March 12, 2008

Google Will Outflank Facebook-Microsoft If Yahoo Joins OpenSocial

UPDATE: TechCrunch "is hearing" that Yahoo will join Open Social in April. Still in rumor stage.

If Yahoo joins the OpenSocial alliance, Microsoft and Facebook may find themselves out in the cold.

The New York Times is reporting that Yahoo intends to join Google’s OpenSocial Alliance, placing increased pressure on Facebook, the only major social network yet to join the development network.

Last year, Facebook signed an ad deal with Microsoft, effectively placing the popular social networking site between a rock and a hard place when it comes to social web application standards.

OpenSocial already boasts a Who’s Who list of social networks. MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Ning, Orkut, Six Apart, Friendster, Xing and many others, including old-school Oracle and Salesforce.com, are participating in the alliance. While Yahoo is not a social network, it does boast the largest number of registered users. The company believes it could receive great benefit from opening up its site to developers.

So what implications does this have on a possible Microsoft-Yahoo deal? It may make it tougher for Microsoft to "untangle" Yahoo initiatives, but it’s unlikely to derail the bid altogether. Don’t look for Microsoft to join OpenSocial anytime soon.

Google launched OpenSocial last fall, as an initiative to develop a common set of APIs that can be used across several different social networking sites, in an effort to draw developers to an open platform. Earlier this week, Google made another play for web developers by announcing its I/O Web Forward developers conference, planned for later this spring.

Posted by Nathania at 10:23 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2008

Matt Cutts' Google NoIndex Discussion Gets Interesting

The ongoing discussion of the ways you can stop search engines from indexing specified pages and the use of the noindex meta tag was the topic of Matt Cutts blog the other day. Matt started a poll of what people would like the noindex tag to do: A: Don't show the page at all; B. Find some middle ground; or C:Show a link to the page.

The results have been massively in favor of not showing the page at all, 617 to 61 and 53.

Interestingly Matt argued that Google needs some discretion of what pages the noindex tag stops from being listed in the search results. He uses a couple of instances of government essential sites that have been dropped because they mistakenly used that tag.

"The vast majority of webmasters who use NOINDEX do so deliberately and use the meta tag correctly (e.g. for parked domains that they don’t want to show up in Google). Users are most discouraged when they search for a well-known site and can’t find it. What if Google treated NOINDEX differently if the site was well-known? For example, if the site was in the Open Directory, then show a reference to the page even if the site used the NOINDEX meta tag. Otherwise, don’t show the site at all. The majority of webmasters could remove their site from Google, but Google would still return higher-profile sites when users searched for them," Matt blogged.

The post lays out the difficulties Google encounters when errors by site owners use the tags incorrectly and stop people from accessing information that should be available to the web.

The comments have a solid cross section of well known marketers from our industry and present some good insights.

Joost de Valk, search strategist for Onetomarket notes "The fact that some websites get the noindex wrong by accident is a problem, I can understand, but you don’t solve a problem a minority of websites has by forcing a majority of people to change their ways. You solve that problem by educating the people maintaining those website."

Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped added: "I think it’s a pretty clear-defined case: webmasters put “noindex” in their page because they don’t want the page indexed or shown. As you can’t know whether a webmaster perhaps accidentally put the noindex there, you have to err on the safe side and do what you’re told. Or how would you feel if people started to interpret Google terms of services in terms of, “oh maybe their lawyers just misspelled this and really mean something else, I’ll ignore it.”

Also, please do not try to push webmasters to always use a Google tool — like a URL removal tool — to do stuff; while Google search is close to a monopoly there are still other engines out there, and webmasters have better things to do than toggle a dozen tool’s configurations."

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:28 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2005

Registration for Google Code Jam 2005 Now Open

Software developers who write code in Java, C++, C#, or VB might be interested to learn that registration for the 2005 Google Code Jam ($155,000 in prizes) is now open. Registration continues through August 19th.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:37 PM | Permalink

Registration for Google Code Jam 2005 Now Open

Software developers who write code in Java, C++, C#, or VB might be interested to learn that registration for the 2005 Google Code Jam ($155,000 in prizes) is now open. Registration continues through August 19th.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:37 PM | Permalink

Registration for Google Code Jam 2005 Now Open

Software developers who write code in Java, C++, C#, or VB might be interested to learn that registration for the 2005 Google Code Jam ($155,000 in prizes) is now open. Registration continues through August 19th.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:37 PM | Permalink

Registration for Google Code Jam 2005 Now Open

Software developers who write code in Java, C++, C#, or VB might be interested to learn that registration for the 2005 Google Code Jam ($155,000 in prizes) is now open. Registration continues through August 19th.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:37 PM | Permalink

May 31, 2005

Google Announces "Summer of Code" Initiative for Software Developers

Are you a student who likes to write computer code? Then Google might have a way for you to make some cash.

Just posted on the Google Code web site is info about their new "Summer of Code" intiative that has been setup to "introduce students" to Open Source software.

