value Facebook in the $2-3 billion range instead of the $5-6 billion Sandberg wants.

If you were a betting (wo)man where would you put your money? Facebook getting the valuation it wants, or VCs getting something lower?

Sync your files with Dropbox’s 2GB of free online storage. Marketing Pilgrim readers get 250MB of bonus storage space!

John Connor would be relieved to learn that we don’t yet have to worry about our super-computers rising up against us–apparently, they’re still only as smart as the humans operating them.

Case in point, Wired reports that despite the thousands of computers at Google’s disposal–and over 10 years of data analysis–it wasn’t able to identify an increasing trend in searches that suggested the Swine Flu outbreak was beginning.

…Google Flu Trends team, which aggregates and analyzes search queries to estimate how many people are sick, wasn’t watching Mexican flu data until after the outbreak had already begun. That highlights the problem with tech-heavy disease-detection systems: Often, we don’t know what internet data to look at until after a problem starts.

The chart below shows the up tick in “flu” related searches happened over a number of days in April–which you would think would be long enough for a super-computer to recognize a trend, right?

Unfortunately, this reminds me of the 9/11 attack. I seem to recall that our intelligence agencies where able to piece together data after the fact, but didn’t actually see it coming.

Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com - Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Guest post by Dalirin
If you want to start a blog and you have money, it is advisable to go with your own web hosting because you would be in total control of your blog. There are so many web hosting companies, so what differentiates them are the services they provide.

Before you choose a web host, it is advisable to review if the web hosting company meets your requirements. If it doesn’t, you remove the company from your list and look for one that meets your requirements.

What to look for in a web host?

The requirements that you should look for in a web host are

1. Cost of Hosting - Consider your budget before choosing a host. Some web hosts would give you discount if you pay for 1 year. Some might give you more discount if you can pay for 2 years or even more. I prefer  going for hosting that cost less than $5 a month, but I will compromise if I cannot get a host that meets the other requirements of a web hosting company.

2. Addon Domains - If you have multiple websites, get a webhost that allows addon domains. I prefer hosts that allows  unlimited addon domains i.e. I can add as many as 20 sites to my account without being charged.

3. Down time - Look for hosts that have low down time. It is annoying if you try to access your site, and you cannot. If you have a business, this means losses because there were no sales. (If you have a wordpress blog, you can cache you site. You can read more about how QOT got more than 20K pageviews traffic despite Internal Server Errors!).

4. Web Space - You need a lot of webspace if your site is growing especially if you have addon domains. Every post you post on your site uses some of your web space. So this means that the more you post, the more space is being used monthly. If you have a WordPress blog, you would like to install plugins to improve your blogging. These plugins also use some portion of your web space. All this is for just 1 blog. If you have about 4 blogs, you post daily on your site, and you have been blogging for more than 2 years, how much web space would you have left if your web space is small.

5. Customer Support - A good web host should have online customer support. This is because you would like to receive an answer immediately and not after 6 hours. The customer support should be able to handle all your technical needs. A tech support representative from my host helped me transfer my database. If I go to look for help in places like forums, I would have to pay money to get that done for me.

6. Cpanel - Having a Cpanel feature would save you a lot of trouble. If you want to install a blog platform such as WordPress, you can do it with a single click from the Cpanel. If you don’t have a Cpanel, installing wordpress can take you more than 30 minutes if you have no clue.

7. Money Back Guarantee - You might change your mind later and decide to cancel a hosting service. Most good web hosts have 30 days or more money back guarantee. So if you change you mind within 30 days, you are sure of receiving your full refund back.

8. Reviews - Look for reviews about the web hosting company. People would always write if a web host is good or not. Read the negative reviews and see if it is a recurring problem or if it is an isolated problem. You can get web host reviews on forums or you can do a search on any search engine.

What other features do you look for in a web host? I would like to read your comments.

Guest blogger Dalirin owns a make money online blog, where he likes writing about how to make money online . You can also write a guest article and share your tips with our readers.

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Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Nielsen Wire posted a shocking statistic to its blog:

Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent.

The post also included a comparison of Twitter’s retention rate, compared to Facebook’s and MySpace’s:

But–and it’s a big but–did Nielsen fail to take into account that many Twitter users start off using the web site interface, then quickly migrate to a third-party application? That’s the suggestion Brendan O’Connell offered up.

A quick look at Twitstat seems to back up his theory. Twitstat is tracking over 200 different Twitter applications and, as the chart below shows, only 27% of Twitter users are using the web interface:

Of course, if we’re to question Nielsen’s numbers, we should also question Twitstat’s, but that 40% retention rate may not tell the full story.

UPDATE: For those of you that assumed Nielsen would have been smart enough to include external apps, it turns out the company did forget. It also turns out that the retention rate was still only 40%.

The more you read about the trouble inside Time Warner the more you have to admire Tim Armstrong for ditching his comfy job at Google for the top job at AOL.

In quarterly numbers just released, Time Warner’s revenue dropped 7% from 2008 to $6.9 billion, with AOL being the biggest culprit for the decline–it saw a drop of 23%!

