• Xoopit should have more resources now that they are part of Yahoo
• I agree with Ouriel that Yahoo could benefit a lot from the data Xoopit collects about Gmail usage

For these reasons and also for the way their email ends, I actually think that it was Google who forced Yahoo and Xoopit to make that decision -

Thank you for using Xoopit for Gmail. We’ll miss you!

Anyways Xoopit, it was fun to use you. You helped me find some forgotten pics that were buried deep inside my Gmail archive. I will miss you as well.

Today I discovered another hidden feature that I was not aware of – suggestion of the right spelling for a query that contains a misspelling. For example, start typing the the query “waist of t” and Google will suggest terms such as “waste of time” or “waste of space”. Pretty cool as it saves you the extra “Did you mean?” search.

By the way, when comparing this feature of Google Suggest to the other search engines, I would rank them in the following order:

1. Google – variety of offers and misspelling correction
2. Ask – misspelling correction but small variety of suggestions
3. Yahoo – strong bias towards suggesting misspelling
4. Bing – No variety, no misspelling correction. Still needs to do major improvements in that area.

I wonder if that is a response to the fact Microsoft AdCenter came out of beta recently or to the Bing launch, a search engine that I highly recommend using.

BTW, does anyone know if (and how much) Google pays publishers when visitors clicks on these house ads and take action (download picasa or chrome, sign up for analytics or as advertisers)?

google-house-ad-adwords

If Twitter will be part of Google it is probably going to go down at the same time Gmail and other Google services go down (you can check status here). This would leave millions of folks in the twittersphere with no effective tool to immediately post their rants.

Biz, Ev, You have built the internet’s freedom of speech best tool. Don’t do it.

So what do you think was the CTR on this text link and what was Gmail’s sign up process conversation rate for those that were brave enough to click?

I am pretty sure that the same exact error happens to millions of users every day, and many of them are clueless and do the same thing – they get frustrated, delete the formula that has a minor error and start over.

So, here’s my suggestion to a very simple killer feature – AutoParenth. Excel should automatically add an opening parenthesis whenever it detects that a cell: (a) has a function (first character inside the cell is minus, plus or the equal signs) and (b) it has a closing parenthesis. This feature should be built similar to the AutoCorrect feature to give the users greater control.

If that’s too difficult to implement, Excel should at least provide an informative error message, just like Apple Numbers and Google Docs do. This is such a common error that a specific error message with clear instructions is necessary.

Apple Numbers informative error message.

Google Docs also provides enough information to guide the user.

I hope that someone at the Microsoft Office team will read this post and add this request to their todo list.

I saw it on QuickGold which is an app (great one – the Quicksilver version for iPhone) that can be installed only on a jailbroken iPhone.

This makes me wonder, does Google, a long time Apple partner, advertise on semi-illigal applications? Or is that a RON type of buy?

I wonder if that’s a way for Google to boost holiday sales grabbing people’s attention and pointing them to the sponsored results rail on the right.

Menorah (kw=Hanukkah)

Candy cane (kw=Christmas)

Candy cane (kw=Kawanzaa gifts)

But Globes forgot to include the “Other” category on the results page although it was one of the options. Oops.

So, let me fill the missing piece for you. Google does come first but the ‘Other’ category comes second with 23%. The remaining 8 behemoths (Intel, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, CheckPoint, Nice, Comverse and Amdocs) do not look that attractive anymore to many people.

So, if you are an Israeli start-up or an entrepreneur looking to build a team, there are plenty of people out there that might want to work for you.

I took a screenshot of my Google Analytics account and compared the results to ComScore’s report. During the month of May 2008, 96% (!) of the search users who came to this blog were Google users.

And yes, the numbers are small, they do not represent the US population and not statistically significant, but still, I find Google’s dominance among the readers of this blog to be really amazing.