Blogger:
Sure, its been missing our eye for quite sometime. Unsure when it was introduced, but today discovered it.
One can display on the Blog, who all are following that Blog.
Its like, if I am fan of the contents of a blog, and I want everyone in the world (or only myself) to know that I am following all the proceedings, new posts at that blog, then I have to just click on the link '
Follow this Blog', and I will be added to the display-list of all the bloggers who follow that blog.
This feature has to be enabled at an individual blog level so that 'Fans' show to the world (or themselves) that they are fans of the particular blog. When one becomes fan of a blog, it is at the Blogger Profile level...quite obvious though :)
What exactly have they done? They have integrated RSS feeds....If I am subscribed to RSS feeds of a particular site (either through Google Reader or any other FeedReaders), I am becoming 'fan' of the content of that site. By adding this feature, they are just making the identity of all those people who have subscribed to their blog (willing the subscriber wants to reveal his/her identity) known to the world. FeedBurner just displays number of subscribers, where this one shows the profile pic with link to their profile on that site. This is a step towards integration of Blog and Google Reader. I can easily mark myself as a fan of a feed in Google Reader. Vice-versa, a particular site gets subscribed automatically to Google Reader when I mark myself as its fan.
What is Following?
How do I add Following gadget to my Blog?
You can see me following
Google Student Blog :)
And I need to see, how many follow my blog! :o)
Update 1:
In Google Reader, it gives option to "hide blogs you follow" under
Settings -> Preferences -> Misc -> Show followed blogs from Blogger (check or uncheck it)
Picassa Web:
Addition of
Face Recognition into PicWeb has taken globe by a storm (officially called 'Name Tags'). There are multiple forums, blogs, sites talking about it, reviewing its credibility, durability, and usefulness. Let me give my own comments on it.
I have tagged about 340 photos (agree, the count does have some duplication). Stunning thing is, it groups similar faces and tags them in one go. It has kind of solved one of the biggest research problem on generic face recognition and their grouping (Raghu sir to confirm and authorise). This grouping is irrespective of a person wearing a cap or not! :)
Okay, so one part is it is: groups images together (ofcourse, not 100% of pics are grouped in one go. Might be due to difference in the angles of face, complexion, light balance, etc.). After we tag few pictures, it provides suggestions for tagging a new pic(face) / group of pics(faces). If I have tagged name 'Raghu sir' (this name/mail id comes from the contacts list of Gmail) against a pic(face) of his (which was framed by internal process of PicWeb which takes few minutes to finish its processing), then if there comes another pic or group of pics of Raghu sir, then one of the three name suggestions for the pic is invariably Raghu Sir. When I observed this, I had to appreciate the brain behind this working.
It first identifies a face, then continuously it compares with already tagged face and suggests that name which closely fits it. For one of the pics, it gave me only one suggestion and that was 100% correct!!!
Link to read up. Theres a lot to it, no doubt. But these things, were something I could not stop myself from appreciating.
People are welcome to share their experiences...
