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URL for "Older Version" of Gmail - fixes Gmail freezing problem

After Google upgraded Gmail last month, my Gmail began to frequently freeze.  This mainly occurred after sending a message, but it happened at other times, too.

I read a few posts back the (sorry, I forget which ones) that said the workaround is to go into Gmail then click on "Older Version".  It was said that there was no way to set the "Older Version" as a default.

Well, there is, and it's really easy.  Instead of going to http://www.gmail.com, just set your links to go to the URL of the "Older Version" which is http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1   

Embedding Google Maps - Wish Center Worked Better

When I try to embed a Google Map (such as this map of South Georgia Island), I often have to reset the center of the map.  Same happens when I try to save a map.  I might be missing something, but Google Maps doesn't seem to make this easy.

New Google Reader Recommendations Are Here - It's Been 17 Days!

It's been 17 days since my last Google Reader Recommendations.  Last time I subscribed to 3 out of 10, not bad.  This time around I'm subscribing to 7 out of 16, or 44%, which is really good.  Note that I had 17 Google Reader feed recommendations, compared to 10 last time.  I've subscribed to 457 feeds in total, so Google's finding 7 new relevant feeds for me is really good.  What's the scoop this time:

New feeds I Subscribed to

世論 What Japan Thinks
Looks good.  My wife is Japanese and blogs help me learn more about Japanese culture (and technology).

Japundit
Ditto.

LibraryCrunch
Yes, sign me up.  I like librarian things.

LITA Blog
Ditto.

ResourceShelf
Although it has 82 posts/day, this will fit nicely into my educational/resource category.

Marketing Profs Daily Fix
I'm not typically interested in marketing blogs, since they are mostly fluff.  This one is more technical than fluff, so I dropped it into my Technology category on Google Reader.

Andy Budd::Blogography  Articles
I was leaning to no thanks but saw an article about the Net Promoter Score.  Not sure that I agree with NPS in all cases, but I want to see what else Andy Budd talks about.

Feeds I said No Thanks to

Google Desktop APIs

No need since I'm already subscribed to an aggregation of all Google Blogs

 

Adactio

Somewhat redundant with other feeds I have

The Pownce Blog
No thanks.  I'm sure I'll see anything newsworthy from Pownce elsewhere.

MedicineNet Senior Health General
Tempting but scary.  Has lots of info on diseases, but I'm more into proactive health.

CNN.com - Travel
No thanks.  I'd prefer to get travel tips from people I can trust - or Googling instead.

Stuntdubl Business Search Marketing Consulting
I don't like blogs where every other post has "SEM" in the title.  I'm not really one for SEM and believe that a high-quality blog plus targeted networking will help.  Is that SEM?  Not sure.  Anyway, I don't have a use for this blog.

Greg Boser - Search Marketing Consultant
To me, SEO is similar to SEM.  Checkout out the blog and it's not for me.  But it's nice to know that Paris Hilton thinks this guy is hot.

Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design
No thanks.  I'd love to but don't have enough time to dwell here.

Jaffe Juice
Marketing stuff.

 

Danny Sullivan on Google Feeds

Good post from Danny Sullivan:  10 Google Feeds You Should Subscribe To

I knew about most of these, but didn't know I could read my Gmail via RSS.  When I tried, though, it didn't quite work.  Perhaps I need to get new email before anything shows up.

Who will Artificial Intelligence look like?

One way to ponder what Artificial Intelligence will look like is to consider use cases, or perhaps envision how we might use AI.  I'm of the mindset that there will be various Artificial Intelligence services competing for our attention:

• Google Artificial Intelligence
• Microsoft Artificial Intelligence
• Yahoo Artificial Intelligence
• Ask Artificial Intelligence
• Facebook Beacon Artificial Intelligence
• Etc, etc, etc

This assumes basic AI happens in about  5 years.  Long-term, we'll still have competing Artificial Intelligence services.  Competition will make AI better.

And finally, just what is Artificial Intelligence.  I recommend the good writeup at Wikipedia.

Google Reader for Generation (Nintendo) Wii -- 2028 A.D.

I really like the changes Google Reader has made over the past year, but what will Google Reader look like in the year 2028 A.D.?  And what innovations will be particularly interesting to Generation Wii - which can loosely be defined as those being born in year 2000 or later?

