Googlopoly

The question of whether Google will become the 'next Microsoft' is interesting. Bill Gates stepped down from his Microsoft post, conceding defeat to the combined efforts of Apple, Mozilla, and Google. Despite still having the majority market share in the OS and Browser business, Macs and Firefox are gaining bit by bit on a slippery slope, while it goes without saying that Google is winning the search engine race by a mile.

Microsoft is viewed as an evil monopoly and even accused of anti-competitive practices mainly because it bundled IE with its operating system, kicking Netscape out of the game. All services that Google provides is optional; alternatives exist if you choose so. On top of that, all the tools are free. Most of Google's revenue is fuelled by advertising, and to a smaller extent corporate search and Pro versions of software.


The fundamental line dividing monopolist Microsoft and Google is the company nature. Google's motto is "Don't be evil", and with their brilliant minds and philanthropic mission, the track they are on is unlikely to lead to a monopoly. The way they maximize revenue is just like any other Internet company, only much better. Provide the best products for free, attract the most internet customers, which guarantees an immense amount of advertising revenue.

Competition (if perfect) will solve problems of monopoly, eliminating inefficiencies. Google competes with many different companies on many levels: as a web portal with Yahoo, in video with YouTube, in online transactions with PayPal, in VoIP with Skype, and countless others. From the start Google has been involved in providing a smooth user experience, focusing their visionary efforts on what people really need.


By contrast, Microsoft devoted itself to maximizing sales revenue, capitivating on its dominating market share with lacklustre products. Vulnerable releases and lack of foresight signed their death contract. Justice is doing its work, and the invisible hand is pushing them out of the game unless they give the masses what they want. Otherwise, people will depend increasingly more on Google and its web services, or choose to get a Mac for its smooth, synthetic usability and quick out-of-the-box experience.

Googol means 10 to the power of 100. With Google, there is hope for a Googlopoly, tending towards what economists would call 'Perfect Competition'. Thank you Invisible Hand. Life just got better.

Cross, Crescent, and Crystal

Israel and Palestine joined the Red Cross today, after 100 years of symbolic dispute. This kind of ideological debate often stands in the way of an ideal, efficient world. The ideology is also what keeps us living in the first place.


The Telegraph reports:

For about 50 years the Israeli society had been excluded from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies because of its insistence on using a red Shield (or Star) of David.

Ethical (or bureaucratic) ideology is just as prevalent as the religious kind.

At the same time, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was excluded because the movement's statutes permitted only relief societies from sovereign states to join.

So much easier this way. Now they've finally agreed on a neutral symbol. One in which they'll insert the Cross/Crescent at the appropriate settings.

The so-called "Red Crystal" - a red square standing on its corner - will now take its place alongside the Red Cross and the Red Crescent as an internationally-recognised humanitarian emblem.

I wonder what the symbol for Hospital will become?

Ooooogling at Gooooogle

I love Google.

Google is the one and only reason why I would, had I not switched to a Mac, still be using a PC today. It has made the Windows experience much more bearable amidst the ubiquitous viruses, security flaws, and general unamicable user experience.

Before I switched a little bit more than a year ago, Google's search engine was a knowledge haven, Gmail was just gathering momentum, and Google Desktop's beta was so much faster to look for things in your computer. Image search and Froogle (shopping search) were both available and useful, but so many Google products have come out of Beta since then that it's absolutely mind-boggling.

Do you know them all?

In terms of search and the web experience, most people know about the Maps, Books, and Video, but few (academics and students) know about Scholar. You can search Blogs for personal takes on issues or an independent stance, or News for professional op-eds. Or if you just want to see the world, flying across the globe is now much easier (and cheaper) than crossing the duck pond for 17 hours.

But what really made the PC user experience phenomenal is all the software made available to the masses, by none other than the legendary "Don't be evil" Google.

For email, there is virtually unlimited storage at Gmail. For photos, I'm enviously drooling at Picasa's new webhosting feature as well as its old sharing program, even though iPhoto is bundled with the iLife suite. For communication, you can talk, talk and talk (or type) with Google Talk. For organizing your life, use the virtual Calendar, and as for bullshitting, they have this.

Their labs churn out amazing products, if you like procrastinating, being cliquey or are an SMS addict, Google is your best bud. But their smartest decision was to acquire other smaller companies. Keyhole, Picasa, Hello, and best of all, Sketchup, the completely free 3D modelling software for poor idealistic architecture students.

The purchase is only one of many. This other one is the first step towards taking over Microsoft Office's monopoly.

For word processing there's Writely, for spreadsheets there's Google Spreadsheets. Makes it so much easier to collaborate online, lifting Outsourcing to another level. Want to publish webpages in 2 clicks? Check out Google pages. It's the PC version of iWeb.

As for upcoming products (developing in the refinery) I personally adore Google Trends for comparing the most mundane things. I haven't tried the online Notebook yet, mainly because I believe it's only available through Firefox, like many Google products. And there are dozens more that I opted not to mention. Just think that all of that came about in one short year (or two if you will). And there's more and more coming up. Watch out for Gbuy, the Paypal nemesis. As for Google's not-so-secret weapon: data centers, warehouses of processors and disks are popping up like mushrooms as Microsoft and Yahoo try desperately to keep up.

