Technology for Conferences and Special Events

Last Blog of the Semester

2008-12-14T18:49:00.000-08:00

Before this class I had never blogged before. I think that I barely knew what a blog was and I didn't really understand what the purpose of them was. Now, about 16 weeks later, my prospective on blogs has totally changed. Having to complete a blog each week has really shown me the value that blogs have in many different facets of life; keeping people updated on happenings in the news, providing advice for consumer products, providing opinions about various trends and occurrences. Personally, I found the task of having to find something new to blog about every week that no one else might previously have blogged on, though it was often not my activity of choice, was valuable because it kept me up to date on various technology products and services that were coming out and being developed.

The most important thing I learned through the process was how and where to find information about new technologies that are out or that are coming out. I learned that things never stop moving and as fast as you can think of how cool a tool might be if it did this or that, someone is already working on making it a reality. I also learned that technology is everywhere and is really becoming something that the world is relying on more and more. The pace of technology is so evident in everyone's blogs from class it is hard to pick just one that stands out as the best or most interesting because I think they all show just how cool, and crazy, and somewhat creepy technology is.

Xobni

2008-12-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

I was at a field visit for a class last Thursday and the man speaking to us casually mentioned a new system he was trying to interface with his Outlook. The name of the product is Xobni. At first I thought, "what the heck kind of name is that for a product?" Then I thought, "it down, Chan, so you can remember it for your blog this week!" So here I am, writing about this tool called Xobni. The program was developed by a San Francisco based start up company. It was founded by two men, Adam Smith and Matt Brezina in the spring of 2006. The company believes hat people spend too much time searching for conversations, attachments, and other information stored in their inbox.

Xobni is the tool to solve this problem. As you might have already noticed, Xobni is inbox spelled backwards. This was done to demonstrate the companies mission to "take back the email inbox for users." Xobni helps emailers by creating a profile for each individual that emails a person. The profiles contain relationship statistics, information regarding the contact, social connections, threaded conversations, and shared attachments. Xobni can be downloaded right from the website. Once downloaded, users will see the Xobni toolbar appear and when a new email arrives, the senders full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar. The tool also do things such as extract contact information from emails and keep track of the users busy schedule.

This tool could prove to make industry people, like those in the events industry more organized, and help to keep track of contacts that maybe people don't think they need, and then realize they suddenly do and have to searching back through their emails from weeks past to find that one particular number. I know I personally hate that! If I was cool enough to have a job and an outlook email address at work right now, I would definitely think about downloading Xobni to help keep me organized, it looks really cool!

Tag That Image, Visual Bookmarking Sites Worth Blogging

2008-11-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

We have all heard, by now, of the social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious. These sites allow people to tag articles and other text deemed interesting so that others may enjoy reading them. Now, however, other sites have been developed that allow people to, instead of bookmarking articles found on the Web, bookmark visual images found on the Web.

Three sites geared toward visual bookmarking have been created so far; FFFFound, We Heart It, and Vi.sualize.us. The article I read, by Jenna Wortham, states that, although the sites are far getting the hype that other social bookmarking sites are getting - Digg boasts 35 million users a month, they are gaining a steady following. The article describes the sites as "similar to a white walled gallery, they present their goods with little to no flourish..." making the Web pages simple, clean, and user friendly. This type of clean and easy to use interface is key in allowing the web pages to gain popularity and compete with other social bookmarking sites.

FFFFound was created in 2007 by a Tokyo based design firm. This particular visual bookmarking site is unique in the way that it has placed a cap on the number of members allowed to join the site. This was done out of fear that if there were too many people involved in bookmarking images to the site it might become unmanageable and cluttered. Anyone, however, can brows the image catalog.

Of all three sites, Vi.sualize.us is said to offer the most variety. Things such as t-shirt designs and artsy studio shots can be found on this site. Now Vi.sualize.us has almost 10,000 members and 300,000 images. We Heart It was created by a designer who could not get onto FFFFound. The article compared We Heart It to Flickr but with a more avant-garde feel. The site also allows its 16,000 member to tag video from sites such as YouTube, and it is estimated that a new selection is added each minute.

