Rachel at cre8d design bemoans the loss of long-form writing. The example is a book telling a story composed of emails. While I agree with the sentiment that the loss of long-form writing is just that – a true loss – I’d be interested in seeing the same book told through Tweets and TwitPics (or Facebook status updates and corresponding Photos).
Google is set to speed up Gmail. I’m only up to 16% usage on my Gmail account, but I certainly wouldn’t mind anything they can do to speed it up.
Tim Bray is now a Developer Advocate for Google – specifically the Android platform. I don’t have anything against Apple and the iPhone personally, but as a software/web development professional, I am definitely behind the argument that their gatekeeper/executioner style of running the App Store is dangerous for any developer involved.
While it wasn’t one of the major factors I talked about in my previous post, the following is a quick and easy example of another reason that webapps kick ass: No Upgrade Cycle
Google launched Buzz 2 days ago, and already their making changes based on user feedback. But the best part is not that they’re making changes and responding so quickly, rather it’s that the update gets automatically pushed to everyone. No download. No install. Just, roll out, and boom, it’s there.
The mobile platforms, Android and the others, are so powerful now that you can build client apps that do magical things that are connected with the cloud. This is I think the most visually obvious example of that…don’t limit your imagination to this set of problems. Anything where you can produce this phenomenal customer benefit when you have a mobile device broadly defined connected to the cloud….Obviously we like the price of free because the consumers like that as well and we can figure out ways to use advertising to pay for it.
The way he says it, he makes it sound like this is still a few years in coming… but then there’s this post about Lala.com’s iPhone app which was just submitted a few days ago, and basically does exactly what Schmidt was talking about: Use the mobile cloud to make magic happen.
It’s like I told my wife last night (talking about why I didn’t want anything more than watching a Bulls game for my birthday): I can get any DVD I want from Netflix, I can get any music I want on Lala, and I can get any book I want from the library. When you couple with that, the fact that I don’t really need any new clothes since I don’t even wear everything I own now, and the only thing that I really need for my birthday is more time.
In searching for the image for my Aardvark post, I just discovered that Google has added the drop-down suggestion list to Image Search!
I just used it to find the images for this post! As someone who writes 3 (or maybe more ) blogs, and likes to use relevant images in his posts, I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. But this guy can:
According to TechCrunch, Hulu gained 10 million viewers in Feburary, which is an impressive number, but if you look at their chart, what I think is more impressive is the 64.5 minutes per viewer which is second in the top 10 behind only Google Sites (aka YouTube) which had 134 minutes, and 3.6 times more than the next highest average minutes per viewer in the top 10.
Maybe it’s because Hulu rocks the house. I wish CBS and ABC would take note. I would give them more advertising revenue that they are otherwise losing because I’d be all over the past 4 seasons of How I Met Your Mother and the last few episodes of LOST that I haven’t been able to watch yet (and I might even watch Wipeout if I could add it to my Hulu queue).
Google also says that full integration with Gmail is coming, but won’t say when. Personally, having all my email, SMS and transcribed voicemails in a single inbox could be life-changing.
Yes indeed. Of course, this post has been skulking around in the background for almost a week, and so I’ve developed a counter-point as well, but let’s start with the positive.
Google Voice is a Google Product, so it has a pretty good chance of being awesome. Being a Google Product, it also has a pretty good chance of sucking, and pretty much no chance of being in between. But since TechCrunch says it’s Very Very Good, then I think the chances of being awesome are pretty good.
As someone who does not have a “smartphone” I would like a phone number that could direct my calls to my home number if I didn’t really want to deal with them, and deliver them to my cell phone if they were important. Of course, since it usually takes 24 hours or more for me to remember to set my cell phone back to Loud after I have to put it on Silent (like for a movie), the announcement of voicemails and SMS in my Gmail seems like a brilliant idea. I also like the idea of getting transcriptions of my voicemails and perhaps even moreso, the ability to save my text messages forever. Storing them in a place where I keep emails that I want to save forever is like getting fouled on a monster dunk.
Of course, if it could also tell me if a SMS message went to anyone else (like, say, and email does), then I would be 100% happy (as opposed to, you know, 99.999%), like getting fouled on a dunk from the three-point line, NBA Jam-style.
IE7 disables javascript with the security setting on “high”, which would not allow AdSense ads to show along with numerous features of most websites. IE6 works exactly the same and the phenomenon is definitely not specific to Google AdSense. It is likely that whomever did the test had their security setting on “high”. However, this is not the default setting and we believe most users would not have a good experience on the web having javascript blocked.
I tested with the security setting at Medium-High and Medium and had the same issue, so it’s not just a problem with High security.
And some insight on Internet Explorer 8 which will apparently be doing the same thing. Now, yes, I can see how security experts would be skeptical of AdSense as being a form of spyware, but you could also (and I would think perhaps more successfully) argue that Google Analytics is even worse. (And yes, putting the two together is even worse)
That said, I (and many others) use Google AdSense to make a little extra cash from blogging (not from this blog, mind you, despite the presence of ads in some browsers). I prefer Google’s ads to just about any sort of display advertising which is usually just distracting or annoying, and the face that Firefox, Safari, and Opera (and obviously Chrome) don’t seem to have any issues with displaying Google Ads does make me leary. Microsoft has been known to be fairly anti-trusting in the past, and while the links above explain that the security measures affect more than just Google Ads, my guess would be that the Internet Explorer test suite includes a “security test” that makes sure that Google Ads aren’t showing up.
If it’s good enough for Gina Trapani, it’s certainly good enough for me. Sorry Apple fans (I know there’s at least 2 reading this blog)… I use and spend more time in Gmail more than anything else (yes, even Facebook!), so if an Android phone is better for that, then it’s not even really a question. Here’s Gina’s quote:
I’m a heavy Gmail user, and Android’s Gmail interface far surpasses the options on the iPhone. Reading, searching, labeling, and otherwise processing my email is the most important thing I need to do on my smartphone besides make calls, and it’s simply easier in Android.
) blogs, and likes to use relevant images in his posts, I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. But this guy can:
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