I planed to write this article from weeks ago. However, I was too busy (or too lazy?) to write it. In this post, I will tell you how I use Google Wave in the past month, and wish you can also share your experience.
It's all about collaboration
I used Google Wave every day in the past month. In most cases, my wave had more that one real participant(other than robot). If I do not collaborate with others, I see no advantage with Google Wave. But when there are more than two participant in a Wave, Google Wave really gets things done.
Online Conference
Google Wave is a good place for online conference. First, it's real-time. That gives you nearly the same experience with talking on a conference, because you can see what other are writing. Secondly, it makes the conference more efficient. In my experience, before the conference, there will be a summary of what will be discussed in the root wave. Then, everyone know what to do and actively join the discussion. When making a decision, someone updates the root wave. Finally, when the conference ends, the root wave is the result of the conference ...
I met a girl on my way back SJTU. She is doing internship in Motorola Shanghai as a sale-woman. We started talking because we had the same phone: HTC Dream.(not a milestone) I think it's interesting to write down what we have talked and my view of Motorola in China.
People go to Motorola store for milestone
The girl told me that many people go to the store for Motorola Milestone. These customers know android and wish to buy a android phone. Milestone is sold well in USA and these customers decide to buy milestone as their first Android phone. However, milestone is very expensive to normal Chinese people. It sells at 5200 RMB($761) and people can buy two milestones with that price in local phone market store. So, most people come back from the official Motorola store without buying any milestone.
People do not use web service
Motorola has a product especially for Chinese people, XT800. But most salesmen do not know the advantage of Android or XT800. People in China buy a phone mainly for sms and phone call. They do not use Twitter or Sina micro-blog. They have no Google Account. They do not ...
Openbadge is inspired by Foursquare.com. Foursquare is some what popular and now you can get the real-name of an address(latitude and longtitude) by using Foursquare API. One thing that makes foursquare interesting is badge&mayor. I always find people feel happy to get a badge or become the mayor of a place. Weeks ago, WSJ partnered foursquare by offering three new badges to its users, which was a very cool news to me.
What is openbadge?
Openbadge means everything can be awarded a badge. Online games can give their users badge based on their performance or class; Keep fit site can give those who keep running for a month a badge; If you have answered more than 30 questions on App Engine, Aardvark may give you a badge named App Engine guru; etc.
Mayor of a blog?
I once told my idea to Byron. If every time you visit a page, it's a check-in. Then, every page may have a mayor. Also, if you visit a blog most often, you may become the mayor of this blog(not the author). It's interesting and helpful when you have question about something on the ...
Mashable is such a popular blog that its buzz account soon becomes the most popular one. It now has 25896 followers on Buzz. Mashable once put "follow mashable on buzz" on its homepage and the link url is doubleclick domain :-) Now, mashable forwards all its blog posts to Buzz, but mashable always use a question to let users discuss about the post and mashable only sync the summary of the blog to Buzz. As you can see, mashable's every post on Buzz has a lot of 'like' and more than 15 comments. Once, mashable asked its followers to write something cool on the buzz, and the coolest buzz will gain a nexus one, which built a comment tower soon. So, mashable's blog makes @mashable on Buzz a powser user and mashable also uses Buzz successfully.
FriendFeed and GReader's power
There is no doubt that Louis Gray is a very power user on FriendFeed. And ...
Sergey Brain and Larry Page always argued with each other
From the first day they met in Stanford, they argued on many topics. They talked about problems of computer science, philosophy and other things you could imagine. They are strange guys and people in the lab felt annoyed sometimes to hear their argument. However, the two guys appreciated each other more and more after argument. And now, they have a magical collaboration in Google. As a Chinese old saying, "No discord, no concord."
David Filo told them to start a business
In March 1998, Sergey and Larry felt depressed, because no company would like to buy their patent. AltaVista, the most popular search engine at that time, rejected to use Google's search technique. Yahoo told them that Yahoo has not seen the business value of Google's work. Dramatically, AltaVista was later acquired by Yahoo. Fortunately, David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo! told Sergey and Larry that, if they thought Google is unique and would like to dig its value, they should start a company like what Yang and Filo once did.
