Category: Random, But Interesting

Oh So Quiet We Leak

A News.com article, and subsequent Slashdot post, note that Google is "considering renewing support" for RSS. Now that's interesting in itself, but not interesting enough to rouse me out of my book-induced torpor. What *is* interesting is that the CNET story quotes an internal email from Google that threads…

faucet_leak_redbg150 A News.com article, and subsequent Slashdot post, note that Google is “considering renewing support” for RSS. Now that’s interesting in itself, but not interesting enough to rouse me out of my book-induced torpor. What *is* interesting is that the CNET story quotes an internal email from Google that threads through the main players at the company. The RSS/Atom feud is not hugely advanced by this leak, the email is not definitive in any way, at least as reported in the CNET piece.

But what is noteworthy is that an internal email on any subject made its way into the hands of a reporter during the quiet period. One would expect this is *not* an intentional leak, as such a move would be dangerous given Google’s desire to avoid pulling a Benioff. So that means something else – that someone at Google is going around company policy to give this to CNET, or, that CNET has an in that Google can’t stop. For a company that is notoriously good at keeping its cards close to the vest, it’s something of a new development.

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Andrew Anker Joins Six Apart

My friend and past co-worker Andrew Anker has taken a role at Six Apart as EVP, Corp. Dev. This means a lot to me, not only am I a big fan of both AA and SA, I take it as a sign that SA is getting serious about building out…

imagesMy friend and past co-worker Andrew Anker has taken a role at Six Apart as EVP, Corp. Dev. This means a lot to me, not only am I a big fan of both AA and SA, I take it as a sign that SA is getting serious about building out their a platform to grow as this nascent industry grows, and that’s a good thing. There is tons of work to be done on both the revenue and product side of blogging, and it’s heartening to to know the team at Six Apart will be on the case.

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They Can’t Talk About Their Business…

…thanks to the quiet period. So instead, Google's chef talks about buttermilk fried chicken, and gives away the recipe. This just might be the most specific piece of information to come out of Google since Page and Brin published the first paper on Backrub….

fried-chicken…thanks to the quiet period. So instead, Google’s chef talks about buttermilk fried chicken, and gives away the recipe. This just might be the most specific piece of information to come out of Google since Page and Brin published the first paper on Backrub.

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Neat: Search just those sites you want to

Not that I think most will want this kind of dashboard, but it's a neat hack – Scoble points us to lushe.net, which forces Google to search only the sites you tell it to. This site is a project by Glen Murphy. Who is he? I have no idea, but…

Not that I think most will want this kind of dashboard, but it’s a neat hack – Scoble points us to lushe.net, which forces Google to search only the sites you tell it to.

This site is a project by Glen Murphy. Who is he? I have no idea, but here’s his site. This is why I love the web.

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Da Vinci: “Hey Googlio, how the hell do I get to Rome?”

You come across some funny shit doing research on the web. Florence, Italy – Historians have found convincing evidence that Leonardo da Vinci developed the first search engine. Recently uncovered Da Vinci diaries describe how he collaborated with his neighbor, Googlio, to enable a renaissance in searching…. … In another…

googlioYou come across some funny shit doing research on the web.

Florence, Italy – Historians have found convincing evidence that Leonardo da Vinci developed the first search engine. Recently uncovered Da Vinci diaries describe how he collaborated with his neighbor, Googlio, to enable a renaissance in searching….

…
In another chapter, da Vinci recounts how he asked Googlio to find him “a babe with a mysterious and captivating smile.” Googlio produced a list of women ranked by their standing in Florentine society. Googlio began working for da Vinci full time. Da Vinci supplemented his income by selling the contents of the genius’ searches.

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Jeremy on LinkSpam

Jeremy has an idea for Scott and Dave….I agree with the implied business context – that there is a business to be made in providing services like link spam blocking to serious bloggers. I'd pay a monthly fee for such a service….

Jeremy has an idea for Scott and Dave….I agree with the implied business context – that there is a business to be made in providing services like link spam blocking to serious bloggers. I’d pay a monthly fee for such a service.

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Terms of Service and the Clickstream: A Survey

As I muddle my way through yet another iteration of my outline, and think about the issues raised in my recent ephemeral/eternal post, it seems apparent to me that as a culture we are nowhere near consensus on what rights, if any, a person has with regard to the data…

TOSAs I muddle my way through yet another iteration of my outline, and think about the issues raised in my recent ephemeral/eternal post, it seems apparent to me that as a culture we are nowhere near consensus on what rights, if any, a person has with regard to the data we create and/or provide to third party applications like A9, Gmail, Plaxo, and the like. Clearly we are touchy about all of this, as the reaction to Gmail proves. In the process of my research, I started reading the terms of service and privacy policies for various services, and found them inconsistent, often vague, and in general difficult to understand.

Now, I know there is a vocal contingent of folks who believe that we should simply assume we have no privacy online, and assume the quid pro quo for any service that we use is loss of control over the metadata/personal information we create along the way. I certainly understand this line of thinking, but…it strikes me as a cop out. In the end, I’d warrant that business models are going to evolve to the point where services will spring up that offers consumers access to their own clickstreams in new and powerful ways, and I’m going to predict that we will want that access as a right. I’d prefer we not have early lockdown on this issue, if we can at all avoid it.

The nice thing about doing a book is that people help you. I have had and continue to have help from a lot of smart folks, and one of them is Abigail Phillips, a lawyer who has worked with the CDT and the Berkman Center. Abigail is helping me pull together a little research project that will compare the policies of several well known platform players as they relate to what I’m calling “clickstream/stored information” – the data exhaust we all create when we interact with web-based services.

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Google Is A Yugo

OK, I know, I'm supposed to be writing. But when IBM takes a shot like this across Google's bow, I have to point it out. Ben Elgin, of Businessweek, heads down to WebFountain (yes, that WebFountain) and interviews the two chief geeks. During the course of the interview, Elgin…

gruhl OK, I know, I’m supposed to be writing. But when IBM takes a shot like this across Google’s bow, I have to point it out. Ben Elgin, of Businessweek, heads down to WebFountain (yes, that WebFountain) and interviews the two chief geeks. During the course of the interview, Elgin asks if Google and WebFountain are similar. Dan Gruhl, WebFountain’s chief architect, answers:

We crawl continuously. We look to be updating our store [of information] within 20 minutes of when a page [on some other Web site] changes. We’d be happy to answer two or three questions per minute that are very complex and change how business works. That’s a very different target market. It’s kind of like saying: Yeah, strictly speaking a Rolls Royce Phantom and Yugo are both cars. But the fact is, they’re serving very different markets.

Oh my. I sense a certain frustration with all the attention those folks up in Mountain View have been getting lately.

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Google Launches Blog

Don't expect a hell of a lot of news during the quiet period. (Thanks Gary)…

google-blogDon’t expect a hell of a lot of news during the quiet period.

(Thanks Gary)

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How Memes Travel

Wired News reports on a study done at Brandeis. They coulda just asked Technorati or Feedster….

Wired News reports on a study done at Brandeis. They coulda just asked Technorati or Feedster.

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