Hi!

My site updated to 2.5 version.

see you later… :}

It gives its engineers about a day a week to work on personal projects outside the direct scrutiny of their managers, making it tough even for insiders to know who’s doing exactly what. And its ad business, ruled by secret, complex mathematical formulas, vexes analysts, who label the company a “black box.”

Not Immune to the Slowdown?

That’s why data trickling out over the past couple of months have so shaken up some Google boosters. Google contends the apparent flattening of paid clicks is purposeful. It has reduced the clickable area around ads to eliminate accidental clicks that don’t represent serious visitors or buyers. As a result, analysts say, the average price per click on search words that advertisers bid on rose 15% in the fourth quarter. Yet skeptics abound. “I’ve seen some softness that looks to be driven by the economy,” says Kevin Lee, executive chairman of search-marketing firm Didit.

Google also faces more competition because of its own unbridled ambitions. Last year it began a concerted push to offer software programs online such as e-mail and word processing, in competition with Microsoft. With its just-closed $3.2 billion purchase of DoubleClick and its 2006 buy of video site YouTube for $1.6 billion, it’s also ready to plunge into display and video ads. And despite losing a bid for wireless spectrum recently to Verizon Wireless (VZ) and AT&T (T), it’s forging ahead with plans for wireless Internet software.

Unlike in search ads, Google must contend with credible and often large competitors in all those markets. “That’s not something they’ve had to do before,” says Geoffrey Moore, managing director of strategy consultant TCG Advisors. Most of all, Google faces a Microsoft that has been in “kill Google” mode for well over a year—spending billions on ad-related acquisitions and making an unprecedented $45 billion bid to buy Yahoo (YHOO).

Trading In for Twitter

Like other highfliers that could do no wrong for so long, Google faces key challenges that could well prove more internal than external. Its very success has created a company so big that some veterans are now feeling restless. Besides the executive departures, a number of engineers have left for startups such as microblogging service Twitter and social media sharing site FriendFeed. And with the stock price down so far, employee retention issues could spread, too. Hundreds or even thousands of employees are holding stock-based grants with strike prices higher than Google’s shares.

So far the company remains a magnet for young techies. Tom Kosnik, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, says students are attracted to the creative culture, as much as the free gourmet food and college atmosphere. Still, for the first time, the enchanted corporation may need to search for new ways to maintain the magic.

I’d like to start a discussion on the topic of speed based on a comment from another thread, because it’s significant and timely–and rarely mentioned in this forum.

How did you come to the conclusion your site was slow? Visitor complaints?

By the way, recently in the AdWords Blog, Google said something which indicates it is finally understanding the significance of slow servers to its profits.

I have never seen anything from Adsense about making sure pages load fast enough. Google says it’s going to punish advertisers whose landing pages are too slow. But what about publishers? How much money is Google losing by poor servers? Millions?

How fast is fast? Are shorter pages the equivalent of a faster server? How much faster are your new servers?

I hate to bother with server changes if it’s not going to help. But the 25% income boost is intriguing.

How do you know you couldn’t make another 25% with even faster servers?

What are the internet industry standard server performance tests?

15 Wallpapers | 1024×768 JPG | 8.4 Mb

File name: Vector_Wallpapers_V2.rar
File ID: 9350c4ad-3cfa-4f8d-bff7-43db5b5b8977
File size: 8 MB
File added: Feb 29, 2008 8:07:12 PM

Download

Great news from Basil Hashem, Mike Morgan and Madhava Enros: the refreshed, redesigned and ready for interaction Mozilla Add-ons web site is now live!

Here’s what Basil had to say:

The AMO team has been hard at work for the last many months on a major site redesign and is pleased to announce the availability of the new AMO site. This is a significant release and chock-full of goodies for end users and add-on authors alike. The focus has been predominantly to provide a visual refresh, simplify navigation and rework the add-on developer tools area. But that doesn’t quite capture just how much effort has gone into this release. So, here is a full rundown of all the changes.

And some praise for our editors and localizers from Mike Morgan:

Our editors have worked hard to review new and updated add-ons as we move towards Firefox 3 this year and our localizers translated roughly 200 new strings in AMO templates in a little over three weeks for 24 locales (wow).

Lastly, some user experience notes from Madhava Enros:

This release is particularly exciting for me, partly because the wireframes and interaction-model for the site were the first things I worked on when I arrived at Mozilla. Also, though, because alongside the re-skinning and reorganization of the site, I think we’ve managed to improve the user-experience of finding and installing add-ons in a number of interesting ways.

Add it all up and the site that’s served over 600 million add-on downloads is now even more useful for more people than ever before. Check out the updated Mozilla Add-ons site here: http://addons.mozilla.org