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Google Eyes New Email Service, Expansion

GillBates0 writes "According to a CNN/Reuters story, Google is developing a service to attach its lucrative keyword-based advertising to email: ''I'm sure Google is getting more and more concerned about locking in users. It wouldn't surprise me if they did something very sophisticated with e-mail,' said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, who tracks the industry.' Apparently, Google has purchased an e-mail management software maker and registered the domain name googlemail.com. The article also speculates that Google is slowly on the way to becoming a full-fledged portal, with the gradual addition of more and more portal-like features like Froogle."

287 comments

  1. Too Good To Be True by MissMarvel · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Google is a class act. It's right up there with RefDesk for how to provide a quality Internet service with eloquence and style. If Google comes onboard with an email service I'll be one of the first in line.

    1. Re:Too Good To Be True by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 4, Funny

      yup

      couldn't agree more. google is definitely a class act. like their pop-up blocking software. it blocked 3 for me from that refdesk site.

      --
      vodka, straight up, thank you!
    2. Re:Too Good To Be True by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      & brevity

    3. Re:Too Good To Be True by richard_za · · Score: 1

      I would be ashamed comparing Google to that RefDesk site. It is so riddled with popups it should have been a post on this Slashdot story.

    4. Re:Too Good To Be True by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful


      except that refdesk dont actually have any of their own content, they are just using everyone elses

      thanks but iam trying to use the internet to cut out the pathetic middlemen like refdesk with their advert farms

    5. Re:Too Good To Be True by richard_za · · Score: 1

      How many useless link farms are out there - especially those who are cybersquatting on expired domains. One the web we need easy access to content .... not links ... to links ... to linls

    6. Re:Too Good To Be True by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At this point, there's no need to be worried about their email-based stuff. If I had a machine to download all the mail to, I'd subscribe to their news update service...They do a Google news keyword search and email you the news results every so often. That's what I call staying up-to-date.

      Here's an example link. Look at the bottom of the page.

    7. Re:Too Good To Be True by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Refdesk is a class act, then it's at the first grade level. Its html is bad and it doesn't even look right on my browser.

    8. Re:Too Good To Be True by saden1 · · Score: 1

      It will take a lot of disk space for me to leave my current setup! Google is late to the game and people don't like to switch email addresses. Take AOL people for example...they only reason they stick with AOL is because of their email addresses.

      Good luck to them I say, I know I won't be switching!

      --

      -----
      One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
    9. Re:Too Good To Be True by rjelks · · Score: 1

      Ummm....I think there's a few more reasons "AOL people" stick with AOL.

      "...I stay on AOL because it's the best internet"
      "...the only way to instant message"
      "...I got this free CD in the mail?"
      "...how do I turn it off!"

      -

    10. Re:Too Good To Be True by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 2, Interesting
      and google's undoing will be the fact that it can't help but index these link farms.

      "search engine optimization" tactics are reason #1 why it is not game over in the search engine space.

      deciding relevance is NP-hard.

      --

      There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
    11. Re:Too Good To Be True by DeadSea · · Score: 1
      It is more strict than the Mozilla popup blocking though. It will only allow popups on a click event (as opposed to a page load) and it will only allow one per click.

      It really sucks to try to implement a page that opens four windows, each with a different vendor selling the same item at a different price. Google blocks all but one of them, even though the user would be much happier with the comparison of all.

    12. Re:Too Good To Be True by zobier · · Score: 1

      What about using 4 frames in a pop-up?

      --
      Me lost me cookie at the disco.
    13. Re:Too Good To Be True by magores · · Score: 1

      How about you lay off the pop-ups?

      even a "legitimate" site that opens 4 windows on my screen gets banished to the "suppress popups" list.

      (I generally don't suppress until given reason. And your description of whatever you are working on, is an example of why the suppress function exists to begin with.)

    14. Re:Too Good To Be True by DeadSea · · Score: 1
      If you can't trust the content in the frames you can't do that. For example: You want to open four windows to different vendors that sell the same product so the user can compare prices.

      If you were doing it in frames, any of the vendors could dectect this (window.href) and set themselves to be at the top of the frame.

      With popups, the most evil thing that I've seen is a self.focus() call that causes the vendor window to move to the top.

  2. Moooogle by manganese4 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just think when you get all your usual spam, it will be annotaed by keyword to other sites that sell similar crap

    --
    I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
    1. Re:Moooogle by musikit · · Score: 1

      Moooogle

      i think square/enix would have a problem with their new service being called "moogle" i mean what if you wanted to look up info about moogles on google?

    2. Re:Moooogle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or worse, buy a stuffed moogle doll?

      Can you just imagine somebody saying they're going to froogle moogle on google? It makes the mind boogle.

    3. Re:Moooogle by K-Man · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, here are some real life examples from my inbox. This will be a really useful service.

      Subject: MOV1ES 4 FR33ovol!

      Google: Your search - mov1es 4 fr33ovol! - did not match any documents.

      Suggestions:
      - Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
      - Try different keywords.
      - Try more general keywords.
      - Try fewer keywords.

      -
      Subject: Man hunter from real life

      No man is safe.
      Imagine going about your daily life,
      then out of nowhere you are attacked
      by two of the hottest babez you have
      ever seen, whose only intent is to
      fack and sack you.

      Google:
      Re: TCP NewReno, SACK and FACK ... loose more than three packets, you will get ... TCP_FACK, adds 'forward acknowledgments'
      to SACK, basically a ... [FACK is considered experimental, but seems to work ...
      www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/tech/9810/msg0 0194. html - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

      Re: TCP NewReno, SACK and FACK ... Why already writing here, perhaps I should add, if you want to test this stuff, either
      compile your ... Follow-Ups: Re: TCP NewReno, SACK and FACK: From: Chris ...
      www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/tech/9810/msg0 0190. html - 5k - Cached - Similar pages
      [ More results from www.monkey.org ]

      etc....

      --
      ---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
    4. Re:Moooogle by memph1st0 · · Score: 1

      moogle?

      kupo!!

  3. Google does it again... by danielrm26 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I for one am dumping (or at least sidelining) my other webmail accounts immediately if "googlemail" has the features I need. When is the last time you saw Google down?

    At the moment, they can do little wrong in my eyes, and I thouroughly expect to enjoy anything coming out of their company. I just hope that as they grow into the beast they are sure to become that they don't lose the purity and creativity that sets them apart from the rest.

    Improve your Google efficiency:
    http://www.dmiessler.com/google

    --
    dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
    1. Re:Google does it again... by richard_za · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Why not host your own webmail - for ages our (relative small south african) software development company has been hosting our own webmail for internal use. I can see little reason for using a commercial provider .... what's the benefit?

    2. Re:Google does it again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

      You work there, or something?

    3. Re:Google does it again... by reidbold · · Score: 1

      Um,

      1) It's free
      2) requires no additional effort
      3) requires no additional equipment
      4) less security risk
      5) free

      I can probably think of more, but that's enough for me. I even run my own web server, but don't trust it enough from the point of security or uptime for it to handle my email.

      --
      -Reid
    4. Re:Google does it again... by mrmeval · · Score: 0, Troll

      Your site has

      "Using the advanced features of the toolbar requires that you send information about the pages you are viewing to Google. Be sure to disable the advanced features if this is an issue for you."

      I for one do not appreciate privacy invading garbage to be required before I can use something.

      --
      I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
    5. Re:Google does it again... by ceejayoz · · Score: 1

      When is the last time you saw Google down?

      Read before replying, eh?

    6. Re:Google does it again... by ceejayoz · · Score: 2, Offtopic

      Google's advanced toolbar features are things like showing the pagerank for that page.

      For the Google toolbar to display the pagerank, they have to know what page you're accessing. Unless you've invented a telepathic computer, of course...

      If you don't like it, turn that feature off. Bam, problem solved.

      Hell, Google's site even tells you IN BIG CAPITAL RED LETTERS about it, saying "this isn't the usual legal garbage". <sarcasm>What scumbags, eh? </sarcasm>

    7. Re:Google does it again... by Mod+Me+God+Too · · Score: 0

      I for one do not appreciate privacy invading garbage to be required before I can use something.

      Then don't use it. Google is not a charity that exists from public donations, they pay real people real money.

      --
      --

      It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
    8. Re:Google does it again... by jbplou · · Score: 1

      When do you see yahoo down, that was a stupid argument. If the search engine works good that doesn't mean the webmail will work equally as well.

    9. Re:Google does it again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Begone, fool. Google Watch Watch ridicules Daniel "Fucking Asshole" Brandt's corrupted hunger for something he does not deserve.

  4. Froogle by Rkane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't know about any of you, but "Froogle" hasn't impressed me yet. I am a frequent user of pricewatch and techbargains, and Froogle hasn't even come close to matching these. Call me old fashioned, but I sincerely hope that google stays away from the portal business.

    1. Re:Froogle by Thrakkerzog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      why don't you try buying something other than computer hardware or software?

      Froogle has much more than computer stuff.

    2. Re:Froogle by RocketScientist · · Score: 4, Informative

      They seem to do a good job with non-computer bits. Look for a set of 6L6 or EL84 tubes, or a Traxxas Nitro Rustler, or an inflatable christmas tree on Techbargains or Pricewatch and you're very likely to be disappointed.

    3. Re:Froogle by chmod000 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Froogle has much more than computer stuff.


      Even on the computer stuff page!


      Found on the CPU page: this link.


      So what is it really? A pendant PDA?


      Looks like Froogle is at the mercy of the sellers when it comes to the content of those links.

      --
      Aptal soru yoktur; sadece merakli aptallar vardir.
    4. Re:Froogle by lordvdr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let me know when they make "!froogle.google.com" Most of the time I want to search for pages that ARE NOT trying to sell me something.

      -lv

      --
      If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor - Albert Einstein
    5. Re:Froogle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      why don't you try buying something other than computer hardware or software?

      Are you sure you're on the right website?

    6. Re:Froogle by hahn · · Score: 1

      That's not exactly a fair comparison, since Froogle is still in Beta.

      --
      "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
    7. Re:Froogle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Froogle has been in Beta for over a fucking year.

    8. Re:Froogle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      As several others have pointed out, it's a little bit tough for a general-purpose search engine like froogle to compete with a very specialized tech page like pricewatch. Try using it for something else - I used it to look for places that would send cheese to my apartment, and was quite pleased with the result.

    9. Re:Froogle by bhtooefr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google was in beta for a really fucking long time. Look at Debian. It's damn stable (not counting the major breach, as that affected ALL distros) because it's been worked on for a VERY long time to move through unstable, then testing, then stable. Not a Debian zealot (god, a Debian workstation seems impossible to get working), but just saying that sometimes stuff turns out better when it ages. Also, Froogle is searching every site with a $ sign. PriceWatch, DealTime, etc., they're just getting price lists from their partners, ready to feed into the engines.

    10. Re:Froogle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Recently I bought a leatherman sheath, the nylon one for the wave. I could not find it anywhere, and all the search engines simply returned the packaged multi-tool and sheath, or an amazon.com reseller. Amazon no longer carries the item since it has been discontinued for a year already. Here are some of the examples: yahoo, lycos, msn, google.

