Search on..

Google is very much in the news these days. [come on you dont need a link for google]. first with the ever rising share prices, then with the stand off against the US Govt, and the consecutive fall in prices and now with the censorship of search results in China.

The reason for writing is to mull over Google's inherent 'do good' or 'do no evil' policy. Very few companies ever have such a policy, and while laudable, its the implementation of the same that needs to be seen. Also the fact that you cannot really follow suit and keep financial gain in some cases. Google definitely tried its best .. it fought and still continues to fight a cold war of sorts against censorship in certain countries on their search results .. saying all data should be open to public. There have certainly been incidences where after consultation with respective governments Google has had to exclude some specified sites from search results. But all the while they were advocating open searches. And now comes this stand off with the US Govt. The govt asked Yahoo!, AOL and Google to submit a list of search terms used by their users last year .. in an effort to determine if, and if yes, then how children may be stumbling across porn on the internet. However Google was the lone company which refused to oblige.

Later on in the month, they decided to oblige with the Chinese govt and agreed to censor certain websites when searched from china .. like specific search terms and topics.

Agreed, that the US govt issue does raise questions regarding privacy and all that (continue to guard some privacy which you think still exists, that is) but arent the two decisions by google self conflicting at some level?

Nooooo ooo oo o (echo)

Great. Now we have Google talk. or GMail Talk .. I forgot the name. We already had Yahoo Messenger, MSN messenger, ICQ, AIM, Gaim, Trillian, Kopte, Web messengers and many more which I have used but forgotten.

So now here is how my life is gonna change. I call up a friend with whom I havent talked in like the last thousand years.

Me: Hey man!! Whatsup? I never see you online these days! I was wondering whether you are alive or not.
Him: Hey .. I was also thinking where you have disappeared to. Huh? Man .. Its *you* whos never online.
Me: Kya bol raha hai yaar. I'm online every day from work.
Him: Arre dude .. you are not on Gmail Talk .. thats why. Why dont you get that. These days everybody uses that only. Noone uses Yahoo messenger nowadays.
Me: (realizing that this was the last nail in the coffin .. sort of like someone who knew he was about to get fired but was not fired yet). NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Thats exactly how it is going to be. With each one of them bastards who are just ready to jump into anything that Google makes. Cos it makes them good. Damn you Google. Same thing happened with GMail itself. I resisted but was'nt strong enough. The clean interface turned me over. But this is IM for gods sake! We are talking about a couple of hundred contacts .. don't make me do this. Please. Sniff. Sob.

So anyways. I opened my email today and there lay some 8-10 odd invitations for Gmail Talk .. or whatever its called. Is it really that much more superior to yahoo or other messengers? What do I get that I havent already got?

ha ha ... virtual bubblewrap

Check this out ... Virtual Bubblewrap!! I spent a lot of time popping it. People come up with what all things .. and idiots like me spend time on them. Pretty cool though. I will visit again ;-)

Flash based email?

Earthlink is coming out with a Flash based email service for its members. Knowing earthlink, expect to see a few ads regarding the same soon. Flash based email will definitely be something new and different. Gmail already has a very intuitive interface thanks to some cool javascript, but even that can be slow at times. This new thing is surely worth trying .. but a) its going to be just for earthlink subscribers intially; and b) how many times do they expect people to change thei email addresses?

yahooo?

I typed in http://www.ayhoo.com accidently and came up with the linked page. Quite intelligent. Trying out a few more things: http://www.ahoo.com gets you the same page, so does http://www.yyahoo.com, http://www.yaaahoo.com, http://www.yaaahooo.com, and perhaps many such combinations. However other common typos are already taken up, else I'm sure Yahoo! would have ended up with about 50 or so domains, all giving us the same page. ;-)

http://www.yahooo.com redirects you to the original Yahoo! page. Similarly http://www.gooogle.com redirects you to the Google homepage. I didn't bother experimenting more with the google domain. After a long detour, let me (finally) read the news on yahoo.

..the pursuit of happiness and WiFi for all

The city of Chaska, Minnesota joins the elite list of cities offering it's habitant's cheap broadband wireless internet access by starting its own ISP. Starting September this year Chaska, a suburb of Minneapolis has started offering broadband WiFi services for as low as $16 a month (the average monthly price of a private broadband connection is $35). 200 powerful wireless access points are located on top of street-lights throughout the city. Tests conducted earlier yeilded an enthusiastic response from Chaskans. Upon registration (free) the residents are provided with a wireless bridge (again free) which can connect to the WiFi. About a 1000 households are participating currently and the city believes it will break even if a total of 1500 households enroll for the WiFi services. While the Chaska WiFi covers an area of 33 sq. kms, Philadelphia is experimenting with their own WiFi covering a staggering 345 sq kms!!

