Alexandre’s blog kept me busy enough I have to say. I have the feeling the internet has changed so much since I last dropped thoughts on this page…
New Yahoo! homepage, new Yahoo! Mail released, new Yahoo! Messenger with Plugins
Google acquiring YouTube…that was huge!
Microsoft releasing IE7 and pushing on Vista
What an amazing era 
I recently found this page, while searching for potential impact of leaving too close from the world’s 4th busiest airport (LHR). I live in Putney: although we certainly see a bunch of planes flying in our sky, I would think the noise pollution is fairly limited here.
Anyway, I found that LHR were extremely proactive here, by listing areas potentially affected by noise, also gathering information with regards to development plans in the pipeline. Now, imagine for a second, you purchase a property around London, and two years later, BAA develop a new terminal at the end of your garden….. I know that sounds funny, but I would bet many people have found themselves in that awkward position already
Anyway check here for more info on LHR!
Hakan.org also displaying very useful information on that subject
http://preview.local.live.com/
MSN (Live.com) has just released a new web application pushing the concept of Google Earth to the extreme
Mixture between video game, map, and Google Earth really. It does look very cool. (in a nerd way I mean). In other words, your first impression is that this is going to change the way you contemplate the world. Hmm…sure. But then, your (or least my) second impression was more in the line of “what the hell am I going to do with this???”
I still believe Google are leading the “map” vertical…and by far. MSN / Microsoft are just trying to come back to the game…unfortunately it is not just about the “hey look at what we can do” factors
Time has come for Jeeves to withdraw
The Daily Telegraph (Business), 27 February 2006, p.1, Tom Stevenson
Following its $1.9bn acquisition by IAC/InterActiveCorp last July, Ask Jeeves is dropping its Woodhouse-inspired Butler, becoming simply Ask.com as it seeks to compete with Google and Yahoo.
Now, what difference does it make for the search engine? Amazingly enough, the interface now looks much cleaner. When I read that news this morning in the tube, I was thinking….yeah right, nice tried!. But in reality, I do believe this can help ask.com. It was about time they sack that useless Butler. The other great point is the url itself now. 3 letters, strategically well positioned on my qwerty keyboard…. It makes the search process even more streamlined.
So overall, I’d say well done to the ask.com team!
Designtechnica.com has just published its short list (a list of 10 is short!) of la creme de la creme in terms of web 2.0. Actually no major surprises (almost disappointing…)
I am pleased to see that netvibes got such a nice review. Netvibes is a very slick interface, but somehow I did not realize it was that widespread already.
The rest was sort of expected really… flickr, del.icio.us, googlemaps…. stuff we all use every day now!
You can’t have it all, can you? Great communication tools, fast communication tools but no abuse? We are all aware of spam. Less aware of spit. Abusive emails cost key players such as Yahoo!, AOL or Hotmail a real fortune each year. The recent announcement from Yahoo! and AOL to partner with Goodmail (a leading player in email certification) is to me the evidence that there is room for an emerging business : authentication, reputation, certification. Yesterday for emails. Today for instant messages. Tomorrow for voice. No doubt one day, my Y! messenger voicemail will be stuck with tons of unwanted messages promoting virtues of viagra or requesting I wire some money to Angola. That’s where emerging companies such as karmasphere.com (still in stealth mode by the way) are rushing into. Email was and still is big. IM is huge. Voice is going to be a killer….so should those certification tools.
Google have just released a new tool called Page Creator. Simple interface to help end users build their own “website”. A sort of streamlined version of blogger or wordpress…obviously much simpler. As usual, Google are producing a very simple interface which is likely to satisfy users who could not be bothered with too much configuration hassles on other systems.
What is not that clear is why would Google spend time on this when they already have blogger???
Well…in the meantime, click here to review my own little test
wikio.com is very much expected by end of Feb early March 2006. Why is that? Probably because its father is the famous Pierre Chappaz, founder of Kelkoo.fr - the successful French shopping engine (price comparison) which was acquired a year or two ago. I have requested a beta account, just waiting for some feedback. I cannot wait to put my fingers on this “media search engine v2.0″. It aims directly at Yahoo! News and Google News. It is apparently inspired by digger.com. It will mix multiple sources of information ranging from official providers (I assume the likes of Reuters etc..) and the less official ones (e.g. the blogosphere).
It is always a positive feeling to check around my work floor space and suddenly realize that the genius who invented the Nokia mobile navigation interface is sitting less than 3 desks away from where I sit.
“Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest daily newspaper called me the ‘godfather of mobile phone users’, I guess that was a tribute to the efforts I made making Nokia phones easier to use. During my time at Nokia I invented the Nokia Navi-key user interface, and I am the father of the Series 60 user interface and the creator of Nokia Lifeblog – a multimedia diary” (christianlindholm.com)
netvibes.com could use that common slogan : “it does what it says on the tin”. So what does it say on the tin? Well, netvibes is a very simple site which works just like a myYahoo! or a myGoogle: it aggregates several sources of information (news, photos, email accounts, your del.icio.us etc…). It is extremely easy to set up, very slick and graphically pleasing. This is now my default homepage…. my take is that it will quickly become many people’s default homepage as well. netvibes.com was developed by 2 young french guys. Kudos to both of them for their fantastic contribution to the 2.0 generation!
I personally love it!