Google Chrome has had a strange start to life. The browser is undoubtedly fast, and given it’s very new, has a lot of good features packed into it.

But where are the users? As Google took Chrome out of beta today , it revealed that the browser has gained 10m active users in its first 100 days. That sounds like a lot - until you compare it to others. Firefox - a rival browser that is more firmly established as the main alternative to Internet Explorer - has around 20 per cent of the browser market, compared to Chrome which is yet to break 1 per cent. Continue reading "Chrome’s future out of beta"

How much does spam cost? It’s hard to quantify in terms of bandwidth, time and effort blocking it, and general nuisance. But here’s a figure to mull over: $873m.

That’s how much Facebook has been awarded in damages against a spammer in a US court for sending unsolicited messages on the Facebook network. And if it sounds trivial in this era of multi-billion dollar bailouts, it’s a lot more than Facebook’s expected revenues for 2008 - more than double, in fact.

Facebook isn’t going to collect anytime soon as the company readily admits, but it’s supposed to act as a deterrent.

In any court sentencing there are a few factors to bear in mind. Does the sentence fit the scale of the crime? Is it an effective deterrent? Is it a suitable punishment? On any of these measures, fining a spammer nearly $1bn seems a bit pointless.

Scale: Symantec have calculated that the global internet fraud economy is worth $7bn. That’s assuming all fraudulently accessed credit cards and accounts are “maxed out”. So perhaps $873m is a little high?

Deterrent: Facebook isn’t getting the money. The spammer, Adam Guerbuez, isn’t paying up. Not much of a deterrent there.

Punishment: It’s headline grabbing, so perhaps that’s a good thing. Mr Guerbuez may not find much sympathy among his neighbours. But relying on headlines isn’t a long term solution.

Part of the problem seems to be the wildly differing fines that are bandied about by different courts. For example:

2004: FTC fines porn spammers $112k
2006: Marketer hit with $900,000 spam fine
2006: US spammer fined $11.2bn

So we have a range here from $112,000 to $11bn. I’m not sure what message spammers are getting from this, especially if they don’t have to pay.

What about jail? It does happen, but only for related offences, it seems. Perhaps being found guilty of simply sending spam could result in jail time, rather than these ludicrous fines. Would that be a better result?

Google has made two very interesting moves this week. The first was to close Lively, the company’s version of Second Life. The second was to launch SearchWiki, or personalised search results.

On the surface, these don’t look related. Closing the virtual world Lively might look like a simple investment call, but Google hardly has to worry about cashflow. The company has many projects that on the surface don’t make a great deal of money.

Google said: “we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.” The company also added that: “We’ve learned a lot about how users interact in rich social environments, and we hope you’ve enjoyed your time with Lively.”

Not learning enough, it seems, to keep the party going. And learning about people is what keeps the company growing, which is where SearchWiki comes in. Lively didn’t give Google enough data to chew on. If it had, it would still be going. But SearchWiki is a potential data goldmine.

With SearchWiki, users can now remove and promote search results directly in the Google page, make comments, and allow people to view what others have done. Google’s search algorithms may be the secret sauce, but adding this layer of user feedback adds another whole dimension to what Google knows about us. Given the millions of Google account holders and the billions of Google searches, it might well be the most direct and largest customer interaction project ever devised. Don’t like that search result? Kill it, or say why.

It’s only just launched, and there are already over 100 SearchWiki notes on Obama. And the data is flooding in. For example, the Wikipedia page on Obama, the second link, has 17 positive votes, two negative, and four comments, including, “I disagree with the suggestion that this be the first result. Google’s general pattern is that the site belonging to the search target comes first, and the best site about the target (often Wikipedia) comes second or third. Search for [ibm] or [yankees]. This pattern makes sense to me.”

Of course there are huge ramifications for spam tactics, coordinated action, censorship and the like. But the overall message from Google this week is loud and clear: we don’t do things just for fun - there has to be some payoff. And that payoff is data.

We all know that Google collects a phenomenal amount of personal data - a perennial question is whether it’s healthy for one company to know so much about us all.

But what if all that collective data could be used to spot disease epidemics before they take hold? Good thing or bad thing? I’d say good.

If Google’s Flu Trends is anything to go by, the team at Google.org have pretty much cracked it for influenza, and can predict a flu outbreak with a delay of one day, as opposed to the two weeks taken by the official body CDC. It’s a big claim, but so far, the evidence presented is impressive.

Google has been very open with their research, publishing their calculations, references, the historical data they have used and providing a draft manuscript that has been accepted by the journal Nature.

The most persuasive picture is this one, which shows how Google’s search data (in blue) tracks the incidence of influenza as measured by the CDC over the last five years.

This is serious stuff, and the implications are pretty big. If Google can predict flu outbreaks with what would be considered scientific certainty, then you could argue that we are entering a new era of epidemiology. Taking two weeks off recognising disease outbreaks could potentially save thousands of lives, giving the health authorities a far higher chance of inoculations or other preventative measures.

Google do strike a suitable note of caution, saying that “past performance is no guarantee of future results. Our system is still very experimental, so anything is possible, but we’re hoping to see similar correlations in the coming year.”

I would add to that: just because we search for something doesn’t mean it will happen. It just means we are interested. Google searches for Palin outnumbered Obama for most of September and some of October, but we all know what happened come election day.

Equally, the Google trend on, for example, HIV doesn’t reflect infection rates, but rather the news agenda. Which is fair enough, but we need to be careful. There will be more people searching for flu just as a result of this research, and capturing that isn’t helpful to predicting disease outbreaks. Google would also seem unlikely to be able to predict rarer diseases with non-standard symptoms, as the search query range would be too large and random.

But for now, this looks like a good start. If flu, which kills up to 500,000 people per year, could be spotted earlier, it would be nothing short of a major breakthrough.

We all know that Google can count. The company based its IPO on a billion times the mathematical constant “e”, so I don’t doubt the arithmetic credentials at Mountain View.

So the launch of the Android market, the application store for the new G1 phone, indicates that the Android team needs to check their calculations.

The Android blog states:

There are already over 50 apps available in Android Market today. You can view a showcase of some of these apps—which include multimedia, location-based tools, barcode scanners, travel guides and games.

And at Android market? I counted 29 apps. So where are the missing 21 (at least)? This isn’t just a rounding error. Some of our apps are missing.

The rumour is that Google updated the market software close to launch, which meant many apps weren’t up to spec. In which case, the timing sucks.

Google has launched products a bit early before, without causing too much damage. But with a phone that isn’t as slick as the iPhone in a highly competitive area, launching the Android market with the cupboard a little bare isn’t the smartest move.

The news from the Symbian smartphone show in the UK was that Lee Williams (pictured) was announced as the new head of the Symbian Foundation, the provider of the mobile software platform supported by many industry players.

But the recent annoucement of iPhone App store rivals by RIM and Google makes the European side of the mobile platform market seem a little behind the curve. While the US is making a marketplace for developers, questions over the Foundation’s independence are still being raised.

Williams is from Nokia, the company which of course bought Symbian with the grand gesture of turning Symbian OS and S60 open source. So let the conspiracy nudge-nudge wink-wink suggestions start: is he too close to the mothership? And is Nokia really going to make this open?

The question of independence was raised at the press conference by Nomura’s mobile analyst Richard Windsor, and Williams took it in his stride, saying he had given up any equity or interests in Nokia and had always operated independently. Later when I spoke to him, he put it rather more prosaically:

“I was only at Nokia for two years. I haven’t been drinking the Kool-Aid for that long.”

One analyst said to me that the question of where Williams was from would be forgotten in a few months. The key question is when and to what degree will an open operating system be released. And on that question, Williams was unequivocal: first half of 2009.

But questions over whether being open source is more of a marketing badge or a means of differentiating your platform to Windows, Apple et al, is irrelevant to many developers. Open or not, they just want the tools to get their application to market. And on that front, Symbian has its work cut out. Every developer I spoke to said developing for Symbian was harder. “Challenging” was a word frequently used. Another word was “money”, highlighting the obvious attraction of the iPhone app store as well as the new marketplaces from RIM and Google.

