Google Launches hotpot - Your Reviews in Places and More

Google has just launched a new product called Google hotpot.

hotpot (not capitalized) let's you join the reviewers from Google's partners and others in Google Places.  You can network and review restaurants, hotels, and just about any type of place ... in any place.

In addition, hotpot is it's own social network (surprise ? :), letting you connect with others using your contact list from Gmail.

Accessing hotspot, you are greeted by a welcome screen which lets you upload a photo and choose a hotpot nickname:

From there, you're taken to a simple screen (which seemed very accurate in both city and rural searches), where you can look for hotels, restaurants and more.

Photos, ratings and existing reviews all come together there with links mostly going to Google Maps.

Photos are collected from both Google and non-Google web properties, making extensive use of Google owned Panoramio, which up until now appeared mostly in Google Earth.

If all of this is starting to sound confusing, perhaps the best part is .... that it's not.

Using hotpot is a snap and self-explanatory.

Your recommendations could appear in Google Places as well as your own Google Profile and you can select whether to view Friends, Rated or ALL reviews.

Privacy?  Google makes absolutely no secret that the more you interact with hotpot, the more Google is going to try and tune recommendations to your specific tastes:

In fact, the second time you log in, Google will try and geo-locate you and provide a local page full of restaurants, hospitals, even public school systems ... and you can do it right from your PC (No smartphone required).

You can try out Google hotspot right now here.

It's live ..... and no 'invite' is required.

Refreshing :)

Update: You can find out more about Google hotpot on the Google LatLong blog here.
Two more good pieces have been published by Vanessa Fox here and Jolie O'Dell here.

GoDaddy and Columbia - Crazy (Updated)

GoDaddy is trying a little experiment on their front page.

At first, I thought it was a web designer's mistake.

Not so much.

Domain Name Wire first reported the story here.

It's virgin territory for domainers (or squatters?) ..... for as long as it lasts.

In a move that 'domainers' are considering brilliant and others are calling an outrage, the largest domain registrar in the world has defaulted their home page domain search to the .co domain.

You read that right.  DOT CO.  Not DOT COM.

So what gives?

Large brands (and even small brands), as well as lots of others, are always cognizant of owning their own name.  Most also buy a variety of misspells just to be sure you land on their page when you're typing in the browser bar.

It's BIG business.

Back when I did in-house SEO in the travel industry, the company I worked for owned hundreds of domains for this very reason.  The other reason, of course, is that there are still those that type domains into the browser address bar thinking they're automatically searching.

Nobody wants you to 'land' somewhere else.

Back to GoDaddy.

I've had relatively good experiences with them over the years.  I even still host some stuff there for myself and others.  Say what you will about his edgy advertising, Bob Parsons has been a marketing genius.

In this case, I'm hoping GoDaddy has doubled their customer service staff.

.co is the domain name for the country of Columbia.  GoDaddy is betting that you'll want to reserve this potential mispell to preserve your brand or website (at 29.99 US).

Back when Twitter was a brand new company (and when Facebook offered personalized suffixes), the prevailing wisdom among social media experts was to grab those before someone else did.  Of course, they were FREE.  You can see just a few of mine here.  I still do it, and so do MANY others.

If you combine the social media logic with big brands outright fear, GoDaddy already has a potential million dollar hit on their hands.   

On the flip side, the amount of people registering these by mistake will probably also be pretty huge considering it's the default.

It's brilliant.  It's sneaky.  It'll probably work well for GoDaddy.

I seriously doubt Google or any other search engine is going to be hot on this although most buyers will probably redirect those domains (if they're smart) to their primary.

I'm not buying it.

Are you?

Update: Nov 14, 2010 10 PM ET: The Next Web is reporting that GoDaddy was running an experiment and has returned to .com as the default on their main page.

Mozilla - The Browser Wars Are Far From Over

The browser buzz this week was all about RockMelt.

