Remember your very first time online?

Do you remember your first computer? I first laid my hands on a keyboard aged 12… We owned a Commodore 64 at a time where computers were luxury items…

Our faithful Commodore had a black and white screen, a keyboard without accents (not convenient when you’re trying to type something in French), a pre-historic version of Word, as well as the computer game Pac Man with funky joysticks!

Now, do you remember the first time you went online?

I think I first went online circa 1996… The Commodore had sadly passed away and we had moved onto a much better (colour) machine!

We had a PAYG (pay as you go) AOL dial-up connection which was terribly expensive and slow! I don’t remember browsing the net but the home page was an AOL chatroom and I used to spend ages chatting to some English and Italian dudes to improve my linguistic skills. I would never have thought back then that I would play with the Internet for a living!

We’re always talking about new technologies, but I’d like to hear about your computer and Internet stories from back in the day… Over to you guys!

Idea for this post courtesy of The Next Web

Cuil review from a linguistic point of view…

 

I picked up a thread by Mashable on Twitter this morning talking about the new search engine Cuil, packed with ex-Googlers in their team. Cuil claim to be the world’s biggest search engine, with an index of 120 billion websites in the world. Rather than relying on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. The odd name Cuil is an Irish word for knowledge. 

Well dear Cuillers (cuillère in French means spoon), I have something to tell you… If you’re claiming to be the largest search engine in the world, you should think global and act local. And here I am talking about your brand name. Cuil sounds like ‘couilles’ (balls/bollocks) or cul (arse) in French! Not exactly enticing…

Despite such poor branding taste, I decided it was time to check out Cuil in more depth but sadly got the following message:

Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.

Thanks for your patience.

When I did finally manage to take a look at their homepage, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the search results, although graphically speaking the site does look good and categorises information in an interesting way.

 

I have just done a quick Twitter search and the feedback so far isn’t particularly positive.

 

I am not quite sure how they’ll overcome so much bad publicity on their launch date but everyone is talking about them at the end of the day! 

So what do you think of Cuil? Am I being to harsh? Fire your comments away!

Surfing the net with Apple Safari on a PC

 

Not quite brand new news, but  Apple recently released a version of Safari available on PC. I was updating my itunes software when Safari automatically got installed onto my PC…

 

I am a big Internet Explorer fan, especially the 7.0 version but I am not so keen on Firefox… I am planning on playing with Safari over the next couple of weeks to make up my mind, but so far my initial impressions are:

- Safari looks good in pure Mac style

- The graphics look amazing

- It is ultra-fast – much faster than Explorer or Firefox

- My Internet Explorer favourites were automatically imported on Safari – a big plus!

• Have you downloaded Safari? If so, what are your initial thoughts?

Introducing the ultimate Facebook on the go for the masses (and it’s a little scary!)

It is being billed as the ultimate Facebook on the go! Instead of logging on to search for friends, mobile phone Bluetooth technology alerts people to other users logged on nearby. In other words, profiles, pictures and background flash onto the screen so users can decide if they want to strike up a real conversation.

 

The system piloted in Berlin, called aka-aki, can also reveal whether a stranger is a friend of a friend and even if you share the same interests to break the ice. Fear not, the system also allows you to screen out any undesirables. Pheww!

 

I don’t really see this service working in the UK the Brits love privacy, and in all fairness I find the whole concept a little scary! Although one obvious use for the service is dating, I think I would be a little scared of anyone randomly approaching me and knowing my name and lots of info about my life.

 

What do you guys thing about this service? Is it the next big thing or am I being paranoid?

More about aka-aki in English right here

My web 2.0 landscape

I recently discovered this excellent mapping of the Web 2.0 Landscape on Neil’s blog…   

 …and I decided to create my own personal mapping of the applications I use on a regular basis.   

    

This mapping exercise made me realise that there are still dozens of web 2.0 applications I am yet to discover! And dozens more will probably be created in the meantime!

In your opinion, what’s the next big web 2.0 thing? Let me know what you think

Dove Pro-Age Campaign

 

A recent research study demonstrated that adverts featuring celebs such as Angelina Jolie who has been the face of fashion label St John are less effective than those showing ordinary people. Do you remember the Campaign for Real Beauty video that came out last year?

 

Ladies and Gentleman, I am pleased to announce that Dove are back with their new controversial Dove Pro-Age video. Apparently this commercial was banned in the
US.  

 

I love the way Dove have managed to differentiate themselves with the branding of their new Pro-Age range as opposed to anti-ageing. ‘Anti-ageing’ sounds like it’s a crime to age!

 

Dove delivered their brand promise with the Campaign for Real Beauty and they continue to deliver with the Pro-Age campaign.

More Dove magic over at Chris Brown’s blog

gumtree.com

If you ask a Londoner where you can find a flat, a clubbing mate or a travel partner, they’ll probably tell you to check out www.gumtree.com.

Gumtree is a network of free online classifieds and community web sites in the UK, Ireland, Poland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, similar to Craigslist, which is mainly focused on the US. The main categories are flat / house share and for rent, goods for sale, community, friends and partners, jobs and business services.

Gumtree is part of the Ebay Group which also owns PayPal and Skype.

Ebay were pretty clever when they allowed Gumtree users to let people contact them via Skype by adding a Skype ‘call me’ option. I find the Gumtree is generally a lot easier and clearer to use  than Craiglist UK.

I was browsing the classifieds when I came across a guy who hyperlinked his myspace address in the ad. Excellent way of connecting 2 totally different online communities together and showing the end-user who you really are. Saying that, I am not quite sure whether ebay will like this too much…  

Iphone commercial! EXCLUSIVE!

 

Video courtesy of Cyril Attias of Olgivy, Paris

Let’s play a game…

 

I recently came across the word ABSQUATULATE. As a linguist, if I don’t know the meaning of a word, I try to understand its grammatical and semantic structure before taking a guess on its meaning.

Let’s play a little game…

What’s the most original and convincing definition you can come up with for the word ABSQUATULATE.  The right answer won’t win, for all you Googlers out there

Is it the end of blogs?

 

I stumbled across a rather interesting article published in ‘Echos’, the famous French financial paper, on December 18th. A report by Gartner seems to suggest that blogging may be a thing of the past, sooner rather than later! The original article (in French) can be found here.

Here are few figures to illustrate Gartner’s point:

• There are currently 260M blogs on the www, out of which 55M are active

• Only 2% of bloggers frequently blog and contribute to other blogs

• Facebook and myspace respectively lost 12% and 4% of users between August-September 2006

Gartner argues that blogging as a phenomenon has entered the public consciousness in a big way. However, there are limits to the growth of even a Web 2.0 phenomenon like blogging, as the initial excitement about it has begun to be replaced with a more rational view of how blogging technologies should be used. This leads us to ponder whether there is a peak point in blogging growth, after which the phenomenon will become the norm.

Gartner’s Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2007 and Beyond (Dec 1, 2006)

I don’t think this is the end of blogs quite yet, however as a myspace member I can understand why people lose interest in so called on-line communities sites. There’re fun at the beginning but tend to become rather repetitive after a while.

Question time!

How do you, as a blogger, foresee the future of blogs?