Thursday, January 7th, 2010
I’m a big fan of most of the stuff Google puts out, so naturally I was intrigued when I heard they had developed a web browser. I downloaded it a few weeks after it came out and have been using the browser ever since. The final verdict you ask? It’s great! The design is clean and simple, web pages load quickly, and it doesn’t crash nearly as often as IE or Firefox. Below is an article that talks about how it compares to the other browser and the potential for the future. One thing I would like to see is more support for third party plug-ins similar to Firefox. As a web developer there are a number of nifty browser plug-in’s to facilitate web design and SEO which are not currently available through Chrome. Regardless, this browser is a great starting point and I look forward to seeing how they integrate it with their new web based OS coming out later this year.
Google Builds a Better Browser
UPDATE
It looks like Google Chrome has enabled pug-ins! You can view them here: Google Chrome Extensions
Posted in Internet, Search Engines, Web 2.0, Web Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Below are the 10 Web trends to watch in 2010 as reported by Pete Cashmore in an article on CNN Tech. The most interesting trend was the last one about fame abundance and privacy scarcity. He said “We’re all reality stars now, on Facebook, Twitter and all the myriad online outlets where we hone our personal brands.” I never thought about social networks from that perspective, but that is a big draw for a lot of people with websites like Facebook and Twitter. You know the type, people that update their status on an almost hourly basis mostly with a five or six words about what they are doing. I’m sorry, but seeing someone is “bored and watching TV” is not the reason I’m on these sites. These people either don’t know how to use social networks properly or love the fact that they are updating their “adoring followers” with the minutia of their day to day lives. Reality TV has really messed up the way a lot of people think of the world. It makes you think that you could be on TV and be a celebrity when in reality nobody cares.
1. Real-time ramps up
2. Location, location, location
3. Augmented reality
4. Content ‘curation’
5. Cloud computing
6. Internet TV and movies
7. Convergence conundrum
8. Social gaming
9. Mobile payments
10. Fame abundance, privacy scarcity
Posted in Internet, Search Engines, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Web Design, iPhone | No Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
My father was the first person that told me about this website. He described it as the future of search engines. The next big thing. I was skeptical, but wrote the name down to research later. Wolfram Alpha is an odd name, but mercifully not a goofy web 2.0 generic Google, Bebo, or Qoop. After loading it up in my browser and searching “Orlando Web Design” I was not impressed. Not only did my website not show up in the rankings, there were no rankings. All that was displayed was “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.” I closed the window and didn’t think much of it until I read about the website a few months later in a copy of Wired. It turns out the website is not a search engine, but a way to organize and display useful data based on the user’s keywords. Upon returning to the site and doing a search for “Orlando, Florida” I was given a litany of statistics and information. Everything from the city population to the approximate elevation was at my fingertips. I could see the potential moving forward if the technology caught up to the idea. Imagine planning a vacation to Jamaica. You would type in “Jamican Vacation” and Wolfram Alpha would output the most scenic locations, hotels with ratings and reviews close to those locations, as well as images, maps, and plane ticket prices. It’s really what the future of technology is all about. Gather and exhibit the useful while trashing the unnecessary. Harness the vast array of information on the web in a way that my Grandmother would find easy to use. If they continue to develop this technology Wolfram Alpha will be the Encyclopedia Britannica to Google’s Yellow Pages.
Posted in Search Engines | 1 Comment »