Of course the big news yesterday was the (one day premature) announcement of Google Chrome, Google’s much rumored browser. I am looking forward to trying it out today. Based on the comic strip Google used to describe it, Chrome has some nice innovations in it. First and foremost are the use of processes to isolate tabs and significant improvements to Javascript execution. The fact that Google released Chrome as open source is positive, but I wonder whether it would not have been healthier if ...

Of course the big news yesterday was the (one day premature) announcement of Google Chrome, Google’s much rumored browser. I am looking forward to trying it out today. Based on the comic strip Google used to describe it, Chrome has some nice innovations in it. First and foremost are the use of processes to isolate tabs and significant improvements to Javascript execution. The fact that Google released Chrome as open source is positive, but I wonder whether it would not have been healthier if ...

I wrote yesterday about why I believe there is a brawl brewing over identity. In that post I suggested that convenience will be the main driver for the adoption of a “unified identity” model in which the large players (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc) will become the identity providers for their users across the Net. But I don’t think it’s the only driver. The unified approach is a more direct translation of our physical world identity model to the online world. While I may ch...

I wrote yesterday about why I believe there is a brawl brewing over identity. In that post I suggested that convenience will be the main driver for the adoption of a “unified identity” model in which the large players (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc) will become the identity providers for their users across the Net. But I don’t think it’s the only driver. The unified approach is a more direct translation of our physical world identity model to the online world. While I may ch...

One of the really big brawls brewing on the Internet is over identity. At the risk of grossly simplifying there appear to be two fundamentally different notions of identity on the net. One camp views identity as a “series of personalities” across different sites and services with their owners controlling to which degree they link these personalities up into a single identity. In the other camp are the large players such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook which want folks to use their ac...

One of the really big brawls brewing on the Internet is over identity. At the risk of grossly simplifying there appear to be two fundamentally different notions of identity on the net. One camp views identity as a “series of personalities” across different sites and services with their owners controlling to which degree they link these personalities up into a single identity. In the other camp are the large players such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook which want folks to use their ac...

There has been a lot of praise for bit.ly, the new entrant in the URL shortening field created by betaworks. Now I do on occasion have a need for URL shortening for either tweeting or emailing, but other than that I consider the practice harmful (it should not even be necessary for email if email clients weren’t so awful). Why do I consider URL shortening harmful? First, because good URLs convey a ton of information. For starters, there is the domain itself, which gives me a good idea of what...

There has been a lot of praise for bit.ly, the new entrant in the URL shortening field created by betaworks. Now I do on occasion have a need for URL shortening for either tweeting or emailing, but other than that I consider the practice harmful (it should not even be necessary for email if email clients weren’t so awful). Why do I consider URL shortening harmful? First, because good URLs convey a ton of information. For starters, there is the domain itself, which gives me a good idea of what...

It’s not often that I find myself disagreeing with both Tim O'Reilly and Fred and instead agreeing with Mike Arrington. First a quick recap of the discussion (in case you have not followed it). Fred supported the idea of Yahoo outsourcing search to Google as far back as February. Over the weekend, Tim reiterated that view and extended it to Microsoft. Mike responded with a piece titled “The Importance of A Competitive Search Market." Mike points to competition in search being the driver ...

It’s not often that I find myself disagreeing with both Tim O'Reilly and Fred and instead agreeing with Mike Arrington. First a quick recap of the discussion (in case you have not followed it). Fred supported the idea of Yahoo outsourcing search to Google as far back as February. Over the weekend, Tim reiterated that view and extended it to Microsoft. Mike responded with a piece titled “The Importance of A Competitive Search Market." Mike points to competition in search being the driver ...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...

A while ago I wrote a post on “who will be my New York Times?" Today the NYT announced a partnership with LinkedIn that suggests that it may well be the New York Times itself! I have long thought that the social graph and industry information on LinkedIn would provide an ideal filter for determining relevant stories. I hope this means that I can soon get a personalized news feed from LinkedIn or the Times or both. I would be happy to contribute to the creation of such a feed by doing a bit of...

Jason Calacanis takes google to task for becoming a content company and competing with publishers. While much of what Jason writes may seem clear to folks who have been competing with the content parts of google, I have come to believe that it is far from clear to googlers themselves. This is based on a number of conversations I have had with googlers on various inititiatives. Most of them seem (a) blissfully unaware of the awesome power that google wields and (b) genuinely convinced that the...

Jason Calacanis takes google to task for becoming a content company and competing with publishers. While much of what Jason writes may seem clear to folks who have been competing with the content parts of google, I have come to believe that it is far from clear to googlers themselves. This is based on a number of conversations I have had with googlers on various inititiatives. Most of them seem (a) blissfully unaware of the awesome power that google wields and (b) genuinely convinced that the...