The latest from TechCrunch
- With Google Places, Concerns Rise That Google Just Wants To Link To Its Own Content
- TechCrunch/CrunchGear Meetup In Taipei, October 5
- Hippo Hooray! Jackson Fish Market Launches Suite Of Charming iPhone Games For Toddlers
- Wine.com Uncorks Its API
| With Google Places, Concerns Rise That Google Just Wants To Link To Its Own Content | Top |
| One of the original goals of Google has always been to help people find the information they are looking for and get out of the way as fast as possible. It was a point of pride, and in fact a design principle, to get people off the search results page to other places on the Internet. Yahoo was the site that tried to keep you from ever leaving, Google was the opposite. Well, it was easier to send people away when Google was just a search engine. Now it has apps and Gmail and Google Maps and Google Books, and a lot of other reasons to stick around on Google itself. But there is still a clear demarcation between its content/communication sites and search. At least there was until late last week when it launched Google Places on Google Maps. Google Places is a local search page for restaurants and other local businesses that brings together the address, phone number, Website, maps, description, directions, photos and reviews all on one page. When you click on a pin for a local business or place of interest on Google Maps a bubble will open up, and if you click “more info” sometimes it will take you to the Google Places page. So far, so good. Google Places is simply making Google Maps better, right? The concerns arise, however, back on Google’s main search page, where Google is indexing these Places pages. Since Google controls its own search index, it can push Google Places more prominently if it so desires. There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence that Google is doing this yet, but the mere fact that Google is indexing these Places pages has the SEO world in a tizzy . And Google is indexing them, despite assurances to the contrary . If you do a search for the Burdick Chocolate Cafe in Boston, for instance, the Google Places page is the sixth result, above results from Yelp, Yahoo Travel, and New York Times Travel. This wouldn’t be so bad if Google wasn’t already linking to itself in the top “one Box” result, which shows a detail from Google Maps. So within the top ten results, two of them link back to Google content. Your chances of clicking on a Google page for this particular search are pretty high. Google isn’t sending you away anywhere. And if you do go to the Google Places page for Burdick Chocolate , it is made up of rehashed content from other sites: snippet descriptions from InsiderPages, Judy’s Book, a menu link from AllMenus, photos from CityGuide and Yelp, and reviews from Igougo and CitySearch. On the right is a small Google Map and below that are Google search ads. It’s actually a pretty useful page, and there is certainly value in aggregating all of this information in one place. Google might even license the data, which would mitigate any protests that it is “stealing” the content like we see with Google News. But nobody really cares about that. The real issue is whether or not Google is going to favor its own pages in its index when it comes to local search. SInce Google’s algorithm is a black box, there is no way to know one way or another. But the question is out there. Maybe the Google Places page for Burdick Chocolate ranks highly only because Google used it as an example in its pre-briefings and a lot of bloggers subsequently linked to it. The point, though, is that these Google Places are getting into Google’s index. ( Tartine Bakery is another example). Even if they make it onto the first page of Google search results for legitimate reasons, their very presence goes against the fundamental principle that Google’s main purpose is to link out to the best information on the Web, not to hoard the links for itself. We know what will happen if it keeps going down this path. It will turn into Yahoo. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| TechCrunch/CrunchGear Meetup In Taipei, October 5 | Top |
| I’ll be in Taiwan next week and am delighted to announce that TechCrunch / CrunchGear are holding a meetup with our partner and co-organizer Chili Consulting , a local innovation strategy firm. The TechCrunch / Chili Consulting Party will take place in Taipei, on October 5 (Monday) and is invitation-only. Here are the details ( in Chinese ): Event date : October 05 (Monday), 2009 Time : 7:30pm – 9:30pm (doors open: 7pm) Venue : Mary's Bistro 2nd. Floor, No.89, Sec 2 Ren-Ai Rd., Taipei City Fee : NT$250 per person Register for the event here . Please note that we are restricted on numbers, so don’t be disappointed if you can’t get on the guest list (this is strictly an “invitations only” event). Please send an email to service [AT] chiliconsulting.com if you’d like to sponsor the event. Do the same if you have something cool and “made in Taiwan” to pitch (i.e. mobile tech, a web service, gadget etc.). Use the hashtag "#tctaipei" when twittering. Special thanks to Chili Consulting for organizing this meetup (make sure to follow the company’s Facebook page and blog for updates). We hope everyone has a great night and are looking forward to seeing you all on October 5 in Taipei! Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Hippo Hooray! Jackson Fish Market Launches Suite Of Charming iPhone Games For Toddlers | Top |
| The iPhone is quickly establishing itself as one of the hottest gaming platforms around, and that doesn’t just extend to games for teens and adults — it’s also a great device for toddlers, provided you have someone around to make sure they don’t start throwing the iPhone or dipping it in apple juice. One company that’s proving this is Jackson Fish Market , a small Seattle-based development house with a knack for building charming products and sites. The company has just launched a new suite of iPhone apps under the banner Hippo Hooray! , with new apps available to teach kids about Shapes , Colors , and Letters . Be warned: if you’re over the age of seven, these probably won’t have much appeal. But for their target age range they’re sure to be a hit. Gameplay is very basic, consisting primarily of a child’s voice commanding you to “touch red” or “touch the letter ‘R’” depending on which game you’re playing. If you choose the right answer, you’re rewarded with the announcer saying things like “Super cool!” and “Great Job!” Get enough right, and you’re treated to a Hippo Hooray fireworks show. The apps are all well done, with very nice original artwork and an intuitive design. For those that haven’t been keeping up with the nifty products to come from the studio: Jackson Fish Market was founded back in late 2006 by a small team of ex-Microsoft employees who set out develop “Handcrafted Software Experiences” (the studio’s name was inspired by co-founder Hillel Cooperman’s grandfather’s fish store). Along with the core principles that drove that fish store, the company also drew inspiration from 37signals . Other Jackson Fish Market products include They’re Beautiful!, Tafiti , and Invitastic . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Wine.com Uncorks Its API | Top |
| Wine.com, a popular wine retailer with a fantastic domain name, is releasing its API for third-party developers to create and enhance wine applications connecting to the site’s e-commerce and wine database platform. Wine.com's database has detailed information on over 40,000 wines, including labels, wine maker notes, professional ratings, customer reviews, geographical information, flavor profiles and more. The API will offer access to Wine.com’s "Wine Basics" content, which includes information about the world’s major wine growing regions and grape varietals. The online wine industry is steadily growing with wine-related startups raising significant amounts of funding. Online wine store and community Vinfolio got a $4.5 million infusion recently and social wine review site and retailer Snooth raised $1 million earlier this year. And the newly re-launched Corkd has added a social stream and a new business model. While many of these more established sites (and competitors) may not present opportunities for the integration of Wine.com’s API, the site may find interest from smaller blogs, or sites that want to create wine applications that connect with the wine retailer’s database and e-commerce platform. Photo credit: Flickr/Warrenski Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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