There were many that wondered why anyone would enter this crowded field, especially with 'giants' like Google, Apple and Microsoft competing ... with FREE products.

There actually are some pretty good answers but that's another post for another time.

Of course, the continued favorite of many bloggers and techies remains alive 'in the wings'.  Mozilla's Firefox remains a favorite of many, especially developers and Linux users.

With the 'big three' actively playing in the browser space, some had expressed some wonder about the future of Mozilla.

Then, there was ... ugh ... today.

Mozilla released the latest beta of Firefox 4.0, now version 7.

Simply put, these guys aren't kidding around.  They're not done yet.  Nowhere close.

I wrote this a while back.  Sure .... "Your results may vary ..." but there was simply no question, at that time,  that Firefox (using Windows 7) showed visibly improved speed on several test boxes.

Earlier today, Mozilla raised that bar again (for real) with the release of Firefox 4b7.

On two computers with completely different configurations (both Windows 7), Firefox 4 Beta 7 screamed speed, especially when I wandered over to Hulu to take in a few favorite shows.

No Steve, Flash isn't dead.

It's even faster, smoother ....

..... and hasn't crashed here at all ....at least, so far :)

More info can be found on the Mozilla blog here.

The download is here.

RockMelt Updates Already

The latest browser to hit the Internet landscape on Sunday has already issued an upgrade.

There's already been enough written about RockMelt to fill several books.  Some love it, some like it and some are viewing it as Chrome with Facebook and Twitter attached.

My personal feelings after two days on the RockMelt train?

1) It might tempt me to go to Facebook more often (or at least look at others statuses).

2) It works .... and the team is working on making it better. (Keeping in mind that Google's Chrome works, and RockMelt is using the Chrome architecture).

3) I'd expect something slightly more revolutionary from the person that originally brought us Netscape, but then again, simplicity these days seems to be the ticket.

RockMelt rolled out slowly all day Monday on an invitation basis (and more invites are included in each  install).

Logging in briefly this morning, it appears that the RockMelt team is listening and are already addressing user comments and concerns:

(click to enlarge)

In any event, the buzz is still alive but RockMelt still has a long way to go to win over users of other browsers.

You get the feeling that they're headed there.

TweetDeck on Steroids

One of the most popular desktop clients for Twitter (and more), TweetDeck, took a quantum leap in real-time updating on Friday, introducing version 0.36.1.

Yes, TweetDeck now updates in Real Time ... which they readily recognize "may be a little overwhelming".

TweetDeck is one of those apps that has been improving steadily since it's introduction.  The new real-time feature can be throttled making it easier to get used to.  Other new features have also been added.

In addition, previous releases have added Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, and Foursquare (Yes, you CAN post to Foursquare from your desktop.  I'm not sure why you'd want to, but you can :)

Other versions of TweetDeck support iPhone, iPad, and Android.

The latest hyper-active desktop version of TweetDeck is powered be the latest version of Adobe's Air cross platform engine, version 2.5 and can be downloaded free here.

Warning.  If you follow as many people as I do, You WILL be overwhelmed ... but that's part of the fun .. and there are some tips and help (to calm any fear?) here.

Yahoo! launches Weekend Edition

It's probably not a bad idea.

While most of the the web players have become obsessed with 'real-time', Yahoo! is trying something in the opposite direction.

After posted moderately bad financials this week, Yahoo! has announced another initiative.

Sponsored by General Motors division Buick, Yahoo! is introducing Weekend Edition on Yahoo! News.

While it may sound relatively simple, the fact remains that there are lots of people that simply don't have the time to soak up much of anything other than work during the week.  Both AOL and Yahoo! have made significant investments in original content this past year, so the announcement by Yahoo! just makes sense as an extension of capabilities.

The question becomes ...

Will they be able to steer a large enough audience there and more importantly, not only make it 'sticky' but keep people coming back.

I guess we'll see, starting tomorrow, possibly today.

The press release from Yahoo! is here (at Business Wire) and the announcement just made to the Yahoo! Corporate blog is here.

