lookon's blog

Here is how I use Google Wave

2010-06-17T13:35:31Z

I planed to write this article from weeks ago. However, I was too busy (or too lazy?) to write it. In this post, I will tell you how I use Google Wave in the past month, and wish you can also share your experience.

It's all about collaboration

I used Google Wave every day in the past month. In most cases, my wave had more that one real participant(other than robot). If I do not collaborate with others, I see no advantage with Google Wave. But when there are more than two participant in a Wave, Google Wave really gets things done.

Online Conference

Google Wave is a good place for online conference. First, it's real-time. That gives you nearly the same experience with talking on a conference, because you can see what other are writing. Secondly, it makes the conference more efficient. In my experience, before the conference, there will be a summary of what will be discussed in the root wave. Then, everyone know what to do and actively join the discussion. When making a decision, someone updates the root wave. Finally, when the conference ends, the root wave is the result of the conference. With tasky extension or other mechanism, everyone gets something after the conference. Thirdly, playback rocks. When you miss something, you can playback the wave; When you cannot take the conference, you can playback the wave. That's pretty simple and useful.

Other User Cases

So, the online conference is the most common user case I met. But I also use Google Wave in the following ways:

Brainstorming on a project
Collaborating on a document(the sub document can be linked through one wave)
Teaching someone(with code syntax robot)
Collaborating on a project

Tips

Here are some tips I will always write to Wave beginners :-)

You can now subscribe Google Wave notification through email.
There are three kinds of reply. Continue the thread, indent reply and inline reply. If you have comment on some text, you just select the text, and click reply. That will create an inline reply.
You can hide all inline replies. That will make it simple to read the main body of the Wave.
When editing a wave, press ctrl+enter, which will create a inline reply.

Will Motorola success in China?

2010-06-03T09:56:19Z

I met a girl on my way back SJTU. She is doing internship in Motorola Shanghai as a sale-woman. We started talking because we had the same phone: HTC Dream.(not a milestone) I think it's interesting to write down what we have talked and my view of Motorola in China.

People go to Motorola store for milestone

The girl told me that many people go to the store for Motorola Milestone. These customers know android and wish to buy a android phone. Milestone is sold well in USA and these customers decide to buy milestone as their first Android phone. However, milestone is very expensive to normal Chinese people. It sells at 5200 RMB($761) and people can buy two milestones with that price in local phone market store. So, most people come back from the official Motorola store without buying any milestone.

People do not use web service

Motorola has a product especially for Chinese people, XT800. But most salesmen do not know the advantage of Android or XT800. People in China buy a phone mainly for sms and phone call. They do not use Twitter or Sina micro-blog. They have no Google Account. They do not use email. So the salesman show handwriting input to customers and that's the biggest sale point :-)

E71 and iPhone

E71 and iPhone have dominated the street of Shanghai. In metro, you can always see people playing PSP, chatting on QQ using an iPhone or send sms using E71. When people(older than 30) want to buy a phone, they will choose Nokia as the first choice.

Android may win, but not Motorola

Chinese government has a good policy for android. And Lenovo bets on LePhone. So, there will be lots and lots of android phone in Chinese mobile market. But Motorola and Apple partners with China Telecom (most people do not buy an iPhone through China Telecom), which is not dominant in China. China Mobile partners with Nokia, so Nokia may still have a lot of market share in the future, until some android device company like Lenovo partners with China Mobile.

The idea of openbadge

2010-05-16T09:13:34Z

Where is openbadge from?

Openbadge is inspired by Foursquare.com. Foursquare is some what popular and now you can get the real-name of an address(latitude and longtitude) by using Foursquare API. One thing that makes foursquare interesting is badge&mayor. I always find people feel happy to get a badge or become the mayor of a place. Weeks ago, WSJ partnered foursquare by offering three new badges to its users, which was a very cool news to me.

What is openbadge?

Openbadge means everything can be awarded a badge. Online games can give their users badge based on their performance or class; Keep fit site can give those who keep running for a month a badge; If you have answered more than 30 questions on App Engine, Aardvark may give you a badge named App Engine guru; etc.

Mayor of a blog?

I once told my idea to Byron. If every time you visit a page, it's a check-in. Then, every page may have a mayor. Also, if you visit a blog most often, you may become the mayor of this blog(not the author). It's interesting and helpful when you have question about something on the page. You can ask the mayor of this page or ask someone has a badge on this topic.

Three Buzz power users: @mashable, @Louis Gray and @sabrina lin

2010-05-15T16:08:01Z

It seems that "From FriendFeed to Google Buzz: Robert Scoble, Louis Gray and so on" is welcomed by a lot of people. Thanks for your support. Today, I will discuss three Buzz power users: Louis Gray, mashable and @sabrina lin.

