Cuil is Cool!

Now this is a BIG deal. CNN reports on Cuil.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Anna Patterson’s last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable — only this time it’s not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced “cool.” Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers — Russell Power and Louis Monier — searched for better ways to search. Now, it’s boasting time. What do you think of the new Cuil search engine?

For starters, Cuil’s search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that’s at least three times the size of Google’s index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index’s breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won’t divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn’t ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

Continued here >

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Published: July 30, 2008
By: George Seybold

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How to Restore Your iPhone

This is how to achieve DFU mode. You can do it on every phone:

• Attach the phone to the pc
• Turn the phone off
• Hold power and home together for *exactly* 10 seconds
• Release power but keep holding home until the pc beeps as a USB device is recognized.
• At no point will the display come on. Now your restore should work.

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Published: July 11, 2008
By: George Seybold

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H&R Block Social Media Programs Success

Who would ever think that a financial services company would be innovative about marketing? Paula Drum is vice president of marketing for H&R Block. In this podcast, she explains how programs using Twitter, Second Life and other onlines venues have had impressive success. As Drum tells Jennifer Jones, one of their great surprises was how much human capital they had to spend to make the programs work. She advises all marketers to truly understand just how much personnel commitment it takes to implement such extensive programs.

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Published: June 30, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Like Pigeons, but Social

As we move more into delivering social spaces online and as the mobile framework opens and becomes more ubiquitous I began to think around something I saw once. If you have seen the movie “A Beautiful Mind” then you might recall when he attempted to map the grazing habits of pigeons. Not unlike pigeons, humans tend to meander about without much recognizable logic outside of the basic life sustaining activities.

I then introduced into this exercise the thought of how social networks may play into the randomness that occurs and how those of like mind might not encounter one another even when in close proximity, and how if one could expand their social network based on proximity encounters how that might change the dynamic of the interaction.

I also thought around the geo-marketing or hyper-local marketing concepts that might be exercised based upon this location-based data using mobile carrier towers to triangulate location and personal social network preferences to create context and thereby deliver a hyper-personal, hyper-local ad unit which is both relevant and timely.

Then I happened across this article that shows some of gone before me and boy am I excited about the possibilities.

http://www.seansavage.com/encounter-bubbles/

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Published: April 17, 2008
By: George Seybold

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@ Java in the morning

This morning I started out fairly early to get some work done before the mad rush and to be available for a client (East coast). I went into the office which was as quiet as a church and thought - this is going to help me get some good rem sleep .. or I can go elsewhere.

I decided to pop into Java (6th and Idaho St. in Boise). This is my kind of place. First let me say that even at the ridiculous hour at which I was in here on a Monday morning, the people (baristas) were friendly. The quality of the drink is always the same - great, and they offer free wi-fi and power outlets. What else could a mobile worker ask for?

Many of the businesses around Boise could learn a lot from Java. Make yourself unique, make a consistent and quality product and invite me to stay a while. I want to be where people are .. invite me and invite others .. we’ll linger, but you’ll reap the reward. Thanks Java! 

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Published: March 24, 2008
By: George Seybold

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iFund

KPCB’s iFund is a $100M investment initiative that will fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform. The iFund is agnostic to size and stage of investment and will invest in companies building applications, services and components. Focus areas include location based services, social networking, mCommerce (including advertising and payments), communication, and entertainment. The iFund will back innovators pursuing transformative, high-impact ideas with an eye towards building independent durable companies atop the iPhone / iPod touch platform.

“A revolutionary new platform is a rare and prized opportunity for entrepreneurs, and that’s exactly what Apple has created with iPhone and iPod touch,” said John Doerr, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “We think several significant new companies will emerge as this new platform evolves, and the iFund will empower them to realize their full potential.”
“Developers are already bursting with ideas for the iPhone and iPod touch, and now they have the chance to turn those ideas into great companies with the help of world-class venture capitalists,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait to start working with Kleiner Perkins and the companies they fund through this new initiative.”
The iFund will be managed by KPCB Partner Matt Murphy in collaboration with partners Chi-Hua Chien, John Doerr, Bill Joy, Randy Komisar, Ellen Pao and Ted Schlein. Apple will provide KPCB with market insight and support.

