Harplessblog
Opinions of an inexperienced techy!
Monday 4 February 2008, 11:02 PM
Google to Yahoo: We're in your corner!
For years Yahoo and Google have competed fearsly in every corner; search engine wars, email, social networks, advertisers etc.. You'd think that Yahoo's demise would be welcomed with open arms at Google, but not if it's in the form of a Microsoft takeover.
It turns out Google is not too fond of the idea, so much so that they're willing to help Yahoo fight off Microsoft.
According to The Wall Street Journal; " Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo..."
Google have also expressed their concerns publically, in a blog post titled; Yahoo and the future of the internet, Google Senior VP David Drummond asks some interesting questions:
"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?"
"Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?"
This could be interesting!
Friday 14 December 2007, 12:24 AM
Blog Council aims to help corporates understand blogging.
Corporates generally forbid employees from blogging on the company's behalf and that could be for any number of reasons such as; employee opinions reflecting badly on the company, accidentally giving away sensitive information, avoiding nasty comments from dissatisfied customers or maybe large companies just do not understant the blogosphere.
Just in case it's the later, a group of people have got together to do something about it, they've created whats called BlogCouncil.org, a community for official corporate blogs.
Blog Council's mission it to " help corporate blogging efforts become more successful", they aim to achieve that by creating best practices, standards and training, providing networking and partnering oppotunities.
Not the most compelling of ideas but when you look at the list of companies that have signed up so far, its easy to think they're onto something. so far, members include; Microsoft, Cisco systems, Nokia, Coca Cola amongst others.
I really wonder how companies will benefit, the training part might be useful but how do standards that fit Microsoft also fit Coca cola? why can't a company define it's own standards? Why would bloggers need to network with bloggers of another company?
And whats with the name 'Blog Council'? the 'Council' seems to insinuate that they regulate or have some authority over blogging!
Friday 7 December 2007, 12:17 AM
Apply for a visa via Secondlife?
The replublic of Estonia has opened a new embassy, not in a specific country, but in the virtual world that is SecondLife.
SecondLife might not be as hot as Facebook or even MySpace but it has come a long way; from boasting a small group of loyal followers some described as fantafists, to convincing multinationals such as IBM to join, and now nations.
Will we one day see a British embassy in SecondLife?
when you see well established companies such as HP or IBM trying to establish a presence in SecondLife, its understandable as way to reach new customers or to demo new products. But for a nation, what do they expect to gain out of secondlife? virtual visitors?
Am sure Estonia is a very progressive country but if I were Estonian, i wouldn't be too pleased to see my tax money spend on some biulding block video game 'virtual Lego' that only a select few will ever get to see.
Sunday 25 November 2007, 2:51 AM
Why is there a shortage of UK tech entrepreneurs?
Since Tim Barners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web, almost all the cool web stuff has come from America. From early services such as Ebay and Amazon to Google, Facebook or any number of web services, the founders are American based.
So, are UK kids just uncreative?
thats unlikely, in my opinion its in the culture; like the movie industry, we've become acustomed to good things coming from America, so we wait.
Also, it seems as though its much harder to get funding in the UK. UK investors are more cautious with their money.
By contrast, in Silicon Valley, VC's will through money at anything in hope that one of them will be a big hit, and that strategy seems to work. Take Peter Thiel for example; since PayPal, he's invested in several startups, one of which hapens to be Facebook, whose recent valuation makes him a billionaire by virtue of holding a 10% stake in the company. That would more than make up for investments lost in unsuccessful startups.
Another possible contributor is the relative ease of getting a well-paying job in I.T. for example, as i type this blog entry, i see a news headline at the top of my profile page, it reads: "demand for tech graduates still strong"
Twitter and Bebo are some of the UK startups that have achieved success, but even they've had to move to Silicon Valley because its much easier to make it if you're based there.
Tuesday 20 November 2007, 12:01 AM
The credit crunch may actually inspire new entrepreneurs!
I was reading techcrunch, as i do daily when i came across the title: "Will the credit crunch inflate the internet bubble"
the entry cites a survey carried out on the people most affected by the fall out in the financial markets, due to the US mortgage crisis. The survey studied 862 people, 56% of which were considering starting their own business within the next 12 months, most of them in the tech area.
Are we about to witness an array of creative ideas or are we dealing with a bunch of desparados inspired by the "be your own boss" campaigns, who assume the internet is an easy way to make a buck?
lets just wait and see!
The author also mentions the 'internet bubble' being inflated, in my opinion, there is no bubble; not many startups do IPOs, most are backed by VC's, therefore if the business fails, the financial implications are only felt by the gullible VC and 'misguided/unlucky' entrepreneur, unlike the original bubble where companies were publicaly traded..
to read the techcrunch post see: techcrunch
