Daily Bits

Yahoo and Microsoft React to Google Buzz

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If you’ve been monitoring tech headlines the past couple of hours, you’d know that the hottest buzz right now is none other than Google Buzz. Credit it to Google for creating yet again another noise upon launching a significant product or service and for soliciting a much needed reaction from its rivals – Yahoo and Microsoft.

In case you’ve missed the discussion thread online, Google Buzz is purported as Google’s approach to social sharing.  The main service sits right inside Gmail Inbox but you can also use the service on your iPhone or Android devices. You can read more about Google Buzz  in Gmail and Google Buzz for Mobile at 901am.

So, how did Yahoo and Microsoft reacted to Google Buzz? Microsoft was a bit short and yet direct to the point, as quoted by TechCrunch.

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

While Yahoo’s reaction was more elaborate by saying that they have the same service for a year now via Yahoo! Updates. Silicon Alley Insider shares Yahoo’s email explaining that they had that same product for over a year now.

It’s been almost a year and a half since we first launched Yahoo! Updates – a social feature that lets people share their status, content and online activities and stay connected to what their friends and family are doing on Yahoo! and across the Web – and we wanted to share the latest on what’s happening with Updates…

So, what do you think? Did Google just copied existing services of its two rivals? Or did Google in fact copied the services of some other location-aware, social recommendation sites such as Yelp, Gowalla, FourSquare and others?

Update: Incidentally, Google Buzz for Mobile is now on. You may check it out by pointing your iPhone or Android phone’s browser to buzz.google.com.

eBay Seeks Your Help to Make its Services Better via its Garden of New Features

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eBay has planted some seeds on its new garden to hoping to reap some valuable fruits later on, so to speak.  I’m talking about Garden by eBay which was just announced and is describe as an area on eBay that will allow eBay members to test new features and offer input on suggested improvements and changes on the eBay site.  Garden by eBay hopes to gather user inputs on initial concepts or seeds that it hopes to fully grow into a full product or feature. All for the glory of finding the best deals online, folks!

Alright, in other words, it’s Gmail Labs for eBay. But since, Labs is already an overused term, eBay decided to use Garden instead. Hence putting some environmental relevance to the project.

So, what does Garden by eBay actually offers? Or what is really, officially?  Garden by eBay is a new experimental space where eBay users can test, interact with, and offer input on existing or new ideas for eBay.com’s products and features. Member inputs will provided directly to the eBay team in-charge of new, proposed or existing eBay features. Hence, bringing sellers and buyers directly into the innovation process and letting eBay to introduce, test and roll out new features faster.

To kick off this project, there are currently two available seeds in the Garden. First is the new “Streamlined Search” which is intended to make browsing and viewing search results on eBay easier and streamlined. It presents a cleaner view of eBay inventory and a more efficient way of browsing items. It also lets users compare auction and Buy it Now listings side-by-side, refine seaches and other useful information.

The other available feature for testing is Diamond Ring Designer which has been under testing for quite some time now but eBay wants to get some more feedback from eBay users.

To access Garden by eBay, click here.

Facebook’s New, Simplified Home Page Looks a Bit Complicated

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I’ve been waiting for Facebook to roll out the new and simplified home page on my account for the past couple of days and awhile ago, it finally did. I thought Facebook was acting up again as it did the past couple of days. Anyway, there it was – the new Facebook home page. And do I like it? Like with previous Facebook enhancements, I always welcome changes and enhancements with glee. And while the new Facebook home page looks all sleek and dandy right now, some of you may find it a bit confusing, like I did.

Let’s take a look at what were changed in the new Facebook home page. First thing you’d notice is that the search box which is now located at the top left corner of the page. In between the search box and the Facebook logo are the new request, messages and notifications icons.

Then on the left side, you’d also noticed something different, particularly the lower portion where it now lists your friends who are currently online. Clicking on any of your friends will fire up Facebook chat.

Now if you go back to the upper portion and click any of the content links, say photos – it will give you all the photos of your friends not your own photos. This got me confused a bit as I was hoping to see my uploaded photos rather than my friends’.

