Yowazzup: A Directory of Happening Things

Google has set up a page to support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma). There are two options of donation — donate to UNICEF or donate to Direct Relief. For both of these, 100% of your contributions will go to the programs. You need to have a Google account though as both of these use Google Checkout to process the donations.

Let’s help the survivors of the cyclone to rebuild their communities, and their lives.

Go to www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/ and start donating.

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Google, as usual, changed it logos for the occasion while Yahoo! uses an animated Flash that will turn both it’s “O” into recycle symbols when you mouse over it while a plant will grow besides the letter, “Y” when you mouse over the logo for the first time.

If you realize, besides Google and Yahoo, YouTube has also changed its logo purposely for Earth Day. Seems like more and more web sites are creating awareness for Earth Day this time around.

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After so many speculations, finally, the truth is revealed! Google and Microsoft are preparing to bid for Digg.com.

According to TechCrunch.com, Digg is prepared to take less than the $300 million Allen & Co. were floating late last year. TechCrunch reported that Google will likely bid around $200-$225 million bracket while Microsoft is very likely to bid lower since most of Digg’s revenue today comes from a three year advertising deal with Microsoft.

It is interesting to see whoever that manage to takeover Digg.com as it is somewhat dying now. You might ask why Yahoo! is not even interested? Because they already have Yahoo! Buzz, a newly launched Digg-clone.

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Google finally launches Google Sites, after acquiring JotSpot for quite some time already.

What is Google Sites?

Google Sites is an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets —l and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.

Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it’s just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.

• Anyone can do it — Building a site is as simple as editing a document, and you don’t need anyone’s help to get started.
• Share from one place — Create a single place to bring together all the information your team needs to share, including docs, videos, photos, calendars and attachments.
• Work together — Invite co-workers, classmates, or your entire organization to edit your site with you to keep it fresh and up-to-date. And let as many or few people view your site as you want.

Check out some example sites to see how you might use Google Sites:

• Company intranet — http://sites.google.com/a/organic-city.com/intranet/Home
• Team project — http://sites.google.com/a/altostrat.com/project-eggplant/Home
• Employee profile — http://sites.google.com/a/altostrat.com/jkraus/Home
• Classroom — http://sites.google.com/a/googleclassrooms.org/mrs-richau/Home
• Student club — http://sites.google.com/a/googleuniversity.org/ski-club/Home

However, Google Sites is exclusively available in Google Apps. You need to have at least a Team or Standard Google Apps account (both are free).

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Social networking is sure fun!

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Happy Boxing Day!

• Gmail is now 6 Gigabytes! Just in time for Christmas.
• Red planet, Mars outshines Rudolph’s red nose on Christmas Eve. Ironic?
• Meanwhile, an escaped tiger kills man in San Francisco Zoo.

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Gmail has recently added many new features and one of them is color labels. You can use the labels just like folders, except it’s better. You can name your labels accordingly, and assigned them to your e-mails. Alternatively, you can create filters for incoming mails and have them automatically labeled.

To create a label, just check the e-mails you want to label and click on "more actions" and then "new label".

To color your labels, all you need to do is hover over a label in the left hand label list and click on the drop-down arrow. You will be able to choose between background and text colors. Very cool, indeed.

Next evolution of labels via The Gmail Blog

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Good day! Happy Halloween!

• USD $1 million in prize for Halo 3 competition!
• Feds work magic in Copperfield case.
• In most cases, during a hunt, man shoots something. In this one, dog shoots man.
• Move over iPhone, Google to come out with its own cellphone! Gphone will come with most Google applications — search, maps, YouTube, instant-messaging — on a mobile platform!

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Yesterday, we saw a huge drop of Google PageRank for several major blogs including Engadget, Problogger, Autoblog, John Chow, Search Engine Journal and more. Even mainstream news web sites like Forbes, Washington Post and New Scientist are punished as well.

Did Google change its PageRank algorithm like what DailyBlogTips has mentioned? Or was it just a punishment for selling links like what Andy Beard has suggested? For the past couple of weeks, Google has already issued a warning for web sites that sell links to include a “no follow” in the links to advertisers but nobody has ever takes Google seriously.

What’s your say?

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Happy Birthday, Google! Google turns 10 on September 15, 2007 but is already the heart of the Internet. Oddly, the news is brought to you by Yahoo! News.

• In other non-related news, Prince wants to sue YouTube.
• Tommy Lee and Kid Rock were asked to take part in a boxing match! It would be interesting if the match comes true.
• O.J. Simpson is a suspect in Vegas armed robbery.

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