As other bookmarking sites allow meeting and event planners to stay up to date on news and things that might be happening in their industry, perhaps this tool will allow meeting and event planners a different use. It seems that these visual bookmarking tools might be useful to planners looking for themes or creative ideas for their next social event.

Google Unplugs Lively as Hype Fades Over Virtual Worlds

2008-11-24T18:18:00.000-08:00

For the past several weeks in class we have been having the discussion about where virtual worlds stand in our industry and whether they will move forward in success or failure. Reading the technology section in the New York Times today, there was an article, by Ashlee Vanice, about how Google plans to put the kibosh on its Lively application at the end of the year. The company claims that that they want to prioritize themselves and focus on projects which are most important (I am assuming that means things such as G1). However, the article states that, in the past, Google has been more than willing to leave the beta tag on its debut applications for months and months while Lively has only been out since July and already found itself facing the end of its run. Will we see this application in the future, or is done for good?

In other virtual reality news, the article also discussed dying enthusiasm with Second Life. Reactions to the things that go on in Second Life are similar to those found in class. Vanice writes that the things appealing in Second Life to it's hardcore enthusiasts are generally boring or creepy for most others. Stephanie is definitely not alone! Some say that there is not that much to do in Second Life, and while it was thought to be the thing that shook up online business, it is falling quite short for some.

We speak about all the ways in which these online worlds can add value and innovation to the meetings and events industry, and with the current economic crisis providing businesses with a lack of capital, the tools that these applications possess seem like the perfect fix! Perhaps these virtual worlds are only appropriate for specific industries, such as ours. Are developers of these programs marketing their products to too broad a market? The article never really mentioned the impact, if any, of virtual worlds on the hospitality industry. Will the creepsters win and see their virtual worlds gain a second wind in the eyes of technology consumers, or will the creeped out triumph, making this new and somewhat odd technology a thing of the past?

Real Life Applications of Microsoft Surface

2008-11-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

So although I blogged about it last week, I am still interested in this whole thing. Last night I went to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum Solace (it's really good!), and they were using a technology identical to in several different scenes. I thought this was really cool because normally when I watch movies or shows about secret agents I tend to think all the technology they use has yet to be developed, or is not available to the public; hidden in some secret government warehouse. This, however, is available to the public and is being used in several different applications! It's not only secret agents!

I began to do a little more digging into the use of in real life - not just in the movies. I discovered that used technology during the recent . News casters were using to present the electoral map and the battleground states. In a video with one reporter, he is using Surface, the table like form of it, while the screen in front of him is projected onto a monitor to his right showing viewers what he sees when he looks down at the table. The camera crew was, however, taking shots of the actual Surface screen to allow viewers to see what it looks like in use.

Seeing Surface being applied and used in this kind of situation put new ideas into my head about how the events industry might use the technology. Last week I said that event managers could use Surface as a conversation piece between attendees, or as a tool that would help them learn more about the companies in attendance to the event. Now, however, what if Surface could replace PowerPoint presentations by speakers at conferences, or replaced business pitches to clients. It would provide for a more interactive presentation and keep attendees more interested in what is on the screen instead of having them zone out and/or not pay attention to the PPT no matter how many fun graphics or animations were on the screen. I'm excited to see how Surface will take off in the future.

Sheraton Tries Out Microsoft Surface

2008-11-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

I believe only once in class we have discussed Microsoft's Surface technology. When looking for a topic to blog about this week, I came across an article on Meetings Industry Megasite discussing its introduction into the hospitality world. I got curious and decided to investigate. The article, by Marshall Krantz, states that Sheraton's in New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco, are offering the use of Microsoft Surface to guests in the hotels. Sheraton is the first major hotel chain to offer the tool to the public. The program started in August with Starwood Hotels and Resorts using the five previous mentioned hotels in a pilot program that could become chainwide.

The article goes on to describe Sufrace as a 30 inche, rectangular table looking object. Inside the screen, five cameras sense hand touche and gestures that allows users to manipulate the digital objects on the screen with their hands instead of a mouse. The Surface website describes the product as having been designed with vaious industries in mind, including the hospitality industry. Microsoft claims that Surface can help companies to enhance customer experiene and increase loyalty, increase revenue, and reduce operational costs.

