Google, the pride of open everything, uses real blurry
house number images as its Captchas, so that the general public can tell
them what the number really is.
An openly available image of Sergey Brin in the open air.
(Credit:
Google+,Sergey Brin)
I have spent much of the day blurry-eyed, moved by Google's Sergey Brin declaring his company the only great defender of the open Web.
The tears have, it has come to my attention, mainly emerged from
laughter at Google's sweet, thoughtful gall that everything it claims
the world desires just happens coincidentally to benefit it
commercially.
Still, no sooner had my eyes dried a little when the Telegraph offered me Google' latest exemplar of sheer, beautiful openness.
For it seems that Google is using real images from Street View as
security checks. Yes, if you want to access your own Google account, the
company is asking you to decipher a slightly blurry image of a real
house number.
It seems that if enough people decide on a particular number, then Google sharpens up the image on Street View.
Yes, you are being asked to work for Google, Openly. For free. And if
you don't, well, you may not be able to access your own Google account.
The Telegraph naturally declares that certain privacy groups are
foaming at the lips on hearing of this little scheme -- which, according
to a Google spokesman, only occurs in 10 percent of security questions.
But surely some people, on hearing of this and Google being fined $25,000 by the FCC
for, um, non-compliance with its inquiry into Wi-Fi eavesdropping,
might feel that openness has a highly subjective definition in Google's
complex collective cranium.
Google's version of the open Web seems very simple: let us get at
everything. Whether it's books, streets, houses, Facebook accounts,
iPhoto accumulations or perhaps even the remains of your spaghetti
bolognese.
Something is open if Google can see it and scrape it. And when Google
sees it and scrapes it, it can create a fuller picture of every element
of your life -- just in case, you know, some lonely advertiser might
pass by and show interest.
Some might call this freedom. There again, doesn't freedom sometimes
entail being free not to let rapacious, baby-faced organizations peer
into your life?
by Chris Matyszczyk
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major
corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an
irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He
is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
. Newscribe : get free news in real time
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission has proposed fining Google(GOOG_)
$25,000 for obstructing an investigation into the company's collection
of data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks in 2010, according to a
published media report.
Although the FCC has decided
there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the data collection
violated federal rules, the commission said Google deliberately impeded
the investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The probe looked at whether Google broke rules designed to
prevent electronic eavesdropping when its Street View service collected
and stored the data from the Wi-Fi networks, the newspaper reported.
The FCC proposed the fine late Friday night, the Journal said.
Google may appeal the proposed fine before the commission makes it final, the Journal
said. The company has said that it inadvertently collected the data and
stopped doing so when it realized what was going on, the newspaper
added.
Shares of Google closed Friday down $26.41 at $624.60.
FCC proposes fine for Google Wi-Fi snooping case 'obstruction'
By Zack Whittaker
Summary: The
U.S. FCC has proposed a $25,000 fine after Google “impeded and delayed”
an investigation into collecting wireless payload data from unencrypted
Wi-Fi networks.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is
proposing a $25,000 fine against Google for “deliberately impeded and
delayed” an ongoing investigation into whether it breached federal laws
over its street-mapping service, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The FCC initiated an investigation in 2010 after Google collected and
stored payload data from unencrypted wireless networks as part of its
Google Maps Street View service. Its intended use, Google says, was to
build up a list of Wi-Fi network hotspots to aid geolocation services on
mobile devices through ‘assisted-GPS’.
The U.S. followed suit after many European countries, including
Germany, which has some of the strictest data protection and privacy
laws in the world. But the European nation went one step further and
told Google to withdraw its Street View cars from the country altogether.
Google also drew fire from the UK’s data protection agency after it was told it committed a “significant breach” of the UK and European data laws
when it collected wireless data from home networks. It was audited by
the regulator and was told it “must do more” to improve its privacy
policies. Google said it had taken “reasonable steps” to further protect
the data of its users and customers.
But the FCC stopped short of accusing Google of directly violating
data interception and wiretapping laws, citing lack of evidence. The
federal communications authority did not fine the company under
eavesdropping laws, as there is no set precedent for applying the law
against ‘fair-game’ unencrypted networks.
The FCC took the action after it believed Google was reluctant to
co-operate with the authorities after the scandal emerged. An FCC
statement added that a Google engineer thought to have written the code
that collected the data invoked his Fifth Amendment rights to prevent
self-incrimination.
Google can appeal the fine. Despite the fine being a mere fraction of
the company’s U.S. annual turnover, not doing so until its legal
avenues are exhausted would almost be an admittance of guilt.
