blog.ulfw.com » Work

Singapore – here I come

ulfw — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:26:57 +0000

I guess the best way to describe what I’ll be doing starting next month is from Tim’s really nice article on Trendslate:

Former MySpace Director Ulf Waschbusch Becomes Chief Product Officer at Gaming Startup ‘Garena’
Submitted by Tim Schulz on February 24, 2010

Ulf Waschbursch, a former Director of Product at MySpace Mobile will be joining Singapore-based gaming startup Garena as Chief Product Officer in March. Prior to joining Myspace, Ulf was a Product Marketing Manager in Google’s mobile-product division after graduating from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB).

Garena Software is a gaming-platform company that was founded by another Standford GSB graduate and has grown to over 25-million registered users across 200 countries — making Garena one of the largest international-gaming communities in the world. The company has a strong foothold in cybercafes across Asia, Europe and South America, and they’re beginning to move up the value chain by partnering with companies like MTV to build rich entertainment experiences for users. As Chief Product Officer, Ulf will be based in Singapore and will be responsible for extending the product into new feature areas and countries.

Based on what we see from the company’s worldwide user distribution map, it looks like he’ll be earning quite a few frequent-flier miles. Best of luck to you Ulf!

More about the company here.

Update: More recent mentions:
- Techcrunch – MySpace Lost Faith For All Things Mobile
- e27 – Former Director of MySpace Mobile Joining Garena as Chief Product Officer

MySpace Mobile website number one in United States

ulfw — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:12:04 +0000

Now this is something Silicon Valley press would rarely talk about:
According to research company Ground Truth (and this) m.myspace.com has been the top-ranked mobile website in the United States of America (counted in pageviews) last month. Facebook and Google follow on number two and three.

This is a great success for the team who rebuilt the whole site (back- and front-end) over the last year. Congrats!

Good-bye MySpacers

ulfw — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:53:33 +0000

I had a few days to think about wether I should write this post or not. But it seems people have noticed my absence. or chose to write a similar post before me.
So with this I would like to dedicate the post to the awesome people I had the chance to work with at MySpace.
As we all know, all good things come to and end eventually and thus it’s time for me to say good-bye. A move to the Bay Area will be next for me in a month or two. And from there? We’ll see.

To reminiscence a little: I really had an awesome time with all of you there!
In the last year we had a phenomenal turn-out of new products, gaining and satisfying literally tens of millions of new and existing users and changing the mobile landscape together with our tremendous set of partners from Microsoft to RIM, from AT&T to T-Mobile, from Google to Shazam. I’m proud to have been able to work with a tremendously dedicated and passionate group of people, which I am happy to call friends now.

With our nimble mobile team, we were able to achieve a great set of product launches, including among many others:
- Mobile WebNext, one of the world’s most advance mobile websites for WebKit browsers
- a whole new m.myspace.com, with enhanced graphical abilities and new feature sets and tremendous performance and uptime improvements leading to tremendous usage growth.
- a unified new look and user interface to make users feel home on multiple platforms
- a revamped SMS status product
- photo uploads via eMail, MMS, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Sidekick and more. Today a very large percentage of photo uploads to MySpace come from mobile.
- the first social networking application on Android, gaining the number two download spot on the Android Market
- the fastest downloaded application on RIM BlackBerry devices
- numerous new releases and feature updates for the Apple iPhone app, Sidekick, Nokia devices and more.

One thing we should not forget is the tremendous scale at which the team worked. Every little piece of code literally has an impact on millions of people. This I think should humble us all. Farewell friends and best of luck!

Developer Sandbox Interview: MySpace Mobile

ulfw — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:53:42 +0000

Last week I visited Google’s 2nd i/o developer conference in San Francisco’s Moscone West center. As part of our presence there, we actually had the nice opportunity to demonstrate MySpace Mobile to the Android and Google developer community with our own stand for both days in the developer Sandbox section. Here is a short video that Google filmed while we were there.
Now I have to preface some of the awkwardness you’ll see by saying:
- we only had one microphone to share. Thus I was told to be as close as possible to Scott and Matt in order for their voice to be picked up by the mic
- the interviewer was standing left of us outside the video frame when she asked us the questions
- we were told not to look at her and to repeat the question, as the question will be cut out (which apparently didn’t happen. So Scott’s and my funny faces are actually on the video, which gives it a certain charm I think ).
Anyways – without further ado. Here you go:

Update your status via SMS

ulfw — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:09:27 +0000

Did you know, you can update your status on multiple networks via text messaging?
Once your account is setup you can send a twitter tweet to 40404 and the content of the text message becomes your status text. You can do it similarly by messaging FBOOK (32665).

MySpace users can also update their status. Setup your account once at http://www.myspace.com/mobilesettings and then send a text message to MYSPC (that is: 69772). The text message content will be your status on MySpace. Right now we set your mood to (empty), but we’re working on allowing you to set your mood too. Go try it out!

MySpace for BlackBerry out now

ulfw — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:23:36 +0000

I am happy to announce that Myspace for BlackBerry has been out for about a week now and the numbers are staggering. The MySpace launch has been the biggest one in RIM’s history. Since the launch on November 13, the application has been downloaded more than 400,000 times, which represents an all-time high for both MySpace and RIM in terms of first week application downloads.

Since then BlackBerry users sent and received more than 15 million messages and updated their mood and status settings via MySpace over 2 million times in the first week.

Go get it while it’s hot at http://www.myspace.com/blackberry

MySpace for iPhone 1.3 launched – new fullscreen photo viewer

ulfw — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:49:44 +0000

I’m a big fan of our iPhone applications. Yet one of the things that I saw quite a bit of improvement potential on was photo viewing on our iPhone application. Photo viewing is one of the most requested and most used features on mobile phones and social networks.

