Google Diaspora (2)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
2 days, 4 hours
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Good piece on Merus Capital, started by folks who used to be in Google corp dev. Merus Capital, as it happens, is itself a new Google product. Or, to be more specific, Merus Capital is the product of a new Google phenomenon. Call it the Google exodus, the Google diaspora, whatever--in almost any given week, blogs and business sections perk up with news that key figures at Google are leaving. It happened last October, the ...
Super Cool (1)
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Time Machine (1)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
4 days, 19 hours
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I've wanted a time axis for the web for, well, for ever (OK, since 2003 when I got the idea). Google has given us at least one point on that axis, 2001. What a nutty time. Check out a vanity search for me back then. This is before Searchblog, natch.
The Conversation Economy, Sketches (1)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 week, 1 day
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Thanks to Adobe, who sponsored this work, I pulled together some sketches for the book I keep talking about. It's blog posts from Searchblog, a talk I gave at Cisco, work I've done for the Amex Open Forum blog (which just won a Mixx award!), with Powerpoint and video. A nice package, in fact, and I'm proud to say it all happened thanks to a sponsor. Check it out here (download will initiate). Thanks, Adobe!
Matt Cutts Spam (1)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 week, 2 days
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I'll admit it, I have a Google Blog Search RSS feed for "John Battelle." Come on, don't you? Ok, anyway, what I've noticed is that at least 10-20 percent of the hits Google Blog search reports back to me are spam, usually very popular stories in which I have been mentioned that are republished automatically by long tail Adsense and affiliate scrapers. It's part of the web ecosystem, whatever. But this one story where Google's ...
The Cloud: Read This Short Passage (3)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
2 weeks, 3 days
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From a Google Blog Post: Thus, computer systems will have greater opportunity to learn from the collective behavior of billions of humans. They will get smarter, gleaning relationships between objects, nuances, intentions, meanings, and other deep conceptual information. Today's Google search uses an early form of this approach, but in the future many more systems will be able to benefit from it. The context is here, but honestly. Read that. Think about it.
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annacoder said:
That's when Skynet becomes self-aware :)
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Rakesh said:
This is not entirely comforting.
Add This to Your Feed Reader (1)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
2 weeks, 3 days
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Sergey Brin apparently has a blog. And this post, where Sergey muses about his potential proclivity towards Parkinsons (I know a fair bit about it, as a close relative has it), might just move Google's stock. Hat tip: TC
Maghound: I Wish I Were Wrong (1)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
2 weeks, 3 days
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...but I don't think I am. Maghound has been compared to Netflix, a one stop monthly subscription service where you can pick and choose what magazines you get, and swap them monthly, just like you can movies at Netflix. One big difference. Magazines are all about passion and loyalty. LOYALTY! Not switching. No one cares about sampling magazines via an online site. Do they? I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am. ...
The Web IS an OS. Get Over It. (11)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
4 weeks
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There is always a backlash against anyone calling anything the Web OS, mainly because, as folks point out quite accurately, the term "operating system" technically applies to the stack on top of PC hardware that interfaces between that hardware and a user's intentions. Here's an example of what I mean - A Web OS? Are You Dense? In this story, the author, who I don't know but I certainly do respect, gives Arrington a ton ...
Ambient Awareness (4)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
4 weeks, 1 day
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Oh, I've kinda heard of that. Sounds familiar. Think I saw it somewhere, at some point. From the NYT piece: This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. ...
Google: The Ten Years Stories (6)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 month
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In the past two weeks nearly every press outlet on the planet has called me asking for thoughts on where Google is going and how Google got to where it is. The reason? Google turns 10 years old, according to most estimates, this weekend. I've talked to as many folks as I can (after all I was a journalist covering technology for quite some time) but I did have to turn down a few given ...
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davidrbailey said:
Ought to be good, worth checking back later.
Links, Etc. (2)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 month, 1 week
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Friday linkday: Via Churbuck, a nice walkthrough of how to use Google search tools to understand site acquisition and traffic patterns. As long as we're in a learning mode, here's a post on using FriendFeed as a business tool. The IE8 beta is out. I need to grok this. It's got some stuff in it that effects the advertising ecosystem in serious ways that I have yet to grok, and am not seeing much coverage ...
Is Radiohead Genius? (5)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 month, 1 week
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(photo Jeff Kravitz) I have to ask. After seeing them live, I have to wonder. They did rip my head off, as did Metallica at Bonnaroo. They have this way of being both ridiculously tight, as well as totally psychedelic. Not easy to pull off. What do you all think? Are you Radiohead fans? Why?
Getting Samuel Johnson Right (5)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 month, 2 weeks
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Lisa Gold (via Cory and BB) has a blog about book research. I love this post about an oft repeated Samuel Johnson quote. The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.” — Samuel Johnson I thought this famous Samuel Johnson quote would be an appropriate way to begin my blog. The problem is that Johnson never actually said this.....The actual Johnson quote is: “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know ...
Why Google Needs to Buy Wikipedia (8)
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John Battelle's Searchblog (89)
1 month, 3 weeks
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Because Google Maps is not very good. At the real world. And while Google is trying to fix that by allowing map editing, I don't sense Google will be very good at fostering and nurturing the kind of communities that will allow Maps to self correct. Put another way, because Google is not very good at communities that self-correct into reasonable quality, and if it's going to realize the vision it might (of turning the ...
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dewitt said:
"Allow me to explain. In the next post. I promise... " -John Battelle. I hear this from time to time -- that Google needs to buy Wikipedia. And aside from the very notion of anyone buying Wikipedia being silly (it's not something that can be acquired), it is also absolutely unnecessary. Everything that Wikipedia does is public information lying on top of the surface of the web. Google can, and does, reap tremendous benefit from Wikipedia being Wikipedia. The more content and knowledge that exists on the web, the better for *everyone* that scales their business with the size of the web. Google is the company that it is because it was one of the first to incorporate this into its DNA -- that it is better to help grow the entire ecosystem of the web, rather than try to control and "own" it directly.
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kevinDwhite said:
"Put another way, because Google is not very good at communities that self-correct into reasonable quality, and if it's going to realize the vision it might (of turning the entire world into, well usable data) it's going to have to get a lot better, a lot faster."
Design Vitality (2) permalink
In part one of my series of random but interesting tidbits from around the web, I present to you an extreme case of inflation. If you look at the picture closely, you will notice that this kid is holding nothing but 200,000 dollar bills from Zimbabwe. To return to our regular scheduled programming, check out our useful web design and graphic design posts. [ Image source: dp.ru, via reddit.com ]Shared by Arnold (0) bodzasfanta (102)Contribute comment
