Thursday, September 9, 2010

OECD Essentially Says It Doesn't Have a Clue What to Do

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says that world economic growth has slowed and will remain that way for some time. That isn't so much a problem. The bigger problem is that OECD doesn't seem to be able to explain why this recovery is unlike most others, and what can be done to get a more normal-looking return to growth, which would, at this point, be largely about employment growth.

Like so many other think tanks and experts, it seems satisfied to throw up its hands and say that there is no reasonable way for growth to be restored, says Doug McIntyre.

We ought to be skeptical about "experts" who cannot explain what is happening and for this reason cannot offer helpful policy advice. Arguing that some approaches be taken because that is what has been done in the past does not necessarily help if the economy is behaving in a different way.
Perhaps because this recession is unlike others? If that is so, we are going to face unusual dangers. Our experts might not know what to recommend. Worse, they might give flawed advice.
The agency says that “Growth in the Group of Seven countries is expected to be around1.5 percent on an annualized basis in the second half of 2010. U.S. GDP is expected to be in the 1.2 percent range in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The analysis concludes that the recovery from the recession is no recovery at all. What the OECD does not do is suggest what might be done to reverse the problem. Maybe they have no clue.
Read more: OECD Say Global Expansiton Will Slow - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2010/09/09/oecd-say-global-expansiton-will-slow/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FRyNm+%2824%2F7+Wall+St.%29#ixzz0z1pXaUEI




Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Google, Verizon Began Their Net Neutrality Talks 2 Years Ago

Very few people know that the highly controversial efforts by Google and Verizon to hammer out their own proposal for a broadband policy framework started nearly two years ago.

By 2008, Verizon had been slowly coming around to the ideas of openness that Google espoused -- at least relative to some of its fellow telecom giants, like AT&T.

'Google Instant' On Smartphones: 4G Implications

 The beauty of "Google Instant" is that it could save users a lot of typing on a mobile keyboard, which is a hassle, especially if your phone has no physical keyboard. But there is another angle of importance to mobile service providers with fast 3G connections or 4G.
The use case might be that a user starts with voice search, which then displays results as the user is speaking.
As you say the words the search engine is not only trying to guess the next word in the phrase, but is also displaying search results for the search terms it’s guessing. But that is going to be a better experience with a faster mobile connection.

It isn't "the" killer app for 4G, but it will help differentiate the experience from the same app running on a 3G network, at least potentially.

'Google Instant' On Smartphones

Twitter Has Become a News Platform

Twitter has become a form of media, whether that is helpful to traditional media, or not; whether people like it or not.

Twitter is a publishing tool, and shows again how IP-based technologies, the Internet and the Web are transforming any number of legacy businesses, from retailing to telecommunications to video and music to education.

Google Instant Will Save 350 Million Hours Of User Time Per Year

Productivity is hard to measure, but Google engineer Ben Gomes points out that Google serves up billions of queries every day, and that the average query length is 20 characters and the average time for a user to pick a result takes 15 seconds.

Google’s latest feature launch is all about speeding up this process.

“Google Instant will save 350 million hours of user time, over a year,” says Google VP Marissa Mayer. basing her estimate on a figure of each instant search saving two to five seconds of user time, in places where Google Instant is rolled out.

Is Google Instant A Revolution in Search?

Google Instant will become the core search experience on Google.com for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8. It also will be offered to users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the U.K. who are signed in and have Instant-capable browsers. Over the coming weeks and months, Google Instant will berolled to all geographies and platforms.

Google Search Impressions Will Change Because of "Google Instant"

As Google Instant rolls out widely, the raw number of ads displayed per query will inevitably increase as Google displays a sequence of best guesses about its users' desired queries and shows results for the top guess.

For example, a search for 'a' displays results and ads for Amazon.com; an 'e' search does the same for eBay.com. That is going to require some tweaking of what an "impression" is.

To qualify as an impression, an ad exposure must last for at least three seconds, Google now says.

Even with that calculation in place, the effective click-through rate experienced by many Google advertisers may change.

Google Instant Will Impact Search Ads and SEO

Will Generative AI Follow Development Path of the Internet?

In many ways, the development of the internet provides a model for understanding how artificial intelligence will develop and create value. ...