It's all talk

It's true and it's here - Google Talk - The Big G's entry in to the world of IM. Jabber based (i.e. works with iChat, GAIM, Adium, Trillian and Psi), with voice capabilities but strangely no video or indexing/searching of chats.

Three pane Kahuna

I'm sure the new and improved Hotmail will be packed with features. At a glance what stands out with the internally named "Kahuna" is the three pane layout. More on the dev over at the mail team's blog.

Dell dissed, Apple applauded

On July 14 I wrote about Dell closing down its customer care boards. The company's strategic "wisdom" is clearly paying off. In this years American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Dell scored a lowly 74, down from last years 79.

According to this story from Bloomberg "Dell is dropping in large part because of call-center problems, including long-wait times and difficulty with consumers getting their questions answered".

And what did the customer care boards do before Dell burried them? They were a (very good) resource where people could get their questions answered!

Apple retain their #1 spot with a score of 81.

Claes Fornell, marketing professor and head of the University of Michigan's National Quality Research Center:

"The satisfaction of customers is pretty much a leading indicator as to whether customers will come back and buy more", "Apple looks good. Dell is facing challenges. If I were a Dell shareholder, I'd look at the results.''

Free national Wi-Fi from Google?

"What if Google wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location?"

"One of the cheapest ways would be for Google to blanket major cities with Wi-Fi"

I'm not sure what to make of this. I just stumbled across it over at Om's blog, and then I saw that the guys at SiliconBeat mentioned it too (and they also seem a tad unsure about what to make of it).

Here's Om's article for B2, and here's his post.

Let's hope that there's some truth too it (and there's no reason why there shouldn't be). It does sound brilliant, and in some ways it could be seen as Google's equiv of Yahoo!'s deal with SBC. But on a much larger scale, and more in tune with Google's core business. And more in tune with how we, both as consumers and professionals, connect to information. Throw in some location based data? Sure, why not!

I'm sure we'll hear more about it in the near future.

Scarlett and Woody

Living in Notting Hill is nothing short of brilliant. It's a beautiful part of London (actually, THE most beautiful), and there's always lots going on in the art galleries, bars, shops etc. And there are some really good java joints too, which in my view is an essential part of urban logistics.

The area is popular with movie and tv productin crews. Every two weeks or so our streets are taken over by this or that director working on a new project. Some peopel find it annoying, I personally think its kinda' fun.

Today Woody Allen was shooting a scene for his new movie around the corner from our house. It stars Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson (who looked very good, despite a somewhat unflattering outfit). The movies is yet untitled but scheduled for release in 2006.

Photo Copyright © 2005 Jaan Orvet. These images may not be reproduced or linked to from any other source without my written permission.

Almost there

If you've visited our site lately you probably didn't find as much information as you expected. No worries, we're simply improving on our offerings. This includes all aspects of our online presence. For our clients the end result will mean greater access to project files and information, in addition to a couple of other, clever, improvements to make the experience of working with Orvet Digital even better.

Orvet Digital

Yahoo! trumps Google

From Big Purple's search blog (August 8):

"As it turns out we have grown our index and just reached a significant milestone at Yahoo! Search – our index now provides access to over 20 billion items."

That's almost double that of Google's 11,3 billion. Daniel Terdiman wrote about it here, complete with quote from Charlene Li.

Thing is, I'll still probably prefer Google. I've used it more or less every day since it launched. Once in a rare while I've made an effort to really give Y! and MSN Search a go...but I always come back to Google. It's just "better", cleaner, faster, more relevant.

Google's immature reaction

Google won't speak to anyone from CNET for a year as reported by SiliconBeat. Why? Because CNET dared to use Google to find out info about CEO Eric Schmidt for a story on privacy.

Firstly, the fact that a PUBLIC company, i.e. one owned by share holders, feels that it can tell a news organization that it won't have anything to do with them for 12 months is plain ridiculous. It's like telling the share holders that they don't want them to know what's going on in the company.

Secondly, any company worth its salt must be prepared for both good and less flattering coverage from the media. You can't pick and choose, especially not if you've gained as much from the media as Google has. Get over it.

I agree with Battelle that the CNET story wasn't flawless, but it sure isn't a hack job either.

I'm truly sorry to see Google act this way. Maybe they really are just one of the big corporations now, despite its "do no evil" mantra. Hopefully we'll see a more mature comment on all of this from them soon.