Google Goggles Search App for Android

Google impresses me with their vision for “Goggles”, the new search app for Android Mobile Phone users.

Instead of typing words for your search, “Goggles” allows you to take a picture using you cell phone, then it returns relevant search results.

Google can also provide information for nearby businesses and restaurants based on what it sees in the picture you take.

In the future, Google Goggles may allow you to take a mobile picture of a spider, then immediately return the name and information about the spider. This could be very cool to use with plants, animals, cars, etc.

The Google engineer in this video says that eventually it could even give you advice on which chess move to make, or other strategic advice!

Cyber Monday Sales Up Nearly 14%

Cyber Monday 2009 is a giant success! The results are in, Coremetrics is reporting a 13.7% increase in year over year sales for online retails during Cyber Monday. The average dollar amount spent per online purchase rose to just over $180, up from roughly $130 last year. The number of items purchased per order was up 30%.

Overall, Cyber Monday sales exceeded Black Friday sales by 24.1%

Cyber Monday is the first Monday following Thanksgiving when online retailers roll out their holiday specials and many one time offers. Cyber Monday follows the traditional “Black Friday” marketed by brick and mortar retailers 3 days earlier.

Google Trends On Black Friday

Online retailers are likely getting a huge surge of traffic today as many consumers are avoiding the congestion of the mall by shopping online.

Here are the top Trends on Google at 1:52PM CST:

Top Google Trends

* black friday online deals
* cyber monday 2009
* leftover turkey recipes
* iron bowl 2009 game time
* turkey soup
* ugg boots black friday
* josh mcdaniels f bomb
* zhu zhu pets toys r us
* retailmenot
* jos a bank
* blackfridaydeals 2009 online
* joseph a bank
* yowza
* turkey trot results 2009
* amazon coupons

In other news, FB Ad reviewers have apparently taken the day off or are heavily sedated from turkey leftovers.

HULU Subscription Fees Set For 2010

Chase Carey, Deputy Chairman of News Corp, revealed HULU will begin charging for subscriptions as early as 2010. While Carey said that some content would remain free, he explained that a free model of distribution did not do their content justice.

I think a subscription based model could work well for HULU. They are capturing a lot of content and broadcasting it in unique ways. Example: I was able to watch the every play of the last Notre Dame football game in about 42 minutes. This was the fastest paced football I’ve ever seen. All parts of the broadcast that didn’t involve game play were cut out. This literally changed the football viewing experience 180 degrees for me.

We all understand the downsides that come from free services. The YouTube Lag problem has been driving me nuts for months. I’d gladly pay a few dollars each month for better service. HULU has picked up on this and is running with it. Would you pay for HULU?

Drew Carey to Donate $1 per Follower

Drew Carey offers a $1 million dollars donation to Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong Foundation if he can reach 1 million followers on @DrewFromTV by the end of the year. He goes on to say he’ll prorate the donation relative to the number of followers he receives, just incase he doesn’t hit $1 million.

Mr Carey was put in the social spotlight when he offered to bid $25,000 for the @Drew name, being auctioned by a terminally ill cancer patient. When he realized no one was even bidding close to that amount,

Drew decided to take it a step further and offered to donate $100,000 to LiveStrong if the name @Drew received 100,000 followers by Nov 9th (the original ending date of the name auction).

Here is the video clip where Drew Carey announces his $1 million follower challenge:

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