For more information or questions, please read the iFund FAQs or email iFund@kpcb.com

> http://www.kpcb.com

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Published: March 7, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Perceptions

Take a moment to think about perceptions. Whether its your personal brand or business brand the perception that others have of you matters.A while back I was involved in a fairly heavy-duty branding exercise. We made moons and planets which stood for brand characteristics that were adjectives describing 1) who our customers thought we were, 2) what our associates thought we were; 3) what we wanted to be. We learned a lot, but most importantly we learned that what we looked like from the outside was not what we thought we looked like at all.Now, most of you know I recently joined Wirestone exiting my position with Weyerhaeuser. My perception of Wirestone, from the outside, was that the organization was an elitist, technology-centric multi-homed agency committed to bringing the high-touch back to high-tech.As I went through the interview process I realized that my perception was close, but they also had highly technical expertise in Java, C++ and .NET architecture and development. Application development is a core competency within Wirestone, but I never would have thought it. I mean, when I was out shopping for solutions providers, I never would have reached out to Wirestone for this type of solution delivery. My perceptions were that they were a web shop with agency style delivery.Ok, so they had some perceptions of me too; although I do my best to ensure that there are no surprises I am certain they have found some of my attributes both richer and shallower than initially thought.My PointMy point is that we have to become, for lack of a better word, intimately involved with the companies with which we interact. Just as we create personal friendships, the relationships we create with the businesses we choose to do work with are fostered or destroyed through perceptions - living, changing miniature overtures that collectively define the brand. I have written these words before, but as I continue my course I am constantly reminded of them: Marketing is about people and their impact on your brand and your impact on their lives.The moment one stops communicating and applying their brand attributes their brand begins to erode and become cluttered and disjointed.

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Published: February 29, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Facebook Generation: 10 Tech Revolutionaries

This is a brilliant article. If Social Networking is your interest I advise you take a read.

“… social networking in general, it sort of heralds a fundamental change in how community works online. Before social networking, before Friendster, community online was very niche and very disconnected. You had Star Wars fans, and they got online and found other Star Wars fans, and their identity was sort of a handle. They were Hans Solo, or whomever. But it wasn’t them and there was no real connection to their real life. Then Facebook came along, and it’s about real people and real lives. A person’s profile contains his or her real photo and a real name. To convince your friends that I’m you would be pretty much impossible. Facebook creates this very trusted identity. And so what you’ve got now with Facebook is what (cofounder) Mark Zuckerberg likes to call the social graph — people connected to other people’s friends. It’s a map of social connections.” Continue >

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Published: January 16, 2008
By: George Seybold

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Google Analytics Update

Google updated its free analytics package today. This package in my professional opinion is top-shelf. For years I have been strapped to lesser solutions that will remain nameless, Google broke the chains.

Consider the new features highlighted below.

 

Here are two screen shots of the new features…It is really cool because it gives you the possibility to compare two metrics such as Visits and Bounce Rate.

Here are some features announced with this update:

• Automatic outbound links and document tracking
• Event tracking can now be fully customized and are not treated as page views anymore
• Ajax application tracking
• Object oriented tracking code

I didn’t have time to test it yet but one thing that will be really useful is the possibility to learn what people are looking for in the Search box of your site directly in Google Analytics and be able to use this information for lots of stuff like usability and search campaigns!

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Published: December 13, 2007
By: George Seybold

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It’s Not the Blog

A dozen huge companies - including Dell, Microsoft, General Motors, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Nokia, Wells Fargo — have just started a corporate Blog Council.

I’m glad that these big guys have embraced blogging. But I have one bit of advice for them:

Change the name now.

It’s not about blogging. I hate to call on the obvious platitude, but I will: It’s a conversation.

Read the whole article on Buzz Machine >

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Published: December 10, 2007
By: George Seybold

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