How Pinterest Could Save Google

Yes, Google+ has 170 million users. But how many of them actually use it is another matter entirely. The social network’s Circle-centric design works too well for its own good; it’s easy to keep private stuff private on Google+, which makes everyone act like information hermits, leaving newcomers with a ghost town.

This article could’ve easily appeared on The Onion. It didn’t. It appeared in the New York Times, y’all:

But that perspective can mean a bid to save money can quickly devolve into a boondoggle. Lindsay Hall Harrison, a lawyer from Orlando, Fla., bought a $6 Groupon for $12 worth of ice cream from a shop near a beach that she and her husband had visited a couple of times. The problem: the beach was an hour and a half away, and the Harrisons weren’t always in the mood for ice cream by the time they drove there.

“We started making deliberate trips down there just to use up this Groupon,” she said. “It was the principle of the thing.” In the end, she estimated that the couple burned through two to three tanks of gasoline to claim $12 in ice cream, which, she noted, was not particularly great.

I have Internet access wherever I have a cellphone signal. my cellphone bill is paid by my employer. If I ever have an employer who does not pay for my cellphone bill, I, like most of you would be able to pay it myself.

We’re lucky, you and I.

Read this.

The digital divide isn’t just access, but also ability, and quality of information, and the common dignity of having equity of participation in our increasingly digital culture.

Writing on the issues surrounding Path’s unauthorized obtaining of your contacts via your iPhone, and Path CEO David Morin’s response to the matter.

At Mr. Morin’s last job at Facebook, his boss Mark Zuckerberg apologized publicly more than 10 times for privacy breaches.

It seems the management philosophy of “ask for forgiveness, not permission” is becoming the “industry best practice.” And based on the response to Mr. Morin, tech executives are even lauded for it.

SOPA and PIPA are the effective equivalent of blowing up every road, bridge, and tunnel in New York to keep people from getting to one bootleg stand in Union Square — but leaving the stand itself alone.

[via The Verge]

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, after 7 years on Firefox I moved to Chrome. I’ve never felt better.

Via Ars Technica, Internet Explorer market share drops below 50% for the first time ever.

Not tech. Google.

Oh, McSweeney’s. You’re brilliant.

My love for you is like Twitter: short, erratic, I might miss something important if I step away for 5 minutes and I keep sending you somewhere else to get the full experience.

My love for you is like Facebook: I’m always changing our dating parameters, and I constantly over-share our info.

…and my favorite, because I will always love (and store on) Flickr…

My love for you is like Flickr: I’m too busy focusing on the past to build a future.

This image (via reddit) puts it in a little better perspective… though Netflix still has a way to go before regaining customer trust due to their recent pricing and Qwikster snafus.

The Internet allow many things. Many good, many bad. 905 people disliking the first moments of audible experience for a deaf person is simply awful.

The video is incredible. Watch 50 times.

[Video via BoingBoing]

You had me at the site name: International Business Times

And, oh, that article “name”: Christmas toys for 2011 are set to be very popular

My favorite line: “The easy way for toy collectors to find unique toys without leaving their homes is to browse thought the Internet.”

The Internet?! GTFOyouarekiddingme!

Reading through some of my blog’s Google Analytics results last night. Here’s how y’all fare

Operating System: Windows (72.6%)
Browser: Chrome (39.5%)

Almost 40% of you use Google Chrome as a browser. I like that figure as I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome myself. 27% of you still use IE (I’m going to assume it’s due to your employer) with 23.53% on Firefox, 11.80% Safari.

True screenshot via TechCrunch.

I love LinkedIn. Love it. Having been in business development roles for for years it’s one of my first stops in the morning and I probably visit the site 20+ times a day.

However, someone over there needs to get their act together.

Background: I’m headed to the first Seattle Interactive Conference (aka: SIC) in November. We’re (we = Doozer) in the midst of launching our new online tool Mittix, and this conference is important for a slew of networking reason.

So I head to the events page for SIC and see that I have 2 connections attending. Two out of ~80? Meh… at lest I’ll have 2 friends there.

I then select the drop-down menu to see that I am one of those connections. The other being a former coworker at ChemPoint who has since launched his own venture.

How the heck and I connected to myself?

This bug has been present on LinkedIn for quite some time and it’s annoying as any bug in the social media tools I use. If LinkedIn can get Obama to visit their Palo Alto campus for a townhall, they should be able to fix an obvious bug.

So, my question is quite ironic: Who has a LinkedIn connection at LinkedIn to whom I can petition the removal of this bug?

Yes, one can refer to it as a “feature gap” or what have you, but it’s obvious that a feature isn’t performing in the manner it should; that’s a bug and I want to report it because I’ve had too much coffee and feeling a little judgmental.

Contact me if you have a LinkedIn contact.

PS – If we’re not connected already, holler.

I posted the original Facebook homepage in March. Kottke posted the original Twitter homepage, later posting a link to a collection of old and original homepages.

Amazon’s similarity to their page as of August 2011 simply boggles my mind. They have only recently working on a redesign due in part to the increased usage of tablet computers.

Amazon

Google

The New York Times

Wikipedia

Apple

Twitter

Mighty small… and for such an epic* win.

*This is left to my personal, misguided interpretations.

I have to admit… it’s pretty awesome.

Facebook has officially crossed over from “social network” to “online life center”. Dramatic term to use? Maybe. Still… this new change is legit, and I really can’t make you love it until you play with it yourself.

I didn’t receive a special invite or anything. I actually used the hack suggested by Mashable (who did something right for a change) and it worked.

Elements of it are still quite clunky (it’s beta bro) but the ability to easily/swiftly scroll back in time to see events from even just a few months ago causes one to realize just how quickly the new becomes old in Internet time.

Just wait, you’ll appreciate soon enough. Use the hack and start browsing ASAP.

This week we’re finalizing our logo for our new online software. All people will never agree on anything, much less a logo. That’s just business. That’s just life.

However, I’m reminded of Google’s godawful first logo, and the changes since.

You can always change down the road.

Google’s first logo (1998 – May 30, 1999)

Google’s second logo (May 31, 1999 – May 5, 2010)

Google’s third logo (May 6, 2010 – Present)