As of now, the tool is limited to only three functions in the five specific Sheraton hotels; guests can gather information about the local area, play music, and find information about other Sheraton properties. However, Krantz states in her article that the product allows users to interact with the hotel as well as interact with each other. I think that it would be cool to see Surface used in events and meetings. Perhaps the tool could be set up and used in a way that would allow attendees to learn more about the companies that are hosting the meeting or event, or even about other companies that are in attendance to the meeting or event. It would also be a cool tool for attendees to use as method of interaction with each other while in attendance. Its awkward to attend an event and not know anyone, erhaps this tool could serve as a kind of conversation starter.

For now there are only a select number of companies using Surface on a broad scale - Sheraton hotels being one of the only hospitality related. It will be interesting to see how the product is percieved and how it takes off from where it is now.

Politics and Technology

2008-11-02T16:31:00.000-08:00

So in my search to find information about politics and technology, I found a site literally entitled Politics and Technology. I thought this site might provide some interesting information. The subtitle on the page explained how the site would explore how candidates are using the net as an organization tool. Although the page had little information on the presidential campaigns going on now, i.e. McCain and Obama, it did have one helpful link that pointed me in the right direction.

On the Politics and Technology website was a link to a site called Blue State Digital. This particular site uses online tools such as, individual fundraising, online advocacy, outbound email, social networking, and content management to help make internet communities available for candidates, cause-related organizations, and other companies. Blue State Digital acts as a broad outreach to help gain public support for candidates and their organizations for specific causes and issues.

What I liked most about the site was that it offered case studies of people that had used BSD successfully. One such case study was about the Obama campaign. His campaign used the site to fundraise, motivate social networkings, and to promote events. BSD stated that the Obama campaign made full use of the fundraising tools the site had to offer, helping to raise over 17 million dollars. The campaign also used a toold known as True Match; new donars were brough to gether with their matching donar personally enabling them to meet and discuss their committment to the cause. From the information I gathered from the case study BSD also acts as a kind of registration site that allows authorized campaign managers to set up and promote events and other fundraising activities. It also allows them to do such thigns as manage community content and blog programs. BSD also tabulates statistics automatically so that managers can monitor performance and make modifications to maximize results from using the site.

I guess I really never considered how the use of technology plays a role in todays politics. It only makes sense that political figures would use technology as it has become such an integral part of peoples lives today. It is so much more efficient and allows campaign managers and the candidates to reach a greater population of people and stay more connected to them. From my investigations, BSD appears to be doing a great job at providing numerous tools to allow political campaigns to do just that.

Technology in Action

2008-11-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday I attended the BizBash Event Style Expo at the Javits Center. The Expo was filled with some really cool and interesting companies, as well as a lot of fun and interactive exhibitor booths. While I was walking around I kept seeing these hand held black box-type things that people kept holding up to one anothers badges. I quickly realized that these objects were scanning that barcodes on each attendees badge, collecting the information associated with their name in BizBash's registration system.

Earlier this semester, Denise blogged about a tool called Mingle360. This device is used by pointing one's own MingleStick to anothers, creating a wireless connection between the two that allows the exchange of information such as name, company, position. It basically acts as an electronic business card. It's the perfect networking tool, as it is easy and efficient and helps reduce paper waste from printing business cards!

The tool being used at BizBash, however, was a little different. As I went from booth to booth, the exhibitors would scan the bar code located on my tag and receive all my information that had been entered into the computer system upon my registration. Though I wasn't able to find out the name of the barcode scanner being used at the event, I did some research afterewards and found many products similar to what I had seen at the trade show.

One such product is called the Gizmo. Advanced Expo Solutions International makes two versions of the Gizmo, the Gizmo Jr. and the Gizmo PLUS. The junior version of the product is the size of a car key and is easy to operate. The PLUS model is larger and takes the look of a Blackberry or PDA. The PLUS can record data from bar codes as well as store photos, document images, and audio files. Event planners can rent these to have onsite for exhibitors to use to capture data of individuals for prospective sales, or to capture data from attendees to create or add to an email listserv.

It was really cool to see technology in action at an industry event. And, it has made me wonder if buisness cards will truly become obsolete in the near future.

