Archive for the ‘Off Topic’ Category
Tour de France & Armstrong Ads
It’s Tour de France time and I need to admit that I havn’t watched the Tour nearly as much as I’d like to this year. I’ll blame 2 week old Phoebe since she can’t do anything about it. I’m adding the TdF to my Tivo’s “To Do List” but in the meantime, here are some.
Welcome Phoebe
As of 6/24/09, I’m officially a new dad. Phoebe Ann Solar was born at 2:59pm & everyone is healthy and happy. Sleep (and my online activity) has been light, as expected. More to.
Google Latitide to Status/Blog
A close friend (“cc” aka Chris Crosby) sent this to me yesterday but I’m just getting around to checking it out this morning;
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-ways-to-share-your-google-latitude.html
Two items:
“Google Talk location status (beta) automatically updates your Google Talk or Gmail chat status message with your Latitude location.”
“The Google Public Location Badge lets you publish your Latitude location on your blog.
The Twitter Value Debate
A quick background to this post; this morning several friends and I had a conversation spawn about the value of Twitter to the masses. The discussion started between myself (@mattsolar) and my close friend, Pete (@petekuhn). Since we’re both bearish on Twitter’s value I decided to rope in another good friend, and content/Twitter.
The End of Google’s Culture?
This morning a highly publicized post from a top Designer at Google (http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html) illustrated some details about the culture of Google and their analytical dependence on data. I was curious to see if the issue was as significant as John Battelle mentioned on his blog. A quick review of employee postings on GlassDoor.com.
Schmidt by day. McKinney by night.
For a long time I’ve privately wondered what the relationship is between Google CEO Eric Schmidt and “The Kids in the Hall” genius Mark McKinney. Watching the Charlie Rose interview gave me the motivation to take my speculations public.
They look identical and, given the small population of McKinney’s “home” nation of Canada, the odds are.
Google Latitide Privacy: +1 for Google
Here’s a very important note on Google’s belief of privacy:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/exclusive-google-takes-stand-location-privacy-alon
The key point; “Google has confirmed that its policy will be to require a wiretap order before tracking a Latitude user’s location for law enforcement.”
It’s good to see that they still follow their, “Don’t Be Evil” motto. I’m sure this will prove to be an.
My 2009 Philanthropy Rides
Here are my excuses for not riding in the 2009 PMC and Prouty:
1. There is 3 feet of snow on the ground, followed by 1″ of ice, followed by another 6″ of snow.
2. The economy is a nightmare, nobody has money for their own needs let alone random donations, and my 401k is smaller than.
Google’s Picasa to Launch Face Recognition
Big day for Google: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10026577-39.html
With a face recognition feature set to launch at noon PDT Tuesday, Google’s Picasa Web Albums will help users label their photos with the names of subjects. That and other changes to the photo-sharing site are joined by a new beta version of the accompanying Picasa 3.0 photo-editing software.
The “name tag”.
Google’s OS (aka Chrome)
Hopefully Microsoft sees this as the threat to XP that it is:
http://www.google.com/chrome
I haven’t played with it too much yet, but is this a replacement for FireFox? My friend Pete (Yettas) claims it’s extremely fast, which is the biggest complaint I hear about FF.
March ‘09 Update: Aside from the questionable first sentence of this blog post.
About
Matt is an experienced search engine marketer and analyst. Over the last five years he’s managed small, regional campaigns and international, multi-million dollar campaigns. An active philanthropist, Matt has also been.