      Now compare to the Froogle results which lists 3 wave compatible sheaths on the first page (two of which were the wave custom molded ones I was looking for) and almost all are from independent vendors (versus amazon.com referrals). I got lucky and managed to snatch the last one from one of the first page vendors. I'm quite impressed with the beta release. I hope they do well.

    11. Re:Froogle by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know about any of you, but "Froogle" hasn't impressed me yet. I am a frequent user of pricewatch and techbargains, and Froogle hasn't even come close to matching these.

      That's not what Froogle is for. When you know exactly what you want, and want the best possible price, sites like pricewatch, techbargains, mysimon, epinions, etc. are great for this. When you don't know exactly what you want, or don't know what it's called, or don't know what category it would be in, Froogle is excellent.

    12. Re:Froogle by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 5, Informative
      why don't you try buying something other than computer hardware or software? Froogle has much more than computer stuff.
      Because it still sucks!

      froogle is generations behind Yahoo! Shopping, pricewatch, shopper.com etc.'s ability to distinguish actual items for sale from reviews, previews, and other non-merchandising content.

      Yet froogle insists on attaching a price to every result returned on a search, often an incorrect one.

      Often times a froogle search will turn up pages of "results," but when you go to sort by price, all of the sudden you wind up with only a handful of listings. In effect their software is saying, "well, I wasn't too sure about some of these."

      --

      There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
    13. Re:Froogle by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 1
      Google was in beta for a really fucking long time.
      Semantics semantics.

      Whenever you make software or a service available to the public and it's functional enough that people come to use and depend on it, guess what, you have SHIPPED that software/service.

      Parts of Windows 98 were in beta until 2001!

      --

      There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
    14. Re:Froogle by forevermore · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yet froogle insists on attaching a price to every result returned on a search, often an incorrect one.

      The prices listed for the actual froogle results are as as correct as the vendors say they are, since they come from vendor-supplied feeds (I know, I had to write a script to do this for my company). As for the other results, did you miss the little qualifier that the put above them? "The results below were automatically extracted from web pages. Price and category information are uncertain." None of the other listings that you mentioned do this - in fact, I don't know of any other price-search service that does this.

      Of course, the annoying thing about this is that the price filters don't affect these items, either. On the other hand, froogle is still listed as beta, so it can only get better.

      --
      Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
  5. The near future.......? by bc90021 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You log into your GoogleMail account, and it has emailed you an entire evening's worth of web crawling for the data you were looking for. It's searched for places for your for your next vacation, and has managed to provide you with not only information, but Froogle'd for the best prices too. It's suggested things you'd like to do, and gone out and found the most popular sites about that as well. All you have to do is log into your Google HomePage and accept its suggestions, or negotiate with your own little GoogleBot for other venues.

    Could this be the beginning of intelligent software agents? It would seem that if anyone could bring such a thing to us, it would be the Google folks...

    1. Re:The near future.......? by danielrm26 · · Score: 1

      Not that they don't have smart folks to come up with ideas too, but I would keep some of these to yourself and consider proposing them to Google. There could be something in it for you. :)

      --
      dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
    2. Re:The near future.......? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been considering writing my own agent, since I'm good at software development and suck at searching. Since I've come up with the idea, it only makes sense that would somebody would develop it now. It used to happen to me all the time: come up with an idea, then read about it being made the next week.

    3. Re:The near future.......? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought hotmail already did this. I'm constantly getting info from them on how to enlarge my penis, and tons of sites with naked women.

      If google gets involved, there is sure to be a patent violation somewhere.

    4. Re:The near future.......? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The idea of an agent that crawls the net searching for stuff for you is kinda dumb. Google has already done the crawling, and can serve you the results instantly, whenever you want. The biggest problem is *expressing what you're searching for* in terms that a computer can understand. Without a solution to that problem, an intelligent agent can't be any better than a Google search. If that problem is solved, then Google can still serve you results instantly, without any "intelligent agent" crawling the web specifically for you. The intelligence is all in Google's algorithms, and there's no need for any agents.

      To me, the whole idea of intelligent agents sounds too much like Clippy. I don't want software giving me suggestions and telling me what I would like. OTOH, software presenting a list of information that might be useful is OK. It's kind of a psychological thing. Amazon.com doesn't have an "intelligent agent" that tells you what products you would like; instead it has a page with a list of things that are similar or related to products you've shopped for. The end result is the same, and the difference is subtle, but I think it's an important psychological one. The computer shouldn't display intelligence and boss you around; instead it should act like a mechanical device that simply responds to input that you give it. Intelligent agents don't allow you to actually do anything you can't do with passive, subservient software. They're just more obnoxious and annoying.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    5. Re:The near future.......? by zoney_ie · · Score: 1

      Well, I checked out their tools section following this article. I now have google on my old phone with WAP. Should come in handy for those times when I'm in the depths of rural Ireland. I mean, I might need to, hmmm... search for something anyways - I'm sure it's of SOME use...

      --
      -- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
    6. Re:The near future.......? by owlstead · · Score: 1

      Well, I don't know. When I am looking for a "review" on google for a specific piece of computer hardware, I get hundreds of pages with a link or button [write a review]. Right after that, in 90% of the cases is [0 users have written a review].

      So in certain cases some additional intelligence could not hurt. Something like a bayan filter might be used to solve above problem. So the idea is to have a brute force (enormously parallel) search engine and an semi intelligent agent coupled to it.

      This might also check for bad links, browser compliance and even taste (filter out pages with yellow on green background and or too flashy pages etc).

      Note that the agent might just stick to static rules, making it _very_ unintelligent :)

    7. Re:The near future.......? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1

      Of course Google could be more intelligent, but my point is that the concept of an "intelligent agent" is just dumb. Google should of course work on improving their search algorithms, which could mean adding a bayesian filter or checking for bad taste in colors or whatever. That's separate from the idea of a personal "intelligent agent."

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    8. Re:The near future.......? by DrSkwid · · Score: 1


      that's odd, I've been reading about these agents for something like 20 years

      and still they don't come

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    9. Re:The near future.......? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually this already exists, it's called Google Alert and you can find it at http://www.googlealert.com

    10. Re:The near future.......? by Zagadka · · Score: 1

      Much of your point about agents is valid, but they do have a good use: searching for things that don't exist yet. For example: suppose you're planning on buying a house. An agent that looks over real estate listings as they're released and informs you when it finds something relevant is a lot more useful than having to remember to do a search for the same thing every morning.

    11. Re:The near future.......? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, don't have my login with me so you may never see this. Automated agents are the area I work in, or at least something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Clippy is stupid, but he's a start. I emailed google earlier today with some suggestions in just this area relating to set theory and improving searching. I would love to see an agent that learns from what I want. If I search for Paris Hilton and then tell it to ignore all the sites about porn videos and buildings in France then I want it to keep refining it, this is still crude and is roughly equivalent to doing the keyword search for Paris + Hilton - porn - france, but it woul dhave the benefit of using google's database to eliminate things relating to porn and france, not just things that have those specific keywords.

      Also the idea of an agent is one that can keep searching, this isn't really an issue with google since they have that massive database, but an agent could keep crawling a list of blogs or news sites for you and theoretically present you a summary, not just a list of links. I want to know everything about Hungary but as my search progresses i start focusing on just the town of Blargy and start seeing more and more about it and its connections without having to keep redoin the search myself with new keywords. Or think of your porn search and instead of having to make up new combinations of terms to find new stuff your agent learns what you likes and finds things for you using related keywords.

      That's what I'd like to see agents do. I should just get off my butt and write it but frankly I'm not that good and I am that lazy, so the least I can do is encourage a group I do like (google labs) to write it for me.

    12. Re:The near future.......? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1
      it woul dhave the benefit of using google's database to eliminate things relating to porn and france, not just things that have those specific keywords.

      This is intelligence, but it has nothing to do with being an agent. We're talking about intelligent agents here, not improved search algorithms. People often get distracted by the term intelligent and ascribe all these cool capabilities to "intelligent agents." They ignore the fact that making something an agent doesn't automatically make it more intelligent. You still have to design an algorithm to make it intelligent. And once you do that, Google can use it too and serve you the results instantly, making an agent redundant.

      The problem with intelligent agents is they take too much time. People like instant results, so we need something faster. Also, Google's algorithms can work better than any intelligent agent because Google has total knowledge of the entire web. An agent can only look at a tiny subset of the web as it surfs for you.

      instead of having to make up new combinations of terms to find new stuff your agent learns what you likes and finds things for you using related keywords.

      A program to suggest better search terms based on past searches isn't an intelligent agent. An intelligent agent is a software robot carrying out a task for you and reporting the results. Suggesting better search terms is already done at Google on a limited basis (spelling). Suggesting future terms based on past ones is a moderately good idea, but it's not a job for an intelligent agent. Suggesting sites based on sites you liked is already done by the "Similar Pages" feature Google has. No intelligent agents required.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  6. I'll switch if it's as nice as google by xankar · · Score: 0

    It would be wonderful if their email service were as simple and free of stupid features as their search engine is.

    --
    ~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
  7. It's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sad to see the great google fall to this, but I understand they need the money, as long as google.com doesn't turn into Yahoo!, I'll stick to Google until the end, if it starts filling with crap like Y!, it's off to find somewhere else....

  8. Re:Interesting things at google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    fee???

    Your ?-key seems to be jammed.

  9. concerned? by msg1825 · · Score: 1

    "[google] concerned about locking in users" ?! Are companies now concerned about being too popular, having too many customers and making too much money? News to me.

    1. Re:concerned? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      D00d I think you are confused. I think google is concerned that they will not have user lock in. Imagine that when google goes public, the search engine starts to get a little too clustered/commercial. Gets a few pop-ups that the google-bar doesn't block. Well users would leave right? Not if you lock them in with their webmail as well. Now when users come to check their mail, they will also use your service.

      I think this is the intended meaning from the submitters words.

      --Boy George

  10. Portals by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So what's wrong if Google becomes a portal? I certainly see enough people complaining about it. As long as the search engine still works pretty well...
    As for "locking in" users, I would hardly compare this to the wonderful lock-in schemes we've seen out of Redmond.
    Google email... would that mean that they parse my text and attach a keyword-based ad to it? :)

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    1. Re:Portals by mcc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My answer to this is

      (1) I don't want a portal.
      (2) Historically, when search services become portals, their search services suffer as a result, or else try to force you to jump over all their portal "features" to use the search features you came to use.
      (3) I have multiple times in the past found myself having to stop using a search engine (for example, altavista) because they just couldn't keep their frigging portal-ness out of my face.

      If google added portal features, I'd be OK with that as long as I could just keep using the search and not have to think about their portal. However I just have trouble trust that anyone, even google, could start "being a portal" and yet not have their core service lose focus or otherwise suffer as a result.

    2. Re:Portals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      To me, portal has always been a buzzword that translated to information overload. Google has always tried to avoid information overload in their search engine. I figure, if anybody can do a portal right, it will be Google.

