Google Enters The Travel Industry
by tahera on September 3rd, 2010
filed under Techonolgy
Google has paid £460 million to purchase a flight information company called ITA Software. ITA is a software company that aggregates flight prices and schedules for all the major airline providers. It already has clients like American Airlines, Bing and Kayak, and ITA is integral to their reservation management system.
The keyword “flights” alone has 151,000,000 global monthly searches, so you can see how big the travel industry actually is. Google acquiring ITA will drastically change what Google offers to airlines, travel agencies, and customers, justifying why travel agencies are right in worrying Google might damage them by offering the flight data aggregated in their SERPs.
Currently when you search for flights on Google, you get such sites like Expedia, Orbitz and eBookers, it’s safe to say these companies may get stung when the giant enters the travel sector. Kayak whose main business is to be a travel search engine (and is also an ITA client) might find it hard to survive.
Google has dubbed the move “pro-competitive” and “pro-consumer” in a bid to justify the sale, claiming it is trying to provide a better and faster search experience for the user. They have no plans to directly sell airline tickets, but this does not stop other travel companies fearing the implications, this new power over data Google will have.
Kayak and Expedia were reported to have tried to convince ITA to not do business with Google, but the discussion was to far advanced at that stage, and the deal has now been concluded.
ITA was founded at MIT in 1996, and lives mostly behind the scenes, providing the data to companies, that filter through to you and me. Although £460 ($700) million sounds like a lot of money, they actually spent a great deal more in acquiring YouTube in 2006 for $1.65bn and DoubleClick a year later for $3.1bn!
Google is continuing to expand its reach slowly, raising evermore questions as to its motives. With increasing power over crucial data, antitrust concerns are paramount, the question is, when will it be too much?
‘Google Me’. Rumour or Truth?
by tahera on July 20th, 2010
filed under Chit-Chat, Techonolgy
Speculation has been flying around for a while now on whether Google is attempting to create a new social networking site. The rumoured site has been labelled “Google Me” and is an effort to try and compete against Facebook and the success they thought it would never have.
Can the world’s most popular search engine succeed in also becoming the world’s most popular social networking site?
In my opinion I think they have a very good chance in doing so. Orkut was hugely popular in India until recently when Facebook has crept in, and Google’s concerns have grown. The origins of the rumour come from a tweet from Kevin Rose (co-founder of Digg)
The tweet did not stay up long, as apparently he was told to remove it. This in itself fuels the rumours that it may not actually just be a rumour.
Google Buzz was a failure, and we are hoping Google learned from its mistakes. ReadWriteWeb made a good point: “90 percent of the content published into Buzz is automated: 63 percent is piped in from Twitter and 27 percent is from automated RSS feeds.” How is that social networking? It hasn’t been long since the launch and deterioration of this attempt at social networking. The new project must therefore be a complete service networking site and I’m thinking they will no doubt model it off Facebook.
The question on everyone’s lips is can Google really do social networking? Or should they stick to what they know best? However what is it that they know best? Google has its fingers in many pies, including acquisitions in the health industry, but they’ve tried twice now and failed with social media (buzz and wave) should they just sit back and let someone else have some control and power for once? Although both these ideas were placed on the backbone of another product, maybe that was their downfall, they need to make a whole new standalone platform to which people would sign up and interact.
If you think about all the Google products you use on the web today, it wouldn’t be hard for them to aggregate all your data into one site and create a networking platform.
So what could GoogleMe do and provide that would be different and rival Facebook, one exciting idea could be: integration with all existing Google products.
So you have gmail, Google docs, Picasa, Google checkout, Google voice and even search to name but a few. Would it be worthwhile if you or I could share a Google spreadsheet with a specific group through the social networking site? For example your group labelled “colleagues”. Or a group labelled “housemates” sharing cleaning rotas and bill payment details?
Although what Google come up with, can Facebook with their knowledge and experience do better? What would you like to see from ‘Google Me’ ?
Social networking could leave you open to abuse
by tahera on June 28th, 2010
filed under Techonolgy, Twitter
The ever growing craze of social networking using sites such as foursquare and twitter can lead you to harm, if you are not extra vigilant about what you disclose.
Someone who is even a little bit internet and tech savvy will be able to figure out where you are (not at home) and rob you. What about stalkers? Someone who has taken more than a shining to you will know exactly where you are and what you are doing in order to further fuel their obsession.
