Software developers used to write programs that looked and worked great on their big-monitored, big-powered, big-hard drived computers, forgetting that most of us have small screens, weak computers and no disk space. Now, with Web 2.0, they’re writing programs that assume we’re always online. Well, we’re not. Cameron Reilly of The Podcast Network, trying to… Read More »
We should probably start being more careful about what we wish for. Google Talk is now offering, apparently because of public demand, histories of chats stored in your Gmail account. Useful stuff. But accessing those histories will involve seeing contextual ads next to them, as per ordinary Gmail messages. The relevant part of the FAQ says… Read More »
If it was from any other company it wouldn’t really matter, but Google’s Desktop Sidebar is important, not because it’s particularly new, but because it undermines the primacy of the browser. Loose Wire ‘s WSJ.com column in June looked at desktop widgets like Konfabulator and Klips before, as well as existing sidebars like the Desktop… Read More »
Google has removed an adword on its search engine placed by a competitor to its Gmail service. AlienCamel, an Australia-based email service (full disclosure: I use the service), applied to have the word ‘webmail’, along with several others, inserted into the ‘sponsored links’ section of Google’s search pages when people entered the search ‘webmail’. After… Read More »
What’s the etiquette of handing out invitations to Gmail, Google’s (so far) free e-mail service? Do you hand them out willy-nilly, unafraid of offending someone’s coolness by suggesting they’re not hip enough to already have one, or have been offered one, themselves? Do you tentatively send them an e-mail first, checking whether they’re already hooked… Read More »