seanmonstar

MG Siegler, regarding Google’s comments that other social networks haven’t shared their data for indexing:

Those other companies can argue that it’s not in their best business interest to open that data. In effect, Google would be forcing them to hurt their business if they were to open the data up.

So, essentially, the “other companies”, such as Twitter and Facebook, will claim it’s not fair that Google can show data from Google+ and not Facebook, when Facebook doesn’t want to share its own data?

Personally, this really excites me. Google has always been useful for un-biased information, but when you wanted to know if a movie was good, or where to eat, you got a bunch of strangers opinions. We all know a friend’s opinion trumps 1,000 strangers.

I hope it will eventually be like this: I want some some good Mexican. Oh look, John and Kevin both recommend La Cantina.¹

Samsung, regarding upgrading the Galaxy S software to Android 4:

A full update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the GALAXY Tab(7-inch) and GALAXY S is not practicable due to hardware limitations.

This, as the Nexus S (which is the same internal hardware) is running Android 4 right now.

If an OEM were to release less phones a year, but provide excellent support for them for more than a year¹, I could strongly recommend to my friends to only buy from them. But I can’t recommend Samsung, since they don’t.

I can only recommend Google’s Nexus brand, now.

When people ask me why they should use Chrome or Firefox, I tell them that feature-wise they’re pretty competitive. This sums up the difference greatly:

This is a Google product and it has to benefit Google. It isn’t merely about making the web better, it is also about promoting Google products and giving them an advantage over competing services. […] Even if it requires violating your privacy.

Firefox wants the web to be better, and Chrome wants Google to be better.

I’m sure you’ve seen else where that Google has bought Motorola. While people are busy talking about the boring patent portfolio that Google gains, I’m more interested in this part by Larry Page:

Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere.

Google’s Nexus devices are the “pure” Android experience, and are far better devices for it. With Google now directly controlling how the hardware should match the software, this could mean many more devices that don’t get the OEM skin-cruft, and far faster updates. Hopefully we’ll see less devices that make Android look bad.

Also an interesting note, is that Google will now be making money directly related the quality of their software and hardware combination. We’ll see how this affects features and the user experience, as opposed to currently, where Google only makes money indirectly through ads in mobile search.

Update: On the flip side, what if Google offered high quality Motorola phones for super cheap (free after a new contract), eating the cost at having more people having good Android’s in their hands? With good, fast devices, there would be more searchs, and more Maps usage. Both would be an increase to places Google could advertise. Just a thought.

Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices and serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe.

In some ways kind of creepy, but if genuine, it makes a lot of sense. They can automate compressing assets, gzipping content, and using a CDN. This simple plug-n-play could decrease page loads for a site significantly.

Me, 18 months ago:

As money: Paper money and even credit cards can be a hassle. Credit cards especially suck at letting us split the bill at a restaurant with 20 people. It’d be to everyone’s advantage if a vendor could broadcast a bill (or a money request), and we could accept on our device. Or if a friend needs to borrow a couple hundred or a thousand dollars. Sure, here you go [press button]. It will happen.

It is happening.

I’ve got two Cr-48’s, and I love them¹. However, I would never spend $500 on one. It’s still just a browser. I can spend $500 on a Windows laptop, and get Chrome, plus a bunch of other software.

This very well might be the tablet I go pick up. Assuming it has a WiFi only model. Very impressed.

Google is trying to force everyone off of closed codecs like H.264 and use open codecs, like WebM. Other companies have tried to force away bad technologies, and while they were hated at first, eventually everyone realized it was a good move.

What’s surprising (perhaps it shouldn’t be), is that one of the companies to have done this previously is Apple, and yet, much of the Apple crowd have grabbed their pitchforks. It seems to me, that just like Apple, the company, those Apple fans care less about open standards, and more about Apple’s standards.¹

Update

Regarding why Google isn’t doing the same for Flash: Chrome bundles Flash for security reasons. Most people would download Flash anyways, but they likely wouldn’t bother to keep it up to date. That means their web experience would be riskier.

HTML5 video is still very new, so it’s still pretty easy to mold the direction it is going. Besides mobile devices, most web users don’t see an HTML5 video player. At this point, it makes more sense to ask, “Apple, why do I need an extra encoded version just for you?”