What would happen if you search “not for distribution” confidential filetype:pdf” – Go on try it, you will actually get results for documents that are in actual fact, not meant for distribution, if it’s not meant for distribution, why put them on the internet for all to see and find?
So, combining all the platforms and utilising the power of the internet, you will see it is very easy to find key information about a person. Let’s look at some examples.
First create a database of people in your area who tweet their location. Once you have these people, you can ‘follow’ them on twitter, and wait for them to next tweet where they are. Some silly people actually link their foursquare with twitter, and then “check in” at their home address. Disclosing this information to all. You can then use Google street view, to see exactly what his house looks like, and how easy it would be to enter.
So we now have a picture of our target (from twitter and/or foursquare) and we could easily look up where they work thanks to LinkedIn.
If you’ve put your phone number on these sites, then hey presto, you have a number to call to make sure no one is home before you start your robbery.
And why would you ever tweet, use foursquare to tell people you are on holiday? Many people will check in at the airport, boasting about how they are going away with the whole family for a holiday. As you know, you can look through the previous tweets timeline, and find one with his check-in to home, and guess what? You instantly have acess to an empty house – take what you will.
So if you’re posting personal data all over the interweb, using Twitter and playing Four Square, you just might want to think twice.
Social Media sites may not be seen in the same light as “real life” issues, but that does not mean you shouldn’t take the same precautions.
Should insurance companies charge higher home insurance premiums to people active in social media as a result? What if they get burgled and it can be proven you advertised you were not home. Would that work in the same way as car insurance? If your items are on display it’s your own fault you got robbed?
I got my inspiration from a site called www.pleaserobme.com, a couple of guys created a script that runs on Twitter for Foursquare notifications. Letting you search for people to see where they are, and to confirm they are not home. The site actually does not do this anymore, but is still there so you can see what they did.
This post can be quite dangerous, as im aware i am informing ‘bad’ people on how to do things, but i felt it necessary for people to know. I have however left a fair bit out as it’s probably best not to advertise such things.
O2 and Vodafone…Till Death Do Us Part
by tahera on March 23rd, 2009
filed under Techonolgy
Vodafone and Telefónica (the owner of O2), are to pool their two networks to share costs on infrastructure, sparking talk of a price war…
The formerly bitter rivals are expected to fund cheaper calls for customers with their savings of “hundreds of millions of pounds” in this current climate.
As they become one, thousands of masts will be decommissioned as they share antennas and base station sites in Ireland and masts and power supplies in Spain and Germany. In Britain They will be consolidating their 2G and 3G infrastructures, providing better call coverage, and much more choice with services such as mobile broadband for their customers (with the hopes to supersede an unsuccessful deal that Vodafone had previously struck with Orange).
Competition regulators are keeping a close eye on this merger; it is initially set to cover the UK, the Irish Republic, Spain and Germany. However the two companies are insisting they will still be competing fiercely on services and price, and will keep their total of 549 million customers worldwide separate.
Although both Vodafone and O2 insist that competition on the retail side of the business would remain highly competitive, however it’s important to note neither has actually committed to using the savings to cut tariffs for customers…..
Microsoft Launches Its New Browser
by tahera on March 19th, 2009
filed under Techonolgy
Welcome Internet Explorer 8 (IE8)
Prettier. More Secure. Time Saving.
Im not so sure.
Yes, although Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser, Firefox, Google and Opera are right on its heels. They’ve been testing the new browser for over a year now, and it has finally been released. It’s the first update to IE7 since 2006. Mozilla Firefox, widely known for its safe and secure aspect, nudged Microsoft to up their game.
“With Internet Explorer 8, we are delivering a browser that gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.” Microsoft boss, Steve Ballmer
Internet Explorer was seen as big on features but poor on delivering performance. However this new version, can apparently spot dubious websites and alert you if you’re about to get sucked into a phishing website, the beauty being it constantly updates its list of dodgy sites.
However I find a browser is still very much a personal choice. Some may like it simple and fast, while others like me like features to make life easier, all the while being relatively fast. This is why my tried and tested browser remains Firefox, but I may try out IE8 one of these days, as it’s relatively new, I think waiting until all the bugs have been ironed out may be the way to go….otherwise I’ll be put off forever!