Technology As Innovator

(to-be-read in reverse-chronicle order)

3 September 2008

Positive review: SaigonNezumi, Google Chrome - What a browser should be -> Simple

A nice coverage: Chip 2.0, Review after the first day launching Chrome

Not-so-positive review: Google Chrome, it’s not worth the Buzz

Why Google Chrome is not only a cost-saving basket

On Finance’s side: GOOG’s Chrome is all about Wall Street.

TaiTran’s comment: Chrome is only only a cost-saving basket, but a full house for wealth for Google.

1. OK, the money that Google is saving as depicted in Zdnet’s article is the kitchen.
2. Chrome knows all your web activities. Google will sell smarter ads and thus their revenue from ads will increase. This is the bedroom.
3. Chrome is the O/S for the web
   Recall: what’s the 2 most successful properties of Microsoft? Windows and Office
   Has Google got Office? Absolutely. Now Chrome is Google’s Operating System.
   This is the living room.
4. Chrome being open-source will attract the communities (many from Mozilla) who will work for Chrome (more accurately, GOOG) for credit rather than wages. This is the bath room.
5. Chrome will be the web platform on which many applications and SaaS will base on: free dependency is never a free lunch. This is the dining room.
6. Chrome being very light will integrate deeply with Android for penetrating into Mobile market. This is the garden.

In short, all about making money in the long run, given that Chrome will succeed. How successful do you think Chrome will be?

Testing Chrome

1. Is faster than FF3
2. Failed to import bookmarks from my FF3
3. Offers more free space by pushing the tab bar to the very top
4. Doesn’t destroy the layout when zoom in. This is both good and bad.
5. Doesn’t display XML correctly
6. Supports built-in 48 languages
7. Connects to Google services at full speed
8. Uses same web standard with Firefox
9. Provides context-sensitive status bar
10. No RSS auto-detectio
11. No support for Quick Time
12. AdBlock will be highly political
13. Smart start page: recently visited sites
14. Flickr “Web upload” does not work
15. The address bar is a search bar
16. Facebook and Zoho Javascript errors
    

Chrome About Pages

1 September 2008

Google’s official announcement: we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book

Tad was skeptical with 7 reasons why Chrome is a bad idea

Technologizer raised 10 questions

Agglom scanned the catoon

Google Blogoscoped threw the first bomb

I’m on Firefox 3 too, and I utilize addons to enrich my web experience too, like most of you there.

There have been countless of entries to useful Firefox addons, but what’s different about this post is that it measures the costs that can be saved for users when using these extensions.

What are the costs of usability and how much are they?

The descending order of severity of the costs are

1. Screen loads: this is a pain when internet connection is slow. It usually takes most time of all interactions with the computer
2. Mouse movements: mouse movements severely damage the wrist and this should be minimized
3. Mouse clicks: mouse clicks are less severe than mouse movements, but are also expensive
4. URLs: an URL takes time to type in
5. Enters: it hurts the little finger
6. Hot keys: hot keys usually consists of at least 2 keys, but are regarded as less expensive than Enters because they are mostly done with the left hand, reduces damage to the right hand

Now, let’s start with the addons!

The first six in the batch: Google Toolbar, Diigo Toolbar, StumbleUpon Toolbar, TwitterFox, CustomizeGoogle, Better YouTube

Google Toolbar for Firefox

Google Toolbar provides search, “I’m feeling lucky” and images search functions without having to go to Google.com

It also supports Gmail notifications and Google PR check

Diigo Toolbar

I have used Diigo as a replacement of delicious (I still love the old brand del.icio.us)

Though delicious tagging is smarter and usability is better, Diigo supports web-highlighting which makes it an advantage.

Diigo toolbar allows user to bookmark their favorite web pages for later reference. With Diigo, all bookmarks are centralized when users move from computer to another.

StumbleUpon Toolbar

StumbleUpon works on an interesting concept: when you hit the Stumble! button, the addon takes you to a random interesting page that matches your preferences.

The StumbleUpon toolbar makes it more convenient for you.

CustomizeGoogle

This powerful addon modifies Google search results and display preferences. It supports options for Web Search, Images, Groups, News, Products, G Answers, G Books, Gmail, G Galendar, G Maps, G Docs, Video, Reader, Cache, Blogger, History, Privacy and Filter

Twitterfox

Better YouTube

This Greasemonkey-based addon loads the YouTube video faster and allows downloading the video. Generally it saves me half an hour per day for one video.

Conclusion

With the intensity of these service I use everyday, these addons easily save at least one hour each day for me.

I can use this one hour for other business purposes which can generate other benefits.

What is your experience? What do you think of my approach when analyzing these?

Online advertising in Vietnam has long been in its first step when banner was the dominating method. Interstitial were used in some tech-savvy sites.

The market of 20 million Internet users has been regarded as very potential. We have seen the emergence of many sites on various areas such as blog platform, portal, social networking, C2C trading, online media, news sharing. Further down for each area many niches have been spotted. Each player does have her own strategy of monetization.

Out of all these movements, I’ve wondered if an advertising system like one of Google AdSense would ever be introduced in Vietnam.

When looking around, I spotted this site: XpressMedia of VinaForce.

From the first glance, the product-naming Game endorses CPM Advertising.

This model’s potential

Let’s see the potential of the market here in Vietnam:

• 20 million internet users
• Approximately 2.5 blogs
• Growing product-savvy

These factors form firm foundation for the development of this model.

One important thing to remember at the Vietnam market is not hasten to introduce ‘advanced’ functionalities. Simple and easy to understand is the way to go. We’ll see whether this model will make it here.

What do you think of XpressMedia first Game?