SecondLife … Watch Out

I remember the days when Microsoft would set its sights on a space and just destroy it — remember those days? I’m sure you remember the not-so-epic battle between Netscape and IE … back in grad school I did a presentation called “Web War” that pitted the two browsers against one another. It was sort of funny at the time for two reasons … one, Netscape was so far ahead no one worried about it (snicker) and two, I did the whole thing in Macromedia Director — what can I say, I was into media.

At any rate, this post over at TechCrucnh has nothing to do with browsers, but does point to some interesting rumors of Google getting in the virtual world space. I think I recall Google’s slogan as being something like, “do no evil” or something … I also remember them talking about not never wanting to be like Microsoft. Well, guess what? They are getting closer to MS domination — not in the same ways, but they are in a position to own a lot of information, eyeballs, and mindshare. If Google gets into the Second Life space, watch out. They have the weight to turn SL into the next Netscape … what with Ad Sense and that amazing Google Earth thing they have a jump towards the economy of a VW is not too far fetched … oh, did I mention Sketch Up or whatever it is called? This could shape up as Web War II … or just be another rumor and be nothing at all. Just thought it was interesting.

Google Co-op for EduBlogs

I also added a Co-op search for a bunch of the edu-blogs I subscribe to … just to test this stuff out. Take a peek, it is in the sidebar.

Google Co-op

I’ve added a new search field that I want to test out for a couple of weeks here at the site. It is powered by Google Co-op … no sense in going through the commentary of how Google seems to be running everything on the web … at any rate the Co-op is nice as I can add what sites I want to be searched. Gives me the ability to cast my search results here just a little wider. I write in several places online and this search pulls results from all of them — right from here. I’m not thrilled with the ads it also returns, but features come at a cost. I wonder if they are tied to my ad sense account (I don’t run ads on this site) … Try it out and let me know what you think.