Earlier today I did ‘a Scobleizer’, and deleted all of my RSS subscriptions from Google Reader. The decision to start fresh was growing in me for a few weeks now, and Scoble’s post from this morning only affirmed my decision.

Some prefix is required here, as I haven’t written about that topic in a while – the distribution and consumption of news. With the ‘Big 3′ in mind – Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and adding Flipboard and HitPad to the mix, I think I’ve reached some conclusions on where I turn to read what, which also seems to coincide with current public perception:

• Google+ is where serious discussion takes place, and valuable opinions and insights are shared. My good friend Hillel Fuld is a strong believer in Google+, mainly for the vibrating discussion that takes place. If you got your circles right, you’re in for a treat, content-wise, any time of day.
• Facebook is where the fun stuff is shared, racking up Likes and Shares all around. I might find there an interesting Share, but most of the time – I find myself ‘judging’ the content based on the photo used.
• Twitter is tricky. Among all other social networks, Twitter is the only one that actually broke psychical boundaries, making it easier for people like me to interact and tweet with people like Robert Scoble, Dave Morin, Daniel Bedingfield, Ashton Kutcher and many others. Having said that, Twitter still needs to find a way to deal with all the noise. Other than lists.
• I’d also mention LinkedIn, which made a huge leap news-wise when they released their new iPhone app, which includes the ‘Updates’ tab, for top shared news from my network. Hands down my favorite app for hot stories.

So now my RSS reader is clean (actually was clean for two hours or so), and I’ve already started adding feeds to it, in small doses: Dave Winer, Scoble, Boston.com’s The Big Picture, Google Android Developer Blog, and a few others. It’s taking shape again, but I think I’ll have 20 at the most (compared with 80+ I had last time). With the built-in Google+ integration, I hope the new Reader will help Google regain a place on my list.

What’s your favorite tool or social network for catching up with the news? How many feeds do you keep track after? Shout back here, on Google+ or on Twitter.

Last but not least: This is the 3rd post I’ve written from my iPad, and I do think it’s time I share a few thoughts on my shiny new gadget and how I use it. Stay tuned, more to come.

We’re closing in on the YE, and the summations/reviews/top-10 lists are already underway.

Zeitgeist (The spirit of the times) is the Google way of telling the world what happened (methodology), by looking into top searches, fastest rising and fastest falling, filtered by country/industry. Interesting to see what different countries are searching for – ‘פייסבוק‘ (facebook in Hebrew) was the #1 search term in Israel, with Youtube clinching the #3 spot. The US was most interested in iPad (fastest rising) and the tragic oil spill (fastest rising in News).

For those in a hurry, here’s the 3min summary of the Google Zeitgeist 2010:

LOTS of data can be found in the Google list, and plenty of insight is available on each search query. There’s also an interactive map where you can zoom in, change timeline and compare events – feel free to explore for yourselves.

Frankly, I thought the figure will be higher (HE tweet), closer to $500m. Given the amount of traffic Google receives a day, and the twitter buzz surrounding the Pac-Man homage, ‘losing’ just $120m is fine. Also, bare in mind that Friday is a non-working day in Israel, so we helped, by like $10.

Now, to the math:

On average, a user spends 4:30 minutes per day on Google.com, spread across 22 pages, give or take a page. Each search you perform is over in ~12sec (270/22). Seems like nothing, but next time you search, start the clock – 12sec is a lot of time.

On Friday, May 23rd, the average user spent an additional 36sec on Google.com, playing Pac-Man of course. Assuming Google.com has over 500 million visitors a day (Wolfram-Alpha), then the Pac-Man players  have consumed almost 4,820,000 hours of play (!), and, at a $25/hour rate = $120, 483,800 per day. Oh, and if all the Pac-Man players had Google employees’ benefits (higher hour rate of course), the cost leaps to $298,803,988.

In case you missed the homage, or just want to play (and burn more $$), Google has created a permanent page: google.com/pacman. Enjoy

Conan O’Brien has some free time, so he is doing a tour across 30 US cities, before his new TBS show kicks-off coming November. Last week he stopped by at Google, part of At Google Talks series.

Wednesday was a busy M&A day, and twitter helped me keep track of the excitement. Apple buying Siri, AOL selling ICQ and last but not least – HP buying Palm. 3 deals that will shape our lives in the coming years, and it’s no surprise all 6 companies involved (Apple, Siri, DST, ICQ, HP, and Palm) are in the mobile business. That’s were the action is happening now, were the focus is, and obviously – $$$.

Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, said in one of the few interviews he gave, that he entered the mobile market in the 1990s (with Telcel, 92% market share, subsidiary of Telmex), because there are more opportunities for growth – in a household there’s 1 fixed-line, but at least 3 or 4 mobile lines.

