Instant messaging service will be available on mobile devices.

Continuing its push into the mobile space, Google is making its Google Talk instant messaging service available to BlackBerry users, Google and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion announced Thursday.

Google Talk for BlackBerry is a version of the instant messaging application that was designed for BlackBerry devices. The application will be much like Google Talk for PCs so when users download the client software they’ll see their existing Google Talk contact list, be able to add and alter contacts, know when contacts are online, and send and receive messages. Users will be notified on the home screen of the BlackBerry when new messages arrive in Google Talk.

BlackBerry users can download the application for free but they may be charged by their mobile operator for data transmitted when using the service.

Google Talk for BlackBerry is expected to be available in the second quarter.

Firm says telephony service Google Talk uses patented VoIP technology

The Times of India
Sunday, January 1, 2006

New York — A small New York technology firm said on Sunday that it was suing search titan Google for up to $5 billion dollars for patent violation in the Internet telephony software used in Google Talk.

Jerry Weinberger, chief executive of Rates Technology Inc (RTI), said he was the inventor of software programming that allows telephone calls to be placed over the Internet.

He said 120 companies, including Lucent, Cisco, IBM, Yahoo and Microsoft, have paid RTI to use the technology for “Voice over Internet Protocol” (VoIP) calls.

RTI filed suit in a Long Island federal court against Google two months ago because the search engine was using the technology without authorisation, Weinberger said after the New York Post reported the lawsuit on Sunday.

“They told us to go to hell,” the RTI boss said. “They are the most arrogant company in the world.”

Weinberger alleged that Google has abused two patented RTI software programs in Google Talk, which enables users to talk through a computer headset or to instant message each other for free.

He said Google could be liable for damages of up to $5 billion in a trial, unless it settles the complaint out of court.

Google did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

But a spokesman for the company quoted by the New York Post dismissed the lawsuit as “without merit” and said Google “will defend against it vigorously”.

Yahoo seems to be using wordpress for its new yahoo mail updates blog. Matt writes about it yesterday. The whole wordpress community is gald about it at the same time feeling bad about something else.

The blog looks simple and good using a custom theme. The have enough footer spacing for giving a link back to wordpress. The link is not important in this case but the credit for the great blogging tool is important. Afterall wordpress is FREE and whats the problem to give it the credit? Dont really understand what they have in mind. But the footer looks like something has been defenitely cleanedup there.

WordPress is such an excellent blogging tool that it can be used by absolute beginners and expert bloggers and programmers. And I feel such a tool deservers credits from gaints like yahoo, google, microsoft, apple and others. But its going the other way? Google already has its own blogging tool(The Blogger) so they will probably never use wordpress and when big guns like yahoo use it, they dont give the credit? dose’nt that sound bad? whats the matter with Yahoo! ?

“Google has started to open up it’s Analytics service once again. As of right now, there are 236,780 accounts — up 2055 from when they stopped accepting sign-ups. I think they are probably sending out invitations to the people who put their name on the list.”

read more….

Gary Price outlines a new Google service, spotted by Greg Yardley, called Click-To-Call. The service connects buyers and sellers via phone.

Gary, has updated some screenshots, have a look: Click-to-Call

“Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts.”

» Read more…

Last year only, the number of users that access search engines to track down information has increased so much that now online search is established as the second most used online service. The first and definitely undisputed most used online service remains email.

These statistics were provided in surveys published by Pew Internet and American Life Project. According to them, on any given autumn day this year, 63 percent of the American users accessed a search engine, compared with 56 percent in June 2004.

Until recently, the battle for the second place in this top preferences chart was fought by news services and search engines, but the huge amount of publicity and the great number of new services released by all major search engines raised the popularity bar a great deal and so news services have to settle for third place. Throughout the year, only 46% of the total number of internet users consulted news services.

Email is still king of all online services, 77% of the people questioned for this survey answered they check their inboxes on a daily basis. This is the service that people spend the most amount of time using, on an average basis an email checking session lasts 24 minutes, while an online search usually takes up to 4 minutes.

The herd syndrome that all companies, websites and portals seem to experience once the holiday season approaches didn’t leave Google untouched. The online search giant is insisting on giving everybody a helping hand in the shopping process by launching a tool that will help buyers map out their local trips to the mall.

This new feature was presented today at Google’s Froogle shopping site and it will pinpoint the merchants selling a specific item within

a designated ZIP code. Aside displaying a map which unveils all the local shopping areas and the type of merchandise they sell, Froogle will also list price differences.

At first, Google will be using the information provided by a contractor to pull the inventory information from several hundred major merchants. The search engine hopes to make the service even more comprehensive by encouraging stores to submit their own customized merchandises list to the newly created “Google Base”.

As the usage of Ajaxian technology increases, we see lots of applications using ajax, now even a domain name service comesup with a search using ajax. Ajax makes it instant search. You dont have to click submit or anything. Pretty intresting. I hope i have a site like that
Link: Instant Domain Name Search

TechCrunch » Ajaxed Domain Names Search

If you lost your page rank in the last PR update or have comedown from 5 to 3 or 4, dont worry, you are not alone.
MSN, has much to worry about it. But I know they wont.
www.msn.com lost its page rank from 9 to 2! isn’t that intresting? i am into investing why so.