google. A not so evil look back on its History.

August 9th, 2010 • View Comments Brands
Tags: Business, google, history, net neutrality, Presentation, Truth, visual, World

google sure does combine many elements of a modern tech fairy tale. It is extremely successful (please, don’t mention social networks now), it did not exist 15 years ago and started with a very philanthropic vision…at least they tried. While the company still pretends to stick to its ‘Don’t be evil‘ mantra, others call it ‘a company on steroids with fingers in every industry’. The glass is always half full or half empty, right?

Google UK has now staged a (very) quick look back at the its history over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome. Enjoy the cute little animations and in case you are keener on a more critical view of the brand, try the Beast File. (via)

google Me. Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love Privacy.

Juli 12th, 2010 • View Comments Business, Social, Strategy
Tags: Business, Facebook, google, google me, Prediction, Presentation, privacy, Reports, Social Networks, Strategy, World

Most of you may have heard about the so called Facebook killer ‘Google Me‘ that supposedly binds half of google’s resources currently. And as most of you know, google has not exactly been successful with social networking by now. Especially after google Buzz also failed as a platform that is able to compete with Facebook. google knows they need to get their hands on social. Why? Steve Rubel explains it quite well…

google will ‘continue to dominate “pull.” But Facebook will aggregate content, make it social and rule “push.” Using our social circle it will surface content that we care about just when we want it – and allow us to comment on it all. As more people use Facebook to connect, share and create, a network effect takes over – and the system get even smarter.’ And that is exactly what google needs to do to stay alive in the long term.

No matter how successful Facebook is with its social strategy – they need to conquer Planet Push asap or become Facebook’s junior partner. In the middle of all the buzz about google Me we have to read the deck embedded below as a first rationale for google’s new platform – not as the ‘designing social networks’ deck that it wants to be. It was created by one of google’s lead User Experience architects Paul Adams and it criticizes Facebook existing social networks and the way they make people interact with a clear focus on privacy. What a surprise!

Even beyond the google Me hype – definitely a deck worth to take a look at (even though it is looooong).

Big question: Do you think google might make it this time? Do you believe privacy will be an USP strong enough to differentiate google Me from Facebook? Leave a reply.

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Hey Mashable. I think you can drop the google Buzz button now.

April 27th, 2010 • View Comments Social, Tech, Tools
Tags: google, google Buzz, mashable, Prediction, Social Networks, Tech, Tools, Twitter

I don’ t want to say, I told you so. But I told you so. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about google’s twitter killer social network thing that is not as cool as the other things with massive privacy flaws. Chitika has the figures:

February 9th, 2010 – the day Buzz was launched – the search engines lit up with queries.  The Chitika network saw about 1,500 searches that day for the term “Google Buzz,” approximately 15 times the number of searches for “Twitter.”

By the 15th, searches for the service had dwindled to less than ten a day, and since February 26th there has been a constant stream of one search per day.

Finally I want to add an artwork which I have created from share buttons on mashable’s homepage. I think we can drop the google buzz button now, can we?

Facts and Figures. The world of google.

Februar 26th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Brands, Business, Cool, Diagram, google, Strategy, Tech, visualization, World

Twitter is crowded with marketing people. And what do marketing people really, really like? Right, statistics. Among loads of animated short movies which stage facts & figures from the web, we have seen a lot of wallpaper-like statistical info visualizations lately lately. First I thought “Nice”, until I found out that pretty much everyone nowadays puts his facts and figures into these kinds of banners. Anyway, I think this visualization is one of the better ones. It was created by Pingdom and tries to integrate many interesting facts about google in one place. Interesting!

Bring the Noise. Why google Buzz will Fail.

Februar 11th, 2010 • View Comments Social, Social Business
Tags: Brands, Business, Facebook, google, google Buzz, google wave, Social Networks, Strategy, Tech, Trends, Twitter, World

Two days ago google announced google Buzz, a new socialnetworky add-on to its well known and beloved gmail service. As expected, google is trying once more to advance into enemy territory – social networking. Since its foundation the company is great in search and media but it sucks big time when it comes to content and real, human interactions.

So, yesterday morning I found this google Buzz Button in my gmail account. And what I saw next was nice but two years too late.

One day with google Buzz

google Buzz tries to do anything at once and doesn’t do anything really good. Basically it’s a mixture of twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and Foursquare. That does not sound too bad, unfortunately I have no idea where google is in this concept.

Apart from the lack in own, new ideas the first finding is – the UX is horrible. Years ago google was on the forefront of UX design. But google Buzz almost looks like google Wave light. Do you remember google Wave? Sure you do (I have 1 gazillion invites left if you like). In short, google Buzz combines at least four specialized interoperable social services in one shitty interface, spices it up with even worse than ususal privacy flaws, integrates it into gmail an calls it Buzz.
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Online Advertising. Humans bow down to google.

Oktober 27th, 2009 • View Comments Brands, Business, Media
Tags: Advertising, Brands, Business, Diagram, google, Media, Strategy, Trends, World

O….kay, google, way to go. (All figures in 1,000$)

Found on Silicon Alley Insider

Usability. Apple, Google and you.

Oktober 12th, 2009 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Apple, Funny, google, Interfaces, Usability, visual, World

Unfortunately this is pretty likely 100% true.

(From Stuff that happens via Scott Monty)

google Wave. Come on google, give me an invite.

Oktober 3rd, 2009 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Diy, google, google wave

Hey google, I am still waiting for my google Wave invite. While I wait I watch a couple of videos of what google Wave actually is and write articles about what I expect it to be…But others obviously have the same problem. (via lifehacker and kwerfeldein)

google Wave. The last night of email?

September 30th, 2009 • View Comments Allgemein, Tools, Trends
Tags: Business, Cool, google, google wave, Idea, innovation, Strategy, Tools

It’s only one more day until google Wave launches. 100,000 users will be the first to receive an invite and I hope I will be among them (try to get your invite here). Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and (mobile) collaboration. A wave will be both, conversation and a document where people can interact, share and integrate formats of all sorts (pics, videos, audio…) – and everything real time.

By what we know about google Wave it might really be a game changer and redefine collaboration and the social realm (think Twitter not Facebook). Waves will come with drag-and-drop functionality, be embeddable, integrate multiple formats etc and be open source. That means, developers will create applications for google Wave. In short: google Wave may the answer to the question ‘How would email look like if it was invented in 2009′. And I am looking forward to seeing what that means when it gets live.

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Google Wave for iPhone. Probably…really…kind of…the next big thing.

August 7th, 2009 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Apps, google, google wave, Ideas, iPhone, Mobile, Tech, Trends

Every other week there is one ‘next big thing’. In fact, I believe google Wave will be it. A couple of weeks ago (simultaneously to the rollout of Bing) this video appeared announcing Wave as google’s next Gen communication platform, combining fuctions of IM, twitter, Wikis, Social Networks in one real time app. The list of functions looks pretty stunning. But now the guys of thenextweb have gotten their hands on the first prototype of a mobile google Wave version using the stunning HTML5 functionalities built into the iPhone’s Safari Browser.

Watch and be amazed.