Hair

The Beauty Department: Your Daily Dose of Pretty. - page 20

I know class is over, but...

who says the blog has to be?

For those of you who were interested in Google Sketch-Up, there is a competition being held by the Guggenheim Museum in honor of Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. It seems simple enough, and the prizes include a trip to New York and a behind the scenes tour of the Guggenheim.

If you're interested, check it out on Google's blog or at the official competition website.

Anyways, good luck with finals and I wish everyone a happy summer!

a new google product--very cool e-mail innovation--the wave preview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

very long but if you skip around you can get an idea of the product. i think it's very cool, you can use it to communicate, e-mail, IM, and it's so easy!! you can edit, blog, collaborate, the possibilities are literally endless. just thought i'd share but i'm sure most of you have probably already heard about it!

Cool Feature in Google Earth

I was totally unaware of this feature that can be found in Google Earth...a flight simulator!!!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/31/google-earths-easter-egg-a-flight-simulator/

You can also embed your maps by copying the embed code and posting to the blog site

View Best Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia in a larger map

Thurs, May 28th and June 4th

Hi class,

We are continuing our discussion of geo-browsers and mapping for the next two sessions.

For this Thursday, I want you to create a map using Google My Maps. To do this, go to Google Maps (login) and click on "my maps". There, you can create a map. You should make a map of something relevant about your life (ie, favorite restaurants, bike trails you like, where you grew up, etc). It can be anywhere in the world.

When you are done, right click on the "View in Google Earth" icon and COPY LINK LOCATION. Post the link on our blog as a comment, which will essentially allow others to see your map.

Also, for Thursday, spend some time going over HyperCities: www.hypercities.com

Think about what you like and don't like about the site as well as what you'd like to be able to do in a geo-temporal environment.

----

FINAL CLASS PRESENTATIONS: (June 4th)

In groups of 3, you will present either:

1. A group mapping project using Google Maps/Earth or HyperCities. If you opt for this, you need to talk about the particular google tool you are using (how it works, what it does) and your project that you created in Google Maps.
2. A new Google Tool that we haven't talked about in class, but showcases some aspects of Web 2.0. If you do this, you will actually need to create something (not just discuss what it does). You need to USE IT.

Presentations will last about 10 minutes (each person must speak about 3 minutes), followed by a brief Q+A session.

Some issues you may want to address:

1. Issues around privacy and publicness
2. Web 2.0
3. How Google tools extend knowledge or limit knowledge
4. Content creation
5. Authorship and collaboration

Thurs, May 21: Geo-Browswers: Earth, Maps, HyperCities

Install the latest version of Google Earth and spend some time getting to know the basic features. Google Earth is a sophisticated "geo-browser", comprised of satellite imagery of the whole earth and innovative navigation features for contributing and viewing geo-data.

You should watch some of the tutorials to learn about the functionality of Google Earth. Click here.

Take some time to "tour" the earth and make a list of interesting places that you would like to share with the class. You can share these as 'tours' for the class.

We will spend the next three sessions learning about three Geo-browsers:
1. Google Earth
2. Google Maps / Google My Maps
3. HyperCities: A Google Maps/Earth Mash-up (a UCLA project directed by me)

For the last day of class, students will work together in teams to create and present projects in either maps, earth, or HyperCities. These will be KML based, user-created maps, with 2D and potentially 3D objects. You can create 3D objects using Google's Sketch-up program.

Google Outages

So we had talked in class about the network that google has, in terms of many epicenter-esque locations of their databases and whatnot. The idea is that if one computer network fails, there is a bunch of backup places that Google has to make sure that the whole system doesn't fail. That plan sounds foolproof, but I guess today something else went wrong. Google isn't being too specific about what EXACTLY went wrong, but this seems to describe it generally. I like the fact that the company actually took to Twitter to apologize to everyone that was inconvenienced. Its amazing that there are plenty of other search engines, yet people don't think to resort elsewhere when such an event occurs.

For Thurs, May 14th -- Google and Web 2.0

For this week:

1. If you haven't already, please read carefully the Tim O'Reilly article defining Web 2.0 (note, it's five pages long). In addition to this article, please articulate how the suite of Google products are "Web 2.0-like" (not just search or the company as a whole) but individual products and software applications. What do you imagine will constitute Web 3.0? Here, you might look at the blog about the semantic web (posted below).

2. Orient yourself in SivaVaidhyanathan's blog, "The Googlization of Everything." In particular, I'm interested in his most recent post on the user/Google transaction. If you recall, both Kiesha (of Google Advertising Sales team) and David and Scott (on Android) talked a lot about "user experiences."

Future Google Features

Google's "Searchology" event was yesterday (Tuesday), and they revealed a number of new search features they want to implement in the future.

One feature is Google Squared, which will hit Google Labs soon. If you search "small dogs" using Google Squared, you'll get a table of name, picture, description etc of small dogs.
Screenshots of Google Squared from Google Blogoscoped

Another talked about feature is "rich snippets" which will return more data using markups in a page's HTML metadata (meaning Google will support microformats and RDFa). (I don't quite understand this, but here's a brief discussionof it- including screencaps of rich snippets- for those who might better understand.) This ideally will get more relevant information faster for reviews, people, businesses.

BBC article;
CNET article

SearchEngineLand's recap links page of Searchology;
Google Blogoscoped's recap of Searchology (it has screenshots of Rich Snippets)

Sorry Google

Looks like Twitter is a no go.

Check it out

Story on our class on UCLA Today website

Dear class,

Check out this story about our Googlization class.