Google Android

2008-10-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Google Android was released Thursday Oct. 23, 2008. What is Google Android? It's a smartphone! The first one of its kind that interfaces Google applications with standard phone applications! Well, its actually a LOT more than that. Android is actually a "software stack for mobile phones, including an operating system, middleware, and key operations. OK, that's all gibberish to me - laments terms please! From what I can gather, it is basically a phone that also functions as a mini, handheld computer.

Not only is this new product a phone with computer capabilities, the software behind the product does not stray from Google software standards, as it is open source. "A mobile open source programming platform? How is that possible," I thought when I first read about it. Well, as it stands, anyone can add features and programs to Android. There is even a developers challange worth $10 million between first, second, and third prize to set the bar high for Googles latest attempt at taking over the Web. However, to safeguard against nasty programmers, Google has established the OHA, or Open Handset Alliance, that will work to create increased openness among mobile environments.

So what can we expect to see in the way of cool applications and features on the phone that is, as of now, only supported by T-Mobile? Well for one things, applications on the phone will be more personalized to the owner. It seems like the sky is the limit, though, when it comes to determining what kind of apps will be put into the phone. One example came from silicon.com by Natasha Lomas. She writes, "a developer could write an app that grabs a GPS-positioning feed from public transport, mash that up with Google Maps and then get a user's phone to send an alert when the bus/train etc is a few minutes away." How amazing and altogether fascinating would that be?! I am very interested to find out where Google will bring the world of mobile technology over the next five years with this new innovation, and I can't wait to watch!

Cisco Launches Pay-per-Use TelePresence System

2008-10-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

In an article from meetingsnet.com, I discovered that Cisco Systems was launching a pay-per-use version of their TelePresence program. TelePresence is a videoconferencing software program that provides its users with "fluid motion video, high-quality accoustics (apparently every sound; even the tiniest of them, can be transmitted), and real life-size images of participants." The article also explains that until now, TelePresence was only available to a couple hundred companies. Now, however, Cisco is partnering with Taj Hotels around the world and Tata Communications Company to set up videoconferencing rooms.

On their site, Cisco tells customers that by renting a TelePresence room one can enjoy reduced travel times as well as expenses, an increase in productivity, and a reduction of the impact on the environment that occurs when traveling to and from meetings. The technology even has phone conferencing features such as hold and mute in addition to offering standard meeting amenities like internet, faxing, and catering. The cost to ret a TelePresence videoconferencing room is $299 per hour for one to two people and $899 per hour for up to and including 18 people. I guess you can be the judge of how steep or fair this price is.

So, is Cisco's TelePresence program only for public and private companies? No way! The company is marketing their product to other parties as well. They say it can be used for weddings, birthday parties, graduations and other family gatherings. It can also be used for employee and volunteer training sessions, as well as planning sessions for events. Is this something that event planners will now have to include in their budgets for weddings and other celebratory events? I guess we will have to wait and see.

2008-10-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Searching through some of the event technology and meeting industry related sites this week in desperate need for something to write about, I came across a system known as Eventbee. Eventbee is an event registration software that allows event planners to sell event tickets online. All an event planner needs to do in order to sell tickets through the software is to create a registration system and then customize an event page. Then, the fun can begin! The event planner sends out invitations and the tickets start to sell.

Eventbee uses payment systems PayPal and Google for credit card processing, and also requires planners to pay a fee of only $1 per ticket for their service. The software also allows for users to sell tickets from multiple sites through Eventbee's networking system. Planners can even sell tickets through Facebook! Selling through Facebook can help planners advertise their event as the vent can be seen through features such as mini feeds, and the events can also be seen on a planners user profile page. This product definitley helps to facilitate and ease the process of selling event tickets by allowing users to customize their event pages, sell tickets on various sites, and even work through Facebook. It allows for maximum exposure of the event so that planners are given ample opportunity to sell as many tickets as possible.

Greenapple Maps for Event Planners

2008-10-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

During my Tourism class on Monday night, we had a guest speaker by the name of Wendy Brawer. Wendy is the founder of a non-profit organization called Green Map System, creator of the first Green Apple Map, started in 1992. Originally designed to help tourists and new comers to New York City to develop an interest in sustainable living, the organization has grown into so much more. New and different Green Maps are continuously being worked on around the world; from the UK to China. Today there are over 440 towns and villages in more than 50 countries participating in the Green Maps program.

