Has Google finally got it right?

On February 9th, 2010, Google buzz was released. It is a social networking tool and it is integrated into the company’s email program Gmail. It has functionality similar to other social networking services like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. It allows you to share publicly with the world or privately with a group of friends each time you post. In less than 3 days of its release 9 million posts were made on Buzz about 160,000 posts and comments per hour.

These stats must have put execs at Facebook on alert. Buzz though, is not Google’s first attempt at social networking, the social network Orkut was launched in 2004 but it has seen success only in Brazil and India. What makes Buzz unique and threatening is the leverage Gmail gives it. According to stats from comScore, the number of unique visitors to Gmail was estimated to be 29.6 million in 2008. With Facebook reaching 400 million users recently, Gmail’s popularity is sorely needed to launch Buzz.

Despite its initial success, the service has also got bad press. Some users consider it as another tool to waste time. A user tweeted that his favourite feature of Buzz is the disable link. Buzz has also raised privacy concerns. By default on a user’s Google profile, Buzz publicly discloses a list of the user’s contacts that where frequently emailed or chatted with. I hope Google fixes this issue soon. Is this Google’s answer to the dominance of Facebook and Twitter in the social networking space?
Google has a love-hate relationship with many of the big tech companies. Partnering with them on some projects (OpenSocial) and competing with them on others (Nexus one vs. the iPhone). But the ‘sworn enemy’ of Google is no doubt Facebook. I don’t think these two companies can co-exist in peace. It is therefore of no co-incidence that Buzz supports Twitter and other services but no support for Facebook. With Facebook now the second most popular site on the Web, betting Yahoo to third place and just few places behind Google, The search giant has good reasons to be concerned. I think Facebook would continue its phenomenal growth and probably overtaking Google, but Buzz would slow down this growth and also expect lawsuits from both companies.

The smart thing for Mark Zuckerberg to do now is to venture into the Web mail business that could be the coup de grace for Google. But Google would not go down easy even if Facebook succeeds. The search giant tentacles are too deep in the Web and in popular culture. Another scenario is that a new start-up could emerge that would solve some problems been created now by these social network and compete with both Facebook and Google. This could force the Web’s ‘David and Goliath’ to temporarily bury the hatchet and face a common enemy together. But who can tell the future?

The Future of Technology

The first decade of the 21^st century is over (that is, if you consider the year 2000 as the beginning of the decade). This decade has seen great strides in Technology. The world has become far more connected than our parents or grandparents could ever imagine. From walkie talkies just a few years ago, to the Iphone and Smartphones. What does the future hold in the world of technology?

The Web and Social Media

The World Wide Web has seen huge leaps in innovation over the past decade. At the year 2000 we were at what was called Web 1.0 where websites primarily dispense information, But with the rise of Youtube, Facebook and other companies the Web has become more interactive which gave rise to the term Web 2.0. The User is primarily the producer of information. Indeed without users sharing photos, videos and pictures there would be no Facebook, Flickr or Youtube and without contributors there will be no Wikipedia. A new kind of media has now risen called Social Media. Users now make contributors to news items and even create news items of their own. What would the new decade bring for news media? I see a gradual decline in traditional news media. Newspapers especially will be worse hit, people are spending less and less time on the written word and prefer to get their news through more “fun ways”.

Teleportation A.K.A Quantum Communication

Technology is blurring the line between imagination and reality. If I want to travel, I get a on a bus or board a plane. What about getting to anywhere in the World instantaneously? This is called Teleportation or as experts call it, Quantum Communication. Believe it or not, this is possible. The technology is based on a principle in quantum mechanics called Entanglement. It really involves transferring extremely detailed information about the teleportee, down to the quantum state of each of it’s atoms, to another location where it can be recreated. Foxnews.com describes the basic process:

“Teleporting, say, an electron would first involve “entangling” a pair of electrons.

After the particles are made to interact in a certain manner, whatever one does influences the other, regardless of the distance between them — a bit of quantum physics that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

Next, one electron — the one you want teleported — would stay wherever you like while you would physically bring the other electron to whatever destination you wish.

Then you have to measure the quantum state of the electron you want teleported and send that in a signal to your destination, where it can be used on the other electron to recreate the first one.

Voilà — quantum teleportation.”

Obviously teleporting a person thru space-time is much more complex than teleporting an electron. And we should not expect to ditch our conventional means of transportation just yet, the future is indeed promising for this technology as active research is taking place. Will this Technology be available before the new decade is over? Time will tell

The Final Theory

General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics-Two brothers who just won't unite. The unity of this two has baffeled Physicsists for decades. Who or what will finally lay their differences to rest? we'll see.