Google Chrome goes to NINE

Google's Chrome Browser took a leap today (in the dev channel) to Version 9.

To be exact, 9.0.570.0.

This is the first time that Chrome, the web browser that will be the foundation for the upcoming Google Chrome Operating System, expected to be released during this quarter, has hit the '9' number, usually signaling a significant release.

According to a post late today to the Google Chrome Release Blog, this new version effects Windows, Linux and Mac versions of Chrome, and addresses a variety of known issues and a security fix.

To easily update the Windows version, tap the small 'tool' in the upper right corner, then 'About Google Chrome'.  Chrome will update itself and prompt you to restart.

Microsoft recently released an open beta of their next generation browser Internet Explorer 9 ... to the public.

Coincidence?  In this case ... probably :)

Blekko Launches Early - Tells All (Update)

There's already been a lot written about the new search engine, Blekko, but up until a few hours ago, you needed an invite to try it out.

Unlike the days when I had a lot more time on my hands, I didn't have an invite or request one, but after watching the buzz on Twitter tonight, I decided to give it a spin.

While Google and others might be data-mining, Blekko is giving a lot of it away.


First, I wandered around the search engine a bit.  It didn't take me long to find co-founder Mike Markson and wish him luck.  It was obvious that Mike was not only monitoring the launch and adding content, but in Googley-style, he was actively interacting with users:

Blekko seemed, at first blush, to be all about content curation and I subscribed to a bunch of topics (Yes, I was creating a profile but if 1000+ companies don't already have that on me, I'd be surprised).

Robert Scoble, Danny Sullivan and others appeared on my Blekko front page, before signing up.  It was soon apparent why Sullivan was there.

Well, I suppose he should be.  Danny has probably been following search engines for more years than anyone on the planet but there's more.

I searched for this blog and found a few choices under the result:

Clicking the SEO link, I was presented with a fairly accurate group of SEO tools and graphs.

(click to enlarge)

I remember the first time this blog was featured on Techmeme.  I was humbled, even a little excited .... but I always wondered how many times it had been mentioned.  According to Bekko? Well .....

While I only remember 2 or 3 headlines (that's where the Techmeme traffic comes from folks :), it was refreshing to see the premier Tech aggregator had picked up 363 stories from here in the discussion links.

Almost enough to get me writing more often again .... almost.

There's A LOT more to explore in Blekko, not only for your own sites, but for others as well.

While much of this information is readily available using other tools, both free and pay-for, Blekko is a gold mine for advertisers, SEO's and many, many others .....

..... and the search works too!

We'll see how all this goes .... but for now, Kudos to Markson and company on a fascinating launch ...

and I guess, while I'm at it, Thanks to Gabe Rivera and the gang at Techmeme for the recognition.

Shows how often I look at my own analytics :)

Update: Responding to a few chat comments, I think Blekko may find a place in the market with it's toolset as it grows .... and improves.  So far, I completely agree with most others that, for now, it's NOT a Google killer.  It's different and it remains to be seen how many people become editors (ala Mahalo?) and/or create new slash tags. 

Here's a few more takes:

Search Engine Land (Danny Sullivan)

The New York Times (Claire Cain Miller)

Good week you guys

Charlie

Windows 7 SP1 Graduates from Beta to RC

Microsoft quietly rolled out Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate yesterday.

The software is a one-year trial version (It expires Nov 11, 2011) and will ultimately replace the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Beta introduced a while back and currently in use by many public testers.   Installation of the new RC requires a licensed and validated copy of Windows 7 for installation.

Available in a variety of downloads, the new 'test' service pack embraces Dynamic Memory and Remote FX, rolls up many of the security and other enhancements introduced since the Beta, and generally seems targeted at businesses.

The catch?  You're going to have to uninstall that very stable and just solid copy of Windows 7 SP1 Service Pack Beta (which you would have had to do at some point anyway).