Google’s answer to Apple…

Google and Apple certainly fall on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the business philosophies.

Google is more of an open book while Apple is a closed one.

With ‘Google Voice‘ being released last year, Google had created an iphone app for the same. However, Apple hadrejected it citing direct business conflicts with iphone’s core voice and messaging features (it could have been more of an AT&T decision):

Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core: Official Google Voice App Blocked From App Store

Now Google responds with this:

Google Voice Does An End Run Around Apple And Shows Up In The iPhone’s Browser

Google voice can now be accessed on iPhone’s native browser! It is an all new HTML-5 application.

Now that’s something from Google. What could Apple do to take this on?

Note that I’ve been Apple’s fan ever since I got an iPod touch a year ago. No one can match (or is even close) to the user experience one get’s on these Apple devices. Plus the entire ecosystem including the hardware, the app store, the iTunes client software just rocks!

I was wondering how a strong product line (and services of course) like the iPhone and the iTouch are good enough to  cover up for some  of the not-so-good decisions by a company.

Interesting times to be in. I am early waiting for tomorrow’s press conference where Apple is expected to release the tablet/iSlate or whatever.

Is blogging dying?

If you go through the archives on my blog,  you will notice that there are a couple of instances where I haven’t written for an entire month or so. I thought that I am one of the *few* turning sluggish at times. However, I was shocked to know that 95% of the blogs which are tracked on technorati, a blog search engine, have not been updated in the last 120 days!

So what is the reason? Well primarily it is the same old human tendency I guess. We start a lot of things enthusiastically  but do not take them forward with the same passion. It dies out with time.  However, Facebook and Twitter too seem to be eating away into the blogging space.

Wanna read more about this? Read this:

“The log  tail of blogging is dying.”

Web personality

Just to clarify before we proceed, the title of the post can explain:

• Personality ‘on’ the web
• Personality ‘of’ web

I am going to talk about the second one, i.e. personality ‘of’ the web.

We all use some or the other social networking sites. In fact we now use multiple social networking sites to connect to each other. Let’s take examples:

• LinkedIn: <Professional>: As we all know, LinkedIn was always meant to be a professional networking portal. If you are caught browsing LinkedIn at your workplace? Ah, everyone will look with due respect. It is so professional.
• Facebook: <Decent and Sober>: Well, I am not sure if Facebook had a pre-determined character, but to me it has always given an impression of a decently designed portal. It looks neat and to some extent, professional. If you are caught browsing Facebook at your workplace? Well you may not get the same respect as LinkedIn, but no regrets. It’ll still be acceptable.
• Orkut:<Kiddish and Sidey>: While Orkut is more popular in India, I’ve always found it sidey and kiddish. So what if you are caught browsing Orkut at your workplace? Ah, I can bet, it is embarrassing. You tend either close it or switch to a different window/application. Don’t you?

So 3 different applications built on the same concept have radically different personalities. While some were deliberately made with such personalities, some got their personalities from usage over the years.

We can similarly look at portals targetting other stuff. For example, I find Cleartrip a very clean travel portal, whereas, MakeMyTrip looks so cluttered and clumsy.

What about Twitter? What personality would you associate with it? Hmmmm… Whatever it is, it is impressive. It has already made a big impact.

Google Chrome!

  iLog on Chrome

Couldn’t wait to try out the all new browser ‘Chrome‘ from Google after Ankit introduced it to me yesterday . From the first couple of hours of use, it looks simple, elegant, intuitive and feels lightweight! I just hope there’s a release for Linux soon, so that Ankit can use it as well :-) 

I think I am going to continue using this…..