Blog's power

Mashable is such a popular blog that its buzz account soon becomes the most popular one. It now has 25896 followers on Buzz. Mashable once put "follow mashable on buzz" on its homepage and the link url is doubleclick domain :-) Now, mashable forwards all its blog posts to Buzz, but mashable always use a question to let users discuss about the post and mashable only sync the summary of the blog to Buzz. As you can see, mashable's every post on Buzz has a lot of 'like' and more than 15 comments. Once, mashable asked its followers to write something cool on the buzz, and the coolest buzz will gain a nexus one, which built a comment tower soon. So, mashable's blog makes @mashable on Buzz a powser user and mashable also uses Buzz successfully.

FriendFeed and GReader's power

There is no doubt that Louis Gray is a very power user on FriendFeed. And he has a many informative share on Google Reader every day. Every share by Louis will sync to Google Buzz, and his followers are always taking part into the discussion. Now, Louis Gray, Robert Scoble and Matt Cutts use Buzz more often. When they write something in Buzz, it will always cause a hot discussion. Here is Louis Gray's post on Buzz on Mar 10. It has 118 likes and more than 78 comments now. However, Louis Gray only has 3000 followers, which is trivial compared with @mashable's. And we will see another power user who has only 139 followers.

Location and Life

@sabrina lin is a woman working in Shanghai. It seems that she loves Google Buzz, especially the buzz with location info.(An interesting thing is that, my female friends all like foursquare or buzz with location info). Sabrina always talked about his life and some interesting things during working. Most of her followers are in Shanghai, and they found her using buzz layer on GMaps. Since @sabrina lin's buzz are close to people's normal life, her followers always have a very hot (sometimes has no relevance to the original topic) discussion. Her buzz always gets more than 150 comment, which pass @Louis Gray and @mashable. @sabrina lin wants to quit buzz cycle recently for some reason, but she is still posting buzz now and wish she will not leave here :-)

It's really interesting that the follower number has no relevance to the buzz discussion activity. And I will continually keep an eye on it.

What I've learned from "The Google Story"(3)

2010-05-09T03:20:02Z

It's a series.

Sergey Brain and Larry Page always argued with each other

From the first day they met in Stanford, they argued on many topics. They talked about problems of computer science, philosophy and other things you could imagine. They are strange guys and people in the lab felt annoyed sometimes to hear their argument. However, the two guys appreciated each other more and more after argument. And now, they have a magical collaboration in Google. As a Chinese old saying, "No discord, no concord."

David Filo told them to start a business

In March 1998, Sergey and Larry felt depressed, because no company would like to buy their patent. AltaVista, the most popular search engine at that time, rejected to use Google's search technique. Yahoo told them that Yahoo has not seen the business value of Google's work. Dramatically, AltaVista was later acquired by Yahoo. Fortunately, David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo! told Sergey and Larry that, if they thought Google is unique and would like to dig its value, they should start a company like what Yang and Filo once did.

What I've learned from "The Google Story"(2)

2010-05-09T02:57:07Z

It's a series. First is here.

Google has trouble with website master

Brain told that in early days, some 'crazy' website master think Google interfered their websites' operation (because of the 'crazy' bot?). These website masters knocked back through mails and mails, or threatened to sue Google. As a result, Google gave up index sites in Montana and then sites in Singapore. Brain added that someone would contact the venture management officier in Stanford and they never know the existence of the officier before. Anyway, he contacted Brain and Page, and "Troubles will never end".

Andy Bechtolsheim gave Google $100,000

The first investment for Google was from Andy Bechtolsheim, the founder of Sun. In August 1998, Andy Bechtolsheim gave Sergey Brin and Larry Page a $100,000 cheque. He said "It's the best idea I ever heard in these years, and I want to be a member of you.". The investment surprised Sergey and Larry, however, $100,000 was quickly used :-) That's another story.

To be continued...

What I've learned from "The Google Story"(1)

2010-05-06T15:41:02Z

It's a busy week, but I still want to write something I noted recently when reading the book The Google Story, which is really an interesting book. I borrowed the book from the library, and took notes when I felt that the paragraph was informative.

Google founders take Montessori education

As a Chinese, I never heard of Montessori education or Montessori. But when reading the chapter about Google founders' speech in Israel, I first time knew this word. Sergey Brain answered a question about porn content people find through searching Google that, "Obviously, it depends on you.". He said that Google founders are both under Montessori education which allows student to enjoy their life before 12, but give him hard work after 12 for young people can be distracted easily. "It depends on you." is always a policy by Google. Google is just a search engine, plz do not give me any censorship list.

Google is always in need of computers

In the speech, Sergey said that their search service for Stanford soon got 10000 search everyday. And that's is the capacity of their service, so they need more computers. Brain added that in the history of Google, they always need more computers. Indeed, it's because they cannot buy more computers as two PHD students in Stanford that they started a company named Google. (from the following chapter)

To be continued...

