mere funde

If you thought that the search engine wars were settled, with Yahoo! laying down arms, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. Rupert Murdoch reignited the battle saying that he could de-index the WSJ and other content providers from Google. Now Microsoft (MS) has gone a step ahead and offered New Corp money to provide exclusive content for Bing.

Will this lead to more such players providing exclusive content on certain search engines? Personally, I don’t think so. Google won’t take this lying down, and given that it retains a large share of web searches, more content providers would want to be listed on Google (for lower money) than Bing. Ultimately we might have two major search engines with one having more content than the other – which one would it be is anyone’s guess. MS has a lot of money to throw at the search business but Google is no slouch itself. If they end up paying a lot, they are only going to hurt themselves. Also, I am not sure if MS would fight as much for search, which is still a small part there entire biz, unlike Google.

While it is not inconceivable that the search engines might have to pay the content providers some money, I do not foresee it being a huge amount. Search still remains, along with social networking, the killer application of the internet.

Whatever may be the outcome, MS has thrown the gauntlet and I bet Google is just about to respond!!

Whenever Google launches a product there is a huge brouhaha over in the blogosphere (There. I used the stupid word.) and people go nuts about how it is going to be the next big thing. I am not the clean one and am as much to blame as any one else for being a fanboy. However, when Google launched the free legal case law I was hardly excited.

I was transported back to the days when I was so happy at the launch of Google Patents that I almost predicted doom for patent database providers. Heck, I even sent them an email with features I thought would have been easy to implement.

Little did I know that it would turn out to be some time pass project for some one bored of regular work at Google. Sure the tool is great, but the limited coverage and search make it almost useless, when Google, using its immense technological prowess could have brought patents to everyone with very little incremental work. But then I guess the team that worked on it got shifted to some more important stuff and the project now sits there like a tool which I use only to read patents – and not search them. What a waste I tell you!!

Sleep in peace Lexis Nexis – there is no battle brewing on your home turf!

After dragging my feet on it for ages now, I finally got around creating an IP Blog Search engine using the Google Custom Search. You can access the search engine here.

I got the list of blogs for the search engine here.

This is why – they are distasteful, and they destroy the usability. Ads should not be larger than the actual post under any circumstance.

As are Facebook ads. I thought Google knew better about ads.

I was tired of writing and rewriting and then editing the BSchool essays, and wanted to hit the bed. God knows why I opened up GReader!!

Anyway – I saw this article on how to jazz up the Windows desktop. Pretty useful and fun I would say. 10 minutes later, I had finished downloading and installing RainLendar and RocketDock.

And then I thought how about syncing RainLendar with GCalendar. After some googling GCalDaemon came to rescue. I used the instructions on their website but the damn things wouldn’t work!!

At Step 3 you would need to edit the location of the iCal file. Also, the sync by File method is not enabled by default and you would need to do it manually. Finally, I had a perfect system of syncing my calendars, and combined with an SMS service provided free of cost by Google, I have myself a perfect alert system. Wow!!

Hang on. That’s not all. As I browsed the GCalDaemon website, I saw that I could use it to run a local LDAP server and replicate the Google Contacts within my Thunderbird system. By now I knew what needed to be done [enable LDAP] to get it up and running. At around 2 in the night, I had finished doing all this and was really satisfied with myself. I now have a less cluttered desktop, which not only looks awesome (I use this as my wallpaper), but is extremely useful!!

That’s an email from the Google Alerts not spam!!

After a lot of hue and cry over the blogosphere over the similarity between Campfire and HuddleChat, a sample application for the Google AppEngine, Google team has decided to take down the app.

While I appreciate the quick action over the reaction of a lot bloggers, I find it pretty stupid. The web is full of examples of similar apps, and taking down one because it is similar to other, even though it is simpler and free, is just plain stupid. I have no idea why the bloggers took offense at it in the first place! While I do agree that the similarity was pretty obvious (from screenshots that is – never got a chance to use it), doesn’t the same logic apply to MS Office & OpenOffice??

Come on people, grow up. People are going to develop similar apps, only that they would be easier to use and FREE – not paid. I was looking forward to using it

I have pretty busy over the past many weekends, and this one was no different. Debo was in town and it was nice spending time with him.

Anyways a few interesting nuggets from the web.

• Upgrade to XP from Vista says CodingSanity – I agree. Too many warnings. Let me use it please. I not a effing retard you know. [Link via FSJ]
• Vicky Nanjappa asks Scorpions if they would introduce hip hop into their music. Yes. And they are also thinking of hiring Anu Malik as their composer and Himesh Baba as their lead singer. [Link via India Uncut]
• For the IP Geeks – Espacenet is thinking of allowing download of search results in XML/CSV format. Good going folks. I remember having given a similar suggestion to Google Patents team. But they seem to have gone into hibernation.
• Finally, Apar has great series going on here. Must read.

Don’t have much time for a full post, so a small roundup:

• Google goes hindi. In a related news, it also launched the Finance service for China. Do it for India – the markets have gone bonkers!
• Jason Calacanis analyzes the Facebook hype. It is not a Google killer. Period. And I hate some Facebook apps that allow people to chuck things at me.
• Daily WTF – Copyright stupidity – Act One.
• Daily WTF – Copyright stupidity – the Grand Act. Sue a Durga Puja pandal of all things!!

Man sues Yahoo and Google for taking their names from the tribes he has descended from.

A man currently being detained by immigration in Houston, TX has filed a lawsuit claiming Yahoo and Google stole their names from Tanzanian tribes. As luck would have it, the man is a descendant of both tribes – what are the odds?

The lawsuit states that Google was taken from the Gogo tribe, and Yahoo from the Yao tribe. The claim is asking for $10,000 be paid to each tribe member for the past three generations.

Yeah right!