Google’s gobblin’

Dimitri Metaxas has a neat round up on what’s been going on in the Online Advertising space lately. With Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft’s Online-Ad companies’ acquisitions with sky high numbers there’s a lot to digest, Dimitri’s got a view, check it out.

The question many ask is whether Google isn’t getting too big. By going ‘upstream’ in the advertising chain, the company could find itself in a conflict of interest, whereby the temptation to use Google properties as vehicles to advertising may lead online publishers to leave DoubleClick behind.

While Google Adsens/AdWords and now DoubleClick are owned by Google, both are gonna’ fight for the same bucks, my idea was that DoubleClick and Adwords/Adsense combo would melt into a new era of Google Ad services, that’d be such a value.

The word monopoly is now being bandied around following this latest purchase. The problem is that it combines a leader in search marketing and a heavy-weight in digital advertising. Together, Google will be able to learn an awful lot about the kind of traffic and the type of ads leading sites receive. This level of scrutiny will prove rather uncomfortable to many, particularly those who regard Google as a competitor.

Once again, “Do no evil” ain’t right about Google anymore, and if Google had an “S” somewhere in the name people would’ve started putting a “$” dollar sign for it instead.

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4AM at Office

This quite reminds me of a sample trance song that used to come with Fruity Loops — Tranced @4AM. Seems like the first time I ever stay at office till this late. Feels really quite as all the neighbors have been gone 10 hours ago. Can’t think of anything but a worm bed with a soft pillow. A hot shower would do too.

Whether in college days or during freelancing staying up all night was a mastered habit, now, feels like a disease. A habit loved to have is now a disease and abnormality.

The plus side, you aint got no phone calls to attend to, nor emails that need your priority intention. Just you and the work. No distractions.

And you’d look zombie.

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On Salesmanship

One of the roles I ignored and thought will never be my job at any point is Sales, I always assumed and imagined myself a bad sales person, non-communicating in a business sense, thought I could only make it into technology and design talk. During the time we launched dots and lines ’till the day, many of those fears disappeared, my tech-talk got translated into business talk more often until I’ve reached to the point where I’m doing more of Account Servicing than Technical & Actual Web Work. A complete transition.

Working in a web-startup or better called a small-sized Web agency gets you doing more than just design/development. More of business development and more of phone calls than e-mails. More of face-to-face meetings than a hidden e-mail shot and an online instant-messaging session. More of traveling. More of moving and dynamism, less time in front of code, more in front of Word and Outlook. Less design blogs reading, more News and industry following.

The hot seat is no more your station seat, it’s the presentation seat that gets you sweating. Music is distracting when you’re thinking of a way to craft the proposal that sells, the same music could be inspiring while designing, you stop staying awake ’till late browsing new stuff and doing geeky work cuz you’re gonna’ have to meet a client at 9AM sharp!

And the most painful: You gotta’ shave everyday, you never know when a client’s gonna’ call for a meeting. Compare to time when you’re just a designer at your seat, disconnected from the rest of the first life. It’s really amusing thinking about such stuff, so not melting.

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Your fav search engine is a Currency Convertor too!

As odd as it gets, while randomly got linked to a Google help page I came to this interesting find out, you can type 1 USD in AED in any Google search input and you can get the currency converted, better yet, you can even use it as a calculator, new to me, amazing stuff. I feel so old not knowing this earlier. Check it out here if you haven’t before.

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No more M$, it’s MS

Microsoft has always been marked as “Micro$oft” and usually as “M$” instead of “MS” in the blogosphere and most of the communities and non-formal press and articles. It used to make sense some years ago. But does it hold anymore?

Microsoft has started speaking “people”, cares a little more than average about user experience and its monopoly has kind of ended. It’s what you choose now a days, you ain’t got to be locked up with MS products, it’s open and up to you. Better OS, better Office pack, and a lot better products, yes that’s what they’ve been giving us recently.

So was it the licensing bit? Or just the fact that it used to be No.1 that all the haters bashed?

I don’t find it fair tagging Microsoft with $ anymore, it doesn’t hold anymore. You pay for what you get, and get what you pay for, these are the basis for your electronic life and work.

