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Google Grabs 75 Percent In UK
With a leather-gloved stroke of the company white cat, Google’s mastermind cackled loudly as new figures revealed that their plans for UK domination are nearly complete, with almost three out of every four searches in the UK using their search engine.
During February, 2006, Google referred a whopping average of 74.67 percent of all U.K. visitors to other sites on the web – streets ahead of their nearest competitor Yahoo, who could only muster a comparatively feeble 9.3 per cent.
The figures were released by analysis company WebSideStory, who used a fancypants-sounding “statistical barometer” featuring “techno-graphic trends” (weren’t we dancing to that last night?) to reveal Google’s near-total domination of the UK search market.
It looks like the Brits have taken a particular shine to the San Francisco-based search giant, with February’s search referral stats outperforming Google’s US average for the the month (55.39 percent) and their global average (62.4 percent).
“Even more so in the U.K. than in the U.S., when people think of search, they think of Google,” commented Rand Schulman, Chief Marketing Officer for WebSideStory.
“This has large implications for U.K. marketers, whose search engine marketing and optimization strategies should be Google-centric,” he added.
Looking down to the sorry gang of search engines trailing several laps behind, we can see Yahoo at 9.30 percent, MSN at 5.46 percent, AOL with 4.21 and a coughing, spluttering Ask (Jeeves) with just 2.28 percent.
27 March, 2006
Barablu: Free Mobile To Mobile Calls
A new service, Barablu, launches today claiming to offer free voice calls and text messages between mobile phones.
Now, we’ve all heard of free computer-to-computer services. We’ve even heard of calling from PDA to computers for free, but this is the first time we’ve heard of offering it free from mobile handset to mobile handset.
How do they do it? Surely there’s data charges involved with this? Short answer, no, as the phone handsets that work with this service must support WiFi – and Barablu have gone to great lengths of draw this to our attention. Simply get a WiFi-enabled mobile phone, put the Barablu software on and you’re able to chat freely to anyone else on their service, no matter what platform they’re on.
One of the difficulties of the service is that WiFi-mobiles aren’t that widely available currently.
It’s as clear as the screen on your PSP that mobile phone operators aren’t very keen on ideas like this. Many commentators have claimed that the operators have gone a long way to trying to block the development and sale of WiFi-capable mobile phones – as the operators are terrified that it will erode the price of calls from ‘quite a lot’ per minute, to zero.
Mobile handsets that are currently Wi-Fi-enabled include the Nokia 9500 (Symbian Series 80), the new Nokia N91 and N92, the I-mate SP5, SP5m (Windows Mobile for Smartphone 5.0), and the soon to be available Nokia E60.
Like other VoIP offerings, Barablu offers the ability to call people on ‘normal’ landlines who aren’t on their network – at a charge.
Barablu does appear to have something unique here – at least currently. The difficulty they’re going to hit is the same for anyone trying to build a community of users and provide this type of service -it’s all about the number of people you can attract on to it. If people find their friends aren’t on it, or their said friends already have a similar service – the software will get unloaded and they’ll stop using it.
Best of luck to them, and we look forward to trying it out.
Barablu
23 March, 2006
Yahoo Messenger With Voice Gets US launch
Things are hotting up in the US VoIP market as Yahoo announces their low cost Messenger with Voice service, letting users make phone calls through the company’s instant messaging software.
The version 7.5 Beta launch comes after successful trials in five other countries since December, with the service letting users make calls from their computers for 2 cents a minute (or less) to the most popular national phone markets, including the United States.
Just like rival Skype, the new service lets users make freebie computer-to-computer calls, with a “Phone Out” and “Phone In” feature allowing users to dial or receive calls from landlines in 180 countries.
The Phone In service – which lets customers to receive calls on their computers from regular and mobile phones – is priced at $2.99 a month, or $29.90 (~£17, ~€25) a year, compared to Skype’s €30 yearly charge.
Keen to elbow Skype off the VoIP table by appealing to consumer’s wallets, Yahoo claim that their service is noticeably cheaper.
They claim Messenger with Voice costs between 20 to 30 percent lower than Skype’s fees to many major markets outside the United States.
Yahoo are upbeat about prospects for their new service after trials in the initial five countries proved more successful than anticipated, especially in France.
Mindful that not everyone wants to bark into their computer, Yahoo have also struck deals with various hardware manufactures including headset makers Plantronics, USB handset manufacturers VTech and cordless phone kings Siemens AG.
With Yahoo Instant Messenger already enjoying a huge market presence, the new voice service could hurt Skype’s prospects – after all, why should a user go through all the hassle of signing up with a third party when they’re already with Yahoo?
