Steve Bryant

While you may assume that only Web geeks and overzealous bloggers search for patents, truth is there’s a would-be inventor inside all of us (that’s the part that reaches for Popular Mechanics on the magazine rack, you know it’s true). And while you may think Google’s new patent search is another oddball one-off from the […]

Have you noticed how popular sentiment about Google has been turning negative lately? For example: — Matt Marshall’s VentureBeat piece about Google’s slackening grip on Silicon Valley’s workforce. “When Googlers leave, it’s usually to do their own thing. That may be changing soon.” — Aaron Schwartz’s post about how Google infantilizes its employees. “Everyone I […]

I’ve recently become quite fond of how Google Talk is embedded in Gmail. I’m sure everybody has noticed this before, but the way that Google Talk displays not only status indicators but also one-liners from your friends is really cool. Just today I found out — through Gmail chat — that my friend Sarah has […]

When announcing the pre-brief schedule for its new stock options plan, Google forbid reporters from talking to experts that had not been already selected by Google. Most reporters followed Google’s instructions. “On the call will be a few people from Google who are substantive experts on the topic. Also, we’ll give you a list of […]

evel.jpgYa heard? Evel Knievel has sued Kanye West because West’s “Touch the Sky” video allegedly infringes on Knievel’s likeness. Also sued is AOL, which the lawsuit alleges helped distribute the video. According to the lawsuit, “use of AOL’s own search engine for a video of ‘Evel Knievel’ returned the infringing music video as the second […]

While the Googleplex’s unique architecture may inspire the Googlers to do great work, the multifaceted buildings aren’t exactly made for accommodating Google’s planned 1.6-megawatt solar system. So a company called Energy Innovations will install about one-third of the new solar panels as overhanging shades in Google’s parking lot. “It was a design challenge,” company spokesperson […]

Google’s business manager for trust and safety, Shuman Ghosemajumder, sat down with Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim and showed him some pretty graphs that said click fraud only represents 2 percent of all clicks. Andy then copied these graphs, posted them to his blog, and offered them as proof that click fraud is a […]

The networks’ tenuous plan to create a YouTube competitor is about critical mass and control. They are envious of YouTube’s enormous viewership, and they want to control what those viewers watch and how they watch it. But this is a plan headed for disaster, and here’s why. 1. Advertising will be intrusive. Very intrusive. The […]

The United States is backing a draft resolution in the United Nations that would impose a travel ban and freeze the assets of 11 institutions and 12 individuals in Iran. How did the U.S. choose those places and people? They used Google. According to the Washington Post, the State Department originally asked the CIA to […]

It’s an unwritten law of the Internet that once something gets popular, it gets exploited. Popular news posting service Digg has, in the last few months, become a favored whipping boy–too many marketers posting their news, too many odd moderation rules. MySpace long ago fell prey to spammers. (Or should I say was founded by […]

Yahoo’s reorganization is nothing but good news for Google, right? Wrong. While Google holds a comfortable lead in both search and advertising, the search giant can take some good lessons away from Yahoo’s recent troubles. The first lesson is focus. A few weeks ago, Brad Garlinghouse’s peanut butter manifesto threw Yahoo’s ADD problem into glaring […]

Google announced yesterday that it is extending its free transaction promotion for a full year, until the end of 2007. And while everybody should know that Checkout isn’t a direct competitor to PayPal–the former is a small business transaction processing service, while the latter is a direct payment system–Google’s promotion will put pressure on eBay. […]