I can easily see a Minority Report type interface.  Geoscopic motion sensors certainly be in the picture.  Perhaps a person will wear a glove so that computers will be able to interpret more input signals.  Or perhaps motion scanners will do the same job so that no sweaty/stinky glove is required.  Just imagine:

• Making a scratching motion with your fingers to scroll down
• Making an emphatic motion with your fingers to bring up an input box
• Speaking your response which will then be converted into multiple streams, including voice, text and the same in multiple other languages

Fun stuff.  But will it really be Google?  And if it is Google, will it still be called Google Reader?  If not Google, who will it be?

A function to explain intelligence

Spurred on by a Steve Rubel article called "Become a Knowledge Management Ninja with Google Reader", I began to think about what Google Reader represents.  Also, is knowledge management consistent with artificial intelligence?  Also, what's the role of relevancy and how smart can people become?

Let's start with a constructive definition of intelligence:

• As we know, intelligence has a genetic and behavioral component
• Since what we read impacts our stored knowledge, reading better stuff will make us smarter
• The exponential explosion of information is causing our intelligence potential to suffer due to scarcity of attention
• Those who are thriving in the current attention economy tend to be knowledge workers, basically people who have some idea of where to go online for relevant information
• But the information explosion continues and those who do not embrace new relevancy-based techniques (what I call Relevancy2.0) may suffer

And now for the formulaic punchline.  We can define intelligence iteratively:

Intelligence(N) = Intelligence(0) + Intelligence(1) + ... + Intelligence(N-1)

While this really doesn't help much, it provides a framework for discussion how intelligent we can be in the future.  I'm 38 years old now, so if I want to define how smart I'll be when I'm 45, I could write:

Intelligence(45) = Intelligence(0..38) + Intelligence(38..45)

In plain English, this just says that how smart I'll be at age 45 is my current intelligence plus any new intelligence I develop over the next 7 years.  Of course, our IQ is supposed to be unchangeable over time, but what I'm talking about here is a practical working intelligence.  Having a more experience mind makes us smarter than spotting abstract patterns in an IQ test.

So how can I write Intelligence(38..45)?  And how do Google Reader and artificial intelligence play a role?

Theoretically, we have something like:

Incremental Intelligence(T) = function( time,  ContentQuantity, ContentQuality )

That is, the person who will get smarter over any time period (the "T" above) will be the person who both:

• Makes sure any content consumed is relevant
• Consumes a lot of content

Role of Artificial Intelligence

Can artificial intelligence make us smarter?  No, I think overall it will have the opposite effect.  Most people will tend to gravitate toward what is easier.  We may have various artificial intelligence agents at our disposal and I think it could cause mass laziness.  However, a small group of people will become masters of artificial intelligence, basically being their bosses or learning to work with them.  Those who tend to be voracious users of Google Reader like Steve Rubel or Robert Scoble will certainly be in this crowd.

I'll need to revisit these thoughts once I've thought through them some more, just wanted to begin exploring these ideas.

About Mashable's Predictions for 2008

It's so easy just to sit back and comment on others' predictions.  Here are my comments about predictions for 2008 made by Mark Hopkins of Mashable.

I like the prediction that Google is more likely to succeed than Facebook:
My money’s on Google accomplishing their goal of being a legitimate cloudware operating system

Next, I appreciate the comments about APML:
Attentioning is a meme that’s gaining steam this year. Next year, it’s going to be the new “social graph.” Attentioning is not only a neat new buzzword and a way for the user to take back control of their privacy, but a way for behavioral targeting to really take hold. If you haven’t read up on it yet, this is something you truly need to pay attention to. Open has been the clear winner in the buzzword contest for at least the last half of 2007. APML and the attentioning movement will gain steam next year, as they don’t just use Open as a buzzword, but as a philosophy.

APML and it's cousins like automated recommendations are game changers because they are all about making the online experience more relevant.  What can be more meaningful than that!

Comments on ReadWriteWeb's Predictions for 2008

I'm sitting back catching up on some The Office and wanted to comment on ReadWriteWeb's predictions for 2008.  First, thanks for putting all these predictions together.  This will make for some interesting comparisons in December 2008.