Yahoo Messenger with Voice
22 March, 2006
Google Finance Beta Launches
Like Dr Strangelove with a modem, Google has made another stride in its plans to take over the virtual world, with a new Google Finance service announced today.
Pitched directly against well-established financial information and news sites like Yahoo Finance and Microsoft’s MSN Money, the free service was dreamt up by Google engineers in India looking for ways to improve financial information searching.
Katie Jacobs Stanton, a senior Google product manager, said that Google Finance was created in response to user surveys which found that their customers craved a financial information service.
Google hopes that their service will steal a march on rivals by providing an easier way to search for stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies.
There’ll also be a broad range of company news and information, an interactive chart correlating news and other events with stock price spikes and falls, delivered in a “clean, uncluttered user interface.”
For those who like this kind of thing, Google Finance will incorporate interactive charts correlating market data with corresponding dated news stories, letting you track how a company’s stock reacted to related news.
These charts can also be clicked, dragged and zoomed to reveal different time periods and more detailed information.
Google Finance also provides a personalised area for keeping track of stock quotes for selected companies along with any related news.
For a bigger financial picture, blog postings and (moderated) content from related discussion forums will also be incorporated in the service.
Although financial sites like Yahoo Finance, Marketwatch.com and TheStreet.com currently enjoy loyal followings, pundits are predicting that Google’s advanced features and simplified interface could have a serious impact on the market.
Google currently has no plans to display ads on Google Finance, with a spokeswoman saying that all information on the site will be free of charge.
finance.google.com
22 March, 2006
VoIP Vivifies The US Home Phone Market
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is slowly but steadily creeping into American homes, with adoption up 20% since June 2005, and growing user satisfaction.
The figures, released by consulting firm Telephia, show that nearly 3.9 million US households are now VoIP’ing away, with Vonage securing the highest market share at 47.5 percent. This translates into 1.9 million households – up from 40 percent from the last year.
The grandly named Telephia Emerging Personal Communications Options (EPCO) survey saw Skype lag miles behind Vonage with just 11.8 percent market share (463,000 household subscribers), followed by AT&T Call Vantage at 5.6 percent, (218,000 subscribers),Verizon Voice Wing 5 percent (196,000 subscribers) and new boy Google with just 2.5 percent (97,000 subscribers).
Only way is up
As that dreadful song by Yaz insists, the only way for VoIP is most definitely up, with more wireless subscribers already using the service as their primary phone line.
Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of new products at Telephia, commented: “About 30 percent of 18 to 24 year olds only have a wireless phone…VoIP has an appeal, because it’s less expensive, about $5 monthly…we will see higher adoption in this age group,” he added.
Early adopters to VoIP may recall the experience being akin to talking to a stuttering Dalek in an echo chamber, but the research revealed that 67 percent of VoIP users believe voice quality is now equal to traditional landline services, with 19 percent reckoning that internet calls sound better than those on wired phones lines.
Realibility is on the rise too, with 71 percent of VoIP households finding Internet telephony to be just as reliable as land lines, with sixteen percent considering VoIP to have better reliability.
Naturally, mobile manufacturers like Nokia have been taking note of the growing demand for VoIP handsets, and we can expect to see a flurry of dual-mode Wi-Fi/mobile handsets in the coming months,
16 March, 2006
Wireless Voice Chat First: Metroid Prime Hunters on Nintendo DS
At eTech last week I pleasantly surprised to see a hard-core of Nintendo DS users with the majority of them running Animal Crossing at breakfast, to ensure their lands were set up for the day.
This news, literally just in, extends the DS to include wireless voice chat – a significant change that will enable another channel of free voice communication between people that probably like chatting quite a lot.
IN SPACE NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM… -At least not until now! Metroid Prime Hunters launches with wireless voice chat technology –
13th March 2006 – The wait for the interstellar bounty-hunters, and gaming’s toughest heroine is finally over as Metroid Prime Hunters launches across Europe on 5th May 2006. This game features touch-screen controls, Wi-Fi game play, a fully-fledged single player 3D first person shooter mode as well as an extensive online multiplayer first person shooter mode. For the first time on a Nintendo DS game, Metroid Prime Hunters include wireless voice chat technology allowing players to talk with friends before and after battle, whilst using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and microphone, wherever they are in the world.
Raised by an ancient alien race, Samus is the galaxy’s top bounty hunter, utilising her advanced Varia suit to give her near super-human powers and using an arm mounted cannon to blast her way past any opposition. Now Samus has been hired by the Galactic Federation to recover powerful alien artefacts before deadly bounty hunters get their hands on them. In space there’s no law and no back up, Samus will have to use all of her skills to return alive.
Featuring some of the most advanced 3D graphics for a held-held system, playing Metroid Prime Hunters brings you the great graphics seen in Metroid Prime on Nintendo GameCube with the added benefit of it being on a portable handheld system. The vast single-player mode in Metroid Prime Hunters is among one of the most exciting seen on a hand-held console to date and the game can also proudly claim to be the first multiplayer first person shooter to grace a hand-held system. While playing, the fast-paced seamless levels are displayed with perfect clarity on the top Nintendo DS screen, while a map and radar showing enemy locations is visible on the bottom.
The gameplay possibilities that the Nintendo DS can offer really allows Metroid Prime Hunters to stand out from the rest. Players use the Nintendo DS d-pad to walk around while the stylus is used to look about the area and aim their weapon, much like a PC based First Person Shooter. The stylus control allows players to turn and target with pinpoint accuracy. Icons strategically placed on the touch-screen also allow players to switch weapons and convert Samus into her Morph Ball form with ease.
The fun doesn’t stop there either! You might have proven yourself against intergalactic bounty hunters in the game’s single player mode, but there is still much more to experience with the game’s expansive multiplayer modes. Metroid Prime Hunters features numerous online and offline multiplayer modes, allowing players to compete locally with friends using the Nintendo DS wireless link and then battle people across the globe thanks to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service.
Players without access to Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection service can use Single-Card Play to enter battle in a selection of arenas with three friends, using only one cartridge. Or if all players have copies of the game, they can engage in one of the game’s seven multiplayer modes in Multi-Card Play with a selection of seven characters and ten arenas to choose from.
Playing Metroid Prime Hunters using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allows players to take their newly honed skills and show them off to players around the world for free* using their home broadband connection or one of Nintendo’s public Wi-Fi hotspots. Players can select Find Game to play against opponents from across the globe, chosen by their skill level or battle friends from the list saved on their Nintendo DS in Friend’s and Rivals mode.
Prepare for the ultimate space mission as Metroid Prime Hunters goes on sale across Europe on 5th May 2006 at the estimated retail price of around £30.
13 March, 2006
Wikipedia Hits One Million Articles
The English version of Wikipedia has now notched up more than one million articles, according to the Wikimedia Foundation, the fellas who run the free online encyclopedia.
Comprised of articles largely written collaboratively by its thousands of users, Wikipedia lets readers get involved by contributing their own articles or modifying existing entries, not always with the best intentions in mind.
Wikipedia’s reach is truly global, with versions of the encyclopaedia currently available in 125 languages, containing a total of 3.3 million articles.
The lucky millionth article (on March 1st) was an entry on Jordanhill railway station in Scotland, written by Ewan Macdonald, a Wikipedia contributor who posts under the tag, Nach0king.
Writing on his Wikipedia homepage, Macdonald admitted that he’d been coveting the honour of the millioneth post: “While I am, of course, delighted at being the one to hit this milestone, I must confess that, along with many others, I timed my contributions tonight to give me a chance at being the lucky one.”
With the million-article mark passed and the Wikimedia Foundation estimating that new articles are coming in at a rate of 1,700 new articles every day, our back-of-a-beer-mat calculation reckons they’ll be hitting 2 million sometime 2009.
Started in 2001, Wikipedia is now the largest reference website on the Internet and along with text articles, the English Wikipedia includes graphical timelines, subject-specific portals, four hundred thousand images and hundreds of full-length songs, videos, and animations.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia: Jordanhill railway station
2 March, 2006
Ask Jeeves Rebrands, Adds New Search Tools
The site formerly known as Ask Jeeves has retired its long serving butler, rebranded itself as ‘Ask.com’ and served up a new, simplified homepage offering access to new tools like enhanced maps, driving directions, encyclopaedia search and a Web-based desktop search.
With the butler now booted off the homepage, ask.com presents a simple, Google-like interface with a text search box and a collapsible, customisable sidebar with shortcuts to 10 default search tools including maps, bloglines, images, weather, dictionary and weather.
New map features galore (if you’re in the US)
Ask.com says that the map search service has been considerably improved, employing the new AJAX-based technology to let users add new locations (pins) on the map, and then move the pins around on the map to get instantly updated walking or driving directions.
Aerial photos can also be overlaid or combined with regular street views, with the option to print aerial shots for a fee.