Before the end of this year, Green Maps will take another big step for its company by creating an online Open Green Map site, designed to bridge the "gap between awareness and action." Open Green Maps is using the help of Google Maps to create an interactice experience for people who use the site. Once open to the home page, one is presented with a map of the world with several different icons placed speratically across the continents. The icons belong to the universally used Green Maps Iconography index and represent different categories of all things green; i.e. parks, compost sites, buildings, etc). The user has the ability to turn off any of the icons that they do not want to focus on. Once clicking on an icon, a dialogue box appears with the name and address of the mapped green site. The title of the site is a link that brings up a larger dialogue box that allows the user to view details of the site, gives her an overview of the site, allows the user to leave comments if they have ever visited, and to view any connection occuring with the site, such as events, related links or related green maps. One can also add pictures or videos, and leave comments as to how the site has had an impact on their life since visiting. It is designed to be completely interactive and allow mulitple people, not just the publishers of a map, to collaborate and share their experiences.

Though the focus was not on event planners, or ways to enhance the events industry, in her presentation, Wendy did inform us that a number of event coordinators had created maps in the past. I think Open Green Maps could prove to be a great tool for an event planner. Though I am unsure of what type of maps event coordinators have developed in the past, how great would it be to have a published map of all the green locations to hold a meeting or an event, or even of companies and organizations that planners work with (various vendors) that use green processes. As LEED hotels and meeting centers are becoming more common, I'm sure a map like this would eventually become quite extensive and have a heavy impact on the industry. The fact that Open Green Maps is accessible to anyone in the world with a computer means that information such as what I just described, with green hotels and vendors, would be available to meeting planners all around the world.

Wiggio is Wicked Cool

2008-09-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'm on the NYU Dance Team , and although you might not think so at first, we blow up each others inboxs with rehearsal and meeting times and locations, music files, among many other things. Recently the captain of the Dance Team made a group for us on a site called Wiggio. Wiggio? God bless you! Actually, its an online toolkit that makes working and collaborating in groups much easier.

Personally I love anything fun and easy to use that will compartmentalize my life and keep things in lists and on calendars. Wiggio does just that! In an article on CNET News from Sept, 15, I learned that Wiggio was created by Dana Lampert and Lance Poliby. The two were working on a group project and were going crazy with the complicating features of systems similar to Wiggio such as 37signlas. The point of Wiggio is to make collaborating and working in groups easier for all involved. Wiggio has several key features such as messaging, calendar, poll, folder, meetings, and links. All of these features come with step by step (for the most part steps 1-3 or 4) and easy to follow instructions. Wiggio founders have taken their site a step further to also allow users to send out blast text messages and emails through the site. Signing up for Wiggio is super simple, too! All you have to do is provide your name, email, and phone number (for those mass text messages), create a password and your done! Users can also subscribe to multiple groups should they need or choose to.

I think Wiggio is something that we will see a lot more of in the near future. As of right now the system is geared towards college students, with minimal use coming from high schools. However, it seems like it would be a great way to keep office co-workers all on the same page and updated about what meetings or events are going on in their office or place of employment. I don't see it as a way to help meeting planners keep their conferences and various events organized and well run, but rather a way to keep an office of event and meeting professionals organized and well run. Most companies have shared drives on each employees computer that allow everyone to have access to particular documents. Often times an IT person has to come into an office to give new employees access to such drives. This can be kind of a pain. Wiggio, however, eliminates the need for that by allowing members of groups to have access to documents and messages, polls and posts right form their own computers, either at work, at home, or on their crackberry! I know that I have only been on the site a few days as of right now, and already I love it!