The search giant eventually offered an opt-out mechanism for its location database
by adding text to the networks’ router name. But further controversy
was drawn after another Silicon Valley company offered an opt-out only
solution.
Facebook also drew fire from the regulators after the U.S. Federal
Trade Commission allowed the social networking giant to settle, allowing users to opt-in to its sharing privacy settings, rather than opting-out; seen as a major win for U.S. users’ privacy on the site.Newscribe : get free news in real time Related articles and posts:
What would you do with the extra white space now gracing the pages of Google+?
That's a question many users of the social network have been
answering with the usual sarcastic spin we always love to see on the
Internet.
Launching yesterday, the latest face-lift for Google+ added a slew of changes, including a new left-side navigation bar and new ways to interact with the people in your circles.
But the one change that's put people into full mocking mode is the
new and extra-sized white space. Click on any virtually any Google+
page, and a good 40 percent is nothing but blank space.
The white-space flap has led to its own trending topic on Google+, where an array of users have chimed in with suggestions on how to use that space most effectively.
One user found the extra white space in front of his monitor a good
spot to place his beer. Another put his cat in front of it. And a third
angled his monitor into portrait mode to get rid of the white space
entirely.
Personally, I'm a fan of white space. I think most Web pages are way
too cluttered, so a little breathing room isn't so bad. But in this
case, the search giant may have gone a bit overboard. The extra space
kind of makes the pages seem off-balance, like they're going to tip
over.
The obvious questions are why Google designed the pages this way and
whether the company plans to use that extra real estate for other
content down the road.
A Google rep told CNET that some of the changes were indeed created for future needs.
"So while it may look clutter-free now, the idea is to give us space
that will allow us to quickly grow," the rep said. "With today's
foundational changes we can move even faster--toward a simpler, more
beautiful Google."
I have hunch, though, that the company may have planned the whole
"extra white space" conspiracy as a savvy marketing strategy. It quickly
turned into a trending topic and has generated lots of buzz. What
better publicity could you ask for?
Lance Whitney Lance
Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web
developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for
Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications
and Web sites. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not
an employee of CNET.
But I think there’s hope. The report touches on a number of
opportunities for traditional media in the digital space – areas that
are growing rapidly and still up for grabs. Those include targeted
advertising, the mobile/tablet space, and digital video.
Winning in these areas will be tough, given the traditional media’s
historical inability to rapidly evolve and the head start other
companies have on them.
A good example is the fast-growing opportunity of targeted
advertising, where Google and Facebook dominate and news organizations
lag far behind.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) report points out that
even though targeted advertising is one of the forms of online
advertising expected to grow most rapidly, only a few of the top news
sites use it. Meanwhile, the report says, tech companies like Facebook
and Google “are using personal data collected over the internet to
direct ads to specific consumers to a far greater degree than ever
before – and to a far greater degree than most news organizations are
capable of.”
While Facebook and Google have taken the lead, news organizations
could catch up, if they try. Most have the ability, and at least some
data, that would enable them to engage in targeting. A PEJ study of
digital advertising at 22 top news sites found that few of them do,
however. Of the 22 sites, most did not contain any ads targeted to
consumers based on their online behavior, according to the January
study. Only three – CNN, The New York Times and Yahoo! News – employed
high levels of targeting based on a user’s recent online activity. A
handful of others employed limited targeting. (For more, see “Who Advertises on News Sites and How Much Those Ads Are Targeted.”)
While targeted display ads account for just 10% of local online ads,
or $1.5 billion, right now, by 2016, they are expected to grow to $14.6
billion and make up more than half the market, according to Borrell
Associates.
MOBILE
One of the bright spots in the PEJ report is the research on mobile
and tablet usage. Readers spend far more time with news apps on the
smartphone and tablet, visit more pages at a time, and return more
frequently than they do on conventional computers, according to data
from Localytics, a client-based mobile analytics firm. And most
importantly, there are signs that mobile news consumption is actually
increasing total news consumption – one report from comScore indicates
mobile devices increase news site traffic by between 7 and 11 percent.
The good news is mobile and tablet usage are expected to continue
skyrocketing. And the ad dollars will shift there as well. Mobile ad
spending grew 89% in 2011, to $1.45 billion – and is expected to grow to
$10.83 billion by 2016.
News organizations know this is an opportunity, and are investing
resources in developing mobile and tablet apps and sites. Still, it’s
not clear whether news organizations can capture these dollars. Google
already earns more than half of mobile ad dollars in the U.S. and
Facebook is expected to move aggressively into the mobile ad market
after its IPO.
“Our analysis suggests that news is becoming a more important and
pervasive part of people’s lives,” PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel said,
referring to the findings about mobile and tablet usage in particular.
