I personally see it as a way to show Google’s muscle power in the field of technical innovation! For me, a prompt that shows search term idea as I type in the search box is ENOUGH. Even if I consider the lifecycle of a web search performed by users, this option does not seem to be much attractive. I may be wrong!As Google mentioned in its blog, the core features of the Instant Search are:

• Dynamic Results
• Predictions
• Scroll to Search

All good; my concern is around the term predictions; predictions against partial search term can be way far from my actual search term. I am really not sure how Google is going to take care of this! According to my understanding, it is quite impossible to achieve. Here is an example:

I wanted to search for ‘web design company’. As I typed the term ‘web’ the first result that I noticed was webmd.com; of course it is of no use for me!

There can be instances where Google Instant Search can show helpful result, but if that does not happen, then the feature is much annoying!

Hope there will be improvements down the line; they will also work on predictions. Let’s see what happens. But, technically, it definitely looks good!

“It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s iGoogle comics theme” – that’s how Google announces the launch of Comics Themes on Official Google Blog. Basically it’s the Google approach to celebrate Comic-con’s 40th anniversary.

Get ready to make your iGoogle homepage colorful and lively. Add comics themes; let your favorite comic’s characters accompany you on the web.

Did you know that a Google search has a direct impact on earth’s environment? Physicists are saying so. An article published by CarbonOffsetDaily.com reveals that two Google searches performed from a desktop are equivalent to boiling a kettle of water! 

According to Alex Wissner-Gross, Harvard University Physicist, one Google search produces 7gram of Carbon dioxide and millions of people use Google without knowing the fact. But even if they come to know the fact, will they stop using Google? That’s not possible; and if they do, global economy will be in danger. 

But why environmentalists are behind Google? All web searches are likely to generate CO2 then why Google is being blamed only? Because the way it operates. 

First, Google data centers involve huge deal of power. Secondly, to provide finest search result in minimum time, Google search engine sends queries to multiple servers and returns the result from the center that processes the query in shortest time. 

However, it cannot be said, that other search engines do not have any impact on environment. The truth is when you switch on your PC, browse internet, visit web pages that contain images, animation, videos and graphics, send emails, chat and write blogs – you contribute to global warming. 

Hence, blaming Google is not the solution. Data centers, where 24×7 power supply is mandatory, must be equipped with alternative energy all over the world. 

And Google has started working on this front. Google is committed to reduce its impact on earth’s environment. Visit Going Green at Google to know more about this. 

Moreover, in response to Alex Wissner-Gross, Google had published a blog post describing the power consumption of a Google search in a realistic and authentic manner. According to this calculation, one Google search produces 0.2gram of CO2. This calculation seems so authentic that Alex had to reconsider his calculation. Learn more about the debate on Official Google Blog. 

Whatever is the correct figure, we need to be more cautious about our internet usage. Can we still use it for fun? What do you think?

Google has recently settled the lawsuit brought by Author’s Gild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The lawsuit was filed against Google’s plan of scanning millions of books to make them available online for readers. The books were to be collected from local libraries and various other sources. 

Authors and Publishers expressed their concern for in-copyright books and filed two lawsuits against Google Inc. After two years of negotiation, Google, Author’s Gild and AAP have come to a settlement – a ‘groundbreaking agreement’ if said in Google’s words. 

According to the agreement Google agrees to pay $125 million to set up Book Rights Registry to keep track of in-copyright books. The registry will help readers to find and buy copyrighted books. This will also help them search books which are out of print. 

In short, the agreement will help a lot of people; both copyright owners and readers will be benefited from it. Copyright owners can register their books with the Book Rights Registry and get compensation for subscriptions, sales and other revenues their work brings in. 

In this age of paper-less culture, such a move is always welcome. Log on to Google Book Search – millions of books are just a click away!

Google Chrome has been released recently and the whole world is talking about it. Quite natural! A browser from the internet giant that has revolutionized internet usage MUST be discussed more than anything else. 

People involved in Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing smell something fishy with Google Chrome as they suspect Google would try to track black hat SEO techniques with this browser. The same way people blamed Google toolbar! 

