Google: Don't be evil...

Found this in my "to be published" folder.
Can't but still publish it.

Via MParent77772

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The carbon footprint of a Google Search

IT research firm Gartner estimates Google's data centres contain nearly a million servers, each drawing about 1 kilowatt of electricity. So every hour Google's engine burns through 1 million kilowatt-hours. Google serves up approximately 10 million search results per hour, so one search has the same energy cost as turning on a 100-watt light bulb for an hour. (Full)

Discovered via Daily Good

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Danish, English, Chinese,... Whatever

See the top line: "This page is in Danish"...
"Google Wave" confuses "Google Translate"

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Google: the new Microsoft?

I am writing quite a bit for BlogTips, my new blog about "Blogging for Non-Profit", where I share some of my past 30 months of blogging experiences.

I am now working on a post helping non-profit organisations decide what blog software to choose.

When I started The Road over two years ago, I compared Wordpress and Blogger, and found them pretty equal in user interface, functionality, features. I choose for Blogger, because of its flexibility. But that was then...

I re-looked at both when starting BlogTips and was taken by the progress Wordpress made over the past two years. Blogger, on the contrary, just did not evolve. A few features were added, but that's it. Wordpress was overhauled several times, and a ton of new features, plug-ins and themes were added. Wordpress' user interface now stands head and shoulder above Blogger's clumsy stuff.

It made me think... I use Google affiliated software (Blogger, Google Apps, Picasa, Feedburner,...) a lot. They all have one thing in common: no technical support (all support is concentrated in user forums), and little effort is made to have the software evolve. (here is ProBlogger complaining about Feedburner)

It feels like "What you see is what you get", nothing more, nothing less. The only thing they are interested in, is content. Could not care less about their users.

Makes me wonder if Google has become the new Microsoft?

Picture courtesy HubPages

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Googling via SMS

From the Google Africa Blog:

In Africa, we've learned that mobile phones are easier to get to than internet connections and PCs, and that working towards our mission means working through mobile phones.

At the beginning of 2008, there were over a quarter of a billion mobile subscribers on the continent. Mobile penetration has risen from just one in 50 people at the beginning of this century to almost one third of the population today.

To that end, we are excited to launch a test of Google SMS Search in Ghana and Nigeria. (Full)

What this means is: in Ghana and Nigeria, you SMS keywords -just as you would enter them in the Google search bar in your browser- and you get an SMS back with the search results.

Here is a practical example of how it looks like.

A real tool, or a lure into higher SMS traffic?

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News: Google went dark on Earth Hour

Not only Dubai switched off its lights (well some of them) during Earth Hour, also the US version of the Google search page made an environmental gesture. They switched to a black background for an hour.

Picture courtesy News.com

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