“But it remains unclear who will benefit economically from this growing
appetite for news.”
Another big opportunity for news organizations is digital video,
because video advertising earns much higher rates – and digital video
viewing and advertising is expected to skyrocket in the next few years.
While video advertising spend is only $2.02 billion now, it is projected
to grow to $7.11 billion by 2015 — which would make it the most
lucrative type of online ad after search and banner ads, according to
eMarketer.
Despite that, video news and advertising still represents a small
fraction of the content on most news sites, aside from those of major
broadcasters. In a February PEJ study, none of the top stories on major
news sites were in a video format — even on the sites of broadcast news
organizations. Stand-alone video ads were also rare, making up only 1.3%
of ads on the news websites studied.
The good news is we are starting to see increasing signs of life in
digital news video. A few months ago Reuters launched a YouTube channel,
dubbed Reuters TV, featuring 10 news shows. The Wall Street Journal has
been one of the most aggressive newspapers in the video space, and is
now producing more than four hours of video a day. (Check out WSJ’s fantastic video app for the iPhone and iPad)
One of the more interesting experiments to watch will be The
Huffington Post Streaming Network, an online news channel AOL plans to
launch later this year that will live-stream news video 12 hours a day.
(Disclaimer: I used to be the SVP/GM of News & Information at AOL
but left last year).
THE FUTURE
As the digital world becomes more mobile, social and targeted, media
companies still have plenty of opportunity. They will have the chance to
to attract new audiences and dollars. The question is whether news
organizations can move nimbly enough to survive, and thrive.
For the latest news from SXSW and general insights on digital media, please follow me on Twitter at @cyberjournalist and visit CyberJournalist.net for the latest digital media headlines.
The
Web giant has been working on the "next generation of search" over the
last couple of years and now it's ready to start rolling it out.
Google is about to embark on its biggest renovation in history. In order to keep up with increased competition
and new technology, the Web giant is working to keep ahead of the pack
by completely revamping its search function, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Google search executive Amit Singhal told The Wall Street Journal that
the new Google search will look more like "how humans understand the
world."
Changes are expected to roll out over the next few
months, the Journal reports, but the full makeover to "next generation
of search" will likely take years. A Google spokesperson told CNET that
there is not a specific timeline and the company's philosophy is to
launch things when they're ready.
The plan for the revamp isn't
necessarily to swap out the current keyword-search system but rather to
provide more relevant results. This process will work by using
technology called "semantic search." With semantic searches, people's
searches will be better matched with "entities"--or people, places and
things--which the company has been building over the past two years,
reports the Journal.
For example, the Journal reports that
people who search for "Lake Tahoe" today get links to the lake's visitor
bureau website and a map; whereas with the makeover, they will see key
"attributes" about the lake, including location, altitude, average
temperature and salt content.
Google is basically building an infrastructure layer or a
knowledge graph that would underlie many aspects of Google, a
spokesperson told CNET. The idea is to make more possibilities with
search using these entities.
According to the Journal, this
renovation most likely comes with changes to how the search engine
actually works, including search engine optimization, advertising, and
page-ranking results. Some 10 percent to 20 percent of all search
queries could be directly impacted by the change, the Journal reports.
Over the past few months, Google has been making various changes to
search, such as showing search results before a person finishes typing
their query, adding Google+ to searches, adding concert dates to music queries, and saving searches across platforms with the new "recent" icon.
Dara
Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by
robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about
technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries. She
is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
Google+
needs to make many improvements to its games platform, according to
developers and Google itself, but some developers see good early returns
and large potential with the platform.
Google+ is the “social layer” on top of everything the search giant
now does, and games are a key part of Google+, said Punit Soni, lead
product manager, Google+ Games
and Mobile. Soni spoke about the future of the platform and took
suggestions from developers in a session Tuesday at the Game Developers
Conference in San Francisco.
Google plans by next year to bring together all of Google’s different
gaming services: Android, Chrome Web Store, Google+, Native apps. ”Our
vision for games centers around the idea of one Google,” Soni said. “Next
year we will not be talking about Google+, Android, native client. Next
year we’ll just be talking about Google games.” This would create a
simpler way for developers to make games across the various Google
platforms.
Punit Soni of Google+ Games and Mobile
Soni, in an interview after the session, said that Google is focusing
on listening to developers and responding to their concerns. “If
there’s anything I want to talk about it’s that it’s a humble platform,”
Soni said. “The platform is learning from people who are the experts in
the industry.” That point was emphasized by Google holding a panel with
developers who were encouraged to raise their critiques or suggestions
for improving the platform.
Soni explained the company’s strategy in launching Google+, saying it was a careful and measured approach. Google launched its games platform in August 2011.
