Try accessing it from Android/iPhone (buzz.google.com). I can access it on my phone even though it isn't popping up in Gmail yet.
1,506 karma · joined April 18, 2008
If you're looking to reach me, try jkincaid@gmail.com
However, given the fact that a good chunk of the post seems to be a rant about TC itself, I think it's worth pointing out who this is coming from. I've known Loren since the day I started at TechCrunch and think he's a funny, smart guy. But he's also spent a lot of time in the last few months ripping incessantly on TechCrunch.
That's sort of his thing — he's been ripping on Scoble and Dave Winer for years, but I suspect he gets a bit more attention when he does the TechCrunch bashing simply because there are quite a few people out there who love to hate TC. You can get a sense of this by looking through the archives of twitter.com/1938media. Maybe he's really had some epiphany about TC being evil after being friendly with us for years, maybe he's bitter about Michael failing to attend his conference, or maybe he's just doing his schtick.
I think there are rumors that the Droid will be getting Android 2.1 (which is what the Nexus One runs) in the near future, but I don't think anyone knows if it will include this update or if it will be what the Nexus One shipped with, which lacks multitouch.
After an initial backlash, Facebook made it relatively easy to remove your friends list from public search results, but it sounds like it isn't actually blocking access to them — they're just harder to find.
From Facebook's blog post ( http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=197943902130 ):
"In response to your feedback, we've improved the Friend List visibility option described below. Now when you uncheck the "Show my friends on my profile" option in the Friends box on your profile, your Friend List won't appear on your profile regardless of whether people are viewing it while logged into Facebook or logged out. This information is still publicly available, however, and can be accessed by applications. "
I'm eager to see how this works as an eReader. I still think that reading a book on a backlit display sort of stinks. I'm wondering if people will spring for the iPad as an eBook reader because it has so much else to offer, and then realize a few days later that they just can't ignore the eye strain.
The problem, though, is that this "magical screen" probably won't be very efficient for getting work done. Which means most people won't be able to replace their computers. And I think it's going to be hard to convince these people that they need a so-called "middle device".
EDIT: I should also add that I think the appeal will be much broader once publishers make digital books and textbooks that are actually superior to their paper counterparts. But that might take years.
Michael is out in Davos, Switzerland right now — he isn't masterminding an opportunistic ad campaign.
We also wrote quite a few other stories about the situation that you should be able to pull up using the Google query below. For more on applications that are similar to Google Voice, check out the stories on Line2.
Apple: "We don't want Google Voice on the iPhone, period. But we'll publicly tell Google they're fine to put it on as a handicapped web app, because we couldn't stop that anyway, and it makes us look like we don't have anything against it. But we do. We are worried that Google will convert the iPhone into a shell for its own products, which is why we're talking to other search engines and are (probably) building our own Maps app."
Google: "Fine. We'll build a web app, and it will be sort of shitty. But we'll keep updating it with the latest HTML5 tricks and make it pretty damn good for a web app — far better than most other companies could do anyway. We're going to release Google Voice to the public later this year, and iPhone users will be able to try it for themselves with the web app. When they find out that the experience would be even better if Apple would approve our native app, maybe we'll see a grassroots movement. Maybe not. Either way, we're keeping our best native apps on Android."
To anyone who thinks that Apple is worried about the user experience and reproducing core functionality, that's all misdirection. There are plenty of applications that similarly reproduce some of the iPhone's core functionality. There are a few apps that do EXACTLY what Google Voice does, but are targeted at a different market. Apple is trying to keep its control over the iPhone for competitive reasons, not because they're worried about user confusion.
This wasn't astroturfing. First off, I don't think he ever says anything about Quora being "on the same level" as Wikipedia and Aardvark. David doesn't know anyone from Quora, nor has their PR team ever reached out to him. But the service does have a lot of buzz right now — I'm literally being asked on a daily basis if I have an invite, and I'm seeing many tweets about it.
If you look back through our other articles, you'll find that we often mention both new startups and established big players. It helps keep the small guys on your radar.
I usually enjoy the conspiracy theories, but this one was pretty weak.
As far as Google's leak control, I think that they can be secretive when they want to be. Part of that comes from the fact that they have so much going on — you hear a rumor and it could well be related to some random research project or internal test, etc. But I've been to a few Google events where there were product launches that hadn't been previously rumored.
A good example is probably the Chrome launch. As far as I can remember, there wasn't any significant buildup in rumors of a "Google Browser" in the weeks before that announcement. Granted, the cat came out of the bag when a mailing company accidentally shipped the Chrome comics a day early, but that didn't come from an employee leak.
That's a great way to build up buzz, but at the same time it makes for a pretty lame event. My guess is we'll see a few new apps or features that weren't baked into the employee phones (yet).
The sad fact of the matter is that us tech bloggers get way too much Email. No matter how many Gmail filters we set up, it's a constant struggle to find those 'diamonds in the rough' — the sites that nobody has ever heard of and have no funding. If you get ignored by everyone for multiple launches then maybe something's wrong, but don't get too dejected because of one bad press push.
Shoot me an Email next time you guys launch a cool new feature (it's in my profile). Tell me why it's cool. Tell me why you're more than a Digg for style questions. No promises about a post, but I'll check it out. Also, just from a five second glance at the site, I think you might want to look into changing up the layout/colors a bit. I'm no designer though.
I think they're making a lot of mistakes and are going to hurt a lot of users. But ultimately they'll make a lot more money.
If Facebook wanted to stay on the safe side of things, they'd have kept the default as the more private setting and then show some kind of prompt saying "Hey, this is a new Everyone setting. This is what it does. Would you like to try it?"
I seriously doubt most people know what 'Everyone' means. Or what can happen to data that's syndicated to search engines and is no longer in Facebook's control.
I'm currently in the process of reaching out to my friends who don't follow tech news to make sure they know what they've signed up for with the new settings. After explaining the 'Everyone' setting, responses are usually along the lines of "Facebook is turning evil."
About 2/3 way through the post I talk about a model they could use where they push apps to you OTA, which could be cool. Hoping they're paying attention. I also think it's weird that they aren't promoting ADC winners at all from within the Market.