Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Search World Is Flat

May 30, 2010 – 8:47 pm

TweetHow does Google’s unchallenged domination of Search shape the way we retrieve information? Does Google flatten global knowledge? I look around, I see my kids relying on Wikipedia, I watch my journalist students work. I can’t help but wonder: Does Google impose a framework on our cognitive processes, on the way we search for and [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism | Comments (17)

Ballmer just opened the Second Envelope

May 30, 2010 – 8:45 pm

TweetYou know the business lore joke. The departing CEO meets his successor and hands him three envelopes to be opened in the prescribed order when trouble strikes. First crisis, the message in envelope #1 says: Blame your predecessor. Easy enough. Another storm, the the CEO opens the second envelope: Reorganize. Good idea. And when calamity [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (116)

The lethal self-complacency of advertising

May 24, 2010 – 5:29 pm

TweetIs advertising the next casualty of the on-going digital tsunami’s? For now, advertising looks like the patient who developed an asymptomatic form of cancer without realizing how sick he is. Such behavior usually results from excessive confidence in one’s body past performance, mixed with a state of permanent denial and a deep sense of superiority, [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in advertising, design | Comments (26)

Under the hood: Google Apps and Apple

May 24, 2010 – 5:28 pm

TweetWith its Cloud Apps, Google tells a nice, simple story: All you need is a browser. Life is simple, we take care of everything, no more fighting with fat, expensive desktop bloatware. You can access your data and our apps Anywhere, Anytime…if you have an Internet connection. If you don’t, as we’ll see in a [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in mobile internet, software | Comments (14)

The Oxymoronic Citizen Journalism

May 16, 2010 – 9:37 pm

TweetLet’s fire a few missiles at politically correct ideas such as “Digital media makes all of us journalists”, “citizens will soon displace professional reporters”, and so on. That’s nonsense (I have more explicit words in mind). Does it means public input in news should be kept at bay? Certainly not. Quite the contrary, actually. Newsrooms [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism | Comments (31)

Cloud 2.0

May 16, 2010 – 9:35 pm

TweetLast July, I wrote about Google’s goal: Sink Microsoft by deploying Cloud-based Google Apps and, as a result, destroy the Microsoft Office money machine. Today, we’ll take another look at Google’s strategy and at Microsoft’s response with its just released Office 2010 which combines desktop and on-line apps. First, the Cloud Gospel according to Google. [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (15)

Profitable Long Form Journalism

May 9, 2010 – 7:26 pm

TweetOver the last month, I’ve been stuffing my iPad with books purchased online, long PDF files and other documents for later reading sessions. I’m waiting for the mind-blowing media applications, they’re still in the making. Several prototypes of French newspapers I have seen are quite promising. We have to be patient. This is just the [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in journalism, online publishing | Tagged | Comments (19)

The Incumbent’s Curse: HP

May 9, 2010 – 7:24 pm

TweetLast week’s acquisition of Palm by HP makes a clear statement: HP recognizes we are at the beginning of the end of the classical PC era — and we’re witnessing the birth of a new generation, really personal computers, currently called smartphones (and tablets). HP doesn’t want to be left behind, as it has been [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (29)

Balkanizing the Web

May 2, 2010 – 12:14 pm

TweetCreeping Balkanization is the internet’s worst enemy. As worldwide literacy grows exponentially, for the web, such expansion results in increasing pressure from corporate interests and regulatory nationalisms. Rising from its arcane beginnings as a DARPA research project, the net has become a symbol of borderless communication between individuals and of unlimited access to knowledge. Unfortunately, [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Posted in online publishing | Comments (24)

Very Personal Computing

May 2, 2010 – 12:11 pm

TweetThe center of financial gravity in the computing world—the Center of Money—has shifted. No longer directed at the PC, the money pump now gushes full blast at the smartphones market. One of my colleagues, Bob Ackerman, calls smartphones the very personal computers. Measured by size and potential, they’re both smaller and bigger than today’s PCs. [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, mobile internet | Tagged , | Comments (121)