TechBait

There are reports that Google is spending over $100. million to open source a video codec by ON2 in order to leapfrog a web video standards impasse.  As it stands today, much of the web’s video is encoded in proprietary formats like Adobe Flash, for example YouTube’s .flv video files, and that various browsers are set to use the Ogg Theora codecs while Apple refuses to use it due to an “uncertain patent landscape”.    Netscape accuses Google of sabotaging the standard because they use the Adobe formats for YouTube, etc.  Lots of infighting.  If you want to play the videos you need a third party proprietary plugin like Adobe Flash.  While this is free for the end user of an approved Operating System, it is very hard for device and software makers to create software and products around this without facing potentially huge licensing/royalty or lawsuit issues.  Having an open source alternative that is backed by such a standards setting monster like Google would take a huge step towards making this problem go away.

Ogg Theora is actually based upon an earlier open sourced version of the On2 codec, but it’s performance can’t match the newer versions or the non open sourced competitors.  The Register article explains the whole situation very well.  I’m linking to it in order to comment on it.  Google has become this 8000 lb gorilla on many technology fronts.  They wield enormous power due to their sheer size and domination of the Internet search and advertising markets.  One little change in their search algorithm or standard can shut down many people’s profitable Internet properties overnight, with no recourse.  They have become evil, ironic for a company who’s motto is or was, “Do No Evil.”

So, if they open source this video codec and make web video seemless and ubiquitous without the worries of patent issues, they would take a small step away from being evil.

According to this post at Network World, Best Buy is requiring a certain level of Twitter expertise in order to qualify for an “Emerging Media” executive role.  The funniest thing is that the company’s CEO, while having an account, barely would qualify to work in his own marketing department.  You gotta love that.

Twitter is a mixed bag.  For a long time I didn’t see the value in it.  Now I see value, but I also see a lot of useless chatter.  It is a VERY useful PR tool for celebrities to plug their agenda.  It’s a great marketing tool.  It is an awesome market research tool.  Twitter is like putting your pulse on the Internet.  I posted something last night about Microsoft adding value to their Bing search engine with some nifty Twitter tools.

So, back to Best Buy.  Yeah, sure, why not?  I think it’s great that senior management at these large companies are getting with the times.  It’s actually a sign of the times.  As the older boys bow out, the newer generation takes with them the tools of the modern age.  I would still rather that Best Buy do a better job with it’s floor staff.  I laugh every time I see commercials where they are putting up some alleged floor person who went above and beyond to help out a customer.  I wish that they would ship some of them over to the Best Buy store in Paramus NJ on Route 17 north, where you could all but keel over with a coronary before any of them notice you.

Microsoft has developed a system, “BingTweets” where users of their Bing search engine will be able to see live Twitter feeds related to the search topic at hand.  Brilliant!  You actually access this through the BingTweets.com URL.  This will not only return search results, but offer a kind of up to the minute buzz or pulse of the search topic.  You are not logged into Twitter at this point so you can’t interact with the feed.

Microsoft's BingTweets service

To make up for that lack of interactivity, there is a “Share This” feature which let’s you email, tweet, or post the results to social networking sites.  Also present is a box for trending topics, which gives the user access to people, places, and products.  This presents Twitter in a whole new way, and dare I say, adds another tool in the arsenal of those researching hot trending topics for marketing or PR purposes.

The Internet online version of the Office 2010 apps will be available at no cost ala Google Docs.  Windows Live account users, Microsoft hosted Office Web apps, and customer hosted Office Web apps for Microsoft Software Assurance enterprise customers will all be free.  SMBs who decide on Office 2010 web apps instead of purchasing regular packaged (non online) Microsoft Office will have to pay  Estimate is perhaps a $50 price. We don’t know the price but like I said that is a guesstimate.

Office 2010 web apps will be a bit stripped down as compared to their full software versions, but they will be useful for many.  Let’s face it, honestly, how many of the features of full blown MS Office to you actually use?  I thought so.  One great feature of the Office web apps is their integration with SharePoint 2010, providing it with a full backend data store to organize and access Office files, and a SharePoint portal to boot!  Office web apps give SharePoint a clear edge when compared to many other competing Wiki solutions which rely on basic forms submittal and lacking in the rich applications interface.

Microsoft is offering a robust set of installed apps with web versions, SharePoint integration, a free Windows Live version.  Customers can even shoode a Microsoft hosted option or choose to host it internally themselves. Google’s office apps can only be hosted with Google, and they do not offer a SharePoint equivalent.  Microsoft’s web office will work under Firefox and Safari, in addition to IE, but NOT Google’s Chrome. (unsupported)

This is heating up to be an all out multi front war betweeen Microsoft and Google.

I like this!

