Gmail slow?

Doesn't Gmail seem to be getting slower by the day???

Just Google!

Swim across the Atlantic?!

It looks like the Google Maps guys are getting a little bored these days :).

Mohan points us to this interesting Google Map search result that a friend of his encountered after typing the wrong addresses into the search box. Check it out here!

Prashant.

Google Homepage Themes

When I opened my browser this morning, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me. I've been using Google personalized homepage for a while and today they finally did something about their painfully crappy UI. They've finally announced Themes! Right now, there are only a handful of themes, but all of them are quite nice. One little extra feature I really like is a dynamic wallpaper that actually portrays the real weather in your city! So if its raining outside, for eg., your background will show rainfall too. Nice :)

There are scores of personalized homepage websites out there - Pageflakes, Netvibes, My Yahoo, Google Personalized Homepage, AOL something, MSN something, etc etc. All of them are cool in their own little ways and compete with each other on features. And among these, the Google and Yahoo one were pretty much the crappiest looking... boxy, old-fashioned, themeless... Yet, they are the market leaders in this segment. This makes sense, considering the fact that (almost) every Internet user has a Google/Yahoo account. I, for eg, had to choose Google over the rest coz that's the only one that gave me access to all the Google services. I have my Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, weather, todo list, etc all in one place :)

Until now, the only thing that sucked about this service was the look. By adding themes, I guess they've made it perfect :)

Prashant.

Google acquires YouTube!

Yes! You heard me...
After all the speculation on the web recently about Google's acquisition of YouTube, it has finally been confirmed. Google will acquire YouTube for a total of $1.65 BILLION in stock. This is the biggest purchase ever made by Google!
In it's press release, Google notes that "Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community."
It is also interesting to note how Google sees this acquisition in the light of it's own competing video sharing site Google Video. The press release goes on to mention that "When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google's own fast-growing video business."
According to Techcrunch ,Yahoo might have been in the race for Youtube until the very end!
You can listen to their Press Release Conference Call by dialing 888-203-1112 in the US and 719-457-0820 internationally. You can use the confirmation code 2260624 to listen to the recordings.
Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, the Youtube founders - Chad Hurley and Steven Chen and others were present in the call. They discuss the reasons why Google decided to buy Youtube and why Youtube agreed to the offer. They also discuss technological aspects and other details of the deal. Google will integrate its ad platform into Youtube. They also take some questions from some of the callers.
This is a really big deal and can be expected to change the online video sharing scene quite a bit. It will be interesting to see how Google monetizes Youtube and how they fend off the copyright violation suits that may be expected to hit Youtube now that Google has acquired them.

Prashant.