I'm pretty sure this is a joke (the PR's a giveaway). But I also wouldn't be surprised if Google are releasing something related to email shortly at local.google.com. This would make sense given their recent release of email-based information services such as the Web Alerts (a poorer cousin of Google Alert) which followed their previous News Alerts. Maybe a central location for managing Google-based email notifications?
Brilliant idea. I suspect that mouseover magnification would be all over today's GUIs, if they hadn't been designed in a time when it wasn't computationally possible. Apple's Expose is a kind of OS-level implementation, but only for finding lost windows - not for general use.
Interesing... the Web Alerts looks like a simple version of the Google Alert service, based on Google's Web APIs - is this the first example of Google drawing inspiration from the developer community they've built?
Google do seem to be covering all their bases. Their release of the Web Alerts doesn't seem to stop them supporting the efforts of Google Alert (which uses Google's Web APIs). On Google Alert's FAQs it says "Google has encouraged us to develop, and agreed to let us charge for, a premium Google Alert service that will be released shortly."
If Google have copied it, that would be strange - on the Google Alert FAQs, it says "Google has generously provided Google Alert with a high-capacity Web APIs key for our needs, and agreed to the use of the Google Alert name and googlealert.com domain. Google has encouraged us to develop, and agreed to let us charge for, a premium Google Alert service that will be released shortly." Weird, huh?
Google also announced their web alerts at the same time. Looks interesting, but not as feature complete as Google Alert which has been around for some time.
Google Alert is another small business that Google might be making or breaking. According to their news page, Google Alert has "entered into preliminary negotiations with Google with the goal of offering a premium web tracking service for commercial use".
If this could be combined with a much more frequent Google web trawl, the path would be opened towards realtime web searching, where web content is indexed and ranked in a matter of hours. When that day comes, services like Google Alert will come into their own. Just imagine being notified by email an hour after someone mentions your name!
... though I do wonder whether providing the Web APIs altogether is a very smart move from a purely commercial brand-building perspective. Therearetons of Google add-ons floating about the place. GoogleAlert is a relatively new kid on the block.
For a company "focused on R&D", they seem to be taking lots of care over their trademark - lots of discussion about this, for example here. Recently, Googlert which is one of the better known Google APIs services was also asked to change its name. Don't see why GoogleAlert is any better, so maybe they'll have to change it again...
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I'm pretty sure this is a joke (the PR's a giveaway). But I also wouldn't be surprised if Google are releasing something related to email shortly at local.google.com. This would make sense given their recent release of email-based information services such as the Web Alerts (a poorer cousin of Google Alert) which followed their previous News Alerts. Maybe a central location for managing Google-based email notifications?
Brilliant idea. I suspect that mouseover magnification would be all over today's GUIs, if they hadn't been designed in a time when it wasn't computationally possible. Apple's Expose is a kind of OS-level implementation, but only for finding lost windows - not for general use.
I'm still waiting for the much-rumored Google Hotmail-style service to come out - combined with contextual advertising that could really be a killer.
Interesing... the Web Alerts looks like a simple version of the Google Alert service, based on Google's Web APIs - is this the first example of Google drawing inspiration from the developer community they've built?
Google do seem to be covering all their bases. Their release of the Web Alerts doesn't seem to stop them supporting the efforts of Google Alert (which uses Google's Web APIs). On Google Alert's FAQs it says "Google has encouraged us to develop, and agreed to let us charge for, a premium Google Alert service that will be released shortly."
If Google have copied it, that would be strange - on the Google Alert FAQs, it says "Google has generously provided Google Alert with a high-capacity Web APIs key for our needs, and agreed to the use of the Google Alert name and googlealert.com domain. Google has encouraged us to develop, and agreed to let us charge for, a premium Google Alert service that will be released shortly." Weird, huh?
Google also announced their web alerts at the same time. Looks interesting, but not as feature complete as Google Alert which has been around for some time.
Google Alert is another small business that Google might be making or breaking. According to their news page, Google Alert has "entered into preliminary negotiations with Google with the goal of offering a premium web tracking service for commercial use".
This is great... combined with something like GoogleAlert you could watch for anything new springing up in your neighborhood!
If this could be combined with a much more frequent Google web trawl, the path would be opened towards realtime web searching, where web content is indexed and ranked in a matter of hours. When that day comes, services like Google Alert will come into their own. Just imagine being notified by email an hour after someone mentions your name!
... though I do wonder whether providing the Web APIs altogether is a very smart move from a purely commercial brand-building perspective. There are tons of Google add-ons floating about the place. GoogleAlert is a relatively new kid on the block.
For a company "focused on R&D", they seem to be taking lots of care over their trademark - lots of discussion about this, for example here. Recently, Googlert which is one of the better known Google APIs services was also asked to change its name. Don't see why GoogleAlert is any better, so maybe they'll have to change it again...