Just read that Google is estimated to lose approximately $110 million of
revenue each year due to searches done through the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button and bypassing all the ads. In other words, around 1 percent of visitors expect Google to place the actual best result on top of others and are willing to go there directly without any browsing. Despite being a huge fan of Google, I personally never use that button and prefer to go through the results myself.

You may ask why the button is still there? Because, after all, Google was born from a couple of grad students sharing a dream and doesn’t want to look too much like the corporate (and sometimes scary) giant it has become.

Italy has not been allowed to participate in the Google Android Developer Challenge due to “local restrictions“. I found many Italian blogs rightfully complaining  about this and wonder if anyone in our government is going to take action… ehm, ok I know nothing is gonna happen… Another good occasion for Italy to show the rest of the world its incapacity in the high technology business environment.

Following my post on the 10/20/30 rule I would like add some tips on how to simplify PowerPoint presentations. I am sure most of us as seen slides crowded of unreadable fonts, silly little cartoonish characters flying around the screen and the sound of a typewriter for each letter popping up…

I am following the philosophy that a slide can only be effective if it has few well-defined simple elements.

When we prepare a presentation we should ask ourselves, what can I remove to make the message in my slide more effective?

It’s all about effectiveness and added value. It’s then up to the presenter to tell the story behind the slide to the audience. Additional notes can be written along the slide printout given to the audience.

For some guidelines on this:

Garr Reynolds: Presentation tips

Cliff Atkinson and Richard E. Mayer: 5 Ways to reduce PowerPoint overload

C.G. Lynch of CIO Magazine has published an interesting article illustrating the “Seven wonders of the IT world“. I know it sounds nerdish, but I thought that some of them were actually pretty exotic with names like “the computer farthest from Earth” or “world’s most intriguing data center”(!!) even romantic ones such as the “web cam closest to the north pole”… Have a look, you can also vote for the 8th wonder…