Clearly AOL’s just not thriving under the wings of Time Warner and it now seems inevitable that the division will be spun-off as a separate entity. Reading between the lines, you suspect that Armstrong was all but promised that AOL would be released from Time Warner. Speaking to Ad Age, Armstrong said:

"The understanding of the value of brands at AOL has gotten a little gray over time," he said in front of a crowd of ad agency CEOs, adding that the intense scrutiny of the company has had a negative affect. "The questioning from the outside" has actually bruised the company internally, he said. "There are cases where we have tens of millions of people touching a brand every day," but people inside AOL have forgotten the need to improve the products behind those brands.

I suspect that the people inside AOL are either content to be a part of the Time Warner juggernaut or feel that so constrained by it, they don’t have the enthusiasm needed to get AOL to where it needs to be. Either way, AOL needs a shake-up!

Still, there is hope for AOL. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes hinted at a possible spin-off for AOL in yesterday’s earnings announcement:

With our separation of Time Warner Cable, Time Warner has become a more content-focused company. We’re also working to determine the right ownership structure for AOL.

Like I said, why would Armstrong make the giant leap for mankind his career, if he wasn’t promised that AOL would be released from Time Warner?

I love speaking/teaching about social media at events where the attendees are relatively new to this space. And that's because they have 'fresh eyes' and a fresh perspective on these tools and always ask the most amazing questions. Yesterday at Social Media Club Birmingham's workshop, Daniel Rehner asked me 'What are the three biggest things you've seen on Twitter?'. I had to think about it for a minute, but here's the three biggest 'Twitter moments' I gave him:

1 - Twitter users reporting live during the Mumbai terrorist attacks last November. Twitter members that lived in Mumbai were able to give the world unfiltered and uncensored accounts of what was happening, as it happened. I remember @conniereece was helping put everyone in contact with Twitter users that were local to the attack sites, and I believe she shared that someone had created a way to show only tweets from Twitter members that lived within a 5-mile radius of the attacks.

2 - Twitter scoops mainstream media on San Francisco earthquake. Another case where Twitter broke a live news event first. Last month, a relatively mild 4.3 earthquake struck San Francisco, and almost instantly, Twitter users were tweeting it. And then it became a sort of game to track the time of the first tweet about the earthquake, and then see how long it would take a mainstream news source to report it. I think it took about 10 mins, which isn't bad at all.


3 - David Armano raising $16,000 to help Daniela. This was a classic example of the potential of social media to mobilize many people to help the few. David reached out to his network on Twitter to help them raise some much needed funds to help Daniela and her family, who were living with David's family at the time. The goal was to raise $5,000 in a month, and I believe almost $17,000 was donated by 545 people in a little over 24 hours (David if you read this and that's wrong, please correct me).


Those were the three I thought of when Daniel asked me, but what are the three biggest Twitter moments for you?

Whenever a new start-up makes bold claims about its search technology, my first question is usually: what’s to stop Google from building the exact same thing?

For the benefit of all future search engines, Google has kindly proved my point by practically undermining the first public demo of Wolfram Alpha with the announcement of its own structured data search.

Just how much of a threat is this Google announcement to Wolfram Alpha’s plans? Enough of a threat that TechCrunch received a screenshot that attempts to show how Google’s data just doesn’t stack up.

OK, so Wolfram Alpha’s search data does look prettier in this example. But, here are the challenges the start-up faces:

1. What the heck is a Wolfram Alpha? I hope they re-brand.
2. Google’s data is already public, WA’s is not.
3. Google has a gazillion engineers that can work on this, WA doesn’t.
4. Google is the brand billions of people love and trust, most people won’t even be able to correctly spell Wolfram Alpha in their browser.

I’m not saying start-ups shouldn’t try, I’m just pointing out why WA (and Cuil) have the odds stacked against them.

TechCrunch reports that Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie have been named to President’s Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council is designed to help the President and Vice President form policy related to science, technology, and innovation.

The council has an impressive roster of people associated with major academic and research organizations

The group is co-chaired by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former head of the National Institutes of Health and a Nobel laureate.

I checked out the press release regarding the announcement of these appointments to see what other corporations were present on the council. Google and Microsoft are the only two. I realize that it is important for the private sector to be represented. It is worth noting, however, that the private sector representatives on this council that will be helping set public policy are leaders in two technology giants that many already feel have garnered unfair advantages that stifle competition. Also important to note is that prior PCAST members have included Michael Dell so this is not a precedent setting move, just an interesting one.

In all honesty, I have no idea what could actually be accomplished through this type of group regarding a company’s opportunity to gain further advantage and influence. It is interesting, however, that there appears to be little hiding the fact that people like Schmidt, who campaigned hard for the President, are now being ‘rewarded’. The difference between this appointment and people like Dell, is that Google has lately been under more serious government scrutiny with regard to data privacy concerns. You can connect the dots if you wish.

So what impact can this have to us Internet marketing types? That is definitely a ‘to be determined’. As Google expands further into services that are not directly related to search like health information and other areas where privacy concerns are being raised it does seem curious that their position with the US government is getting a little more cozy. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means but I, like many of you, can observe and wonder what might happen.