Startups need to go all in and bet their companies to be able to start their business. They have no idea if it will work but in order to be successful they need to put all their efforts into what they are doing and go all in with their gut.

If they get successful they will go public, start measuring risks and never again bet their company. While this may be wise and safe, this will never lead them into the next big thing. They will never get the rush of having to do it right. Never get to put all their resources into one thing. Ultimately they will never takes us one big step forward. It’s like we are moving baby steps.

On my last post I ranted about Google Search Plus but what Larry Page is doing is betting a lot into this move. He is not going all in and betting his company because no one will call and even if they did he is the player with the biggest stack on the table, so he would never lose it all.

Even if I complain about the move and generally I don’t like what this brings to Google Search Results. I like the move. It shakes things. I only complain when I love a product. And I love Google… Honestly do. I may not agree with them many, many times. But I like what they bring to the table. Even if they turn out to be evil. They already gave the world so much innovation that it would be a positive score in the end.

I double dare any other big tech industry to risk at least that much. Go against Google. Facebook start a Search Engine and force your users to use it. Microsoft start a Social Network and make it a default real time dynamic background on all windows. Yahoo go all in against You Tube and bring us internet TV. We all see you can make stable money and at times lose a bit. But we need to be amazed. We need the WOW. We need YOU to take the human race forward.

Why there is no real competition to Apple or Google? Who is willing to do a phone with only one button? Who is willing to force users to use their products? Who is willing to make the next big thing and fail? Who is willing to risk it all?

You guys monopolize all the best tallent and resources. The best engineers, the best teams, the biggest amount of money from investors. Don’t put it to waste doing trivial products. Give us things we don’t know that could exist. Give us our hidden dreams. Give us the feeling of being happy that a product exists…

is absolutely ridiculous.

The most interesting result for Michael Arrington for me right now is uncrunched that you can find deep down:

If this is what Search Plus is about, I pass.

There is a lot I agree with what Danny Sulivan points out but my main issue is having Google SERPs all cluttered with junk (ads and Google+ ‘suggestions’).

If it wasn’t enough to have to put up with this:

Now we combine that with Google+ and we get this:

This will push results from all content providers down and provide users with a confusing interface. I am not talking about rankings, we all know Google is the best at ranking stuff, I am talking about the interface, the simplicity. That’s why we all got so addicted to it. My mom got it, first time.

Now, I get the obsession with Social. Future rankings will be Social. It’s obvious, but content providers don’t want our Google + Posts to rank. We want our pages to rank. That’s how we make a living. Google has a monopoly and it’s all fine as long as they play nice. Abusing that is calling competitors to step up. Best candidate: Facebook.

Why Facebook and not Bing. Because Microsoft is awful at Social. They had the best Social Network (MSN Messenger – Portuguese Post) a few years ago and never knew what to do with it. Any future search engine will need a great Social Network behind or something new someone will create that uses people to rank stuff.

The way things are heading, I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook would come up with some better interface than Google is actually moving towards.

I think that Google is playing with fire. If content providers stop getting the amount of traffic they get from Google they will start looking elsewhere, blocking content from being crawled, promoting other alternatives and start the REVOLUTION.

But there is one person that I looked up to and that I could call my hero, Steve Jobs.

He was a show man, a master of technology, a design expert, a wise perfectionist, in sum a genius.

It will be hard to find that combination on a single person again.

The news of his death leave me sad and worried that technology will be lacking from here on. Who will be the one to set new expectations? Who will define new paths? Who will be the voice leading Apple? Who will tech industry look up to, now?

None of the alternatives out there look that promising when compared to Steve.

No matter what, just this quick note to express my gratitude to have been so privileged to share this world with you and be inspired by what you have done.

Meet you soon

I got your email requesting for me to help you improve Bing Webmaster Tools by taking a moment and tell you about my experience.

I tried to follow your instructions and help you with my humble opinion.

Why didn’t I finish?! Well, I did it almost half the way (+/- 10 minutes) but then I got stuck in the question “Which country do you live in”. None of the given answers had Portugal in it and I had no way to move past it without lying. As I didnt want to lie I stopped.

About the survey, I am not an expert on that kind of things but I am sure that there is a much better and valuable way to do it. I explain.

I will start by sayng that making all questions mandatory is just the wrong way to do things when you are asking for “help”.

Some of your questions:
How often do you (or others at your company) sign into the Bing Webmaster Tools?
No need to ask, just track it with your analytics

Which of the following Google Webmaster tools do you use most often?
Don’t be so specific. Why would I want to tell you about my Business with Google.

Next please evaluate some specific characteristics of Google using a scale of 9 to 1
Again!!! Stop obsessing with Google. Focus on what you are doing

What range of revenue do you earn each month from your use of third-party content ads?
Revealing that is not something I would like to do while “helping” you. I need to choose from one of the pre filled options and there is no way to move past it.
This is plain wrong and more so when I only had chosen Adsense on the previous question about who provided ads for my website(s).

Which search engines does your organization or the organizations you represent pay for search advertising?
Why would I tell you that? That is one of the things most companies hide.

OK… But to help you I am going to give you my general feeling about Bing/MSN.

I own, manage and develop a few websites. Most of them are not targeted to an english speaking audience. I am looking into the stats of one of them (Portuguese) and most of its traffic is organic. Last 30 days the site had 1.379.686 page views. From all the organic traffic Bing sent 1% (14.603 page views).