The company was “relatively conservative” in not deluging users with
gaming invites. It later slowly added in virality–the ability to easily
invite friends and request help from friends in games. In contrast to
Facebook, Google has been more cautious on virality. For example Google+
has kept its overall news stream separate from the game stream, which
includes notifications for games.
Google also focused on a small set of game developers with 16 games
at the start, which has drawn some criticism. It was “quality over
quantity,” Soni said. Google is not ignoring smaller independent
developers, he said. “For us, it was a small curated group of partners
to experiment and learn and iterate together. From that perspective it’s
easy with more established players. But by no means are we closed to
indie or smaller developers. Many have cool ideas and we welcome the
opportunity to work with them.”
Soni also listed what Google learned from the launch. First,
the platform needs to be responsive to both people who are gamers and
people who don’t like games. Secondly, the line is blurring between
mobile and desktop, and Google has much in the works for mobile gaming.
“Mobile is really, really key,” Soni said. “We have a few things in the
repository that’ll make compelling mobile gaming.” Finally, Google needs
to make continued small improvements.
The upshot: Google+ needs to make some significant upgrades and those
changes are in the works. As far as what’s coming next, watch for
deeper integration with other Google channels, new technology such
as Hangouts, native clients, mobile, improved distribution for
developers, better game discoverability, and improved payments.
Google+ now has more than 100 million monthly active users and 50
million daily active users, the company announced today. Google+ users
spend more than one hour a day on Google products (How much of that is
actually on Google+ proper is not clear because Google hasn’t disclosed
that). The search giant is now seeing 5-10% uplift on ads with “social
annotation,” which means things that friends have clicks as “+1″ or
shared in some other way.
Mike Blanchette, manager of platform operations at Disney unit Playdom,
launched two games on Google+ when it launched in August, City of
Wonder and Wild Ones, and launched Gardens of Time in December. He’s
happy with the Google+ platform but says the platform needs better ways
to acquire users. Right now it’s not easy enough for people to discover
games, he said.
One problem is notifications, which are the hooks that bring friends
into games. Right now people have to click back and forth too many times
to collect gifts from friends, Blanchette said. The other question is
with Circles, Google’s groups. Blanchette was hoping that these would
become a tool for people to share with other gamers. But that hasn’t
quite happened yet, he said.
“We’re left now with a potential for a really massive gaming
community,” Blanchette said. “There are really promising early metrics
for time on site on Google Plus… Engagement has been really
good. Communication channels have been really good. It just hasn’t
panned out for the (user) acquisition portion.”
Massive virality or social connections with friends are not
necessarily required to have successful games, said Dan Chao, lead game
designer at Funzio, which launched two
games on Google+, including Kingdom Age, which launched last week. One
of the big differences from Facebook is that Google+ takes a 5% fee on
transactions compared to 30% on Facebook, he said. In Kingdom Age,
Funzio focused on a high monetizing, high retention game, that put less
emphasis on virality. Funzio is seeing higher average revenue per user
on Google+ than other platforms, at least in the two games it has so
far. Also, it only took Funzio about two weeks for three engineers to
port a Facebook game, Crime City, to Google+.
Google has acquired more IBM patents, adding more than 200 to approximately 2,000 patents it had previously bought from IBM.
The move, first reported by the blog SEO by the Sea, was confirmed by a Google spokesman who didn't immediately comment on why the company is interested in these particular patents and on how they may benefit Google products and its customers.
The latest set of IBM patents, transferred to Google on Dec. 30, 2011, includes 222 patents and covers a variety of technologies, including email management, server backup, tuning and recovery, e-commerce, advertising, mobile Web page display, instant messaging, online calendaring, and database tuning. Google acquired about 1,000 IBM patents in July of last year and about 1,000 other IBM patents in September.
In the past, Google officials have said that acquiring patents helps the company prevent intellectual-property lawsuits and that, when one is filed against it, patents boost Google's ability to defend itself.
It's hard to determine which patents represent technology that Google plans to develop and which ones are intended as litigation protection, said IDC analyst William Stofega.
However, considering the rash of IP-related lawsuits in the mobile market, it's safe to assume that many mobile-related patents Google acquires are meant to strengthen its ability to fight lawsuits, said Stofega, who is IDC's program director of mobile device technology and trends.
"Google has had a great run with what they've done so far and it's clear their patent portfolio isn't as rich as those of others, especially in mobile," he said. "If you're going to be a mobile platform player, you need to make sure you have your ducks in a row regarding intellectual property."
