The "Weekly WassUp" is a brief weekly overview of what has been showing up in "the feeds" in the last week.
In this issue:
- Sep. 23 : The Google phone has landed
- Sep. 23 : MySpace launches do-it-yourself ad-targeting site
- Sep. 23 : Adobe introduces Creative Suite 4
- Sep. 25 : Google defends Yahoo! deal
1. Sep. 23 : The Google phone has landed
Ten and a half months after it was first announced, the first mobile phone running on Google's mobile operating system 'Android' is a fact. HTC's 'Dream' machine has been transformed to be the G1 ('Google 1') and will be sold together with a T-Mobile contract in the US starting October 22. The G1 (aka 'gPhone') is Google's answer to the immensely popular iPhone from Apple. But both players have a clearly different view on things: whereas Apple controls pretty much everything surrounding its darling (from the device over which applications to run up to the rights on the music you download), Google chose for an 'open platform' anyone can use and extend. It comes of course with all standard Google applications installed (Search, Maps, Gmail with Contacts, Calendar, Google Talk, YouTube and a
light version of the recently launched webbrowser 'Chrome') as well as Amazon's DRM-free MP3 digital music download store. The Belgium release will probably be somewhere in 2009. See also my previous post on the release for more info.
2. Sep. 23 : MySpace launches do-it-yourself ad-targeting site
On September 23, social website MySpace kicked off a service for creating and placing ads on its website. The idea is that first, you create your ad from pre-defined templates or upload your own design. Afterwards you define your target audience based on gender, age, location and interests as well as a landingpage. Finally, you choose your promotion budget (total and per click) and schedule.That's it. Although the idea is good, there's lots of room for improvement: While the application should preferably be used on Internet Explorer or FireFox, neither of those browsers let me even sign in. On the other hand, Chrome and Safari did. And once you're in, the predefined templates all seem to focus heavily on bands and musicians, which looks to me as a bit of a missed opportunity. Moreover, at this moment, you can only target US locations 
. So even if the basic idea is right, MySpace might want to step it up a little (and perhaps take a better look at FaceBook and LinkedIn 
).
3. Sep. 23 : Adobe introduces Creative Suite 4
In agencies worldwide, Adobe products are used day-in day-out. So when the software giant releases a new version of its suites (holding a total of 13 stand-alone applications including Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash and After Effects), it's big news. According to the press release, CS4 aims at "...delivering radical workflow breakthroughs that bring down the walls
between designers and developers" while it "... advances the creative
process across print, Web, mobile, interactive, film and video
production". With over 10 new or strongly enhanced features (live preflight, conditional text, export to Flash, ...), Adobe has positioned InDesign as one of its flagship products. But also Photoshop has been given a boost with a.o. the spectacular 'content-aware scaling' (see video below) and 3D capabilities. Furthermore, Illustrator came up with a.o. multiple artboards, Flash now can handle 3D and can be published as an AIR application, Dreamweaver has been given o.a. a live preview mode and the ability to change Photoshop documents from within Dreamweaver and so the list goes on...For a more extensive overview, visit the Apple Blog.
4. Sep. 25 : Google defends Yahoo! deal
In June 2008, Yahoo! and Google announced an advertising
agreement that will provide Yahoo! with access to Google’s AdSense
advertising programs for the U.S. and Canada. This means that, if you search the web using Yahoo!, you could in the future possibly find Google ads next to the results. This is however not to the likings of many people in both the web and the advertising industry, who fear that Google may be heading towards an online advertising monopoly, thus being able to fully control advertising fees. This week, Google launched a complete website dedicated to the deal, explaining their point of view, cleverly accompagnied by some testimonials from the 'pro'-camp. Previously, Microsoft already put together their concerns and one day after Google, Yahoo! also put a statement on their website.
