The Semantic Web, Findability and Tagaroo

by Ezra

Web 3.0 is probably going to be more like web 2.2.1, and could be a lot to do with making sense of the screeds of content that is available on the net. Bring on Calais who are a company modelled on the open style all about semantic findability – or in other words making use of people and natural workflows to classify and categorise content. It’s a good thing – It seems more and more often Google is becoming the broadsword of search compared to Delicious or Digg as a scalpel for finding quality up to date content. Google still use bots to crawl the web after all, and although many speculate we are close to the singularity, robots will never understand the web the same way as a human being.
One of the exciting tools in the Calais Semantic arsenal, is the wordpress plugin called tagaroo, which is being used for the first time on Infofoundry in this post. Calais explain it’s as following:
“Meet Tagaroo, the Calais plugin for WordPress blogs. As you are writing your post, Tagaroo automatically analyzes it and suggests both tags and images from Flickr to enhance your post. You can select tags you like, incorporate them into your post, and then automatically search Flickr for images to complement your writing. Tagaroo has its own home, where you can read about it in more detail, download the plugin, and visit the forums.”
So it automatically logs what you are writing – presumably against its own databases which requires an api key – and suggests  search terms and images based on the content you have authored.

For example - the image and tags of this post have been added using tagaroo.

6 Fantastic Interface Decisions in Google Chrome Browser

by Ezra

What are the steps Google have taken to set their browser apart from the competitors when it comes to interface?

1. The Dashboard view

This is something that Opera was doing well way back when, and was something that set it apart as a browser. It is a piece of innovation that is only available in other browsers (Firefox) as a plugin.

2. The clean window

Unlike most of the other browsers, Google have decided to keep everything below the top toolbar dedicated to content. There is no footer bar, and it actually subtly improves the overall browsing experience.

3. The clean menu bar

Everything about the standard browser is minimal and the menu bar is the jewel in the crown. Everything has been stripped back to the core essentials required for maximum functionality.

4. Iconography

This is once again very subtle, but there is actually only one persistent word in the whole window (not counting any content, search terms, or urls). That is the word “Google”. Even then it is a word mark or brand that we are all highly familiar with. Everything else is represented by iconography. Elegant, clean and simple.

5. Drawing on well known elements

Google have worked smarter rather than harder, and innovated where appropriate, but probably more importantly – they have gone with convention also. The tools and settings of Chrome are located in exactly the same place as IE7 (the top right corner, under the close button) which is currently shipping as standard with Windows Vista. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, they have reduced the learning curve of the large population who already use Internet Explorer.

6. Search

If the clean menu bar is the jewel in the crown, then the search functionality is the inset blue diamond in that jewel. Google have built their empire on search, so it is appropriate that the search functionality is the all singing all dancing part of the browser. By doubling up the URL and search box together they have authored functionality that I’ve often wished for. They have also given the text a beautiful hierarchy within the box that distinguishes search, and humanizes URLs by separating out the key part of the URL and the persistent “lingo” (http://, php, etc.)

Summary
In summary from an interface and GUI perspective Google Chrome is a beautifully simple yet functionally elegant browser. It is easy to overlook the fact that to reach this balance of simplicity and functionality, it is most likely that many hours of user testing and research went into this product. 5 stars.

Google Chrome Market Share

by Ezra

 

Chrome stats

Chrome stats

Evidence of the power of the Google brand is blatantly aparent in the statistics of the first 24 hours of the release of the new “Google Chrome” browser. They achieved 2.6% market share in the first 24 hours. Thats double Opera’s market share, and encroaching on Safari. Given that Safari ships with Macs, that is pretty impressive. Full blog post by Google is here.