A large part of Google's motivation for buying Motorola Mobility is the latter's patent portfolio, which includes more than 24,000 patents. That $12.5 billion deal is due to close early this year, after the companies obtain all necessary approvals.
Juan Carlos Perez covers search, social media, online advertising, e-commerce, Web application development, enterprise cloud collaboration suites, and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.
Apple dominates Google's list of "Fastest Rising Technology" searches of 2011 from the United States. (Credit: Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)
Google's annual Zeitgeist roundup of the hottest trends in search from 2011 is out, and when it comes to tech, Apple dominates the list.
In Google's top 10 list of fastest-rising technology searches for the United States, the top six are all Apple-related, led by "iCloud," "Osx Lion" and "Ipad 2." "Steve Jobs" also makes the list at No. 8.
Google fared a little better on its own overall global top 10 list, with "Google+" snagging the No. 2 spot. In a major milestone in the history of collective global humiliation, the top search slot for 2011 goes to "Rebecca Black." Apple also occupies three places on the overall list, with "iPhone 5" at No. 6; "Steve Jobs" at No. 9; and "iPad 2" at No. 10.
Google's list of fastest-rising gadgets for the year is a little more representative of the overall market, with Kindle Fire grabbing the search gold in that category. The iPhone 4S was the second-fastest-rising term, and the iPad 2 fills the seventh place. "Sidekick 4g," "HP Touchpad," "HTC Inspire," "Palm Pre 3," and the "HTC Thunderbolt" are some of the other devices that people spent plenty of time coveting via Google in 2011.
It's important to note that these "fastest rising" terms are based on comparing year-over-year data and seeing which terms increased their buzz the most from 2010. So since the Kindle Fire didn't exist in 2010, it had a bit of an advantage over terms like "iPad 2," which was already in the lexicon even before the Fire came onto the scene.
Finally, in Google's top 10 list of cell phone searches--overall, not using the fastest-rising methodology--the query "iPhone" sits on a pretty tall throne above all others. But it isn't completely an Apple world. Serving as a reminder that we can't all afford a top-of-the-line smartphone is the No. 5 entry on the list--prepaid budget carrier "Tracfone."
Eric Mack
Crave freelancer Eric Mack is a writer and radio producer based high in the Rocky Mountains in a "one bar" service area (for both drinks and 3G). He's published e-books on Android and Alaska, and is a contributing editor for Crowdsourcing.org and A New Domain. He also contributes to NPR, Gizmag, and Edmunds Inside Line. Eric is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. E-mail Eric.
Will a health-monitoring watch be the next mobile platform?(Credit: Basis)
This was the year of mobile startups, but not all the best ideas for new businesses were based on smartphones or mobile devices.
There are more ways to make money than by building a product that immediately hands 30 percent to Apple or Google. Here are the best startup ideas or models from 2011.
Make it a platform
As Facebook and Salesforce.com have shown, a tech company's proprietary data can be valuable as a substrate to other businesses. Build a tool that other people can build upon and then collect the rent when they do.
The best examples of this that come to mind: Box and Spotify. Box is a cloud storage provider. It's in a boring space that's becoming commoditized. The solution to staying in front? Make it possible for developers to build apps that leverage the data that Box's enterprise customers are paying to store. That's likely the only way to fend off the competing cloud storage providers.
Spotify, for its part, has a valuable but not unique music-streaming service. People are paying for it. But will they continue to do so? By allowing other businesses to build apps that run on top of the Spotify library--basically, music discovery and recommendation apps--Spotify is able to leverage its licensing deals and give other music brands (like Rolling Stone and We Are Hunted) a great way to offer new services to their fans.
Come to think of it, this is one of the reasons mobile is so big: App stores are platforms where developers can make money on top of large bases of users and communication networks.
Jobs near you, on Zaarly. (Credit: Screenshot by CNET)
Get consumers to sell stuff to one other, 2.0
eBay and Craigslist replaced the garage sale and the classified ad, but commerce moves on, and newer ideas are making these models seem old-fashioned. Services like TaskRabbit, Zaarly, and Coffee and Power are opening up a new economy where consumers can do direct deals with each other, with the benefit of more up-to-date community features. In most cases, the key is the social network connection, so you know with whom you are dealing.
Related to this is the emergence of specialized services for sharing the stuff you own: your house (AirBnB), your office (Loosecubes), and your car (Wheelz, RelayRides, and GetAround).
Build a studio
It's hard to come up with a viable product, but some smart startups don't try. Instead, they are building new studio systems to help other inventors raise the funds to build their dream products--and then give them built-in marketplaces to sell them.