This happens to all the non english websites I run. Only the english ones have around 10% of organic that comes from Bing (that is +/- your market share and thats what I expected for all my websites).

So… or all the other search engines are doing things wrong or you are.

In sum:
The problem that I as a webmaster have with Bing (Webmaster Tools and over all Search Engine) is that it doesnt bring me a relevant traffic volume. And its even pointless to go into Bing webmaster tools when I am working with websites that are not aimed for the an English speaking audience.

I would sugest that you get the international versions working properly and work for more search engine market share.

I believe that is really all you need. All the rest is just fine.

All the best,
Hugo Gameiro

How come Microsoft did not think of a desktop app store?!

For many years linux offers a kind of app store but it was never properly implemented and/or commercially explored. But on the latest Ubuntu version they launch something called “Get Software” that is exactly that.

Once again Microsoft dismissed the enormous success of the Apple App Store for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch and did not think about adapting (call it “stealing”, if you wish! it would not be the first time) that concept and using it for Windows.

The people at Cupertino (read:Apple team) did the opposite and are launching the Mac App Store.

I think the thing that bugged me most about this is that I also did not think about it. How come such a great opportunity got away from every startup and tech company out there?

This would be a great project for a startup. I wish I had the vision for this a couple of years ago. Now… It’s to late.

Coincidence or not, today Microsoft announced that will be launching a Marketplace for PC Games and I am sure soon Microsoft or somebody else will create something similar to the Mac App Store for Windows.

I will finish by making mine the words of Nicholas Deleon on a CrunchGear post about the Mac App Store:

“to expect that the Mac App Store won’t be anything other than a smashing success is pure folly”

BTW: Love the new MacBook Air. After watching the keynote all I wanted was to go and get one. (I dont know how Steve Jobs does it but it gets me feeling like that on every keynote event)

Disclosure: I never owned any Apple product. But I think I will stop resisting and cause that to change sometime soon.

iPod Shuffle

Too expensive. $49 for 2Gb.

iPod Nano

Too small for touch. So whats the point in Multi-touch?

iPod Touch

Like it. Amazing features for a music player. Again, expensive.

iTunes 10

Hate the new logo. Nothing changes with the software that I always hated. Confusing, odd navigation, mysterious playlist and I lose track of my media files.

Ping

Niche pseudo social network. Close minded inside iTunes and doesn’t bring anything new. There is a lot that can be done there. Let’s see.

Apple TV

The actual box hardware and the price are spot on. The software is too basic. I want much more on my TV.
The remote control is one of the things that I think needs someone to reinvent. Hate writing something with the remote arrows and we need to be able to write or comunicate what we want with the box set. How else can we search and navigate through piles of data fast?
This will also be a challenge for the upcoming Google TV. I am curious to see how they solve it.

This week Gmail has been rooling out a new feature called Priority Inbox.
After turning it on for 24 hours, I ended up turning it off. Why? Because I believe it clutters my inbox more than it helps.

Priority Inbox sections

The sections in wish Gmail divides Priority Inbox don’t seem to make a lot of sense.
For me:
Important and Unread = Unread
Starred = Read
Everything Else = Spam/Garbage

What is Everything Else!?

The one section I really dont like and also the one that you cannot remove (all others you can change or remove) is Everything Else.

All the emails that go to the Everything Else section can only be of 2 types:
-Spam and should be on the spam folder
-Important and should be out of this section

If I receive an email it must be important for me or else is spam/garbage.

Read Unread

All I need in my inbox are my unread messages so I can read them or the ones that I already read and need to come back.

All other messages should go to the archive, spam or trash. Isn’t that simpler than having some blue bars and emails changing place?

I simply love, adore and absolutely need Gmail

I don’t like this feature but Gmail is the only email client I can imagine myself using today. I love it, it’s my only suggestion to anyone in need of an email account and whenever my computer is on gmail is running on my browser.

BTW – making the Mark read, unread, starred, unstarred options go to a combox, not that smart also. Prettier but annoying.

We may judge them for being drunks or whatever and some of them are but not all and in the end of the day they are people like you and me that somehow made choices and ended up there.

Today I came across invisiblepeople.tv. A place where Mark Horvath shares his video interviews with homeless people.

You can find many interesting interviews and get to listen and know more about people that you would normally not speak with.

I found the next couple interesting because when asked what would they want if they could have 3 wishes, none of them mentioned money. More, the girl even says she would like to be successful but not money wise.

OK… I know one could say they are deluded or whatever. But is just curious.

If you want to follow this project subscribe to the InvisiblePeopleTV YouTube Channel.

This also reminds me of the Interview Project by David Lynch that is somewhat related to this and that I also like very much. This last one is more artistical and a bit dark.

click to view full size

Its not all that complex and there is loads more to the equation but it is pretty smart for the little information I gave them.

Most of all it is really cool and the loads of trends and stats OkCupid have been sharing are getting loads of hype.

I did this post mostly because I think OkCupid is the dating site to keep an eye on and to use (shame it is only in English). The design is great, the usability is good and its free.

Compared to the other free options and the actual number one plentyoffish I would choose OkCupid without looking back. Plentyoffish design reminds me GeoCities (RIP) and it feels like a market, not a fun place where you can find someone that you would like to meet.

But things are looking up for OkCupid:

If I were Markus Frind I would be getting worried.