We recentlybrought you newsthat Google had applied to trademark the name ‘Photovine’, seemingly as some kind of new social media service it had brewing behind the scenes. At the time there was also speculation that it had the domain namePhotovine.comtoo. Now that’s been confirmed.
Fusible, ever watchful of such matters, has spotted that a DNS lookup for the domain nowlists Googleas the owner. That said, visit the domain, and you’ll be told in a nice big font: “Nothing to see here, move along”. You could be a little more polite about it, Google!google.com/photovine, meanwhile, leads to a standard Google 404 error.
So, what is Photovine likely to be? We’ve certainly heard no rumours about any forthcoming photo sharing service Google, so all we can go off is the trademark application. It covers the fields of ‘Computer software’, ‘Communications services’, ‘Non-downloadable computer software‘ and, most interestingly, ‘On-line social networking services‘. This would lead us to believe that whatever Google’s working on is a social service, with the ‘non-downloadable’ part hinting at a Web app – no big surprise for browser-loving Google.
Google’s record with launching and maintaining social services is poor. It had better be pulling something special out of the bag whenever it launches whatever Photovine turns out to be – something the public actually wants to use for longer than it takes the novelty to wear off.
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Story byMartin SFP Bryant
Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletter PreSeed Now and technology and media consultancy Big Revolution. He was previously(show all)Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletterPreSeed Nowand technology and media consultancyBig Revolution. He was previously Editor-in-Chief at TNW.
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