Google News, Inside.

What do YOU Use Google for?

Jonathan Dingman — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:49:16 +0000

This post is open-ended.

I want to know, what do YOU use Google for?

Gmail?
~~Froogle~~ Google Product Search?
Maps?
Gtalk?

I want to know, what do you use Google for?

Feel free to rip up the comments below about what you use Google for.

Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside Media

What do YOU Use Google for?

Gmail Chats with AIM

Jonathan Dingman — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:08:33 +0000

Recently, the Gmail team has released a new feature that will allow you to chat with AIM buddies, removing the restriction of only Gmail/Gtalk buddies.

A great feature release and it will help make Gmail more of a communication tool. The next step is launch more features to be able to reach people through other mediums, such as ICQ and Jabber.

Tags: aim, gmail, gtalk

Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside Media

Gmail Chats with AIM

Widget Chat by Google Talk

Jonathan Dingman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:26:09 +0000

Communication has been an important tool for centuries. Communication today has evolved into something that is immediate; now. Communication has transformed into something that is essential to the existence of businesses and overall, people everywhere.

Google Talk has been under the radar for quite some time; slowly releasing new product updates and pushing its way out. There hasn’t been a huge push yet for the use of Google Talk that we’ve seen.

You can get yours here. It’s easy!

[Thanks Stan!]

Tags: gmail, gtalk, chat+widgets, google+widgets, google+chat

Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside Media

Widget Chat by Google Talk

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano

Jonathan Dingman — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:38:39 +0000

Parlano and Microsoft have come to terms which are undisclosed, to be acquired by this corporate giant. Their 50-odd employees are planning on moving to Redmond, WA after the close of the deal expected to happen in the fourth quarter.

“…Parlano’s “collaborative” software enables thousands of workers to share messages and other documents in real time, and offers better security than the freebie instant messaging offered by some Internet service providers…” is what ChicagoBusiness.com had to say about the deal. This actually doesn’t come as a surprise to me, not in the least bit.

Microsoft is beginning to realize that they need to act quickly on the rapidly moving industry of the “office” world. More and more businesses are moving online and therefor this is where Microsoft needs to be. Google is the only serious competitor out there right now for the web office market, but Google doesn’t have the “office” brand name that Microsoft has. Google doesn’t have their own operating system nor their own widely-used office platform.

Microsoft does indeed have an advantage here. Google has gTalk which is already been widely adopted throughout the world, but it is still very limited.

I believe Microsoft acquired Parlano as part of their efforts to begin moving into the web world for Office. I predict that we will see quite a few more acquisitions by Microsoft in the web office suite arena. They have a strong brand name, so they do have that much going for them, but they really need to pick up the pace and get some released in the next year or two if they want to stay in the game.

Related Google Acquisitions

We can clearly see through all these acquisitions that the competition is ramping up.

Tags: microsoft, parlano, web+office, instant+messaging

Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside Media

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano

Google Acquires GrandCentral VoIP

Jonathan Dingman — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:25:28 +0000

Google is the move again. With a surprise acquisition on July 4th, 2007, the rumor came true that Google has indeed acquired GrandCentral VoIP.

Google has been making some serious acquisitions lately in a larger effort. Google has some serious plans in mind for all these acquisitions. But does it align with their over-arching mission statement?

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

So lets analyze this mission statement and this acquisition. Voice over Internet Protocol phone service, how will this help move Google forward?

This acquisition is something I can actually see as very beneficial for everyone, including Google.

If you look back at older models of VoIP, you can see Cisco as really the first company to be in the market with their VoIP phones and Microsoft Exchange integration. Having the capability to leave a voicemail and then listen to it in your e-mail inbox is really the first part of integration that was seen.

Looking forward now, with this acquisition of GrandCentral, I can clearly see the direction that Google is going — clearly in the sense of my outside perspective.

But before explaining that, lets take a look at what Google’s actually been doing lately.

Google Gmail (initial e-mail service start-up)
Google Talk (gtalk)
Google Docs (spreadsheets & word processor)

This looks a lot like what Cisco and Microsoft have already been doing, but now Google is taking just one step further.

Google now has the capability to seamlessly integrate e-mail, both on a consumer and corporate production level, Google’s own communication protocol through Google Talk, and a soon-coming online office suite. Seamless integration between these three products will probably prove to be deadly to any remotely-interested competition to the corporate online service market.

Google, collecting (and owning) all of this information — as described in their mission statement, very clearly — will be able to offer any kind of service to any kind of business, no matter how small or how big the company or organization.

This new combination of services will keep Google ahead of the ball game in ~~most~~ all industries related to the Internet now.

Tags: grandcentral, google+acquisition, voip

Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside Media

Google Acquires GrandCentral VoIP

Google Group Chat for Gmail Released

Jonathan Dingman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:49:56 +0000

The team powering Gmail has done it again. Another great release for our Gmail needs.

Google Group Chat.

Gmail and Gtalk users may now interact with group chats with other users. It’s well, just like a chatroom — for Google users.

Do you have a need for a multi-user conference or just want to chat with some of your friends ~~while you’re at work~~? Now you can.

Here’s a quick preview of what it looks like:

Google Group Chat for Gmail Released

Google Apps Premier Edition

Jonathan Dingman — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:35:28 +0000

Google Apps Premier Edition has launched. It’s free? You bet, for another few months.

What are some of the features?

Gmail: 10gb of storage
Gtalk: Free calling and texting around the world
Extensible API access for easy integration
24/7 Phone Support
and much, much more…

So why is Google launching a Premier Edition of Google Apps? Of course, to make money. They’re offering it for free to create a buzz about it and then they will be able to sell it and start generating revenue from it.

With the single largest server cluster in the world, Google has more processing power and more storage capability than any other company in the world.

Here are some notable links to take a look at.

Deskless Employees
Next-Generation Communication

Tags: google, apps, premiere

Google Apps Premier Edition

Gtalk status in Gmail

Jonathan Dingman — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 02:00:23 +0000

Browsing some some more of my Gmails, I noticed another small addition. You can now see someone’s status on Gtalk within the Gmail interface. This is pretty nice for easy communication.

It really seems like Google is utilizing Gtalk a lot more with Orkut and now Gmail. EVen before though, you could talk to people with Gmail, I really don’t think as many people were using it as there might be now.

Gtalk status in Gmail

Off the Record

Jonathan Dingman — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:14:42 +0000

Here’s another hidden secret of Google Talk. While most of us know that Google Talk allows you to store all your chats in your Gmail account, it has another nice hidden feature.

You can go “off the record”, also meaning that you don’t record that part of the chat session to your Gmail acccount if you have it set to save all chats to Gmail.

Yet another great sneaky feature of Google Talk that not many people know about.

Off the Record