Google posts

The introduction of Google’s Priority Inbox in GMail was hailed by many as a step forward for email. Here finally was a way to not simply filter email in to spam and regular email, but a way to filter on what you read and replied to most. Though the service has its share of people who don’t seem to see the benefit – like GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram, who simply finds that he can prioritize fine on his own – most of the reaction was pretty positive. Primarily, I’ve found that Priority Inbox works best for separating out those emails that you’ll read ‘eventually’ and the ones you want to read right now. Perhaps the…

Over the past few weeks, some changes at Google and some comments from its CEO have gotten me thinking about the effect the company is having on culture. Now, to be clear, I am not part of that group of people – Nick Carr, Andrew Keen or Evgeny Morozov – who feel that the internet is ruining things. Quite to the contrary, I’m very optimistic about the promise of new technology to make the world better and fairer. But some of what Google is doing these days is making me wonder whether large tech corporations are the ones to lead us into the future. Google Wants Our Brains Why? Well first was Eric Schmidt’s comments…

We’ve all been whispering sweet nothings at each other for weeks about just what Google Me may end up being. As Google’s eaten smaller companies left and right over the last little while, most of us have been seduced into believing a true Facebook Killer might be in the works. But Google’s ever-handsome CEO Eric Schmidt assures us there’s no reason to get terribly excited. “Everybody has convinced themselves that there’s some huge project about to get announced next week,” said Schmidt at a tech event in Arizona. “And I can assure you that’s not the case.” Apparently, Google Me will be much less a…

Man, Google just can’t catch a break with Street View. Continuing the trend of countries casting a suspicious eye at the search giant, the Czech Republic has now banned Google from expanding Street View within the country. While details are still foggy at this point, according to the Office for Personal Data Protection, Google had not registered fro the activity. The office will rap about it next week, and we’ll know more. Because you’re dying to know the fate of Street View in the Czech Republic. Honestly, though, I kind of get a kick out of Street View. I get to stop and stare at totally alien landscapes…

I was really sorta worried about Google Instant. I thought I was gonna hate it. I thought it would be as bloody irritating as that drop-downy-thing Firefox does before you turn it off. Autocomplete my searches? Get bent, Google. But actually, Google Instant has been the freaking bomb, all live-updating my results n’ junk. Truly, the feature I never knew I wanted. Google, though, isn’t the only service to have been ‘instantized’ in the past week, though. Taking a page from The Goog, programmer Feross Aboukhadijeh decided YouTube could use a lil’ instant, and got to work on exactly that. “My roommate…

Last week, when rumors broke that YouTube might finally become profitable, most of the response was actually pretty snarky. As an example, take the initial post at Slashdot – it suggested that it was about time that YouTube was making some money. If anything, YouTube’s success – which certainly has been a long time coming – seemed like something that was well overdue. But another take on YouTube’s slow, steady move into profitability is a bit different. Instead of snarky, it is optimistic. Why? Well, first is that maybe it had to take this long to create a viable online business model for video; and…

Google has announced a press event for tomorrow, September 8th, to discuss searching. It seems obvious, except recently Google has been about almost everything except search, so it’s worth stating out in the open. The invite alludes to a single large announcement relating to search, and mentions the “evolution of Google search”. Google is certainly rolling out the big guns, with Marissa Mayer, Johanna Wright, Ben Gomes and Othar Hansson leading the event. The event will take place at the Museum Of Modern Art in San Francisco. Some have speculated that the location is an indication that Google…

Though recently it has been the smartphone market that has garnered the most attention in the tech world, the arrival of a revamped – if slightly disappointing – Apple TV is a reminder that the living room is the next big play for digital transformation. Think about it: unlike so many other sectors of society, the living room is one in which traditional approaches to media still largely dominate. DVD sales still dwarf streaming and online video in both numbers and revenue, while the web has yet to make any serious inroads onto people’s TVs. So there is a massive market ready for the taking – if only someone…

Google should seriously rethink its doodles. Nobody is ever going to get anything done! This is the worst thing for productivity since their Google Pac-Man. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the ‘buckyball’ (Buckminsterfullerene, for you chemistry buffs), a form of carbon composed of 60 atoms arranged into a soccer ball shape, Google has wizarded their logo, as they have done so many times before, into an animated, interactive buckyball tribute. I’ve seriously been sitting here for ten minutes spinning this damn thing. Google must seriously be trying to collapse the economy….

Your mother used to say it all the time. “Good night honey, don’t let the bed bugs bite!” And yet Google can’t handle that simple warning. “jeepers i am not immune from the bedbug epidemic. bedbugs have been found at work.” Horrible capitalization and spelling aside, that tweet was sent by a marketing employee at Google’s HQ in New York. It seems the company has a small epidemic going on in their sales office there. The Twitter account that posted the message has been deleted, hopefully the poor guy didn’t get fired for it. A Google spokesperson has this to say on the matter: “Like several other…