Today I am proud to announce that our new fullscreen photo viewer launched on iPhone.
- Switch from picture to picture with the swipe of your finger
- Add comments, view and edit captions or change your profile picture
- Turn your phone around to change from landscape to portrait viewing

MySpace launches eMail and MMS photo upload

ulfw — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:42:28 +0000

The launches keep on coming. I am proud to announce that we now support uploading your mobile photos to your MySpace account by sending a simple eMail to MySpace.
Once you have set up your account on www.myspace.com (go to My Account -> Mobile) and choose your own PIN. A special email address will be generated for you. Just save this eMail address in your Address Book and off you go. Anytime you send a picture via eMail/MMS to this unique address, it will be added to your MySpace account. Your email subject will become the picture caption.

MySpace for Android launched!

ulfw — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:10:52 +0000

To welcome the Android platform, I am happy to announce that we launched MySpace for Android today – the first social networking application to hit the Android platform and the T-Mobile G1. More than two million daily unique users visit MySpace�s mobile website, and according to ABI Research 70 percent of people who use social networks on mobile have visited MySpace.

Features:
- Instant photo uploading from an Android device to a MySpace profile
- Check out tour schedules on band profiles
- View and comment on photos, profiles, and bulletins
- Search and add new friends
- Send and read messages
- Update and view mood and status
- Integrated with Shazam for Android. Just tag a song via Shazam and befriend a band at MySpace

Besides m.myspace.com, we now have developed native applications for Android, Sidekick, iPhone, and soon Blackberry.

Just go and grab a copy from the Android Market!

Ex Google Mobile Product Manager Criticizes Android – Setting the record straight

ulfw — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:34:36 +0000

This for me is tech journalism gone horribly wrong.

I’m now being portrayed as the ‘Anti-Googler’, the disgruntled ex employee who isn’t loyal to his former employer. Fact is that my little intro-post of my personal opinions on Android was taken completely out of context and without waiting for the announced series of posts to start.

All I did was merely critique the look of the G1 device. Which I stand behind. I am sorry, but I think it’s dated. I was not talking about the hardware being crap (in fact many things are better than in an iPhone e.g. the autofocus 3MP camera or a removable battery or a full size keyboard) nor did I say a word about the Android OS being bad in any way (which it isn’t). Fact is: I wanted to write POSITIVE posts about the OS – which is developed by Google and has made GREAT advances over the years. I wanted to write about the advantages of an OPEN OS where anyone can build applications for.

I know many of the people on the Android and Google Mobile teams, who’s work I highly respected and still do. I feel sorry that I am now portrayed as a disgruntled ex-Googler, which is far from the truth. I will stop voicing my opinion (positive or negative) on this going forward because I learned my lesson that you can very quickly be singled out by the valley’s main stream media. Which is weird because there were articles in very significant blogs, such as Gizmodo which have a 10x more negative view on things but weren’t highlighted as much. Fact is: I have been and still am a big fan of Google. Why else would I have decided to work there so long?
Fact is also: I do believe Android has a future ahead of it that’s bright and has the potential to become a major player in the market space. The G1 is just the first of many devices.

Looking for Product Manager, Mobile for MySpace

ulfw — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:22:35 +0000

Hi guys,
I’m looking to grow my team and hire a new Product Manager, Mobile for MySpace in Beverly Hills, CA. If you know about good candidates, feel free to reach out to our recruiter Cari Gilbert.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Invent or enhance new mobile products and features to improve user experience and promote inter-site interaction.
- Write concise functional requirements for each new product or existing product enhancements, including business justification and operational impact.
- Create preliminary design concepts and mock-ups.
- Lead the relevant teams to efficiently implement and rollout each product or enhancement.
- Work with business and marketing teams to find the best way to monetize and promote new products and features.

SKILLS/QUALIFICATIONS:
- Internet or mobile product design or product management experience.
- Experience with and deep knowledge of the mobile industry and landscape
- Exceptional interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate with both technical and business experts across multiple parts of the organization.
- Experience managing simultaneous projects and demonstrated team leadership abilities in a fast-paced environment.
- Proven ability to manage direct and indirect teams
- Ability to balance technical and business issues
- Strong organizational skills.

Coincidence AGAIN??

ulfw — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:52:37 +0000

Last time I came back from my (one and only) vacation I took during my Google days, the stock jumped 21% the day I came back.
Now that I’ve left the company, the stock is going nowhere but down after not as high-as-expected Q2 earnings announcements.

Coincidence?

Mobile Trick on DER SPIEGEL

ulfw — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:35:09 +0000

It turns out, my silly Mobile Trick video made it to Germany’s largest newsmagazine and website DER SPIEGEL. See here.
Of course, DER SPIEGEL (The Mirror) being German there had to be a slight negative angle to the story:

which translates into:
“Scrolling-Display

In the video titled “Mobile Messenger” you’re not seeing fantasy functions as before. But the messages in large scrolling type, which can also be read across the meeting room table are bringing true high school behavior into a meeting.”

Whatever… I’m on DER SPIEGEL! Woot woot!
Original video is here.

Joining MySpace in August

ulfw — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:17:53 +0000

After the big bomb has been dropped, here is part 2 of the story. Where am I heading?
I have always been interested in social networks, having signed up for a Facebook account right when they came out (and when they were restricted to just Harvard, Stanford and a few other universities) and used MySpace and LinkedIn for years. So I concentrated my search on social networking and video companies (a second big area of future growth in my opinion). Having gotten multiple offers, I finally decided to go with… MySpace.

For me, it basically were three reasons that drew me to them:
- I genuinely liked all the MySpace folks I met throughout my interviews, from the SVP of Engineering to Products and many in between. Thanks for inviting me to your pizza Friday, guys!
- MySpace is a massively used product, in scale with Google, Yahoo or Facebook.
- The opportunity is just awesome. I am fortunate enough to be on the intersection of Social Networking and Mobile, THE future area of growth for social platforms.

So I am happy to announce that starting August 4th, I’ll be joining MySpace as their new Product Management Director for Mobile!

MySpace is coming up with a lot of new products and features, for example last week a new homepage design launched:

Here is a look at the current MySpace mobile website (m.myspace.com):

This is MySpace’s current building with Fox Interactive Media in Beverly Hills 90210:

Apparently a parking nightmare is awaiting me there.

