Google shuts down Google Directory

Google has shut down the human curated web directory named Google Directory last week, on July 20th.

The web directory - which was hosted at http://directory.google.com - was organized into 16 broad categories and further subcategories, and was based on DMOZ, an open-source project also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP).

During the early days of the World Wide Web, web directories were a preferred way to discover and find content on the web but with the advent of crawler-based search engines, the relevance of web directories have diminished. Below is a screenshot (for remembrance) as the page was on July 17, 2011 - also archived here.

The rival project Yahoo! Directory is, however, still up and running at http://dir.yahoo.com/.

Update 2014-12-31: Yahoo! has also shut down its web directory which I have logged here.

What happens after Yahoo acquires you

In this article, Matt Linderman writes about a downward trend with sites that have been acquired by Yahoo!. Interestingly, there is a pretty big list of sites that didn't do quite well after Yahoo! took over. Here the author talks in detail about Flickr, Delicious, MyBlogLog, and Upcoming.

Harshad Mehta: From Pied Piper of the markets to India's best-known scamster

Harshad Mehta, a charismatic and ambitious stockbroker, rose to fame in the 1990s, captivating the dreams of middle-class Indians with his rags-to-riches story. He became a symbol of success on Dalal Street, the Indian financial market. However, his questionable means and the Rs 50-billion securities scam tarnished his image. Despite attempts at comebacks, his flashy strategies and old charm failed to work, leading to his downfall. His involvement in market manipulation, bribery claims, and legal battles led to his decline. Despite once being a guru dispensing stock tips and creating speculative bubbles, his optimism waned, and financial troubles mounted. He eventually passed away in jail, marked by convictions and trials, ending an era of his influence on Indian markets. Sucheta Dalal chronicles the story of Harshad Mehta in this article.

What is the equivalent of C# #region in C++?

In C# you can hide your code, using regions, i.e. something like this. But it doesn't work in C++. What is the equivalent of the #region directive in C++?

#region Public methods

void SomeMethod()

{

}

#endregion

Solution: This should work in both .h/.cpp files in Visual Studio.

#pragma region

 void Test();

 void Test2();

 void Test3();

#pragma endregion

or with a comment like this:

#pragma region Region_Declarations

 void Test();

 void Test2();

 void Test3();

#pragma endregion Region_Declarations

Apple Buys Siri for its Voice Technology

Apple has bought start-up named Siri, which is a virtual personal assistant for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

Siri, describes itself as a virtual personal assistant which can take voice commands and act accordingly. For instance, you can ask Siri to book a table at a restaurant, ask it about the movies being played at nearby theatres or about the weather by voice instead of typing it in a search engine on your browser.

Siri, had tie-ups with 3rd Party APIs to provide several services like cab and restaurant table booking.

Scobleizer has a blog post about the acquisition here. Jenna Wortham writes about the event here on The New York Times.

Firefox Mobile Browser Launched

Mozilla has launched the first mobile version of the Firefox web browser. Titled Firefox for Mobile, it supports the Maemo and Android operating systems. It uses Mozilla's Gecko browser engine.

This launch pits Firefox for Mobile against existing mobile browsers like Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. The browser supports latest Web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript and is the first one to provide support for add-ons.

Nokia's Linux-based Maemo operating system - with a relatively small footprint - runs their N810 and N900 mobile phones. Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and is largely developed by Google with a gradually increasing footprint in the mobile market.

Mozilla announced the launch in a blog post here.

The Firefox for Nokia N900 is here.

This post by Jessica Dolcourt on CNet Download has an analysis of the launch.

Visualizing Search Volume Patterns at Google's Insights for Search

Google has some cool new visualization tools up at Insights for Search. It lets you compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

This chart shows the interest trends for the Firefox web browser over a time period. [view directly at Google Insights for Search]

How it works? In their own words, "Google Insights for Search analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you've entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. You can choose to see data for select Google properties, including Web search, Images, Product search, and News search.

This one compares the changing trends for the Firefox and Internet Explorer web browsers. [view directly at Google Insights for Search]

People from a wide range of professions and interests would find applications for this type of analytical data. Whether you are a CEO, marketing professional, author or a blogger, market research pays - for it tells you what people in various population segments are looking for.

The chart below shows popular searches related to Firefox that people make. [view directly at Google Insights for Search]

Hit the links provided to view the charts directly at Google Insights where you can build your own customized version and also get the code for embedding them in your website, or get a link to share.