E-Business & Web 2.0

Bummed that the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 starts at $349 with Ubuntu Linux or $399 with Windows XP? No worries, you'll soon be able to get it for cheaper, or perhaps even free, with a Wi-Fi contract.

In today's podcast: Google revises Chrome EULA ... Chrome tarnished by security flaw ... Judge tells Ellison he ought not to have deleted email ...

What if the Web was watching your every move? I don't mean the optional status updates of Twitter and FaceBook, or the location tracking of a GPS device. Kotkke, by way of Snarkmarket, notes how Wired magazine has started an interesting experiment where they are posting photos, videos, and text to show how an article is created at the magazine. They will apparently post a draft of the article and fact-checking notes as they prepare the feature story (about writer Charlie Kaufman's transition into the director's chair) for a November issue. It's an example of how the Web can "twitterize" our lives in ways that a single medium, such as print or video, could never achieve.

Within seconds of me posting about privacy concerns and other fixes in Chrome, I discovered that Google has now removed the clause where that said they could look under your bed, run DNA tests on your spouse, and inspect behind the ears of your kids after a bath. Or maybe it was just something about: they could collect and store you private data and re-distribute it.

I had an interesting thing happen on my way to clicking the Calendar link...in Gmail...while using Google Chrome... to set up a meeting today. (That might seem like a long journey, but it really only took .5 seconds.)

The Google Chrome beta is a powerful new browser that loads Web pages quickly and accurately. As some bloggers have noted, it's not perfect and can break sites (for example, by using alt tags). CNET says Chrome is faster than all other browsers, and my experience matches these claims. It reveals that Google intends to break a Microsoft stranglehold on the desktop, but the user experience on Chrome feels a bit like walking on a sheet of ice in your slippers: a bit temporal and shaky.

The lurching, heaving behemoth of the Web will become a self-feeding entity someday, symmetrical and aligned with itself, ubiquitous and pervasive, not constrained by the browser or even a PC. That's the vision for the world wide Web after Web 2.0 - a concept where apps are islands, users interact only through portals that let them interact, programming languages don't understand each other, and we're limited by what the OS, the network, the browser, and the computer will permit.

Wow! That's my one word review of Google Chrome. Read the rest of my first look of Chrome for why I'm giving it a 'Wow!'

Google Chrome? A new browser - even if it's cool - isn't necessarily good news for people who design Web pages for a living.

Google has several good reasons to create a Web browser of its own, but they don't include killing off Internet Explorer or Firefox. Microsoft, however, does have reason to worry. Big ones.

In Tuesday's IT Blogwatch, we watch bloggers get all in a tizzy about Google's super-dooper new browser project, Chrome. Not to mention Assembles Elucidation and other Error'd...

Nancy Weil reports:

Google shut down free dinners at their HQ, and thier stock is nose-diving, so news of their new Chrome browser - now a direct competitor to Mozilla Firefox - seems like a way to generate buzz again. It's working so far.

In Labo[u]r Day's IT Blogwatch, we wonder why we don't see so much international Internet traffic crossing U.S. borders these day. Not to mention a Gustav resource miscellany...

John Markoff starts off:

With a hurricane approaching Louisiana, I got to thinking about how Web 2.0 sites can play a role not only in informing people about impending danger, but in linking those who are en route to somewhere safe. The category 4 hurricane, called Gustav, and a second hurricane, called Hanna, will likely hit landfall around Monday morning, according to news reports.

Twitter is the star of 2008, a service for letting everyone know what you are doing, reading, thinking, saying. Yet, it has a long way to go in terms of really capturing mass attention. Like Mozilla, the company has the opportunity to really turn their popularity into legitimate, on-going, massive revenue.