Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Digg: a temple for the self-important

When I say this, people will say, ‘here’s another disgruntled’ person dissing Digg.

I hear Digg has undergone yet another enhancement – got itself horizontal navigation, the in-thing for news websites. It also got more into Videos, geeks love that but perhaps it is too late.

It is the web 2.0 version of traffic enhancement tool – bloggers need it; news site.

That aside, this traffic tool is in hands of so-called cabals.

As for news intelligence, forget anything outside geek-‘telligence’.

However, when you say anything negative about Digg, the madness of crowds takes over. The geeks do not want to hear any negative remarks.

That’s not good for Digg.

Either Digg becomes a Myspace for Geeks (for traffic, self-importance) or it may become an important news tool.

Right now, the field for a useful news recommending site is wide open – a service which has not become private property of some insiders/insiders wannabes in the Silicon valley and elsewhere.

Monday, December 18, 2006

6 reasons why GooglePhone is a good idea

I hope the so-called GooglePhone is not hype like iPhone.

1. It makes possible better mobile browsing – with pre-loaded Google software.
2. Better Mobile Email with in-built Gmail app. Blackberry ambitions. Perhaps?
3. Better mobile search – Google has to go miles in mobile search. Maybe, Google will add Google base to it too. That will be a Craiglist challenger.
4. Better location-based application with help of Google Maps.
5. If Google integrates all the best of breed application before you buy the phone, no need to download and install yet another mobile application, which is hassle and a reason for slow spread of mobile-based innovations.
6. Better usage of Youtube, Riya, blogger, Checkout.

No Time for Time Magazine

Time magazine is getting desperate.

1. One year too late
In giving out Person of the Year Award to users of the web, Time is actually a year too late.

In January, 2006, BBC called 2005 as the year of the Digital Citizen. Time has spun that around and now ‘you’ are the person (s) of the year.

2. Misleading hype
All this hype over users is actually putting wool over our eyes. Most of what we call User-generated Content (UGC) is being generated for free. However, for how long? The Youtube Founders got $1.6 billion, not the enthusiastic submitters. Digg earns the advertising moolah, not the news-submitters.

3. less listing, more community
It is interesting to contrast NYtimes with Time. While, NYT is moving ahead with the times (forgive the pun) – many NYT stories duly go to the Techmeme site; now it has added Digg this tool as well. On the other hand, for quite some time, Time and Forbes are making a cliché out of lists – top 50 most powerful people, richest people, and so on. Get over it. Build a community.