According to Williams, “challenging” goes hand in hand with capability and an appreciation for complexity. But he admits that “serving both the developers who want to create a full-blown office-type app and those looking to create a quick widget is the conundrum”. He hasn’t got long to solve it.

Microsoft marketing has an identity crisis. Which means Microsoft doesn’t know how to talk to its customers, and that’s a big issue for the company.

Leave aside issues of desktop vs cloud software, Google vs Live search, and whether Yahoo was worth $33 per share. Instead, let’s look at how the company actually engages the public.

Microsoft should know that ads, if interesting enough, aren’t local any more. They get emailed or put on YouTube, and everyone can see them.

First there was those weird Jerry Seinfeld ads, which were US-only. We’ve written about them before, but just in case you don’t remember, here’s a reminder.

It’s a strange ad. Not many companies can get away with promoting themselves without actually showing you the product. I’m not sure that Microsoft falls into that category yet. Plus, they weren’t funny and no-one liked them. So they got pulled, although the official line is that they are a “starting point”.

Then, last weekend, the company launched their “I’m a PC” ad in the UK’s primetime show, the X-factor. You can see it here.

This is the company line:

John Curran, Windows business lead, Microsoft UK, said: “We’re in exciting times for Windows. The first stage of this ‘Real PC’ campaign is deliberately designed to address the misconceptions that our competitors have built around PC users. With nearly one billion users and 90% of the PC market globally we’re celebrating the rich diversity of Windows’ users and the extraordinary connectedness they all enjoy.”

This is a terrible ad for two reasons. First, it’s a riposte to Apple’s “mac vs PC” ads, which were generally well received, so the company looks reactive rather than proactive, and very late - the Apple ads were out ages ago.

It’s also a terrible ad because it uses stereotypes badly - does anyone think wearing glasses is uncool? Is having a beard so awful? And the whole human being / human doing cliché isn’t helpful. When I’m on a computer, it’s more an act of “doing” than “being”, surely? Unless you’re defined solely by your Facebook page.

This pitch of all things to all people doesn’t tell you anything about Microsoft’s strengths, or any reason to buy a PC. There are good reasons to buy Microsoft, as well as bad ones, but this will leave people none the wiser.

Technology is usually seen as empowering, allowing us to do more with less, whether it’s money, time or effort. But we tend to forget the restrictive side of technology. This week two great examples have emerged.

The first is a setting for Google email, which is called Mail Goggles, and stops you emailing people late at night on specific days by setting you some arithmetic questions. You can configure it for any time or day of the week, but the defaults are Friday and Saturday between 10pm and 4am, so it’s clearly aimed at social drinkers. Get one of the 5 questions wrong or fail to complete in the time allowed, and it says: “Water and bed for you.” Ouch.

The second is Ford’s MyKey setting, which limits certain functions in your car, such as limiting speed to 80mph, restricting audio volume, and encouraging better driving. This is aimed at parents who have their children borrowing the car, and will cause huge family rows, I’m sure, but Ford claim it will help teens drive more safely. The feature will be initially available in the 2010 Ford Focus, with the promise of more models to follow. Ford even have a helpful cartoon showing the happy parents and children using the features.

Of course, parental restrictions are nothing new, with settings on cable TV and PCs available for years. The challenge has always been for the kids to crack the code by fair means or foul, and the Focus will be no different.

Will these features catch on and be copied by others? Hard to say. Phone maker LG introduced a similar idea to Mail Goggles in 2006, which was a phone breathalyser, aimed at stopping those late-night, booze-fuelled calls we shouldn’t make to the ex. A great idea, surely? Perhaps, but I haven’t seen it copied by the other phone makers.

Which makes me think the MyKey idea is more likely to be widely adopted. Restricting technology is always going to be more popular when you are selling the product to people who are doing the restricting to others rather than to themselves. We all like to think we have the self-discipline to not drink-and-dial, or drink-and-email, however much experience tells us otherwise. Perhaps the MyKey system should breathalyse the kids too?