The Google Calendar Apps has it’s own Labs settings and they are adding an API so that developers can add additional features, according to this Washington Post article.

According to the article:

Background Image (now you can change it)Attach a Document (to an event)World Clock (see what time it is for the person you are trying to schedule a meeting with across the world)Jump To Date (quick time-based navigation)Next Meeting (shows how much time is left before your next one)Free or Busy (shows the status if your friends and co-workers)

If you haven’t tried Google Calendar yet, I suggest that you do.  It is great to have an Internet calendar that can notify you of events and offers many features that I got used to in a corporate environment.  It integrates well with the free and very useful GMAIL mail service.  I use Calendar to remind me of imporant dates like peoples’ birthdays, upcoming events, and also to set personal productivity reminders.  I like that Google is extending the functionality of this useful web app.

For those who may be looking for a reliable and flexible web hosting service, let me suggest the one that I use, Hostgator.  These guys are great.  I can get a new domain online in mere minutes after I buy one.   Setting up a new account is a cinch.  Now, I use the reseller account, which lets me set up multiple domains under the same account space and do all sorts of other cool things, but they also have light weight packages if you require less features.  They are quick and so far pretty darn reliable.  They offer all sorts of web stats programs for your backend analysis, as well as great things like WordPress for your blog.  That is what I am using to do all of this.  It has never been easier to have a sharp web presence.  So, if you are in the market for web hosting, give Hostgator a try.

This week there was news that Google is coming out with a Linux based operating system to challenge Windows on certain devices, like low cost netbooks.  This is a good thing.  Linux itself could never pose much of a challenge to Microsoft because the various Linux distributions were way too small and lacked the money and resources to pour into things like device driver development, device support, or even partnerships which would bring so called “killer apps” to Linux.  Linux was more successful on the server side since it is a fabulous server operating system.  Windows Server has gotten better over the years, and it is a much more robust platform than it once was.  It is also very easy to administer.  Linux is more powerful and just more of a multiuser operating system.

Back to the desktop.  As an IT guy and UNIX devotee, I tried Linux as my desktop for several years.  It was good fun, but I grew frustrated with the lack of things like video codecs and device driver support.  I eventually went back to Windows as my desktop OS as windows became more stable.   To go off on a minor tangent, Windows NT 3.51 was very robust.  Then to make it better for gaming and to succeed Windows 9x on the desktop, they took devices like graphics and moved them to Ring zero of the kernel, thus making the whole thing more crash prone.  They also were careless with their service pack updates.  The infamous Windows NT 4 Service Pack 2 broke many systems so bad that you couldn’t log in, and in many cases cause the more infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).  I swore off Windows for several years after that.  I worked in a software company where we got all of the Microsoft OS’s in prerelease versions, and could see it improving after Microsoft was forced into some internal reorganizations when Bill Gates had to eat crow too many times in public due to Windows crashes and all of the bad PR they were getting.  It slowly came back.  They started testing service packs more, having limited releases to certain customers and external testers before releasing them out for general consumption.  Windows XP was very good.  I like Vista, but many people still feel that Windows XP is just a better workstation/desktop OS.  Windows 7 is supposed to fix Vista’s perceived flaws.

So, here comes Google.  Google is taking the rock solid and fast Linux OS and combining it with their own technology.  Will it unseat Windows?  I’m sure that many Microsoft execs are not sleeping well at night these days.  Google owns the Internet, and they are now poised to make great strides on the desktop.  They have the deep pockets to augment Linux and fix it’s desktop flaws, as well as make it “sexy” enough for mass consumption.  They have to be careful though since if they mess up, it will damage their brand.

I am impressed with the Google web browser, Chrome.  It is light weight and nice for quick browsing.  I am interested in the form that this Google-Linux will take.  I can hardly wait to load it on an old PC and take it for a test run.  That being said, Google has proven that it can be very evil in the realm of search engine based Internet domination.  They have the power to ruin Internet based business overnight, on a whim.  Since they are the biggest web search player, and Internet traffic is king to many online ventures, a simple change up in their search algorithms can literally ruin many people’s hard work in an instant, if they, say, vanish from hard won search rankings.  Their constantly changing Adwords keyword charges and page rankings have also become somewhat burdensome.  They defend this by saying that they are only looking out for the web surfers and minimizing SPAM, but this is not always the case.  They are so huge, and frankly I don’t like any one player being too huge.

So, I am glad that Google is challenging Microsoft, which will make Windows better and keep Microsoft honest, and I am equally glad that Microsoft has introduced their Bing search engine to at least try to challenge Google.  I do think that Google is far more of a threat to Windows dominance than Bing is to the Google search engine.

Only time will tell how all of this will play out, but you never know.  When Google was new you could have never convinced me that they would be what they are today.  You never know who is thinking up the next big thing in their garage startup company.