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Google-Free Fridays… are you insane!?

You will be assimilated.... by Google!

Imagine a future where you rely on one company for your email, your calendar, your maps, your documents, your videos, your phone, your blog, your discussion groups, and, oh yeah, your searches and even your browser.

I was reminded that back in 2007 Danny Sullivan revived my Google-Free Fridays idea that I originally proposed in 2003.

Today, in the second half of 2011, the idea of going even one day without Google may seem insane for some people. The reliance that many have on one single company for so much of their Internet experience is, frankly, a bit frightening to me.

Don’t get me wrong, Google offers a lot of great services, and I use a number of them, but what would happen if they shut you out? It happened to Phil Wilson, and it’s happened to others as well. How much of your world would be affected if Google disabled your account?

Oddly enough, in the time between starting this post and finishing this post, Google launched a new initiative: Email Intervention. Obviously Gmail needs more users, and they want your help assimilating anyone who hasn’t yet become part of the Gmail Family. (I know the Email Intervention thing has a tinge of humor, but as all comedians know, behind every bit of humor is a bit of truth.)

I’m not saying Google is pure evil, because, well, they aren’t. In fact, the Data Liberation initiative should be applauded, and is something every web service should provide. I just hope there are other web services besides Google 5 years from now.

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Beautiful

Beautiful

I did an image search for the word “beautiful” and this is what I got…

I’m not sure what it says about us as human beings, but I found it interesting.

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I Googled Apple

I Googled Apple

I swear I won’t use the word “evil” or “conspiracy” in this post, but…

This seems weird to me. I used Google to search for “Apple, Inc.” and I got a search result for “www.apple.com” with the title showing “Apple Computer, Inc.”

Now, as you know, “Apple Computer, Inc.” recently changed it’s name to “Apple Inc.” so I wasn’t sure why Google showed it as “Apple Computer, Inc.” I then went to www.apple.com and the title of the page is just “Apple” not even “Apple Inc.”

So that begs the question… What’s up? If they indexed the page the same as they index every other site on the web, why does it not match? Is Apple feeding a different result to the Googlebot? (A quick test with Perl’s LWP::UserAgent says probably not.) So really… what’s going on? I’d like to know…

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Where you grew up

Pete Sam McPheeters and I are the same age. We didn’t know each other growing up. He grew up in New York, and I grew up in Wisconsin. We didn’t meet until about 1991, when his band was on tour and came through town, and then again when my band was on tour and we played together in D.C. It was a good show… A memorable show.

There was no World Wide Web back then… I didn’t connect with Sam through some social networking site. We met people in person, bands went on tour, people traveled, we published zines (think blogging, but on paper, delivered by the USPS.) And most of all, we had some degree of privacy. I mean, if you wanted someone in New York to see a picture of something, you had to get some film developed, and either mail it to them, or put it in your zine and hope that somehow they got a copy. It’s weird to think publishing was to a small, select audience, instead of, you know, to the entire world, as it is now.

So Sam and I are of the age where all the stupid stuff we did in our youth was not put up for all to see on Facebook, or Twitpic or some other web site where in less than 5 minutes your embarrassment can be shown to the world. (At least, it wasn’t then, but thanks to the future, it could show up, right now, today!)

Sam McPheeters In Screwed by Search Sam touches on the topic:

I know now that there is an angry, overweight black woman lurking over everything I do. Her name is The Internet, and she will not rest until every self-inflicted pie strike has been chronicled, archived, and exposed for all to see.

We didn’t grow up online, but we’re here now, and we’re the last generation who can say that. Kids today are growing up used to living their lives online. It’s completely normal. In fact, when I met a college kid a few months back who didn’t use Facebook, everyone thought he was a weirdo.

It’s obviously your destiny. What can you do besides accept it?

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Cuil is FAIL?

Look, I want a competitor to Google just as much as anyone else who is against one company dominating a space. So along comes Cuil.

Like all web nerds, I went there and searched for my name… and I got this.

Prodoehl / December

Now don’t get me wrong, John December is a nice guy, he’s a friend of mine, but I don’t really want to see his photo come up next to search results for my name. It’s like the time someone mistook me for Mark Mallman all over again. (Well, that was before he rocked out harder than anyone you know.)

Anyway, others are seeing this too…

I mean, did these guys not try searching for themselves with this thing!?