Feedburner Pro is now Free

Way back in May, Google bought Feedburner. Even though I run into lots of people who look at me like I'm from another planet when I start talking about RSS feeds, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what a RSS feed is.

If you are one of those strange people who think that big, towering piles of money would be a really neat thing to have, reportedly Google paid $100 Million for Feedburner.

According to Tech Crunch, although you still have to "upgrade" to the "Pro", nothing is billed. If you already have a Feedburner Pro account, then nothing will be billed effective with the June billing cycle.

I have my feed through feedburner, but to be honest, I never do anything on their site. I will have to say, it works, and I haven't had to do much of anything with it since I set it up.

For more on the Google front, Google is continuing its buying spree, with the recently announced purchase of GrandCentral Communications. Of course, you already know that Google bought DoubleClick, and they really have been making some moves to build what looks like a health care network or portal (here, and here). Heck, if you are looking for a blog idea, you could probably have one that just reports Google stuff. Oh wait, there already are a bunch of those like Inside Google, The unofficial Google Weblog, Google Weblog, and too many others to list.

Now with Folders - Google Docs and SpreadSheets

I was very surprised when I accidentally clicked on the Docs and Spreadsheets link in Gmail, and realized that Google has added the ability to organize your items into folders.

Well, kind of.

They basically have taken the tags that you assign to items, and placed a little folder icon next to them. Items can exist in multiple folders, just like they have multiple tags.

This will fix one complaint that I hear over and over from people about GMail, they can't use folders to organize their email. I never had the problem, I view the tags just like folders. If you click on a tag, you get a view which only holds the items with that particular tag.

The advantage, of course, is that items can have more than one tag, where in a true folder system, the item can only exist in one folder.

Even though Google introduced folders, they didn't introduce sub-folders. They just don't work.

The layout for the new interface looks just like the folder layout that Outlook uses, and Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, and Windows Explorer, and File Manager (remember that one?) and well, you get the picture. It is a big improvement over the last interface though, and in the new interface, you can drag and drop items into the folders. Pretty nice.

The interface was announced tuesday on the Google Blog, and contrary to a previous post of mine, Google Docs might start to be some type of competition for Microsoft Office, especially if they enable Google Gears for it.

More Reading:

"Google Docs and Spreadsheets updates" - Jeff Stalnaker

"Google Docs Gets Organized (and a new look)" - OgasaWalrus.com

"New Google Docs Launched" - Googlified

"Google Docs - Some Issues" - Satish's Blog

Some Interesting Links

In my recent web travels I have ran across some sites that I wanted to share. Here they are, enjoy.

1. StreetViewr - Since Google started its "Street View" feature on Google Maps, this blog / website has been pulling photos of note out of the stream. Here are a couple of examples:

   Patrick Norton - Formerly of the Screensavers, frequent TWIT Panelist, now on DL.TV
   

   A someone working on a house, with a really big ladder
   

   My Favorite, the Google Van gets pulled over. Make sure you follow the post's directions to see it.
   

2. The Make ezine - Come on, haven't you always wanted to make a Margarita Maker, Ping Pong ball gun, or maybe just some bacon soap. The site has the Digital version of the Magazine, a blog, podcasts and Projects directory. Pretty cool.
   
   
3. Exchange Exchange - A Post by John Gruber about how the iPhone is going to make the Corporate world throw off the shackles of an oppressive Microsoft Exchange environment. Oh, by the way, I guess Leopard Server (Apple makes servers?!?!) is going to have a Calendaring Server called iCal. I think that is iTerrific.
   
   
4. Jumping Monkeys! - No, that wasn't a curse substitute, and as a matter of fact, I added the exclamation point. A very long time ago, I mentioned that I ran across Megan Morrone's blog, titled Jumping Monkeys, and if you have read many of my posts, I am a big fan of the TWIT Podcasts. Well, Megan and Leo now have the Jumping Monkey's podcast, focusing on parenting. The have something like 3 episodes out now, and so far it is pretty good.
   

   
   

Google Bombing Still Lives?!?!

I could have sworn that I heard that Google had made changes so there could be no more Google Bombing.

