Ken Banks (@kiwanja on twitter) is an honest-to-goodness tech hero. When much tech-related news and developments wallow in wonk and wank, or seem aimed at folks with more daily discretionary spending power than many global households make annually (PS3 Home launches! Waaa waaaaah), Ken's FrontlineSMS (@frontlineSMS on twitter) is a free piece of software that enables NGO's and grassroots organizations worldwide to communicate rapidly and effectively with geographically dispersed groups using basic text-messaging (SMS) technology. If you can get a signal, you can communicate/aggregate/congregate/advocate. And it works in spite of the natural disasters and power outages that regularly cripple other tech solutions.
Just how far ahead of the curve is Ken?
After a year of exhaustive research and millions spent, Larry Brilliant's Google.org announced (at TED 2008 last year) that they'd arrived at the conclusion that an SMS-enabled tool could be a good idea to invest MORE time and money to create a team to build and research and prototype and maybe, just maybe, deploy. Net: according to Google, it would take years and millions to do, in effect, what FrontlineSMS had been doing for years. Like announcing in 1973 that a moon trip looked "feasible". Proof yet again that insitutional hubris and groupthink can blind even the smartiest of smartie-pants to nimble people with a passion doing a reverse windmill dunk over them. [See "Salamis"]
Sure W+K sells soda and sneaks better than anyone, but we love passionate folks using innovative technologies to make peoples lives better. We were honored to work with Ken on his web presence and logo - both of which had to work on low speed connections and use text characters (since many folks would interact with them only via text message). BTW - the logo we developed with Ken is ASCII friendly and does some great stuff when you paste it into skype. seriously.
And it looks good on a button (see photo above).
\o/
50 winners have been selected for the first Google "Android Developer Challenge", and it was great to see the range of applications entered - wikipedia/map mobile mashups ("Wikitude"), consolidated virtual presence management ("Sustain"), pervasive gaming ("City Slikkers") - it's in there. And more.
Creativity (fueled by cash and visibility) is dangerously close to bring applied to the mobile canvas. The folks over at Silicon Alley Insider did a nice job pulling together a list of winners names and apps, so do check it out - they even posted links to explanations of the apps where available.
And for your download pleasure, here's a nice, simply formatted .pdf of the winners - with images and explanations. Download AndroidApps.pdf
It's worth reviewing to get a look at what's coming next...
When a singer starts using 'Google Me' as a way to illustrate her celebrity rather than waxing poetic about street cred, you got something funky going on.
And a 'Google Me' Ring tone? Who needs Android? Ring tones are multiplatform!!
Marshall Kirkpatrick, PDX rockstar, has a great piece at RWW on Google's new "Knols" project. It's worth reading his full post, especially his conversation with wiki inventor (and Aboutus CTO) Cunningham. Kilpatrick's source was Google's own blog post, also worth a read.
Knols = "Units of Knowledge".
Imagine if every page in Wikipedia was its own freestanding page - or in Google parlance, a "Unit of Knowledge". And anyone could create any page, not subject to any editors. Or fact-checkers. These pages would come up in a Google search, and the Google users base would (by clicking) vote the most relevant to the top - as they do with current search results as a part of Google's overall algorithm.
How will you know whether what you read is accurate or unbiased? well, you won't. According to Google:
"All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write...once testing is completed, participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality."
To ward off ill-intentioned knols, it appears, we'll have to count on the social commons:
"People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on. Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information."
What gets really interesting is that as Doubleclick info gets melded with Google's own library of your search results (which they have never said they would delete), aren't we going to be getting more customized (that is, better targeted to our preferences) information (and ads)?
One result may be that depending on what your search results and browser habits say about your potential proclivity for a particular flavor of knol on the topics of "gun control","abortion", "immigration", or any presidential candidate may generate results that hew to your algorithmically pre-determined skew.
Imagine a universe where everyone can read an encyclopedia tailored to them and their viewpoints? Where extremist views can be reinforced, walls maintained? Google suggests cross linking to opposing viewpoints, but don't most folks want reassurance that what they already think is right?
The good news?
"At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads."
Phew. That'll help me get to sleep at night. Here's a sample page from Google's post:
From the The WSJ:
I'm not sure whether to run screaming. And this isn't an ad application. At least not yet. But here goes:
23andMe (tag line "Genetics is about to get personal", and led by Google founder Sergey Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki) and Illumina, a genetics analysis company, are partnering to bring you more than you've probably ever known about your genetic makeup:
"You send in a sample of your own DNA (from your saliva in most cases–just use a Q-tip), and they will process it and spit back all kinds of information - e.g. to help find ancestral information, or for medical purposes."
You on a card. This is an actual shot an Illumina card - carrying some poor sucker's genomes.
From Illumina's site:
"Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you've likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.
Toward this goal, we are building on recent advances in DNA analysis technologies to enable broad, secure, and private access to trustworthy and accurate individual genetic information. Combined with educational and scientific resources with which to interpret and understand it, your genome will soon become personal in a whole new way."
