My Month-long Google Products Experiment: Google Books

Now were on day three of our Google Products experiment.  To give a quick recap of what we’ve covered thus far, day one saw us revisiting Google Alerts.  I’ve got to say that I’ve actually anticipated checking my email each day.  I might mention that this has been one of my Gmail account.  Now before anyone starts crying foul I’ve had a gmail account for three or four years and never used it.  I got it first as it was something new but didn’t like using it and still don’t, but we’ll save the details of that for another day.  It was quickly abandoned in favor of my Yahoo Mail account.  I kept the Gmail account as a spam catcher and it’s remained that way until this day.  Anyway, I digress.   The point is that I’ve actually been interested in checking my mail to see just what Google Alerts had scrounged up for me today.  So far Google Alerts have kept my interest.

Next up was Google Blog Search.  As opposed to Google Alerts I don’t feel the same excitement to revisit the Blog Search.  It seemed superfluous the first time I used it and I still feel the same way today.

Now for today’s product to evaluate, we’ll take a look at Google Books.    At first glance Google Books looks like a ho-hum portal for Jr. Highschool book reports.  I see old copies of Life Magazine, never-before heard of “classic” books and old rag magazines about Don Cheadle.  Yawn…  Maybe it’s me, maybe I just don’t get it.  Maybe it’s the same reason I don’t own an Amazon Kindle or read books on my iPhone.  I never want to read an entire book on line.  Reading is a sacrosanct act for me and you just can’t beat a physical, tangible book in your hands and the smell of a new book.

There’s got to be something more behind having these books online.  I don’t think Google would go through the effort to create and maintain the site without a reason.  I dug deeper and scrolled to the bottom for the About Google Books link.  Here Google provides five reasons why the have added these resources to the internet.

1. Search:  This makes sense for all those jr. high school book reports, little Jonny needs a resource to quote.
2. Browse Books Online:  Let me drop my smug persona (we write what we know, right)  for a bit and I guess I can imagine that there are people unable to visit their local library or afford to purchase all the standard classics for themselves.  This could be a dream come true for many people to have access to all these tombs.
3. Learn More–Fast:  Not only have they made it possible for little Jonny to read all about Don Cheadle, they’ve provided all sorts of meta data about each work like references and maps. Okay, that’s a good thing too….I guess.
4. Buy the Book …or Borrow it from the Library:   Ah  now we’re getting somewhere.  We can actually purchase the magazine about Don Cheadle.  At last!  Surely I jest, I’m a proud American capitalist, why else would I be writing this…;-)  We can leave number four without mentioning the last part of this item, the … borrow it from the Library portion.  Now I this is a great tie in, I love it when something serves more than one purpose.
5. Where do the Books Come From:  This is the kick for me or what makes the whole thing worth while.  I love libraries and history, this project is joining the two for the best of both worlds.  In number five Google tells us where the books come from and about their Partner Program and the Library Project.

Overall Grade: C

Pros: Documenting some of the best works for all time.  Making content available to millions of people around the world.

Cons: I have to read about Don Cheadle. ;-)  I don’t like to read books on-line.  What’s the longevity of this product for me.  Honestly I’ve never used it before and will probably never use it in the future.  I have many of these works available for me for free as well on my iPhone but I don’t read them there either.

As always when I help a customer work on their search engine optimization I evaluate their business and try to find some useful links to help build up their page rank. We try to look at only the best sites that have quality content. Here are a few for Trade Show Booths I found while researching for http://www.kmgcompany.com who carries the Entasi Display Booths and many other great products.

The Entasi display system is the most convenient and complete product in the portable display industry. This one-of-a-kind display system combines the benefits of a sturdy aluminum frame, high quality Photo Fabric graphic, and numerous accessories in a creative eye-catching design. With so many benefits, It’s easy to see why Entasi is the hottest display product on the market.

