Filed under: Business, World wide web, Google

Welcome to Googleholic - your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

This edition covers:

• Google “hijacking” 404 pages
• Gmail surveys the connection between love and e-mail
• T-Mobile: Goodbye Google, Hello Yahoo
• Why the Google Logo looks how it does
• Google Ad share drops

Google “hijacking” 404 pages

It looks like Google Toolbar beta 5 carries a little surprise for 404 pages - a new default view. Instead of being served up a vanilla browser generated page when you encounter a 404, the Toolbar will come to your rescue with alternate suggestions and a Google search bar. If this isn’t to your liking, the Toolbar does enable you to disable this feature. But, webmasters that have custom 404 pages will have to make sure that their 404 pages are bigger than 512 bytes if they want to keep users with the Google Toolbar able to see the custom pages.

Gmail surveys the connection between love and e-mail

According to the survey, Gmail (and other webmail services) have been helping Cupid with his work - with 1 in 3 people having used webmail for sending love-related messages. As might be expected, the age group of these users tends to be on the younger side. But as the young get older, will e-mail become standard fare in the game of love?

T-Mobile: Goodbye Google, Hello Yahoo

T-Mobile users in Europe will no longer have Google be the default search for their mobile phones and will find themselves with a slice of Yahoo instead. Of course, Google isn’t one to be dumped without a fallback - as Google will have it’s mobile search be the power behind Nokia search.

Continue reading Googleholic for February 12, 2008

Permalink

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Business, Windows, E-mail, Office, Microsoft

It’s late Friday afternoon, and the FedEx driver is due any moment for the last pickup before the weekend. Suddenly, without warning, an urgent email pops into your Microsoft Outlook inbox. A customer needs three widgets, and they need them yesterday.

But you don’t even flinch. You click the “ship” button on your FedEx QuickShip toolbar, choose the customer’s name from your Outlook address book, and create the shipment. Disaster averted. World saved.

Or something like that.

The FedEx QuickShip toolbar is a free toolbar that integrates into your Outlook 2003 or 2007 inbox. The belief is that the integration of these two entities will lead to saved time and increased productivity. To be fair, you can do plenty with the FedEx QuickShip toolbar: create and track U.S. shipments, get rates, schedule pickups, and find the nearest staffed FedEx location - all without leaving your Office Outlook application. And that’s a plus.

However, we think the “integration” between FedEx and Outlook isn’t almost integrated enough. It seems that the only integration is a new toolbar and the capability to ship to any address in your Outlook address book. Otherwise, the act like they don’t know each other. Want to track a package in your Outlook inbox? You’ll need to replicate the tracking number, choose track from your toolbar, and paste it into the tracking field. Of course this might save a little time…but how is this much different than pasting that same number into a web browser?

For you who use Outlook and FedEx as your main weapons, this should be a boon. For all others…we’d wait for a more integrated solution.

You’ll need Outlook 2003 or 2007 and a FedEx shipping account.

[via AppScout]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Deals, eBay (EBAY), General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising

There’s a lot of chatter around the blogosphere discussing a formally announced agreement between eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM). I picked up on the official GM press release at Autoblog.

Here’s what I make of it: GM will be placing all of its available GM certified, used car inventory from 3,900 dealers on eBay in the classified ad format. I believe this means that people won’t actually be bidding for the vehicles on eBay, but they will be able to look at them there, and then they will be referred to the dealership that has the automobile they want. It may be similar to the way Craigslist operates. You know, Craigslist . . . an eBay company.

The GM press release states: “The eBay Motors agreement means that GM Certified dealers will have millions more eyeballs looking at their inventory, and more traffic drives sales,” said Mark Mathews, director, GM Used Automobile Activities. “Teaming with eBay Motors provides shoppers with convenient access to all GM Certified inventory and continues GM Certified’s commitment to interactive marketing. We now offer our dealers the most comprehensive program in the industry, listing their inventory on more than 300 websites.”

Comments made on Autoblog indicate less than great enthusiasm for the idea. At best, Autoblog readers find it interesting. The fact of the matter is that GM already gives its dealers big exposure on the internet, not withstanding each dealer’s individual world wide web advertising efforts. The one thing I don’t like is that it appears GM dealers won’t be paying for their exposure on eBay. Where do I sign up for a deal like that?

While I kind of like the whole idea and think that if it’s well executed, it could work out nicely, there’s something else inside me that feels just a bit queasy when thinking about it. Even though I think the concept might be accepted with the same level of anguish, only time will tell if it’s a good move that’ll pay off. I honestly hope it works out nicely for all celebrations involved, but honestly, I’m not holding my breath.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Time Warner (TWX), News Corp’B’ (NWS)

Though time is on Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT)’s side in its $44.6 billion unsolicited takeover battle for Yahoo! Inc., (NASDAQ: YHOO), that doesn’t necessarily mean it will win the war.

The world’s largest software company late Monday said — predictably — it was disappointed that Yahoo “has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies” and that it was “confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.”

You didn’t have to be psychic to see that coming.

But Yahoo co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang isn’t stupid. Microsoft, like News Corp (NYSE: NWS) in its pursuit of Dow Jones & Co. is an uneconomic buyer of Yahoo. Steve Ballmer wants to make sure that Yahoo doesn’t fall into the hands of the either Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) or a media conglomerate such as Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), parent company of AOL. He has already pledged to pay a 62% premium for a company that many on Wall Street believe has seen its ideal days.

As Bloomberg News notes, some Yahoo shareholders are already fed up. “Eric Jackson, president of the investment firm Ironfire Capital in Naples, Florida, is organizing shareholders to support the Microsoft bid or any higher offer, according to a posting on his blog yesterday,” Bloomberg reported. “He stated there are 2.1 million shares in support of the move, though the count is based on an `informal pledge’ by investors.”

Of course, the Redmond, Wash.-based company can afford to raise its $31 per share bid for Yahoo. Analysts told The New York Times that Microsoft can afford to pay as much as $35. Whatever the price, there’s no doubt that integrating Yahoo will be a massive challenge for Microsoft. But only time will tell whether Yahoo is worth all of this aggravation.

Share This

Share This

Sometimes real estate news is so surreal it makes you shake your head. The great clothes-line battle is a perfect example.

Time Magazine recently ran a story, which you can read here, on the battle over the right to dry. In other words, some residents in housing developments governed by homeowners associations want to dry their clothes the old-fashioned way, by hanging them on outside clotheslines to bask in the sun. It’s more environmentally responsible to eliminate the energy usage of a dryer.

Some homeowners associations, though, forbid homeowners from drying clothes outside. It’s too visually unpleasing, they state.

This is leading to a movement — though I’m not quite sure how large of a movement — to enact legislation protecting homeowners’ rights to dry their clothes on outdoor clotheslines.

The Time Magazine story quotes one homeowner who’s received at least one complaint about his clothesline from a neighbor. The owner has chosen to ignore the complaint. The president of the homeowners association is quoted as saying he isn’t taking any action, yet. But if he does receive more complaints, he states, he might have to.

Does this all sound ridiculous? Maybe just a bit. But if I was choosing sides, I’d side with the clothesline supporters. It’s simple to state your an environmentalist or “green,” but it’s harder to actually put those principles into practice. And if you can’t stand the sight of your neighbor’s clothesline, stay away from the window.

Tags: clotheslines, homeowners association, Time Magazine

Share This

Share This

Share This