Some Google News & an apology, and a change of format (blog to column)

Things have been busy lately and I haven't had much (read: any) time to share my great thoughts and not so great thoughts on this blog.
Also, I've realized I'm not exactly the "blogger" type.

However, I do get the urge now and then to write stuff down, so I've decided to make this more of a place to occasionally write a column rather than a "blog" when the muse moves me.


First off, I'd like to plug Fark's new tech section for an interesting assortment of hand-picked tech news.

Next I'll give a short wrap-up of what Google's been up to lately.

A couple days ago, Google launched it's new Page Creator (actual Google link here to get yourself on the waiting list).

What does it mean and why are they doing it?
Well, my guess would be they like the old goecities-esque approach to content creation and are looking for ways to make it easier for them to get content and sites they can display their AdWords on.

The "Page Creator" will be WYSIWYG meaning everybody and their furry cousin can create pages and the pages will be created on Google run servers.
From the "Page Creator" page;
"Don't worry about hosting.
Your web pages will live on your own site at http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com"

There are darker rumors floating around that it's the first in a series of offerings from Google that will one day be a Web Office Suite to rival Microsoft's Office and such.

Maybe not such dark rumors but, after all, we have been hearing the rumors about a Google OS kind of thing for years and they've been denying it for just about as long.


The next bit of Google news is that it's looking like they've let their Google wallet go live in a pretty beta kind of way over on their Google base.
And while people are saying it could rival PayPal someday, the title of this article about just that, Google’s PayPal Could Be Big gives just a little hint as to the uphill branding battle they're going to be facing.

As long as "Google Base" is still "Google's Craigslist" and "Google Wallet" is still "Google's PayPal", I'm pretty sure we've got a way to go before they become the main stream alternative.

However, what "Google Base" (a.k.a. "Google's Craigslist") has going for it now is that people can use "Google Wallet" (a.k.a. "Google's PayPal") to actually buy things directly off the site in a more "eBay" kind of way.

But since eBay owns a big old chunk of Craigslist, they probably won't take the challenge lying down.