We've been having an influx of users for our mail for domains product because it is free compared to what Google provides now. We also have an importer from Gmail that works via IMAP.
BTW, there's an XMPP service too but I don't think we have English docs for that.
Some people here are confused about the business side of making a browser for Google. I even saw mentions that Google Chrome is just a good will project to make the Web a better palce.
While that is partially true, Google Chrome also has a very strong business strategy behind it.
Right now it is the main distribution channel for Google Search. Every download of the browser is converted (with a probability, of course) to more searches or to a switch-over from another search engine.
For quite a long time (several years) search engine quality has not been selling itself. Many people do not notice any real difference between Bing/Baidu/Yandex/Seznam and Google.
Google invented search distribution with Google Toolbar (which was a tremendous success from business side) and right now Google Chrome is the new Google Toolbar. One of the main KPIs for Google Chrome product is Google Search market share. Specifically they directly optimize for Google Search share from inside Google Chrome which when multiplied by the share of the browser converts into money.
Just wanted to clarify things, sorry if not mentioning Blink made this comment an off-topic one.
One thing that jumped into my mind when I was thinking about using pedals at the computer is a pedal to switch the current shell into «su-mode». So that commands will be run as root while I'm holding the pedal.
Sadly, I don't think it will be trivial to implement.
I will add my 5 cents with a mention of Qawwali music and specifically works of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustt_Mustt. This is not just a ticket to the zone for me, more like a teleport :)
Actually, that's debatable. First, most 80 columns cards had the last 8 columns ignored (or used for metadata). Second, it is much more probable that 80 columns limit comes from 80x25 text resolution of EGA/VGA displays.
CP866 is a very old standard, it was used in pre-Windows times. There are at least 3 more standards to encode cyrillics in 8 bits. Today, most Cyrillic letters on the web are encoded in either UTF-8 or CP1251.
All of them define the whole alphabete, though, so even the letters that look similar to some latin letters are always encoded differently.
Interesting. People who actively use Multiple Inbox lab in GMail usually have the same or similar configuration. (Starred, Drafts and label:toread for incoming links — that's mine).
I think your first goal now should be encouraging users to return later.
I would definitely promise right on the results page that more writers would be added regularly and algorithms would be improved so that people had reasons to bookmark you or to subscribe to your twitter/facebook waiting for their favourite authors.
I would also make local pages for all writers you have. Link to Amazon in that place is unexpected.
You could also encourage showing off by enhancing badges. That could be percentages (e.g. I write like 7% of users) or cool portraits or even something like "I write like Stephen King - I could have written The Stand".
Litmus claim they have a "secret sauce" that lets them detect email clients and user actions reliably. Sounds suspicious.