Feedly Kills Google Reader and Most News Readers

Feedly, the new Firefox addon is absolutely fantastic. Admittedly, I'm still trying to figure out how this beast works, but it is so easy to use, fast, powerful that it is most surely a game changer in the news reading world. Feedly has quickly become my default start or home page.

Just recently heard about Google Fast Flip from the TC50 conference. Tried it and just don't get it. I use Netflix and wirelessly download their movies and TV shows to my tv through Wifi. Ocassionally I visit Netflix.com and browse through movie and tv show title looking for good content. Interesting that I cannot do that from my TIVO interface on my tv, but that's another story.

The point is that when searching through massive amounts of data pictures have no meaning. Text is easier to browse quickly and determine what is relevant and what is not interesting. Try it. Search on Google images or Netflix and try to decipher meaning form the images alone. Then begin focusing on the text alone ignoring the images.

Google Fast Flip sucks in my opinion and Feedly is going to be the aggregator of choice. I've been looking for a home page/start page service like this and thinking about this very interface for months. Feed readers never took off because the user interface was terrible.

Watch for feedly to gain mass adoption in 2nd qtr of 2010. The limiting factor is that this is a firefox addon and is not available, as far as I know, for IE or Safari.

I'm going to continue my deep dive into the guts of this beast and see what I can find.

Google Earth brings International Crisis Home

What began as the pet project of a few enthusiastic users has grown into a corporate-backed initiative demonstrating Google Earth's potential as a live-saving humanitarian tool.

The Crisis in Darfur project is a downloadable set of layers for Google Earth which combines high-resolution satellite images of Darfur with photographs and first-hand accounts of the genocide currently underway in the region. Users of Google's 3-D world atlas can zoom in on burned-out Sudanese villages, read the stories of the victims and see stunning arial shots of massive refugee camps in Eastern Chad.

Google Aquires DoubleClick

-As Google expands into more advertising mediums they get closer and closer to becoming the Advertising Agency of the future. The real question is who should be running scared, is it the advertisers who will be at the mercy of Google or media companies who will be begging for a share of the ad dollars?

Ending weeks of a bidding battle with Microsoft, Google reached an agreement to buy online advertising network DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash, the companies announced today.

The deal expands Google’s foothold in online advertising. The price is almost double the $1.65 billion Google paid for YouTube last year. DoubleClick, founded in 1996, provides display ads on Web sites. The deal gives Google access to DoubleClick’s relationships with Web publishers and advertisers. Perhaps equally important, it keeps them away from Microsoft.

In 2005, DoubleClick was taken private by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.

I've been following with great interest the discussions surrounding an online media marketplace, which Ebay and other companies are rumored to be building. If anyone has thoughts on how an online media marketplace would work let me know.

The Virtual Office just got more crowded

Derek Parham makes the big announcement today:

Now, I'm excited to tell you that our baby has finally graduated and is entering the business world. Google Apps Premier Edition is a new version designed to take on all the challenges presented by businesses with complex IT needs. For $50 per account per year, you get the whole Google Apps package plus many new business-oriented features, including access to our APIs and partner solutions (so it’s easy to integrate with existing systems), conference room scheduling for Calendar, 10GB of inbox storage, extended business hours phone support, and mobile access to your email on BlackBerry devices (just in case you can't get enough at the office).

Google takes a big shot at Microsoft today just as they are preparing to launch Vista Office 2007. It will be interesting to see if the Microsoft Groove Virtual Office and Office Live offerings can compete and don't rule out Zoho Office Suite.