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Gvote
Theodore Cohen | October 2nd, 2008
No no, just kidding, there isn’t a real Google voting method, but everyone’s favorite G-company is definitely starting to tackle some political issues in a variety of ways. To begin with, it has just come out that Google is going to be starting a comprehensive campaign to get people to register and actually show up to the polls to vote this year. They will be doing this through the use of a voter info and registration map both in the classic computer and mobile versions, along with, other nifty gadgets and widgets to provide helpful voter registration information, which is tied into your home address. The next neat new thing that Google is trying to do is help sponsor a celebrity effort to get people to vote, using the clever tactic of reverse psychology, telling people, “don’t vote.” It’s hard to tell how much good mixing the clout of both Google and celebrities could be to voter registration and poll turn out, but I know I’m at least trying to be very optimistic about it. I think Google has the right idea by trying to increase awareness and to foster educating yourself on the politics that will be affecting all of us very soon. Finally, Google has started to show some of its colors, coming out against the anti-gay marriage initiative that is taking place in California, Proposition 8. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, posted on the official blog that they aren’t a fan of the proposition Continue reading…
Chutes & Ladders
Theodore Cohen | September 26th, 2008
While this is characteristically off topic for a blog entry from the scholarly Wpromoter, I just couldn’t resist jumping on the opportunity to talk about something as cool as space ladders! Yes, that’s right, space ladders. As soon as one might hear the concept of a “space ladder,” more than one idea might come to mind. Is it a nefarious plan to condemn the whole world to bad luck? Or are we just trying to make an altogether simpler and more efficient way to transport people and cargo way up yonder into the reaches of space? As it turns out, there have actually been multiple attempts to make a space ladder, and despite the failures, Japan has announced that they will be tackling the idea, and they are bringing a few new ideas to the table that they think could make this Arthur C. Clarke, sci-fi dream, materialize in the real world. The future is upon us, and that idea can be seen in the attitude that Shuichi Ono (chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association) had when he said, “Just like traveling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space.” While this seems a little exaggerated or that the chairman is getting a little ahead of himself, it is a novel concept to think about. As the earth becomes more and more charted and documented, it makes sense that progressively we are going to look more and more into going into space, and getting off this Continue reading…
Spoiler Warning
Theodore Cohen | August 22nd, 2008
The internet, in all its glory and wonder, has the particular ability to be quite a den of “spoilers”. People or organizations can post just about anything up on the web, and often it is information that isn’t common knowledge, and sometimes that’s because it wasn’t necessarily designed to be broadcasted to the entire world at once. The original idea behind this topic and blog sparked from a conversation with my friend and co-worker Dom, who began to tell me how annoying it was that Yahoo was posting front page headlines about Olympic winners, but doing it based on the air times and schedule for the first US airings. These happened to be the east coast and left many Pacific Standard Time Yahoo users in a state of disappointment, having many of their favorite or at least anticipated events ruined, knowing the outcome already. It’s a funny thing to think about. The exact kind of headline we have become accustomed to and even might prefer in many cases – one that is short, specific, and gives you the “punchline” – is pretty much the worst kind of headline to have for a scenario with which the outcome is hotly anticipated, and especially where not everyone across the United States even has the ability to even see things without a delay. The Olympics are a big thing for a lot of Americans, and I could pretty easily see it being jading knowing the results of something you were waiting to watch Continue reading…
OBD – Ya You Know Me
Theodore Cohen | August 6th, 2008
I was watching the Colbert Report yesterday (which is a fantastic show) and happened to catch him interviewing a guest named Lucas Conley. Conley was on the show because of a new book he published called OBD, which stands for “obsessive branding disorder.” The book describes in detail what the author believes is a malaise of our commercial society, excessive product branding. Branding, which all of us see every day from corporate tycoons like Coke or Nike and so on, is an extremely powerful tool. People exhibit a psychological trend of brand loyalty and also of being attracted to brand recognition. This might not seem like a particularly big problem, or even desirable, yet if left to run amok, Conley believe is a big problem. What happens when big tycoons just start branding their name on very different products from their traditional line of goods? Well, it seems like the big worry is that those goods, which are uncharacteristically developed by said branded company, will still yield the psychological phenomenon of brand loyalty. This might not be a big issue if those companies are sincerely interested in expanding their product line and creating a quality product, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case and specifically, Conley thinks is almost never the case. Imagine the possibilities that a company with a large consumer following could produce by simply mass producing a very unrelated item that people want because they love the company or even their other product made by Continue reading…
To Know Is To Knol
Theodore Cohen | July 31st, 2008
As Google grows in its ever increasing quest to make knowledge easily available and free to people, it has rolled out yet another big time project, Google Knols. Google Knols, which says a knol is a unit of knowledge, is rubbing shoulders with the likes of Wikipedia in order to try and create a network of user-written articles to create a knowledge base. To quote the brainchild of Google Knols, Udi Manber, a knol is, “meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”The project, which is still in its beta stages, was released on July 23rd of this year and hopes to eventually cover a wide range of topics. There are a lot of pretty neat uses and probably even some pretty warranted fears of this whole project. To be able to feel like you are a competent enough person to author an article about a subject is a fairly powerful tool. Google Knols with some time and momentum could become as popular a thing as blogging, considering the desirability factors of being able to speak your mind and give your opinions about a subject you believe you are an “expert” in. The flip side to this being, of course, that it could also become less of an information hub in the sense that Wikipedia is because it could very well end up just a series of personal essays. With the ability for authors to review changes or Continue reading…
Clash Of The Titans
Theodore Cohen | July 17th, 2008
The legal battle that started in March of 2007 between juggernauts Viacom and Google is finally starting to come to a close. Viacom, who sued Google (the parent company of YouTube) for “massive intentional” copyright infringement of Viacom’s entertainment properties, has been trying to get at the user data that Google stores about its YouTube users. This information contains browsing history, usernames, IP addresses, and other pieces of “confidential” information about YouTube users, and has been the topic of much discussion concerning internet freedoms. The judge ruled in favor of Viacom, and now the heat is on as Google prepares itself to offer up its users to clutches of Viacom. As you can imagine, this invokes a lot of strong feelings for YouTube users and the YouTube community as a whole. The good news to this is that as the case is settling, Viacom is getting more and more heat from the public and the media, which is putting Viacom in a position to lessen the severity of the demands they are trying to exact from Google. They have compromised in a relinquishing of information, but under the tenants that anonymity will be preserved. Google plans on sculpting the data in a fashion that will remove the user’s viewing history, and will try to the best of its ability to remove any individually identifying factors for the data pool it must give Viacom. It’s interesting (and relieving) to think that a corporate giant such as Viacom, who started out with Continue reading…
