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Google Social Search Updates

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:36:27 +0000

Yesterday, Google announced several new updates to their Social Search feature. When it was introduced back in 2009, Social Search results results were only displayed at the bottom of web search results, now these links will be specially marked and prominently displayed so you’ll know if a specific search result was shared by one of your friends from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube.

Today we’re doing a little bit more to bring you all the goodness of Google, plus the opinions of the people you care about. As always, we want to help you find the most relevant answers among the billions of interconnected pages on the web. But relevance isn’t just about pages—it’s also about relationships. That’s why we introduced Google Social Search in 2009, and why we’ve made a number of improvements since then. Today we’re taking another step forward—enabling you to get even more information from the people that matter to you, whether they’re publishing on YouTube, Flickr or their own blog or website.

Here’s a demo video of Google Social Search’s new features:

Social Search Results:
Link Shared on Facebook

Link shared on Twitter

To use these Social Search features, users have to be logged in to their Google accounts and link to their social networking accounts. Another option included in the recent update is the ability to privately link their social networking accounts to their Google account. If you have multiple accounts, you can link all those accounts and choose which one you want to be public or private.

These new Google Social Search features are currently available only to the English version of Google.com and will start rolling in the coming week.

What do you think of the new Google Social Search updates? Are links shared by friends more reliable? Please share your thoughts.

Yahoo Messenger 11 Beta w/ Facebook Chat Support

Jaypee Habaradas — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:17:05 +0000

Good news for avid Yahoo! Messenger and Facebook users! Yahoo! has recently released a beta version of Yahoo! Messenger 11 to the public which, aside from the usual features (instant messaging, text, voice and video calls) allows users to play social games, manage multiple social network accounts and chat with Facebook friends.

With Yahoo! Messenger 11 beta, users will be able to play social games from Zynga, Elex and OMGPOP like Balloono, Pool, Happy Harvest, Happy Manor and popular Facebook games Fishville and Mafia Wars with their friends. Users can also share game activities and play-status so friends can join their games and vice versa.

Yahoo! Messenger 11 also enables users to manage their social networks directly from the IM client. Users can view, comment, like and post updates on multiple social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo! Pulse, etc. Another cool feature is the addition of the Facebook Chat support. Now, you can chat with your buddies on Facebook directly from Yahoo! Messenger.

Mobile users are not left behind as video and voice calls, photo and video sharing are also now available on the iPhone and Android devices. Video calling and multitasking is available for iPod Touch (4th gen) and iPhone 3GS/4 running on iOS 4.1. Video calling on Android devices require OS 2.2+ and the Yahoo! Messenger Video Add-on and for now, only supports the MyTouch 4G and EVO models.

To learn more and download the new Yahoo! Messenger 11 Beta, visit http://messenger.yahoo.com/beta/win/.

Anyone tried the beta version of Yahoo! Messenger 11? How do you like the new features? Which feature do you like best – playing social games or Facebook Chat support? Please share your thoughts.

[image source: Yahoo! Messenger Blog]

Weekend Roundup #94

Jaypee Habaradas — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:28:40 +0000

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend like I did. Got to play basketball with my friend yesterday morning and got to spend quality time with my family the rest of the day. I made sure that this week’s edition of the Weekend Roundup wouldn’t be late like the previous ones. I did that by preparing the draft and gathering all the links and articles early. Although I wanted to publish it last night, I’m still glad that I was able to publish the Weekend Roundup “on time”. There are several very interesting and very informative posts in this edition of the Weekend Roundup which I hope you will find useful. Enjoy!

Blogging

WordPress

Technology

Gadgets

Pinoy Blogs

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or want your article or find an interesting story that you want to be featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Twitter + Google Maps = Streamd.in

Jaypee Habaradas — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:57:37 +0000

Geolocation is one of the hottest if not the hottest trend in social media these days and a very hot topic during the recent 2010 SXSW festival. I’m pretty sure most of you are already familiar with it and most likely are actively using location-based social networking apps like Gowalla or Foursquare on your mobile devices. Twitter launched the geolocation feature on their website two months ago, enabling users to include their current location with their messages. So now, you can show others where you’re tweeting from.

Although I’m on Gowalla and Foursquare, I haven’t enabled and I don’t use the geolocation feature on Twitter. For those of you who have, I’m positive that you’ll be interested with this web-based Twitter client that I’m featuring today. Its called Streamd.in, a simple web-based Twitter client that’s paired with Google Maps that lets you see what’s happening around you, let others know what you’re doing or broadcast your thoughts and location via live video.

Streamd.in is a project headed by Derek Punsalan working together with Raul Raja, Justin Elsberry, Nick Elsberry and Edward Suh. The original plan for Streamd.in was to display Twitter updates from around the world on a Google Map but it eventually became a web-based Twitter client paired with Google Maps.

Screenshots:

Streamd.in Features:

View status updates from people they follow
View updates originating from a specific location in the world
Create, reply, retweet, view user profiles or follow / unfollow users
Manually set a specific location with each message or remain hidden

Although Streamd.in presently only focuses on Twitter content, developers say that future plans include adding updates from Foursquare, Brightkite and Flickr.

Being a Twitter client, you can do almost everything – post updates, view the timeline, mentions, direct messages, favorites and retweets on Streamd.in. Only thing you can’t do right now is access your lists. The live streaming video feature on Streamd.in is made possible by TokBox.

If you want to know more about it or want to try it out yourself, check out Streamd.in or you can also follow @streamdin on Twitter.

What’s your opinion on geolocation or location-based services? Do you openly share your location and use location-based services or are you worried about the privacy issues? What do you think of Streamd.in? What other features or options would like to see added to it in the future? Please share your thoughts.

Yahoo! Mail Now Supports 100 MB Attachments

Jaypee Habaradas — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:16:21 +0000

Webmail or web e-mail services are very popular amongst users because they are easily accessible and free to use. The top players in today’s webmail market are Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and AOL. Gmail revolutionized webmail when it was publicly released in 2007 and offered 1 GB of storage capacity when its competitors at that time only provide 2-4 MB. Since then, these webmail providers have been constantly coming up with new features to try to keep or increase its share of the market.

One of the problems with using webmail is that users are limited to sending 10-20 MB attachments. To address that issue, Gmail recently upped its file attachment size maximum to 25 MB.

Just a few days ago, Yahoo! Mail came up with its answer. With the integration of Drop.io service, Yahoo! Mail users can now send e-mail attachments of up to 100 MB.

If you have a Yahoo! Mail account and would want to try it out, first you need to login to your account then check the left sidebar and see if you have Applications. If you don’t, you’ll have to visit the Yahoo! Mail Apps page to enable it. After you enable it, you should see it on the sidebar.

Click on Attach Large Files.

Since you’ll be using it for the first time, it will ask you if you want to allow the app to have access to your Yahoo! Mail account and info. Click on Allow and it will open up a new tab entitled Attach Large Files.

To start using the Drop.io app/service, click on Get Started Now.

To start send or attach a file, click on Select Files, browse and select any file/s from your computer.

After you select a file/s, you can proceed on uploading the files and sending your email.

Although I use Gmail as my primary email account, I still keep a Yahoo! Mail account for other stuff so this new feature is a welcome addition and I’m sure a lot of Yahoo! Mail users would be pleased with this. I won’t be surprised if Gmail would increase its file attachment size limit soon. Aside from the Drop.io service, there are other useful apps available like Flickr and PayPal which I haven’t tried yet.

Anyone else tried these new Yahoo! Mail feature? What apps are you using or have tried on Yahoo! Mail? What other apps or services would you like to see added on Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or other webmail?