[I'M SORRY] A hotpot tastes better with awesomesauce. Places gets a boost.

Ok, I should stop checking Google code before I go to bed. I always end up writing a blogpost about awesome stuff.
I posted today, that the social revolution just begun. I was right.
Beware: It might be, that I simply do not know these things already exist.. so, don't kick me if I'm all Captain Obvious and such.

Today on the menu: Hotpot

As it seems, Google is kinda mindreader as it guessed very well what's on my wishlist for Places... soooo shall we walk through what I found? I bet you want to know what G's got cookin' ;)

The Punchline:
"Rate your world."

Overview over all ratings
"Your ratings, reviews and public maps created on all devices",
You can also lookup nearby places on the desktop version:
"Nearby places"
And also interesting:
"Recommendations for here or to go?"
e="Search with recommendations on "+('<a target="_blank" href="'+O(a.Uh)+"?q="+ng(a.T)+'">Google Maps</a>.'
"Find the party: rate nearby "+(h+("bars</a>, "+(k+("pubs</a> and "+(l+"nightlife</a>."
Good hint, that's what I did: Rate your past!
"Rate your past: search for cities you've lived in and start rating."
Enter a category near a familiar neighborhood and city to start rating places you know.

Social Stuff
Google gives you a short overview over the benefits of rating Places:
"Rate places and add friends to get personalized recommendations whenever you search for places on Google.",
"Recommendations in search on all devices, based on your ratings, reviews and public maps"
"Your recommendations aren't just in Google Places. They come with you every time you search for places on Google: in Maps, in Place Search, and on your mobile phone.'
"Start by rating the places you know, good and bad. With each rating, we learn a bit more about your tastes, so you'll get better recommendations the next time you search."
"Add friends to discover their recommendations and share your own."


Here is my favorite part:
"Rate places in more neighborhoods and cities. Add friends who travel the globe. When you explore and rate together, you'll always have a trusted guide wherever you go."


And the best... Friends can rate your recommendations too :) So if you recommend something, they give you feedback too so to say... If they didn't like the ice-cream-kingdom for example.
"Receive email when a friend rates a recommendation from you (places you rated)"
N,d="Add friends to get better recommendations and share your own. Friends will receive a notification to add you back. "
The people like you discovery isn't new, but ... well :)
"People like you"
e="See "+('<a target="_blank" href="'+ HERE COMES THE USERNAME +'">'+(O(e.zl)+"'s recommendations</a> on a map."
places in common with you

Recommendations-Digest
Options (each one of them checkboxes)
"Allow Google Places to send me email notifications"
"Receive periodic Google Places newsletter with personalized recommendations and latest stats."
"Send your friends email when you rate a place they recommended (places they rated)"
"Receive email when a friend rates a recommendation from you (places you rated)"


Twitter
You guys like sharing. I know that... because sharing is caring... so I give you: Twitter integration directly in Places:
<span class="hp-connect-twitter-dialog hp-dialog-title-text">',"Connect to Twitter",'</span>


"Select the Twitter account you'd like to connect Google Places to:"


"Note: By sharing your ratings to Twitter, your Places nickname ("+(O(a.bp)+") will be discoverable from your Twitter stream.");

'Or connect to <a class="hp-link" href="javascript:;" id="hp-connect-another-twitter">another Twitter account</a>.'
You can connect multiple Twitter accounts too (I guess) and they show you a neat little preview how the tweets will look like:
"How this will appear:"
@GoogleHotpot
They still use the old Twitter account named hotpot as it seems :)


You can upload photos for places now!
,"Upload a photo",
Images have to be approved though (I like that very much :D)
<div class="hp-place-attribution hp-place-image-pending"><a href="',O(a.Rh),'" target="_blank">From you, pending approval</a></div>


Privacy
Google's friendly privacy reminders:
new N,d="Your ratings of places are <b>public on the web</b> with this nickname. "
If you haven't used Google Places yet: You can use a nickname instead of your real name :) Neat huh? So the cook won't spit in your food the next time he sees your name on the reservation after giving a bad rating.