Siri on iPhone

Apple’s acquisition of Siri (an iPhone app – personal assistant that understands what you say, accomplishes tasks for you and adapts to your preferences over time) is maybe the clearest ‘declaration of war’ against Google and its search engine. Voice search technology is the next thing in the mobile market, and Siri will be Apple’s answer to Nexus One’s voice search – a feature I loved when reviewing the device (Hebrew post), that although not perfect, will change the way each of us interacts with his/her phone.

HP’s move was a total surprise for me, that on the one hand seems somewhat natural – completes its Personal Systems Group, and on the other seems like another distraction from their main business (Services & Software). My first PDA was a Palm Pilot Vx, which I bought in 1998 for $100 or so. Since then Palm has evolved, mainly in software and technology, less in hardware, and I (as Mashable) believe it was this aspect of Palm’s business (over 1,500 mobile-related patents) that was most attractive to HP.

Palm Pre

Now, with webOS, HP has one of the best mobile OS out there, which can be installed on a variety of devices, from smartphones to tablets and maybe even netbooks. My thoughts for this deal are:

• How it will translate in markets that have a strong HP presence with weaker Palm presence, such as Israel?
• What the near future holds for HP-Microsoft cooperation? HP have made substantial investments in Windows platform, for both smartphones (Windows Mobile) and netbooks (Windows 7), and now, with in-house (and free) webOS, there is no need for that.

What are your thoughts? Can the new HP/Palm become a contender in the mobile market, against taking share from iPhone/Android/Symbian? Will you buy a webOS slate over an iPad?

The mobile market was definitely shaken this Wednesday, looking forward to seeing the ripple effect of that shake.

Saw this post over at Dan Ariely‘s Predictably Irrational blog (a recommend addition to your RSS reader). Dan is a Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a visiting Professor at MIT. His book, Predictably Irrational is on my read list at LinkedIn.

Dan used Google in a way most of us (me at least) haven’t thought of yet – researching human behavior. We do use Google to search for stuff, but Dan hasn’t searched for anything. He merely started typing and waited for Google’s predictions – the drop-down list that opens up, suggesting you search queries, based on what other people frequently looked for.

What women are looking for

The query Dan started typing was:
“how can I get my boyfriend to” and “how can I get my girlfriend to”. The results are hilarious, but proves what the entire world already knows: men are practical, women are after love…

What men are looking for

Sharepoint is all about collaboration and at Intlock we preach for the exact same thing. Our solution, CardioLog, is the leading usage reporting solution in the market, thanks to these three factors:

• CardioLog is aware of your portal structure;
• CardioLog is an open platform solution;
• CardioLog is familiar with your Sharepoint users

Doing business in a flat world has truly transformed the way businesses interact and work with one another, not to mention the endless possibilities for the customer – it has a global reach, to any vendor, anywhere in the world, in a click of a button.

Intlock Partners Program provides just that – the opportunity to do business, together, worldwide. Our program enables complementary solution providers, integrators and distributors to have all business, marketing, and technological resources for offering best-of-breed portal control and monitoring to their solution offerings. Our current partners are already reaping the benefits either as VAR (value-added resellers) or Technology Partners.

If you’d like to hear more about Intlock Partners Program and understand how we can enjoy a win-win joint venture, drop me a line at dvir.reznik at intlock dot com.

Yesterday at 7pm the Samsung Galaxy campaign was launched, with Nitzan Brumer and myself as the first 2 participants. The goal is simple: updating twitter/facebook/both status for 48 hours, at intervals of 30min tops, using the #samsungalaxy tag. The prize: We get to keep the Samsung Galaxy, first Android based phone in Israel. The ‘X-Factor’: various treats to keep us awake and updating. Which means I can sleep, but only for 25min at a time. OR, build a Rubi program that will twit for me…

Either way, I need to find some ‘time-fillers’, so instead of sharing with you how I feel about ‘The 2009 Fall Season‘ or ‘the situation‘, I decided to give a short preview of Samsung’s latest device, that at a first glance has a very good chance of becoming my ‘iPhone Killer‘, unlike Nokia’s N97, which I reviewed only 2 weeks ago.

The good

• Android is more like iPhone than anything else I’ve seen. It starts with the homepage (3 of them actually), drag-and-drop and device speed (Qualcomm CPU @ 528MHz). There’s definitely a ‘cool-ness effect’ to this phone.
• Cellcom and Samsung Israel did a great work on the Hebrew interface of the Galaxy. Menus appear as they should, no Bidi mistakes, keyboard layout is also great, very similar to you laptop/pc.
• Google integration is super – as one should expect from a device running Google OS. Enter your username and password and every piece of data you stored at the G-cloud comes to your phone: Calendar, Contacts, Emails, GTalk, YouTube (you can define the Auto-Sync options). On the other hand – I feel a bit exposed knowing all that data is just ‘sitting’ there…
• Android Market cannot match Apple’s 65,000 apps, but it’s getting there. Easy to search and navigate, includes ‘My Downloads’ to keep track of your installs and some very cool apps!

