Just found this great single graphic, released by Pingdom, which shows the history and development of Google and outlines just how much power it wields over the internet.

Some of the interesting facts are:

• Back in 1998, Google indexed 30 million pages- just under 10 years later they had indexed 1 trillion pages.
• Google daily visitors – 620 million (or 9.2% of the global population)
• Amount of data processed daily 20 petabytes (equal to 1 quadrillion bytes- how big is a quadrillion, i hear you ask?)
• 97% of revenue comes from advertising
• 50% of Google’s products originated from their famous 80:20 rule (20% of the time you can work on a project that interests you, the rest is project based)
• This one surprised me, 57% of the top 10,000 websites use Google analytics!!
• Staff divide: 37% sales & marketing, 37.5% R&D > I would like to know what R&D used to be 2-5 years ago, I suspect a bit closer to 50% seeing as Schmit called Google an “Engineering” company

Google is starting to become entrenched in our lives and they are recording the whoooooooole thing- and as you can see, it’s working for them.

What do you think? Super impressive, or maybe a little bit scary?
I think both.

Léo Terrando is a talented friend of mine and this photograph is from his current exhibition ‘The Basque Country’. See it at Chez Olivier 121 Greville Street Prahran from March 2–April 12. Opening drinks on Sunday 14 March 4–6pm.

Last night I decided to have a go at Chat Roulette to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I had heard funny stories from both websites and from friends and thought I’d have a go.

Chat Roulette is a website that utilises video and textual chat, and randomly partners you up with someone across the globe. Because of this, it carries a great big NSFW title with it, merely because of the chance you will see something you aren’t particularly looking for.

I prepared myself for the worst, and knew that somewhere along the way I would come across unsavoury things. A website like this is prone to be exploited by idiots you think it’s funny to show you their bits, and surely enough, within 10 minutes of logging on, there was someone indecently exposing himself with his web cam.

The great thing about the site is that you can quickly move on from someone and randomly find another person by pressing F9, or clicking the ‘Next’ button. Even if you’re in a conversation with someone….the moment you get a bit bored you can cut them off mid-sentence by skipping along to the next person. Because it’s completely anonymous, they can’t contact you with abuse afterwards for leaving….which is a bit rude, but fun at the same time.

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It’s pretty rare for me to get excited about much on the internet these days but coming from a mapping background this Ted talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas’ blew me away. Like everyone else, I was amazed when Google Street View came to Australia as it really changed the way we consume maps online and on our mobile). Now, it looks like Microsoft is going to use their photosynth technology (which is super cool as well if you want to check it out) to allow you to not only go to street-view level, but then explore inside buildings using crowd-sourced images from sites like Flickr. This I can see could be useful, but they then demonstrate a live video overlay which, kudos to them is pretty cool technology-wise- I’m just at a loss as to how I would use it.

There was something voyeuristic about Google street-view with countries like Germany actually taking a stand and banning it, but this development goes far beyond that. I think we may see other countries joining Germany, but for me… I think it’s awesome.

We’ve been doing a bit of running recently at igloo towers in preparation for Run for the Kids .

Thursday lunch time, out round the Tan and back. About 7kms in total.  I trail at the back of the group the whole way and look like a wheezing tomato with its stomach kicked in when we return. While I have a fair bit of enthusiasm for most tasks, the term “fun run” has always struck me as a bit of an oxymoron. So I’ve found myself asking “what’s my motivation?”.

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I woke up yesterday morning and the first thing I did was go through my iPhone and you-tubed,  googled and Tweet searched for Tiger Woods’ press conference apology video. After watching the video, I felt a sense of satisfaction. Not because I was cheering for Elin and not because he apologized to his wife and implied he’s no Tiger, but a “Cheetah” – it was because I already had my first dose of celebrity news for the day. I did not need to wait till Monday to get the latest OK or Famous magazine to read all about it.
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If you, like me, are finding there aren’t enough hours lately to be extra creative or discover you may not have a single artistic bone in your body – or you may even just be a lazy artist – here is a simple mouse tracker (mac or pc) by Anatoly Zenkov that will make you, the budding abstract artist, make Jackson Pollock look like an amateur.

Have it running in the background and it’ll track your mouse movements throughout the day. Sit idle and it produces a circle, the size and opacity of which depends on the amount of time spent on one spot.

Below is one I  ‘produced’  earlier. Note: the big black dot wasn’t  a result of an extended pub lunch, nor was the activity on top of it a result of me covering it up. ;^)

Save screenshots, or comparatively gauge how busy your week has been – and who knows you may be inspired to use it on your next design. Take that, La Guernica.

Hard at work

I’ve now been working at Igloo for a little over a month, and it has been a massive career change for me. Learning the web development role has been fun and exciting, and the job has both similarities and differences to what I was used to, video game development.

One big change for me was the programming language used in web development, C#. (pronounced see-sharp).

I’m used to programming in C++, and only played with C# a little bit at home. The games industry generally only uses C# for game tools, and not for actual game code, and my work in that area was very minimal.

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There’s so much talk these days about augmented reality. At igloo, we love the concept and the potential that it has once it matures into usable, mobile technology so here’s some more!

The latest offering is from Microsoft, or more specifically part of their new all encompassing web product, Bing. Bing Maps demoed two new additions this month that are revolutionary and just plain awesome.

Rather than me explain what the new features are, here are some excerpts from the Bing blog. Its a bit of a read, but it’s so damn fascinating that I highly recommend it!

P.S. There’s a video at the end of the post…   Fancy!

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Are you a digital producer? If so, igloo is seeking to employ an experienced digital producer for our Melbourne office and that could be you.

You must have significant experience working on ’A’ list websites and digital campaigns. We are looking for someone who lives and breathes digital and has managed projects that have a strong strategic focus across multiple digital touchpoints and involve complex user experience thinking.

Our immediate need is for someone who can manage a team to deliver major, award-winning websites, online advertising, campaign microsites, and possibly even mobile. All, of course, on time and on budget!

Experience required:
- Proven experience track record with significant web projects
- Proven experience with project management processes and documentation
- Complete understanding of the online environment

If this is you, then we would love to hear from you. Yesterday!