Saturday, June 02, 2007

Google buys FeedBurner; introduces Street View

A couple news items today about Google.

First, they continued their buying spree and purchased FeedBurner, a popular feed syndicating service (and the one I use). This will allow Google to advertise in new ways, and also gives them somewhat of a blog end-to-end now that it owns both Blogger and FeedBurner. More information about the purchase is available on FeedBurner's blog, and they have this FAQ. Presumably this means a marriage of their analytic tools, which hopefully is good news for anyone that publishes content.

Implication for us? If you already publish a blog (or other type of feed) or are thinking about it, you'll want to keep close tabs on what this purchase will mean for publishers (e.g., ad distribution, fees, etc.).

Second, Google has introduced Street View, an add-on to Google Maps that allows for 360-degree viewing at the street level. You can even follow arrows that will lead you down the street. Right now it's available only in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, New York, and Miami.

Why do we care? Seems to me a good way to preview the local area for potential applicants. I'm all about the realistic job previews. Also, probably a good opportunity for us to see how our area is being presented--what do candidates see when plopped down in front of our buildings? Would you want to be there?

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