The bad

• The chassis of the Galaxy doesn’t match the iPhone or even N97 standards. It looks cheaper, not as ‘flashy’. The 6 keys at the bottom have no back-light, which makes it somewhat difficult to operate in the dark.
• I haven’t found a way to ‘Close’ an app. Clicking on ‘Back’ takes you one step back, but the app stays open in the background – consuming battery and 3G/Wi-Fi/GPS.
• Battery life. Although the device is not small (115x56x11.9mm), and packs an impressive specification, the battery is small. And coupled with the last bullet, working on 3G (wifi is less consuming for some reason) results in about 5 hours – not enough, and quite disappointing.
• Single ‘notification’ alarm – for anything other than an incoming call. When you enable Twitter/Email/SMS notifications there’s no way of telling the difference – you must check.
• No front camera for Video-Calls.
• Camera is ok (5MP, Auto Focus, LED flash), but doesn’t match the N95/97 – in both picture and video quality. Also, I couldn’t find any ‘Zoom’ option when capturing, which is a bit annoying. There’s ‘Crop’ in ‘Gallery’, but why disable ‘Zoom’ to begin with?

Summary
The Samsung Galaxy seems like an excellent answer for people looking for a non-iPhone Touchscreen device, that has roughly the same specs, in a less-expensive-Google-packaging. My fiancee liked it better than the N97, not to mention the various apps. The Android Market is definitely the ‘wild-card’ of this phone, and is the ultimate testiment to the power of the community – the variety is huge, and you can find applications to satisfy (almost) any wish.

Something good is happening to Israel in the social media scene. Twitter is getting A LOT of screen time, and even yours truly got his 30sec of fame in a recent TV piece (1:25min from start and again, later on) trying to uncover the mystery behind the micro-blogging platform.

Advertising agencies and consumer goods companies cannot ignore the stats and grown interest, so both started to incorporate social media aspects into their traditional and interactive campaigns. A month with Nokia N97, courtesy of N97Unboxing.co.il, did bring plenty of attention and social media coverage for Nokia Israel and the N97, but most reviews weren’t that favorable, and in my opinion might damaged the launch of the device.

But enough of Symbian, because I have roughly a week to learn a new language – Android! I’ll be switching to a Samsung Galaxy (aka i7500) within a week or so, part of a local campaign run by Samsung Israel, Cellcom (largest cellular provider in Israel), TheFusion, McCann Digital and Nir Refuah of course, to launch the first Android device in Israel. Details of the campaign are still sketchy, but I do know it will be a 48 hour contest (vs. another local blogger) during which I’ll have to send status updates (#samsungalaxy) every 30min or so. To keep me busy (and awake) during those 48 sleep-less hours, Samsung will pamper me with various treats and surprises. Good thing I haven’t found a job, yet…

So, couple of necessities before the campaign starts – help appreciated (Thanks in advance!):

• Twitter app for Android
• Facebook app for Android
• Video streaming app for Android
• VOIP app for Android (Fring doesn’t support Android OS)
• Must-have Android apps – update: found Android Market, but if you have specific suggestions, feel free to comment.
• Tips and tricks

Will keep you posted how this develops.

Luis Benitez has been posting awesome articles on his blog (Socialize Me) and developerWorks, showcasing how easy Lotus Connections integrates with other collaborative solutions. I also learned recently that Luis was once the EA of Mac Guidera, so Luis’s path to greatness is already paved

After reading Luis’s post about integrating Dogear into Google search results I decided to try it out for myself. Using The Fox for 4 years now, adding Greasemonkey was a piece of cake, and the scrpit was a no brainer (just clicking it . The result – now I can see Dogear results (coming from IBM’s internal bookmarking system) alongside Google results (full size image).

Furthermore, it’s good to see my blog post for ‘Extending Lotus Notes 8‘ ranking #2 for this specific search.. Cool !

The past week was filled with VIPs in Israel, and I’m not referring to George W. Bush who visited here Wednesday, and halted the traffic in Jerusalem for 2 days. The President’s Conference, hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres, attracted the who’s and who of politics and business, and gave us little people a chance to rub against the a-listers of Time, Fortune and BusinessWeek.

Plenty of business leaders took advantage of this conference. One of them was Google’s co-Founder Sergey Brin, who joined Yossi Vardi to his periodically Garage Geeks party, hosted (quite literally) in a garage near Tel Aviv.