    3. Re:Portals by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 1

      Making the move to a portal site will hurt Google a lot more than it will help them. There are plenty of portals already; they are a dime a dozen. Who the hell needs another one? Google will spend lots of time and money on this venture which could otherwise be used to improve their search capabilities. Getting rid of the page rank spammers should be their priority, not expanding into a commodity marketplace where they will have no real niche. Worse yet, once they sink a lot of money into the portal, the company will be hard up for more revenue, and being a public corporation they will have to rake it in any way they can. That means annoying advertising and paid services. In other words, Google as we know it will come to an end. I really really hope this doesn't happen, but they appear to be headed in this direction.

  11. Oy. by DrEldarion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear Google,

    Instead of messing around with all this e-mail stuff, how about you concentrate on actually making your search engine useful again? It has become completely overrun with results like sony.dscp10.reviews.digital.cameras.hot.sex.now.fr eesexsite.com that it's becoming incredibly hard to actually get any information out of it. It used to be that when I searched for a product, you gave me user/site reviews on that product. Now, all I get is a bunch of people trying to make me buy it from them.

    Please remedy this before trying to do other things.

    Thank you.

    1. Re:Oy. by jmays · · Score: 1

      Agreed. The recent trend you mention is most certainly a plague in the Google world. My search results have been contaminated with all sorts of advertisements and E-Bay links posing as potentially worthwhile.

      --
      KARMA TAG! You're it.
    2. Re:Oy. by edalytical · · Score: 1
      I was just thinking the same thing. Google is a search engine company, why not just concentrate on improving what they do best.

      Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere. I like the idea of Nutch the effort to implement an open-source web search engine.

      --
      Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
    3. Re:Oy. by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Remember when yahoo! had a useful catalog of sites? Remember when their search/catalog started sucking? remember when they added featres like email, new, stock quotes, chat, etc?

      Remember when google had a useful search engine....

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    4. Re:Oy. by tommck · · Score: 1

      Yeah.. every time I search for somethink like "Erin Gray Naked", I get all these cheesy fake celebrity pr0n sites that all _eventually_ wind up a Mr. Skin!

      WTF google? I need better obscure 70s TV start naked searches!

      --
      ---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
    5. Re:Oy. by dspyder · · Score: 1

      Remember when yahoo! had a useful catalog of sites? Remember when their search/catalog started sucking? remember when they added featres like email, new, stock quotes, chat, etc?

      I do remember, and I don't miss their search feature... but I DO love (!) a lot of their other features. Their start page (My Yahoo!) brings everything together and lets me customize it to have use and value to me rather than just force content down my throat (MSN).

      I pay for Yahoo! Mail and love it. I use Yahoo! Finance all the time for stock quotes and for their financial planning and budgeting tools as well as their credit monitoring. I use their address book and calendar across all modules. Their greeting cards are still free. Their travel site is my first destination to compare prices (though I rarely ever purchase from them). Their Yahoo! Shopping actually contains a decent mix of stores with some decent stuff. Their Yahoo! Visa card gives you excellent benefit points that have actually allowed me to buy a digital video camera. Yahoo! Messenger is still [one of?] the only instant messaging applications with video and voice (for calling Grandma in England or getting a little naughty). Their games are really fun to play, and completely free! They even used to have decent Fantasy Sports and Survivor pick'em games.

      So yes, I remember.... but I don't miss their search engine and catalog.

      I'm glad Google excels at that... I'll add their tool to my arsenal. For the rest I'll eat the Yahoo! dog food without looking back thanks.

    6. Re:Oy. by ahdeoz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google is suffering from the theoretical Linux virus problem. While it actually *is* more resistant to abuse than other systems, it is not invulnerable. In fact, the main reason that Google (in the past) returned better search results than other sites, is because the abusers were targeting Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, Altavista, or whatever. Also, there were fewer of them. The only way to overcome the search abuse will be to become an underdog with a new algorithm who the abusers are *not* targeting.

    7. Re:Oy. by 40000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Make the search more useful with selectable result weightings based on
      a)E-commerce type code - gets rid of amazon referral sites
      b)Use of the copyright symbol - brings personal web pages to the top of the list
      c)Too many links - mods down dodgy portals
      d)Size of text blocks on page (would be in favour of an e-book)
      Ultimately some kind of 'personality' rating for web pages.

    8. Re:Oy. by warkda+rrior · · Score: 2, Funny


      It has become completely overrun with results like sony.dscp10.reviews.digital.cameras.hot.sex.now.fr eesexsite.com that it's becoming incredibly hard to actually get any information out of it.

      Freudian slip? Yes, please!

      --
      You need to install an RTFM interface.
    9. Re:Oy. by DrEldarion · · Score: 3, Funny

      the only instant messaging applications with video and voice (for calling Grandma in England or getting a little naughty).

      Oh god, I misread that "or" as an "and".

    10. Re:Oy. by Kris_J · · Score: 1

      I had a similar post in mind; Remember when Yahoo was a decent contents page for the 'Net then became a "portal", remember when Altavista was a decent search engine then became a portal? I use Google for searches and occassionally as a news agregator, if they let these functions slide as they devote time to stuff I don't care about I'm going to have to start looking for a new search engine.

    11. Re:Oy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      No. Google has also changed their search weightings to put Shopping sites ahead of real people talking about products.

      This is as bad or worse than the stupid linkfarm sites, and a sure sign that Google has been taken over by dunderhead MBAs.

    12. Re:Oy. by unother · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Moreover, Yahoo! was only a useful "catalog of sites" because that was early days on the web.

      Yes, Yahoo! implemented searching as well, but a million years ago, it was self-registration that created that "catalog of sites" (e.g. 1995). Searching came later, and was organic, but Yahoo! in no way was ever the dominant search engine, certainly not in the way Google has become. They were a directory service initially, and thus becoming a "Portal" as they are today was the direct evolution upward from that model.

      IMHO the biggest loser from Google's emergent dominance was Altavista, who for a while were certainly the cognoscenti's search-engine of choice.

    13. Re:Oy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The problem with an open-source search engine is that anyone can instantly find out exactly what its ranking system is, making it easy to abuse.

    14. Re:Oy. by beekr · · Score: 1
      I, too, would like the old google back.

      With the quality of some search results lately, they should be changing the "I'm feeling lucky" button to "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?"

    15. Re:Oy. by instarx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree. Google results are becoming more and more irrelevant, with the first page of hits being taken up by a few major eCommerce organizations. This is mostly the result of abuse by a few companies working the Google algorithms since most of the ads are really for the same service, just using different web pages linked to each other. There must be a term for this but I don't know it.

      I am very tired of clicking link after link that purport to have reviews of what I am looking for only to discover it has nothing of the sort and is just another version of Amazon, Nextag, OneCall or Yahoo or with exactly the same information. It particularly irks me to be tricked to a site that that claims a "Review of Acme Rocket Launcher" that just says, "Sorry there are no reviews of Acme Rocket Launcher submit your review here, but get best price for Acme Rocket Launcher here."

      No, Google doesn't do everything perfectly by a long shot.

    16. Re:Oy. by edalytical · · Score: 1

      As a user I want to know what the ranking system is. I guess its greatest strength is its greatest weakness.

      --
      Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
    17. Re:Oy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Erin Gray? Obscure? She's my mom.

    18. Re:Oy. by minus28 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Searching from within Europe, one of the worst perpetrators for this is kelkoo, which offers price comparisons for an item, between different sites (and it usually does have prices which are amongst the cheapest, so can be useful). However Kelkoo will regularly appear in the first ten listings, often several times- then as you say, have no actual links to the product you are looking for, therefore in this case you cant buy it from a partner anyway!! A total waste of everyones time.

    19. Re:Oy. by Shmengy · · Score: 1

      The underlying problem of course is that Google is a company and they want to make oodles of cash. I agree 115.56% that the usefulness of the engine for finding information has declined dramatically. But hell! It is now easier to find people to buy things! Fortunately a recent search on the term "dog snot" did *not* reveal any vendors.

      Shmengy.

    20. Re:Oy. by tommck · · Score: 1
      Well, thanks to your mom, I had to start shaving my palms at an early age...

      --
      ---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
    21. Re:Oy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The old Google? No, you want the old Internet back - the Internet that wasn't full of spammers and scammers and viruses and hackers and all. They way it was before they invented Viagra. When the World Wide Web was many times smaller, and a good deal less cool.

      If Google was not basically a good search tool, no one would be complaining about it, they merely would take their searches elsewhere. If asked, they would say: "I quit using it two years ago. It sucks."

      Trouble arises with Google when you make a search which coincides with someone's attempt to anticipate Web searches and draw visitors to their own site. Try to find non-commercial facts about batteries, or inkjet cartridges, and you may well be in that kind of trouble.

      Another problem is that independent reviews of products don't fit Google's model very well. How often do you see a Web page saying, "Here are links to good reviews of washing machines which I looked through last time I was shopping for one"? Because that's what Google needs, to work its trick.

      Another problem with a review is, if you review a commercial product online and you say you don't like it, the manufacturer's lawyers get in touch to have you switched off.

      Google had an excellent idea for finding relevant information on the Web, and for most searches it is still an excellent trick. But it's also liable to be vulnerable to search-gamers. Google is at /war/ with these people, and honest men and women should be on Google's side, not complaining about it. It isn't Google's detection of 1000000000 junk Web pages matching your criteria that is the problem, but the sick minds who set 1000000000 junk pages up.

      Robert Carnegie: rja.carnegie@excite.com

    22. Re:Oy. by phpguru1980 · · Score: 1

      We are forgetting the most annoying problem of all - what about when you search for something, and a result that looks promising ends up being a link to another search engine? This really pisses me off - I obviously already *have* a search engine I am using...why the hell would I want to use someone else's?!

  12. hopefully misinformation by smd4985 · · Score: 1

    unless google has something innovative up their sleeve, i urge them to avoid making the standard portal play. look where yahoo is today. google has an amazing brand and great technology - they should leverage these resources when they think of something truly innovative....

    --
    smd4985
  13. Keep the Look by Saige · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As far as I am concerned, they can start offering e-mail, or whatever. They can become as much of a portal as they want.

    Just don't destroy the simplicity of their search engine's front page by tacking on all sorts of ads and images and text. The bare-bones website they offer up for searches is so much more efficient and, I feel, better for serving the purpose of what Google primarily is - a high quality search engine.

    If they start tacking all sorts of crap to it, they'll become just like everyone else, and lose their uniqueness. It'll still be a high quality search engine, but without stand-out packaging.

    --
    "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
  14. Google AdSense and e-mail by glinden · · Score: 2, Informative

    Google's AdSense program, which allows you to get paid for ads on your website, explicitly prohibits using it in e-mail, but it may not be a big deal to start allowing that. Seems like just releasing that restriction and a little work for targeting of ads to e-mails instead of websites would mean that Google's advertising system could be applied to e-mail.

  15. portals by funny-jack · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The difference, the way I see it, between Google and the other so-called Internet "portals" out there is that Google develops useful technologies one at a time, tweaking them here and there, and then adds them to the main site when they think that is is a useful enough feature to have. Yahoo and the like just threw together as many features as they could think of, slapped it into a pretty (debatable) interface, and hoped the feature-bloat would attract people.