Another thing that got me confused is the News Feed. Wasn’t it just recently that Facebook introduced  Live Feed and News Feed? It seems that Facebook heeded the complaints of many Facebook members and decided to let go of the Live Feed stream. You are now given instead two options of viewing News Feeds – the Top News and Most Recent. The later of course replaces the previous Live Feed, although the time difference between these two can be as short as a couple of hours.

Overall, I find the new look and organization of the Facebook home page refreshing. It sort of gives you a fresh new start at your Facebook experience.

So how do you like the new Facebook home page so far? Any complaints? Please share it with us by leaving a comment.

Five Coolest Super Bowl XLIV Commercials

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So did you enjoy the Super Bowl game last night? Were you disappointed by the final game result?  Well, now that the game is over, how about checking out the other side of this year’s shindig – the SuperBowl ads? It is also the most anticipated highlight of this year’s Super Bowl, right?

There are actually two types of Super Bowl ads that were shown last night. Those which are general in nature and those that are technology related. We’ve selected five of these tech-related Super Bowl Ads as our favorites.

Google’s Parisian Love Super Bowl Ad

Google surprised everyone when their Parisian Love search-related commercial rolled out.  For one thing, it’s very simple and did not have all the fanfare that other commercials have.  Google’s Super Bowl commercial highlighted how useful its localized search engine is when it comes to everyone’s everyday life. [Read more…] about Five Coolest Super Bowl XLIV Commercials

Facebook Makes Uploading Photos Easier, Faster

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Facebook is rolling out some new feature enhancements today as it celebrates its 6 year anniversary.  Some of you might have already seen the new Facebook UI wherein the top site  navigation and left menu were changed a bit. Part of these enhancements is Facebook’s photo uploading facility which will enable you to share and upload photos to your Facebook account easier and faster.

According to the Facebook blog, the photo uploader will be gradually rolled out in the coming weeks.  While we all wait for this to be activated on our Facebook accounts, here’s what we all should expect to see and experience.

First, the photo uploader will now be a Facebook plugin. Meaning once it is activated on your account, you will be prompted to install that plugin. Once installed and as you try to upload photos, the uploader will display a photo browser which you can use to select the photos you want to upload from your desktop.

So what’s so exciting about it? Well, aside from uploading your photos faster, you can now navigate away from the upload page and check out other parts of your Facebook profile or if you want you can navigate away from Facebook completely while the upload process is still ongoing.  Once the upload process is completed, you will be prompted by the plugin which will allow you to go back to the photo uploader to edit, tag and add captions to your photos.

Sounds exciting? If you upload many photos on your Facebook account, the new photo uploader is definitely heaven sent. Can’t wait to try it out.

As the Smartphone Market Grows, So Does iPhone’s Market Share

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Results of IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker yield some interesting points to ponder on about the current state of the smartphone industry.  And being a smartphone addict that I am (I’ve got an iPhone and Nexus One right now and I’m still planning to get a BlackBerry in a couple of days)  it’s quite interesting to take a look at this report.

According to IDC’s report, a total of 54.5 million units of smartphones were shipped in Q4 2009, up by 39% from the same quarter in 2008.  Total shipment for 2009 was 174.2 million units, up by 15.1% from 151.4 million units in 2008. In addition, smartphone shipments accounted for 15.4% of all mobile phone shipped in 2009, up from 12.7% in 2008.

Drilling down to the top five smartphone brands, Nokia still leads the pack with a 37.6% growth in Q4 2009 and 11.9% growth from 2008 to 2009.  RIM with its BlackBerry devices follows at close second while Apple, HTC and Samsung complete the top five smartphone brands in 2009 and Motorola replacing Samsung in the top category for Q4 2009.

Now his the interesting part. Apple’s market share grew by a huge 97.7% in Q4 2009 and 81.9% from 2008 to 2009. You know why this is interesting? Apple was able to achieve this feat with only one smartphone available in the market, the iPhone 3GS. While both Nokia and RIM both got several smartphone units. Nokia has the 5800, N97, N97 mini, 5530 and other latest models, while RIM has various BlackBerry devices. [Read more…] about As the Smartphone Market Grows, So Does iPhone’s Market Share