Starting in June 2009, we’ll be moving to a new campus in Playa Del Rey though, as Techcrunch already reported recently:

All FIM companies in Southern California will move to the new facility starting from June to December 2009. The site will house over 300,000 square feet of commercial space and is part of a development called Horizon at Playa Vista (a rendering of the development is above). The area is quickly becoming LA�s media hub, with EA, Rubin Postaer and others now with offices in the area.

Going away Google bash

ulfw — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:40:21 +0000

Today Effie and Lawrence organized a little going-away meeting/party in our Building’s microkitchen. Effie baked an awesome chocolate cake that looked like an iPhone with the sneezing Panda video on it while Lawrence set the whole thing up and took a video or two as well.
Creative as Googlers are, we organized a little round of Four Square to keep us occupied:

Effie’s super awesome cake:

SNL – MySpace

ulfw — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:15:55 +0000

A funny Saturday Night Live skit I found on hulu:

Setup your MySpace page at the Learning Annex

The big one: I’m leaving Google

ulfw — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 21:17:14 +0000

Yes, I did it. I gave notice yesterday. 07/07/08 will be my last day at Google. While I know, 08/08/08 would have a nice ring to it too, I figured it’s as good a time as any.
Now – I won’t use this space to rant or praise Google. There were good times and bad times. I made lots of friends. I met some amazing people. I met some pretty unimpressive people. I guess – after all – Google is just like life everywhere.

It was time for me to move on though and I am excited about the changes ahead in my life. More updates on that to come later, but for now let me just say – a move not only to a new company, a new role, a new job level – but also – to a new location is coming up next month. I’ll be moving down to LA!

Watch out for more info coming in future blog posts.

iGoogle iPhone video

ulfw — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:16:56 +0000

i just wanted to let you know that the aforementioned iGoogle for iPhone video i was filming with our Google video team has launched together with a redesigned mobile.google.com destination website today. Have a look:

Bill Gates – we’ll miss you

ulfw — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:54:58 +0000

Bill Gates is finally stepping down from his duties at Microsoft. Today a hillarious internal email was published that he sent to a few of his employees depicting his difficulties of downloading and installing Windows Movie Maker.

My favorite excerpt:
“Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. [...]

What an absolute mess.
”

Couldn’t have said it better than him…

Google Mobile Tricks campaign

ulfw — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:33:18 +0000

Today we launched a mobile tricks campaign, where Googlers and everyone else alike is sharing a few (quirky) tricks and tips what they can do with their mobile phone.

I felt compelled to volunteer two of my own. The way those came together were pretty much:
Effie: Ulf, I need you to do at least two videos.
Ulf: Hm ok. No idea. When do you need them?
Effie: Can you come down NOW please?
Ulf: Er… hm.. ok…

Frankly I couldn’t come up with something valuable yet funny on the spot, so I just went with two time wasters.

Mobile Messenger:

I love Pandas:

Mr. iPhone – or a video that looks familiar but isn’t

ulfw — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:03:03 +0000

Ok ok I know what you think… Ulf is in an Apple iPhone ad? Is that for the new iPhone? OMG do you know any details when it’s gonna come out and with what features???
In short: No. No. And no. Sadly.
But these shots were taken out of an upcoming video series we’ll have on mobile.google.com. And that’s all I’m gonna be able to say for now
For obvious reasons I am pushing the iPhone again, having been one of the first who helped evangelize the device throughout the company (and even having gone as far as camping out in front of the Burlingame Apple store for 8 hrs this time last year).

Colored balloons

ulfw — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:35:42 +0000

So it was colored balloons day at Google and I couldn’t resist having my iPhone-picture taken.
Et voila – here it goes:

I wish everyone a great long weekend!

Google on the iPhone makes News, goes around the world and to a domain near you

ulfw — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:47:14 +0000

Today we launched several international versions of our Google products for the iPhone and a new News interface – and I was asked to write a Google Mobile blog article about it. My first one on the official blog.
See the blog entry here (or read below).

Google on the iPhone makes News, goes around the world and to your Apps domain

Posted by Ulf Waschbusch, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

Google f�rs iPhone jetzt auch in deutsch! Et en fran�ais .. en in Nederlands and in many more languages. When we launched our new Google interface for the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco last January, a number of you approached us at our booth and asked when you could use our new interface in your home country. (Yes, San Francisco IS a very cosmopolitan city.) I am happy to say: the time has come. Today we’re launching our new integrated Google experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 33 new markets and 16 new languages, from Argentina to New Zealand, from Swedish to Chinese.

Google on the iPhone is a great way to access your most used Google services. Some of its benefits include
- Fast and fluid search with one-tap access to News, image, local, or web results and search query suggestions when you start typing.
- Automatic delivery of Gmail messages (no need to refresh your browser!), and auto-completion of email addresses when typing
- A combined month-and-current-day view of your always-in-sync Google Calendar, and the ability to share pictures with friends and family using Google Photos

Today we’re also launching a special Google News edition for the iPhone. Browse the front page or search for results straight from the home page. Enjoy the full catalog of Google News sources and even watch associated YouTube content.

To try out the new Google interface, just point your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser to www.google.com.

Furthermore, if you use Google Apps – now is the time to use your domain name on the iPhone as well. Just bookmark http://www.google.com/m/a/YOURDOMAIN for fast one-click access to Google. Please make sure to replace YOURDOMAIN with your actual domain name.

Addressing pressing issues at its core

ulfw — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:20:20 +0000

Now I am all about addressing issues at the root of a problem. If there’s something wrong, let’s try to figure out what it is and solve the problem. Yet what happened this morning I would say was a little… let’s say… over the top.

So we were in our Mobile All-Hands meeting. Packed in a small open tech talk area about 100 or so people listened to what new things our teams around the world came up with. When our VP gave an update, someone who was not even part of the meeting came by and loudly interrupted.
Standing right in front of the projection screens he addressed the audience and uttered his dismay about how hard it is for him to �

� reach the bathrooms(!) as we were apparently blocking the walkthroughs.

