Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Google Sites has Altered the Landscape for Wikis


Google Sites is the most exciting product I've seen from the Googleplex in quite some time. I recently started using Google Sites to manage information between a small team I'm managing. I've used dozens of Wiki products in the past and have never been so initially impressed by a Wiki than I recently was with Google Sites.

When I think back on all the Wikis I've used, the first thing I remember is having to learn an overly complex markup language specific to the Wiki. Just take a look at TWiki or PBwiki, both of which have complicated markup languages, reserved wiki words and so on. Google Sites implements simplicity with its rich text editor and html editor. Google Sites also offers a free Wiki giving Google Sites a huge leg up on the competition. And lets no forget Google Sites' User Interface which is a huge leg up on the competition. 

Google Sites offers a simplistic wiki solution and reminds me of the pre-iPod days. Before the iPod, dozen of companies were making overly complicated MP3 players with bad interfaces and an absurd number of unnecessary features. That is how I see existing Wikis solutions, over complicated, bad interfaces, and more features than the majority of users will ever need. Google has done for Wikis what Apple did for MP3s players. 

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Feedburner Request: Real-Time Feed Stats

Dear Google,

Recently I've been spending time analyzing nobosh feeds on Feedburner. 

As you know, Feedburner is a fantastic free service that allows publishers to host a cached version of a feed on Feedburner's servers. nobosh utilizes Feedburner as it greatly reduces the load on the nobosh servers. Anyhow, back to the point of the post. After Google purchased Feedburner, one of the first actions was to make all Feedburner services such as Feedburner Stats completely free (Thanks Google). Feedburner Stats is a nice analytics tools that allows publishers to view the following stats on a feed: subscribers, live hits,  items uses, and uncommon uses. 

For some reason, the Feed Stat service has a reporting delay, unlike Google Analytics. As a publisher, I'd love to be able to view feed's stats in real-time. 

For more stories on Google, be sure to visit nobosh.com.