Opt-Out
Of course Google gives you the ultimate Opt-Out if you want:
"Delete all your reviews. Are you sure?"
"Are you sure you would like to delete all ratings and reviews in Google Places together with your starred places and dismissed places? This operation cannot be reversed."
'Deletion process started. The number of remaining items to delete are: <span id="hp-delete-all-dialog-remaining-count"></span>. This process cannot be cancelled.'


Summary:
Google Places gains some neat features:
Sharing to twitter from the website, uploading photos of places, email digests and email alerts for ratings etc.
They want to make it also attractive for the Globe-Trotters...
Only thing I didn't see yet was a ratings-tab on Google+/Google Profiles and I'm missing the "Share rating to Google+" thingy... but it seems... Awesome :D

Ok, I should stop checking Google code before I go to bed. I always end up writing a blogpost about awesome stuff.
I posted today, that the social revolution just begun. I was right.
Beware: It might be, that I simply do not know these things already exist.. so, don't kick me if I'm all Captain Obvious and such.

Today on the menu: Hotpot

As it seems, Google is kinda mindreader as it guessed very well what's on my wishlist for Places... soooo shall we walk through what I found? I bet you want to know what G's got cookin' ;)

The Punchline:
"Rate your world."

Overview over all ratings
"Your ratings, reviews and public maps created on all devices",
You can also lookup nearby places on the desktop version:
"Nearby places"
And also interesting:
"Recommendations for here or to go?"
e="Search with recommendations on "+('<a target="_blank" href="'+O(a.Uh)+"?q="+ng(a.T)+'">Google Maps</a>.'
"Find the party: rate nearby "+(h+("bars</a>, "+(k+("pubs</a> and "+(l+"nightlife</a>."
Good hint, that's what I did: Rate your past!
"Rate your past: search for cities you've lived in and start rating."
Enter a category near a familiar neighborhood and city to start rating places you know.

Social Stuff
Google gives you a short overview over the benefits of rating Places:
"Rate places and add friends to get personalized recommendations whenever you search for places on Google.",
"Recommendations in search on all devices, based on your ratings, reviews and public maps"
"Your recommendations aren't just in Google Places. They come with you every time you search for places on Google: in Maps, in Place Search, and on your mobile phone.'
"Start by rating the places you know, good and bad. With each rating, we learn a bit more about your tastes, so you'll get better recommendations the next time you search."
"Add friends to discover their recommendations and share your own."


Here is my favorite part:
"Rate places in more neighborhoods and cities. Add friends who travel the globe. When you explore and rate together, you'll always have a trusted guide wherever you go."


And the best... Friends can rate your recommendations too :) So if you recommend something, they give you feedback too so to say... If they didn't like the ice-cream-kingdom for example.
"Receive email when a friend rates a recommendation from you (places you rated)"
N,d="Add friends to get better recommendations and share your own. Friends will receive a notification to add you back. "
The people like you discovery isn't new, but ... well :)
"People like you"
e="See "+('<a target="_blank" href="'+ HERE COMES THE USERNAME +'">'+(O(e.zl)+"'s recommendations</a> on a map."
places in common with you

Recommendations-Digest
Options (each one of them checkboxes)
"Allow Google Places to send me email notifications"
"Receive periodic Google Places newsletter with personalized recommendations and latest stats."
"Send your friends email when you rate a place they recommended (places they rated)"
"Receive email when a friend rates a recommendation from you (places you rated)"


Twitter
You guys like sharing. I know that... because sharing is caring... so I give you: Twitter integration directly in Places:
<span class="hp-connect-twitter-dialog hp-dialog-title-text">',"Connect to Twitter",'</span>


"Select the Twitter account you'd like to connect Google Places to:"


"Note: By sharing your ratings to Twitter, your Places nickname ("+(O(a.bp)+") will be discoverable from your Twitter stream.");

'Or connect to <a class="hp-link" href="javascript:;" id="hp-connect-another-twitter">another Twitter account</a>.'
You can connect multiple Twitter accounts too (I guess) and they show you a neat little preview how the tweets will look like:
"How this will appear:"
@GoogleHotpot
They still use the old Twitter account named hotpot as it seems :)


