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Last week’s expected decision on the controversial Google Books Library Project by a US federal judge has been postponed. The judge told a crowded courtroom last week that he will listen with an “open mind” to the arguments for and again Google’s settlement with authors and publishers about the right to scan and publish book titles. U. S. District Court Judge Denny Chin walked into the courtroom at the U. S. Court of the Southern District New York with a tall stack of comments from each of the parties, and stated: “To end the suspense, I’m not going to rule today. There’s too much to digest”.

The Google Books Library Project aims to make it easy for people to find relevant books online. Google’s objective with this project was to enable people to find books that they couldn’t normally find as might be the case with out of print books. The homepage for the project states that the ultimate goal is to “work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalogue of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers”. Google, which has yet to present their case to the judge, have emphasised that the number of books included in the settlement is a small portion (3%) of all the titles in the world. They plan to make 20% of the catalogue free and if they choose, users can purchase the rest from Google.

The project has been under much criticism since its inception from competitors such as Microsoft and Amazon who argue that allowing the project go ahead will basically mean giving Google a license to profit from orphan works and get an unfair advantage. Other critics include some library groups, authors and other competitors. Another concern is that nothing in the settlement would protect users’ personal habits and information from being tracked for behavioural advertising. “The proposed Google book settlement is not a philanthropic effort to bring literature into the 21st century and bridge a literary divide,” opponents Microsoft, Amazon and library groups wrote in a recent filing through the Open Book Alliance. “This de facto exclusive license will provide Google with an enormous advantage over its search competitors.”

There are advocates for this plan such as the University of Michigan who praised the deal because they believe that most of the books in the settlement are scholarly works that are collecting dust on university bookshelves and wouldn’t otherwise be read. Other advocates include blind support groups who say that making publications available online means that people will have easier and cheaper access to works that are hard to come by today.

The settlement is part of Google’s ambitious effort to put the entire world’s books online, aiming to eventually be the main source for searching and buying titles.

A little while ago we reported that Microsoft was thinking outside the box, and looking at using the Family Guy show and creators to promote their new Windows 7 in a different way. This lasted all of less than 2 weeks, with Microsoft announcing that they are pulling out of the partnership.
After making the decision to align with the edgy show, what would cause the Microsoft executives to baulk? How about:

“riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest”

We congratulated Microsoft on attempting something different, as they have long held the reputation of being a few steps behind the cutting edge advertisers, however this isn’t likely to change. After their reputation took a massive hit with the epic fail that is Vista, it’s going to take an out of the box solution to kill some of the upstart operating systems.

In previous blog posts we have looked at how advertising may have to change in the wake of viewer’s watching habits changing. To help launch the new Windows 7, Microsoft have enlisted Seth MacFarlane and the Family Guy crew to create a specific show which will have product placement instead of ads.

Microsoft has been mocked for some of their initial Windows 7 ads (which featured an awkward Tupperware style party for Winows 7), however this attempt is outside the box, and has potential to succeed. The show will not stop for ads, however will feature an undetermined number of references and cut away sections to the Windows 7 product.

Microsoft has said that they will have their own copywriters and marketing people involved in the writing of the episodes, I’m sure to ensure that the Family Guy staff keep on target, and don’t use Windows 7 as the target of too many parodies.

Whether this works or not remains to be seen, however we applaud Microsoft for thinking outside the box, and attempting something different. For more information, check out this post.

After an 11 percent drop in second-quater profits and a 12% drop in share prices, Microsoft has announced that it will slash 5000 jobs as a cost cutting measure. They have also declined to issue forecasts for profit for the rest of the year.

“We’re certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions,” Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said during a conference call. With less access to credit, businesses and consumers are spending less and stretching the life span of their existing computers.

This article on theage.com.au goes into more detail about the move, which is the first of it’s magnitude in the company’s 34 year history.