    --
    You probably shouldn't click this.
  16. Re:No. by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 1

    Nice dream, but that's not what this is.

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
  17. Google continues to expand their services but... by HMA2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it just me or does it seem like google is getting further and further away from what they are good at (excellent search results) and closer and closer to a Yahoo type service?

    I am sure the money must be great for introducing services like these but aren't they canabalizing their value by introducing these new services while at the same time polluting their search results?

  18. Thus it begins by UberOogie · · Score: 4, Funny
    1) Web-based company? Check.
    2) Do one thing incredibly well? Check.
    3) Do one thing so well you got MS nervous? Check.
    4) Slowly expanding offerings that move more and more away from core competancy? Check.
    5) Try and become everything for everyone? Check.
    6) Spiral and burn?

    The pencil is poised. I hope to god its not true.

    --
    "Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
    1. Re:Thus it begins by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly my fear.

      Google has done it's one thing so well, they should just be happy with it.

      If they feel the need to go portal ( and let me just say "#1 fucking retarded idea of the year...but whatever" ), they should launch an entirely different site ( and company, preferrably ).

      If they feel the need to do so, add shit like "From the makers of Google!"

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    2. Re:Thus it begins by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 1

      I'd guess that the business managers at Google understand what their magical franchise is, and that they'll do anything they can to avoid screwing it up.

    3. Re:Thus it begins by splattertrousers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Someone better is almost certainly out there waiting to be noticed. When Google starts to suck, that better search engine might get its chance.

    4. Re:Thus it begins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ( and let me just say "#1 fucking retarded idea of the year...but whatever")

      So funny, so true.

    5. Re:Thus it begins by K-Man · · Score: 1

      They're supposed to throw some really good parties in there somewhere.

      Unfortunately, I once saw a picture of a party at Google, and I almost puked.

      --
      ---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
  19. Wild Speculation by sithkhan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't this a perfect time for Google to announce such a common, easily identifible service as this than at this particular juncture? How better to prepare the investing world to sell this upcoming IPO to Main Street Techno-Neophyte Investors than to say that Google is expanding, and that they even have email services ... Plus, think about those eyeballs that will be locked into those browser-based email pages, and all the ad space that comes with them. I am a cynic, but that's just me. I'll still sign up for the service!

    --

    is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
    1. Re:Wild Speculation by rjelks · · Score: 1

      Imagine all of the ad space on everyone's homepage :( If you don't believe me, just type 'Alt-Home'.

      -

    2. Re:Wild Speculation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't put my money into another doomed portal. Google might be a good investment, but if they use the new money for a portal, I'd rather play it on the lottery. I think Google is smarter than that and will go slow.

    3. Re:Wild Speculation by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      I personally think that they should offer POP3/SMTP service. That is the ONE reason I signed up for my softhome account. If it weren't for that, my address would be bhtooefr@yahoo.com (go ahead, spam it. It's not like I've checked it in a year)

  20. Free? by vpscolo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have to wonder who google is going to get people into this. Will it be the traditional yahoo/hotmail approach where you get 5MB free and then upgrade, or prehaps they will just go fora decent free emails service ala normal ISP. Intresting to see how they make money

    Rus

  21. Then again... by loserbert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...all of this could be driven by the fact that they are working on an IPO.

    They may be the kindest, gentlest search engine and downright good people, but cash is cash. Everybody wants more. More features means more users means more money.

    1. Re:Then again... by ivan256 · · Score: 1

      More features means more users

      Really? Are you sure about that?

    2. Re:Then again... by loserbert · · Score: 1

      Ok, maybe not, but thats the general thinking for a mega-corporation. If we offer X and make 1 billion, then we can offer X and Y and make 2 billion.

  22. Google needs help by DRue · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google is still on top of the market. But, more and more often I am getting bad results from a search. By bad results I mean that instead of getting the best site, I get the most commercial site.

    I would really like google to get a feature that instead of listing the name and summary of a web page, lists JUST the domains of returned results. i.e. if I search for "mp3 player", i get back
    www.apple.com
    www.rio.com
    www.othermp3play er.com

    --- not buying google IPO

    1. Re:Google needs help by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Informative

      well doing one for own use wouldn't be that hard.. with googleapi it would be quite easy to do a page for your own use that only did that(just showed the domain names). that's one nice thing about google..

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Google needs help by mopslik · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...instead of getting the best site, I get the most commercial site... i.e. if I search for "mp3 player" ...

      The problem with this example, of course, is that the context is rather difficult to discern. Are most web surfers looking for a review of a certain MP3 player, or are they looking for a cheap online store to snag an easy Xmas gift? Both contexts would demand two different sets of search results.

      To find reviews and datasheets (or other non-commercial pages), it's pretty much necessary to add +review or +specifications to your search. Now, the fact that these results are sub par is another matter entirely.

      As for returning just the domains, I'm not too sure why you'd want that. First of all, Google indicates the domain below the site's description. Why not look there? I find it's easy to eliminate bogus links that way. Second, searches would be good if domain names were immediately identifiable by product names, but they are often not. For example, I just installed FreePDF on a few Windows machines. The domain returned would be "www.webxd.com", which would leave me wondering if that was really the correct site or just another Spam farm.

      Still, interesting...

    3. Re:Google needs help by efflux · · Score: 1
      Google indicates the domain below the site's description

      Only, recently I've been noticing results that indicate a certain domain, but send me to some "search page" instead (on a different domain even). Anybody know what's going on with this (I'm sure it's happened to other people as well). It's been really annoying.

      --
      Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
    4. Re:Google needs help by zapp · · Score: 1

      Funny, when i search for mp3 player (with and also without the surrounding quotes to group the words), i get...

      winamp.com (the most popular mp3 player software)
      mp3.com

      musicmatch.com (another popuplar player)

      sonique (another popular player)

      xmms (the most popular player for linux)

      --
      no comment
    5. Re:Google needs help by DRue · · Score: 1

      The "mp3 player" thing was arbitrary. My point was that when I know where I want to go, but I don't remember the URL, i'll search for something that will hopefully point to the right page. In that case, I can tell if it's the right page just by looking at the domain. Sometimes, when I have to look through 100 of them before I find the right page, I don't want to have to look through summaries and page titles.

      Doesn't anyone else use google to go to a page that you've been to before, but you don't remember where it was? All you need to see if the domain..

    6. Re:Google needs help by mopslik · · Score: 1

      I generally avoid most of the longer domains that I suspect are spampots, usually of the form "some-unnecessarily-long-hyphenated-domain.com", but it sounds like simple redirects to me.

  23. Not impressed yet... by gpinzone · · Score: 1

    Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's going to be good. Froogle hasn't impressed me at all. Dealing with Usenet used to be much better under Dejanews. Unless they can offer better spam filters that Yahoo, I'm not switching.

    1. Re:Not impressed yet... by hkmwbz · · Score: 1

      Usenet was better under DejaNews? That's not what I remember. It has never been easier or more convenient to search newsgroups than with Google Groups.

      --
      Clever signature text goes here.
  24. Re:Google continues to expand their services but.. by UberOogie · · Score: 1

    Ha. Looks like we had the same thought at the same time.

    --
    "Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
  25. Google-powered spam filtering? by richard_za · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The guys are at Google are so innovative, I'm sure they could come up with some spam filtering technology. They could leverage info from their USENET archive or the web.

  26. Lock by CGP314 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sure Google is getting more and more concerned about locking in users

    It's only a lockin if the users want to leave but can't. Google has a good history with users, I wouldn't expect them to do any less with a mail client.


    --
    In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

    American Weblog in London

    1. Re:Lock by ahdeoz · · Score: 0

      prediction: there will be email portability (similar to cell phone number portability) legislation proposed soon.

    2. Re:Lock by CGP314 · · Score: 1

      prediction: there will be email portability (similar to cell phone number portability) legislation proposed soon.

      Not feasable with the current system. With phones, everyone has a unique number. When one guy has gandalf@hotmail.com and another gandalf@yahoo.com, how do you decide who is the `real' gandalf?


      --
      In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

      American Weblog in London

    3. Re:Lock by ahdeoz · · Score: 1

      'not feasible' and 'legislation' are not mutually exclusive terms.

  27. Two Words.... by Anonimo+Covarde · · Score: 3, Funny

    Embrace and extend.

    1. Re:Two Words.... by mudshark · · Score: 1

      uhhhm...that was three

      ththphbbttt

      --
      In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
  28. less on the actual web serving? by TheCoop1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it seems to me that the more google branches out into these extra services the more the only reason for google's success - the web searching - will be lost and ignored. I really hope google doesnt become like www.yahoo.com, which is simply an eyesore and completely useless as it tries to do too much...

    --
    95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
  29. connection with IPO by pvt_medic · · Score: 1, Redundant

    wonder if they are planning on making any of these announcements around the same time they hit the stock market. Might just make them even more money.

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
  30. Maybe they have found a way to kill spam? by JumperCable · · Score: 2, Funny

    Think of it. Every spam you get from here on in would be laced with links to their own viagra, herbal diet products & work from home options. The real spammers would never have a chance.

  31. Anyone else having trouble with google? by Denver_80203 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems like in the last few months, Google searches have turned up other "search engines" as a top result or 4 out of the top 5. So, as an example, I search for "foo" and most of the top results lead me to another (crappy) google like site with it's own results for "foo". The feeling I get from those sites is similiar to those crappy sites you end up on when mis-spelling a URL.

    1. Re:Anyone else having trouble with google? by 40000 · · Score: 1

      Another thing that is starting to pop up in search results are 'fake' search engines - like any other search engine they show a few lines of the pages they have found but the links go nowhere, they just launch popups. There is no facility to actually search for anything, the 'results' are already there, related to some popular keyword.
      I found one of these sites while checking my own web's ranking with Google. They had used text off one of my pages as part of these 'search results'.

    2. Re:Anyone else having trouble with google? by Denver_80203 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I also get sites that come up saying "are you searching for foo? I like foo too. good luck finding foo. If you find good information about foo questions, let me know."

      Complete BS results. They seem to be getting worse and I'm not as thrilled with Google as I once was.

  32. Re:Google continues to expand their services but.. by HMA2000 · · Score: 1

    Wow! We must of. I even had "core competency" typed out but then remembered that this was slashdot and such business-y terms are frown upon.

    You are a brave man and I salute you.

  33. I would like a Journal tab in Google. by F34nor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wouldn't it be great if you could use Google to search full text all the refereed scientific journals?

    That would make the internet into what it was made for, free open exchange of scientific work.

    A LexusNexus Tab would kick ass to but might be a little pricey.

    1. Re:I would like a Journal tab in Google. by Aniquel · · Score: 2, Informative

      that's what site: is for. ie, google for "site: citeseer.nj.nec.com search_text"

    2. Re:I would like a Journal tab in Google. by vectra14 · · Score: 1

      some publishers/organizations already let you do it, providing you're a subscriber. example: ACM or IEEE (together thats a database of >200 journals over 15 years!)

      of course, you do need to be a subscriber...

      i agree that a universal abstract/full text search would be nice, but many things have to happen for that to exist. possibly some kind of (UNIVERSAL) database where authors submit their published papers would be good. freeware, preferably, too. and with the customary free-publishing lag, it shouldn't interfere with the existing publications too much.