You can upload photos for places now!
,"Upload a photo",
Images have to be approved though (I like that very much :D)
<div class="hp-place-attribution hp-place-image-pending"><a href="',O(a.Rh),'" target="_blank">From you, pending approval</a></div>


Privacy
Google's friendly privacy reminders:
new N,d="Your ratings of places are <b>public on the web</b> with this nickname. "
If you haven't used Google Places yet: You can use a nickname instead of your real name :) Neat huh? So the cook won't spit in your food the next time he sees your name on the reservation after giving a bad rating.

Opt-Out
Of course Google gives you the ultimate Opt-Out if you want:
"Delete all your reviews. Are you sure?"
"Are you sure you would like to delete all ratings and reviews in Google Places together with your starred places and dismissed places? This operation cannot be reversed."
'Deletion process started. The number of remaining items to delete are: <span id="hp-delete-all-dialog-remaining-count"></span>. This process cannot be cancelled.'


Summary:
Google Places gains some neat features:
Sharing to twitter from the website, uploading photos of places, email digests and email alerts for ratings etc.
They want to make it also attractive for the Globe-Trotters...
Only thing I didn't see yet was a ratings-tab on Google+/Google Profiles and I'm missing the "Share rating to Google+" thingy... but it seems... Awesome :D

[I'M SORRY] A hotpot tastes better with awesomesauce. Places gets a boost.

[UPDATED][COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS SPECULATION] Uhm let's brainstorm Photovine

OBSOLETE ARTICLE

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this to twitter, a account named @vine_me started following me.

http://twitter.com/vine_me/status/83563939266437121
http://www.vineme.com/

Dude. You can't be serious. LOL. Ok, moving on.

As we all (probably not all [probably just a minority]) of us might already have heard, Google is about to launch (probably not today or tomorrow) a new service called "Photovine".
Ok, we all are excited and all that stuff, and want to know what that is, but... there is no evidence out there except a few little hints that are about as distinct as a politician's speech before elections, but "a man can dream", can't he?

The clues:
Domainname and Trademark

• photovine.com
• photovine

The Trademark Application [here]:

• Communication services, namely, transmission of visual images and data by telecommunications networks, wireless communication networks, the Internet, information services networks and data networks
• Non-downloadable computer software
• On-line social networking services

That's all that we know.

Interpretation:

Context and competitors:

• Apple starts some kind of web-based text-messaging service (some crazy people think to replace text-messages) and teams up with twitter.
• Facebook starts the project Spartan, an app(lication) store for HTML5 based webapps on iOS.
• Apple has facetime.
• Group-messaging apps and platforms are currently hyped.

Google's current strategy:

• is under full steam working on it's social services (no classic social network!)
• pushes location based services with latitude and places on desktop & mobile
• offers checkin's via latitude on mobile
• brings gTalk's video-chatting capability to Android smartphones and tablets (showing Apple's facetime the stinky finger)
• extends the support of Google Buzz's activity stream
• playtested something called Typhoon in the context of Video or Pictures
• playtested Circles and pulled the hints (probably unrelated)

Ok, here is a total shot in the dark:

Photovine will be a photo-microblogging service for both desktop and mobile-phones that combines location based services like Places and Latitude with mms-like messaging (but with group-support).

Most likely it will be push-capable and support either a user to wall (without any special addressee) or a user to group messaging service.

Google might try to offer an alternative (no, Google won't replace anything) to classic MMS messaging, that works over data-connection both from desktop/chromebook/notebook via webcam or from smartphones via camera (frontfacing or back).

This service will most likely also include the OPT-IN (yeah OPT-IN, don't be scared, you have to explicitly say you want to be found) facial recognition service to add all snapped pictures to the "photos of you" section on Google Profiles. That includes also if you make a group photo with other Google Profile users that might have OPT-ed in to facial recognition. Everyone who wants get's autotagged.

And, as I assume, it will also be the possibility to answer to a snapped picture with another one. (kinda dailybooth style).

