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You Won’t Find The G-Spot With Your iPad

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:25:09 +0000

If you’re the sort of person who thinks of Microsoft as The Evil One, you haven’t really followed what Google and Apple have been up to lately. And if you think that tablet devices don’t have a big future you’re probably also fortunate that you don’t have investment dollars either, because you’d be kicking yourself down the road for the opportunities you missed. Yes, the tablet wars are on. Steve Ballmer rushed the announcement of the HP/Windows Slate to beat Steve Jobs recent unveiling of the iPad. And hot on the tails of Jobs’ announcement, Google released a rather feeble concept video of their Chrome Operating System in use on an imaginary tablet device (images here). And then of course there’s the lawsuit against the Indian company that allegedly stole the CrunchPad and renamed it the JooJoo. But what’s really going to be interesting about how this all plays out is that it’s not about the devices per se, it’s about who controls how you do what you do, and all the big players know this. Yes, Apple kicked Adobe in the face over flash, but in a way, who cares? Flash has been a crashmonster since its inception. What’s really at stake here is how you get on the web, where you buy things, and how you do your business. And Apple’s closed system on the iPad is geared toward this end. Google already has search pretty well locked down, and they additionally want you phoning and creating all your office documents through tools like the Google Phone, Google Voice, Google Docs, and G-Mail. Imagine a future in which the coolest new device doesn’t play nice with the coolest new tools you want to use on it. And if you can’t even install your own software, because it’s all located on a remote server that you have no contorl over. And to take “Evil” to a new level in this realm, now that Apple makes their own chips for their exclusionary device, they’re essentially like Intel and Microsoft rolled into one. Adding a little irony to all of this is the fact that Apple is talking to Microsoft about replacing Google on the iPhone with Bing. Who is your evil nemesis now?

Chrome OS Tablet Concept Vid

Social Search: Who Gives A Twinglebook?

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:52:01 +0000

I was wondering why no-one seemed to give a twinglebook about the fact that Microsoft struck search deals with Twitter and Facebook, and that Google not only has their own deal with Twitter, but plans to launch their own “Social Search” in the near future. Then I remembered that the average person doesn’t know their Firefox from a hole in the ground (YouTube link, video is also below). Well, I have to admit that I care; depending on how both Microsoft and Google choose to integrate real-time search results from social networking sites, this could either be really interesting, or really annoying and/or paranoia-inducing. More so the annoying part; ever since SEO became a parasitic, opportunistic business instead of an integrated part of web site development, search results have become less and less useful on a steady downward curve. The beauty of Twitter Search is its real-time results; the ugly downside is that all those results are spam-infested Tweets! Who cares how fast you can search multi-level marketer’s tweets (see Will the Twitter Firehose Become a Sewage-Filled Spam Hose) ? In my opinion, the only real value of these relationships the two search giants are building with Twitter would be real-time search of everything but Twitter noise. Hopefully they’ll pursue that, but Bing’s beta version of Twitter search appears to be just, well, Twitter search. How mixing this stuff in with regular results is going to benefit anyone is beyond me. These moves also come at an odd time, when both Facebook and Twitter’s growth are flattening out. And the paranoia mentioned earlier? Google’s Social Search will require you to be logged in with a Google Profile, and will connect additional search results via your existing “friends” on various social networking services, thereby tracking all your searches and connecting them with people you know. But perhaps I fret about this sort of thing too much. After all, Googoo has a excewent pwivacy powicy.

Google asks New Yorkers to tell us the difference between a search engine and a browser:

Microsoft & Music – A Remix We Don’t Need

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:55:15 +0000

You’re sitting at your computer listening to your favorite song, and suddenly your system freezes, an error box pops up saying that the “Bing Streaming Music Player” is not responding, and the music gets stuck in annoying loop. Which of course, you might not even notice, if you were playing Vanilla Ice’s ripoff of Under Pressure (we would’ve embedded those clips but ASSCAP is suing people for doing that lately). In any case, this is what I imagine happening regularly if Microsoft does in fact launch their streaming music service later this month. Remember how Microsoft’s first big media partner RealPlayer (which has actually won awards for how bad it is) used to not only try to spy on you obsessively, but would always crash while doing so? Remember the Zune launch and all its software problems? Personally, I don’t even use iTunes; I refuse to download a 72MB piece of software just so I can buy some music. I typically buy from Amazon, or if it’s an indy release, sites like CDBaby , DigStation, or Amie Street. And for streaming music, Pandora (in spite of their recent legal problems) is working just fine. Microsoft and music just don’t mix, in my opinion. Fortunately, there are plenty of other resources; here are eighteen to keep you busy. Where do you get most of your music?

Is There Life After Facebook?

admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:31:12 +0000

Well, apparently not, if you’re over 55. However, there are some interesting things going on out there. For one, Microsoft is launching Bing, their new “Decision Engine”. Make sure you understand the distinction, they’re worried that you’ll think it’s just another search engine. Nope, this one will make decisions for you. Finally. I’ve been waiting for something that does that. Although it’s easy to hate Microsoft, I’m personally looking forward to trying it. Google, for all its warm, fuzzy, Googliness, has become the bane of my existence when it comes to search. And what about Twitter? Well I and many people who are smarter than I am feel it’s already peaking. Which means, in a way, that it has a lot of life left in it, but some users will stay on board, many stop using it quickly, and most importantly, the hip people leave when the masses move in. Maybe the ability to search Tweets with tools like Topsy will broaden the interest. My bet? Back to the awesome Googliness. One of the main things that draws people and retains them with Facebook is the multitude of methods to interact easily. Unfortunately, Facebook fails rather miserably with things like chat functionality and a more versatile “inbox”, both of which should have been a no-brainer, in my opinion. A strong possible contender here is Google Wave, which, if they can bundle it all together flexibly with tools like Google Voice or PhoneVite would be a real winner. I would be ecstatic if a networking tool like Facebook allowed me to easily switch from a chat or inbox dialog to a cellphone voice or text dialog. So the questions arise. Am I pathetically uncool if I keep using Facebook? Where are you going after Facebook?

Why I’ll Never Get Paid To Write For Tech Industry Blogs

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:01:13 +0000


Ask stupid sports questions and the little circle will twirl forever…

As someone who has to do a lot of research online for clients, I miss the early days of Google, not because I like Google so much, but because prior to Google’s monopoly on search, it was actually easier to find a broad variety of content, either by using multiple search engines (anybody remember Lycos? Alta Vista? Northern Lights?) or by letting a metasearch tool like Dogpile do it for you. Between blogs, Twitter, and Google’s monopoly, searching for useful content using Google can become quite a boolean chore. That’s why I’m always excited when a new tool like Wolfram|Aplha or Clusty comes along. And why I become so annoyed once again with Google’s dominance; easily half of the tech industry articles in the few days after Wolfram’s launch compared it unfavorably to Google (which is absurd, comparing the two is like comparing the card file at a library with the librarian), and a fair number of writers compounded their ignorance by testing Wolfram on the basis of its ability to spit out obscure sports facts. So knock it off, tech blog Googletards, Wolfram|Alpha isn’t meant to be Google. And keep your eyes peeled for the next search engine that’s doomed to fail because of being called a “Google Killer”, Microsoft’s Kumo (or will it be “Bing”?), which won’t be as much fun as Ms Dewey, but probably will be a little more useful.