Comprehensive list of Google acquisitions since 2001
November 13, 2006
The recent acquisition of YouTube by Google has made some of the biggest news since the AOL- Time Warner merger or the HP-Compaq merger. This is a list of all the acquisitions made by Google starting from the year 2001. Most companies acquired by Google feature
- A small but very talented development team
- Interesting and innovative products, technology, or intellectual property
- A private start-up with a relatively cheap price tag.
Before the YouTube aquisition in October 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock, the biggest acquisition by Google was Applied Semantics for $102 Million USD. The list below shows the application/company bought out by Google, more information like Google press releases and its current avatar for Google
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How a Paypal phishing email looks like and how to detect it
November 13, 2006
In computing, phishing is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques. Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out using email or an instant message, although phone contact has been used as well. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, and technical measures.
The first recorded mention of phishing is on the alt.online-service.america-online Usenet newsgroup on January 2, 1996, although the term may have appeared even earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine 2600. The term phishing is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to “fish” for users’ financial information and passwords. The word may also be linked to leetspeak, in which ph is a common substitution for f.
Shown below is a sample email message I received from PayPal
If you dissect this email digging into its header and the content code, you will see two things jump out
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Cool greeting text generator using Google Maps
November 13, 2006
Geogreeting has a pretty cool way of coming up with a greeting message. They have incorporated an aerial overview of each letter of the alphabet with a building which looks like that letter. Check it out, the results are pretty sweet.
Come meet your new Room mate : Google
November 10, 2006
This animated Google promo shows a college student using Gmail, Google SMS, Google Talk, and Google Scholar.
So this college kid goes off to college and his room mate is Google. First off, he uses Google Talk (You can connect to the Google Talk service using Google’s own client, as well as many other IM clients developed by third parties. ..)
to chat with his buddy from a different school to catch up on their common interests, cars and engines.
Then they are off on this walk and the kids all bummed up. He uses his cell phone and Google SMS (Offers United States local business listings, driving directions, movie showtimes, weather conditions, stock quotes and dictionary definitions on mobile ..)
to find the nearest coffee shop. There he meets this female and to interact with her, gives out his Gmail id (Google-owned, web-based email service that includes over 2 gigabytes of storage ) . Next up , to finish up his HW before he heads out on his date, he uses Google Scholar (Provides a search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles.)
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Pictures & Video of Google Dance 2006 : See how Googlers partay
November 9, 2006
I discovered the Google Dance site by accident and Google are yet to announce it officially on their blog or website.
So what is the Google Dance? It is Google’s annual party which brings together company engineers and other internet entrepreneurs. Hoping to ease the tensions with webmasters, Google hatched the idea of its “dance” party during an annual search engine convention held in Silicon Valley, just a few miles from Google’s headquarters. The company invited some of the Black Hats, effectively welcoming the foxes into the hen house.
Google Dance — an annual summer party that’s become a metaphor for the behind-the-scenes twists and turns that can cause Web sites to rise and fall in Google’s search results.
So, coming back to Google Dance 2006, this year’s theme was Come as you are. Gas. Liquid. Or solid. The partay was on 08.08.06 from 6:30-11
Some other notable facts
1. Googlers love Amstel Light, Heineken and Sierra Nevada to lighten the mood up
2. Googlers love Chicken wings and uh.. they love to eat
3. For fun … they teach Robots to play soccer and play Robot Wars
4. Oh they work, before they party by showing Product demos
5. To check out why robots are still vastly inferior to humans, go straight to minute 2 from the Google Dance 2006 video at the end of this article.
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November 6, 2006
In light of the upcoming release of Sony’s Playstation 3 on November 17th, and the imminent shortage that will ensue and to ensure that you don’t end up disappointed on the PlayStation 3’s launch day, site ps3seeker.com, has integrated an easy search method using Google Maps to come up with their very own customized maps that will denote all the locations where the PS3 will be available
As you can see above, the site integrates Google maps pretty good. The legend is based on three factors… Midnight release, Retail Location and Auction Listing. Also, the pane on the right shows listings for PS3 on Ebay.
Simply type in your zip code into the search box below to see a list of local retailers, midnight release locations, and auction listings for the PS3 in your area.
Besides listing all the stores that will sell the PS3, the site also has a list of all midnight release locations and auction listings. They have recently added the Target chain to their list and are working on adding chains like Circuit City to their database.
Links:
1. PS3 release locations in your area
2. Sony PlayStation PS3 launch day camp out guide
3. Buy a Sony Playstation PS3 on Ebay
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Google launches customized search service: Google co-op
October 24, 2006
Google just launched a customized search service called Google Co-op to bring tailored search to Web sites and blogs. Co-op allows a user to use the Google search platform to create a search engine focused on any content 
they want with just a few specific websites included. Searches will return results only from the sites the user requested.
Users have a number of options to customize the search engine: choosing which pages they want to include in their index, how the content should be prioritized, whether others can contribute to the index, and what the search results page will look like.
This can be particularly useful for small websites and blogs who wish to monetize their search as the service can be integrated with Google Adsense. The Google Co-op search would be a better choice for bloggers than their default built-in search feature as they can create a search engine with just one site, namely the link to their own blog/website. It allows a kind of social search by allowing other people to add links to the search results and also allows sharing of revenue with those sites who embed your custom search engine into their site.
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