    3. Re:I would like a Journal tab in Google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      an information tab would be good too, sometimes all I want is information not commercial products. Othertimes I do want them. Also a university notes (but not scientific papers) would be really useful for students who learn entire courses via google!

    4. Re:I would like a Journal tab in Google. by sharkey · · Score: 1
      ...search full text all the refereed scientific journals?

      What about journals published without the benefit of a referee, or even an umpire?

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    5. Re:I would like a Journal tab in Google. by F34nor · · Score: 1

      They don't cost upwards of $100 an issue.

  34. Re:Interesting things at google. by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On the other side of things, Google stands to make a killing here. Google can sell a new class of ads to people like plumbers, who don't need a webpage.

    Back a few months ago I was developing software and the question arose as to whether or not it'd be best to charge for the software or to include ads in it (i.e. Kazaa). It was concluded that Kazaa like ads were too intrusive and text based ads would be appropriate. I emailed Google about whether or not their AdWords could be used in a software environment and they said not at the current moment, but its a possibility for the future. The guy was real nice and forwarded the idea onto some more people inside Google. Personally I think that text based ads would be perfect for situations where you can't open source your project, but you can't (or don't want to)charge for it either, but still want to make profit. For example, you could place a nice little unobtrusive text ad at the bottom of your menus or something. Who knows, maybe we'll see google coming out with this kind of feature in the future.
    Regards,
    Steve

  35. Mod parent up by Corbie · · Score: 1

    It would be a sad day to see Google go portal . . personally, I think it would be nice if they stuck with 2).

  36. Groups by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Informative
    However, since it opened in 1998, Google has added portal-style discussion groups and is testing a comparison shopping site called Froogle, as well as a news site.

    Is that really a "discussion groups" section as much as Google's newsgroup browser? It's not really a Google service as much as a Google interface to a web-wide service.
    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  37. Re:Interesting things at google. by cmacb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My guess is that they will end up looking a lot like Yahoo. I think Yahoo thinks that too, since they have already announced that they want to go head to head with Google's search technology. Yahoo surely hopes that by the time Google starts registering users they will be able to convince their existing user base that there is no need to register at Google too.

    I doubt it will be required to register at Google to continue to use their search. You can do a lot of things with Yahoo without setting up an ID there, it's just that you can't do anything that requires it to remember your settings, preferences, etc.

  38. This is no surprise by dmoore · · Score: 5, Funny
    According to the law of software envelopment:
    Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
  39. Email was inevitable for Google by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Ultimately this is the only long-term sticky application on the web. This is true for Microsoft and Yahoo, who leverage entire networks of services based on the id people initially used to get their email.

    What is sad is that most useful email addresses @google.com will be swallowed up within ten minutes of the service going live, so you'll be back to charlie055539833 or cooldude1975 as your userid there too.

    Get used to Google losing its agnostic stance after it goes public. Stop thinking of Google as a round-about and more as a parking lot.

    1. Re:Email was inevitable for Google by Zspdude · · Score: 1

      "What is sad is that most useful email addresses @google.com will be swallowed up within ten minutes of the service going live, so you'll be back to charlie055539833 or cooldude1975 as your userid there too."

      Sign me up!

      I don't even want to think about how much spam bob@hotmail.com gets...

      --
      What's in a Sig?
  40. I doubt it will take significant market share by metroid+composite · · Score: 1
    People stick with the service they're used to. I don't see any other search engine replacing Google as the leader anytime soon. I don't see any instant messaging program outdoing AIM (which is significant because it means most of the people I know use AIM). I don't see any free email service being larger than Hotmail anytime soon (despite how yahoomail may try).

    Call me cynical I guess...

  41. Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    About 2 months ago I noticed that Google was down for about 3 minutes.

    OMG. I thought that the world was coming to an end.

    1. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was probably a problem on your end, or at least your ISP's end.

  42. SlashGoogle? by headqtrs · · Score: 1

    Will they also let you comment on their news articles? Dupes inclusive?

  43. Prepare to be underhwelmed by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is left in webmail? The best Google can do is offermore default space than Yahoo and Hotmail. This will cost them money - Yahoo currently soaks $19 a year out of anyone wanting more than 4 MB. Maybe they can do filtering better, but I don't see them outdoing spamassassin etc. Ultimately its just another email address. The geek cachet will wear off quick after everyone you despise starts using googlemail.

    1. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Uber+Banker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because Google have a great brand for a straightforward trustworthy service. Maybe someone would like to swap their job_bloggs_1897216@hotmail.com address for job_bloggs@googlemail.com.

      The geek cachet will wear off quick after everyone you despise starts using googlemail

      Ah, but how about ...@linux.googlemail.com! And if everyone starts using googlemail, then they have won.

    2. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who says they aren't going to going to use spamassassin to filter the email?

    3. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by mosch · · Score: 1

      It's actually relatively simple to outdo spamassassin. Spamassassin uses a small fraction of the information available about a person's message traffic to determine it's legitimacy. I'm aware of at least one company that has a prototype product which provides far superior results, while using significantly fewer resources.

    4. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is left in webmail?

      What was left in search before Google started adding features? Until Google took over the market, people thought that search engines were just about finding relevent stuff and seeing a page full of adverts. Google proved that they could build a less advert-laden page, add features such as caching with keyword highlighting, translation, word/pdf conversion, etc, whilst still remaining lucrative.

      They've revolutionised news aggregation with their automatic classification and sorting. They are the definitive Usenet archive (mostly thanks to their Deja Vu buyout, but still). They have bought out Blogger and will almost certainly move things forward in that respect.

      The question isn't "what can they possibly offer?". The question is "why wouldn't you expect them to excel at this?".

    5. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Spamassassin uses a small fraction of the information available about a person's message traffic to determine it's legitimacy.

      That's because only a small fraction of the information is useful when determining legitimacy.

      I'm aware of at least one company that has a prototype product which provides far superior results, while using significantly fewer resources.

      Then please post a link or at least the company or product name.

    6. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Yes, Yahoo's 5 MB of text, compressible down to around 1MB, are sure expensive. Let's see: Disks are about $1/GB, so we're easily talking five tenths of a cent right there.

      It's probably better to pay the $19 and get, what, 19GB of storage space, right?

    7. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by XiChimos · · Score: 0

      Uh, hosting? Bandwidth? The actual servers? IT personel? The building? And so on and so forth.

      Why not start saying that harddrives cost the maker much less per GB?

    8. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by The+Mayor · · Score: 1

      Here's what I'd love to see.

      Start with free email. The free email provides a number of features. Start with disposable email addresses. These are email aliases where you can get an expiry date. Anything received after the expiry date at the disposable email address gets forwarded to /dev/null. Anything before then gets forwarded to your "real" email address. And, since they're the Gods at Google, they'll give us tons of free space...maybe 20MB...disk space is cheap these days. All with a unique and easy-to-remember email address. How about @googlemail.com. Couple that with Bayesian filtering to get rid of spam.

      Then add a few extra services for pay. Extra space. Full automatic encryption with a shared public key repository all using GPG. An anonymizer plug-in that mates with the disposable email address to create anonymous web browsing using a false 'nic'. Whatever else those guys can think of, too. Charge something reasonable for each additional feature...something like $10-20/year for each. I could see a day when the average broadband user pays $30/mo for their network service and $10/mo for additional google services. But the poor college student still gets a good deal for free. And Google gets those customers whether they buy their networking services from Time Warner, SBC, or AOL. That could justify Google's massive net worth when they go public.

      I'd pay for some of those services. I trust Google. Combine all that with Google's reliable follow-through on all their endeavours and I bet Google, if anyone, can deliver.

      --
      --Be human.
    9. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by You're+All+Wrong · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "becoming a full-fledged portal,"

      Don't rely on them. If they are going to become a portal, then tey're fucked, just likehe rest of them. Did no-one learn from the last 5 years?

      YAW.

      --
      Your head of state is a corrupt weasel, I hope you're happy.
    10. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Full automatic encryption with a shared public key repository all using GPG.

      That would be awesome. I've recently added a filter to my mail client to automatically let any signed messages into my inbox. I'm encouraging people I know to sign their messages so that I don't have to worry about my spam filter marking them as false positives. It will also prevent people I don't know who still want to contact me from ending up in the spam bin. The only problem is, most people have no clue how to sign an e-mail message. If Google offered that and made it easy, that would be wonderful.

    11. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by salimma · · Score: 1
      Yahoo currently soaks $19 a year out of anyone wanting more than 4 MB

      Ehm, actually, Yahoo is still free with POP/SMTP access if you live outside the US :)

      The annoying thing is that mails from the 'Bulk Mail' folder are still getting downloaded, unlike GMX.{net/de} where you have to specifically move suspected spams back to the Inbox to download them.

      Both approaches have disadvantages; I just wish it could be made a user option!

      --
      Michel
      Fedora Project Contribut
    12. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by BeDe · · Score: 1

      Considering that Yahoo! and Google will be entering in a pretty fierce competition (at least what the guys from Yahoo said), i think this decision from Google is pretty normal.
      The good thing will be, at least in the beginnning,
      Google must come up with a good offer: more space,
      POP access, good filtering.
      I hope this will work from them!

    13. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Because Google have a great brand for a straightforward trustworthy service. Maybe someone would like to swap their job_bloggs_1897216@hotmail.com address for job_bloggs@googlemail.com.

      You're a genius...
      Unfortunately I don't think you'll ever be reachable at genius@googlemail.com -
      job_bloggs_1897216@googlemail.com seems more like it.

      >Ah, but how about ...@linux.googlemail.com! And if everyone starts using googlemail, then they have won.
      Do you think folks @linux.googlemail.com be able to access their email using Windows clients?

    14. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sophos Pure Message?

      http://www.sophos.com/

    15. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Zagadka · · Score: 1

      Yes, the bulk mail folder is still downloaded, but messages from the bulk mail folder have an extra header. I think it's "X-Yahoo-Bulk". You can then filter (eg: with procmail) those messages into a separate folder.

      BTW, the POP/SMTP access isn't free in Canada anymore either.

    16. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by salimma · · Score: 1
      That I am doing, but it would be nice to have the option to save bandwith and not download them. I don't mind logging in to Yahoo once a day to do a cursory check for misidentified non-spams.

      Incidentally, mail relay admins need to start verifying sender addresses. Some Russian bozo started sending Russian spams in my name a few days ago, as evidenced from the dozens of rejected messages a day.

      Good thing I do not correspond with Russian addresses often, my Yahoo account is probably blacklisted there by now.

      --
      Michel
      Fedora Project Contribut
    17. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by sgtron · · Score: 1

      Right now the bet webmail is actually in Germany with GMX. It offers great spam handling and even lets you use their pop servers for free.

      You just have to learn a little German first is all.

