Posted: 06 Nov 2009 10:08 AM PST

Google has often said that it plans to be the one stop shop for organizing all information that is online. But if you have 10 different and not necessarily interlinked services and products it can end up being unstructured. This is where Google Dashboard comes into the picture and becomes a central nervous system for everything you might have on Google.

Google_dashboard1

The idea of Google Dashboard is quite simple. Imagine that you have settings of Google Docs, Gmail, Google Chat, Blogger, Orkut, Google Talk and You Tube on one single page. That page is Google Dashboard. It is a single service which helps to set and access data for most of their services.

Google Dashboard

Many people have expressed concern at all the data Google has as they use various services at various times and lose track of it.
Dashboard is built with an aim to let users keep track of what exactly they store on Google.
Google claims and I think correctly to be the only company to offer such a service.

I don’t see the average user on Google who uses Gmail or Google Search to find Google Dashboard all that interesting, but it can be a handy tool for webmasters around the world who are using Google Apps and services like Adsense and Analytics.

Below is a video presentation about Google Dashboard from their blog.

Link: Google Blog

Twitter wants to Retweet

Posted: 06 Nov 2009 03:51 AM PST

Retweet is fast becoming a favorite feature amongst Twitter users to spread the word and has been incorporated into many Twitter apps. To Retweet from the Twitter website you still have to copy-paste the message with ‘RT’ at the beginning. That is about to change with Twitter announcing that it will soon roll out Retweet function on its website.

This could be ominous as a lot of casual users of Twitter probably use a desktop application only so they could easily organize the accounts they follow and also Retweet their favorite tweets. With Lists and Retweet functions Twitter might actually hurt twitter based desktop applications out there. Finally it also might help a lot of new users on Twitter to be not too confused. A familiar first Tweet for someone new on Twitter is often ’Figuring out how Twitter works’

Twitter_retweet

What to expect from retweet?

It is clear from a previous thinking out aloud exercise by Twitter is that it will have some sort of visual feature to show up the Retweets.
One way is when you moved the mouse over the Retweet it will show up more details the another approach could be a separate list where you can access all Retweets. I cannot confirm this as my Twitter account is not amongst the privileged ones Twitter is testing this functionality on.
Another interesting feature which does not exist upto now is removing Retweet. Almost certainly there will be an option to remove a Retweet that you have made. The reason mainly could be a way to allow people to curb the spread of rumors on Twitter which has been happening a lot recently.

Follow on Twitter @bombaypirate @Devils Workshop

Image Credit: The WWW Blog

MSN homepage to undergo a makeover

Posted: 06 Nov 2009 12:19 AM PST

The MSN homepage will be undergoing some changes very soon. This won’t be just restricted to its style and format but also will have some added functionality. I looked it up on the Bing blog which made the announcement. I used the preview version of MSN homepage which will be available by next year.

The Old and the New

New Version (preview)

The new version seems to be distinctly white and a lot less blue which has been the hallmark of the MSN homepage for over 10 years now. Also the logo looks different and minimalistic.
The new version looked a lot less customizable but that is probably because it is still in preview mode and hence might not have all the functionalities.
From the homepage I can access a feed from Hotmail. That is not a novelty as I can do that with the old version too, but the new one allows me to get feeds from social networks like Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter.
I also found that Bing search has been integrated in a more wholesome way. The information with Bing search results will take into account the zip code you are living in. This will be a way to localize search content. MSN has had success with this by localizing weather and news updates by using the zip code of the person logged into the homepage.

Soon to be Old Version

msn_homepage_old

Comparing the two, it is obvious that MSN is trying clean up it’s act and prefers to let people explore the website rather than bombarding them with information.