IT Director for a non-profit in Washington, DC. Man About Internet.
MG Siegler, writing for Pandodaily:
This also presumably means they’ll be suing Microsoft and trying to bring down the H.264 video codec — which, by the way, Google created a competitor to (WebM) out of fear that someone would come along one day and try to enforce patents that would kill the H.264 video codec. How’s that for a mind fuck? Indeed. Make sure you read his whole piece. Good read.
There has been some recent news in the last month that I want to talk about. Google announced several weeks ago the new Google+ infected search results, where they attempt to shove as many aspects of Google+ in front of the user, whether the user wants it or not. This goes against something Google has said they never would do, for years and years - polluting their own search results with preferences of their products over competitors. Back in the late '90s and early '00s this is the exact reason many people switched to Google in the first place. All of ther competitors pulled bullshit such as this, and Google being the "good guy" did not. Zuckerberg and his monstrosity has them so scared that they've now abandonned their own principles in the name of market share. In recent weeks, a new browser bookmarklet has emerged for improving Google web search results by eliminating the special tratment of Google Plus pages. The bookmarklet, called "Focus on the User", as John Gruber writes:
Open source “Don’t be evil” bookmarklet that uses Google’s own data to show social results ranked by relevance instead of promoting Google Plus above all others. John Battelle wrote an article on the motivation behind and creation of the Focus on the User bookmarklet. Danny Sullivan also wrote an explanation as to how it works. MG Siegler chimed in as well: But again, the key issue here is that what Google is doing with Search+ is making Google worse. This bookmarklet illustrates that in a very effective way. And, if all of that wasn't enough, Google's new privacy policy changes come to mind. These have gotten so much attention that main-stream sources are writing about it. A good start is "Google's Broken Promise: The End of 'Don't Be Evil'" by Mat Honan (note, John Gruber says that "'Don't be evil' has been over for a long time."
The Electronic Freedom Foundation posted a good artile on their blog conceringing Google's privacy policy changes. Danny Sullivan, at SearchEngineLand writes: In many ways, this is Google growing up into the new portal it has become. Rather than people signing up for individual products, Gmail, YouTube and so on, they’re now signing-up for Google — or at least a single set of terms (in most cases) for all the company’s products. It’s similar to how you sign-up for Facebook, rather than individual products within Facebook. Whether you like it or not. MG Sielger wrote, over at the new PandoDaily, that the reason Google is making all of these user hostile moves is simply due to their continued need to be relevant (as their own ads, their primary revenue source, rely on this). Sarah Lacy touched on both the topics of their privacy policy changes and their new compromised search results in an article called "Google: Do Yourself a Favor and Just Come Clean Already". I wish to point all of these things out to you dear reader, because I'm beginning to feel that my thoughts I put down on pixel, some months ago, are starting to feel more and more like a very good decision.
5.3" And it has a stylus. I've been in disdain over the increasing screen size of Android phones over the past year as each OEM tries to one-up the other by releasing yet another model that is a bit larger than the last. But this takes the cake. I mean - seriously? Five point three inches. And people made fun of the iPad coming out for being a big iPhone. How many of those same hypocrites will now stand up and defend this handset?
Google got caught with its hand in the cookie jar. Stefan Magdalinski, writing for Mocality:
Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted. ... I did not expect to find a human-powered, systematic, months-long, fraudulent (falsely claiming to be collaborating with us, and worse) attempt to undermine our business, being perpetrated from call centres on 2 continents. The news coming out these days about Google is all sunshine and peaches, huh? Make sure you read Stefan's entire post.
MG Siegler, writing on ParisLemon.com:
Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us this “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. As Marco Arment put it: Remember when Google argued for net neutrality? They’ve been pretty quiet about it recently. If you read anything on the web this month, for me, please read MG's post. I agree with him 100 percent.
First, Eric Schmidt says this:
Whether you like ICS or not, and again I like it a great deal, you will want to develop for that platform, and perhaps even first. And then I see this:
Yeah, I'll get right on that whole developing for Android thing.
Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge:
Yesterday, Logitech hosted an Analyst and Investor Day and during his remarks, CEO Guerrino De Luca pulled absolutely no punches in describing the "mistakes" the company made with its Logitech Revue Google TV set top box. Calling the company's Christmas 2010 launch "a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature," De Luca told investors that the company had "brought closure to the Logitech Revue saga" by making plans to let inventory run out this quarter and that there are "no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue." I've always been a big fan of Logitech. I swear by my G500 mouse, G35 headset and their 2.1 Speakers/Subwoofer combo which I've used for years. That being said, I'm sympathetic towards Logitech over the finical losses they've suffered at the expense of being Google's guinea pig. Make sure you read the whole article. Lots of good quotes that I wanted to include here, but I didn't want to do so for fear of lifting too many parts of their post which I deem unethical.
Brian Shih, former Project Manager of Google Reader who left google back in July 11:
It's almost as if Google wants to demonstrate that, yes, they don't really get platforms. Instead of improving the G+ API to support Reader as a fully functional 3rd party client (a la Twitter), they've instead crippled the product under the guise of improvements.