Gawker: valleywag, niniane wang

The party photos Googlers don't want you to see

Owen Thomas — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:40:00 EDT

Was it something we said? On Friday, we featured a snapshot of Googler Orkut Buyukkokten — yes, that Orkut. The photo appeared in Google engineering manager Niniane Wang's Smugmug gallery of a 2006 party held at colleague Orkut Buyukkokten's South of Market loft. The page now has a password, but it's trivially easy to guess: The street on which the party was held, all lowercase.

That would be "bryant"; the party was a farewell to Buyukkokten's loft at 767 Bryant, #204, known as Studio 767. Buyukkokten himself posted over 80 pages of photosto his .Mac homepage. No password, as of yet.

Google in 2008

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:30:20 EST

Blogoscoped, Phillip Lenssen's authoritative Google blog, just posted its 2008 predictions for Larry and Sergey's money machine. And if you're up for trudging through his 2,701 words, by all means, go. For the rest of you, here are the bullet points.

Predictions for Google in 2008 based on announcements, rumor and trends
Google Health. An automated health guide.
Maka Maka. The new social backend across different Google services.
Google My World. All we know is the sign-up screen: 2D and 3D avatars under the headline "Redefine Your World."
Niniane Wang's "Project in Social Space." One of the oldest rumors around. Wang called it the "best project in the world." It may even be "My World."
Gdrive. A rumored project that may bring file sharing to users and Google services.
Relaunch of JotSpot. In 2008, will JotSpot's wiki page-editing software become part of Google's Web apps and replace Google Page Creator?
Google Android. The open mobile platform. Maybe actual hardware in 2008.
Google Knol. A (smaller) competitor to Wikipedia.
New Gmail design. Screenshots have been circulating.
Google event oneboxes and logos. A series for the Beijing Olympic games in August 2008, an Olympics results onebox, another logo doodle in November urging people to vote.
Google Gears allows Web applications to provide offline functionality, such as Google Reader letting you continue reading posts even when you're offline . Still missing for such services as Gmail or Google Docs. Maybe in 2008.
More employees leave Google. Google went public in 2004. The company is split between the millionaires and the latecomers. But a bigger challenge may be for Google to keep the spontaneous "startup" creativity & excitement alive.

The real Googler behind its virtual world

Mary Jane Irwin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:20:50 EDT

Who's the mysterious force behind "My World," Google's rumored foray into virtual worlds? Signs point to Google engineering manager Niniane Wang who's currently leading a "confidential project," which was thought to be a virtual world back in January. According to her resume, the project relies on C++ and Java — both languages are used in serious game development. Prior to her move to California in 2003, she was a lead design engineer at Microsoft Games working on Flight Simulator 2004 and racing games. Sounds like the perfect background for a fly-through metaverse.