Google | Justin Levy

Living in the Cloud and Google OS

November 28, 2009 By Justin Levy 8 Comments

If you’ve been keeping up on your reading of tech blogs, then you can’t get away from all of the increased chatter over Google OS. Google continues to try revolutionizing the way we interact with the web. Google OS is going to change the way we work on a computer. Initially, the target will be netbooks and will change the way we think of the typical desktop. As Google explains:

For now, Google OS is not designed to be your main operating system. It’s just a fast way to get online, a simplified operating system that removes unnecessary software and opens the browser in a few seconds.

Google OS will keep everything you do in the cloud. Obviously, the suite of apps will be Google products. While the launch of Google OS is exciting, and plenty of blogs have covered the launch, it does bring about the question of living in the cloud.

Many people I know turn to the cloud for some portion of their daily interactions but still feel more comfortable and interact with a typical desktop. For example, I use Google Docs for documents that I want to share with others or that I want to be able to access any time (in addition to tools like Dropbox). For day-to-day documents, spreadsheets, and slide decks, I use iWork or Microsoft Office. Instead of sharing documents, I attach them to emails which then cause a long thread and confusion over the latest document version. I know that using cloud-based apps like Google Docs would solve this, especially for a company using the Google Apps environment. But, the challenge is that as a business society, we are still comfortable with doing the email thread method, even if we know it’s not the most productive.

Eventually we will all make the convergence fully to the cloud. If Google has any say in it, their push of Google OS will help to make that convergence even sooner.

Check out this video from Google to find out more about Google OS.

What are your thoughts on living in the cloud? What percentage of your time is spent using cloud-based apps versus desktop apps?

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Filed Under: Google, technology, Videos Tagged With: cloudapps, Google, googleos, software, technology, Videos

Inbound Marketing – Video Book Review

November 3, 2009 By Justin Levy 15 Comments

Are you trying to figure out how to develop an online presence and just how Google, social media and blogs will help with that? Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone gave you a task list that that would help you “get found” online? What if there was a book out there that helped to make to explain how all of these online tools work together to help YOU? Lucky for you, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the co-founders of HubSpot, have published exactly that book. Their new book Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs
(affiliate link), is an excellent, tactical read that I think many of you would benefit from. Not only are Brian and Dharmesh friends but this book helped push me to go do a few more things that I hadn’t been doing.

Check out my video review of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs
(affiliate link). If you can’t view the video, check it out over on YouTube.

If you’ve already picked up a copy of the book, what did you think of it? Did it give you a list of things to go do?

Disclosure: HubSpot provided me with a review copy of this book. HubSpot is a sponsor of many events run by New Marketing Labs and Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, is a member of the HubSpot B oard of Advisors.

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Google, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Reviews, Social Media, Videos Tagged With: Book Reviews, Google, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Videos

Google News Should Integrate Twitter Search

July 27, 2009 By Justin Levy 3 Comments

One of the primary websites that I check throughout the day is Google News. I have been in love with this website as a source of news since it was released several years ago. It allows me to quickly see what’s going on in the world and if a particular story interests me, I can view several other news sources who have also reported on it. This is great for someone like me who likes to consume lots of information from as many different sources as possible.

Over the years they have continued to add tweaks to it such as being able to move around what sections appear where, adding in local news and more. Recently Google added the ability to view YouTube videos for news stories.

This is fantastic because Google is integrating different forms of media. They’re allowing me to consume the news in a format that I want. I might not have time to read a full length article from the New York Times but I might have a couple minutes to watch a video posted by the Associated Press on the same topic. By integrating YouTube, this means that I stay on the Google News page longer and am more likely to consume more information.

It serves as my central dashboard to news. A lot of people choose to use Google Reader for this feature. I use Google Reader for everything else but for mainstream news I turn to Google News.

I’m always thinking of what’s next. I’m never happy with anything in its current form, even if it is serving my needs. I like shiny. I like new. I like tweaking. So, what should be next for Google News? I think Google should integrate Twitter Searches for the news stories. For example, I should be able to read the articles regarding President Obama‘s push for health care, watch associated YouTube videos, and then also see what others are saying about it.

Of course, this is a lot harder to manage then just adding in a YouTube feed. Google would have to control for different topics, each in their own separate searches which are always changing based on the news day. They would also have to have controls in place to filter spammers and inappropriate language/phrases.

There are other features that I could picture being part of Google News such as a section for blog content and the addition of Facebook Connect but I think Twitter would be the next most logical integration. Will it happen? If Google ever buys Twitter then I think we’ll see some variation of this concept. Why? Because Twitter has become an extremely powerful search engine and that itself is very attractive to Google. If they don’t buy Twitter? Who knows. It will be interesting to see if Google News starts becoming more social like Google Reader has been becoming over recent weeks.

Do you use Google News? Would this be a feature you think would be useful? What other features would you like to see integrated into Google News?

Filed Under: Google, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: Google, Social Media, Twitter

What Would Google Do and Gung Ho – Book Reviews

May 30, 2009 By Justin Levy 7 Comments

Today’s reviews are one about a company that everyone wants to know more about, Google, and the other about igniting the people in your company to do great things. First up is What Google Would Do? by Jeff Jarvis which I really enjoyed. Jeff broke the book up in a neat way and I really liked when he applied Google’s success and theories to a litany of various industries. The second book is Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. You might recognize the two authors from their best-seller Raving Fans which you should’ve already read (and if you haven’t, then buy it immediately!)

I definitely recommend picking up each of these books as I think both of them were exceptional reads and gave me a lot to think about…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Book Reviews, Google, Productivity, Reviews

Google Now Helps You Get to the First Page in Search Results

April 22, 2009 By Justin Levy 14 Comments

Google Profiles is your area in Google’s universe where you can store and link all sorts of information about yourself. Why is this important? Because it’s yet another area on the interwebs where you can have a presence which is discoverable by search engines, *cough*, especially that little one who made the profile page, Google.

Have you been keeping your Google profile tidied up? Did you even know that you had (or could have) a Google profile? You can find your profile here.

Over the past week or so Google has been making improvements to Google Profiles.

First, they changed the way the URL displays for your page. It used to be (…and still is unless you change it) a string of numbers that identifies the page as YOU. For example, to Google I was: http://www.google.com/profiles/113345621158656129639. But, with the change in settings, I’m now easily found as: http://www.google.com/profiles/justin.levy. The only two minor notes here, as reported by Lifehacker: If you’ve previously linked your profiles page to your Gmail account, you can’t change it. Your link will be your Gmail user name. The other caveat is that you can only change your URL once, so be careful with that choice.

The second change was announced this week and concerns the prominence that your profile receives from Google. Google will now start displaying profiles on the first page of Google search results.

Both of these announcements are HUGE from Google. Why you may ask? For some, reaching the first page of Google is a never-ending losing battle. It can be very hard, if not impossible, to reach the front page. Now Google is ensuring that at least some part of YOU reaches that front page. You need to take advantage of this. Maximize your profile by linking your websites, blogs and other profiles. Use the “About Me” section to highlight all of the important stuff that you would want a potential employer, prospect or partner to find.

Want some more tips? Google has provided a few tips on making your profile more useful over here.

Now, stop reading and head over to your Google profile and optimize it…

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Filed Under: Google, Personal Branding Tagged With: Google, Personal Branding