While educational institutions worldwide were in the lead in providing WiFi access within their campus, WiFi within city limits is fantastic. It's a result of the city authorities taking the initiative and actually implementing what they thought was good for their community. No doubt this will bolster the economic growth of the area as well. Cool. Me likes.

Goooogle .. and how to sell a startup twice

Google is expanding. Its scary.
Well .. it isnt (scary); but I just wanted to say that.

Google wants you to do everything from their page. Search the web, look up stocks, find out word meanings, perform basic calculations, find items on sale, track FedEx and UPS packages and tons more. They are also expanding into other stuff. Google bought Blogger last year, then came Gmail and now they have bought Picasa.

I think I need to clarify at this point that I like google. Better still - Google is my homepage.

Anyways, trying to read more about how google is expanding .. I came across the blog of Evan Williams .. the co-founder of Blogger. (makes sense for him to maintain a blog .. it is blogger 'powered' .. I checked). The blog itself is decent .. [you somehow expect a top class blog (contentwise) from the co-founder of Blogger], I found 1 post particularly interesting.
How to sell the same startup twice. Check it out.

Meet Joe Blah

Time magazine, in its last issue had an article titled Meet Joe Blog. (Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased). While most of the article addresses the issues of What blogs are, talks about some of the most popular blogs ever, the power that blogs weild nowadays, and about political blogs; one another part struck a chord.

Blogs can be a great way of communicating, but they can keep people apart too. If I read only those of my choice, precisely tuned to my political biases and you read only yours, we could end up a nation of political solipsists, vacuum sealed in our private feedback loops, never exposed to new arguments, never having to listen to a single word we disagree with.

[After looking up solipsists I realize that] This is a frightening thing, and one that I have been thinking about.
Now two things largely influence my thoughts. The first is discussing things with people .. friends, my dad, colleagues etc. The second is what I read. In both the cases I have always been careful about looking at all sides of an issue, hearing the other side out. It is very easy to bias yourself in any thought process even before you know all the sides. This will obviously, be even more pronounced if most of the people in your circle of friends think similar to you. [But then you will say: "Anya, thats why they are my friends"]. True enough, even more reason for you to read up different arguments and try to understand why some people think different.
I am stressing much on this because thats what I observe nowadays, people are caught up in their own ideas so much that they don't value the opinions of others, and so don't give them an ear. More so online, on blogs where it is so easy to publisize our own thinking, and so easy to read just what we want to read. A sort of an e-ego massage I would say. Think about it.
Keep an open mind.
[But not so open that your brains fall out].

MT-Blaclist ..

I maintain that some form of comment spam control is necessary for every blog, and myself use MT-Blacklist. More so because it was the only one I knew about and read about at that time.
I was amused however, when within a span of 2 days Amol said MT-Blacklist sucks and Jivha said MT-Blacklist rules.

Gmail mania

Gmail is hot! Everywhere I turn I see people talking about it. Plus as they have'nt yet made access public, having a gmail account is somewhat of a status symbol like thing. People are not ready to wait and it seems .. are even ready to pay for accounts .. as Yazad tells us here. Ravikiran tells us he managed to pilfer an account. God knows how. Gaurav, in a recent post, told us how he showered gifts upon his dear ones. Now when 3 of my favourite bloggers are talking about gmail, all in the same week, I thought 'why should I be left behind?'

All in all, I wonder how all of us here in duluth have managed to get the gmail usernames we wanted. Now my yahoo account has always been adequate for me and my inbox is almost always sqeaky clean. I wasn't really interested in one but did want to 'reserve' one there .. so I got one .. to the end that (I suspect) my friends here began secretly thinking of me as a hypocrite.

What would I do with a whole GigaByte of space? If it could have been used as proper webspace, well then.. (insert devil-smilie here). This sums up my stance until recently. Now, after having tried gmail .. I am starting to like it. They have a clean, refreshing interface .. much like google itself. I have not started using it yet .. as I dont want to leave my yahoo acc .. which is my primary email account. It has served me well over the years.

Anyways, seems like many ppl are concerned with the 'targeted advertising' that gmail is supposed to carry. Big deal ... privacy shrivacy .. as it is all emails are being scanned my many bots, govt agencies .. the whole lot. Plus if it is targetted .. it will be better than the current flashing, irritating ads. (think google). As the owner's manual for google shareholders states .. the ads we provide are relevant and useful rather than intrusive and annoying.

Google has not just changed the way we search, but much more than that. Maybe soon, change the way we use email.

TheLastPage

This was sent on my school egroup by Keyur. (My school friend - obviously) -
The Last Page. I like this type of humour. Witty, subtle, powerful.