Blogoscoped

I still loved it as late as 2008... remember this? http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/1

This reminds me so much of one of my favourite apps ever - Google Hello: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-08-n15.html

If you have 15 minutes, Cory Doctrow wrote a great short story called Scroogled[1], that presents a possibly scary future and highlights potential risks with email scanning. It is science fiction but it is interesting to ponder. [1]http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

It's also the name of a great short story by Cory Doctorow (link below). Bit of a ripoff by MS on the title. http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

Followup to the post- "A Local + Server Text Editor Using Chrome" http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-10-04-n43.html

> censoring of content The supreme irony of this is that Aaron's role as a co-founder has long been censored from Reddit's founders page [0], despite agreements to the contrary [1]. More generally, Aaron had strong views on censorship [2]: > I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug – that we should create communications technologies that allow people to send whatever they like to each other. And when people put their thumbs on the scale and try to say what can and can’t be sent, we should fight back – both politically through protest and technologically through software like Tor... > How is compromising [by a technology company on censorship] supposed to bring greater freedom in the long run? That’s like saying “I’m going to beat you up now so that you don’t have to be hit as much in the long run.” The right answer is to stop beating people up. But I do think that physical violence resulting in part from the amplification of voices by algorithm would have been hard to foresee. I too would be curious if his thinking would have evolved. Sadly, we'll never know. [0] https://reclaimthenet.org/aaron-swartz-reddit-founder/ [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aa… [2] http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-05-07-n78.html

"First off, the authors are confusing causation and correlation. Schmidt points out a series of characteristics of Google as a company and presents them as the reasons for Google’s success, but in my opinion, they are all consequences of Google’s success. For example the authors write: “Their plan for creating that great search engine, and all the other great services was equally simple: Hire as many talented software engineers as possible, and give them freedom.” Well, this worked because the search was already successful enough to fund that freedom. [...] The key is market dominance. If you have a de facto position of a monopoly in your market, money pours in, and you can afford to give your employees even more than 20 percent of their time free." This is itself backwards, yes? ISTR that http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-03-n78.html AdWords — and thus the profitability of Google's search business, if (arguably) not the search monopoly itself — was the product of early Google's 20% time and employee freedom, rather than the other way round. (Oh, and they got GMail into the bargain.) Similarly for: "I would love to see one single company that isn’t dominating a market with no cash cow in-flow that can succeed without strict discipline, sharp focus, hard work, and hands-on management." I thought that Google's 20% time was modelled after practises at 3M and Hewlett-Packard? I have no doubt that in their day these were companies that enjoyed comfortably high margins…

https://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-06-04-n13.html This is obviously pretty old, but as people have noted even this level of censorship didn't save Google in China.

Thanks for the link. That certainly shows that Google was sponsoring an aggressive and fairly ugly ad campaign. > UI was comparable. They were not at all comparable. Here is an image of what Firefox looked like when Chrome was released [1]. Here is an image of what Chrome looked like at release [2]. Barring some design tweaks Chrome looks roughly like any modern browser whereas Firefox looks ancient by modern standards. It has the app menu, no integration with window decoration, a separate search box, tabs below the address bar, etc. Lots of things that Firefox would copy over the coming years. There's a reason Chrome was named after its Chrome–the UI was a huge selling point. 1: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25581533/141687681-41c5f4b6-… 2: https://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/search-large.png

Also I don't think gmail was a 20% project (at least according to wikipedia which links to http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html): > [...] they asked me if I wanted to build some type of email or personalization product. It was a pretty non-specific project charter. They just said, “We think this is an interest area.” Of course, I was excited to work on that.

I had totally forgotten about the Chrome comic book they commissioned from Scott McCloud: http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/

Reddit was founded in June 2005. Aaron founded Infogami, Infogami merged with Reddit in November 2005. When Conde Nast bought Reddit in 2006 they each got one third of the money. The other founders then fired Aaron in 2007. http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-05-07-n78.html

That took just 8 years.... http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-09-17-n17.html

how about a way to randomly visit Reddit/r/all links with the press of a button without having to deal with registration/participation/comments. or make comments optional. Similar to Stumbleupon iframe bar. Similar to Diggbar: http://blogoscoped.com/files/digg-bar-large.png

The original public phrasing was something like "We believe it's possible for a corporation to make money without being evil." The original motto was meant as a snarky summary of a typical long list of positive corporate values. "Look, you can remember all these things, or just remember to pick the not-evil choice." More: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html

Another story about Gmail's beginnings: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html

When chrome arrived opera had tons of features that were never present on chrome, to call it a copy is ignoring the main point of chrome early success. It was fast and simple, no extensions, no tons of features that no one cared about. It was wicked fast and simple. Thats it. Compare them for yourself: https://veeven.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/opera-96-te.png http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-chrome-browsing/home-large.png

Steve & Alexis wanted to write an app that would allow you to order food from your feature phone. PG thought it was a bad idea, but liked them, so he suggested the "front page of the Internet" idea.[1] And Swartz was fired, not quit. He went to Germany then didn't show up for a couple weeks when he got back. [2] [1] http://gwtoday.gwu.edu/reddit-co-founder-speaks-power-open-internet [2] http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-05-07-n78.html

This is ahistorical. As another commenter said, you can look into the factual history behind the slogan yourself before it became an advertising company.[1] [1]: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html

> Who made the slogan? Paul Buchheit, the creator and original developer of GMail. He participated in a meeting to establish the company's values and because he found things like “strive for excellence" to be bullshit, he wanted something unusual that would actually mean something. He chose "Don't be evil", because it was funny, it was a jab at Google's competitors and it was something that would be difficult to pull out. Reference, straight from the horse's mouth: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html > It chose that slogan because it risks being evil, in its own terms No, it was mostly a half-serious joke.

Whatever you feel about Google's actions, there's no need to concoct elaborate stories around and speculative theories about the origin of Google's 'don't be evil' slogan. You can look it up. According to http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-07-16-n55.html, the 'don't be evil' slogan came from Paul Buchheit, who was brand-new to the company when he proposed it at a corporate-values brainstorming meeting. This meeting was before Google became an advertising company, and Paul intended the slogan to be funny, and a jab at other companies.

Here's 2 websites that might be helpful for what your looking for. http://karmurl.com/ - trade feedback http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-11-25-n66.html -- buy feedback for $7

This photo of him posted on the OP just blows my mind: http://blogoscoped.com/files/aaron-swartz-2.jpg He can't have looked more than 15, if even that. And to be so passionately interested in not only the cutting edge parts of the Internet, but their civic implications at that age...what a loss.

It looks exactly like the favicon in use prior to 2009. Except with a bit of color change. http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-30-n48.html

Scroogled is why http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

Actually, the Google Videos version that originally launched was nothing like YouTube. Google Videos was originally made to search closed captioned TV, not to service user uploaded content. Also the original Google Video did not actually let you watch any videos. Google changed to copy YouTube's style of video hosting after YouTube already gained traction. The version of Google Videos that people are familiar with came out after YouTube. The version of Google Videos that you're talking about died. http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-01-25-n90.html

Sounds familiar: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

"I don't foresee it happening in the near future." You, sir, have a shit imagination http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

“Sir, calm down, please. No, I’m not looking at your searches,” the man said in a mocking whine. “That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching. I have a brochure explaining it. I’ll give it to you when we’re through here.” http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-09-17-n72.html

Cool technique. Similar to what this guy was doing with the YouTube favicon: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-09-16-n27.html