Now here are a few alternative options he could have pursued instead:
- Use the bathroom on the lower floor
- Walk past the bystanders, excusing himself and making it through quickly and nearly effortlessly
- Wait 5 minutes

All valid options I would say, but he instead chose the most natural way and addressed the public with his issues. Democracy at it’s best I guess.
The fun thing is that he didn’t want to let go and started arguing about the whole thing. Aw… engineers.. you just gotta love them.

Coincidence?

ulfw — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:18:35 +0000

Facebook: Gay men? No? How about Christian women then?

ulfw — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:50:15 +0000

Is it me or is Facebook’s social targetting of ads a little…hm.. off. These are two ads I got served consecutively:

Most useless app of the year: Microsoft Office 2008

ulfw — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:10:54 +0000

And the award goes to…Office 2008 for Mac – “Simplify your Workday”

Since getting my first intel Mac I was waiting impatiently for Microsoft to update their Office suite as a Universal binary. Frankly I’d have been fine with just an Office 2004 code port to the intel platform, but I understand that Microsoft wanted to go for a new release. Makes sense.
Now after waiting seemingly endless two years… I am still waiting now! More than ever actually!
Huh? The software is out, no? Well yes it is. And that’s the sad part. Since I started using it for the last 2 weeks or so, my productivity in doing anything MS Office related dropped by an estimated 90% or so. It is USELESS. U S E L E S S.
How on earth they were able to make an intel native app run (seemingly) 10x slower than an emulated old PowerPC one is beyond me. Honest to god. It flabbergasts me. Not only did they add no noticeable new features, but they did take features out of Excel (the only Office app I use. I think Pages is a better word processor and Keynote is a considerably better presentation software) like VBA or the Math ToolPak, Solver, whatnot. But no. The app is so slow that I can’t do anything with it anymore.
A large 20 MB pivot table (12000 rows) takes about 22 seconds to be generated on Excel 2004 on my MBP. While I am typing this, the same table is still being generated in Excel 2008. It started 15 Minutes ago and is now at ‘85% complete’. Unbelievable. This and the fact that Excel takes longer to start up as a native app than Excel ‘04 did with Rossetta does it for me. I am seriously disappointed and happy I didn’t have to pay for this myself, but rather got it through work. Now Microsoft does do great software, including Office 2007 on Windows, which I really like. But this? Gee…

Update: Was completed in 19 mins. Sadly I had to force-quit Excel 2008 two mins later because it bogged down my system so much that I couldn’t do anything with it anymore. Back to Office 2004 it is.

Update2: Had to reinstall OS X, this time without Office 2008. Turns out something in Office generates a spinning beach ball in many network-related tasks, even if Office isn’t running. Reinstall of OS X fixed it. After installing Office 2008, problem re-appeared. Second reinstall fixed it again. This time Office 2004 will grace my hard disk again.

Mobile search demo

ulfw — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:50:40 +0000

Try out Google’s new search demo page I put together a couple of week’s back and that finally launched this weekend:
http://www.google.com/mobile/search/demo.html

The idea is to try out how mobile search looks like on your mobile handset and what you can do with mobile without having to pick up your phone. So play around with it and let us know what you think!

Toyota dealership? No! Google campus

ulfw — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:59:13 +0000

Yes, people are THAT crazy here. I guess the (now-revised) $5K-if-you-buy-a-envirofriendly-but-freakin-ugly-Prius (TM) program has been successful…

Ulf hugs Donald hugs Ulf

ulfw — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:29:57 +0000

I know as a kid my Disney hero clearly was the underdog: Donald Duck. I just looooved the guy. It took me a few… well… decades really, but I finally managed to get a little hugging and photo shooting done with Donald tonight at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA! And oh yes, that’s Pluto in the back trying to sneek into the picture as well.

Google goes Disney

ulfw — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:40:59 +0000

Tomorrow I’ll be on my way (thanks to the support of the Virgin America folks) to LAX and then to Anaheim for Google’s yearly ski-trip! Oh wait. There’s no skiing in Anaheim. So what’s this all about?

Well it turns out that Google with it’s 16,805 employees is now so big that we cannot by any means rent enough rooms in Tahoe, so it was decided to give us a choice this year:
- Camping at the Pinnacles National Monument south of Salinas, CA (bring your own tent!)
or
- Disneyland! Google’s got the whole park just for Googler’s after 8pm on Tuesday.

Nuff’ said. Gotta pack my bags!

PS: I decided to rent a car, so as to be more flexible. Don’t really wanna hang out at Disneyland all day…

Recognized for a job well done

ulfw — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:05:36 +0000

So I’m sure you couldn’t have missed all the Macworld posts lately.
Well I got surprised by our Mobile VP with a little certificate thanking me for a job well done in launching our new integrated Google experience on the iPhone, particularly with our Macworld presence.
Feels good…

Slaughterfest

ulfw — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:17:16 +0000

Without words….

Yes, this is GOOG and AAPL stock vs. Dow and NASDAQ just for the last month. Happy new year to us all.

More photos from Macworld

ulfw — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:44:23 +0000

Thanks to Steve Kanefsky for taking these action shots from the first day at Macworld.

Macworld Presentation – Video

ulfw — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:45:30 +0000

Sidney Chang and I were giving a presentation on Tuesday morning about our Google products on the iPhone. I am giving the same presentation now on every morning since then as well (and in much better form than the first one I did together with Sidney which you can see here).

Alas, here is a video that Lawrence Chang (who surprisingly enough has no relationship whatsoever with Sidney) took yesterday:

Update: Linked right video this time.

Updates from the Macworld floor

ulfw — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:58:31 +0000

As you can imagine, the Macbook Air is all the rage at Macworld these days. But I have to say, I am surprised how incredibly strong the interest in Google is. Our little booth is PACKED and feels cramped most of the day. But obviously this is a nice luxury ‘problem’ to have. I have been fortunate enough to give our Mobile demos each day so far (10:30 am, if you still wanna stop by).

Here are a few quick impressions from the show:

Live from the Macworld showroom floor

ulfw — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:27:12 +0000

Quick update from the packed Google both. CNET has been covering our booth already apparently (and even have a terrible shot of me )
I was presenting first in our booth today, showing what new products we have for the iPhone. Let me just say – people loved it!
More to follow.