-Prof Presner

"Revolutionary new web software could put Google in the shade"

Here is an interesting article about new web software that will supposedly revolutionize the way we interact with information on the web. We shall see I guess.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html

Web 2.0 and Android (for May 7th)

For class on Thursday, please read the classic statement on Web 2.0 by technology-guru, Tim O'Reilly: "Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software".

This will provide the theoretical and historical basis of our conversation for the next couple of weeks. Please read this article carefully.

Then, learn about Google's Android:

1. www.android.com
2. The developer site for Android

We'll be joined by Scott Ruston (PhD, Mellon Digital Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA) and David Shephard (PhD Candidate, UCLA) to discuss mobile media and the platform.

Advertising and Google

For class on Thursday, April 30th:

We will be speaking with a Google Advertising Sales Manager and learning about how Google has transforming web advertising.

In preparation for this meeting, please learn about Google Adwords and Google Adsense.

Also, read about Google's privacy policies and it's other advertising services, including DoubleClick and Google Analytics.

After you have read this material, please formulate at least two questions (posted on here as comments) for our conversation.

Info from our guest from Google:

Kiesha Ramey-Presner is an Advertising Sales Operations Manager for one of Google's largest retail account teams. Her team is responsible for specialty and big box Bay Area-based retailers including Gap, Levi's and Macy's, and generates approximately $100 million in annual revenue. Now managing aspects of both the pre-and-post sales client relationship for Search and Content, Kiesha began at Google seven years ago as a Creative Maximizer. In this capacity, she came up with keywords, wrote text ads and structured performance-driven accounts for some of Google's largest clients.

Make sure students understand what Search-based Google text ads are (AdWords). This is the baseline for any discussion that gets into other areas, like Content (ads on all of our partner sites outside of Google) - including YouTube. It's also worth noting we've explored applying our auction-based ad model to offline areas, including TV, Print and Audio (the latter two of which were cut in recent quarters).

Preparation for April 23rd class

Dear class,

For class on Thursday, I would like to discuss and evaluate -- as concretely as possible -- the fears over technology "taking over the world." As you certainly know, there is a long history of representing computers/robots/technology as "evil" and destroying human civilization. Think, for example, of the Matrix (a film in which humans are essentially the "food" for a massive, omniscient super-computer) or the idea of "the Borg" in Star Trek (an all-powerful, computer-like being that consumes everything in its path). Can you think of other examples?Why is technology to be feared?

Perhaps the video that Kevin posted (below) can help us -- why are we so scared of openness? Why can't the technologies enable new, more open social formations rather than dystopian visions of a fallen world?

The real work for the seminar is this:

How (if at all) is Google and Google technologies changing society and our very notions of what it means to be "human"? How is Google changing the ways we think about information and knowledge? How is Google changing the ways we think about privacy, individuality, identity, and our sense of self?

Please spend some time looking at the posts already on the site and thinking about the implications of various Google Technologies: Google Search, Google Earth/maps/streetview, Google Latitude, Google Docs, Google Book search, Gmail, etc. Look at the various posts and comments already on the blog.

Finally, learn about at least one Google Technology that you have never heard of before (ie, Google Knols). Click here to see some that you know and some that your probably don't know.

Quit Being So Damn Scared of The Internetz...

So the title is just to get everyone's attention and I wanted to perhaps continue our discussion about privacy/social networking/meeting stranges on the internet in one concise place. Maybe no one wants to discuss this but I want to know everyone's opinion on meeting new people on the internet.

There seem to be many here, or at least a few, who would gasp at the idea of going on a site, finding someone, e-mailing or messaging them and introducing yourself. People who may take the attitude "the internet is for me to maintain my local friends or friends that I know in person." Psh! I say "no way" to that. Certainly it can and does help with that. But I am under the impression and have always used the internet to MEET NEW PEOPLE, meet new people with similar interests, who can help me get ahead, who can give me advice, who I can ask for advice, who I can ask for a place to stay when I am in their neck of the woods.

GASP...I know right. Anyway, what are you all's thoughts about this? Do you guys meet "strangers" on the internet? Give out your information, etc. Personally, I have met tons of great people over the internet, some that I talk to at least twice a week. As typical as this sounds....one of my really good friends on the internet is a 46 year old gay man from New York. So yes, I am an 18 year old college student talking to a 46 year old gay man and I don't feel threatened, scared, intimidated, or nervous. Am I naive? Stupid? Young? Also, let me throw this in. Does it make a difference that I am guy? Is there a gender double standard when it comes to meeting people online? I would argue yes. Discuss!

Also, here is a video that pretty much sums up my view on this. Vaynerchuk style!

Busy Day For Google

Google had quite a busy day today, launching two new, and in my opinion, extremely useful features in Google Labs. The first is called Similar Images, and basically it lets you narrow your image searches to like items, colors, styles, etc with just the click of a button. The second is called Google News Timline, and it organizes news articles chronologically and lets you search for articles on a specific topic during a specific time period. It would seem that both of these features have the potential to be huge time savers, and both are directly related to Google Search, showing that despite its ambitious expansion, Google is first and foremost a search engine.

You can learn more about Similar Search and Google News Timline over at the Official Google Blog (which is on Blogger of course).

See...Google might not be so evil after all

Google Book Search settlement

Google settles case over copyright infringement of book search -- and gains a huge, uncontested right to distribute book content. Read about this case here. For a less-legalise version of the story, click here. This story breaks down how Google has actually managed to engineer a monopoly over the rights to search virtually every book ever produced in the world.