Students (the FAQ defines students very broadly) who complete an "Open Source" project by September 1st, will earn $4500. This FAQ has all of the details.

Not only will the Summer of Code likely turn out some interesting projects but it's also:

+ More great publicity for Google (man, they're good at it) + A way for Google to identify people worthy of possible recruitment

Posted by Gary Price at 4:16 PM | Permalink

Google Announces "Summer of Code" Initiative for Software Developers

Are you a student who likes to write computer code? Then Google might have a way for you to make some cash.

Just posted on the Google Code web site is info about their new "Summer of Code" intiative that has been setup to "introduce students" to Open Source software.

Students (the FAQ defines students very broadly) who complete an "Open Source" project by September 1st, will earn $4500. This FAQ has all of the details.

Not only will the Summer of Code likely turn out some interesting projects but it's also:

+ More great publicity for Google (man, they're good at it) + A way for Google to identify people worthy of possible recruitment

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:16 PM | Permalink

Google Announces "Summer of Code" Initiative for Software Developers

Are you a student who likes to write computer code? Then Google might have a way for you to make some cash.

Just posted on the Google Code web site is info about their new "Summer of Code" intiative that has been setup to "introduce students" to Open Source software.

Students (the FAQ defines students very broadly) who complete an "Open Source" project by September 1st, will earn $4500. This FAQ has all of the details.

Not only will the Summer of Code likely turn out some interesting projects but it's also:

+ More great publicity for Google (man, they're good at it) + A way for Google to identify people worthy of possible recruitment

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:16 PM | Permalink

Google Announces "Summer of Code" Initiative for Software Developers

Are you a student who likes to write computer code? Then Google might have a way for you to make some cash.

Just posted on the Google Code web site is info about their new "Summer of Code" intiative that has been setup to "introduce students" to Open Source software.

Students (the FAQ defines students very broadly) who complete an "Open Source" project by September 1st, will earn $4500. This FAQ has all of the details.

Not only will the Summer of Code likely turn out some interesting projects but it's also:

+ More great publicity for Google (man, they're good at it) + A way for Google to identify people worthy of possible recruitment

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:16 PM | Permalink

March 26, 2005

Winners of Google Code Jam - India Announced

Google held its first Code Jam in India today and the winners have just been announced. The event took place in Bangalore and was open to residents of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed [Sreeram] Ramachandran of Singapore. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.

The Times of India has more including the names of all of the winners and info about prizes.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Winners of Google Code Jam - India Announced

Google held its first Code Jam in India today and the winners have just been announced. The event took place in Bangalore and was open to residents of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed [Sreeram] Ramachandran of Singapore. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.

The Times of India has more including the names of all of the winners and info about prizes.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Winners of Google Code Jam - India Announced

Google held its first Code Jam in India today and the winners have just been announced. The event took place in Bangalore and was open to residents of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed [Sreeram] Ramachandran of Singapore. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.

The Times of India has more including the names of all of the winners and info about prizes.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Winners of Google Code Jam - India Announced

Google held its first Code Jam in India today and the winners have just been announced. The event took place in Bangalore and was open to residents of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

We were given three algorithms problems. The first was to find out the unique URLs (universal resource locators); the second was trying to find the shortest possible path and the third was to calculate the probable winner among the two in a competition," said fifth-placed [Sreeram] Ramachandran of Singapore. "These problems were challenging. We had to choose one among two languages Java or C++ - and were given two hours to solve the problems. Speed of thinking was the key to winning," Ramachandran added.

The Times of India has more including the names of all of the winners and info about prizes.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 17, 2005

Google Unveils Google Code

Google has just launched a new "one-stop shop" for web developers called Google Code. Google tells Search Engine Watch that it is providing the site as not only a hangout for coders but also with the hope that the company will be able to use some of the code in the future.

About two weeks ago, Yahoo launched the Yahoo Developer Network which offers a place for coders to share their work, interact, and learn.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Unveils Google Code

Google has just launched a new "one-stop shop" for web developers called Google Code. Google tells Search Engine Watch that it is providing the site as not only a hangout for coders but also with the hope that the company will be able to use some of the code in the future.

About two weeks ago, Yahoo launched the Yahoo Developer Network which offers a place for coders to share their work, interact, and learn.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Unveils Google Code

Google has just launched a new "one-stop shop" for web developers called Google Code. Google tells Search Engine Watch that it is providing the site as not only a hangout for coders but also with the hope that the company will be able to use some of the code in the future.

About two weeks ago, Yahoo launched the Yahoo Developer Network which offers a place for coders to share their work, interact, and learn.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Unveils Google Code

Google has just launched a new "one-stop shop" for web developers called Google Code. Google tells Search Engine Watch that it is providing the site as not only a hangout for coders but also with the hope that the company will be able to use some of the code in the future.

About two weeks ago, Yahoo launched the Yahoo Developer Network which offers a place for coders to share their work, interact, and learn.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBack