Jul
20
Posted under
Web Finally the unbelievable has happened. Yahoo and MSN Live instant messengers can talk to each other now. Yesterday when I saw a link on top of my messenger window that lead me to this page. The bad thing is you’ve to manually add contacts from one messenger to your messenger client of the other. There is no inbuilt contact list download built into neither of them. But it is still worth it. Two competitors have joined hands. Looks like they will never get together with Google.
I wish Google talk had the ability to talk to both Yahoo and MSN. Hopefully soon I expect that to happen.
May
04
Posted under
Web During the last few months, one thing that has emerged probably as the next big wave of getting the internet users’ eyeballs is possibly ‘Online Video space‘. Ever since the much publicised Google video and recent success YouTube became widely known, everyone is found either watching a video online, forwarding a link to a video online or uploading the one created by self.
There are now new amateur video directors, technicians and slew of people around this online video phenomenon. Good to see this happening because the web needs to grow into much more mature and complete communication medium than simple texts, searches and email. Surely this video thing is going to grow on other internet users who have not been using it as much compared to geeks and the technical race. Certainly video has much more communicating capability than a text as you would see.
The revenue generating capability also looks immense. There are free clippings which when paid/subscribed become fully viewable. Youtube is already serving up ads around the screen real estate.
Couple of opinions on Google Video and YouTube.
Technically and usability wise I like Google Video. I’ve never had a buffering problem with it even when on low wifi. Its sleek, user-friendly navigation, continuity when viewed full screen, and many such nice features make it my first choice. The only downside is its current content, which is AFAIK much limtied compared to YouTube. People have been uploading like crazy on YouTube. And you find a video for every occasion. Google video needs to mature enough in content more upload friendly and it should happen in very near future anyway.
YouTube buffers and stops a lot, you can’t have a nonstop video experience if on wifi, atleast I never had one, unless I hookup the ethernet directly. YouTube is cluttered and a bit messy. Not a streamlined user experience. I am not with their groups too. For some reason they are not as useful as they could have been and I got spammed as well. Technically YouTube are yet to catch up.
Check out this Google Video forum called Vewgle
The following is also an indication of the importance of online videos (via Google Blogoscoped)
Another interesting revelation of things to watch out for is that video results will be integrated to Google News some future day. “So if you search for ’bird flu,’ you’ll get the USA TODAY results alongside the video report from CNN,†as USA Today puts it. Marissa adds:
The presentation of search results is going to change a lot in the next couple of years … Video will play a big role. If you search for how to cut up a chicken or how to change a flat tire, video is the right answer.
At the moment, Google doesn’t have their own web video crawler… but I’m sure it’s on their list.