The pictures might be tied to Google Places and Latitude Checkins, so you can check out if a Place a friend of yours visited is... awesome.

There might also be an option to post the pictures public (probably without tags for non-friends... People who don't follow you can't see who's linked) on the Google Places site of a Club or whatsoever.

Privacy settings will be rather high initially, due to recent media coverage about the "issues" of some major blue social net.

You might be able to add a picture to your review in Places.

Hopefully you'll be able (would make sense) to connect Photovine to Google Buzz.

Photovine might be the new name for Typhoon.

Most speculative: The option to post a picture public on the places page. Probably won't happen for now.

Summary:

It is maybe a photo-microblogging-group messaging service that is heavily focused on Smartphone usage but is also available for desktops. Might offer a fully featured HTML5 interface (to offer initial support for a lot of mobile platforms), hopefully a native App for Android first. Pics probably will be, Geotagged, autotagged (if you wish) and automatically added to the Pictures of me section of Profiles. (depends on your privacy settings). Might be strongly tied to latitude and Places (though the connection might be optional).

Probably everything I wrote is complete crap. But maybe not. The future will show!

Discuss on Buzz

OBSOLETE ARTICLE

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this to twitter, a account named @vine_me started following me.

http://twitter.com/vine_me/status/83563939266437121
http://www.vineme.com/

Dude. You can't be serious. LOL. Ok, moving on.

As we all (probably not all [probably just a minority]) of us might already have heard, Google is about to launch (probably not today or tomorrow) a new service called "Photovine".
Ok, we all are excited and all that stuff, and want to know what that is, but... there is no evidence out there except a few little hints that are about as distinct as a politician's speech before elections, but "a man can dream", can't he?

The clues:
Domainname and Trademark

• photovine.com
• photovine

The Trademark Application [here]:

• Communication services, namely, transmission of visual images and data by telecommunications networks, wireless communication networks, the Internet, information services networks and data networks
• Non-downloadable computer software
• On-line social networking services

That's all that we know.

Interpretation:

Context and competitors:

• Apple starts some kind of web-based text-messaging service (some crazy people think to replace text-messages) and teams up with twitter.
• Facebook starts the project Spartan, an app(lication) store for HTML5 based webapps on iOS.
• Apple has facetime.
• Group-messaging apps and platforms are currently hyped.

Google's current strategy:

• is under full steam working on it's social services (no classic social network!)
• pushes location based services with latitude and places on desktop & mobile
• offers checkin's via latitude on mobile
• brings gTalk's video-chatting capability to Android smartphones and tablets (showing Apple's facetime the stinky finger)
• extends the support of Google Buzz's activity stream
• playtested something called Typhoon in the context of Video or Pictures
• playtested Circles and pulled the hints (probably unrelated)

Ok, here is a total shot in the dark:

Photovine will be a photo-microblogging service for both desktop and mobile-phones that combines location based services like Places and Latitude with mms-like messaging (but with group-support).

Most likely it will be push-capable and support either a user to wall (without any special addressee) or a user to group messaging service.

Google might try to offer an alternative (no, Google won't replace anything) to classic MMS messaging, that works over data-connection both from desktop/chromebook/notebook via webcam or from smartphones via camera (frontfacing or back).

This service will most likely also include the OPT-IN (yeah OPT-IN, don't be scared, you have to explicitly say you want to be found) facial recognition service to add all snapped pictures to the "photos of you" section on Google Profiles. That includes also if you make a group photo with other Google Profile users that might have OPT-ed in to facial recognition. Everyone who wants get's autotagged.

And, as I assume, it will also be the possibility to answer to a snapped picture with another one. (kinda dailybooth style).

The pictures might be tied to Google Places and Latitude Checkins, so you can check out if a Place a friend of yours visited is... awesome.

There might also be an option to post the pictures public (probably without tags for non-friends... People who don't follow you can't see who's linked) on the Google Places site of a Club or whatsoever.

Privacy settings will be rather high initially, due to recent media coverage about the "issues" of some major blue social net.

You might be able to add a picture to your review in Places.