From Google to Facebook: Pagerank and Open Graph

2010-05-03T14:49:24Z

from zdnet

It's an article inspired by an idea about Foursquare. But when writing one part of the article, I change the theme. It's now a part of series articles about AI companies and my understanding of these companies. Next article will cover Facebook and Foursquare.

'AI' Rocks

AI, artificial intelligence, is something that makes computer other than ordinary electronic product. Although personal computer cannot do everything and it cannot defeat Kasparov in playing chess, people may soon be addicted to computer games or feel happy to watch movie on his computer. That's the power of AI. It means, in some extent, the computer can replace human beings. Furthermore, some super computers (like Deep Blue) or distributed computer system (like Google's) can do some really intelligent things. And, when a service has some AI, in other word, is smart, it gains more users.

Here is a list of service that have some 'AI':

Google

'to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful', the famous Google mission tells us that Google is an AI company. Its most important product is Google Search, and certainly it has AI. When you search a query, Google will put the 'most relavent' result in the first page. That's amazing! And if Google can do this kind of AI thing better and better, it will continue to grow and be closer to its mission.

Human beings can be educated to search useful info to them. Google can do it also.

Apple

Apple made Macintosh, so it's in the fram hall of AI device. With iPhone, its touch screen technique gives Apple two seat in the hall. It's amazing that the device will recognize your finger action.

Human beings are different from other animals because they can use hands. Apple's device makes people interacting with it using fingers.

Facebook

Facebook is simply a social network site. If you register a account, you can also invite your friends to join it. Where is the AI? Recommandation! Facebook know your social relation, so it can recommend possible friends to you. That's something people are seeking: to know person who he wants to know.

Human beings have relationships and society is built on relationships. Facebook organizes the relationship! (remember Google's mission?)

Recommandation is an AI rank system

When you do a search in Google, Google recommends the most relavent web page for you about your keyword. If you are loged in, the result (recommendation links) can be more smart. Google can give you right recommendation in most cases, because Google has a huge amount of data and Google has a good AI algorithm. Google caches almost all the webpages in the world and knows the relationships of these pages. With Pagerank, Google can give you most relavant page. But, what is pagerank? In my opinion, it's a rank system based on the relationship of pages. That means, if you can know the relationships of a SET, you can build a rank system on it. If the design of the rank system is intelligent, it leads to a cool AI service! And one of the intelligent rank systems is recommendation system.

1000 kinds of Pagerank

from flickr

Google knows the relationship of all the webpages. But the relationship data is not public :) Google uses the data and its Pagerank algorithm to offer a web page recommendation system based on users' query: Google Search. Yahoo downloads the whole webpages again, and use its algorithm to offer Yahoo Search. So does Microsoft. It's OK for these companies to download webpages for the relationship of these pages. But human beings are not web pages. If I put my relationship on Facebook, it's on my purpose. Google, Yahoo and MS cannot 'download' the data themselves. One rank algorithm can lead to a recommendation. A rank algorithm means how to add weight on relationship.

For example, if page A links pages B on the word "Google", we draw two points representing A and B. And draw an arrow from A to B. Then we add a number '3' and a word 'Google' on the arrow. That is an algorithm.

So, with the link relationship and the anchor text, we can build a simple 'pagerank'. But if we only know the relationship, we can do little things. Every time a user search a query, we return the same result :) That is Facebook's problems! Facebook only knows the relationship, which others cannot get (in the past). Although Facebook can use its data to build some kinds of 'Pagerank', that's not enough and not cool. But, if other service can get the relationship, add a weight for an edge in the relationship graph or build a new rank system based on the relationship, the world changes! And that is why Facebook opens its data and releases Open Graph. Facebook need weight for an item on an edge in people relationship graph. Thus, there could be 1000 and more "Pagerank".

From FriendFeed to Google Buzz: Robert Scoble, Louis Gray and so on

2010-05-03T09:17:00Z

I just saw Carl's comment on my buzz, in which "Google Buzz is a beuatiful place, like the early Internet." is the most impressive sentence. That reminds me the early time when I dived into FriendFeed. So I want to write something about FriendFeed and Google Buzz.

I like FriendFeed

Realtime rocks

When launched in October 2007, FriendFeed was a cool social aggregator which poped out new updates automatically. It suddenly attracted me and I join in FriendFeed. At first, the magic thing is that FriendFeed can sync tweet almost at once(no service nowadays give me that experience). And when you read an item on FriendFeed, it may change, because someone reading the item simultaneously like it or comment on it, and you can read it and reply to it just like you are in a live chat room.