Thing is, the choice is yours. You don’t like Windows, use OSX or Linux, don’t like IE, go for Firefox. Hate Outlook?(I would doubt that anyone would hate outlook) get yourself scattered with a number of other apps. MSProject ain’t your style, get yourself something else. Pen & Paper are your limits, if you couldn’t find digital solutions, back to your notebooks and pencils.

Silverlight? Deepfish? All the new hot projects at live.com. C’mon that ain’t fair anymore!

It’s annoying to see MS written as M$ now a days. I believe it’s not fair to do that anymore.

Update: Okay so who’s eveil now? Check this.

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Middle East and Web Awards

At the end of every working day and for the matter, every night before we blink the last time before we wake up the next day, all that it ends up with is how our works are standing up, and how fairly measured and appreciated. The sense of being ranked and recognized, that is. Whenever I think about it, who’s the judge anyways?

The worst experience is when you participate in a contest and get no feedback what so ever, add to that, yo don’t even get an invitation to the ceremony you participated in given that every entry gets two seats!

Even though you are a participant who did not win, who wasn’t invited to the show too, you still anticipate the winners and wanna’ know who was actually better than you in deserving to win. So you see the list and come to an interesting find out: Only Big Brands’ websites won!(we were new back then, had projects only for small businesses)

Is it all about the lights, cameras and actions? Just a ballroom story? So frustrating!

I’m so keen to know the judges, the score book, and real feedbacks on the awards given. Not keen, burning to find out the details. A little transparency? Well Hello?!

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Microsite: AurionV6 Middle East

One of the best Microsites ever made for the Middle East region. Elegant, Clean, and Bright. Smart flat IA, plenty of white space, big type, neat type setting, and cool content placement. All that in a non-flash microsite. It’s the AurionV6 microsite for the Middle East.

Since this Toyota class is made and assembled in Australia, here’s the Australian AurionV6 microsite. The Australian version is highly interactive, compared to the ME version, ME version is less informative but “better” informing.

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It’s all about Semantics

I’ve always been so harsh on ITP’s publishings online, not here to look back and apologize. And no, I ain’t picking on them, they’re the only real publishers in the region, they’ve got to get it right! Here’s today’s thing, “Loading XML“, “Loading Interface”, … ITWeekly informs you all that.

Here’s a series of pre-loading screens at IT Weekly:

How relevant is it to tell the reader what you’re loading? Well it is, but how relevant is it to tell the user that you are loading “XML”? Or “Interface”? I haven’t read ITWeekly for a long long time, exactly after they stopped the Print version and started this hard-to-use digital thing.

It’s all about the Semantics, start from page one of the magazine, they have to force the name “eMagazine” and show it there in your face right away. I would’ve loved the name four years ago, but hell, is there anything non-digital? or is there any term that some entrepreneur did not turn it into e-Something?

I still haven’t gotten over the Advanced Tools at ITP.net’s website. Dial ITP.net in your address bar and be amazed by how you’re welcomed with an advert before reaching to the homepage. A total disaster!

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7days Redesigned

I liked the previous version of 7days. As a matter of fact, I adored it. Lots of white space, great typography and neat layout. The new design, well, it’s too crowded to my taste, white spaces and white backgrounds have been slashed out with more content and imagery.

Lots of dark areas, filled up with not so good imagery, specially the icons, not the best job.

Vertical tabs are confusing on the homepage, weired. Why should it be vertical?

Low res imagery? Why?

In short w/o going into details of information layout and graphics, forgetting the markup that is all inline Javascript, it’s not as good as the previous version, man what a waste, a great design traded with this average new design. Just, what was wrong with the previous version?

Curious who’s behind this version, any idea?

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Traffic-Talk is always on

Old News that is, Dubai & traffic rush. Better yet, an older talk, the heat. “Oh man, crazy traffic, Good Morning!”, “Freakin’ hot, man, wassup?”. The usual ice-breakers. Everyday greetings. Share a cup of coffee or a smoke and you’re up for another Traffic talk.

More of the same, go for a meeting, you ain’t feeling good and not comfortable with the people around, well, throw in the Traffic talk, tension’s gone. You’re late for a social appointment, well, Traffic’s there for you. It just works!

Not in Abu Dhabi But wait, no parkings available! So when you reach that 8th or 12th floor and shake hands saying the usual ice breakers, don’t forget to throw in the Parking talk. It’s so much fun observing and using it. Evil.

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