Ben Charny

Welsh writer and artist David Lloyd, aka the blogger Dio Bach, believes a recent advertising experiment by Maxim Magazine outside of Las Vegas is the first of the new slew of much slicker “ground ads” to come. Loosely defined, ground ads are advertisements large enough to show up on a satellite map image, like those […]

Coincidence or not, Google has been very busy rejiggering its Google Maps in the few weeks since Yahoo introduced its first competitive mapping feature based on satellite imagery. The catalyst for Google may be that Yahoo claims its satellite maps feature, unveiled April 11, covers more of the planet than anyone else. So Google apparently […]

Leave it to Microsoft to come up with an automated way of finding friends. On April 26, the software giant unveiled new social networking technology that it has developed and a startup called Wallop that will distribute it later this year. Along with a user interface developed by design consultant frog design, Wallop uses special […]

A member of San Franciscos board of supervisors said he has some objections to the citys tentative plans to let Google and Earthlink jointly build a citywide wireless network. San Francisco Supervisor Jake McGoldrick is concerned about how much actual public input there will be with the deal, and how quickly its gaining the favor […]

Microsoft’s got something Google hasn’t: a supposedly bleeding-edge global social network a la MySpace.com. What Microsoft unveiled April 26 is its long-awaited Wallop, a 12-person startup that’s using Microsoft-developed technology to launch another in the long line of Internet-based “clubs,” where behind the supposed security of membership anybody can freely seek the like-minded to chat […]

For some Google regulars living in California and elsewhere in the United States, the search engine of late has been using some of its nearly barren home page (www.google.com) to promote the newest version of the Firefox with Google Toolbar, something it developed with Mozilla, the browser’s maker. The tool bar, Version 2, was unleashed […]

European Google mashers, rev your engines. It appears Google’s finally added driving directions and other street-level information to its Google Maps for Europe. Google Blogoscope first reported on the development on April 25. The report has been confirmed by a number of sources. As with any new feature, some of the warts are showing. One […]

Google is adding more sales muscle to its Washington, D.C., offices, according to some new job postings that make clear its ambitions to do more business with large government agencies. The firm is seeking a head of enterprise federal sales to establish and expand business with large federal customers, a federal sales engineer with a […]

New job postings by Google show that the search company plans to add more sales muscle to its Washington offices, suggesting that it has ambitions of doing even more business with the government than it currently does. The firm is seeking a head of enterprise federal sales to establish and expand its present-day business with […]

Some new research concludes that Google Internet search requests via cell phone are mostly to find porn, and at a rate twice what Google encounters from its regular wired Internet users. Nearly one in five of Google wireless searches are for words associated with adult entertainment, according to a study (PDF) of a million Google […]

Google plans to release the findings from the first-ever large-scale study of its mobile users’ habits, plus eyeball tracking experiences and other Google research nuggets at a conference this week focusing on computer-human interfaces. There are to be Google employees presenting research at eight different panels and forums during this week’s CHI 2006 through April […]

Nearly one in two Internet searches now takes place using a Google search engine, according to a new report from audience measurement firm Nielsen//NetRatings. In March, the percentage of all Internet search at Google grew from 47 to 49 percent, Nielsen//NetRatings found. At that pace, Google will eclipse the 50th percentile, or majority milestone, in […]