Mayer As Chief Yahoo: Surprising And Exciting

SAN FRANCISCO - SEPTEMBER 08: Google Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer speaks during an announcement September 8, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Google announced the launch of Google Instant, a faster version of Google search that streams results live as you type your query. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

New York Times: Google’s Marissa Mayer Tapped as Yahoo’s Chief

This is surprising and exciting. I guess Yahoo does not have to pretend it is a media company and it can now go back to being a technology company. Yahoo still has a lot of visitors that come back month after month. At some level it never really went away.

It can play for a strong number two position in some key areas. And with its resources it should be able to attract the talent to innovate.

Related articles

• Silicon Alley Insider: If You Do The Math, Marissa Mayer Controls 20% To 25% Of Google (GOOG)

  ---

• How Google's Marissa Mayer Prevents Burnout

  ---

• Earnings Outlook: Yahoo CEO job as crucial as earnings

  ---

• Yahoo Could Head To $18 If Turnaround Gains Traction

  ---

• Facebook, Yahoo! settled patent suits - UPI.com

  ---

• Google+ Local: Next step in search engines?

  ---

• Cloud Computing: Yahoo and Facebook Kiss and Make Up

  ---

• Apple Maps Could Launch With More Business Listings Than Google

  ---

Education For The 99%

Ruchit Garg: Why you need to go to good college?

“What is the value add of a college/school in the era where you have almost everything available on web, free or paid?” Answer is “World works on relationships and there are no better alternatives to learn, experience and make them work for you, than going to meet and interact with real people”.

Forbes: M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All

the success of M.I.T.x, OCW, and Academic Earth may push dramatic technological innovation at for-profits, so that they can maintain a unique selling proposition versus their free competitors .... against this country’s sizable need for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) graduates, M.I.T.x is nothing short of revolutionary. This is especially true if you aren’t a credential freak and, like me, just want to improve your chops in a marketable subject area

I am a big believer. I think online education is the way to go if the masses are to be served.

Related articles

• Got a Computer? Get a Degree. - New York Times

  ---

• Harvard and M.I.T. Partner To Offer Free Online Courses

  ---

• Gadgetwise Blog: Harvard and M.I.T. Take Their Classes Online

  ---

• A Look at the World of Online Education [Infographic]

  ---

• Open Education for a Global Economy

  ---

Google Glass

CNet: How Google is becoming an extension of your mind

an omnipresent digital assistant that figures out what you need and supplies it before you even realize you need it ..... Or Google taking over your car when it concludes based on your steering response time and blink rate that you're no longer fit to drive. Or your Google glasses automatically beaming audio and video to the police when you say a phrase that indicates you're being mugged. ...... some of those sci-fi possibilities I just described could be real within three to five years ...... the more types of work computers do on your behalf to make your life easier, the more access you must grant them to the intimacies of your personal life ...... Brin said Project Glass repackages much of the same technology that's in a mobile phone today ....... Its self-driving cars could give commuters another hour or two a day to be checking e-mail, watching video, and performing searches. ...... Project Glass glasses present a small screen at the top of your ordinary field of view, not a layer between you and whoever you're talking to.

They could make it look less in your face. The frame could go light, super light, thin, ultra thin, and transparent.

Related articles

• Sergey Brin Demos Google Glass At I/O

  ---

• Brin: Google Glass lands for consumers in 2014 - CNET

  ---

• Google to offer Project Glass to consumers by 2014 - Newsday

  ---

• How Google is becoming an extension of your mind

  ---

• Google shows off Project Glass at I / O with live skydiving and bike jumps

  ---

Google's Got It All: Phone, Tablet, Laptop

Image via CrunchBase

The Chromebook is great except for the price point. The Nexus phones have been great from the get go. And now with Nexus 7 Google has nailed the tablet also. Suddenly Motorola Mobility makes so much sense. It goes beyond patents and what have you. A company that has already mastered the three fundamental form factors in hardware deserves to be able to do hardware in house, don't you think? Google making Apple want to play catch up in the hardware space? This has got to be the first time that happened. But it has happened.

Podcasting Should Be Easier

The logo used by Apple to represent Podcasting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It just occurred to me that there are no easy, obvious podcasting tools. For text blogging (and photos) you have platforms like Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr. Granted you can embed audio files into your tumblog posts, but that is not what I have in mind.

Video blogging is easy. You can use something like YouTube.

And I don't count iTunes. It is a walled garden. I don't consider it part of the web experience.

The last podcasting platform that I used and liked for its ease of use was created by people who brought us Twitter. Too bad they shut it down. They should perhaps revive it.

There is tremendous opportunity with audio. For one, language barriers are less of an issue. It is less pressure than video blogging, and yet there is more emotional connection than in text blogging.

Quora: What Are The Best Podcasting Tools?
Podcasting With SoundCloud
Audacity

I'd have liked the SoundCloud option, if only because it is so easy to embed a SoundCloud file into a blog post. But there seem to be hoops to podcasting on SoundCloud.

Do you know of good options?