Okay, so that’s just my overly-snide first-take on this article about iPhone apps.

My second take is that I can’t decide whether this is a positive commentary on iPhone users (i.e. they know useless crap once they’ve seen it and never look back), or a somewhat less flattering one (they have an endless and apparently purposeless appetite for the latest gimicky digital froth).

I dunno. You guys tell me what you think.

Full disclosure: The device in my pocket was purchased when you still called them “cell phones” and they all had hinges in the middle, so this post might just be my pent-up gadget-envy lashing out at my luddite wallet.

Google Suggest isn’t a new development in the tech giant’s storied timeline. It’s not one of the most discussed features in the Google playbook. I’ll even go so far as to say that most people probably ignore it altogether. But before you dispatch this feature as ‘occasionally useful’ let me offer a new approach to looking at Google Suggest.

When you come to Google wanting to search something (which is 20+ times a day for some of us) think about variations of the words that you’re using. For example, you may want to search for the size of a hay bale. You can arrange the words to search “hay bale size”, “size of a hay bale” or a different combination. In terms of what will give you the best results, usually the less amount of filler words the better.

The way that I propose using Google Suggest is to start a common sentence or phrase and see what suggestions pop-up. Since the suggestions are aggregated from common and popular-queries you are getting an insight into public opinion. So, if ethics are generally based on public opinion, perhaps you are getting a look at what is ethical as well.

Here are some examples that I particularly like:

According to suggest “you should never…”

• you should never ask for help on the internet
• argue with a crazy
• underestimate the predictability of stupidity
• smoke in pajamas….good to know in case I ever pick up smoking and get a late night craving

Also suggest says “my job is…”

• boring
• killing me
• making me sick
• stressful

I disagree, my job is sweet, I get to blog. But you can see what I mean about public opinion coming out in the suggestions. Having this information can be useful for market research, politicians, or tracking societal norms.

Maybe you’ll pause for a brief second, maybe that’s how you found this blog post, or maybe you’ll just continue ignoring it altogether

Note: if you find this page in error and are instead looking for hay bale size, there’s your link

So we’ve all heard by now that Google is finished trying to save the newspapers, but others haven’t given up hope. Time Magazine published an article claiming that micropayments was the solution – Charging small fees such as a nickel for a day’s edition of the newspaper, or a larger (maybe $2) fee for a month’s worth of access. Critics argue, and I have to agree, that this model has failed in the past and will fail again. 

However, a “new” idea has been thrown on the table recently - Instead of making users pay for content, what if you asked them for donations if they like the content? Okay, so the idea isn’t new, National Public Radio has been doing it successfully for decades, but it’s something the newspapers have not tried online yet. Or at least not to my knowledge, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Start up venture Kachingle (in private beta) has a solution that some feel could help bring this model to fruition.  From a high level, the Kachingle model works like this: 

• A user creates a Kachingle account, and you determine a monthly fee of what you are willing to donate to support good content. This could be $1, it could be $50, whatever you feel good content is worth.
• You sign in once per device – PC, laptop, phone, etc and Kachingle remembers you from that point on.
• Publishers who are part of the Kachingle network place a little Kachingle medallion on thier site
• When you are visiting a blog, online newspaper, etc that you like, you click on their Kachingle medallion which notifies Kachingle that you’d like some of your monthly fee to go to that site.
• Kachingle measures your usage across sites you’ve tagged to receive money, and allocates your donations accordingly. So for example, if you are willing to donate $5 a month to good news content on the web, and 50% of your usage goes to WSJ.com, then Kachingle would give $2.50 to WSJ.com that month. The remaining $2.50 would be split up amongst the other sites you “kachingled” (not sure if that is a real term yet) based on your usage of their sites.

So the real question becomes, is the problem with the paid news model the lack of choice? Will people not pay for online content when they are required to pay for it, but change their mind if they are given the choice to contribute based on their own assesement of the content’s value?

Yesterday Google introduced their Latitude service, a new feature that allows smartphone and laptop users to share their location with “friends” through  Google Maps. It has been compared to the “Marauder’s Map” from Harry Potter, and since someone made a Harry Potter reference, I had to investigate…

Like all Google services, Latitude is in many ways useful, and in many ways creepy. 

On the useful side of things, this new service has some cool benefits:

• Share your location with friends – Could be useful if you are traveling and want to see if any of your friends are nearby so you can meet up. 
• Location based marketing – Could be very useful for businesses to serve ads based on a users location and time of day. For example you could be served ads for nearby restaurants at lunchtime, or bars with happy hour specials later in the day.
• Tracking your equipment – This information could be very useful in the event that your phone or laptop is stolen, assuming it is signed into the service.

On the flip side, this service has loads of creepy potential. You might want to ask :

• Do I really need my friends to know where I am at any given time? 
• In the event that a third party (including the government) demanded access to this data, how much of a fight would Google put up to protect it? What if there wasn’t a Google anymore, then who gets it?
• How many ways could this data be used for evil? Oh let me count the ways – stalkers, jealous boyfriends, crazies in general…
• Will companies begin requiring use of this service so they can track (spy on) their employees and equipment?
• Hacking. Yesterday someone hacked the highway signs in the Metro East, altering their message to warn motorists of zombies and raptors up the road. What if someone was sending you creepy messages based on your location?

I  get a ton of fwded e-mails, making me wise to the ways of the world.  Now I know better than to get back in the car while pumping gas, microwave food in plastic containers, or help strangers in need because any of these could kill me. 

But this one was different… I actually learned something new.  Something that I would never have learned if not for the power of e-mail.

Read on:

Whoever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box?  
You know when you try to pull some foil out and  the roll comes out of the box. 
Then you have to  put the roll back in the box and start over. 
The darn roll always comes out at the wrong  time.
Well, I would like to share this with you. 
Yesterday I went to throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it,  and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to lock end. 
Right  there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place. 
How long has this little locking  tab been there? 
I then looked at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. 
I then  looked at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! 
I can’t count the number of times the Saran wrap roll has jumped out, 
when I was trying  to cover something up.
I’m sharing this with my friends. 
I hope I’m not the only person that didn’t know about this.