Two things come out at me from this article, about Google moving towards a hyperlocal ad revenue stream

1) Before, I would have said this was a major invasion of privacy, using the phones GPS unit, or triangulating the location using the cell towers, to send out local ads to Google results. But really, this is useful for a lot of people. While many searches done today are not necessarily location-dependent, those who are searching on the go, on their mobile devices, probably care about the distance to what they are searching for. From personal experience, I know that when I Google something on the go, it’s because I’m curious as to its location. However, this doesn’t necessarily have to be on google.com – I usually do this in the Maps application, which is supposed to be able to access the GPS unit and NOT necessarily store my searches and connect it to my google screenname. hmm, sounds like I’m being suspicious, but I’m not! i think it’s great to allow for local searching. Trust me. I’ll all for it.

2) Googles comment about how they envision the majority of their revenue coming from mobile searches. Interesting comment – I wonder how they quantify this. Do they have a projection setup predicting the number of mobile users in the future compared to desktop users? I supposed they’ve seen more traffic coming in from mobile versions of popular browsers – how do they account for users of the Google mobile app? When I did a brief research project on user perceptions of mobile device usage, I found that people were still using Google SMS to do their searches for them. I’m not too familiar with this, but I imagine Google doesn’t get much, if any, revenue for this…do they sell your number to get revenue?

Anyway…I, for one, look forward to our Overlord Google dominating us. I say this while I Google news articles in Google Chrome…

Source: Google Brings Hyperlocal Ads to Mobile Search

Sometimes, I really regret giving up on being a programmer/engineer. I started UCLA as a Computer Science and Engineering major, but dropped out after a semester to transition to Math, then eventualy to a double major in Math and Sociology.

Along the way, I ended up taking some basic programming classes – I did fairly well in C++ and studied MatLab in a few of my math classes. But in the end, I don’t have the programming background to really get a computer type job. It’s only know that I’m four years out of college that I’m realizing how useful a programming background could be, especially with the types of things I enjoy doing.

I love doing web design, which is not programming, but could take bits of code, such as PERL or Javascript.

I want to get involved more in interactive design, user interfaces, etc. I’m trying to learn Ruby on Rails and PHP.

It’s just really time consuming, to do those things along with everything else I’m doing with my life.

It’s terrible to think that there is a whole generation of kids who are excited and willing to join the military to fly the latest plane or man the newest drone – but they can’t program them to save their lives. It feels like a consequence of the digital age – though we are surrounded by new technology, we are not really aware of the inner workings of it. We take things for face value.

Source: Why Johnny Can’t Program: A New Medium Requires A New Literacy