Have you ever found it frustrating to write a Microsoft Office document, email it to co-workers, wait for them to make edits, make sure your edits aren’t  discarded, then edit again, wait for everyone to re-read and then re-email the latest copy around?  I’m running out of breath, this all sounds a little confusing?

With Microsoft’s new web-based Office application, we won’t be running out of breath. Microsoft has designed a new application where users can access web-based office functions via Office Live Workspace, an online addition to Microsoft Office. The move comes as an attempt to compete with the growing popularity of Google’s online document storage/collaboration service Google Docs.

“Microsoft will begin a public beta test of what it calls the ‘Office Web applications’ later this year. They will allow users to create and edit new documents online from within a web browser”, said Justin Hutchinson, group product manager for Microsoft’s Office Client division, when interviewed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Hutchinson believes this is a noteworthy change from the capabilities in the beta of live workspace currently available. 1.5 million people have signed up for the beta since it was released saying that this live Workspace marked the first provisional steps by Microsoft to put its profitable Office franchise on the web. And I believe there is no more need for Microsoft Office on your desktop computer…. What do you think?

For more information please check out the source article on Computerworld.

Apple has come out with a couple of clever retorts in response to the now abandoned Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld series of ads run by Microsoft, previously posted about here and here.

The first one takes a hit at Microsoft for throwing money at advertising instead of fixing Vista’s problems;

The second pokes fun at Microsoft not mentioning any of their product names in the adverts at all;

Both ads are more entertaining than the Microsoft ads in my book - mostly because “taking the piss” out of something is always a great way to get a chuckle.

Microsoft has released an experiment where users are given the option to move around organic search results, as well as share them with friends and add comments to listings. You will have to register using Windows Live ID to take advantage of U Rank, from which you’ll be able to move, copy, add a note and delete results.

 Below is an image of the options.

With the ability to share your modified results, will this start a trend of social search? No one really knows but it’s definitely interesting. Click here for more details on this new development.

Facebook announced on their blog yesterday that they have now integrated searches on Live.com into the Facebook search box for all US residents. This is a further extension of thepartnership Facebook has with Microsoft that dates back to 2006 when Microsoft first started displaying their ads on the social networking site.

We’re always working on innovative ways to make your experience on Facebook more useful. Toward that goal, today we’ve added Microsoft Live Search to your Facebook search experience (for people in the US). This is the first step in giving you the ability to find content from across the web while using Facebook.

By integrating web search into Facebook, you can increase the information available to share with your friends, family and coworkers on the site. For example, your friend may invite you to an event at a new restaurant. Without leaving Facebook, you can check out the details of the restaurant on the web. Or, say you see photos in your News Feed about a friend’s recent trip to Dubai. Inspired, you can search the web for more information about travel without having to leave Facebook. Along with your search results, you may also begin to see ads for products, services or other things that are relevant to your query.

The feature means that when a users starts typing a search term into the search box they are given the option of searching Facebook or searching the web - meaning users can search without leaving the site. When doing a search of Facebook itself, the results page will have an extra tab of “web” results that a user can click to regardless. Of course relevant ads from Microsoft Adcenter are also displayed with the search results.

The feature is working on my profile also, however the results are very different to those I would recieve searching through NineMSN.

Valleywag reports that Microsoft is going to drop Seinfeld from any future ads - calling it part of “phase two” of the advertising campaign. The spin is that it was always planned that Seinfeld would be dropped, however many sources are claiming it’s simply an epic fail, as the first two ads seemed to be about nothing and simply portrayed how out of touch Microsoft is. Word is that there is still “potential” to use Seinfeld in future commercials but it is not on the cards at this stage.

We previously posted the first two commercials here and here.

The second of the new Microsoft Ads about nothing, featuring Bill Gates and Jery Seinfeld is now up;

This one features the guys spending time living with an average family and realising how out of touch they are with the common man. It’s a bit better than the first one but still seems to be aimed at getting people talking about how pointless the ads are.