      --
      No todo lo que es oro brilla
    18. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by Zagadka · · Score: 1

      This has happened to me in the past as well. The worst part was that Yahoo started filtering mail that was really from me! A few of my firends weren't getting any email I sent them, so I asked them to check their Bulk Mail folder. They found my emails, and I asked them to mark them as "not spam". That seems to have worked, at least for the people I know. I think Yahoo adds an email to a personal whitelist if you say it isn't spam though, so my email may still get filtered if I send to someone else. Lucky for me I don't really use my Yahoo email address anymore -- except for filling out online registrations. heh.

    19. Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed by salimma · · Score: 1

      I use it for mailing lists as well - only personal friends get my personal email address. Some lists do not hide addresses in their web archives, and most people on lists use POP to download their mail anyway, so there's no big deal.

      --
      Michel
      Fedora Project Contribut
  44. Bad move by Krafty+Koder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it's a bad bad move on google's part. The infrastructure needed (and the sysadmin) to provide a robust, spam-free , web based email system is of a sheer magnitude greater than just being pure search.
    For starters , the tech support will ramp up ,and add to google's costs. And Googlemail will become the numero uno target for spammers.
    If I were the Google founders, I quite honestly wouldn't bother - it's to much hassle and dilutes the Google "brand".
    But then again, the IPO is coming up, so having a "webmail" component is an easy sell to "analysts" in Five Points ...ahem... Wall Street I mean.

    1. Re:Bad move by FreshFunk510 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You talk about Googlemail costs but what about profits?

      I'm sure there would be advertising on Googlemail too and that it would be at least AS popular as advertising on Google search.

      --


      "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
  45. The likely future... by blunte · · Score: 2, Interesting

    might be similar to what you describe, but you left out something important.

    The crawling that was done for you was silently biased toward Google advertising clients.

    And the travel suggestions have been biased toward Google advertising clients.

    Oh, and the Froogle selections also were biased toward paying ad customers.

    Maybe that's all ok (legally and economically), but it's probably not what you would expect, and as such you'll be working from bad data to make your decisions.

    --
    .sigs are for post^Hers.
    1. Re:The likely future... by jacoplane · · Score: 1

      that's not really fair on google. so far they've kept ads well seperated from actual content, and their page-rank system does not favor google customers.

  46. no by relrelrel · · Score: 1

    is this just Google turning itself into Yahoo!?

    I simple want a search engine, and are yet to use anything else from Google. If I was them, I'd probably prefer to start these things up under a different name, at the moment most of their stuff is hidden in Google.com which most people won't find unless they go huntin`.

    --
    --- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
  47. We call this "spam" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Come on, agents have been around for a long time and ultimately they end up being overrated and annoying.

  48. blogger.com by richard_za · · Score: 1

    Didn't google acquire , how come I haven't seen much integration.

  49. Pipe dream "what if": by mcc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What would be interesting is if what Google did was release spam blocking software.

    It seems to me that blocking spam, and weeding out google-exploit spam search results, are the same sort of text processing / arms race sort of problem. Research on the latter, which is what Google is working on right now, will probably lead to techniques helpful in the former. So if they're looking at expanding into email, it seems like that would be a likely area for them to expand into...

    Of course, given, they aren't right now doing a good JOB of filtering out the google-exploit spam results, but I expect they'll unveil some kind of brandnamed technology attempting to deal with the problem sometime shortly before MSN's search engine is released...

    I just hope if they offer email addresses, they offer some, you know, better domans. I'm sorry, I don't want to be "mcc@google.com".

  50. Nothing here by metalhed77 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You only have to register for things that have some business angle to them. Registering for adwords makes sense. Registering to post on google groups makes sense. Registering to use an email address, well you kind of need to. I sincerely doubt that you'll need to log in to search or anything though. My mom gets confused enough trying to log in to windows XP. As far as portal goes it looks like they track people based more on what they're viewing at the present time than historical stats.

    --
    Photos.
  51. This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal by reidbold · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Go to google.com, then go to yahoo.com (if you're using a good browser, view them in tabs side by side). You'll notice Google has their search bar prominently in the middle of the page, surrounded by 13 links, 4 of them are for searching, 1 for the news service, 3 setup options. Also, out of the way at the bottom are links to info about the company.

    Now look at yahoo, the search bar is at the top (good) but there are probably over 100 links to all of the various parts of yahoo arranged in a, *gasp*, portal like fashion.

    It seems obvious that for google, searching remains job 1, while for yahoo, searching competes with the dozen other features they offer.

    --
    -Reid
    1. Re:This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      perhaps you'd prefer this

    2. Re:This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal by smart.id · · Score: 1

      I bet he would prefer that. But that's not what you see when you go to the domain's main page, and that page looks "heavily inspired" by someone else...

      --
      blog & fiction: jd87
    3. Re:This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal by subsailor · · Score: 1

      Funny how much that looks like Google's Main Page...and how much Yahoo's Toolbar Page looks like Google's...down to the features (i.e., popup blocking).

    4. Re:This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know the difference between 'is' and 'becoming'?

      Fuck you dumb shit

  52. Re:Interesting things at google. by jeffkjo1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    In fact, they could possibly host a minimal web page for those kind of advertisers who just want to show some simple text and services.

    You mean like the yellowpages?

  53. End of Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think that just about time Google goes IPO, it will be just a footnote in the history of the internet.

    Already, google search results are MUCH WORSE than they were just a few months ago. There is so much fake ranking trickery and strange re-ranking changes on google's part that the results are nearly useless for many searches.

    It's a real opening for competing search engines now that Google has taken their eys off the ball and they are wasting money playing with Froogle and news.google.com

    These guys are so impressed with themselves that they are going to be very suprised when they have no money left, or worse, they are forced by their IPO backers to start even more foolish online projects -- iTunes powered by Google anyone?

    1. Re:End of Google? by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      news.google is a great service. I can't imagine it takes up much developer time either. It's pretty much written and done.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  54. Re:Interesting things at google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    take a look at Overture -- they sell a service that does exactly what you are looking for. It's easy to get keyword directed text adds included into your html dynamically from an overture server.

    it's not expensive either.

  55. free million dollar idea for google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    offer porn. you could call it 'ogle'

    1. Re:free million dollar idea for google... by sapped · · Score: 3, Funny

      When they launched their Image service I suggested they call it Go Ogle.

      Nothing ever came of it. sigh.

  56. Even better... by Poulpy · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... they also registered the following domain names:
    googleporn.com
    googlesucks.com

    Can we expect better content from Google soon?

    More seriously, when they register domain names, I believe it's more to prevent abuses than anything else...
    There are more than 1800 domain names registered containing the google keyword.

  57. A bit disturbing... by SilentT · · Score: 1

    One of the things I like most about Google is that it's not one of those portals like Yahoo that's loaded down with crap I'm not interested in.

  58. Me@google.com by shubert1966 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I found a cool List of Google Features that you may or may no be aware of. Check it out.

    I have never had anything but praise for Google. The "Less is More" design was an oasis compared to other yahoos. However, I have always had a Yahoo account because it is free. I'll jump to google in a heartbeat ~ as long as it's free.

    Google has created more innovative search features than anyone. And they just keep doing it. People have discussed the impending or eventual doom because of new offerings from MS and Yahoo, but the mindshare is with Google and the service just rocks/folks!

    I have only 1 suggestiong for Google, and that is to let me up the number results returned to 250 or 500. Other than that, I'm on the bandwagon!

    --
    Stuff that matters.
    1. Re:Me@google.com by CGP314 · · Score: 1

      I have only 1 suggestiong for Google, and that is to let me up the number results returned to 250 or 500. Other than that, I'm on the bandwagon!

      If you need to go to the 500th result, I don't think you are using the tool the right way.


      --
      In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

      American Weblog in London

    2. Re:Me@google.com by zobier · · Score: 1

      100 is still a long list of results

      --
      Me lost me cookie at the disco.
  59. I checked out techbargains by UrgleHoth · · Score: 1

    And found it funny that CDW advertises there.

    --

    Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
  60. Googlemail.com by NemosomeN · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/114712. htm Possibly the REAL reason they registered it... --Proudly not RTFA'ing since 1999

    --
    I hate grammar Nazi's.
    1. Re:Googlemail.com by Eythian · · Score: 1

      From the link you give:

      12. Google is the owner of numerous Untied States trademark applications for the mark GOOGLE including the following representative examples.

      What is it they know that we don't?

  61. Re:Interesting things at google. by attercoppe · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's just deja vou, but I'm sure I have read something similar to this (I think on Google's site) regarding specialized ads, even mentioning plumbers as an example. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

    Of course, this is all made even weirder by the fact that I emailed Google a few months ago and asked them if they had any free email service in the works...I highly doubt that I gave them the idea, but it's still kind of strange...

    --
    Hardware Geeks Do It With The Covers Off!
  62. Re:Interesting things at google. by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1
    My guess is that they will end up looking a lot like Yahoo.
    Dear lord no! I switched from Altavista to Yahoo, not because of better search results, but because of the clean, ad-free, fast-loading front page. I've never looked elsewhere since.

    Still, it could be worse... they could end up looking like the ICQ home page, gaaaah.
    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  63. Re:Interesting things at google. by poulbailey · · Score: 3, Informative

    > Back a few months ago I was developing software [...] I emailed Google about whether or not their AdWords
    > could be used in a software environment and they said not at the current moment

    That's odd since the Opera browser has Google ads.

  64. Re:Interesting things at google. by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1
    I switched from Altavista to Yahoo
    Make that Google instead of Yahoo, of course. Damn my hastiness (and damn the lame anti-flood feature while I'm at it).
    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  65. On second thought... by MissMarvel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... maybe trying to do more is a bad thing. Diversity breeds excellence. To site the rather colorful discussion on yesterdays thread... Women love to shop. Alas, it is true! Wouldn't it be awful is there was only one manufacturer of women's clothing? Talk about cramping our style!

    So Google... stick with what you do best and just keep improving it. It's better to do one thing well than to do several things mediocre.

    1. Re:On second thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Insightful? This is, sadly, the same kind of nonsense I get from using a Markov chain program to rearrange formerly meaningful replies to this story into gibberish...

      Why the hell would anyone mod that sort of crap up? I doubt it's even a human posting that...

  66. Uh-oh by r_j_prahad · · Score: 1

    This means they'll have to pay SCO even more money! How will SCO keep up with all this burgeoning Linux progress? It must be simply overwhelming having to retract and re-write all those low-level blackmail letters. (grin)

  67. A new email/portal needs something catchy by Effofx · · Score: 1

    (1) Spamoogle
    (2) Emoogle
    (3) Mailoogle
    (4) Messageoogle
    (5) Peopleoogle
    (6) Netoogle

    (7 -> infinity) *oogle

    The FSM that accepts these wonderful names MUST have some significance.

    --
    - Gentlemen, start your hybrids!
  68. Re:Interesting things at google. by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

    Are we talking Windows here? If so, just embed a 468x60 IE (shudder) HTML control, and push AdWords into it. Opera, for example, is able to do it just fine.