New Gmail web interface for iPhone

ulfw — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:48:09 +0000

And the releases are coming. We are also today announcing a new Gmail interface for your iPhone. It’s integrated into the new google.com (just click on the Gmail tab) or just go to gmail.com on your iPhone. This is basically for people who don’t like using the integrated Apple mail client with IMAP (which I personally prefer and think is fantastic).
Advantages of this version:
– full Gmail experience
- search all your emails (6+ GB) on the go
- conversations view

Oh and one of my shots has been feature on the Official Gmail Blog!

New integrated Google experience on the iPhone

ulfw — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:26:37 +0000

So, one of the cool new products we’ll be showing off at Macworld 2008 tomorrow is our new integrated Google experience for iPhone users. From Search to Gmail, Picasa or Reader – many cool Google apps are now just a click away. Project ‘Grand Prix‘ as it was internally called has been in development for a while and we showed off an earlier release a couple of months ago. The iPhone is especially important to write apps for as Safari is such a capable browser and every iPhone user has a data plan and actually makes use of it!

This new version now is significantly faster, due to lots of Ajax integration and prefetching of things like emails and calendar entries. So, even over an EDGE connection it makes you feel like you’re in an application rather than a website.
Just try out google.com on your iPhone.

Macworld San Francisco 2008

ulfw — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:38:33 +0000

Sooo this will be my first Macworld and I’m gonna be demoing – no less! Google is having a booth this year (in Moscone South) which the mobile team is sharing with our Geo, Mac Client, iGoogle and Youtube teams. As you can imagine, the iPhone is still one of the most important products Apple has in it’s portfolio. So it’s no surprise that our first theater presentation will actually be the mobile team. You can see a walkthrough of our new products on Tuesday at 11:30 and Wednesday through Friday at 10:30 at our booth (Space #: 1268, Main Hall Moscone South).

See you there!

And no… I can’t await what Steve J will show off at his Tuesday morning keynote either!!

Of Events past…

ulfw — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:38:34 +0000

So as we’re all awaiting Macworld next week, I thought I share some pictures of Google Mobile’s previous booth, which we set up at CTIA in Orlando last year. It was our first time demoing our products and showing the market “we’re there”. All in all I think it was a great experience that I certainly don’t wanna miss (oh and my little trip to Miami afterwards wasn’t too shabby either…).

The CTIA Google and Youtube mobile team:

The booth:

Okay, so Leopard officially sucks

ulfw — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:32:04 +0000

I’ve had lots of operating system upgrades in my past. Back when I was a technical beta tester for Microsoft, I basically installed OS updates every few weeks. And kudos to MS, most of the (beta!) builds were really really well put together. Sadly often better than the gold master.With my Macs I only run release versions. Starting with OS X 10.2, the upgrades were smooth. 10.2 -> 10.3: Awesome!. 10.3 -> 10.4: Great!10.4 -> 10.5: Oh my �10.5 runs nicely until, god-forbid, I try to use my Apple TV and stream anything to it. After a minute or two my Mac completely freezes. I can still click on dock icons, but they don’t do anything. Neither can I switch nor kills apps. iTunes completely breaks down. So even with 10.5.1 now, I have a hot 46″ TV, but no programming to watch (I get all my shows off of iTunes). VPN to Google doesn’t work either. So, no more quick fixes of docs in the evening (I guess this can be seen as good or bad. But still! I wanna have a choice!). That combined with the fact that Leopard added no functionality I needed, except maybe quick view, leads me to say: this is a bad one Apple. Fix it. And fix it fast. Let’s hope Macworld will bring us joy – and 10.5.2

Googleween 2007

ulfw — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:11:34 +0000

Arrr… greetings! So, the big Google Halloween bash went down yesterday and it proved to be pretty nice. Lots of people were dressed up (though barely anyone from my team. Boo!). But hey – let pictures tell the story…

The new Pirate of the Mobilean – Google Mobile PMM team (Lawrence et moi).

Cyber Pirate. A little lost in today’s world…

Urban Pirate. Completely lost in this world. Arrr.. what are carrrrrs?

Lot’s of people came to Crittenden Campus.

Our new mobile PMM lead – hail hail, Marc!

Google Sky

ulfw — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:04:34 +0000

Sooo… Google released a new version of Google Earth (4.2) with it’s new Google Sky feature. Ten days or so ago, I was asked by the Earth team if I could help them out with dubbing a demo video for their German audience. Of course I said yes and so I suddenly found myself in a sound studio not far from campus.
Without further ado, here is the result:

(and yes, I do think I sound weird)

Marketing cube deco contest

ulfw — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:12:08 +0000

Sooo… we had this little Consumer/Mobile/Developer/Apps Marketing teams decoration contest. You were free to do whatever and some of our teams put really elaborate decorations together (from PacMan to ‘the Sea’ with Nemo, fishnets and even sea weed). Well, to be frank – we didn’t find the time to go out shopping, so we went a bit overboard on the Warholy style and created a whole whale of, well, basically ourselves. And yes, I created them myself..
Today I surprised the team and got us T-Shirts too!

Standing in line for 8 hours… for a freakin’ phone!

ulfw — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:33:10 +0000

19:50 I’m exhausted and finally at home. On my way back I passed the Palo Alto/Stanford AT&T store on Page Mill and even at 19:45 (nearly two hours after sales start), the lines were wrapped around all of the building and at least 120 or so people still waiting there. So – would I do this again? YES, definitely. I had amazing coworkers that I’d now call friends with me and we certainly had a blast. While this isn’t something to do every few months or so, it definitely was a very unique experience which I didn’t want to miss. As for the iPhone: report will come later. I’m busy playing with it now! Let’s just say, I ported my number over from T-Mobile to at&t already and am LOVING the email and web browsing.
18:30 Wow – we finally made it to the Apple Store! They were letting people in in batches of about 20 and we were in the front of the fourth badge. After getting in, the process was actually really fast. They set up lots of temporary sales stations and had numerous iPhones on hand. I immediately got two 8GB models. One for myself and one for a coworker of mine, who covered me at work today, where I was supposed to interview a Marketing Director candidate. He was just on the way to the airport when we got out of the store, so he immediately directed his taxi off to Burlingame, where he had his precious phone in his hands just 10 minutes later. Now he had the most painless purchasing experience ever! For us, I have to say it was really nice to be applauded and cheered at by all the Apple employees when we exited the store. This certainly gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling. Oh, plus the weird guy offering us $1,500 for an iPhone when we got out the store. I have no idea, why no one accepted his offer.
17:10 Well apparently our lamish video didn’t make it to TGIF as planned, so I’ll just post it here instead. Also, the first 25 peeps in line just got cool Apple iPhone t-shirts. They earned it, because those peeps were here hours before us even.

