2005 in pictures on Yahoo! and MSNBC.

Happy 2006!

I wrote about the most searched keywords according to Yahoo! a couple of week ago. Google Zeitgeist, has a different story:

A very nice welcome to the newcomers to the list (top gainers): 1. Myspace, 2. Ares, 3. Baidu, 4. wikipedia, 5. orkut, and 6. iTunes

I personally think the annual top gainers results are more valuable and more interesting.

These guys are awesome! The paints, music and paper towels in their Boston performance were just fantastic.

Check out some of their videos.

Google released a cool new feature that allows users search for the music. It has the album, artist and song names as well as lyrics and the album cover picture. And it's all integrated with the web search results. Cool.

I got an invitation to the new MSN Messenger Beta from my ex-colleague, Nicolas today. "They're on sale for 50 bucks on ebay, now. [so you better use it!]", he said. :)

Bitter things:

1. The email invitation and the "Download Now" web links don't work in firevox due to HREF placed outside the TD.
2. Why does it ask for a passport login before download?
3. The file size is big compared to the competitors' (11 MBs).
4. Slow logon.

Sweet things:

1. Easy set up process. Minimum questions asked.
2. Nice UI. I like the ability to change the color schemes.
3. Free videos on MSN live? Sweet!
4. Good job on the integration: Spaces, ebay, stock quotes, etc.
5. "Contact card" is a nice little option that used to be there before, but noone had a name for it.
6. Perhaps the coolest feature introduced in this version is the "Sharing Folders". Quickly share your files (documents, pictures, music, and videos) with your buddies.
7. Handwrite feature is a really nice idea (although I couldn't use it).

Things to add:

1. Photo album sharing ability. Drag and drop would be cool.
2. Integration with livemeeting. I would love to use it at work, if this feature is introduced.
3. Now that we have AJAX and Web 2.0 stuff, why can't there be a web version, independent of the platform/browser?
4. A must-to-have: IM to SMS and vice versa.
5. A cool feature would be message consolidation. Don't repeat the name of the sender, if consecutive messages received from one person.

An idea: the area between the conversation and where the user types a message is a very sensitive area in terms of the eye movement, i.e., a hot spot. If the messages go through a server, MSN servers can parse the message, find the context, and display relevant ads. I'm sure the CTR would be huge.

And, something Nicolas mentioned: add encarta@conversagent.com and ask any questions you want. A part of my conversation:

Ahmad: what is the capital of nevada?
Encarta: The capital of Nevada is Carson City.
Ahmad: capital of iran?
Encarta: The capital of Iran is Tehr.n.
Ahmad: how are you?
Encarta®: I'm doing well. How about you, Ahmad?
Ahmad: how old are you?
Encarta: I'm 6 months, 2 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes and 53 seconds old.
Ahmad: are you male or female?
Encarta: I am neither male nor female. I'm a robot.
Ahmad: where are you located?
Encarta: I live in Silicon Valley, California.

It would be cool, if it could answer this: "domino's near santa clara, ca". [hint to Conversagent.com guys]

"Britney Spears is still No. 1 on Yahoo's annual list of the most-searched for terms on the Internet. Spears, who has topped the list for three of the last four years, lost out to "American Idol" in 2004.

"Following Spears were, in order, 50 Cent, the Cartoon Network, Mariah Carey, Green Day, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Eminem, Ciara and Lindsay Lohan. The list of overall top searches, all of which were entertainment related, "shows us that people are fixated on the activities of pop culture icons," Yahoo "Buzz Index guru" Erik Gunther said in a statement."

WMW: "The facility will be charged with creating software search tools for Google. It is expected to create as many as 100 new high-tech jobs in the Pittsburgh area over the next few years. The office will be headed by Andrew Moore, a Carnegie Mellon professor of computer science and robotics who chairs a lab that tracks patterns in data."

Last week, we saw two important acquisitions:

Adobe completed the acquisitions of Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. Macromedia shareholders received 1.38 of Adobe shares for each share they owned.

Another interesting acquisition was the acquisition of Del.icio.us, the bookmarking web site, by Yahoo!, inc. I have heard they have plans to integrate del.icio.us with flickr, which they bought last year. Also, from what I have heard, a large number of the users of both systems, Flickr and Del.iscio.us, are not happy with the acquisition news.

For now, see http://bookmarks.yahoo.com.

Nicolas, my ex-colleague who works for Microsoft now, advertises MS stuff by e-mail:

"Have a look at: http://local.live.com It is the brand new stuff from MSN VirtualEarth. We now have more than satellite pictures! You can see the buildings at 45 degrees angle; like if you were in a plane or helicopter flying around them!"

Check out the MSN map's newest features!

He says: "The Seattle newspaper has a story with nice Before and After pictures."

We presented our final requirements management project today just a day before my birthday. Now I have 20 more hours a week.. Sweet!

Ali F. Says: "This wolfram guy (author of Mathematica), has been doing some new-age science." Wolfram Tones allows you to create random music instantly and download it as a ringtone! :) (Really Cool) See the NY Times article about it.

Red and Blue Squares is a really fun and challenging time. My best time: 19.75s.