mediajunk

I can't believe what I see today -- you can sign in for a "personalised" version of the Google homepage, that has weather forecasts (yes weather forecasts!) and news headlines.

Google's Our Philosophy page used to say, "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat". This statement was recently removed.

I have hitherto said that Google "gets" the web; now I believe that it may be losing focus.

I've seen the most interesting development to occur in web development so far this year and it's from ... gasp! ... Microsoft.

Before you choke on your sushi, check it out: Microsoft "Gadgets" on Start.com lets you slide rectangular containers of text (widgets, I'm told) around the screen, and snap them into new positions.

The site is a portal, a little like Google News or MyYahoo, but with the innovative interface as described -- which does not require Flash or any other plug-in. (It works in Firefox too.)

The technology Microsoft Gadgets employs is similar to AJAX -- the combination of JavaScript and dynamic server calls used by Google in many cool applications of late (Gmail, Google Maps, etc.). Apparently the new Windows will allow you to drag Gadgets from web pages and drop them onto your desktop, unless I've misunderstood the information on the Gadgets weblog.

The downside is that the web pages generated using Gadgets are neither accessible, standards-compliant nor search-engine friendly. But they look cool and the design is clean ... so Gadgets could have potential.

Then again, I thought the same about Flash back in 1998, and that has largely failed to deliver. Hopefully someone will come up with a better use for this drag-and-drop interface than the gimmicky stock-tickers and RSS headline displays.

In an interview with Bill Gates in today's Seattle Times, he appears unperturbed about Microsoft's competition from Google, Apple and others, and even heaps praise on them, but is unable to resist the odd sideswipe (e.g. Google is going through a "honeymoon period").

The mention of erstwhile competitors such as WordPerfect brought to mind an excellent 1992 article by James Gleick, entitled Chasing Bugs in the Electronic Village, about his eager wait for Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 -- and subsequent frustration.

Gleick's article (which, incidentally, formed part of a compilation of his essays that I read on holidays last week -- my memory for essays doesn't stretch to decades!) the insights it gave into the tactics of the then young and nimble Seattle software company:

"But Microsoft's marketing strategists had more pressing problems. Winword was by far the dominant word processing program designed to be used with Microsoft's Windows operating environment, but a relatively small number of personal-computer users use Windows.

Overall, the market leader by a large margin was WordPerfect, which was known to be beta testing its long-awaited entry into the Windows market. Microsoft officials were worried. WordPerfect commands enormous loyalty, in part because -- unlike Microsoft -- the company makes a practice of releasing frequent free upgrades to repair even minor bugs, and in part because it maintains, at enormous expense, a toll-free telephone support line -- an investment Microsoft, which says it fields 14,000 calls a day, has been unwilling to make."

Update: Gates is clearly on a media offensive. He gives an interview in CNET today too, where he elaborates on his "honeymoon" comments, which I believe are a bit snide. Maybe he's rattled?

Google now has a blog search engine, devoted entirely to weblogs.

As with Google News, entries that are more recent are more likely to come up top.

Does this mean search results relating to blog entries will eventually be removed from the main index? That idea has certainly been touted in the past.