./emilychang eBot

With Ubiquity, a user can, for example, type a restaurant name in an e-mail, select the name, option-click to bring up the Ubiquity command line, type “map” to generate a Google Map centered on the selected restaurant, and then drag that map to embed it into the e-mail so it can be shared.

A Ubiquity user can also highlight apartment listing URLs on Craigslist and generate a map that shows where the selected listings are located.

Google has introduced a new Web browser, called Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The move takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level. If Google succeeds, it will be a big deal, with major ramifications for the future of the Web.

Using data from The StatBot again I\’ve built some graphs detailing usage of the top twitter users over the May 2006- May 2008 period. 

CLOUD computing is the jargon of the moment in the technology industry. Google, I.B.M., Microsoft and Yahoo are just some of the big companies talking up the cloud, and a bunch of smaller ones are, too.

What, you may be thinking, is cloud computing? Basically, it means obtaining computing resources - processing, storage, messaging, databases and so on - from someplace outside your own four walls, and paying only for what you use.

"I thought this was a great little blurb about innovation. It’s about how we should focus on how to use our existing tools in better and more creative ways rather than worry about coming up with the next ‘killer app’.”

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Rather than building your applications strictly within Facebook you can now extend the full functionality of the platform to your own website and leverage Facebook as the tool for managing members and their relationships. Somehow nobody has seemed to take note of this significant step.

Most industries do not begin on a single day, but it’s easy to see Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation on May 24, 2007, as the starting gun in an entrepreneurial race that some have dubbed “the Facebook Economy.”

Searles asks, “Why do we continue to take advertising for granted as the primary source of the the Bux DeLuxe required to fund technical, social and personal progress?”

It’s a good question.  ZDNet says its about shifting control from the sell side to the consumer “buy” side.  I have a more radical proposal.  I want to compete with advertisers for my own attention span.  Why can’t I pay the media to leave the advertising out?

Given the web is the medium, it is almost trivial for the owners of the media to publish two versions.  One would be advertising supported, but if you pay the amount your eyeballs are worth, you can have the media advertising free.  Wouldn’t that be nirvana? 

Doc Searls posted his thoughts questioning the role of advertising in the 21st century Web. He asks, “Why do we continue to take advertising for granted as the primary source of the the Bux DeLuxe required to fund technical, social and personal progress?”

Here’s how Doc thinks about nirvana scenarios:
1. No damn advertising at all. I don’t care how warm and fuzzy Google is, I don’t want to be tracked like an animal and “targeted” with anything, least of all guesswork about what I want, no matter how educated that guesswork is.
2. Tools on my phone that let me tell sellers what I want, and on my terms – and not just on theirs. Whether that’s a latte two exits up the highway, next restaurant that serves seared ahi, or where I can buy an original metal slinky.
3. I want to be able to notify the market of my shopping or buying intentions without revealing who I am, unless it’s on mutually agreed-upon terms.

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.