Yesterday Switzerland, today Austria. Seems like somebody is preparing for Euro 2008.
Google released today a localized version of Google Maps Austria. Users are now able to search and find information about local businesses in Google Maps here too. Apparently Google doesn’t make too many efforts acquiring business data. As they claim, all the data is provided by business owners who want to be found on Google Maps and communities (crowdsourcing is the new buzzword). Quite efficient I assume.
However, there is still room for improvement left. I personally know much more Schnitzel-places in the center of Vienna than the Schnitzel search on Google Maps returns yet.
Google entering the neighborhood business search market will give the local yellow pages top dog Herold some hard times. They recently came up with a brand new mapping application, very well done with beautiful high resolution aerial imagery and based on their comprehensive business data. It will be interesting to follow further development on that issue, especially in regard to strong local community sites like Tupalo or Qype. [via futurezone]
Google killed the hyperlink by introducing PageRank. The idea behind PageRank (the more links point to a site, the higher the site’s relevance) makes some of us be suspicious before clicking a link. Why is this link there? Does it provide further information for me or is it just a backlink to increase the target site’s PageRank? Am I’m going to be cheated? Before Google came, hyperlinks provided information and content, not backlinks. Yes, once upon a time, content was the scale for relevance.
Internet is fun. Social software is even more fun and questioning male ranking concepts is allowed. People, don’t take it too serious!
The last word on blog-usability isn’t spoken yet. The constantly changing chronological site structure is irritating. And that’s only the beginning.
In Austrian rural areas you can do solid business while enjoying a relaxing life.
None of the BarCamp alpha geeks today had an iPhone. The iPhone is an illusion.
I support the Free Burma Action because I felt the need to do something. I’m a lucky person, I was born into a world where previous generations already had fought for my rights. I’m deeply impressed by the people in Burma, who stand peacefully up in front of armed soldiers, demanding nothing more than democracy. Something I experienced my entire life as given. Nobody can tell if this action will help, but it’s still better than do nothing and wait what happens next. Thanks to all the valuable input at the Free Burma Session!
Who’s a blogger, who’s not. Or, does anybody really care about that term?
Congrats to BeeTagg! Their mobile tagging technology is now supported by One, the Austrian mobile carrier recently acquired by Orange.
It was at the BarCamp Vienna in June when I attended a presentation, given by Martin, of BeeTagg. Mobile tagging is somehow the link between the real world and the virtual internet world. By taking a picture of a special graphical code, the BeeTagg in our case, with a cell phone, users are able to retrieve information about a product, location, etc. from the internet. It’s an easy and straight forward solution to provide information online and place a link pointing there at any place in the real world.
E.g. I can add a BeeTagg to my business card which links to this site. It allows users to access my site directly by just taking a picture and without typing in the entire website address.
However, one question remains: what about iPhone support?
Michael has an interestingpost about an unlocked iPhone running under the Austrian carrier One (recently acquired by French Orange). Hmm, I really wonder whose iPhone this may is…
So there is no reason to sign one of those rumored and ridiculous iPhone mobile plans to get the super gadget.
Naturfreunde published over 900 Austrian hiking, bike, ski, etc. routes as GPS data on their recently launched Tourenportal. In addition to the GPS tracks they provide some more information such as best season to go, an elevation profile, route length, descriptions, etc. about the routes. A KML file lets you nicely preview each tour in Google Earth. The project is a cooperation with Garmin, who is hosting the GPS routes as service too.
The GPS device is no problem, but if I only had the right shoes to do a hike I’d give that service a try. Maybe somebody should come up with a more urban tourportal…
…and nobody knows what it‘s going to be. No blogger-union, no application or software, nor another blog-directory but an action group aimed to raise awareness about local Austrian blogs, as the initiator claims.
30 seconds seem fine to answer political questions. It gives just enough time to focus on the question itself and point out the main concept or idea.
30 seconds minimize the risk of politicians attacking each other with rather stupid arguments.
Or maybe it’s just a matter of culture in political discussions. I mean here we’re used to (and probably a good part of the audience is sick of) TV discussions where the majority of politicians keeps on talking endlessly without saying anything substantial.
Some of the questions raised at the CNN YouTube debates in South Carolina where indeed quite interesting. Obviously not as sophisticated as if they were asked by experts, but that’s probably the idea behind the YouTube debates: address regular people, who are talking a regular language and make them participate.
Another thing which really impressed me was hearing the clear answer “yes” or “no” from a politician. Can you imagine?! The last time I’ve heard those words from an Austrian politician, even asked a straight “yes” or “no” question, is quite some time ago.
Not only Vienna is heating up this week, we’re heading towards 35°C and more every day, no, even mapping sites are called hot today:
Microsoft released their research project Virtual Earth Hotmap.
Hotmap gives some insights about place popularity and shows where people have looked during the past 6 months in Virtual Earth.
It’s quite interesting that the map, the overall picture, is similar to other (spatial) analysis results we do in our day-to-day job: the map, literally based on hits and page impressions, shows an urban/rural divide and structures along major transport axis. Besides large urban areas, some tourism regions can be identified too – lake regions in Carinthia, skiing regions in Salzburg and Tyrol.
After a quick look at Virtual Earth Hotmap I’d say it provides some interesting data for regional marketing purposes and could be used additionally to other (tourism) website traffic analysis. E.g. if a tourism region doesn’t show up in Hotmap then probably not too many people are looking for information about or even searching directions to it (and going there?).
Turns out that November is a quite popular strike month. So far we’ve got:
Congrats to 