Brain told that in early days, some 'crazy' website master think Google interfered their websites' operation (because of the 'crazy' bot?). These website masters knocked back through mails and mails, or threatened to sue Google. As a result, Google gave up index sites in Montana and then sites in Singapore. Brain added that someone would contact the venture management officier in Stanford and they never know the existence of the officier before. Anyway, he contacted Brain and Page, and "Troubles will never end".
Andy Bechtolsheim gave Google $100,000
The first investment for Google was from Andy Bechtolsheim, the founder of Sun. In August 1998, Andy Bechtolsheim gave Sergey Brin and Larry Page a $100,000 cheque. He said "It's the best idea I ever heard in these years, and I want to be a member of you.". The investment surprised Sergey and Larry, however, $100,000 was quickly used :-) That's another story.
It's a busy week, but I still want to write something I noted recently when reading the book The Google Story, which is really an interesting book. I borrowed the book from the library, and took notes when I felt that the paragraph was informative.
Google founders take Montessori education
As a Chinese, I never heard of Montessori education or Montessori. But when reading the chapter about Google founders' speech in Israel, I first time knew this word. Sergey Brain answered a question about porn content people find through searching Google that, "Obviously, it depends on you.". He said that Google founders are both under Montessori education which allows student to enjoy their life before 12, but give him hard work after 12 for young people can be distracted easily. "It depends on you." is always a policy by Google. Google is just a search engine, plz do not give me any censorship list.
Google is always in need of computers
In the speech, Sergey said that their search service for Stanford soon got 10000 search everyday. And that's is the capacity of their service, so they need more computers. Brain added that in the history of Google ...
It's an article inspired by an idea about Foursquare. But when writing one part of the article, I change the theme. It's now a part of series articles about AI companies and my understanding of these companies. Next article will cover Facebook and Foursquare.
'AI' Rocks
AI, artificial intelligence, is something that makes computer other than ordinary electronic product. Although personal computer cannot do everything and it cannot defeat Kasparov in playing chess, people may soon be addicted to computer games or feel happy to watch movie on his computer. That's the power of AI. It means, in some extent, the computer can replace human beings. Furthermore, some super computers (like Deep Blue) or distributed computer system (like Google's) can do some really intelligent things. And, when a service has some AI, in other word, is smart, it gains more users.
Here is a list of service that have some 'AI':
Google
'to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful', the famous Google mission tells us that Google is an AI company. Its most important product is Google Search, and certainly it has AI. When you search a query ...
I just saw Carl's comment on my buzz, in which "Google Buzz is a beuatiful place, like the early Internet." is the most impressive sentence. That reminds me the early time when I dived into FriendFeed. So I want to write something about FriendFeed and Google Buzz.
I like FriendFeed
Realtime rocks
When launched in October 2007, FriendFeed was a cool social aggregator which poped out new updates automatically. It suddenly attracted me and I join in FriendFeed. At first, the magic thing is that FriendFeed can sync tweet almost at once(no service nowadays give me that experience). And when you read an item on FriendFeed, it may change, because someone reading the item simultaneously like it or comment on it, and you can read it and reply to it just like you are in a live chat room.
Source, source and source
FriendFeed is a social aggregator, but I did not know it very clearly. I like its speed to fetch feed ant tweet, so I created a room(room is such a cool thing by FriendFeed), and added the feed I want to get quick update. In a word, I use a FriendFeed room as Google ...
It has been reported by the official government site that 200,000 people have visited the Shanghai World EXPO Park in the first day, although the real number of people who booked the tickets is 350,000. "Some people have their plan, and their tickets may be used in the following days.", said the lead of Shanghai World EXPO.
Bad news is that the wether of Shanghai is hot now. Just before the World EXPO, the wether is strangely cold. Do the visitors' butterfly effect makes Shanghai hot? :) Or "2012" is coming? Anyway, the weather will continue to be hot for a long time. So the visitors to Shanghai need to cope with the hot weather or go to Guilin to have a nice travel.
When should I go to Shanghai EXPO
If you have time, you can go to Shanghai EXPO in the middle of June. For students are preparing for the final and other people from other provinces of China will not have enthusiasm ...