Disneyland Launches Web-Based Resources for Planners, Attendees

2008-09-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, launched a new Web-based resource for meeting planners and attendees. The article, titled "Disneyland Launches Web-Based Resources for Planners, Attendees," from mimegasite.com, , discusses what the product hopes to achieve. Per our lesson last week about online registration systems, I thought this article would be a nice tie-in. The new tool was actually created by the Disneyland convention and group reservation team. As we discussed how expensive it is for companies to make their own reservation systems, I did find myself wondering how much the system cost Disneyland to develop. When I was reading about the different services and features of the product, it actually sounded a lot like GoldReg. Disney's product is also an online registration system that allows for the booking and managing room blocks as well as the ability to monitor registration status. The product also allows meeting planners to customize thier event page with colors and logos particular to their event. One feature of the new Web-based tool that I thought was cool is that it allows planners to access the Disneyland's theme park information and to purchase theme park tickets. It also allows them to preview Disney's speical events and services. I think this feature is what makes the product unique to Disneyland. While meeting planners can still taylor their event page within the system to reflect the theme and aura of their particular meeting, Disney has still kept its special touch to the system by allowing easy access to online ticket and park information and purchase to the planner so that they can take full advantage of everything the Disneyland Resort has to offer. I wonder if it would make sense for large convention centers and hotels to adopt a tool such as Disney's particular to their site, or if they already do?

Technology Makes Meetings Green

2008-09-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

I was looking over Corbin Ball's latest newsletter the other day and came across and article entitled, "45 Ways to Use Technology to Green Meetings." Because I am working on organizing the Annual NYU Hospitality Investment Conference I thought it would be an interesting read and possibly give me some ideas as to ways to make NYU's planning process potentially more green. Most of the recommendations were on ways to save paper. Some of the better recommendations were having an electronic database of meeting facilities rather than the directories and brochures that many meeting planners use now. Another was using electronic RFP's instead of sending out bulky Word documents to several different places. A third good suggestion was to use email instead of paper promotion for meetings and events, which I think is something that many meeting planners do already. The article also spoke about using virtual site inspections. I took issue with this one particular suggestion for a couple different reasons. The first reason being I personally feel like it is more beneficial to a meeting planner to see a site in person rather than in a small video box on the computer. Virtual tours tend to make spaces look bigger than they because of the angle and placement of the camera. I feel that virtual tours give a skewed perception of a room. My second reason is this; what if there is a site that does not have it's room inventory online for a meeting planner to explore. Then, a meeting planner is forced to do an in person site inspection anyway. Perhaps more event facilities should focus on putting their room inventory online so that this aspect of the industry becomes more standard and common place.
More ways to make meetings green included, electronic contracts and digital signatures, online housing and room block management, online registration and confirmation, electronic programs that would be emailed to phone/PDA systems, electronic systems. While I believe that all of these "be greener" recommendations are valid would definitely help reduce paper waste, I wonder how long it might take for them to become industry standards, and if they ever will prove to become such. It cannot be ignored that many meeting and conference planners prefer to have hard copies of important documents in their hands rather than looking at them through a computer screen. Also, I feel that people may not have a lot of trust in the electronic world as there is a real fear of system crashes and the possibility of losing data. I guess only time will tell whether meeting planners are willing to go more green through the use of technology.

Google Chrome

2008-09-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

I read the 38 page comic strip that Google released about their new browser, Google Chrome, and was really excited to learn about something Google had created just for web users. But, after reading it, I felt rather confused to be completely honest. There was a lot of technological jargon in the comic strip that I had a hard time keeping up with, and I found myself skipping pages because I was literally lost in the translation. However, fortunately I did understand some really fun, convenient, and important features of Chrome. I like that it was designed specifically for the applications that are being used on the web more and more as well as for those who are using the applications. Chrome promises to be faster, more safe and secure, and more stable than browsers currently being used. Though reviews that I read of Chrome said that the product fell slightly short of the promises Google made, I feel that it will eventually meet and exceed expectations of users. I feel that once Google Chrome becomes the browser that it has promised to be, working efficiently and without many glitches, it will impact our industry by making it more organized. When opening up a new tab, the user is presented with all of their most visited sites. It also keeps track of key words and phrases used to search. Chrome will help eliminate searching for sites the people use on a daily basis, and will help make those things easily accessible. It will also keep the industry more efficient by being able to handle higher levels of video and audio streaming, as well as being able to handle an increased level of browser windows and tabs open. Chrome will also help to better the Internet in general. It reports harmful sites to the owners so that they can have the opportunity to clean the site up, and also is an open source browser, allowing others to take advantage of things Google is doing well and use them for themselves. I have also wondered, while reading about Chrome and the different reviews written about the browser, if it will become a monopoly on browser services as it includes email, blogs, search engine capabilities, chat options, and so much more.