Mobile Search

An enlightening simile from an article on iPhone:

"Searching on a computer, he said, is like going to a store, where the customers sees every product displayed, and can make comparisons, touch the products, even try things on for size. Doing the same search on a mobile, he said, but like trying to shop in the same store but "through a drive-up window." No matter how much stuff is in the store, you can only find out through the cashier at the drive-up window."

"The dilemma, left unsolved by the panelists, was how to squeeze the user through that window, past the cashier, to sample all the things in the store, without guilt, while still feeling grateful to the cashier who seemed, all along, to be standing in the way."

Evolution of Tech Company Logos

Logos.

Very cool.

Lies, Damned Lies, and...

This graph on Valleywag would be far more informative if it indicated how large each of those markets is.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

While Google search is clearly dominating the Australian market, because the graph doesn't tell us the size of the market, we don't know if Google's far smaller market share in Japan is in fact a less substantial market for it.

I'm not saying that the graphs isn't useful and interesting. It is extremely important to know how much of the market each company controls and it is one of the only objective ways to tell which search company is "winning" in those places. I'm simply pointing out that the raw numbers are essential to a full grasp of the relationships between Google, MSN and Yahoo.

I will try to find the raw numbers as to the size of these markets and post them later...

Super Tuesday Nerdiness

Even if you don't have Twitter, this mashup is flipping sweet.

Last Minute Christmas Present? (Or really late Chanukah present)

As the recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found, most people are narcissistic enough that they would likely love to receive something from this site for Christmas.

Irony, Thy Name is AdWords...

Yesterday after work I was messing around with the various customizable features offered by Google Blogger. It is that experimentation you have to thank for the link to my YouTube videos, my bio, and some news feeds to the right of the blog. On a whim, I signed up to host some "highly targeted ads" powered by Google's AdSense - lauded to be the best thing to happen to advertising since the Budweiser frogs.

Receiving notification this morning that my page had been approved to host ads, I scrolled to the bottom to find this carefully targeted, highly topical advertisement.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Well played, Google, well played. Although unless Marion Jones is checking the blogosphere on articles about herself, I don't expect many click throughs...