Google's Homepage Promotes the Mobile Search App

Google's mobile homepage now promotes the Google Search app for iOS. There's a big banner at the top of the page in both Safari and Chrome for iPhone and iPad.

There's a standard iOS feature for promoting mobile apps, but Google doesn't use it.

"Smart App Banners vastly improve users' browsing experience compared to other promotional methods. As banners are implemented in iOS 6, they will provide a consistent look and feel across the web that users will come to recognize. Users will trust that tapping the banner will take them to the App Store and not a third-party advertisement. They will appreciate that banners are presented unobtrusively at the top of a webpage, instead of as a full-screen ad interrupting the web content. And with a large and prominent close button, a banner is easy for users to dismiss," explains Apple.

Google implements a similar feature, but it doesn't work so well. Dismissing the banner doesn't work: when I open google.com in a new tab or refresh the page, the banner shows up again. That's annoying.

How do I know that Google doesn't use Apple's smart app banners? Here's Yelp's site: the banner includes ratings and screenshots from the App Store.

Another clue: Google's banner is also displayed in Chrome and smart app banners are limited to Safari. Google should use the smart app banner for Safari and the custom banner for other browsers. Oh, and you should be able the dismiss the custom banner.

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Moto X - Designed by You, Assembled in the USA

Moto X is no longer a rumor, Motorola's CEO announced it in May. "Moto X will be built in a 500,000-square-foot facility outside of Fort Worth, Texas, that was previously used to build Nokia phones. Seventy percent of manufacturing will take place there, making this the first smartphone built within the United States, Woodside said. However, the processors are from Taiwan and the OLED screens are from Korea." It's surprising to see a CEO that reveals so many details about a new phone before it's launched.

AdAge reports that Motorola will run a full-page ad "in the July 3 editions of The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post". The ad announces the "first smartphone designed, engineered and assembled in the USA" and "the first smartphone that you can design yourself".

Motorola has a new logo, is now "a Google company" and has bold ambitions. "We're not just any company," says the ad. Once a mobile phone pioneer, Motorola lost market share and was saved from bankruptcy by Android and Google. Now Motorola tries to bring back innovation and go back to the roots.

"Smartphones are very different than other tech products a consumer owns," says Brian Wallace, Motorola VP. "They're closer to shoes or a watch. You carry it with you everywhere you go. Everyone sees what phone you're carrying and they judge you on it. Yet it's the one thing you carry that's the least customizable." Well, you can always buy a case.

The trouble with assembling phones in the US is that it's expensive and most components are made in Asia. The new Motorola tries to change that. "Marry big science with a good application and you have something. When you take on a really bold vision you yield good results more often," says Regina Dugan, a former DARPA director who now works at Motorola.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

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An Old Google Ad

Here's an old Google/Airtel commercial from 2007 that was restored and enhanced for the Computer History Museum. It's from India and it was the result of a partnership between Google and Airtel, a mobile network operator. The commercial announced the launch of Google search on Airtel Live.

Director: Ram Madhvani
Writers: KS Chax, Ajay Gahlaut, Pradyumna Chauhan
Agency: Rediffusion DY&R, Delhi

{ Thanks, Kristian Serrano and Roney Thomas. }

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Google Alerts Drops RSS Feeds

If you read the post about the well-connected Google Reader, you probably anticipated this chain reaction. All the services that integrated with Google Reader will remove their features, now that Reader is gone.

Google Alerts no longer supports RSS delivery and recommends users to switch to email delivery. "Google Reader is no longer available. To continue receiving Google Alerts, go to http://www.google.com/alerts/manage and change your alerts to email delivery," says Google.

You're probably wondering: what's the connection between Google Alerts feeds and Google Reader? Google Alerts feeds, which were added back in 2008, had public URLs and you could use any feed reader to subscribe to them. The trouble is that the feeds were generated by Google Reader and were actually a Google Reader feature, just like the web page monitoring feature.

Unfortunately, Google doesn't offer feeds for search results and the Web Search API has been deprecated and it was too limited to create a service like Google Alerts. The only obvious alternative is to screenscrape Google results.

Talkwalker Alerts looks almost like Google Alerts and offers both email alerts and feeds. The service is free for up to 100 alerts.

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Google Reader's Final Message

If you open Google Reader, you'll see this message:

Thank you for stopping by.

Google Reader has been discontinued. We want to thank all our loyal fans. We understand you may not agree with this decision, but we hope you'll come to love these alternatives as much as you loved Reader.

Sincerely,

The Google Reader team

Frequently-asked questions

What will happen to my Google Reader data?

All Google Reader subscription data (eg. lists of people that you follow, items you have starred, notes you have created, etc.) will be systematically deleted from Google servers. You can download a copy of your Google Reader data via Google Takeout until 12PM PST July 15, 2013.

Will there be any way to retrieve my subscription data from Google in the future?

No -- all subscription data will be permanently, and irrevocably deleted. Google will not be able to recover any Google Reader subscription data for any user after July 15, 2013.

Why was Google Reader discontinued?

Please refer to our blog post for more information.

I don't understand why Google removes Reader data so soon and why the message uses words like "systematically deleted", "permanently, and irrevocably deleted". It's like they try to get rid of everything that's related to Reader. I can still download Google Buzz data from Google Takeout. A similar message was posted for Google Health, but users had one year to download their data.

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Google News OneBox With Bigger Photos

Google tests an updated version of the Google News OneBox, with bigger thumbnails. The images are really big and I find them distracting. Another change is that the first link no longer sends you to a Google News search results page, it points to a news article and borrows its title.

Here's the existing interface:

{ Thanks, Michel. }

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The End of This Internet

"Congratulations, you've reached the end of this internet. Look for another?" That's the message you see when you use the Google Reader bookmarklet and you read all the posts from your subscriptions. It's a joke that's quite bitter, now that the end of Google Reader is really close.

Google Reader was more than just a feed reader, it was probably the most well-connected Google service. It was integrated with so many Google services and now all of them will be a little less useful. The missing features, which relied on Google Reader, will show how important this service really was.

iGoogle's canvas view for feeds was powered by Google Reader and now it's no longer available, just like the Reader gadget.

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