Interesting name for a company given the history of the term Illuminatae. Best of all, the implication is that this info will be provided to you for free.
Boy this raises some interesting privacy questions.
Reveal all to learn all.
Wow. Honestly, wow.
Google Earth shows you our world from satellite height down to the cars parked in your driveway.
Google Sky knits together astronomical images into a navigable universe, as seen from Earth..jpg)
As a failed astrophysicist, this one blows my mind. I like features like the 'planet slider', the 'users guide to galaxies', etc. I just spent way too much time wandering around the universe. Virtually. I am drooling. I am actually drooling. I also love the awe inspiring banality of the naming scheme. Google "earth". Google "sky". Next up, Google "Air". You are breathing it. And they want it back.
Claudia Cristovao from W+K Tokyo found this article outlining the features.
Here's a quick video demo from Google about their new application:
download it here.
We took our oldest son to see Ratatouille today. And we realized as we were coming out of the film that every Pixar movie is really about discovering who you truly are.
And right now, what really freaks me out is that Google knows more about me than I do.
Google's potential involvement in the upcoming FCC spectrum auction is the most public sign yet of the coming Google-pocalypse for mobile carriers.
According to the NYT's Miguel Helft and Stephen Labaton:
"If Google succeeds with federal regulators, it could change the way millions of Americans use their cell phones and how they connect to the Internet on their wireless devices.
In the Internet giant's view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific carrier, they would be free to pick any carrier they wanted. Instead of the wireless carrier choosing what software goes on their phones, users would be free to put any software they want on it.
Google believes that the cost of voice calls and data connections to the Internet may be partly subsidized by advertisements brought to users by Google's powerful online advertising machine.
That vision, according to several analysts, is the reason Google said yesterday that it would bid upward of $4.6 billion for a swath of the nation's airwaves..."
[via CNet]
Ratatouille? SEE IT.
Google, in a series of really interesting acquisitions and investments, is well on its way to fundamentally redefining the mobile landscape, how you market in it, and what the mobile experience may be.
Today's announcement in the WSJ regarding Google's mobile search rollout is a BIG one:
"Google Inc. is developing a new search service for cellphones that will help consumers find and buy ringtones, games and other mobile content...Google already offers cellphone users a version of its popular engine for searching the Web. Now the company wants to go beyond just looking up Web pages, effectively becoming a gateway for finding and paying for mobile media content."
Why?
Mobile Carriers in the US have fought hard to own their mobile experiences - remember all the hubbub they raised about number portability? They also own the storefront on your handset called the 'deck'. It's possible to buy "off-deck" programming, but the carriers don't do anything to make it easy. If Google can make it easier to find and buy off-deck content, the carriers' walled gardens are little more than mobile Maginot lines, outflanked by tactics they didn't expect.
But Google's been up to more than that! Dig a bit back, and we see that In 2007 alone, they've picked up:
GrandCentral, "a company that lets you keep one telephone number as you move from home to home or job to job".
Neven Vision - which offers "image-driven mobile marketing services, visual mobile search, comparison shopping and m-commerce, enhanced photo messaging, secure data access and field identity verification." Yummy. Easy uses? Snap a shot of a product in a store with your mobile, have it spit out cheaper alternatives and directions.
Back in 2005, Google picked up Android. Who the heck is Android? Well, it's founder, who invented the Danger hiptop computer experience, said "there was tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences. "If people are smart, that information starts getting aggregated into consumer products"
One blogger notes saracastically, "Wow, just what I've always wanted: Google now will be able to pin a more-or-less permanent UID [user ID] to my Internet activity as my online usage starts to migrate more and more from my laptop onto my mobile phone."
They know who you are, anywhere.
Here's a pretty good list of the full moves, courtesy of Christa Quarles:
Why all the ruckus? Why does Google care?
Thomas Weisel research analyst Christa Quarles, in a paper on Google's moves cited by ZDNet's Dan Farber, Larry Dignan and David Berlind, notes:
"Google's best opportunity is in the mobile market... Google's text ads are well suited to the mobile market; the market is still in flux; and Google's Web users are likely to use the company's software on the road. Yahoo is shaping up to be a major competitor, but if Quarles is right mobile market share may mirror search market share."
The ZDNet crew goes on to state:
"We believe mobile internet advertising should develop faster than PC internet ads, however, precisely because we already have a precedent and the expansion should be much more global in nature. In addition, should Google achieve similar dominance in mobile that it has achieved in PC-based online advertising (we estimate 45% of every online ad dollar will go through Google’s system in 2008), the contribution to revenues could be meaningful. Getting even 10% of the mobile advertising market in 2011 would make mobile a larger contributor (on a net revenue basis) than Google’s entire affiliate business today."
Follow the money. Now that it's mobile, it should be even easier. :)
