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28 May 2011 15:24

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U.S.: From politics to personality, do online filters create blind spots?

  • The downside of online personalization: Eli Pariser, who’s the board president for MoveOn.org and the author of “The Filter Bubble” (above), says that there’s a pretty troubling blind spot with online personalization — it hides opinions you may not like, but are important to know nonetheless. “People love the idea of having their feelings affirmed,” he notes. “If you can provide that warm, comfortable sense without tipping your hand that your algorithm is pandering to people, then all the better.” It’s a problem with wide implications — it can reinforce views, produce blind spots, and prevent you from challenging your own opinions. Your opinions deserved to be challenged, kids — including by Google. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 May 2011 22:59

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Tech: Cloud music horse race: Apple’s about to pull ahead quickly

  • Amazon Launched their cloud service first — without any deals with the major record labels. So while you could upload your music, you can’t stream the labels’ tunes.
  • Google Launched their cloud service a little while after Amazon — with an interface that looks nearly the same. They weren’t able to cull deals out of the labels, either.
  • Apple They’ll be late to the game, but they have two of the four majors on board, with the other two close to signing. Apple bought the lamented Lala in late 2009. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 May 2011 15:35

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Tech: Facebook and Google: A story of jealousy, bad PR and bad stories

  • Google You know, the giant company that seems to have their nose in everything nowadays. Could their success possibly be making Facebook jealous?
  • Facebook It seems like it. A PR agency working for someone tried to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers and bloggers. (Some may have taken the bait.) source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 May 2011 10:48

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Tech: When Google uses lobbyists, they use them for awesome reasons

While the food industry lobbies Arizona politicians to keep Happy Meals happy, Google lobbies Nevada politicians to allow self-driving cars. Awesome. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 May 2011 01:42

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Tech: College students are gonna love this Google ChromeOS news

  • $20 per month for students to get a ChromeOS notebook?!? source
  • » Wow, that would certainly change things: Could you imagine a kit-and-kaboodle deal like that, how it’d tear apart the hardware-centric power structure of the PC industry? This is the kind of method social media companies use to go after a growing demographic — but not generally hardware-makers. If Google’s deal is true, that’s $240 a year for a laptop which essentially works as a loss leader for Google. It’d also be an entryway into the business industry for the company, which could hand out dumbbooks like Google’s for super-cheap.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 May 2011 10:57

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Tech: Google’s cloud music service launches — without label support

  • We’ve been in negotiations with the industry for a different set of features, with mixed results. [But] a couple of major labels were less focused on innovation and more on demanding unreasonable and unsustainable business terms.
  • Google director of content partnerships Zahavah Levine • Speaking a sentence obvious to anyone who has watched the music industry do its thing over the past decade. Which is why the company chose to launch the service (called Music Beta by Google) first, and wait until later to get the content partnerships. While the service reportedly has much in common with Amazon’s cloud music offering, it reportedly was more robust in the form it tried to sell the music industry on. Maybe we’ll see that someday. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Apr 2011 12:01

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Biz: Google’s Larry Page deserves praise, not criticism, for earnings

  • Doing what Google needs to do to be a fast-growing dominant company in five years means sacrificing some of the bottom line this year and next (and maybe forever). It also means spending less time kowtowing to Wall Street and more time focusing on products and users. In his first few weeks on the job, Larry Page is doing exactly that. And if Wall Street doesn’t like it, whatever.
  • Business Insider’s Henry Blodget • Offering a spirited defense of Larry Page and Google, which just felt investor rage over a quarter that didn’t meet their expectations. We’re with Henry. They’re already making more money than God, so why give them crap over not making every penny they can, and trying to think long-term? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

14 Apr 2011 20:48

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Biz: Google’s shares drop precipitously after earnings announcement

  • $2.3 billon in profits this quarter, up 18 percent from last year
  • 6,000 number of new employees Google plans to add to its coffers by the end of 2011
  • 4¢ the amount (per share) Google missed its profit targets by … despite profits being up
  • 5% the decline in Google’s stock price today in after-hours trading —over $30 source
  • » A tough coming out party: New CEO Larry Page, who started in the position just a week ago, got to feel investors’ wrath the hard way. For what it’s worth, he’s totally optimistic about the changes he has in store. “We’ve really hit the ground running,” he said. “I’m tremendously excited about all of the things that lay before us as a company.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

24 Mar 2011 10:58

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Tech: Think Quarterly: Google has a spiffy magazine for UK advertisers

  • Google has a spiffy new magazine. They say it’s for advertisers and partners in the UK, but we bet people would actually buy this thing in an app store. “Think Quarterly” has a better set of table of contents pages than many mags have feature spreads. We don’t even care what it’s about. It’s Google. It involves graphic design and thinking. And it’s awesome.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Mar 2011 10:33

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Tech: China responds to Google’s Gmail accusations with just four words

  • This is an unacceptable accusation.
  • China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu • Regarding Google’s claim that China has been infiltrating users’ Gmail accounts lately. We bet you’re wondering if she had any elaboration on this quote, considering its brevity. But, no, she didn’t. That’s all she said. Kinda awkward, isn’t it? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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