I love keeping track of statistics. I use Google Analytics, StatCounter, FeedBurner stats, and my own custom stats system to find out what types of posts are most popular on my blog, which posts get the most number of comments, how many people subscribe to my RSS feed, what search engine queries lead people here, and so on. Similarly, I also use Google Personalized Search to find out curious bits of information about my own web searching habits.

So the addition of a new Trends feature to Google Reader is very interesting to me. I can, for example, find out which feeds I read the most, which feeds contained posts that I found most interesting (based on "starred" posts), which ones are least and most frequently updated, etc. I can also keep track of my reading habits - according to the stats, I've been skimming through most of my feeds in the afternoon and after midnight everyday, and mostly during the middle of the week, with the least amount of reading going on during weekends. Ah, holidays. :) My guess is that these stats will change quite a bit once the quarter starts again next week...

If you use Google Reader, you should check out this feature. Find any surprising and interesting bits of information about your feeds and reading habits?

How many of you remember Descent:Freespace, and its sequel, Freespace 2? Even to this day, they're the two best space flight/battle simulation games I've ever played.

Everytime I watch Battlestar Galactica on TV and see the dogfights between the Vipers and the Cylon Raiders, I think to myself - wouldn't it be frakkin' awesome if there was a game like this?


Apparently, I wasn't the only one. A group of BSG fans came together and decided to create Beyond the Red Line, a BSG sim with multiplayer support, built on the open-source Freespace 2 engine! The project has been in development for a long time, but it looks like things are progressing well. According to a forum post by one of the developers a couple of days ago - "No date, missions are nearly done but sounds are still in progress. In theory we can release without voice acting but it just wouldn't be the same."

In the meantime, check out their video gallery for actual, in-game footage of what's done so far. It looks incredible! I really, really, really hope this gets released sometime in the near future.

Pingdom, a site monitoring service, is offering free 1-year accounts (a $120 value) to everyone who signs up within the next 9 hours, as of the time of this post.

The free account allows you to monitor upto 5 sites, and you get 20 SMS credits. I just signed up, and although it hasn't collected any statistics yet, the control panel looks pretty good.

You don't need to provide credit card details during sign-up, so you don't have to worry about being charged if you forget to cancel in a year. Check it out if you maintain any blogs/sites that you want to monitor.

If you go to the Google SOAP Search API page, you'll now see the following message:

As of December 5, 2006, we are no longer issuing new API keys for the SOAP Search API. Developers with existing SOAP Search API keys will not be affected.

Depending on your application, the AJAX Search API may be a better choice for you instead. It tends to be better suited for search-based web applications and supports additional features like Video, News, Maps, and Blog search results.

I remember taking a look at their AJAX Search API a while ago, and while it was definitely more newbie-friendly (you just copy/paste a JavaScript snippet into your blog template), I felt that it lacked the flexibility and customizability of the SOAP API. Things might have changed now, although initial reports that I've seen on the web indicate otherwise.

Google claims that it will not shut down the SOAP API for existing users, but that it is also no longer supported. The question now on everyone's minds is - how long will the SOAP API actually continue to work? I've already started noticing some flakiness - HTTP 502 errors appear intermittently when I run search queries through this blog. Since the SOAP API is now deprecated and unsupported, I wonder if such issues, and any others that might crop up in the future will ever be fixed.

So I'm considering three options now. The first is to stick to the Google SOAP API until it eventually dies, but I'm not sure how prudent this is. The second is to take another look at Google's AJAX Search API as per their suggestion to see if it's more flexible now, and a good fit for my purpose. And the third is to move to Microsoft's Live Search API, which is still a SOAP API. Some of you might remember that I was using this before I switched to Google's API, so it shouldn't be very difficult to go back.

If you're using the Google SOAP Search API, I'd love to know what your plan of action is.

Update: I've posted a follow-up on this topic.

Scoble suggests that Google's deprecation of the SOAP Search API is their way of saying they don't care about Windows applications anymore. I personally feel that puts too much emphasis on the (over-hyped) Google vs. Microsoft rivalry issue, and that it isn't the real reason behind Google's decision. There are thousands of web developers out there who are using the SOAP API for things that have nothing to do with Windows, and they're losing out from this change too.

If you ask me, I think it was purely a decision that made business sense from a revenue perspective. See, the thing is, SOAP Search APIs are so flexible that they allow developers to get query results from a search engine and do whatever they like with them after that. For example, if it weren't for the little "Powered by Google" logo that I added at the end of all my search results pages, most people firstly wouldn't even know that Google has anything to do with the search functionality on this blog. The SOAP API allows me to take Google's search result set and customize it to fit in perfectly with the look-and-feel of my site. Moreover, unlike Google's own search result pages, my blog doesn't even display ads, and therein lies the basic problem.

Google's monetization strategy revolves almost solely around advertising. The SOAP API gave developers a great way to tap in to Google's search results, but it gave Google nothing back in return - brand loyalty and mindshare, maybe, but nothing concrete. So here comes the new kid on the block - the AJAX Search API that takes away control from the hands of the developer and puts Google in charge. With this new API, you're getting AdSense ads with your search results whether you like it or not.

Now before anyone jumps in and accuses me of trying to be a freeloader, let me make it clear that I have nothing against contextual advertising. In fact, I think Google's model of ad-supported, free services is brilliant (Disclaimer: I worked on the Google AdSense team as an Engineering Intern last summer). Every corporation is in the business of making money, and Google has no reason to be any different. I would gladly display ads next to my search results if that were a condition in Google's Terms of Service, and wouldn't even mind if Google somehow forced me to do so. (I do see how it can become an issue for companies, as Scoble points out in another post, so maybe a paid, ad-free alternative makes sense?)

But there's another ugly limitation in this new AJAX API that I take issue with - there's no way to get back all the search results from Google with support for basic things like pagination, which the SOAP API did without a problem. The AJAX API limits you to a maximum of 8 results (that's right, eight!), beyond which your visitors/users have to click a "More results" link that takes them to the regular Google search results page (which obviously also display ads). So there's basically no way to create a custom search system that blends in with the look and feel of your blog/site or application. If you want more than the measly 8 results, you're getting redirected to Google's search results page. What kind of API is that? It takes away virtually every bit of customizability and control from the developer. Web developers who were using the AJAX API even before the SOAP API was deprecated have been asking for more than 8 results and pagination on Google's support group, but nothing has happened so far. A feature request for the same has been closed with the status "No Fix Planned." It's obviously not a technical hurdle, but a pure business decision - a classic case of when something that's good for a company is not good for its users.

This limitation is the reason why I won't even consider using the AJAX Search API here. Back when I decided to add a search box to this site, my first and most important requirement was that visitors would stay within this domain, and that search results would blend in with the rest of the site. If Google wants to take that away, Microsoft and Yahoo are waiting with open arms...at least for now? :)