16:50 Okay, it’s bad enough that we’re feeling like fools for waiting so long, but even worse: We just talked to our UI person in New York City, who just straight up walked up to the 5th Ave store and bought one without having to wait more than a few minutes…. Wow… According to him, the wait at at&t stores is ridiculously long, because they force activation IN the store for no reason, whereas Apple sells devices in less than a minute.
16:40 About 1.5 hrs more to go. The line is maybe 250 or so strong by now and we’ve sinced been joined by a fellow Googler engineer (I’ll call him Mike), who just cut in line to join us. Shame on him! Ah whatever – we’re happy to have him…
16:30 Okay, the surprise was supposed to be that we’d be reporting live to TGIF – Google’s large weekly all-hands meeting, but unfortunately the technology broke down in the last minute We recorded a little video instead and am now trying to upload it, but time’s running out to still make that happen.
14:45 I have to say, the Apple folks are managing this pretty nicely. They just brought over water and sunscreen while their colleagues are setting up the store. About three more hours to go. Just refilled the meter in my car again. Let’s hope they won’t tow or something… Also, people are collecting garbage and selling fruit ice-cream, while we’re cool with using the adjacent Peets Coffee restroom. Funnily enough, a nice Asian girl let me go in before her and I asked her if she’s standing in line as well. Her answer: There is a line out there? … er… yea… about 200 people right now chillin’ in the sun!
14:30 We just arranged a surprise for our Google fellows back in Mountain View at 4:30. More to come.
14:00 Apple store is closing for four hours to setup and… get this… eat iPhone cake! I wonder if we’ll get some too…
13:25 The CFO of Apple retail just called a bystander here and is checking on the length of the lines here in Burlingame. It’s about 175 according to them now.
13:20 The crowd is going insane. FedEx trucks are parking in front of the Apple Store.

13:10 First signs of getting bored are coming up in the team. But all in all we’re still holding out strong. Charles is bluetoothing me a few new pics from his Nokia N95. I just hope I won’t get my car towed off of the 2hr parking lot (I continuously fill the meter at the cheap rate of 75 cents/hour). Oh and btw… people here in Burlingame really can’t drive. Sitting next to a parking lot for 3 hrs makes that pretty obvious…That’s all I’ll say
12:45 Let’s just say – that was some yummy Caesar’s with grilled chicken and sun-dried tomatoes… The line is slowly getting longer and is about 100 strong now. Of course the occasional passer-by is still mocking us for waiting in line for so long. Note to self: next time bring two pillows. I now have to decide if my back or my butt should hurt… hm… decisions…
12:10 Nice. A cool, pretty entrepreneurial breakfast/lunch restaurant just sent someone over to take lunch orders. Caesar salad here it comes.

12:00 The kid next to me is getting paid $400 to wait in line to buy an iPhone for his cousin. Caraahaaazyyy… Also, thanks to the technologies of today, we just had a video conference with Scott in Minnesota over HSDPA and iChat.
11:55 Friendly Apple store employees just came over and handed out Smart Water bottles, claiming “This is what Steve Jobs drinks”…An Apple Fan dog also just came over to wait with us in line. Speaking of which, the line is about 80 people according to Apple folks.

11:35 Thanks to the powers of HSDPA, I can actually get productive work done. Haven’t answered so many work emails in like… forever… Apple should have more product intros like this one…
11:30 It’s unbelievable how many people come over and ask you, why you’re waiting in line for 8 hours. Frankly, I don’t know either. Cutest story so far: the 50yr old women next to us who is here from Chicago. No, she didn’t just fly in for the iPhone, but she is waiting in line the whole day to get one. Reason why: her daughter is pregnant and really really wants an iPhone. Oookay..
11:20 Charles and Zhanna, who lives only a few minutes away here in Burlingame, just came back with an umbrella and now four Googlers are trying to somehow install it. With … er… mediocre success I guess.
11:15 We’re just here for about 45 mins and already baking like crazy. Yay for California sun… Note to self: Next time, bring sun screen and an umbrella…
10:30 The wait begins. A fearless bunch of UI and Marketing Googlers, let’s just call them Ulf, Will, Charles and Zhanna are number 50 or so in line at the Apple Store in Burlingame.

Off from the Google campus to craziness

ulfw — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:48:18 +0000

Leaving the Google campus soon to meet up with colleagues and friends at the Burlingame Apple store. We’ll be queuing up to be one of the firsts to buy the Apple iPhone!

PS: I’m cheating with the pic. It’s not that sunny today…

The day has come…

ulfw — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:26:51 +0000

.. Burlingame here I come!
Tomorrow, me and a group of friendly coworkers will do our best for the team and be standing in line, like thousands of other Americans and be trying to buy an iPhone. Actually I have to buy two. One for me and one for a coworker of mine, who was nice enough to cover an interview for me, but only if I get him an iPhone. Why do I think he’s getting the better end of the deal? hm…
Anyways, after a little bit of thinking about location (at&t stores? naaa… boring, Apple Store Palo Alto? naaa… the lines would be insane, because Steve J might show up, San Fran? same story…). So finally we decided on visiting one of the lesser frequented stores in the Bay Area, namely the Burlingame one. Let’s hope there won’t be 100s of people already ahead of us, when we’re meeting there at 11am tomorrow.
I am thinking of doing live blogging from there and send out photos updates during the day. So, stay tuned for more!

