Using your Android enabled camera phone you can now take a picture of a book cover, a landmark or even a local business and find out more about it using Google Goggles.

At the MCA and not sure if that is abstract expression or cubism. SNAP! Let the goggles tell ya.

Hungry on the brown line commute back home. Not sure if that sushi restaurant at Montrose is worth a visit. SNAP! Let the Goggles show you the lasted reviews.

Got a new business card, hate typing all that stuff into your CRM. SNAP! The Goggles make it easy to add new contacts.

It is admittedly limited on what it can do, but don’t worry before you know it, you will be able to snap a picture of a rock and have the goggles tell you – GRANITE!

Search by taking a picture! What next….

What do you need?

• An Android device running Android 1.6 or above
• A QVGA screen
• A camera with autofocus

Can your mobile device use the Goggles? Here’s the current list from Wikipedia.

Watch the video to learn more, put your goggles on, and become more so omniscient.

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Tom Lynch Categories: General, Technology, google

Last week Google added another transportation option to their maps directions service. Previously you could choose car, public transit, or walking. Now you can get recommendations for biking directions. They have incorporated information about trails, bike lines, and other preferred routes. These are denoted in dark green, light green, and dashed green, respectively. So from one point to another it will attempt to recommend the safest and most efficient route. Pretty cool.

I searched for the route from our office to Daley Plaza, which I take when I do Critical Mass, as I likely will Friday after next. See the full route in Google maps here.

Not bad, that’s pretty much the route I already take. Check out a much more detailed article from Google’s blog here.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: Fun, Technology, Web, google

Google is getting smarter and scarier all the time.  Now inserted at the top of regular search results you can find the “latest search results”.  Tweets, news, and Elvis sightings that someone might have posted even seconds ago.

To see it in action put in a Google search for: Coke, or Ford, or even Elvis Presley Lives. Then click “show options”, a new series of “options” will populate the left rail. Scroll down to “Any Time”, and click “Latest”.  A new page will load of all the latest stuff. And if it’s hot it you will start to see the news scroll by. And when aren’t Elvis sightings hot news!?

From an SEO perspective it’s a way to watch the conversation on Google and participate in real time. Twitter is probably the fastest way to get into the stream and make some noise if you choose.

Google put together a video on the new search feature. If you want more click the start button on the embedded video below.

Happy Birthday Elvis!

 This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles 

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Tom Lynch Categories: Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web, ePiphany Featured Story, google

What is Google Fast Flip? 

From the Google Fast Flip page: “Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to “flip” through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches.”

You can search by keyword string or browse by four main categories. There are several pubs in each category that display a 200 x 220 pixel thumbnail of each article’s page.

Below it appears Google duplicated Salon’s home page with two thumbnails and had trouble naming each thumbs’ caption but the actual article of “Where the wild things aren’t” turned out OK.

I say smart for the most part because sometimes the text appears to be pulled directly from the page copy. Smart because not every pub used the code the same way to delineate title.

On all the articles I tested the html title, and the H1’s or H2’s did not consistently have the article title, or the title used in the caption all by itself. So maybe Google is looking at something else – the visual representation of the page not just the code or text alone??? Not sure.

It is clipping the text caption / link to the article at the 65-character limit though, just like the normal SERP’s titles.  

What made me click seemed to be the articles that were easiest to read in that 200 x 220 thumbnail format. So big pictures and big headlines win for me here.  And who can resist a good ol’ fashioned dispute inside the Lohan clan.

Normal on page text was just too small to read. So if this format became a dominant source of traffic it may skew how publishers design pages for optimum CTR’s.  For now there are only 39 news sources so I don’t expect a new protocal to evolve, IE: Fast Flip Thumbs. I do suspect some sort of hybrid will evolve into our search results with more images.

Kinda cool for you really big or multiple monitor junkies. When you expand it to fill all the space horizontally you get as many 200 x 220 thumbs as will fit.

Information overload or just the right sized distraction. You decide.

For now you can make a day of it  on “Balloon Boy” alone, who is forever forward to be known as “balloon boy” instead of, “son of former Wife Swap star Mayumi.”

Check out Google fast flip here: http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/

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Tom Lynch Categories: Fun, Web, google