Archive for November, 2010

Google Maps Shocks Fat Man Into Diet

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Ok, this may be a first – Google Maps has now inspired a man in the U.K. to diet and get fit after he saw an image of himself in Google Street View:

Fat Man Captured In Google Maps

Bob Mewse saw himself in Google Maps’ interface, and said he was “stunned” at his side view saying, “I was massive. My belly was sticking out and I looked huge.”

He was inspired to lose the weight, so he started dieting and exercising, eventually losing roughly 98 pounds (7 stone)!

Street View and the Street View photo car have been magnets for criticism and privacy complaints. In this case, it seems that it has been the catalyst for someone to adopt a self-improvement regimen.

Google Deploys Recommendation Engine With Hotpot

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Yesterday evening, Google announced their new service, Hotpot, a mashup that combines social media with local info and check-in services. This marks yet another surge forward in the local arena that Google has made recently, along with the deployment of Google Place Search, launch of Google Tags and Boost ads, and more.

I haven’t kicked the tires yet on Hotpot via mobile, but I can see the services it offers via web:

Google Hotpot

Hotpot encourages you to rate businesses, and connect with your friends to get recommendations for places to try out.

While the service appears fairly robust and graphically well-designed, it’s unclear to me so far just how much traction it may get. (more…)