The Geek Brewery

UPDATE: It’s confirmed. The new name will be Bing (http://bing.com). Rumors are spreading that they will launch it on May 29, 2009.

There are various reports in the Internet that says Microsoft is doing a rebrand of Live Search, their very own search engine. Live Search lost its luster in the search engine game, just as how Internet Explorer lost the consumer’s trust. Microsoft’s several failed attempts to buy Yahoo may have led them to do the rebrand.

Rumored potential names of the search engine reboot are Bing, Kumo and Hook. Both bing.com and kumo.com are already on the hands of Microsoft, while hook.com is still owned by another party. (more…)

After performing a full format on my Windows Vista partition (I have a separate one for Linux), I reinstalled the usual Windows applications I use — specifically those software I use for freelance projects that doesn’t have a good Linux alternative. Obviously, I did not settle with my project essentials. I still installed my favorite time wasters; Instant Messaging software, games, etc. I installed the latest version of Google Talk and the Vista-version of Yahoo Messenger.

Choosing the “Yahoo Messenger for Vista” instead of the old version 8 (which had no ads embedded to it) I always loved was one of the greatest reversible mistake I did. Yahoo Messenger for Vista, was indeed, a crap — worse than the previous versions of Yahoo Messenger.

Yahoo Messenger for Vista is a memory hog (memory pig, memory hoarder). Running the program is almost the same as running a decent PopCap or Yahoo game. On a rather average machine, everything just turns sluggish once it logs in. But on a pretty fast one, it’s doing okay.

It has a trying-hard eye candy interface. The term trying hard is there as eye candy is not a right term basing on it’s definition that is visual images that are pleasing to see but are intellectually undemanding (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). I bet Yahoo’s designers tried their best to make it as attractive as possible; but mind you I was never astonished by it. The heavy typeface applied on the items of the messenger list just suck, plus the bad choice of font.

The notification popups are no less than annoying. Previous non-Vista versions of Yahoo Messenger has this small notification popup whenever a buddy signs in or out. This feature has not been removed in the Vista version, but instead made it a lot bigger and more distracting. It just annoys me the way it is, I hope Yahoo would revert it back to the smaller ones on the next releases.

The visual effects were good. The effects are attractive and soothes the eyes. The windows are non-rectangular; unlike the typical windows we have. Translucency (partial transparency) is also evident especially whendealing with popup menus.

Most of the features are not outrightly visible. To change the chat text font, one still has to click the intuitive “A” font icon on the conversation window. To add a friend or perform other contact-related options, one still has to click the very unintuitive downward pointing arrow. Everything is unfamiliar.

Given all those observations, an assumption that Yahoo tried to concentrate on the visual appeal to the extent of compromising stability (yes, it’s unstable plus it’s nature of being a memory hog) can be concluded.

They should also consider putting the essential features outright on the window and not hide them behind menus. Yahoo should redesign the said application putting balance on the visuals and stability.

Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Friendster, Plurk and Twitter.

First, there was Yahoo. A lightweight portal and search engine. Then came the n00b search engine Google. Yahoo could have been threatened by Google’s birth and so they bloated themselves with lots of unnecessary services. Google struggled to fit the mainstream, and eventually it did.

Years later, Yahoo was used by millions of users. In fact, Yahoo is the most-visited website in the Philippines (and the World). Meanwhile, Google remained the choice of the so-called “Internet elites”.

The “internet elites” tried they’re best to persuade people to use GMail (Google Mail), but the “internet masses” preferred to stay with they’re “user-friendly” Yahoo with all those eye-candy RAM hog interface (which slows down your computer to death). A few adpoted the minimalist yet very usable GMail — and ended up super-satisfied with it.

Following the flow of the story were Friendster and Facebook. The “internet elites” first liked Friendster but eventually adopted Facebook when it was released out in the World; while the “internet masses” continued to patronize the very Asian Friendster.

Facebook, during it’s Global release (it was initially available in US only), was like Google – simple yet usable. But through the years it started becoming Yahoo. To date, it is bombarded with tons of unwanted applications that fills your inbox like flashflood.

Out of the blue, Twitter joined the party. Twitter introduced itself as Google way back in 2001. Again, a simple yet usable website. Then came a competition which surprisingly was not a super-bloated Yahoo. It was Plurk, a present-day Google. A very usable but not bloated, improved version of the 2001 Google. No doubt it was better to Twitter for some, like me.

The_ ______ ______ ___ ______.

The Web 2.0 Tales’ pages started to become unreadable as the trying-hard, capitalist Microsoft tried to join the story. And this concludes my Web 2.0 tales.

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I know it’s crap, but deal with me. You may not agree with my binaries: the “internet masses” and “internet elites”, the “Yahoo” being associated as bloated and “Google” as minimalist, and the likes. This post is based on my opinion, the opinion of Conrad Miguel E. Gozalo.

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I hope present-day “Google” websites will remain “Google” and not evolve as “Yahoo”.