However:
I did the "Win a Nintendo Wii from John Chow" post to enter John Chow's contest, and one of the requirements was to refer to him as the "root of all evil", and have that phrase linked to his blog. Currently, if you do a Google search for the "Root of all evil" (in quotation marks), his blog is the 3rd result.

Is this more John Chow evilness?

How to use Google Analytics Video Series

If you have a web site or blog, Google Analytics is a pretty powerful tool for web site statistics. It provides you with a good deal of information for the low low price of free. You just place a little piece of code on your pages, and then sit back and watch the statistics come in.

The eMoms at home site pointed me to a set of really great videos posted by Ian Laurie on how to use Google Analytics.

Part 1 - Signing up for an account and placing the code on your site.
Part 2 - Essential Stats
Part 3 - Digging Deeper
Part 4 - Goals

Definitely something you want to check out if you use, or are thinking of using Google Analytics

- Ian Lurie Posts Google Analytics Video Tutorials - eMoms at home

How to find your Google PageRank

In a comment on my Technorati Post, the helpful rip referred to some of her sites as being a PR4, PR6, or PR7. I didn't think to ask, but after I replied I was wondering what that meant.

In short, PR is PageRank, and the number following it is the actual PageRank. If you would like to find out the page rank of your site, then you are reading the right post. I ran across this PageRank Lookup tool on the site SEO Tools which allows you to find out.

In case you weren't sure, the higher your page rank is, the better off you are. Also, in case you were wondering, SEO is "Search Engine Optimization"(I had to look that one up a couple of weeks ago).

Unfortunately for me, it isn't like Golf, if it were I would have people asking me what I did to get such a great page rank.

Just to see if my PageRank from this tool was a verifiable result, not some random number pulled out of the air, I went ahead and checked it with PageRank Checker at Top25Web and the results were the same. Not entirely scientific, but good enough for me. Thanks to an anonymous commenter on this post, I also tried the "Verify Google Page Rank" site, and it confirmed the number.

Now SEO Tools has a great deal of stuff packed onto their page, lots of links topics and some ads, but Top25Web looks like they fell out of the AdSense tree and hit every branch on the way down. The tool still works though.

I'm not terribly worried about my PageRank, at least not yet. I'm still working on just getting some content on the site, and maybe even start posting on a regular basis. Once I have that straightened out, then I'll start to put some time into PageRank, Keywords, and all that jazz.

Now, if you found this post because of the SEO and PageRank keywords, I don't want to leave you disappointed.

My Opinion
I think that the most read blogs in the blog-o-verse, or intra-blog-o-sphere-orama-2.0 are the ones about how to make money with your blogs. Of course, like any blogger with dreams of making a Scrooge McDuck pile of cash through blogging, I have read my fair share of "blogging for money" blogs, and "make your blog popular blogs". To sum it up, there are a lot of "blogging about blogging" blogs out there. So let me point you to a couple of blogs that I think are very worth reading, and that I bet you will find helpful in this area:

Some Recomendations
- The eMoms at Home Blog - Don't let the "Mom" in the title throw you off (if you happen to be a guy), this is an outstanding blog, with tons of great tips. She even has a free blog traffic e-course. When I first found this blog, I just went crazy following links, and I think that I gave her a ton of pageloads those days. The e-course also has some really great tips. Nothing underhanded about her tactics. Thanks Wendy!

- Pro Blogger - Everyone links to this site. Go visit it and you will see why. This is another blog that becomes a click fest once you get there. On top of all the great tips and content, the guy is bald too. Fellow follicle challenged bloggers unite!

References:
- PageRank Lookup - SEO Tools
- 10 Related page Rank Tools & 136 SEO tools - SEOCompany
- PageRank Checker - Top25Web
- Verify Google Page Rank
- eMoms at Home
- 10 Days to a Better Blog - eCourse from eMoms at home.
- ProBlogger

Google offers all of its free apps now as a service

On the Google Blog they announced the availability of their applications in a convenient subscription model. Now you can pay $50 per user, per year, and get all their wonderful free apps. They are calling the bundle Google Apps Enterprise.

They are also offering editions for families and groups, small businesses, and schools.