On that note, I've put the authors in order of which ones I agree with most.  I think Alex Iskold is right on with his predictions and think Emre Sokullu will be most wrong:

1. Alex Iskold
2. Richard MacManus
3. Charles Knight
4. Sean Ammirati
5. Josh Catone
6. Marshall Kirkpatrick
7. Emre Sokullu

My favorite:  I agree with everything Alex Iskold projected for 2008, especially implicit assumptions (which I tend to call "automated recommendations"):

• 2008 will be slow and cautious, with the first half dominated by recession or fear of recession.
• Facebook is going to see the same kind of decline in popularity in 2008 that MySpace saw in 2007.
• Digg is going to be acquired by one of the mainstream media conglomerates.
• Implicit applications, which monitor our habits and automatically infer our likes, will rise.

I found the following predictions of Richard MacManus to be interesting and very reasonable:

• Zoho and/or ThinkFree will be acquired by big companies wanting to leapfrog into the Web Office space.
• The most interesting innovations on the Web in 2008 won't happen in Silicon Valley, but in Asia (China, Japan, Korea). At least one startup from China will break through in the US market with Twitter-like success in 2008 - and it will almost certainly be a Mobile Web app.

Charles Knight (who also runs AltSearchEngines) is predicting opportunities for alternate search engines (ie, other than Google).  I agree that there are opportunities here, that the world is big and that success is possible, but think it will be hard to top Google.  They just came along at the right time and it will be hard to topple their Google's $208 billion valuation and $13 billion in cash.  For more on Charles' predictions, visit "Search 2008 A little less talk and a lot more action".

• In the 1st Q 2008, the true "Google Killer" in search will be in Stealth Mode. In 2nd Q 2008 the first prototype will begin in closed Alpha mode. In 3rd Q 2008 it will be ready for the final closed Beta testing. In 4th Q 2008 it will launch and "Rock and Shock" the world!

I mostly agree with Sean Ammirati, but have a minor disagreement about Google looking vulnerable.  Google is indeed a one trick pony, but that's a pony valued at more than $200 billion!

• Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008. While the 'one trick pony' comment by Steve Ballmer drew sarcastic responses, this will begin to look prophetic.
• Facebook will start to feel pressure from two trends that will emerge on the web: distributed social networks and distributed commerce systems. For distributed commerce systems, look to see a first proof of concept from the VRM project. Chris Messina's diso project with Wordpress will be a great proof of concept for distributed social neworks.

Overall, I tend to disagree with Josh Catone.  Facebook will grow but, in my mind, they are worth no more than $5 billion while Google has more than twice that in cash (and is worth more than $200 billion). I agree that the mobile web will be a bit story, but more so in 2009 and 2010 than 2008.   Finally, I don't get how ABC/CBS/NBC will make people want to use Google Docs.

• Facebook will continue to grow and their platform will be adopted by other large social networks. Google will sweat.
• Mobile web usage will be a big story in 2008. It's already big in many parts of the world; and Westerners are about to get hooked. With new mobile devices that makes web surfing less painful, people will be more and more connected away from their computers.
• Mainstream media coverage will be a catalyst for the adoption of Web Office apps by consumers.

Marshall Kirkpatrick said some very vague things, so it's hard to agree or disagree strongly.

Least favorite - I disagree with everything that Emre Sokullu said.  Facebook is just a social network for college people.  Google is going "social" and OpenSocial is just one tactic in a much broader strategy.  While Microsoft and Facebook might try to acquire startups, don't forget that most companies would prefer to be bought by Google.  Oh, and aggressive is spelled incorrectly.

• Facebook will acquire companies that do the following, in order to strengthen their advertising unit: personalization, behavior tracking, image recognition
• Facebook will release a browser.
• Google OpenSocial will be a failure.
• Microsoft will become more aggresive and buy many popular companies at once.

Peruvian Kids Love the OLPC

It's nice to hear this success story about the OLPC in Peru.

At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits.

At night, they're dozing off in front of them -- if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines.

"It's really the kind of conditions that we designed for," Walter Bender, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff, said of this agrarian backwater up a precarious dirt road.