Here’s a fair amount of Sergey’s ad-hoc Q&A section, as filmed by Ayelet Noff.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

I Read yesterday Palm’s latest announcement, of Palm Foleo, a new appliance, which is basically a very small factor laptop, 1.3 Kg (2.5 Pound), with a 10-inch screen.
The Foleo serves as an external display, with larger keyboard, and syncs instantly with smart phones using Bluetooth technology. An update made in your smart phone will instantly appear on Foleo, and vise-versa (giving both products are in Bluetooth range). Why? because ‘sometimes you need a bigger screen’, according to Jeff Hawkins, Palm’s founder. Will that reason suffice? not sure. In my opinion Palm are taking a big (and costly) step in entering a flooded laptop market, with a product that is inferior to most others, and only advantage being its ability to ‘always sync’ to smart phones.
In an era when everyone are seeking smaller, faster, do-it-all gadgets (like Nokia N95), I’m not sure if adding a 2nd product to a person’s bag is really the correct way… Even now people are trying to minimize the amount of gadgets they carry: mobile phone already serves as a camera, email client, mp3, calendar and address book, GPS and more.. so why go against the trend? And you have to carry both products, your smartphone and the Foleo in order to enjoy the benefits they offer..
If Palm would offer their always-sync technology as a 3rd party software, that would be interesting – and an interesting way to expand your market, with current products, but new technologies.

Google goes offline
Imagine reading your rss feeds in reader, checking your Gmail and editing a Google Docs document – offline. No internet connection needed… This is cool. In an on-going trend of making software as a service (SaaS), that requires an internet connection, the next logical step is making SaaS-O (Software as a Service – offline).
Google Gears should do just that. Announced today, Gears is still in Beta and an Open Source application that allows the community to do some testing and mock-ups, while improving its abilities to accommodate their needs.
If you plan on testing this new application, pay close attention to the install instructions..

Google Trends
Google are providing some cool tools for the average user to analyze his/her activities on the web. On top of the Reader Trends I’ve commented in the past, there’s now even an upgraded Zeitgeist, Google Hot Trends, which tells you couple of times a day what people are looking for right now.. right now!
Now you know what people looked for every single day, 4-5 times a day…
Here’s the Top 100 for Wed, May 23rd 2007:

American Idol being in the #2 place is not a big surprise, but what the hell is going on in Minneapolis with the weather (#50)?

My Ego (a.k.a Google Analytics)
Anyhow, I was looking at another Google tool, Analytics, with a new and improved interface, which illustrates your data in a more graphic way.. It’s also pretty easy to set up: just enter your url, put a JS code and you’re done.
So, obviously, all bloggers have Ego, and I wanted to know just how big mine is…
From the initial analysis I’d have to say – not bad Dvir!! 190 page views in a month is not high, compared to Engadget or GigaOm, but it’s good enough for me.. and the more important figure is that over 60% of my visitors are new visitors, which means new ‘business’, and that’s always a good thing.. you know, showing growth along with the market…

There’s also a break-down by region, by source (search engine, direct, links, etc), by content and much more… try it out..

So, I do hope this post has increased my new readers, while of course maintained my loyal crowd. Shout back, so I can hear you..

Google added some time ago a new cool feature to its Google Reader web based (of course) application, Google Trends.
Basically, it tells you everything you want to know about your reading trends: when you read, which feeds, for how long, how many, which day/hour, etc. There are some nice graphs as well, for those who like results displayed in a colored matrix..

I copy-pasted 2 charts I feel summarize my experience so far, and those are which day and which hour I get my fix of feeds.. Surprisingly, or not, Sundays are my preferred reading days. Surprise because in Israel, Sunday is a working day, the first of the week, not part of the weekend. I can only assume that less work is getting done on Sunday.. The weekdays are roughly the same, just over 150 items per day.. I don’t read all of them, some I just scroll through
In the next chart you can see my reading hours. I would expect mornings and just after lunch, but it appears that mornings are just not my thing. Again, no surprise there as I’m not a morning person.. Noon is almost a peak, probably because I like to have some new gossip to talk about over lunch.. Another interesting fact – I go to sleep late !! very late! It appears that I read 150 items between midnight and 2 a.m. ! wow…
Couple of action items for self, after this short analysis:

• Stop working over the weekends. The week is long enough, and my office will still be there coming Sunday. I really tend to work over the weekends, and I do want to cut it down.. not healthy.
• Go to sleep earlier. Not early, we’re not 6th graders, but earlier. Like midnight, 1 a.m at the latest. It’s hard, as my better half is usually awake, working her best in those little hours of the night, but I will make an effort.
• Working evenings. With the laptop age, that isn’t new, the office is a very relative term. It can be your office-office, your home-office, your coffee shop-office, your shopping mall-office – no end in sight.. So, for the past week or so, I decided to keep my laptop in its hand bag, and not take it out when I reach home.. Nothing is that urgent..

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.. you can call them “Mid 2Q Resolutions for a connected blogger” items. Bit long, but has a nice ring to it…