Hopefully you'll be able (would make sense) to connect Photovine to Google Buzz.

Photovine might be the new name for Typhoon.

Most speculative: The option to post a picture public on the places page. Probably won't happen for now.

Summary:

It is maybe a photo-microblogging-group messaging service that is heavily focused on Smartphone usage but is also available for desktops. Might offer a fully featured HTML5 interface (to offer initial support for a lot of mobile platforms), hopefully a native App for Android first. Pics probably will be, Geotagged, autotagged (if you wish) and automatically added to the Pictures of me section of Profiles. (depends on your privacy settings). Might be strongly tied to latitude and Places (though the connection might be optional).

Probably everything I wrote is complete crap. But maybe not. The future will show!

Discuss on Buzz

[UPDATED][COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS SPECULATION] Uhm let's brainstorm Photovine

[PREDICTIONS] Google is currently under full steam

Many of you might have (or might not have) noticed that Google rolls out a load of tiny tiny updates lately (paired with lots of hiccups in the system). I suspect they are currently play-testing to get the new features of Google's Social experience playing nice with the existing implementation. With mixed results.. of course. Stuff like that is rocket-science... and a complex system is always very sensitive to changes.

They try to avoid bricking the whole system by enabling one by one changes that prepare the big launch (if there is one.. Google sometimes launches quietly stuff that is awesome)

Usually someone might suspect that the trickling of features will continue until the whole bunch of features is rolled out, but if I'd be in Google's situation, I'd try to establish the connection between Google's different services under the hood first.

Let me explain how Google's System works right now:

As far as I can tell from the code-style and from Google's history of acquisition of different services, the products Google offer are quite different in code-style and technology they are based on.

One by one over the last months and years, they ported the software to -whatever Google is using right now- some kind of AppEngine on steroids and GWT-style code so it became inter-compatible.

That is kind of a scary monster of a process.. They have to avoid disruptions of the services and everyone who ever had to migrate a system knows what that means.

For example:

I can tell from the source that Google hotpot/places was developed independently by a small group as a kind of experiment. The pet project became a success internally and was made publicly available. No one could expect that it became such a success and it graduated as a stable, valid member of the Google Product-line. Yet there is a lot of incompatibility in the code which they try to work around.

For example... a while ago I found out, that if you star a place and rate it "best time ever", it shows up as a +1 in the Google places search. (not very fancy, huh? But it showcases how tough it is to integrate these services into each other)

What does this example mean for the rollout?

Well it shows that combining all these services is quite difficult and that's why Google seems to "just make a few adjustments" to the UI. But in reality, they are building a big framework under the surface, testing if the services become compatible until they are able to "flip a switch" and launch the beast that slumbers under the surface.

We, the mighty and noble Buzz community, are currently experiencing a lot of woes during the process. Buzz became... quite slow and moody and the weird behavior of the timeline hints to the movement of data in the database. Google buzz data is not hosted centrally (I guess). The data is replicated over several Servers in the cloud, to ease the load and reduce access times. As the import/export/migration is going on, the data is not consistent on all servers. Data is temporarily missing, posts disappear and reappear while it gets replicated over the infrastructure.

Buzz is the heart and the soul of the Activity stream of Google's social experience and that's why we feel there the aftershocks of every little step forward the strongest.

"chili", as Google once called Buzz, is the key to combine the information stream, next to the recommendation engine +1, which is a second, stable pillar of the Google Social Experience.

One is the active interaction (Buzz) where you have action (Posting an Update) and reaction (liking, commenting, resharing), the other one is passive (action without direct reaction but with a social benefit).

And a personal note to Captain Crunch:
I want to explain it to you as simple as I can:
The reward for using plusOne is indirect. You benefit from the stuff you recommend due to the willing of others to do the same. The wisdom of the crowd aids the social search and improves the experience while looking for valuable knowledge. If you still don't understand it, read my other article. I won't link it. Google it. You can do that, I believe in you.

For us Buzz-people:

We just have to be patient. When I look at the speed at which the implementation is progressing, I'm quite sure that Google will flip the switch real soon!