Google Page Rank 4
http://nomadicdisplay.typepad.com/
http://www.skylinetradeshowtips.com/
http://blog.moddisplays.com/

Google Page Rank 3

http://www.trade-show-marketing-blog.com/

http://www.impact-displays.com/trade-show-blog/index.php

http://www.thetradeshownetwork.com/trade-show-blog/

http://www.godfreygroup.com/blog/

Google Page Rank 2

http://www.classicexhibits.com/tradeshow-blog/
http://www.smashhitdisplays.com/blog/

http://www.exhibitresources.com/blog/

My Month-long Google Products Experiment: Google Blog Search

Last week I was the lucky winner of a back operation that I needed to take care of a few herniated disks.  This left we with some time on my hands as the doctor advised against much vigorous activity.   That and the operation itself left me to build my own pulpit to talk about what’s on my mind.  My idea was to take a different Google Product each day and try to use it throughout the day to see if it was something I wanted to continue doing.  Sort of a daily challenge.  The last episode had me reviewing Google’s Alert tool which I found to be more intriguing than I had first thought and may be a tool I add to my permanent arsenal.

In this continuing webisode of my experiences using Google Products for a month I’ll be looking at Google’s Blog Search.  At first glance the Blog Search seems pretty much like a non-event.  It appears to be just Google Search and Google News mashed up.  However to do my due diligence in reviewing the tool I tried one of my favorite search terms. Call  me narcissistic but who doesn’t like to Google oneself?  I tried the term Utah Semantic Markup.  Remember the old adage that you never try something in a demo that you haven’t done before.  Alternatively you never ask a question that you don’t know how the person will answer.  Well, I thought I knew the answer to this question but was surprised.

When I did a Blog search for the Utah Semantic Markup term I saw none of the results I expected.  I wasn’t there, even though I’d spent countless hours designing and developing my site to be the premier site for semantic markup in Utah.  At this point I knew they must be querying different datasources as I was no where to be found.  Kudos goes to Google for putting a Web Search right next to the Blog Search so you can see the differences.  A quick search for Utah Semantic Markup sure enough showed Half Nut Development as the top result in my Google Search.

Now I know Google knows about my blog as it’s rescued me several times before I found a good back-up tool, but the search didn’t seem to know about me.  I then searched for some documentation as to just what is being indexed in the Google Blog Search.

At the bottom of the first search page is a link for documentation or about the Google Blog Search.  In this document there is a FAQ that asks my question which was what blogs are being indexed?  Google says, “The goal of Blog Search is to include every blog that publishes a site feed (either RSS or Atom). It is not restricted to Blogger blogs, or blogs from any other service.”

Not having been a big fan of RSS feeds I don’t have one on my site.  This also tells me why my results aren’t showing up in the Blog Search.  In essence I’m missing out on any searches done with Google Blog Search.  In order to  fix this I made a mental note to setup my RSS feed in Wordpress.  I also found a simpler more lazy option which works for me as a programmer. I can go to http://blogsearch.google.com/ping to manually add my site to the search.  Now the test will be how long will it take to index my blog.  If past results are any indicator then I expect to have it within the week if not sooner.

As mentioned above much of the content we have or want to wade through may seem trivial but one feature of the Google Blog Search helps to filter the data we must slosh through.  They have links on the left-hand side to filter content according to time, by the last hour, last 12 hours, last day, week, month or anytime.  Alternatively you can choose a specific date range with the help of a handy pop-up calendar.

Overall Grade: C

Pros: Great at limiting search to blog content only.

Cons: I think the reasons why the tool is good is also the reason why I wouldn’t use the product.  How often would I mentally say I just want to search blog content.  This is the opposite of what I expect when I come to Google or any other search engine.  I want it to find what I’m looking for regardless of where it’s at.  I understand for Google and from a technology standpoint it makes sense to filter the content to reduce the quantity of content to search through, but it will take a great user interface to make it usable by the masses.

We do the highest quality web design and development. We make your site fast and findable, meaning we can help you get ranked on Google and other search engines.