Source, source and source

FriendFeed is a social aggregator, but I did not know it very clearly. I like its speed to fetch feed ant tweet, so I created a room(room is such a cool thing by FriendFeed), and added the feed I want to get quick update. In a word, I use a FriendFeed room as Google Reader :) But I got the idea of social aggregator soon, and I cleared all feed that was not belonged to me in my home feed. In 2007, I didn't know anything about tech guys outside China, especially tech bloggers. (Twitter may be cool that time, but few Chinese use it and I don't know what man to follow) But friendfeed helped me out. After search for some key words about the Internet, I found that Robert Socble and Louis Gray are very popular in FriendFeed cycle, and their updates were always interesting and informative. I followed them on both FriendFeed and Twitter(as I can know their twitter account through FriendFeed). When they like some items, I will check the owner of the item, and decided whether to follow him. After several weeks, I built my information cycle on FriendFeed, and I enjoyed the atmosphere in FriendFeed. I later dived into my school BBS and twitter, but I checked my FriendFeed regularly, because I can always find something new from it and informative commet.

Comment tower

A comment tower is that if lots and lots of people comment on one item in FriendFeed, when expanding its comment, it's really high, and I call it a comment tower. Robert Scoble is the most successful comment tower builder. He would encourage his followers to join his live activity, which quickly leaded to a comment tower. It's cool to watch the comment tower becoming taller and taller. It's live! Thanks for the realtime tech. And Louis always shared some pictures of his lovely baby, which brought us closer.

I like Google Buzz, too

Nobel prize owner, Yang once said that it was lucky for someone who grow with the development of an area. I grow with the development of FriendFeed, but unfortunately, it died:) However, FriendFeed has some successor, which give me hope. Robert once said on Google Buzz that FriendFeed had problems even the time it was sold and it was never perfect. But I think he likes FriendFeed and the discussion he aroused. When Google unveiled Google Buzz, I felt exciting. To me, FriendFeed was died but Google Buzz can make it live under a new name :)

Two things I like Buzz most

Google Buzz was such a prototype product which lacks a lot of features. But Google will improve it and in the developer page of Google Buzz, Google list a lot of features it will offer.

Currently, the most enjoyable experience when using Buzz is in Google Maps buzz layer. It's so funny to explore Shanghai to see what people in my city talk about on Buzz.
Here is a screenshot I took on my android phone weeks ago:

You can see a lot pics and updates on Google Maps buzz layer, and you can comment on any item. It's more funny to explore a city than check tweet.

Another reason is that Google Buzz is once FriendFeed to me. I still can follow Rober and Louis here, and find other interesting people to follow. Now, some people are finding me through Buzz :) I built buzz2twtter, a service that realtime sync your buzz(only buzz you write in your gmail and maps) to twitter. Carsten and Wang Jianshuo know me through this app. And thanks for Louis, Reader2Twitter and Buzz2Twitter has many users now, mostly from USA and Japen. Yesterday, I knew Carl, which is very interesting experience.

In the end, I want use Carl's word again, "You will find later that you are proud to be an early adopter of gBuzz.".

CrunchBase Information

FriendFeed

Google Buzz

Information provided by CrunchBase

Something about Shanghai 2010 EXPO(with free wifi info)

2010-05-02T13:30:58Z

Shanghai EXPO impression drawing
image from eastmoney.com

Face, Face and Face

Here are some images about 1st Day of Shanghai World EXPO from twitpic.com:

http://twitpic.com/1jmpnw
http://twitpic.com/1jynhd

It has been reported by the official government site that 200,000 people have visited the Shanghai World EXPO Park in the first day, although the real number of people who booked the tickets is 350,000. "Some people have their plan, and their tickets may be used in the following days.", said the lead of Shanghai World EXPO.

Bad news is that the wether of Shanghai is hot now. Just before the World EXPO, the wether is strangely cold. Do the visitors' butterfly effect makes Shanghai hot? :) Or "2012" is coming? Anyway, the weather will continue to be hot for a long time. So the visitors to Shanghai need to cope with the hot weather or go to Guilin to have a nice travel.

When should I go to Shanghai EXPO

If you have time, you can go to Shanghai EXPO in the middle of June. For students are preparing for the final and other people from other provinces of China will not have enthusiasm like they have now. And after visiting Shanghai EXPO, you can travel to Guilin or other beautiful places in China. The scene there is best in Summer and it's not hot there.

Some tips

Shanghai Metro Maps: http://www.exploreshanghai.com/ditie/
Google Maps is very cool and useful, but you may not be able to connect to the network through you mobile in Shanghai(because you do not use Chinese mobile). So, if you mobile supports wifi, you can go to Mc Donald or Starbucks to get free wifi.

If you could not use the free wifi in MC or Starbucks, you may check my google maps about Free Wifi Hotspots:
View Free Wifi Hotspots in Shanghai in a larger map

You can aslo search Google with "free wifi site:foursquare.com" to see a lot of free wifi hotspots: search

I born in Shanghai, so if you want to go to Shanghai EXPO and have some questions, fell free to ask me:)