Google Forks WebKit

This is disturbing.

Sure, there are probably good technical reasons. But forking WebKit means that the capabilities of Apple and Google's browsers are almost certainly going to diverge. Is this a subtle push-back by Apple and Google (owners of iOS / Android respectively) against HTML5 as a successful platform that cuts across mobile operating systems?

How Facebook Can Totally Undermine Apple and Google in the Platform Games

How Facebook Can Totally Undermine Apple and Google in the Platform Games | Wired Opinion

tl;dr : Japanese gaming network GREE commoditizes underlying mobile operating systems. Facebook may do the same to Apple and Google.

Android Dominance

Dear Android: It Is Now Perfectly Okay To Go Out And Do Donuts In The Parking Lot

Chromebooks ...

I have to admit, this surprised me.

Why I left my MacBook for a Chromebook

Mobile Office Wars

It's on.

I guess M$ missed the boat on Excel.

How Do The Playas Make Their Money?

Microsoft, Apple, Google?

What Is Google+ Really About?

Vincent Wong's presentation is entertaining and plausibly right.

tl;dr : Applications socialised

Another thought on Google+ while I'm waiting for someone to send me an invite (hint).

People are saying Circles are good. Maybe they are, but if they are, how hard will be it be for Facebook to copy them?

Until now, FB have been pretty good at the "steal good ideas from elsewhere" game. Witness buying FriendFeed and reorganising FB to be more like Twitter. If people find that Circles has a better UI than FB for organising your friends into groups, you can bet FB will soon adopt a similar UI. I'm sure they can do that faster than Google can build up FB's userbase.

Winer on Google+.

That's pretty much all you need to know.

Update :

You know what would have been funny? If Google had made invites computationally expensive like BitCoins. That would have shown the world that they were down with the zeitgeist, still l33t masters of algorithms, and still had a sense of humour. Which is what we want from Google. It's their brand.

Instead, this is a public admission that they're scared of Facebook, a reuse of 5 year old tactics, and apparently it's internally driven by an ex-Microsoft middle-manager.

They're just building a bonfire of their credibility here. And preparing to throw all their great products (Gmail, search, YouTube) onto it.

The Worst Decision Google Ever Made

Ben Hyde presents this fascinating infographic showing ratios of employee transfer between different internet playas.

Google lure users away from M$ Office with an Office plugin to socialize Word, Excel etc.

Can it be this simple?

Google Wave is dead. But EtherPad (bought and shut-down by Google, but then released as open-source and sponsored as a non-profit by Google) thrives.

What's the lesson here?

GigaOm : Has Google given-up on social?

Facebook Mail : Facebook are absolutely rampant at this point.

This has got to hurt Google (and Microsoft). Leveraging Gmail is still Google's best hope of getting some kind of successful YASN off the ground. If FB can puncture that, then Google's fails in this area may start to look as tragic as Microsoft's floundering in mobile-land. (Basically Google would have to buy Twitter to stay in the game.)

Why Google has no Game.

So it's Google and Adobe at the moment.

Makes sense.

Good interview with head of Google.

Interesting :

Example: Google is obliged to share with Apple search revenue generated by iPhone users. On Android, Google gets to keep 100%. That difference alone, says Mr. Schmidt, is more than enough to foot the bill for Android's continued development.

Yuck! :-(

"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions," he elaborates. "They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

Boooo!

Isn't the future of the Internet wireless these days? Isn't wireless the very basis of the new partnership between Google and Verizon, built on promoting Google's Android software? But Google has now broken ranks with its allies and dared to speak about the sheer impracticality of net neutrality on mobile networks where demand is likely to outstrip capacity for the foreseeable future.

Google's Lotus Notes opportunity.

David Weinberger :

So, because Google is growing a TV business, it now gets to decide that TV needs to shoulder aside all other traffic on the Net.

:-(