Every now and then I drift into the Google Labs to have a look at the current projects underway. This latest round I was intrigued by several cool projects baking in the Google oven.

Google Notebook

http://www.google.com/notebook

Pros: This is my favorite item coming out of the labs. Especially if you install the "My Notebook" toolbar for your browser. This way you can highlight and right click items on a Web page and save them to your notebook. It is sort of a glorified scribble pad of idea, text and links which you can search on later.

Cons: I haven’t found one yet, but let me keep working with it and I’ll be sure to find something it can do better.

Google Music Trends

Visit http://www.google.com/trends/music

Pros: The default listing isn’t that interesting but once you select a Genres or Country, then the list becomes a bit more interesting.

Cons: It’s just Google Talk participants so the data feeding into this is a bit suspect to say the least.

Google Trends

Visit http://www.google.com/trends

Pros: Presents a visual trend line on various search terms. The regions and cities is a useful subset of data which sometimes shows very distinct differences how users search.

Example: I used "web site, website" to see which term most people search on. Interestingly enough both terms have dropped in search volume from 2004 to 2008 however the news references for the terms has increased in the same time period. Plus, India much prefers the grammatically incorrect "website" whereas the French and Italians lean towards "Web site".

Cons: The news on the right seems a bit odd and out of place. I actually stumbled on two broken links during my short tests.

Google Code Search

Visit http://www.google.com/codesearch

Pros: If you are looking for code examples to steal learn and integrate into your project, this is certainly a good point to start from.

Cons: Just stay away unless your a coder.

Google Mars

Visit http://www.google.com/mars/

Pros: I think I found a real nice piece of real-estate once we find a way to get there.

Cons: For real? Why do we need this? And why does it wrap 4 times when you zoom all the way out? I’m still waiting for Google to drop a Martian into the map as an Easter egg.

Google Information / 411

Dial 1-800-GOOG-411

Pros: Uses voice recognition to locate businesses and then patches you right thru, and yes it’s free. They located "Imulus" in Boulder, Colorado just fine and on the first try. Not bad for a word which is hard to decipher with voice recognition.

Cons: Where is the residential side of this

Transit

Visit http://www.google.com/transit

Pro: Once you find a location which has public transportation the familiar Google Map interface is overlaid by transit locations which highlight when you select a schedule which is close to the time you wish to leave.

Cons: The city availability is pretty limiting, especially in the US where the coverage is scattered and seems to defy logic. For instance why would they have coverage for Grand Junction, Colorado rather then Denver, Boulder or even Colorado Springs? Sorry, no New York or Chicago either.

Why does it take design trends so long to catch up to the great designers? What I mean is recently I have been noticing that more and more people are embracing the “hand written type” for anything from ad campaigns to movies. This hand written type looks suspiciously like the design technique coined by one of my favorite graphic designers: Stefan Sagmeister.

If you don’t know who I am talking about, he is worth looking up. His eccentric, original, stirring design still hits a deep cord in my graphic design heart. When he returned to the states after a short design bout in Hong Kong, Sagmeister created his own unique “type face” where he would use his own handwriting instead of regurgitating the same type face in the same bland ways. Sagmeister even went as far as etching the words into his own skin (with some help).

Now, 10 years after this poster was designed do I start to see people utilizing Sagmeister’s techniques. The first time that I saw it was in the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” which used the concept of Napoleon’s doodles that is a running joke throughout the movie and added the spice of the handwritten type.

Most recently I have seen this style featured in an ad campaign for Noodles and Company pushing for the concept of “balance”. What I found most interesting about this is the fact that this concept of balance and symmetry is conveyed with an asymmetrical unbalanced typeface. I think that the reason this design technique is so exciting for designers is the fact that it reintroduces the human element back into a design style that it dominated by the computer. So maybe next time you are stumped about your design, try putting down the mouse and picking up a pen and paper.

Yesterday, I was taking a client through the ins and outs of Google AdWords when I realized something was very different with my Google natural search results. Every result was followed by an up arrow and an X. Out of curiosity I began clicking on these new features to find I was able to customize my search results. Google was nice enough to offer me the option of learning more about this new feature so I read up on it.

For one, you need to be signed in to be eligible for this feature and secondly I don’t think it’s tied to your Google account altogether. On our conference room computer I was signed into my Google account over Firefox but when I did the same on Safari I wasn’t offered the experimental feature, likewise I wasn’t offered the results with my main laptop using Firefox. My assumption is they are offering this feature at random and saving it in a session state.

Although I thought the feature was fun to play with, I guess I’m missing the bigger picture. If I’m searching for data then I’m usually looking for something which I know little about so what makes me an authority on which results are better then others. Are most people going to take the time to go back to Google and remove pages which they felt were inaccurate?

On the flip side, if Google’s index returns results which are spammy or irrelevant then I guess I could remove them from the index. Then again, I’m removing them from my personal index and it likely won’t effect Google’s main index.

This new feature feels alot like StumbleUpon in that I can give a thumbs up to good results and a thumbs down for poor results. For me, this feature make the most sense if Google is going to acquire a social networking company. Why? Because if Google factors my personal index into their own index it would provide a filter for my social network.

It’s an interesting feature but I’m still wondering how it will eventually be used.

Recently, I was introduced to the viral new movement of Pecha Kucha Night. In essence, Pecha Kucha is based on delivering a presentation of 20 slides for no more then 20 seconds a slide for a total presentation time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. The quick pace keeps viewers interested, alert and engaged; a far cry from typical presentations. I love the conecpt, the energy and the simplicity of Pecha Kucha and if anyone is interested in starting a Denver / Boulder Pecha Kucha group I’d be happy to take that lead.

In the last year I’ve seen an increasing number of websites using what I’ve dubbed as the “Content Footer.” These are exaggerated website text footers which serve the dual purpose of better search engine optimization and increased usability. To help frame the discussion, let’s look at what I think is the best example of a Content Footer, MarthaStewart.com.

Rather then trying to list everything in the main navigation the Content Footer helps organize additional content in similar buckets. This methodology also serves as a micro-sitemap of second tier navigation. From a search engine optimization perspective, Content Footers help re-enforce keyword rich terminology without spamming the search engines.

MarthaStewart.com

Apple uses the Content Footer in the same way as MarthaStewart.com however they’ve opted for a vertical arrangement and they are capping what items are listed in this area. If you look at the applications listed in the Content Footer you’ll see they’ve limited the selection to their top applications. Apple isn’t interested in showing you everything they sell, just what is most popular and relevant.

Apple.com

From a design perspective the argument could be made that Content Footers clutter up the layout, this could be the reason that Apple doesn’t show the Content Footer until the subpage level. Personally, I feel the Content Footer pros outweigh the cons and I think we’ll start seeing more sites designed with this feature in the future.