Category: Google

  • Ignore the static: Kindle is great for reading

    Wow, the new electronic book reader from Amazon, Kindle, sure is getting a lot of absurdly misguided and factually incorrect criticism. My fingers are getting sore from responding to such a tide of disinformation in comment boxes scattered across a zillion web sites. Just this morning, I’ve been writing a lengthy comment to a Kindle…

  • Google Earth is showing post-Katrina damage

    Amidst a debate over what’s what with Google Earth’s view of New Orleans, here’s what the program is showing right now: My post is reacting to some comments on Dave Winer’s blog that missed the message of a Google blog post on the subject and made it sound as though pre-Katrina imagery was still in…

  • Google hears my long-tail e-book plea

    Back in October, when Sony’s new and fairly horrific $350 e-book reader gadget came out, I blasted the company — and some of the people who reviewed the reader — for completely misunderstanding the need for such a product. We don’t need to carry around 87 different best-sellers in an electronic format that’s inferior to…

  • Short-tailed Sony reader needs a much longer one

    Sony’s new e-book Reader certainly seems like a marvel of technology but it’s also an example of a company forgetting to ask the most basic question of new product development: what is the customer benefit over existing products? With a nod to Chris Anderson and his much discussed long tail thesis, the real direction for…

  • New page of stuff I’m messing with

    I’m adding a new permanent page to my link list down the side today. It’s intended to fill the gap between blog entries and my existing lists of hardware and software that I use regularly. Really, it’s just stuff I’m messing with and I’ll use it to keep a running list of products that I’m…

  • Google Earth is on the Mac – Now update my block!

    Thanks to my old boss, John Battelle, I learned that Google has finally released a Mac version of its useful and nifty mapping program, Google Earth, that lets you zoom all around satellite photos of the world, measure distances and generally get to know any place like the birds do. Downloaded to my 17″ Powerbook…

  • Down goes Palm, yet another notch on Gates’ belt

    (Updated 9/28) The depressing news that a once innovative and leading software company has been vanquished by Microsoft is hardly surprising. Palm, now called PalmSource, revolutionized the “personal digital assistant” by shedding features and focusing on simplicity and a good user experience. Now it lives to see the day that its own hardware unit, called…

  • Google saves Outlook email search

    Like many Mac users, I suppose, I must make do with a Windows XP box at work. Blah. But the true horror is being forced to use Microsoft Outlook, likely the worst email program I have ever seen. One of the very worst features is the brain-damaged search function that works like a snail in…

  • Google gains from MSN ads…

    As I noted here a few months ago when Microsoft started running pretty generic TV ads for its search service, such a move by an upstart can have the effect of helping the market leader. Surprise, surprise, as the Wall Street Journal notes today (subscription required): “Bill Gates has talked a lot about how Microsoft…

  • MSN’s Search ads will help Google

    Some years ago, I was interviewing Bob Pittman, the now-departed chief operating officer of America Online and he gave me a golden nugget of marketing advice. Before coming to AOL, he ran the theme park operator Six Flags. When did Disney World have its best year for attendance, he asked me. The year that Six…