ITGumbo: spicing IT up

The much talked about, widely blogged, extensively covered Google Phone is once again resurrected courtesy of and article from the Wall Street Journal. Prior to this WSJ article, countless blog posts, online forum discussions, numerous news media coverage have been going around but Google refuse to say anything about its GPhone.

If you are the world’s leading search engine with your stock reaching a value of $600 per share, its not surprising that you’d go on a company shopping spree every so often. In the case of Google, company buyouts has become a usual habit. Makes you think if the big G is actually following the heels of Microsoft who was once a web giant like Google.

So, the latest victim, or lucky beneficiary, however you want to put it, is microblogging startup Jaiku which for some might be a never been heard before startup. Some analyst are even wondering why Google decided to buy Jaiku instead of the more popular microblogging site Twitter. But then, we were all free to question Google’s corporate strategy for all we want.

So Yahoo Search finally breaks out of its shell and launches major changes in its search engine. Yahoo’s announcement came right after Microsoft made an announcement about new features of its Live Search as well. The two search engines have been lagging behind web search leader Google for quite some time now. With the new features in their search engines, the two companies are hoping to get at least a piece of what Google has been enjoying for a long time now. So, what are these new “breakthrough features”? For Yahoo Search these features have something to do with search suggestion and multimedia content search.

Google is boosting its presence in the Software-as-a-Service industry by engaging in an agreement with French consulting company CapGemini. Under the said deal, CapGemini will be pushing Google Apps to a large-scale business market, thereby elevating the status of Google’s business application software into a higher status than it is right now.

Google Apps currently has two versions, one being offered for free to small business and includes applications such as Gmail, spreadsheets and document management. Around 100,000 companies are currently using either the free version of Google Apps or the Premium version which has an annual fee of mere $50.

In a seemingly rare instance, Yahoo edges up Google in the recent customer satisfaction study by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, online customers rating of Yahoo increases by 4% scoring to 79 while at the same time, Google’s satisfaction rating slides down by 4% scoring 78. And when CNET broke the news even before the official ACSI document was released, everybody in the interweb came out with their own sensational headlines heralding the downfall of Google.

Now that the raucous has died down a bit, perhaps it is but proper timing to take a look on the probable reason why Yahoo edges out Google in the said ranking. Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal gave some good opinions about it and I couldn’t agree more on one valid point that has something to do with the consolidation of Yahoo Photos/Flickr.

Nielsen/NetRatings, the research firm that used to rank websites based on the number of page views generated announced that it will be abandoning its old metrics and will instead based site rank on how long a user stays on a particular site. Part of the decision to forego page views as a ranking metrics is due to the availability of web technologies particular the AJAX system which can automatically generates page loads with a user action to refresh. This generates more page views for a particular site which propels its ranking in the Nielsen metrics.

Although the decision seems to be valid, many are speculating that this would give a serious blog into the ranking of current website leaders more prominently AOL, Google, Video Uploading sites among other web portals. Google's would certainly be affected but I don't think the company are a bit worried about this. Google has emerged as a giant search engine company that it no longer relies on third party metrics to validate its usage. And besides, should the new Nielsen net ranking metrics prove to be detrimental to Google's corporate status, it can always count on its video uploading site, YouTube, which would certainly receive a high ranking during Nielsen's ranking activity.

Now that the buzz about the departure of Terry Semel from being the CEO of Yahoo, has died down a bit, speculators, bloggers and industry analysts have focused their attention to Semel's successor, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. There has been a lot speculations, predictions and what-have-yous on how Yang will run the internet's second biggest search engine company. Can Yang bring back the glory days of Yahoo? Can Yahoo re-elevate itself from its current position to a spot somewhere near, if not in the same level as that of Google?

The web’s leading search engine is facing yet again two controversies this week. First, it was an EU panel questioning the legality of the search engine’s 2 years retention limit of search user’s online information. The EU panel is probing whether Google is abiding by the requirements of the European data protection law. Google is yet to answer EU’s probe but promises to do so during the Panel’s next meeting in June.

Finally, after years of undergoing development, Microsoft’s Hotmail service is released on a beta stage. The new Windows Live Hotmail is sizzling with web 2.0ish features, a Yahoo-Mail-Like interface, and more.

Before you get awed by the new look and features of Windows Live Hotmail, know some of the basic details first. Existing hotmail accounts can upgrade their account into the new Windows Live Hotmail and they will retain their account name while enjoying the full benefits of the new Hotmail. New users who will create new MSN Hotmail Account will first be given the classic version. Once they created a new account, they will be given the option to upgrade to the Windows Live Hotmail. The reason for such process is to give users with slow connection the option to enjoy the full 2GB storage facility plus some other feature without the demand of a higher bandwidth and speed connection.

And now for the meatier stuff. Windows Live Hotmail boost of the following cool features which are in-tune with the Web 2.0 phenomenon:

- Color coding of fraudulent email. Red for possible phising and yellow for email from somebody not on users contact list,
- Inbox and web search inside the Windows Live Hotmail,
- Quick Inbox Preview,
- Drag and drop email into folders,
- Right Click facility to access menus and functions,
- Click and copy multiple contacts into group email,
- And more!

And the most important upgrade, the Windows Live Hotmail has a 2GB storage capacity, 1GB more than the old Hotmail.

So, head on to Windows Live Hotmail, create a new account or upgrade our old account.

Google and Four U.S. States are set to make public documents more easily accessible to the public by putting more information on their website while utilizing Google’s powerful search algorithms. The states of Arizona, Utah, California and Virginia are the first four states that will “googlelized” their public documents in a bid to make the public more empowered through better access to information and Government services.

Google’s Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said via the Google Press Center:

“Connecting citizens with their government by offering the public better access to public sector information and services is consistent with our broader vision – to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,”

“California state government provides tremendous resources online for the public to learn about our great state. Our partnership with Google will empower Californians to know more about our government and provide better access to services and helpful information”