Google have today announced a new deal to acquire On2 Technologies, a leading video compression company that provides high quality video at high compression rates.

Google are committed to offering high quality, streaming video to both its Google Video users and its YouTube users. Google have talked about improving the quality of streaming video and adding further value to the user experience by providing more HD quality content.

High Quality streaming video is one of the many holy grails of the internet. Large file sizes and download rates restrict the existing technology from being available to every household, causing long and slow downloads and buffering. The higher the quality of the service, the faster the streaming and download times, the more likely web based video will integrate into consumer households.

If streaming web based video could potentially match High Definition quality television, with low file download sizes, let’s say HD at a minimum of 720p, more households would use the internet to watch and download content. This could potentially open a massive new market to Google for paid download and subscription based video and content through YouTube. The opportunity to provide advertising including video commercials at the beginning and end of content would potentially offer Google a very lucrative channel to resell advertising. Google have already signed a deal to provide Disney content on the YouTube network. As a user can you imagine being able to choose any film or video content and instantly watch and stream the content in real time at an HD quality directly to your home TV. No download time, no waiting, just click and watch. This same technology would help to improve mobile and handheld video content, providing mobile users with a greater array of streaming content without the need to download or buffer large files.

The deal with On2 outlines the importance of the technology and shows Google’s resolve to investigate the video compression further. The deal is subject to approval by On2 Technologies stockholders and the regulatory authorities.

The acquisition marks a clear commitment by Google to develop their existing video content, what Google have up there sleeves at this point in time no one knows, but as always it looks very exciting.

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Yahoo has been promising a redesign of their home page for months and finally it’s here, but was it worth the wait?

Yahoo seem to be having a very good time, second quarter earnings are up and rumours of a Microsoft deal seem to be back in the public arena. Yahoo have updated their website with a new home page, but have they listened to their users?

“By focusing on what people have told us they want, our new homepage is designed to help them stay on top of what is going on in their world, and in the rest of the world,” said Ari Balogh, EVP of products and CTO, in a statement.

A bold claim but although the new homepage can be user personalised there still remains one problem, advertising! It’s everywhere, all over the homepage and in the My favourites section. No matter how hard you might want to personalise the homepage, you will never be able to remove the advertising. Is this really what Yahoo’s users were expecting?

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has admitted that Yahoo has a problem with excessive advertising, so why was this not addressed with the redesign of the site?

This short sighted view could potentially upset many of its users, Google offers a clean and simple user interface and iGoogle can be configured and personalised in any way a user sees fit. Yahoo have a long way to go before they truly understand there users.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Google Street views, the controversial 360 degree virtual mapping service has come to Coronation Street.
Coronation Street, the UK’s longest running soap, has been visited by the controversial Google Street Views mapping car. Very soon you will be able to take a virtual 360 degree tour of the whole of Coronation street, walking in the footsteps of the stars. Famous locations that have been included are Rita’s Kabin, Roy’s Rolls, and Rovers Returns.

Google Street Views is a new generation of 3d mapping service which has been integrated into the existing Google Maps and Google Earth systems. It allows users to virtually walk or drive down a 3d photographic representation of a road. The system takes hundreds of thousands of static images which are reassembled to create a virtual 360 degree representation of the location.

“Thanks to Street View, fans will be able to have a good nose around the set in a way that would have been unimaginable almost 50 years ago when the show was first aired”. Explained an ITV spokesman.

The service is due to be launched in the next few days. So if you’re a Coronation Street fan this is one new Google feature that you can’t afford to miss.

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Marketing

Microsoft Office 2010 has been released for its first stage of testing, the new product includes a suit of web based tools, has Google rattled Microsoft’s gold plated cage?

Microsoft Office is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Office software world, but there’s a new kid in town, a lightweight, fast punching, crowd pleasing challenger, Google Docs, who is currently running circles around Microsoft office in an online arena. Office needs to shape up and adapt to the changing needs of the consumer and Microsoft hope that Office 2010 is the product to maintain their market leading position.

Microsoft office has always been a paid-for software application, the move into an online environment will seem a little alien to Microsoft especially with Google Doc’s being free to use. As yet little information has been released about potential online pricing but it is hoped that Microsoft will offer the product for free. If we were to look at existing Microsoft charges online, we will see that a $3 per month charge will allow you to use the Desktop Workers suite of tools and a $15 per month charge will get you access to Exchange and Sharepoint services. With this in mind a potential charge could be extremely low or based on a small annual fee.

Google recently announced the removal of the Beta version of Google Docs and the up and coming launch of Google Docs for business, a new suite of online business tools. The removal of the Beta label will allow more business users to use the product and trust in a completed version of the software. Google Docs for business is a direct challenge to the up and coming Microsoft Office 2010 suite of tools and it is very evident that Microsoft is taking this challenge very seriously. Google want to recruit more business users but it is unclear as to whether the business version of Google Docs will be free-to-use or a charged for service. Google decision on pricing will be very influential and will set a market standard, but will Microsoft feel they need to compete or will they rely on the long established brand to add value to their product?

There are interesting times ahead and the competition between Microsoft and Google can only add value to both products, offering more assessable online tools which will definitely improve the user’s productivity and user experience.

Written by Creative SEO a UK Search Engine Optimisation Consultancy.