Category: Technology

Categories
Technology

Google+ + Google Search is …

From TechCrunch we get “Google Fuses Google+ Into Search — And There Are Bigger Changes Afoot”.

I might be paranoid (still looking at maybe getting clinically checked for that one), but this just seems like a very slippery slope. Essentially Google+ “stuff” (pictures, links, etc.) are going to be getting high(er)-billing in Google search results.

It’s disconcerting because it means that Google+ stuff is going to be giving special treatment, if your stuff is not on Google+ then it will get bumped down below whatever that persons’s Google+ activity has been sharing.

So, SEO is now going to shift to trying to get as much stuff on Google+ in order to try and get into that very seductive personalized area on a person’s search page. Another land rush is on the way (just like Facebook Pages were in the not-so-distant past).

I’m probably blowing this out of proportion, but it just sounds a little suspect. Sometimes, personalization is not the key and I think that general web search is one of those things.

Bah, I’m just an old man.

Categories
Technology

Digital Literacy

A friend of mine, Nate Beran, wrote a blog post titled Digital Literacy and it really hit home for me on a couple of levels. You really should read his post in its entirety, it is really good.

Here is the main gist of the post:

My concept of Digital Literacy is a set of basic skills that enable a user to understand, navigate, and successfully utilize tools regardless of familiarity. Simple things that technologists take for granted. Things like universal shortcut combos, finding standard commands (even knowing what standard commands are in the first place), or how to manipulate data.

Really good, and I agree with a lot of it. I would love for the emphasis to be less and less on  Microsoft Office tools and more and more on what computers do (and can do) along with basic concepts. Get vendor-specific tools out of there and start teaching people how to think (or giving them the option to do so)!

It is funny, though, to think about mobile operating systems and how they have handled this problem. For the most part, they’ve just eliminated the file system completely. How much longer are general consumers even going to need to look at anything that resembles a file system?

Just some more food for thought.

Categories
Business Technology

Killing an Industry

Warner Brothers Will Make Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster Wait Longer for New Movies – Peter Kafka, All Things D

Go ahead and read the article. Basically, Warner Brothers is going to double the wait time for DVD rental distributors in order to try and increase lagging DVD sales.

Can I just go out on a limb here and predict that this isn’t going to work. Actually, it might just decrease DVD sales even more? I’m guessing that increasing the time from 28 days to 56 days might just increase piracy instead of DVD sales.

It baffles me how these companies can keep shooting themselves in the foot and not embrace technology. We’re not even talking about new technology here, we’re talking about DVD rentals!

Baffling.

Categories
Technology

Why I don’t use Chrome


This is part of the reason I don’t currently use Chrome as my default browser. Too much stuff going on to just promote Google’s properties and other Google/Chrome-centric stuff. Chrome Apps is just not something I can be interested or excited by.

However, I do wish Safari had the “awesomebar” and pinned tabs.

I’ve been relatively happy with Safari 5.1 on Lion, but no browser is perfect.

Categories
Technology

Windows Phone 7 too good?

I found this tweet come across my stream yesterday:


This happened because, presented with a market dominated by the open, if scattered approach Android and the tightly integrated way of Apple, Microsoft did what seems logical: they created a compromise between the two. Put the OS on a lot of phones, but make the thing consistently good. Makes sense, right?

Sadly, that kind of reasoning does make a lot of sense, but it is ultimately one thing: uninteresting. It is a compromise dressed and talked about as thought it is uncompromising. The idea that you can have everything without compromising is the driving force behind Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 right now (or at least, that is what it seems). In doing so, Microsoft has painted itself as alienating all sides of the equation.

The little I’ve used Windows Phone 7 I’ve liked. I hope that they can get a strong foothold in the mobile space because I like the idea of having three strong options instead of two (I’m not counting RIM anymore). However, Microsoft needs to decide what it wants to do and then stick with it. Trying to be all things to all people is impossible and pointless.