Darren Straight’s Blog

Well it’s lunch time and so far The Future of Web Apps Conference and Expo here in London has been pretty cool. Yesterdays mashup* demo event was also quite interesting, though I do have some things that I would like to see next time…

I shall be posting a full review along with photos of both todays Future of Web Apps Conference and yesterday’s mashup* demo event once I get home.

Don’t forget that if you fancy meeting up while I’m here today and tomorrow at The FOWA Expo that you can give me a call or text on 07944160953.

Going to see Daniel Burka’s “Design for web apps vs the web” developer session next, then I’ll see Matt Mullenweg (founding developer of WordPress) and his session titled “The Architecture Behind Wordpress.com”.

Digg and Microsoft have announced an agreement in which the two
companies will collaborate to bring relevant advertising to the more than
17 million unique monthly visitors to Digg, an innovative Web site that
harnesses the collective wisdom of the world’s online audience to
prioritize the overwhelming amount of content available on the Web.

Microsoft’s advanced advertising technology and sales force combined with
Digg’s unique and growing user community make possible the three-year
collaboration, grounded in the companies’ commitment to technological
innovation and user experience.

As part of the relationship, Microsoft will be the exclusive provider
of display and contextual advertising on Digg. The two companies also
agreed to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives.

“Our collaboration with Digg is about bringing our advertising
technology and sales force to one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web
and a true innovator in user-generated content,” said Steve Berkowitz,
senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. “We
believe advertisers will welcome Microsoft and Digg’s combined strengths to
forge more meaningful connections online.”
Microsoft and Federated Media Publishing, Digg’s current advertising
partner, plan to collaborate to bring integrated programs to Digg’s users
and advertisers. “Federated Media has unique advertising sales assets that
dovetail with our efforts, and we look forward to working with them,”
Berkowitz said.

“We’re now positioned to provide a world-class advertising solution
that builds upon Digg’s philosophy of providing a great experience for
users and advertisers,” said Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg. “As the Digg
audience continues to grow and diversify, we believe that this initiative
with Microsoft, and the resources that it provides, will enable us to focus
less on developing an advertising infrastructure and more on developing new
and innovative features for the site.”

“We are thrilled to work with these two world-class companies,” said John Battelle, founder and CEO of Federated Media. “Digg is truly a
remarkable brand.”

The companies expect to begin execution of the agreement in the coming
weeks.

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, has released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines.  In June 2007, Google Sites maintained its spot atop the rankings with 49.5 percent of the U.S. search market.  Yahoo! Sites captured second place with 25.1 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (13.2 percent), Ask Network (5.0 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.2 percent).

• Americans conducted 8.0 billion searches online in June, up 6 percent versus May and up 26 percent versus June 2006.
• Google Sites led the pack with 4.0 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), Ask Network (403 million), and Time Warner Network (341 million).  Despite declining in search market share in June, both Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites enjoyed increases in search query volume.
• Microsoft Sites experienced a significant increase in search query volume (up 36 percent) and search market share (up 2.9 share points) in June, due in large part to Live Search Club, a program launched by Microsoft in late May to engage and reward users of Live Search.

Well it looks like the previous rumours of Google Maps Street View are coming true, Google today announced at the Where 2.0 conference, that they have added a new feature called “Street View” in certain locations on Google Maps. As well as this, starting today, Google is also adding developer-created gadgets called “Mapplets” to Google Maps.

You can check out the Golden Gate Bridge using Google Maps Street View here.

Using Street View

		Blue outlines show roads where street view is available.
		This icon shows where you are on the map. The green arrow points in the direction you’re looking. You can drag the icon to navigate to a different location. You can also just click on a blue outlined road to go there.
		Drag the street view to look around 360°. Use the arrow buttons to navigate down the street. You can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Just read over at Zdnet that Google has very recently registered several variations of the domain name “googlestreetview.com” so they could possible be announcing or even launching some kind of Google Maps Street View by the end of the month. Possible at Where 2.0. This functionality is likely in addition to the 3D buildings they are expected to announce at the same conference.

The domain names registerd by Google are as follows:

GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.COM
GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.NET
GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.ORG
GOOGLEMAPSSTREETVIEW.ORG
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.COM
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.NET
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.ORG

And though there’s no more information available on this as of yet, it could possible help Google catch up with Microsoft’s Windows Live Street Side Preview. So let’s hope that if there is something to be of this Google Street Side View that Microsoft start releasing some more imagery for Windows Live Street Side Preview. It’s really great bust hasen’t been updated for some time, even though lots of people have seen the Windows Live Local Facet “Mobile360″ Van on the road, so we know images are being taken of various city’s.

Just heard from SFGate and Search Engine Land that Google the Mountain View search engine has outstripped Microsoft on two fronts, by becoming both the most visited Web site and the most valuable global brand.

For the first time, Google has edged ahead of Microsoft as the world’s most visited Internet property. Online measurement firm comScore Networks found that Google had just over a million more unique users in March than its arch-rival.

Google had 528 million unique visitors in March, up 5 percent from the previous month, according to comScore. Microsoft had 527 million visitors during the same month, up 3.7 percent.

Until theses latest rankings, Microsoft was the most popular Web property in every month since comScore began tracking global numbers in January 2006. And given the growth trends, Microsoft was undoubtedly No. 1 long before the survey was started, according to Bob Ivins, executive vice president for comScore.

But Google inched ahead based on its phenomenal popularity, not only in its core search business but also its e-mail service, online maps and personalized home pages. Not to mention the recent acquisition of YouTube, for $1.65 billion, which has also boosted Google’s count of unique visitors.

In comparison, Microsoft’s growth has been sluggish in recent years. It simply hasn’t been adding users fast enough to keep up.

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, has released its monthly qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines.  In March 2007, Google Sites captured 48.3 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining 0.2 share points from the previous month.  Yahoo! Sites maintained its second place ranking with 27.5 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (10.9 percent), Ask Network (5.2 percent) and Time Warner Network (5.0 percent).

• Americans conducted 7.3 billion searches online in March, up 6 percent versus February and 14 percent versus March 2006. 
• Google Sites led the pack with 3.5 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (798 million), Ask Network (379 million), and Time Warner Network (368 million).

Microsoft has released the following statement by Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation, on the proposed acquisition of DoubleClick by Google: “This proposed acquisition raises serious competition and privacy concerns in that it gives the Google DoubleClick combination unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising, and access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what customers do online. We think this merger deserves close scrutiny from regulatory authorities to ensure a competitive online advertising market.”

Just days after Google (GOOG, news, msgs) CEO Eric Schmidt said that media companies will have no choice but to work with online sites such as YouTube, the first of the big media companies has responded — with a $1 billion lawsuit.

Media giant Viacom (VIA, news, msgs) is charging that the video-sharing site, now owned by Google, has shown 160,000 of its videos without permission.

“Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws,” Viacom said.

Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in a statement that the company has “not received the lawsuit but (is) confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree.” Reyes said the suit would not “become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube.”

What do you think? let me know in the comments.

Just noticed this post by Ebrahim Ezzy in which he gives the results of a little test he did to check what’s faster – Google or Windows Live, and well what can I say the results are interesting.

But not surprising, as Windows Live was bound to win!