KickStarter and Quirky both encourage nascent inventors (and artists, in KickStarter's case) to pitch their ideas to their audiences. People who like ideas pony up either a cash pledge or some of their limited votes. Good ideas and projects bubble up, in theory. More importantly, people who might not otherwise be exposed to very early-stage projects get to participate in the development and, in doing so, can become ambassadors to new ideas.
Crunch down big data
The Internet is awash in information and data, but few companies, other than Web giants themselves (Google, Facebook, Amazon), make real use of it. But finally, services are emerging that give other businesses, and even consumers, access to this data and the analytics to use it.
For example, in the retail arena, Decide.com analyzes prices of consumer technology products, and predicts if prices on particular items are going to go down, up, or hold steady. It's a valuable tool for consumers. On the smaller retail front, BlackLocus scours data sources (like competing retail sites) for tech prices. It can be programmed to adjust a store's own prices to make sure they are always competitive.
Touch the real world
Nearly every new mobile startup, it seems, is now location-aware. But consumer tech is getting eyes and ears as well, and it's making for very interesting new businesses. The startup IntoNow (sold to Yahoo) is a mobile app that listens for TV shows airing in the same room. Consumers use it to get additional data about the show they're watching; marketers get much richer data about who's watching what, where, and when.
A new take on an old appliance, the Nest thermostat.(Credit: Nest)
Other sensor technologies are showing up in wearable devices: The Jawbone UP bracelet monitors activity and sleep. And Basis is building a watch that measure skin temperature, sweat level, heart rate, and even blood oxygen level.
Invest in design
The best idea in startups to come in 2011: simplification and beautiful design. Consumers, it turns out, appreciate strong design and clear user interaction. We're seeing new apps and products now that take technology and strive for simplicity, rather then trying to show off how technological they are.
The best examples of these are two hardware products, the Nest thermostat and the minimal Roku LT streaming media box. On the mobile front, new apps like Path 2 and Oink are distilled into spare and engaging mobile experiences, instead of going overboard with features and slowing down the on-the-go user.
Rafe Needleman
Rafe reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business. Feeling lucky? Send pitches to rafe@cnet.com. And watch Rafe's tech issues podcast, Reporters' Roundtable, every Friday.
The best new startups of 2011 combine an innovative idea with a motivated group of people to create new products or service or improve on products and services we already use and adore. Each of these companies are in their infancy right now but have made a big splash on the world already. Using their creativity, innovations, hard work, and of course some venture capital funding, these startups are primed to take the world by storm to change how we work, play, communicate and perform so many other everyday activities.
It's hard to believe a world without the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, LinkedIn and Instagram but once upon a time, all of these tech startups were once the new kids on the block. Their creators saw an opening for their individual products and services then took it upon themselves to fill that void. Their ideas were both well executed and well embraced by the world and became nearly instant successes. They weren't the first to create something new and certainly won't be the last, but their innovation changed the world as we know it.
The masterminds behind the best startups from 2011 hope to see that same success as they introduce new ways for people to enjoy music with their friends, like with Turntable.fm, learn coding, like at Codeacademy, or find local people and businesses to fill certain needs, do mundane tasks or sell specific items, like at Zaarly.
Other startups take things we have now and make them so much better, cheaper or more accessible. Kogeto Dot, for example, is an invention that enhances an iPhone camera. Oink, created by the founders of Digg, allows people to rate and share things they love best with others.
The best new startups of 2011 may not be names you know right now, but just like the newcomers of the past, they made an impact during the year and very well could be on their way to becoming a household name in the years to come. Did a new startup rock your socks in 2011? Add it below and tell us why it should be the best of 2011!
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Image by Getty Images via @daylife By Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes Staff
Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Google’s Schmidt meet Merkel and Sarkozy >>
Facebook is “winning the battle for eyeballs and advertising in the internet display arena,” according to a report by Enders Analysis. While Google is still “the king of internet advertising” with greater global reach than the social network, Facebook’s more dynamic growth, and rising rates of engagement and usage, suggest it will continue to dominate the display ad market going forward.
Google Taking Over 40% Of Total U.S.Online Ad Spend
Google’s net display ad revenues totaled $1.5 billion in 2010, according to Enders Analysis, and will rise to $2.5 billion in 2012. Facebook, on the other hand, will report 2011 display revenues at about $3.5 billion, and can expect those to rise to about $5.3 billion in 2012.
While Facebook is clearly the market leader in display, Google remains the internet’s largest advertising player. In 2012, its revenues will hit $35 billion, 90% of which come from Google’s search operations. Jeff Bezos Eyeing Apple's Lunch? Amazon Smartphone
Bringing all these numbers together is the fast-growing display ad market. The company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page has proven its capacity in transforming the search ad market, becoming practically a monopolistic force. But display remains underdeveloped. According to former Google CEO, and current Chairman Eric Schmidt, the display market could grow to $200 billion in coming years. “Despite Google’s and Facebook’s growing strength, the online display market remains highly fragmented, [Enders Analysis] project[s] their aggregate share of global spend will be just over 25% in 2012.”
Don't Worry About Google's Rising Costs And Tighter
There are four major players in the display ad world: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Google and Facebook exert their dominance via reach and consumption. In terms of monthly unique visitors, Google beats its competitors with 1.1 billion users, about 75% of the global audience. Facebook counts with 770 billion, but is growing at an impressive pace, accounting for 18% of the net increase in internet usage in Q3, compared with a combined 1% for Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo combined.
Mark Zuckerberg's Private Photos Exposed Thanks To Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg’s social network derives its strength from engagement. Users spend an average 12 minutes per day on Facebook, a figure that is up 40% over the last 12 months. That’s about 15% of total time spent online, compared with something like 10% for Google (which ranks second among the big display players).
Facebook’s “expanding reach and rising time spent on the site” are the keys to its display ad success. Revenues will continue to grow faster than over at Google, particularly given the rise of the social media ad format and the surge in programmatic ad buying (through the use of exchanges, networks, demand side platforms, etc) which will make it easier to “programme [sic] and optimize large-scale ad campaigns.”
Also playing to Facebook’s favor is Google’s weakness in the social sphere. “At this stage, Google’ late entrant look-alike social network, Google+, looks set to remain niche,” explained the analysts.
Facebook has slowly opened up its display ad platform to outer players, and will continue to improve it through the addition of new products, such as the “rumored rollout of ads on its highly popular mobile apps” (which run on Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android OS). But these don’t necessarily play against Google. As mentioned above, the market is fragmented and small, and still has room to grow. “Rising advertiser demand for both scale and performance will make many publishers increasingly reliant on one or both of the internet giants for traffic and revenue growth,” explained the analysts.
Given how fast the Web is changing, it can be hard to see what's going to happen next week, much less next year.
After simmering for a few years last decade, the Web has been a frenzy of activity in the last few years. Developers are advancing what can be done, people are spending more time on the Web, and browser makers are locked in intense competition.
Broadly speaking, it's easy to see that Web technology will get more important and more sophisticated. But if for some detail, here are my five predictions for what'll happen next year.
IE10 knocks our socks off
Internet Explorer 9 was the warning shot across the bow for Web developers and rival browser makers, but Microsoft was playing catch-up after years of neglect. Watching the pace of development for IE10 reveals that the company is on fire. It's moved from catch-up to leading-edge. Where IE once was years behind Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome with support for new standards, it's now neck-and-neck, and Microsoft is actively contributing to standards development.
Microsoft has more than pride resting on IE10. It's a foundation for the new Metro-style apps on Windows 8, which means all that work to bring fancy animation effects and hardware acceleration to the Web will carry over to Windows, too. Microsoft has bet the farm on Web technologies, so you can bet IE10 will be strong.
IE10 won't be for everyone. You'll need Windows 7 or Windows 8. IE9 left the legions of Windows XP users behind, and IE10 will add Windows Vista to the discard pile. That'll limit its influence with the mainstream public. But despite all Microsoft's troubles as it scrambles to follow Apple into the tablet and smartphone market, IE10 will be a force. The PC market may have grown stale, in the words of Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini, but it's still big, and building IE10 into Windows 8 gives it a big presence. Also, if you're on a legacy version of Internet Explorer like IE6 or IE7, watch out--in January, Microsoft will start forcing you to move to a more modern version.
There's one big caveat here: WebGL. Microsoft has very publicly bad-mouthed it as a security risk. WebGL allies believe Microsoft will come around once it realizes WebGL can be made as secure as Microsoft's own new Silverlight 3D interface. But if the programmers in Redmond stay recalcitrant, maybe you'll have to tab over to another browser when it's time for your Web-based gaming.
Web games take off
Games on the Web are nothing new, but in 2012, they're going to look a lot different. Instead of primitive graphics or a reliance on Adobe Systems' Flash Player, Web games will look more like what we're used to seeing on consoles.
The Web grew up as a medium for documents, and it's only gradually become more interactive as browsers' JavaScript performance exploded, JavaScript programming tools improved, and feature such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Canvas improved 2D graphics. Now elaborate Web apps such as Facebook or Google Docs are the norm, and JavaScript programmers are in high demand.
But things are changing with the influx of a new breed of Web developers: those used to programming in the lower-level C or C++ languages. These are the coders who build the console games with advanced 3D graphics and heavy-duty physics engines, and their games are the ones where speedboats splash through transparent, reflecting, rippling water.