You might report bugs, but I guess they are well aware of all of them, as they are actively working on the system.

Cheers.

Off Topic:

Ps.: I want a honeycomb tablet. I want it really hard! And spacemoose at xda is currently close to finish a very well working alpha-version of a HC port to the good old 7inch Galaxy tab... so please consider heading there and donate a little for his hard work if you own like me a Galaxy tab

Discuss on Buzz

Many of you might have (or might not have) noticed that Google rolls out a load of tiny tiny updates lately (paired with lots of hiccups in the system). I suspect they are currently play-testing to get the new features of Google's Social experience playing nice with the existing implementation. With mixed results.. of course. Stuff like that is rocket-science... and a complex system is always very sensitive to changes.

They try to avoid bricking the whole system by enabling one by one changes that prepare the big launch (if there is one.. Google sometimes launches quietly stuff that is awesome)

Usually someone might suspect that the trickling of features will continue until the whole bunch of features is rolled out, but if I'd be in Google's situation, I'd try to establish the connection between Google's different services under the hood first.

Let me explain how Google's System works right now:

As far as I can tell from the code-style and from Google's history of acquisition of different services, the products Google offer are quite different in code-style and technology they are based on.

One by one over the last months and years, they ported the software to -whatever Google is using right now- some kind of AppEngine on steroids and GWT-style code so it became inter-compatible.

That is kind of a scary monster of a process.. They have to avoid disruptions of the services and everyone who ever had to migrate a system knows what that means.

For example:

I can tell from the source that Google hotpot/places was developed independently by a small group as a kind of experiment. The pet project became a success internally and was made publicly available. No one could expect that it became such a success and it graduated as a stable, valid member of the Google Product-line. Yet there is a lot of incompatibility in the code which they try to work around.

For example... a while ago I found out, that if you star a place and rate it "best time ever", it shows up as a +1 in the Google places search. (not very fancy, huh? But it showcases how tough it is to integrate these services into each other)

What does this example mean for the rollout?

Well it shows that combining all these services is quite difficult and that's why Google seems to "just make a few adjustments" to the UI. But in reality, they are building a big framework under the surface, testing if the services become compatible until they are able to "flip a switch" and launch the beast that slumbers under the surface.

We, the mighty and noble Buzz community, are currently experiencing a lot of woes during the process. Buzz became... quite slow and moody and the weird behavior of the timeline hints to the movement of data in the database. Google buzz data is not hosted centrally (I guess). The data is replicated over several Servers in the cloud, to ease the load and reduce access times. As the import/export/migration is going on, the data is not consistent on all servers. Data is temporarily missing, posts disappear and reappear while it gets replicated over the infrastructure.

Buzz is the heart and the soul of the Activity stream of Google's social experience and that's why we feel there the aftershocks of every little step forward the strongest.

"chili", as Google once called Buzz, is the key to combine the information stream, next to the recommendation engine +1, which is a second, stable pillar of the Google Social Experience.

One is the active interaction (Buzz) where you have action (Posting an Update) and reaction (liking, commenting, resharing), the other one is passive (action without direct reaction but with a social benefit).

And a personal note to Captain Crunch:
I want to explain it to you as simple as I can:
The reward for using plusOne is indirect. You benefit from the stuff you recommend due to the willing of others to do the same. The wisdom of the crowd aids the social search and improves the experience while looking for valuable knowledge. If you still don't understand it, read my other article. I won't link it. Google it. You can do that, I believe in you.

For us Buzz-people:

We just have to be patient. When I look at the speed at which the implementation is progressing, I'm quite sure that Google will flip the switch real soon!

You might report bugs, but I guess they are well aware of all of them, as they are actively working on the system.

Cheers.

Off Topic:

Ps.: I want a honeycomb tablet. I want it really hard! And spacemoose at xda is currently close to finish a very well working alpha-version of a HC port to the good old 7inch Galaxy tab... so please consider heading there and donate a little for his hard work if you own like me a Galaxy tab

Discuss on Buzz

[PREDICTIONS] Google is currently under full steam