Look what I saw…

ulfw — Wed, 16 May 2007 06:04:58 +0000

Driving down on 101 South (near the University Avenue exit in Palo Alto) a cute little billboard sign from our colleagues of Yahoo! awaits you.

I’m wondering who they actually try to reach with this. The billboard is placed against traffic on the leftmost side of an 8-lane grade seperated highway and partially obstructed by bushes and poles, but hey – whatever spreads the mobile word is good for everyone, I think.

I won’t actually comment on the accuracy of their billboard statement. I’ll just quote Wired:
“Yahoo jumps ahead of Google on mobile phone search [Reuters]
Cleverly phrased to sound like a market share story, it isn’t. It’s just one of those weird “news” stories that takes a jolly, light-hearted editorial tone, like a sports report, because the writer knows he’s just writing a fluffy marketing piece. Here, it’s about a new search app for mobiles, with which Yahoo vaults ahead of Google by delivering relevant answers, after making strides in recent months. Yahoo’s service serves up a list of actual information and flickr images (surely the only kind!). That the whole thing plasters your phone with ads is left to the penultimate graf.”

PS: Too bad that the 3/20/07 quote is also a week before Google launched the new Google mobile search experience…

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

ulfw — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:02:06 +0000

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, emphasizing the importance of Mobile for the company at this spring’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. “Mobile, mobile, mobile” were the words of him this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing. “The biggest growth areas are clearly within the mobile space,” Schmidt said during a Q&A session with John Batelle.

The interesting full conference video can be found over at our friends of Youtube here .

So much to do, so little time

ulfw — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:50:01 +0000

Urgh – you know how these things go… So you promise yourself to keep up the and then your usual work habits keep you away from it. May it be blogging, doing laundry (which reminds me…) or exercising (which I finally started… a little…). So yes – work has been keeping me busy and right now it looks like this will stay that way for a while.

So, my team is looking for a Marketing Director (even craigslist and live.com it seems!). So if you feel like you’re up for the task: we’re looking to hire in our Mountain View HQ and London office!

What else has kept me busy at Google?
- At the end of March, we launched our new mobile search experience in the US. Right now you have to click on a promo link to get to it after going to google.com on your mobile device, but this will change in the next few days and our new mobile search experience will go live as default for everyone. We’ve been building and testing it for quite a while and really do think it’s a superior solution to search on your mobile phone. Not only are those pesky radio buttons gone (are you looking for Web or Mobile Web results??), but you can also add modules such as weather or news directly onto your Google homepage and rest assured you’ll be getting the most relevant results to your query – regardless of the query type.
- Gmail has launched in 10 more languages, namely Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese (BR), Polish, Russian and (yay!) Turkish. Cok guzel!
- I was at Youtube for the first time last week. It was really cool see their still-existing startup mentality and a welcome change to the nice and cushy Google-I’ll-cater-awesome-lunch-for-you-type of my daily work. Youtube is doing really cool things in Mobile (e.g. see Verizon and Vodafone, as well as Nokia’s mobile Youtube solutions) and have even greater things in the pipeline.
I even went go-karting with one of their PMs, who – btw – beat me by lengths. Of course I kept blaming my go-kart, which had serious performance problems… er… right.. – Tons of other things that I now forgot. Geez, I’m getting old…

CTIA Wireless

ulfw — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 02:14:34 +0000

So, tomorrow I’ll be leaving to Orlando. Running from Tuesday through Thursday, our team at Google Mobile will have a booth (#787) to show off our range of mobile products: from SMS, to Search, News, Maps and Gmail.

Say hi when you see me there!

Blackberry 8800

ulfw — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:43:41 +0000

Another day – another phone… ? So why even mention the Blackberry 8800?

Because it IS corporate America’s toy of 2007. RIM is really on a roll here and no matter what other companies are doing feature or design-wise (Nokia E90, Apple iPhone…), RIM is hard to beat when it comes to easy IT deployment and manager-appeal.

So what’s new about it?

- It’s slicker and thinner. About 25% thinner than the older 8700 and finally up to par with the competition (re: Nokia E61)

- It’s got GPS built in. While not being a first – especially for CDMA – still only few GSM devices rock GPS. I can totally see people use this as an el chepo navigaton system in their leased BMWs and Consultants in their rental cars.

- The Pearl-esque ball is so much easier to use than the scroll wheel before. I know I know, many will disagree with this, but the addition of horizontal scrolling (as opposed to the old Blackberry-approach of only scrolling vertically) does open up new opportunities (all I say is… Google Maps…)

More about the Blackberry to come later. I’ll be attending the new AT&Ts and RIMs BB 8800 Launch party up in San Francisco tomorrow night – so let’s see what else they say to praise their new toy…

Update
- Party in the city was packed! I’m sure there were 150+ people, all waiting to see and get their new BB toy. Thankfully I got one too
- The food sucked.

About the device
Positive:
- it’s a great form factor and the dark blue, black color is very attractive with the chrome sides
- the UI is fast, especially compared to my … yawn… Series 60 v3 UI on my Nokia E61
- Data applications work beautifully. It’s so great to run Gmail and Google Maps without having to click on ‘Do you want to grant data access?’ and ‘Please choose your data bearer’ each and every time I run an app

Negative:
- The device just doesn’t work perfectly. I lose data connectivity for no reason and then neither emails nor other data gets pushed. Maybe it has something to do with me being on TMUSA instead of Cingular, but still – it’s pretty unacceptable having to reboot the device to get data again
- Where are my missed calls/outgoing calls etc?
- GPS works beautifully. When it works. Problem is: Like data – it doesn’t work consistently.

Coherence mode

ulfw — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:44:10 +0000

I’m a Mac user by heart (and this is something, coming from years of Windows software development and excitement and even doing technical beta testing for Windows 95 all through XP). But there are moments when you still want to use Windows. For better or worse: it just has more software.