After several minutes frantically looking for some pin-pushing, drag’n’drop action of our own, we realised that it’s not for the likes of us Brits and all the groovy functionality is reserved for US maps only.
Were we impressed? Not at all.
And as if to wind us up a bit further, we then discovered that ask.com’s much-touted new encyclopedia search function was also noticeable by its absence on the UK homepage, as was the local search function.
Here’s an idea Ask.com – how about you include a help file to explain this to users, or, even better, give us the same goodies too?
Keeping it simple
In an attempt to stand out from a highly competitive (and Google dominated) market, Ask executives are aiming to provide a super-clean interface with fewer ads and editorial results displayed above advertisements.
“We want to get the message out that Ask.com is a serious alternative to any search engine out there,” said Daniel Read, vice president of consumer products at Ask.com.
Old Danny boy’s got his work cut out for him as Ask Jeeves has remained the least used among the largest search engines, way behind market leaders Google who currently hog an estimated 40 per cent of all queries.
Trailing behind Yahoo, Microsoft, MSN and AOL, Ask Jeeves can only muster a paltry 6.5% of the market, and until we get the same advanced functionality that our US counterparts enjoy, we’ll be sticking with Google, thanks.
Ask.com
27 February, 2006
Ofcom VoIP Consultation Announced For UK
Ofcom has just announced another consultation on Voice over IP (VoIP) use in the UK as a follow up to their last, which they called New Voice Services: A consultation and interim guidance, and released on 6 September 2004.
We feel this is sufficiently important to instantly flag up, so now only cover the key points. More details will follow.
Ofcom estimate is that there’s around 500,000 VoIP users in the UK, we can only assume that this is both software (Skype, gTalk, etc) and hardware (Vonage, etc). Sounds low to us and at the time of writing, Ofcom hasn’t responded to our request for clarification.
Subjects for discussion/debate –
The obvious of 999 emergency service comes up, but the use of language is pretty interesting. Ofcom say they want to ‘increase the incentive for VoIP services to offer 999 access,’ so potentially no insistence. VoIP providers will love this, as they’ve tripped up in other countries with this.
The scope _does_ appear to cover number portability which is good for the consumer.
As yet unclear, but in our view important. Will there be a move to enforce interoperability between different providers of the service? It would be very pro-consumer, but would put the noses-out-of-joint for quite a few VoIP providers, especially Skype.
Any comments in response have to be with Ofcom by 3.May.06. They’re not going to rush themselves in making their views on the process know in a big rush, they plan to make a statement in August 2006.
Ofcom – Consultation Documents on Regulation of VoIP Services
22 February, 2006
AOL Set To Battle Skype, Google And MySpace
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Ignoring shouts from the crowd that ‘they’re a big organisation but they’re out of shape’, AOL CEO Jonathan Miller told USA Today that they’re ready to KO the opposition with a salvo of killer punches.
New video search tools
First up is a new video search tool which integrates with the innovative Truveo technology which AOL bought in December.
The company claim that by using Truveo’s “visual crawlers”, they can now find and index high-quality video on the Web that traditional search engines can’t see, and will include AOL Hi-Q Videos (DVD-quality) in their video indexes.
The 1.8 million videos already indexed through Truveo will be added to AOL’s existing archive of 20,000+ original and licensed videos, along with the 2.5 million Web videos indexed through Singingfish.
Come mid-March, AOL will also be making 14,000 Warner Brothers-owned classic TV shows available for free (but supported by advertising), as part of its new In2TV service.
Mashing up MySpace
With 43 million active users signed up to their AIM messaging service, AOL is hoping that with their substantial music and video offerings, they’ll be able to mount an effective challenge to the immensely successful MySpace social networking community.
Seeing as they already operate the world’s most popular messaging service, AOL should be in a strong position to take on Murdoch’s company.
As Miller points out, with so many people already using Buddy Lists to chat with others, “the barrier to getting people to use it would be very low.”
With the new service, subscribers could simply click on a name in a Buddy List and be taken directly to that person’s personal website.
Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research, reckoned AOL’s plans made perfect sense, adding: “The key is making a strong link with AOL Music. Part of the reason MySpace works so well is it has music.”
Stalking Skype
Miller also revealed plans to turn AIM into a full voice platform which would compete directly with Skype.
Although Google and Yahoo instant message services already offer VoIP calls, AOL’s market dominance could quickly establish them as a force in cheap Internet phone calling.
Expected to should roll out in late spring, AOL also intends to open up the new AIM voice service to outside software developers.
No doubt AIM users will be hoping that this may finally produce long-overdue tools to let them chat with users of other messaging services.
AOL
21 February, 2006