I’m not sure what I think about Yahoo rejecting Microsoft’s bid. I know Yahoo has been struggling and needs help, but I’m not sure Microsoft is the best suitor for that. I’ve been reading about other potential suitors, but all of them don’t really seem like a good fit. You have Google, but if that were to happen that would cause a huge monopoly has far as search is concerned. Most people I know use Google, then a smaller amount use Yahoo and an even smaller amount use MSN. If Google were to buy Yahoo I think everyone will end up using Google. Read the rest of this entry »

Ars Technica posted an article today regarding Web 2.0 funding and making it a successful business model. There is a huge discrepancy between investments and those that turn into Web 2.0 companies. Read the rest of this entry »

PHP Hacks has a tutorial using the PEAR SOAP module of PHP to pull data for use on your site. There are many other ways of doing similar things a lot of which deal with RSS feeds since they have become so popular, but this tutorial does a pretty good job of explaining how to use SOAP with Google’s web services. Read the rest of this entry »

Techcrunch has a post regarding the new beta version of Blogger.com. It looks like it’s upgrades some JavaScript with Google style making it easier for people to blog on their platform. I personally use my own blogging software or setup blogs for people on Wordpress or Typepad, but I know a lot of people that just want a basic blog and Blogger is a good choice for them. Read the rest of this entry »

According to CNET News.com, Google will be adding a feature to advertiser accounts to show the number of clicks occurring on their ads through click fraud. It will not only show the number of clicks but percentage of clicks as well. It is estimated that 14-20% of clicks are fraudulent on pay per click advertisements. Google had recently been hit with quite a few lawsuits regarding the issue and this seems to be one step toward combatting the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

CNET News.com had on article on their site a couple of days ago regarding a company called Spiceworks using Google ads to finance their business. The company creates a software program that installs on the business computers and gives an inventory on what is on the company network. Pretty simple, but seems like a pretty good idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Companies are quickly starting to adopt Google Checkout as a form of payment on their sites according to DailyTech. Ebay is one of the large shopping sites saying that it would not adopt Google Checkout. Even though Google says the method of checkout is not designed to compete with PayPal, it seems kind of obvious that it is doing just that. With such a niche market its hard to say that it’s not a competitor since its basic principle is making and receiving payments. Read the rest of this entry »

There was a post on the ZDNet blog about Google spreadsheets possibly getting a chart function. This would be a big step for web applications and push it more towards becoming a replacement for a desktop application. Read the rest of this entry »

Seattle PI has an interview on their Software Notebook with 21-year-old Blake Ross, the founder of Firefox. He makes some really good points throughout the interview a few of which I will discuss and give my opinion on in this post. For those of you that don’t know, Ross launched the Mozilla Firefox project in 2002 with fellow software developer Dave Hyatt. While I’m only 23 myself its good to see how people close to my age are making an impact in the industry. Of course Ross’s resume is much better than mine, but I can still relate to a lot of the points he makes in the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times had a great article on Google over the break. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google had built their computers and developed software that was more efficient than anything in the market at that time. They had done this to save money. Read the rest of this entry »