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Most Gmail users will have received at least one message from Google this week (I received ten) explaining the company’s new privacy policy.  The company has more than 60 privacy policies tied to its various products and services and so, in March 2012, it will be streamlining this all down into one policy.
Many bloggers and Internet industry pundits are saying this new approach is all a little too ‘Big Brother’ for comfort.  Maybe it is.  But this unified approach seems inevitable considering Google ubiquity across the Web.  The only surprise …

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Image via CrunchBase

Search users have responded positively to Google Instant as evidenced by increased engagement with search.  This is the key finding of a study released today by Marin Software, a provider of a paid search management platform.
On average, impressions and clicks rose for large advertisers following the launch of Google Instant, with costs-per-click falling slightly, resulting in increased volume and improved campaign ROI for advertisers.
Launched in September, Google Instant is a new enhancement to Google Search. With Instant, Google now predicts search queries and begins showing results …

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You might have noticed a change on Google today…results show almost as quickly as you type in your search terms. It’s called Google Instant and the aim is to make search even faster.
According to Google, “Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.”
Now you can adjust your search ‘on …

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For those of you drowning in email and deafened by the echoes of white noise of the social web, help is at hand.  It seems that some of the major platforms are finally getting to grips with the challenges of relevance.
First up are those smart people at Google who are launching the Priority Inbox, which uses your own behaviours to help judge which email messages are the most important to you.  If it makes a mistake you can correct it by clicking a button to mark a message more or …

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I remember arriving at High Holborn tube station in London one morning  way back in the late 90s and being bewildered to find it teeming with dozens of ‘Jeeves’ clones, fully-liveried butlers carrying trays. They were offering commuters business cards boasting the url:  askjeeves.co.uk, the newest solution to finding things online. Ah!  The heady days of the dotcom boom, I remember them fondly!
But time has moved on. Jeeves has long since vacated the search engine service. And ask.com is still trying to compete …

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Image via CrunchBase

It’s true. Google is cool.  It’s still in development, but the world got a preview a few days ago with a developer preview and what we saw is ‘way cool’. I can’t wait to ride the Wave.
Google Wave co-creator Lars Rasmussen is also one of the people behind the development of Google Maps.  He wrote on the official Google blog: ‘A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
‘In Google Wave you create …

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Close your eyes and wave a magic wand over your computer.  Now open your eyes and see a bunch of excellent stories and information that you really need and are very interested in.
No need to Google. No spammy newsletters. No need to check your bookmarked websites. Just a lot of new information about stuff you are interested in. Nice dream right?
Wait, this is not the stuff of dreams. It’s called RSS. It’s available now; it’s very easy, and it’s free. So why have so few people caught on to …

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In the last couple of weeks we’ve seen two new internet launches designed to upset the market. In one case it’s an industry leader going after an open source success; the other sees a start up taking on the global leader. Let’s start by taking a look at Knol, Google’s attempt to unseat Wikipedia as the leading source for encyclopaedic-type information.   Then we’ll look at Cuil.com, the second new entry into the internet world, a new search engine (pronounced ‘cool’ and is the Gaelic word for ‘wisdom’). Click …

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A friend from the UK came over for the TT practice weekend. We were enjoying the sunshine on Saturday, snapping pix of each other all day long.

But, she asked, if I were to upload them to Facebook could I please not tag her? The reason? She’d thrown a sickie at work and didn’t want her colleagues to see she was on a bit of jolly.
So no problem. up she went, with no tags. It was simple enough for her to avoid being highlighted online because she made a request when …