“Google’s new marketing strategy poses a huge threat to our privacy and democratic aspirations for the Internet,” …
On the other hand, some prefer Google have the money rather than Microsoft:
Why Google isn’t the next Microsoft
Everyone seems to be piling on Google these days for being too big, too powerful. But Business 2.0’s Chris Taylor makes the case for why the dominant Internet search giant will never be evil.
With Google’s stock price at a record high, it’s hard to claim they’ve bungled anything.
But if GOOG is vulnerable anywhere, it’s lack of social networking.
They realize this. And likely will social network EVERYTHING in the Googleverse.
In the meantime, their version of Facebook is only big in Asia and Latin America.
Actually, it’s pretty good. it’s got too much SPAM. Very Despite looking similar to Facebook, which has very little SPAM.
The big question … DO YOU TRUST GOOGLE with your information?
Orkut’s terms of service state:
… By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials.
I joined mainly to check the hiking and gymnastics groups.
Since I have no friends on Orkut, I will look at it rarely.
read more … Google’s Orkut: A World of Ambition – Business Week
UPDATE – Orkut is pretty crappy from what I can see after 20min. Lots of SPAM (example below). I went to report this “violation”. Let’s see how long it takes Google to remove this post and fake user.
Very short fiction (4 pages) that hits a little too close to home.
Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches… What if it controlled your life?
You’d be
SCROOGLED
By Cory Doctorow
I know, I know. Four pages is way too long to read. A quick scan of some of the visuals is enough for you:
Read the short story: From The Magazine : Radar Online : Cory Doctorow imagines a world in which Google is evil
Cory Doctorow – official website
Yahoo! is letting us down as the BIG Google competitor. Microsoft hasn’t a hope. Yahoo! and Microsoft together? Hah!
What about Facebook?
Just as Google has become what some people call the operating system for search, Facebook is turning itself into the operating system for social networking.
While Google knows what millions of people are searching for, Facebook has something the search giant hasn’t been able to grow: a network of connections between people that creates a viral distribution platform unrivaled by any portal or search engine.
Advertising Age – Digital – 23-Year-Old Mark Zuckerberg Has Google Sweating
Last I heard Facebook wonderkind Zuckerberg was still sleeping on a floor mattress in a rented apartment. True?
Talking to Bill Wallace yesterday, I learned he’s a fan of Google Reader.
For me it’s the best thing Google offers aside from their search engine. Google Reader is fantastic.
Power blogger Robert Scoble can manage over 600 RSS feeds using Google Reader. That means he keeps track of what’s new on over 600 websites.
Wow!
By comparison, I have 238 feeds and there’s no way I can come close to following them all. (Not all my RSS feeds are blogs. Some are flickr photo streams, YouTube video streams, news sites, and more.)
Google interviewed Scoble on how he does it. (Perhaps I’ll try his “river of news” skimming method.)
see the video – Google Reader: Robert Scoble
Interestingly, Scoble in June mentioned two major problems with Google Reader: Lousy SEARCH and the fact that you cannot check your feeds when offline.
Since then, Google Reader added an offline function called Google Gears. But Lousy SEARCH? Shame on Google!
If you want to try Google Reader yourself, check this video tutorial.
I heard an audiocast interview with celebrity CEO Barry Diller.
He was being interviewed because his firm — IAC/InterActiveCorp — had been named America’s #1 Most Admired Company in the Internet Services and Retailing Industry by Fortune Magazine.
I’m supposed to be following what’s happening on the internet. And I’d never even heard of IAC.
Some of their websites are familiar:
* Bloglines.com
* Excite.com
* Ticketmaster.com
* Match.com
And, of course, their Ask.com search engine:
It’s “pretty“. But search results are TERRIBLE compared with Google. (Try it yourself on a search term you know well.)
So far as I can see, Google continues to draw away from the rest of the field when it comes to search. (Thought Microsoft has improved from worst-of-all to 3rd best.)
IAC is getting good press as Google’s up-and-coming rival.
Competition is good. Go IAC!
But Google is my most admired brand when it comes to search.
You will save a lot of time if you use Google to search over any other engine, especially Ask.
People are irate because Google is driving around in vans capturing digital images, putting them on the internet. It’s called Google Street View.
That’s just the start.
I’d posted something previously on Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth technology. But to see an update click PLAY or watch the short video clip on YouTube.
If you like Photosynth, you’ll be even more amazed by software called Seadragon, also acquired by Microsoft.
Check THAT DEMO at the beginning of a longer video from this year’s TED conference linked on ModernHiker.
The future’s going to be really, really cool.
No privacy of any kind, though.
I’ve tried many different default home pages for my internet browsers, most often settling on a BLANK page because it loads fastest.
Currently I am trying a new one called Simply Google (not a Google product). It’s great for getting faster access to image search, news search, Wikipedia and a long list of others.
See what you think.
Leave a comment if you have a different home page you like.
Wanting to be more lean and green, Google is handing out bicycles to employees.
Google staffers can choose a Dahon Curve folding bike, which normally retails at £349 and is new for 2007.
And as well as a folding bike and men’s and women’s hybrids, there’s to be a Google cruiser as well. …
2000 Google staffers were emailed a Google bike catalogue on Thursday. Orders have to be placed with Google human resources by 27th April. Google has about 2000 permanent staffers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
quickrelease.tv » Blog Archive » Google gifts bikes to staff
The Scobleizer got famous as the “Microsoft tech evangelist”.
He was the human face of the inhuman company.
Scoble has defended Microsoft as much as anyone on the internet. A lot of his friends work there.
But this time, he is calling a spade a spade:
Microsoft executives are bragging to MVPs that “we’re in it to win.”
I don’t think Microsoft is. The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks …
Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn’t winning. Microsoft: stop the talk.
Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where’s the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo’s Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That’s how you win.
This isn’t Netscape you’re talking trash to, Steve. Have you really studied Google? It doesn’t sound like you have.
Again, Microsofties, you’d be better served not to talk trash until you have something YOU CAN SHIP!
Microsoft tells MVPs “we’re in it to win” — Really? « Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger
Fact is Microsoft does very few things well. Especially on the internet.
Rick McCharles 