One really great software that I’d love to have on the Mac is Live Writer (beta) from Microsoft. It makes blogging a real fun event. And with Parallels’ virtualization software it integrates beautifully into the whole Mac experience. You should especially check out their new integration mode: ‘Coherence mode’. It makes the Windows desktop transparent, gets rid of the taskbar and background icons and integrates windows apps into the Mac dock. Alltogether it gives the seeming impression of running a Windows app natively in Mac OS X.

Gmail for mobile devices – EU launches

ulfw — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 22:48:57 +0000

So we launched the new Gmail/Google Mail for mobile devices app throughout Europe and other countries yesterday. People who’s primary language is something other than English, namely Italian, Spanish, French or German can now enjoy the virtues of Gmail on their phone now. One little task for you guys… I wonder if you find the easter egg on our German pages?

US’ best company to work for in 2006? – Google

ulfw — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:59:55 +0000

Well, now who would have thought… Google made it to the top list of America’s top 100 best companies to work for, according to Fortune magazine, CNN, NBC Today and who ever else reported it today. While I definitely do see Google as a top company to work for (who doesn’t like the free food and the cool products), it’s hard and maybe sad to imagine there’s nothing better out there…

Cool Google product of the day – Google SMS

ulfw — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:36:39 +0000

OK,

so I thought it would make sense to introduce a few of the cool products I or my colleagues are working on over the coming weeks. For mobile, I thought what better to start of with than Google SMS.

Why is that? First of all, not many people know about the product, yet it can be incredibly useful. And above all: it’s the only mobile product we have that has pretty much no requirements. Well okay, you have to be in the US and okay – you have to have a mobile phone, but that’s pretty much it. No data plan, no Java engine, no limited handset compatibilty.

So – what is it and how do I use it?

Google SMS is a cool service that allows you to ask it a large amount of questions and get immediate answers via text message. Unlike our search engine, we won’t be returning URLs, but rather end results. So, for example if you’d love to know how the weather in Beverly Hills will be, just send a text message with “Weather 90210″ (or ‘w 90210′ or ‘weather beverly hills, ca’ ) to GOOGLE (that’s 466453) and you’ll get the sunshine news right back as a text message. All it costs you is your carrier’s texting fee (note: they often offer plans with hundreds of text messages for just a few dollars a month).

What are other things I can ask Google SMS?

How about finding out about Sushi, a dry cleaner or any other local listings where you are? Text ’sushi 94040′ to GOOGLE.
Or you’d like to know how the Anaheim Ducks played yesterday night? Just text ‘anaheim ducks’ to 466453.
Then again, I prefer a good movie to a hockey game, so ‘movies 94040′ would give me more info on what’s running in my area right now.
Sometimes I wonder what strange words mean in my native tongue. By texting ‘translate love to German’ I get the 411 on what that weird word means.
Also cool for me to know is how my cars fuel consumption translates into proper measurements… ‘34mpg in liters per 100 km’ does the trick for me.
For more info, check out our mobile pages at http://mobile.google.com or go directly to http://sms.google.com to try some sample queries on the web.

Happy holidays

ulfw — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 00:23:37 +0000

Hi everyone,

wow – what a busy start at Google this was.

Right now, I’m covering a LOT of different mobile products, from SMS over Search, News and the new Gmail app up to a couple of other projects we’ll be working on for 2007, doing overall mobile research and will now be making sure that our website is made ready and newly setup so it can be launched in several non-English international markets early next year.

Wow. That’s the best three letter word I can come up with. While I’m obviously incredibly busy, I think I’m learning so much more than I could have ever imagined. It’s been a great ride so far and I hope 2007 will be topping this.

I’m wishing you all a very happy holiday season and all the very best for 2007!

May all your wishes come true,

Ulf

Gmail for mobile devices launched today

ulfw — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:04:36 +0000

My first big launch at Google happened today!

No, I didn’t launch it just by myself. I most certainly didn’t develop it, nor did I even market it alone either – but there is still pride in a task accomplished well and doing my part in making it happen. My congrats go to the whole Gmail and Google Mobile teams who made the release possible. It was a considerable cross-functional team effort and a long time coming and we’re all happy to have it out for our users starting today.
So – what makes Gmail on your mobile phone so cool now?

The new Gmail for mobile devices application is incredibly fast:

Gmail users are a simple click away from reading, replying, archiving and searching through emails. Instead of having to go through a mobile web browser and typing http://gmail.com on a numeric keypad, Google for mobile devices, once installed, can be found in your phone’s ‘Application’ menu and be started with a simple click.

Opening Gmail messages is faster than before. Thanks to Gmail for mobile device’s prefetching technology, opening an email on your mobile phone is nearly instantaneous.

It reduces keyboard input and scrolling. Search through your contact list simply by inputting the first few characters of your contact. Reply to email instantaneously with easy to use menu access: no need to scroll around anymore.

You can search through your complete Gmail archive in seconds by simply invoking the search menu option and typing a search query.

Try it out yourself! Check out our Google Mobile pages to get more info on how to download the client to your phone.

About starting a new job after 2 years out-of-work

ulfw — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:16:33 +0000

It’s been a hectic but exciting week. Having been in business school at Stanford for the past two years, this is upping the ante on speed, performance, excitement and I’m sure – personal development.

This Tuesday (Monday was labour day) I started in Google’s Mobile team as a Product Marketing Manager, covering their consumer products, from Search over SMS to GMail and beyond. While many will now come to me and expect all the nighty gritty about the company – I won’t be able to give you that – I’d be way too busy for that, because you never know what legal implementations anything you say has when you are talking about a public company (doesn’t have to be Google). Therefore there also won’t be info about unannounced products (d’oh), expected earnings (how would I know) or general stock or please-hire-me tips. Furthermore, I want to stress that (BEGIN LEGAL) this is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer. (/LEGAL END)

I understand this might disappoint one or two of you readers – but hey – that’s life

Anyways – to make things a little less boring, here are some facts:

- Google supports more than 100 interface languages

- As of June 30th, 2006 there were 7,942 full-time employees worldwide

- and yes: Googlers in Mountain View alone consume 500 lbs. of breakfast cereal each day