However, I do not intent to break out a debate on this topic, neither do I have any plan to discuss the features of Google Chrome – lots of discussions are going on about features and facilities of Google Chrome around. Just run a search and you would be flooded with tons of pages! 

Today, I would like to highlight a different point: the day Google released this browser; they added a link just below the search buttons on the Google Search Engine home page. This was done for all country-specific domains like google.co.in, google.co.uk, google.com etc. 

And the result is quite predictable. Millions of people came to know about this new product over the night! The buzz began to flow; and Google reached to people who did not follow their blogs or visit tech news websites and forums easily. 

That’s the power of product development. If you have one successful project, you can make hundreds more! 

With that said, W3Guru India offers a unique tip: all the web development, designing and SEO companies in India should concentrate on product development for local audience. This would help them in three ways: 

1. They need not depend on outsourced projects; economic problem of other countries won’t hit them hard.
2. They would be able to establish their identity once a product is successful.
3. Indians are getting into Internet lately. Developing a useful website for them would help you serve your country directly. Satisfaction!

 So think, innovate and create new products. You can do it. If you stuck at any point, contact us. We would be happy to work with you.

Teachers’ Day is celebrated on 5 September of each year in India. It is the birthday of the second president of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Google performed their slice of responsibility.

Happy Teachers Day

Get some time out of your Christmas shopping and New Year party planning and shoot a small video about your approach to Gmail. Then upload it to YouTube before December 31, 2007.

Gmail team will pick up some good entries and showcase them.Those who are ‘camera shy’, may email their stories to Google. Do you have any story to share? It’s time to tell Your Gmail Stories!

Gmail: Email from Google has introduced lots of exciting features. Despite of Gtalk: Instant Messenger from Google, Google has enhanced the chatting option that comes with Gmail.

Group Chat: Users can not talk to more than one friend in a single message window. There is a new Option in the Gmail Chat window now that allows users to add friends for Group Chatting.

Plenty of Emoticons: Certain keyboard combinations create different faces and symbols to convey specific emotions.

AIM: AOL Instant Messenger friend list can be integrated with Gmail Chat; Gmail users can talk to their AIM friends right inside the Gmail Chat.

Colored Labels: This feature is to set different colors to the Labels. A color swatch appears beside the Labels; users can pick a suitable color for each of the Labels so that they can be distinguished inside the Inbox.

As always, all the new Gmail features are listed under the “What’s new on Gmail?” section, take a look.

Now Google will show more sitelinks in the search results, so that the visitors can go directly to the useful pages of that top site. Google announced that it is becoming very popular to the visitors and for this reason they have decided to show eight sitelinks instead or four. They have changed their algorithms to fulfill this purpose. According to Google, eight sitelinks will give a good overview of that particular top site’s content and will also help the visitors to access more topic or areas of the top site.

For more info you can visit the Official Google Blog.

Is your business dependent on Google? Have you ever thought what will be the condition of your business if your site is banned by Google? If your business is fully dependent on Google ranking then it’s not good for the health of your business.

Yes, it’s true that Google is internet’s most renounced Search Engine and it has good interface of judging quality websites but still what will you do if Google banned your well ruled and perfectly legitimate website? Nothing you can do except sending e-mail to them. You can’t call or sue them. They are not even responsible to answer your e-mail.

So, it’s better to think about that possibility and to take necessary steps through which you don’t have to depend on Google.

What are the steps you can take to be independent in the internet?

• Subscribers
• Social Media
• Forums
• Links
• Advertisement

1) Subscribers: This is one of the fast and easy ways to get touch with visitors. Try to build up email subscribers and RSS Feed subscribers. More subscribers mean your site is becoming independent.

2) Social Media: Try to involve your site in Social Media. There are many social networking sites and social bookmarking sites available in the internet. So aim at that huge section of visitors.

3) Community: Community is very important to make your site popular as well as independent. If you can run successful forums in your website then you are definitely not dependent on Google. You have your own identity in the internet.

4) Links: Links are another way of getting good number of visitors. It may not be in huge numbers, but if you have huge links then you can expect good no. of visitors.

5) Advertisement: You can give advertisement in popular websites. It is a good way of getting visitors without depending on Google.

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