Yahoo New Home Page

At long last it seems Yahoo has had a swift kick up the backside and launched its new customisable home page.

http://www.yahoo.com/

Yup you can change colours, page sizes and lots more but its still a far way from the iGoogle features, but hey it's a step in the right direction and the cynics might even say it has something to do with the talk of a deal with Microsoft.

Google's Profits Up

Whilst many companies continue to struggle and downsize Google's net income for the quarter to June 2009 was actually higher than it was for the same period last year. They posted a net income of $1.48bn (£900m) whereas last year it was $1.25bn.

Their actual revenue rose by 3% for the period to $5.52bn and interestingly 53% came from outside of the USA.

Breaking down the areas of income it shows that online marketing expenditure continues to rise despite other forms of media like TV and Radio taking a real knock.

Paid for clicks (sponsored listings) were 15% higher year on year although Q2 was down 2% against Q1 of this year.

The results from Google were better than expected and CEO Eric Schmidt was reported to say "These results highlight the enduring strength of our business model and our responsible efforts to manage expenses."

Twitter Hacked - Legal Case

Just reading some interesting news about some important financial information that was posted on blogs and websites after an email account for an employee at Twitter was hacked

Full Story >>

To summarise the story Techcrunch was sent some 310 bits of 'sensitive' information about Twitters financial projections.

Twitters Biz Stone was also able to use the news item to 'big up' twitter too saying

"Twitter being in enough of a spotlight that folks who work here can be a target".

It appears that a number of leading tech blogs were offered the information and the whole incident is now being referred to as 'twittergate'.

Reading deeper into the reasons behind the hack and subsequent comments by companies like Techcrunch it is highlighting the vulnerabilities of 'cloud computing' and that people need to be more aware of their online security.

Google cannot be happy about this story in light of their recent Google Chrome OS announcement and the fact that it will rely on cloud computing for the OS and associated apps.

Google - Explore the World

Looks like Google have added another fun element to Google maps with the "Explore the world" link just under the search bar in Google.com

It reads "Local experts share their favorite places with you" and when you click the link it takes you to a Google Maps Favorite Places pages where you will see some 'experts' (ermmm really?) favorite places in the world.

See here

So here is a sample of some of them:

Al Gore: The Maldives.
With the message: Our grandchildren may never be able to visit the Maldives, an island nation south of India, because it could be submerged by rising sea levels.

Kelly Holmes: OXO Tower in London
With the message: Great food, brilliant location and views.

Ken Livingstone: El Parador
With the message: The garden at El Parador is a great place to eat tapas outdoors in the summer. You'd never know you were near such busystreets

Suggs (front man for Madness): St Johns
With the message: I regularly go out for dinner to St John's. There's always such a jolly atmosphere about it, and the standard of food and the selection of wine are fabulous.

and for the Spanish fans out there

Alejandro Sanz (singer): Paseo de Camoens
With the message: It is a tranquil spot that fills me with peace. It brings back a lot of memories to me from when they held concerts there.

So to summarise, most other people outside the UK choose a destination whereas the English seem to choose a restaurant. Where's the culture gone?

Swine Flu Closes Google Office

As much as some people think that Google simply 'walks on water' and just can't be knocked off of that amazing path of dominance of everything Internet, it seems that even the big G can be stopped in their tracks by Swine flu.

According to Assocaited Press the Google Inc office in southern India was closed for two days due to a positive case of swine flu.

250 staff were told to stay away from the office while it was sanitised before they could return. Luckily the main Google hub in India was untouched and functioning normally.

Full story here >>

Google Chrome OS - Reactions

Well as the fallout continues around the announcement of Google Chrome OS it becomes a little clearer as to the impact it is likely to have on the computing world.

From what we are now reading the following question seems to be the biggest of all;

How would you feel about having no local applications such as Office, iTunes and many other much needed and relied upon applications?

So it appears that the Google Chrome OS will need purpose built machines, much like today's notebooks, but even lighter in terms of applications. Yes they will boot up much faster, in fact in seconds and you will be straight on the Internet. But all of your applications will all be run from there. It is what is referred to these days as 'cloud computing'. People who use CRM's like Salesforce will already be familiar with this type of scenario.

So to summarise the latest news on Google Chrome OS, it would seem like it is a great idea but as a companion to a PC not a replacement. In fact there is no real reason why it couldn't run on the same machine.

Allen & Co Conference Sun Valley

Well it's all quips, jokes and digs at the Allen & Co conference this year attended by industry giants like Google, Apple, Sony and Microsoft.

There were some interesting points raised and of course there was a buzz around town about the Google Chrome OS. But moving away from the serious stuff for once (it is Friday after all), here are some of the best quotes from the conference.

Eric Schmidt on the way things are; "You can't waste money, credit is tight."
Well that's easy for Google to say I guess

Schmidt on Google's dominance and the US government taking a closer look at their company; "We now expect governments to look at what we're doing. We respect their role."

Schmidt on MySpace; "We like MySpace a lot"
Well they ploughed $900 million into it with an advertising deal so now is not the time to admit it was a disaster I guess. Let's see if they renew the deal next year, then we will really know.

Larry Page on when YouTube will make money "just not that important."

Schmidt, a voice from behind Bill Gates when Gates was asked by reporters for his thoughts on the Google Chrome OS "Better if you not comment."

and finally....

Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corp. when asked his thoughts about Twitter and the other Social Networking sites "A lot of people are doing very well at making very little money. It's not a club I'm looking to join."

Google Chrome OS

Well I suppose from a non-political stance, World War III has just begun but it's not world leaders taking chunks out of each other and sending in the troops, the battle of the Operating Systems has begun.

For far too long Microsoft has had the monopoly on Operating Systems (OS) and even though challenges came in from Linux they still didn't learn from the growing unrest being felt throughout the computing world.

They continued to bring out OS after OS, some with good new features but some terrible failings too. And it was us, the consumer that had to bear the brunt of the bugs.

People turned to Linux but whilst it offered many advantages, it lacked a lot of mainstream software that people became used to needing on a daily basis.

Google Chrome OS

So why would people trust in a new operating system?

Well I guess initially it's a lot to do with trust. Many people already turn to Google in their hour of need whether it's looking for a phone number for a local business, researching a new car online, reviewing overseas property, sharing documents over the Internet, using the various email solutions, in fact the list goes on and one and continues to grow.

Google are renowned for only employing the best of the best so we can assume that the new Chrome OS will be somthing to be admired. Google are very different to many other large development companies as they WANT and thrive on feedback from users. How else can anything grow and adapt?

People like Microsoft for example seemed to have adopted the attitude of 'if it doesn't work properly it must be your fault'.

Google Chrome OS will be designed to get you on the web in seconds and most of the user expereince will all take place on the Internet.

It is like cloud computing on steroids.

For more information take a look at the Google BLOG about Google Chrome