Wait a minute, I can pay for something that they have been offering for free? Let me jump on that train.

I'm not sure how successful this is going to be, of course Google has eleventy hundred gillion users, but really, are the apps that good?

I haven't used Calendar or spreadsheets, and only briefly used Talk. I use Documents sometimes, but if they discontinued the free service and started charging $1 a month, I would quit using it so fast that my Google cookie would be left hanging in the air, spinning around.

I had joked that one day in the future I would reminisce about the good old days when Microsoft almost had a Monopoly on operating systems and software, because now Google controls everything. Maybe this is the beginning. Maybe next it will be Google Democracy.

Thanks to Paul Thurrott for pointing it out.

Update: Wired News has a article titled "Google Apps: Should you switch?" and there were a few things that I thought were wrong about it.

1. The Article States that:

"Pricing is set at $50 per user per year, less expensive than Microsoft Office but with much the same functionality. Microsoft has its own web-based suite of tools in Office Live, but the company's offering doesn't match Google's. And Google isn't going after Office Live, it's going after Office."

Um, no Offense Michal Calore, but have you actually used the two sets of applications?

Google Docs isn't even close to Word. I haven't used spreadsheets at all, but I'm sure that it is limited as well. Sure, if you need a word processor, then go ahead and use Docs and Spreadsheets, but I just could not imaging using Google Docs and Spreadsheets exclusively.

2. He does mention that there isn't a PowerPoint equivalent, although I thought I had read that there was a Google Presentation app coming out, I haven't seen it. Yes, PowerPoint is a hugely popular program, but let's not forget Access. I know Google Base can't compete with that.

I also think that there isn't an Outlook killer either, at least not for a corporate environment. Outlook has a whole slew of nice features that GMail and Calendar just can't match.

Writely Post

Well, I am checking out Writely, and let me tell you, it is really cool! First off, it looks very similar to a Word like interface, but all inside of a browser of course. I also noticed the really neat tabs across the top, Collaborate, Publish, Blog, and Revisions, but you have to check out this file menu! Not only can you save it in 5 different formats, but I can even get an RSS Feed!

I wanted to check out the blog posting features, so I thought I would just put a picture in here, and try to post it. Blogger has a nice add on for Microsoft Word that I am a big fan of, but it doesn't support the posting of pictures. So lets see....

Holy Cow! That is just the coolest. Not only does it support it, but it allows you to set the column size of the preview so you can see exactly how it will look. Pretty sharp.

So anyway, go check out Writely. Now if I could just figure out how this whole tag thing works...

Update: For some strange reason, after it was posted, the title did not show up, so I had to edit it again in blogger in order to have a title, although the URL contained the title correctly. Hmmm...

Free Word Processor?!?!

I just saw a blurb about Writely on GeekBrief.TV, and I had to check it out for myself.

Maybe there are a few reasons why this isn’t huge news, I mean after all, doesn’t Open Office have not only a free word processor, but also a whole office suite for Free? Well, yes.

Doesn’t Open Office let you access your documents securely over the internet from any computer? Well Ye… er… No.

Zap! That's the ticket! I guess Google has gobbled this application up, when they gobbled up a company called “Upstartle” (what a cool name). Here is nice little blurb about from Jen Mazzon, although this post is pretty old, March was so months ago. The post says that Writely has a wait list, but right now if you have a Google account, it will let you sign up for it.

I guess that not only is Writely a free, but it is also a collaborative product. Is that cool or what?

I so have to try it out. I’ll post more as I move along.

2007-01-26 Update: Well, quite awhile ago, writely was officially pulled into the Google Family, and is now called Google Docs and Spreadsheets. It isn't a bad product, especially since they integrated spreadsheets in there too. It is missing some features that you may have come to expect from a word processor, but still, it is free, and widely accessible.

I haven't checked on it in a little while, but when Blogger Beta became the official blogger, I wasn't able to get it to work, and then I was, and then I wasn't. I have since started searching for other blogging tools. Want to see if it works for you, try "When getting new features means old features don't work anymore". There is a good link to an article with instructions that worked (sometimes) for me.