"Google has constructed the biggest computer in the world, and it's a hidden asset,"

Today, it's Google Earth's 1st birthday, Shakespeare just joined Google, and the Internet will be run by Google WiFi.

Cups and Bucks

The World Cup frenzy is all over the world. Which team will get to carry the biggest honor of their lives home, and which others will have to settle with a 3-minute cup? Even if you're not into spectator sports, or any sports at all for that matter, you may still find it impossible to distance yourself sufficiently enough from the all the hype.

Intense speculation from gamblers and non-gamblers alike have often led to interesting outcomes. Brazil is by popular opinion the big 'hot door', but personally, it is quite likely that this will happen again.


For those with economic flair and an interest in soccer, you might find Greg Mankiw's Blog: The World Cup to be stimulating.

Goldman's figure...shows a strong correlation between World Cup ranking and GDP per person. Being rich and having a good team go hand in hand.

According to this list, the countries up there do indeed have a higher FIFA ranking. Heck, when the US is 8th in GDP per capita and 5th in FIFA rankings, what can you say? Yet, *surprisingly* Luxembourg tops the GDP ranks but its soccer team is nowhere to be seen.

The other anomaly is that Brazil ranks 74 in GDP per capita and Argentina is 67th, while they are respectively the 1st and 9th in the FIFA rankings. Interesting of note, however, is that the rankings for total nominal GDP for Brazil and Argentina rise to 11th and 34th, which better reflect the general correlation between Football (Soccer) performance and having the big bucks.

The general correlation seems to ignore the outliers and obliterates the question of causality. Even though there may be plausible theories related to opportunity cost, income effect, substitution effect and so on, the biggest factor in play here is customer preference. In some places, people love football. They live, feed and die on football, while Americans misunderstood it as another sport and funnily enough, enjoy bumping into each other all the time.

Finally, a few pointers from Elaine on how to choose a team to support (especially if you're a 'football widow' AND all of the above bores you AND you managed somehow to survive till here). My favourite is this:

8. support the team wearing your favourite colour

unfortunately it could be a bit rare to come across a team in pink.

A Changing World: Good or Bad?

Ever felt that when browsing through Wikipedia looking up one thing, you end up learning about something completely different? Or am I the only person random enough to surf aimlessly for information?

Thanks to Web 2.0, I get this uneasy feeling that advances in Internet technology is only contributing to increased amounts of internet procrastination, affecting especially those budding minds of young college students. Under the broad umbrella term of interactive websites, those that above all focus their free time on forming links and relationships among youngsters or students, have become increasingly a magnet for procrastinating teenagers (e.g. Me) and a source of unproductivity.

(See this list for some of the culprits.)

It is undeniable that not all of these sites do only harm. LJ, Xanga and other blogging sites provide a completely novel way for young people to vent, to express, or to opine, not that many of them do more than rant randomly about how life sucks (again, e.g. Me). However, it isn't the first time that I'm complaining about how some people profile themselves so freely on the no-longer-neutral Internet.

"...telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway... This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet."

Not only that, but has anyone any idea what others do with their profiles? Perhaps this would scare you off. Or maybe you'd be indifferent. I opt to proceed with caution. No unrestrained advertising of personal information when the NSA is snooping around for my every move.

By adding online social networking data to its phone analyses, the NSA could connect people at deeper levels, through shared activities, such as taking flying lessons. - New Scientist

Maybe an American is willing to give up some privacy in the name of National Security, but to me, they're just masking a non-stop slippery slope all the way back to 1984. Perhaps it's my panicky self after watching 24, but I'm not surprised if the PRC equivalent isn't worming its way into HK networks. Not even if they've already established the foundations for a Great Firewall - HK.

Are you reading this?

I read many things that interest me that would otherwise seem like a waste of time to many others. This is one of them.

News nowadays is transferred through both traditional and modern media. People still read newspapers & magazines, listen to the radio, and watch news reports. But other people, usually those half the age of the first category, receive their news from elsewhere. 'Internet' is only an umbrella term. There are websites from Reuters, CNN, BBC, or NYT. There's Google News, a portal (*cough* computer program) consolidating content from across the web. There's Wikinews, self-published and community-monitored news from anywhere, anytime if you think it's important. There are Blogs if you feel self-righteous or protective about what you write.

New forms of news have popped up across the world (at least the wired part, that is). I didn't come across News.com until today! And it's great in that it not only writes great editorials but also has a 'Big Picture' function informing you of how all the news is related, like this particular piece.

You know how Google News ranks news according to relevance? Well, there's this new site digg.com that doesn't rely (*cough* trust) a computer algorithm tuned by Google's computer engineers. It allows users to submit relevant stories and also to vote on which ones they think should be the headlines, rather than let some authoritative editor to do the job. Remember how Wikipedia lets YOU edit whatever content you feel is incorrect? Guess what? You can do that even to websites! Check out Wetpaint.com and what they can do.

It's fascinating and wonderful how in the world now we are no longer limited to news that people feed into our mouths (though some still opt for that option), but can pick from an assortment of Social, Wiki, and Personal media. But don't forget, when you're browsing happily, that there are people who do not have the same rights that you do, however close they may be.

Friends, in China, you can't even use Gmail. In China, you can't access Wikipedia. In China, any politically sensitive blogs even remotely related is filtered, censored, or blocked. Reflect on that. Cherish the freedom that you possess.