There are two hardware-accelerated technologies duking it out to enable this future. First is WebGL, a 3D graphics interface which began at Mozilla, was standardized by the Khronos Group, and is now built into Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. Second is Native Client, a Chrome-only technology that can run adapted versions of the original C and C++ games. WebGL fits into the Web world better and has broader support, but it's tied to JavaScript. Native Client, aka NaCl, has yet to win over any browser makers besides Google itself.
Other technologies will lend a big helping hand, too: the newly finished WebSocket for fast communications and Web Workers for better multitasking.
I don't expect one to win out over the other (or to squeeze Flash Player off our personal computers, for that matter--the new Flash Player 11 has new hardware-accelerated 3D technology, too). But I do expect WebGL and NaCl will be used to make today's browser look nearly as static as paper.
Chrome surpasses Firefox
When Google's browser first emerged as a stripped-down beta project more than three years ago, people laughed. Not anymore.
In 2012, expect Chrome to pass Mozilla's Firefox for the No. 2 spot in Net Applications' browser ranking. It already is No. 2 by StatCounter's scores, but that measures page views, not people, and I think the latter is a better reflection of the competitive dynamic.
Mozilla has been working hard to shake off the cobwebs and make Firefox leaner, faster, and less of a memory hog. But Google's browser continues its steady rise, and Google under new Chief Executive Larry Page has made Chrome one of the company's new divisions.
Chrome is an important vehicle to deliver Google technology to the world, most notably Web-acceleration ideas such as SPDY, TLS False Start, WebP, and the Dart alternative to JavaScript. Chrome's wide use gives Google a place at the standards-setting table that's crucial as it tries to make the Web into a rich programming foundation.
The risk that comes with Chrome's rise is that Google will fragment the Web. It's had some success getting its browser ideas to catch on. For example, Mozilla is interested in SPDY for faster page loading, and Amazon's Silk browser uses it already. But Google is encouraging developers to create extensions and Web apps that can be distributed through the Chrome Web Store, for Chrome and Chrome OS only. A Chrome-only version of the Web hearkens back to the bad old days of IE6's dominance, when writing to Web standards was a secondary concern.
Google re-ups with Mozilla
One thing I don't expect in 2012 is for Google to cease being Mozilla's biggest benefactor by walking away from a years-old search partnership that ended in November.
With the partnership, people using Firefox's search box send traffic to Google's search engine. When they click on the search ads they see there, advertisers pay Google, and Google gives some of that revenue back to Mozilla.
It's true that Google could seriously hurt Firefox by scrapping the partnership, though Mozilla could certainly hook up its revenue hose to Microsoft's Bing if it did. But I don't think Google will drop Mozilla.
First, Mozilla and Google, despite differences, both are passionately interested in building a better Web. Chrome's purpose is not to vanquish rival browsers, it's to improve the Web, and in that, Mozilla is more an ally than enemy.
Second, paying Mozilla a few tens of millions of dollars a year is peanuts to Google--and Google still keeps its share of the search-ad revenue that Mozilla was responsible for Google generating in the first place.
Last, and perhaps not least, hanging Mozilla out to dry would show Google to be a big bully. That's not an image you want when you're constantly tangling with antitrust authorities. Google and Mozilla might significantly modify their arrangement, but they won't part ways.
Chrome on Android arrives
Chrome is based on the open-source WebKit browser engine project. Android's unbranded browser is, too. I bet that in 2012, the latter will pick up the brand name of the former.
Android was based on WebKit but had been developed in isolation. Now Google is merging programming work again, making the Android browser less of an alien offshoot. That should make it easier for Google to achieve the compatibility requirements that it evidently feels are part of the Chrome brand's promise.
That would match what Apple does, offering Safari for both Mac OS and iOS. Chrome is one of Google's most important brands, and it's not getting its money's worth out of it yet.
One thing I'd expect before seeing Chrome on an Android phone or tablet: sync. Right now, Chrome is ever better at keeping the same bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history across multiple installations.
Moving to Android, though, a Chrome user loses all that. The Android browser's isolation is a poor fit for Google's ambition to keep us all happy in its corner of the Web, with seamless connections between one product and another.
Mobile browsing is getting steadily more important; expect its growth in usage to continue to outpace that of personal computers. Web developers will have to keep up, and now it's important to recognize that tablets are in many ways more like PCs than smartphones.
Because of the iPad's tablet dominance and the fact that iPhone owners seem to use online services more often, though, expect iOS to remain the dominant mobile browser.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software and science.
Google+ face-lift triggers jibes over extra white space
Tomio Geron