  69. Why do people on slashdot seem to like google? by rhetoric · · Score: 1, Troll

    Given Google Inc's collecting of obscene amounts of information about each user, and their refusal to give any reason why or tell anyone what they are doing with it, their hiring of government spooks, etc..

    --

    "where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
    1. Re:Why do people on slashdot seem to like google? by rhetoric · · Score: 1

      I forgot to mention that I do understand to some extent why people like google, and when I use it myself I simply use this proxy, so that at least I can keep some of my privacy.

      --

      "where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
  70. Re:Interesting things at google. by skzbass · · Score: 1

    as the the registering thing, i take it you mean will the use have to pay for the service. I hope not. The hassle I had to go throught when Yahoo shut down service for people that were using @yahoo.com as a POP forwarding mail accout is not something I want to go through again. If google supports POP then yahoo can suck it. im goin to google.

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  71. Well Actually by Brainiac252 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I really think that there is a lot left in webmail besides additional space. I started using a service called Shadango.com 6 months ago and it easily has more features then my old hotmail account. First of all I can check all my pop/imap accounts there from one easy interface. They provide you with a file manager, disposable addresses, and I have like 20MB of space. It's frickin' great. Yes a lot has been done in email, but there are still a lot of avenues that google can explore.

    I keep seeing tunnels at the end of all these lights
    Brian

    1. Re:Well Actually by Stile+65 · · Score: 1

      There's also MailVault. I was a beta tester for it a couple of years ago, and it was a web-based e-mail service with PGP encryption. Very neat. It's been sold now, so I'm not sure what's happening with it, but it was pretty awesome.

      --
      I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
    2. Re:Well Actually by soothsayer491 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I have to say that I used to be a member of this service called Bluebottle, it did everything that shadango does and more....even POP access, then it got abused to no end and now it sucks! But yea so now I'm on the shadango train as well it's solid. Here is what i like:
      • You can check all POP/IMAP accounts from one interface(even yahoo, hotmail, and aol(and they're filtered!))
      • Realtime access to your IMAP accts
      • 20MB of space for each address you have
      • Calender
      • You can make "disposable" addresses
      • The customer service they have is unbeatable...unlike the big corps like yahoo!
      • There's no annoying ads on the site!
      • Lastly, they keep making improvements, very active development

      I just hope that it can stick around and not go down the road that bluebottle did!

      That's my two cents

      Willie
    3. Re:Well Actually by Placido · · Score: 1

      For even more features check out http://www.fastmail.fm

      The best part is that it allows you to BOUNCE (yes that's right, bounce) messages after you read them.

      --

      Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
      Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
    4. Re:Well Actually by RKBA · · Score: 1

      I took a look at the main Fastmail web site and was going to subscribe to either the "Full" or "Enhanced" service, but I had a question about the difference between the two plans because there is a discrepancy between their detailed description and the "Sign Up" description. I sent an email to their "Support" email address (support_AT_fastmail.fm) and got back an email saying I had to jump through some hoops before they would accept email from me.

      They just lost a customer, because if I have to go through that kind of crap just to ask a simple question about their service, then I want nothing to do with them.

    5. Re:Well Actually by Placido · · Score: 1

      That's a shame actually cause the system is pretty good. Obviously their cutomer service needs work. I swapped when I got pissed off with all the junk I was getting in hotmail so didn't really need more than the free service.

      Maybe one of the other webmail systems will work for you?

      --

      Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
      Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
  72. Of course... by skzbass · · Score: 2, Interesting

    there's the timeless classic of when you do a "i'm feeling lucky" of "miserable failure".

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  73. IPO by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

    In light of the impending IPO from Google, this is an obvious, but sad, move.

    Sure, they could add GoogleMail, and not really change anything. You see a link on their search page, maybe. That's it. But trying to become more of a portal will screw it up. Has any former search engine sucessfully turned itself into a sticky portal? Yahoo? AltaVista? Go? I can't thnk of one. The DotBust had a lot to do with those, but maybe they were a part of causing it.

    Ah, Google, we knew ye well...

  74. Google by AcmeShells.com · · Score: 0

    Google is a good thing, They don't push stuff on you like others, not really any tv ads etc.. Their adwords is excellent.. THANK YOU GOOGLE..

    Anyways Use it if you want, if not then they don't push it on you like uhm Yahoo!

    I would signup for google mail, if they offered it, and I would even pay for a portal. Google > *

    --

    AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
  75. Google has flaws - take googlewashing by richard_za · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google does have flaws too! Take a look at the googlewashing of miserable failure it brings up the official biography of George Bush as the first link. More coverage of this issue can be found on Searchenginewatch.com.

  76. Google: the next microsoft by Serveert · · Score: 0, Troll

    Except Google is smarter and more sly.

    --
    2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
  77. Re:Interesting things at google. by fejikso · · Score: 1

    pervasive registration for their various services (Adsense, Adwords),

    Well... at least for me, it is very difficult to imagine a registration-less service as Adwords.

    It as silly as saying, I hate Yahoo! Mail because they ask you to register for their service. Come on!

  78. Hey! So that's what happened to.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GoogleGEAR : ]

    I hate their new ZipZoomBallsAndFrank anyway.

  79. Free Shadango Account? by Gorillaka · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was a alpha tester on Shadango about a year ago actually. When I signed up I used "alphatest" in the promotional code box and I got a free paid account. It might still work, definitely a great service.

    Cheers,

    Alan Steele

  80. Re:Interesting things at google. by Electrum · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nice repost of comment #7034877.

  81. WARNING: post is plagiarized by Gzip+Christ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The parent post was copied verbatim from a Slashdot post from last year. The parent poster is karma whoring. Check out his posting history for other examples of this.

    1. Re:WARNING: post is plagiarized by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm shocked and apalled that someone would copy and paste posts on /. I'm more shocked that you found that old post lol.

    2. Re:WARNING: post is plagiarized by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >I'm shocked and apalled that someone would copy and paste posts on /. I'm more shocked that you found that old post lol.

      I'm not at all - unfortunately scum-ness is a common thread many open source fans (the other half is altruistic).
      Copyright of /. posts belongs to original posters, I assume. I'd love to see this punk jailed for IPR violation, hahahaha....

  82. specific applications, yes; portal, no by superfast-scooter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i hope they seriously do not entertain thoughts of being a portal. that's what everyone lost out with a few years ago, and things are no different now. let the google labs keep working on specific projects, and offer them as different services, as they do now; instead of becoming a yahoo.

  83. Re:Interesting things at google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No, the ?-key of the person he copied the post word for word from must have been jammed.

  84. GoogleMail by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    is already in use, albeit in a different form, than a regular email service.

    CapeScience built an email interface to the search engine. Send an email, get your Google search results back via email. Lots of places around are calling it GoogleMail

  85. More tech-clueless journalism... by beni1207 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    According to the article:

    By moving into e-mail -- the Web's most-used program -- Google would open up a huge new market...

    Sigh...where to start? How do journalists charged with tech reporting at a major news publication not know the difference between a "program" and an application of a technology, not to mention the difference between the Web and the Internet?

  86. Froogle by Tritoph · · Score: 0

    Froogle's the best. I love it. Saved me $10-$30 when I was looking for some Arctic Silver 5.

  87. Expand to live by FreshFunk510 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem is that in almost any industry that is constantly changing, you have to be ready to make additions, deletions or shifts in business in order to survive. Sometimes staying in one spot can lead to your death (i.e. in the 80/90s it was companies like DEC).

    While I do think Google would be wise to improving to what they do best, the truth is that there are other competitors quickly catching up to search. The prudent business move would be to use their leverage in search and branch out (but avoid from spreading themselves too thin).

    --


    "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
  88. hopelessly misinformed? by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 1
    look where yahoo is today.
    are you for real?

    maybe they don't have as much street cred as they did in 1997 but they're not exactly hurting for cash either! regardless of whether you think they're overvalued, they are the touchstone of a lot of people's internet hopes! (to the tune of $32BB).

    a lot of people are in for a rude awakening when google goes from being "really cool!" to "fiscally accountable!"

    keep a close eye on google's privacy policy about 6 months after their insider trading blackout lifts ...

    --

    There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
  89. Googlemail by Funkeriffic+Toad · · Score: 1

    The question is, will "Googlemail" be pronounced GOO-guhl-mail (as one would expect), or goo- GLEE -mail? The second way has the benefit of rhyming with "email."

    Shall I fax foo to you?
    Naw, goo-GLEE-mail to me!

  90. Re:Interesting things at google. by MrBlint · · Score: 0

    I'd be interested to know how you knew that.

    --
    That's very perceptive of you Mr Stapleton and rather unexpected in a G Major
  91. Re:Interesting things at google. by Inhibit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    started to roll out a pervasive registration for their various services (Adsense, Adwords)

    I should hope they have registration for those two services. For anyone whom doesn't know those are both back-end advertising services offered by google. Adsense is a way to post ads on websites and Adwords is a service to serve up your ads to google's site and Adsense users.

    It'd be pretty hard to pay out on the Adsense or charge for the Adwords without registration.. and there's no sense in registering twice if you'd like to use both. I don't see this as being very ominous.

    --
    You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
  92. No matter by stealth.c · · Score: 1

    If Google goes Yahoo on us, we still have Turbo10.

  93. Re:Interesting things at google. by osssmkatz · · Score: 1

    You are also welcome to embed the Mozilla control into it. Opera probably embeds itself. --Sam

  94. Google's offer is no suprise by gen2002 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To me , The fact that google provides an E-mail service isn't a suprise but a natural step of evulotion as a great search engine.
    Most search engines such as Lycos , Yahoo and Excite started offering E-mail service when they reached certain size. Actually I think that it was just before thier IPO . So Google actualy walking in the step of its formers.

    1. Re:Google's offer is no suprise by FreshFunk510 · · Score: 1

      Interesting.

      I wonder if you could provide an analagous sentiment to search, itself. i.e. before Google, we had Lycos, Yahoo and Excite. I'm sure if you posted a story about "yet another search engine" on Slashdot, you would've gotten a bunch of naysayers talking about how that's the last thing we need.

      Now all the naysayers are saying that Google is destroying itself by adding email -- correction, by a RUMOR that they are adding email.

      Come on people.

      --


      "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
  95. Amazon... by Steveftoth · · Score: 1

    does have an intelligent agent that offers you susgestions based on your personal amazon.com browsing profile.

    Yes, when shopping for say baby toys it's going to give you more baby toys that other people had looked for but it might also give you baby toys that you might like, and this list comes from a search that uses your browsing profile as an input.

    Amazon is trying to give you reccomendations that you will buy. It's an active solution to an active problem ( shopping).

    What the parent poster is talking about (more so) is for people who goto say ebay ( since it's a better example) and search everyday for the newest auctions on Mac Classic computers. Get's the updates and then logs off. If google could store a search that you want ( say on all sites about Mac Classic computers) and send you a list of updates to that like ( once a week,month,day etc..) Then would that not be useful? Rather then having to goto Google every week and doing a similar search all the time.

    Take that to the next level where Google can do this search and also send you searches that are about information related to your search for you to look at later (via email). It could be useful, course it might not. Googling right now is an interactive process whereby you start with a simple query ( 'ducks' ) and narrow down to a specific thing you want ( 'hockey players on the mighty ducks' ). Adding and removing keywords until you get the site you want.

