Alexa is an Amazon-owned site which among other things attempts to measure the reach of web sites.

WordPress, an open-source content management system (blogging software), has been gaining popularity, especially since SixApart changed how it licenses it’s MovableType application — and from the ensuing controversy. WordPress’ recent gain in popularity seems to correlate to it’s growth in reach as measure by Alexa.

Google’s entry into the English languages (and others?) as a verb illustrates how high on a pedestal their brand stands. However, as history has shown, the higher up you are, the further you have to fall.

How does a downfall start? Well, for one thing, you make vague, grandiose, inflammatory and overly-broad statements like, “You can make money without doing evil.” I, like a lot of people I imagine, are probably a little confused by this concept. What exactly does Google mean in it’s use of “evil?” I think that it’s only naturally that people are going to interpret this in the broadest sense possible — which really places Google in a bind.

Take Google’s autolinking feature. Currently, it’s pretty innocuous, since it’s primary function is turning non-linked addresses on web pages into links to Google Maps. However, this feature shares some similarities to Microsoft’s ill-fated, never-launched Smart Tags — a “feature” which would have added Microsoft-controlled links to web pages by default. One could have made a very strong case that Smart Tags was “evil,” since Microsoft was unfairly leveraging it’s monopoly in browser share to influence web traffic. Now by association — however slim the analogy — Google’s Autolink starts to feel like evil.

Google could have avoided a lot of this controversy by never making references to “evil.” Imprecise and controversial concepts don’t belong in company mission statements, since they only incur downsides, not upsides. Just ask GW.

Update: 2005_03_28
Here’s a few more links on the building Google backlash:
Dan Gillmor’s Google and Transparency
Jeff Jarvis’ Google Nazis
ITConversations audio show on Autolink
Roger Simon’s Is Google Progressive or Reactionary?

I follow Sony. What their new products look like, what their strategies are, etc. You have to if you’re into business and technology. They are too important of a brand not to (as is Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, etc.). However, I don’t like Sony. Did I mention that I don’t like Sony. In fact, I really, really go out of my way to not ever purchase a Sony product. The reason? Standards.

Sony tries to force standards on the market. Take MemoryStick, Sony’s flash memory product. I’ll never buy any product that uses it. I am friggin’ sick and tired of having to purchase first, Compact Flash, then SD and now with my Audiovox Smartphone, miniSD. Pretty soon it will be nanominihypersmallSD. Make it stop!

One way to make this stop is to never buy anything from Sony.

Check out Russell Beattie’s post reviewing the PSP’s XMB (“xross media bar”) UI.

Sony has plans to use XMB across their line of consumer electronics products (such as some of their newer TVs) to hopefully create differentiation and hence product margin improvement in an increasingly hyper-competitive consumer electronics market. Can you imagine trying to sell your products at BestBuy? Here’s a row of 20 LCD TVs which all look pretty much the same. Take your pick… as the eye searches to find the cheapest one.

However, buy the Sony because it has XMB.

“XMB” (xross media bar) user interface system

To allow viewers to enjoy various content from various devices, Sony’s “XMB” user interface enables viewers to switch channels easily via easy-to-recognize icons and to select their favorite programs and inputs from DVD or digital video camera quickly.

First introduced in the popular PSX computer entertainment systems, it operates via the high-speed processing of CPU “Emotion Engine” and a drawing processor “Graphics Synthesizer.”

Or so says Sony. I guess lots of emotively synthesized buzzwords are worth paying more for? Anyway Russell thinks pretty highly of Sony’s XMB UI efforts.

Neat - I love that Sony really made an effort here to perfect this UI and didn’t just throw Yet Another UI out there. This is what separates companies like Apple and Sony from the iRivers and Creative’s out there. Yeah, a gadget is a gadget, but the other companies willingness to launch products with insanely user-hostile UIs really shows, especially when you compare it to something so well thought out as the XMB.

Be sure to check out Russell’s XMB demonstration video too. He did it on his Nokia 6630 (oh, and btw, why are all Nokia phones now too big and just plain ugly?). The video runs about a MB a minute — roughly that of a decent MP3 recording. Hum… 7 minutes of audio (good audio) and video (it looks sort of ok) for 7 MBs. Not bad for a BUP.

P.S. I figure that Sony is not doing a very good job of branding XMB. I search on A9 (which uses Google results) for XMB, and I can’t find Sony anywhere in the top 10. Sony XMB gives slightly better results. Jeez, just try Microsoft Smartphone as a comparison. No wonder Sony needed a new boss.

Brilliant! As reported on ZDNet here.

“In the grand scheme of things Firefox is still a new technology. I’m not saying we are not going to be developing and exploring other areas — we are. But there are so many different products on the Yahoo network that there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser,” the representative said.

Better to rely on your biggest competitor’s technology (yes, it’s Microsoft, not Google). In fact, it’s better to ignore the fact that a very large percentage of the power users on the web (the users you really want), are using Firefox (look at BoingBoing’s stats for example).

I guess Yahoo! really doesn’t understand strategy. Browser competition is good. Firefox’s success is good for everyone (except Microsoft). Yaho0!, get with the program and start really supporting and promoting Firefox.