We have the skills and experience. We’ve been doing web design since 1996 and we’ve worked with some of the biggest clients in the state and around the world. Let us bring that experience to your web site.

You’ll find cheaper but you won’t find better. With web design you truly do get what you pay for.

Check out our sites at www.halfnutdevelopment and www.5nut.com.

Email us today for a free bid at sales@halfnutdevelopment.com.

Web Page Design
* Shopping Carts
* Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* Slicing Photoshop/Illustrator Designs into XHTML & CSS
* Logo design
* Corporate identity
* Custom graphics and icon design
* Advanced XHTML Semantic markup, tableless design
* Accessibility, Section 508 and WCAG
* Design & Development for viewing with iPhone
* Blog, MySpace & other community customizations
* E-Commerce
* Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* Web 2.0 Design
* Experienced with corporate level design practices (MVC/MVP)

Web Development

* CSS -Tableless design
* Semantic Markup/W3C Coding Standards
* HTML, XHTML, DHTML
* XML & XSLT
* LAMP, PHP, MySQL ASP
* Perl, Ruby on Rails, Python
* WordPress, Drupal and Zen Cart
* .Net, ASPX, SQL Server
* AJAX, JQuery & JavaScript
* MySQL, Oracle & database design
* Flash

Web Site Evaluation

* We can run a free 50 point evaluation to measure and improve
o Aesthetics & Look and Feel -Keep it current to keep people coming back!
o User Experience (UX) -How User Friendly is your site?
o Validity of all code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) Errors prevent people from seeing your site and make it slower.
o Accessibility -Are you in compliance with Section 508 and WCAG.
o Site Speed -If your site is slow people will leave, learn how to make it faster!
o Browser testing -How does your site look on a Mac with Safari or other browsers?

Web Hosting

* Value and Corporate level Web Hosting
* Domain Purchasing
* Web log analysis
* Web Based Email hosting
* Virus scanning of your site
* Making your pages database driven with dynamic content
* Backup Solutions
* FTP access to your files
Contact us today at sales@halfnutdevelopment.com or call 801-560-8812.

Shopping Carts, ECommerce and Merchant Accounts…All You’ll Need to Sell Your Products and Services Online?

If you’re like most people your eyes glazed over after reading the first line.  Most people have an idea of what products and services they want to sell on line but have no idea of how they can accomplish this monumental task.

This is where Half Nut Development comes in.  We have over 12 years of experience working with customers to get their products and services online.  We can help you with every step along the way from the customer visiting your site to paying with credit cards.

If you look at our product and services offerings as well as our portfolio you’ll see the past work we’ve done from the simplest of shopping carts with Pay Pal to full-blown ecommerce solutions that are just the right fit.

We know how complicated it can get to setup a shopping cart online so we’ve made an easy to follow list on getting your business started on the internet.   We’ve helped numerous customers sell their goods online from vitamins to t-shirts.  Here are a few of the important steps to remember when your looking at getting a shopping cart ready.  We have a number of solutions from OSCommerce and Zen Cart to our own custom shopping cart (Half Nut Cart).

• Obtain a Merchant Account -Example: Authorize.net
• Obtain a SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificate -Example:GoDaddy.com
• Install/Enable a Shopping Cart -Example Zen Cart, osCommerce
• Configure Shopping Cart
• Implement Design in Shopping Cart

Here is how we were able to help Sea Turtle Swimwear get their business off the ground.

Company: Sea Turtle Swimwear

Our mission is to bring you swimwear options that offer quality, uniqueness, protection and personalized service. So let your children SPLASH, PLAY, and EXPLORE.
Pardon the dust, we’re under construction right now.

Website: www.seaturtleswimwear.com

Technology: eCommerce/Shopping Cart with Zen Cart, LAMP(Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), XHTML, CSS and Graphic design & layout.

Visit our page today at www.halfnutdevelopment.com and request a free bid on your next web project.