Mapping Google’s Growing
Empire of Brands

Wall Street

Ah, to Be Aggregated

Being assimilated into someone else’s Collective is not generally desirable. But many happily relinquish control when Google decides to acquire their enterprise.

If you logged into media distribution and RSS feed provider FeedBurner earlier this summer, you saw legal copy indicating you had 14 days to opt out before the rights to your data were transfered to Google.

Two striking thoughts:

1) Google has assimilated yet another service.
2) The rights to your data now belong to Google.

Mapping It All Out

For a quick overview of their reach, check out our Mindjet map of Google’s growing empire. Since the map is meant to show only the extent of their services, items on the map are unweighted and appear in random order.

While probably far from complete, it shows Google’s ever-widening breadth of assets representing easily accessible public information points. They have our email—both corporate and private, our search data, our website data through analytics, and much, much more.

May We Have Some Privacy?

Privacy concerns continue to be raised about the search giant. Privacy International put Google at the bottom of its first-ever privacy rankings and tussled with the search giant over allegations that Google conducted a preemptive smear campaign against them to discredit the about-to-be-released results.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, if information is king, Google most certainly represents the new information-laden Rome. Important to keep in mind as you seek to connect and protect your brand in their growing online landscape.

Google Empire

Downloads

DownloadPrivacy International’s Rankings Report | 96 KB .pdf

DownloadGoogle Empire Mindjet Map | 37 KB .mmap

DownloadGoogle Empire PDF | 104 KB .pdf

Image: Checco

Maximize Your Search

We all know Google is a very effective search engine, but if you want more precise results, sometimes a little fine tuning helps. Try these simple advanced search features:

In the Google search box, type:

define: WORD
To return a list of definitions for whatever you type in place of WORD

related: WORD
To return sites related to your search term

map: LOCATION
To return map results for the search LOCATION

link: www.URL.com or link: WORD
To return websites linked to the URL or WORD input

TERM site:www.URL.com
Where TERM is your search term and URL is the website on which you’d like to search for the term, for example,
design site:www.brainstormbrand.com

Some tips, such as placing your search terms in quote marks to ensure verbatim results, are universal and will work in other search engines.

For more helpful hints on how to maximize your search, go to Advanced Search or Advanced Search Tips at Google.com.

Define

More Thought

RapidoStart (Mac)

Here’s a free Mac app allowing you to call up, via customized abbreviations, any text string you copy and paste frequently. Best of all the text is placed pre-formatted - returns, bullets and all. It’s become a staple here at Brainstorm. You can download your own at app4mac.

PimpMyNews

If you can get past the vapid brand identity and UI, PimpMyNews, the talking social news site, is an interesting concept. The site will read your RSS feeds to you over your mp3 player, iPhone, etc. or computer.
[via: PR-Squared]

The iPlanet

NPI’s personal cosmos transport. Like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine Happiness Machine, the iPlanet, a holiday product parody, promises a “thoroughly self-absorbed social media experience.”

Twitter Unseat Email?

Robert Scoble explores the notion in this BusinessWeek piece re: the running debate over where we’re headed with aging, albeit ubiquitous, email paradigms versus spam-free Tweets.
[via: Scobleizer]

Track the Hive’s Buzz

Aggregate the aggregators at Popurls.com—simultaneously follow the most current posts from all the top sites like Digg, Newsvine, YouTube and Flickr. Or, “find your favorite thing,” over at Buzzfeed.

Fountain

Peter Bruhn’s Swedish type foundry is preparing a new freshet of fonts to flow forth and flourish among us—according to Typographi and Bruhn himself.
[via: Sheer Brick]

Design by Metaphor

A word from A List Apart about design based on simile.

Master’s Color Palettes

Looking for a digital color scheme that will last the ages? Colour Lovers explores masters inspired color schemes.

Visualizing Volumes

Can’t see how your two soda bottles a day are impacting the environment? Chris Jordan’s images will help you visualize it. View his amazing statistical depictions at Running the Numbers, An American Self-Portrait.

Steve Jobs Unveils the Apple iRack

Regardless of your geopolitical views you’ll likely appreciate the satirical humor of this product parody sketch run amok.

Qbesq

Okay this would just be a goofy flash-based Spirograph-esque toy if it didn’t generate downloadable .svg (Scalable Vector Graphic) files—which it does. Pattern enthusiasts, meet Qbesq.

Those Funny Googlers

Here’s Google’s take on the phrase, “Across the pond.” Visit Google Maps, enter New York to London in the search field, scroll to step #24.

Tip: Reducing Firefox Memory Usage

How to reduce Firefox from a memory hog to a piglet. Caught this Firefox usage tip over on Ade Olonoh’s blog (see comments).

CSS Developments

If you’re a developer or just interested in CSS, check out this article entitled, #IEroot — Targeting IE Using Conditional Comments and Just One Stylesheet,” over on the PIE site.

The History of Branding

An iconic-rich, one-click site on how hundreds of the planet’s most noteworthy brands came to be. Updated daily.

The Hexafluoride Float

From the Bonn Physikshow—A lesson on YouTube regarding the denser than air properties of hexafluoride (likely sulphur hexafluoride) gas.

Worst Website Design, Ever?

Enter at your own risk. A proof of concept that design does matter. Havenworks.com hailed on Digg recently as perhaps, “…the most poorly designed website in the world!”

50 Essential Bookmarks

Originally published in Communication Arts November Design Annual 2006, here’s their list of 50 essential bookmarks. Conspicuously missing, sites such as Delicious, Technorati and Lifehacker.

Greetings Earthling

Sure to appeal to the megalomaniacal extraterrestrial in all of us. World, meet geoGreetings. When you care enough to send a satellite image.

A Modern Medium

An interactive glimpse into the the random and spontaneous feedback Jackson Pollock once realized in his medium—sans the clean up.

Impressive Product

Pressed toast with panache. From the, “Table Manners Collection,” Delfts Toast Pan by Minale Maeda. As seen on “ohmygooshness.”

Other Thoughts

Items we find compelling, of late.

Our latest top 20 list of inane musings from the Brainstorm office white board: Top 20 Thoughts on What No.15 Means

(at right)

.think Flickr

Objects of interest, engaging designs, diagrams, downloadable visuals and any other imagery we felt worth sharing.

Top 20 Top 20 Things to do (we did)
on the 4th of July

  1. Enjoy an apple pie in a Chevrolet…or a nutrition bar in a Smart Car
  2. Wax my upper lip
  3. Overdose on televised sports
  4. See Wall-E
  5. Midnight Parade – Anderson
  6. Read the Declaration of Independence (first part anyway)
  7. Blow off steam, or digits
  8. Enjoy the neighbors’ fireworks, late at night, for weeks
  9. Populate FunctionFox
  10. Rest my dogs
  11. Wax the car
  12. Wax nostalgic
  13. Watch fireworks…Just a thought
  14. Groove to the sounds of Baghdad (try Quantum Sonic Orchestra…or the Bamboos–nostalgia circa 1977)
  15. Fret all night that Homeland Security doesn’t run a keyword analysis and cough up #16
  16. “Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it”
  17. Grill some burgers & dogs cats
  18. Hope it doesn’t rain cats, burgers and dogs
  19. Grill the Burgher – and his dog – get to the bottom of this “independence”
  20. Join the kids in the bike parade
  21. Celebrate with the Katzenbergers
  22. See the entire board