    1. Re:Amazon... by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 1

      No, I don't think that's useful. The push model of information delivery on the web failed for a good reason. People like to get their information when they want it, not when someone else decides to send it to them. You won't save any time by having an intelligent agent do a google search for you, because the search takes 1.2 seconds. The long part is sifting through the results, and an intelligent agent isn't going to do any better at that than Google, so you'll still end up doing it. Intelligent agents won't magically be able to sort sites more relevantly than Google can.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  96. Re:Interesting things at google. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'd be interested to know how you knew that.

    That the ?-key was stuck? It was the repetition.

    Or that the post had been copied? It was the repetition...

  97. I never thought by e_armadillo · · Score: 0

    that "Google Eyes" would b in the title of a serious discussion.

    Go figure.

  98. allready had webmail - deja. by illumen · · Score: 1

    Google used to have a webemail service. Called deja. Then they canabalised it and made it all googley, losing the email service(and other bits).

  99. Google will soon be The Big Media player by kallistiblue · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Their NewsAlert feature allows people to get exactly what they want delivered right to their e-mail.

    This opens the door for the dream of big media, a targeted list of people that are actively searching for a specific type of information. To make this even sweeter, they don't even pay for their content.

    This will be one of the Top Innovations of 2004.
    This is HUGE idea.

    I hope that this stops Google's talks with the investment banks. I think going public would be a huge mistake. This comes from personal experience. If they go public, I fear they will become another Micro$oft, forced to chase after ever increasing earnings targets.

    That is not a good situation to be in.

    --
    Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
  100. Real world example of Google suckage by DeadSea · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I did this search about a month ago, reported the results to Google and it still sucks donkey balls:

    Google Search: "monty python" "usage of fuck"

    Yes it is a "porny" search term, but the site that has listing 1-300 demonstrates that it is possible (and easy) to really truly spam google.

    It looks like some enterprising young porn pusher, has made a page generator. They put very similar pages on a variety of porny domain names then linked them all together. Google sucks it in and slurps it up like you wouldn't believe.

    1. Re:Real world example of Google suckage by Walterk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Note, that famous little mp3 is not made by Monty Python.

    2. Re:Real world example of Google suckage by sparkz · · Score: 1

      Some totally irrelevant stuff, some porn, but as Walterk has pointed out, the article you're thinking of is not by Monty Python.
      As a Python fan, I didn't have any idea what you were talking about - thanks Walter for translating his scrambled brain into coherence.
      Google aren't responsible for translating your incorrect ideas into fact.

      --
      Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
    3. Re:Real world example of Google suckage by DeadSea · · Score: 1

      Google folks must read slashdot. The problem is now fixed.

    4. Re:Real world example of Google suckage by DeadSea · · Score: 1

      Google folks must read slashdot. The problem is now fixed. There were about 300 additional search results all from a related set of domains.

  101. Re: Google going down by grahamsz · · Score: 1

    Google as a whole rarely seems to go down, but since it runs on lots of commodity linux boxes some of them must surely crash sometimes.

    Due to the distributed nature of google, if a single machine went down then i'm sure the worse that could happen is that some possible search results aren't returned for a query - not something you'd really notice.

    Likewise i've rarely noticed hotmail being down, but i've noticed times when i cant get to my account. I'm not sure how google could avoid having a similar problem.

  102. KUPO! Lawsuit time! by gatesh8r · · Score: 1

    Somehow I don't think Google would like receiving a letter off Mognet saying they're being sued.

    (For those who don't know, "Mognet" was in Final Fantasy IX)

    --
    Karma whorin' since 1999
  103. If Google does launch a webmail service... by Quattro+Vezina · · Score: 1

    I hope they use the same plain, barebones, simplistic look on their webmail service that they use for their search engine. One thinga I hate about Yahoo! Mail was the overload of junk and heavy graphics on their main page.

    Hmm...if Google does do what I suggested, it'll look kinda like FastMail.FM. And I dumped by Yahoo! address for FastMail.FM a while ago, and I imagine more have done the same...this will be a good move on Google's part.

    --
    I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
  104. 1800 possible domain names? by SlashDotAgent · · Score: 1

    Like those sites that let you choose which e-mail domain you want, perhaps google-mail will let you choose which one of those domains you want for your e-mail at google?

  105. PS dont know if you noticed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    but google finally added click-through links on their search results. change is usually not good, i find.

    granted, this is one case where it is a tradeoff... theoretically the click-throughs are going to improve the rankings, but who knows if it'll work. we definitely know it'll slow things down.

  106. How do they make money? by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's all well and good to give 20 MB of space, great service, etc with no ads, but... where does the money come from?

    If they're not making any money, they'll either have to change their policies or go down in flames.

    --
    I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
  107. Pure speculation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before we go off all half cocked and start arguing about what Google's new portal means... oh, too late.

    Well, bear in mind that according to the article, when Google bought DejaNews and started carrying Usenet, they "added portal-style discussion groups". So I don't think the author is entirely clued in.

  108. Re: Search Result count = 500 by shubert1966 · · Score: 1

    If you need to go to the 500th result, I don't think you are using the tool the right way.

    Thanks . . .

    , but I like to look at a lot of pages. Not everything's been published, tagged for meta-info, or become 'popular' to the engines. New stuff all the time. I don't always search for specific things, but also for multiple contexts. I could use the "-" operator to distill the results, but oftentimes there are so many returned - that it's just as fast or faster to wade through the raw junk, than to add more operators and arguments.

    --
    Stuff that matters.
  109. MOD parent up... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    troll not be this

  110. Re:Interesting things at google. by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

    Well, I was being a bit Windows-centric, seeing as the developer wanted to release it as a closed-source app. The chances are good that he was developing with an MS IDE/compiler, so it would make it damn easy to embed IE into it. BTW, at least on Linux, Opera embeds itself for the ad.

  111. Re:Interesting things at google. by PReDiToR · · Score: 1

    ICQ has a homepage?

    what manner of madness is this? Surely ICQ is the distributor of a free IM client, and as such you already know that you only need to append /download to the URL to get what you are after?

    Wouldn't it be nice if all websites follwed this standard?

    --

    Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
  112. Surprising... by euxneks · · Score: 1

    That they didn't choose something like "gmail".. that would be pretty cool... me@gmail.com..

    Checking in on this, it seems like gmail.com has already been taken though...

    --
    in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
  113. What is Google? by fulldecent · · Score: 1
    Google is a private company that lives and breathes algorithms. If anyone is going to be filtering my mail, let it be them. Hackers getting around hash-busters, and their lame deformed HTML tag insertion... can't compete with Google. Google already fights people trying to spam the port-80 internet (those fucking linkfarms!), and we're all thankful.

    If you're going to trust someone, trust Google. Don't trust a company that provides you with e-mail, and within a day you're getting Viagra ads, even though you never gave out your address!

    Obviously they are trying to compete with (preempt) Yahoo!'s new extension to mail headers. And if they think they can do, I think they'll be the ones to use the most open standards in the precess.

    Note: many of my opinions may change if Google is traded publicly, as fat-cats will never understand how a developer can rewrite perfectly good code because s/he can't sleep at night knowing s/he didn't implement the best algorithm.

    --

    -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

  114. email is the killer app by MrLinuxHead · · Score: 1

    Email is the killer app of the Internet.

    --
    I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
  115. Why, Google? by d4v3v1l · · Score: 1

    Do we really want our precioussss Google becoming a bloated Portal?
    Not me at any rate...
    That was Yahoos mistake...
    - NULL SIG EXCEPTION:: END OF POST -

    --
    - 1337poll.tk - check it out!
  116. you didn't misread it by alizard · · Score: 1
    the only instant messaging applications with video and voice (for calling Grandma in England or getting a little naughty).

    Oh god, I misread that "or" as an "and".

    You didn't misread it. He mistyped it.

  117. If google sucks, what search engine should we use? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really would like to replace google with another engine as my default search tool.

    But which one? Is there one at all?

    -Immacolata

  118. You love this, you love that, you miss the point. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Yahoo became irrelevant as a search engine (to the point that they subcontracted that capability to Google) when they forgot about it and began to cram stuff on their originally innovative search engine.

    That is a lesson that Google should not ignore: they can diversify in whatever they want, having all your eggs in one baskt , specially in the IT business, is sheer madness, but they should make sure that the breadwinner (the search engine) is improved and kept clean and apart from any other ventures.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  119. Yikes! by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    I have still to work on a machine with email without a web browser.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  120. Google doesn't it again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google will fail with email just like it failed with news and Google Answers (anyone been to that site in the past year?).

    Here's why:
    o In the coming year, there isn't much that Google can do better than Yahoo (there's something, but not much, they've gotta lots of catching up to do)
    o Hotmail is moving towards integration of OS, mail, IM, PDA and mobile phone, just look at latest version of Hotmail.... It would take Google 3-4 years to match that convenience.
    How many millions want to copy-and-paste their Hotmail address book entries?

  121. Visual search tools: http://www.groxis.com/service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check this out:
    www.groxis.com/service/grok/g_prod_demo.html

    More links to visual tools:
    http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum16/725. htm

    I don't know if Google will be able to charge those folks, but in case noone noticed, search engine technology's lifecycle is about 3-4 years...

    --not buyin' Guuuugle IPO either!

  122. Google is EVIL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google still gets good press but the future is clear Google will be hated as Micro$oft (too bad google doesnt have an "s" i could have replaced with a $ sign :)

  123. Warning: Misleading site with an agenda. by hkmwbz · · Score: 1
    Everyone, be warned that Google Watch was started after Daniel Brandt (Everyman on Slashdot) felt that his obscure little site which mentioned Donald Rumsfeld on one page wasn't ranked highly enough, and that his page should have come before the official Rumsfeld bio at DefenseLink, as well as other more important and informative sites.

    The leftist Brandt was so angry that he started his site, Google Watch, on which he writes several direct lies and misleading statements about Google. It is his personal vendetta against Google because Google actually works and gives his obscure page a low rank.

    I have pointed out his lies several times on Slashdot, so I will not repeat them here.

    Before reading Brandt's lies, please visit Google Watch Watch, which also clarifies the situation, and far more eloquently than I am able to.

    --
    Clever signature text goes here.
    1. Re:Warning: Misleading site with an agenda. by rhetoric · · Score: 1

      Point well taken, still you've only attacked the arguer, not the arguements made on the site (some of which are VERY valid).

      --

      "where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
    2. Re:Warning: Misleading site with an agenda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The arguer is attacked because his "arguments" are pure lies and deception.

  124. Re:If google sucks, what search engine should we u by CZInterruptus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Teoma has an algorithm which is not as susceptible to link/link text spam as Google. Its results are used by Ask Jeeves but adulterated with sponsored listings and trusted feed results. AllTheWeb has a big index and a pretty good algorithm, although it's been neglected somewhat by its new owner Yahoo. I'd love to see a serious open-source effort take on Mammon, but the server farms and bandwidth required seem prohibitive.