Is a corporate Blog with no comments a blog or just "friendly" press releases?

Yes, I am talking about Google's official "Google Blog". If you read it you will notice there are no comments, no "links to this post" (well just a few do from what I can see), no real conversation going on at all, they are just press releases written by Google employees. Seems to me that they pull a name from a hat (in the team with the fresh news) and that person has to write the post. Now I am not much of a language expert (as you can tell by my writing) and english is not my main language, but if I had to guess I would even say the posts are read and proofread by somebody. Well, maybe not, but the posts do seem like they all have a fakeness to them....they are just sooo friendly and chirpy its annoying. I want to talk to them, but I dont get an option there. I can only contact them through their standard online forms.
Its weird, but the do no evil company hides so much from the public that I can only assume they are doing evil in some way (and no, I am not talking about them hosting so much info online, I think thats fine...you have a choice not to give it to them afterall).
On the other hand, you have Microsoft which is the approved defacto evil company. Yet I see blogs from a lot of their programmers and employees, and I can either contact them through the blogs or sometimes even directly through email. In their blogs they admit mistakes, take criticism, fight back when they don't agree, etc. Much more decent on their part if you ask me.
So back to my original question...should all blogs have comments to be blogs?


Technorati Tags: blogs microsoft google scoble

Origami is the Flispstart PC

Think about it. Flipstart was big news about 2 years ago, they claimed they would be out in
2004 yet 2004 came and went and so did 2005. Where did the flipstart go? If I had to
guess I'd say it is what origami was based on. Vulcan the maker of the flipstart is owned by a major MSFT shareholder
afterall. Besides, it just makes sense. The ultimate portable machine is not a phone with
pda capabilities, nor a pda with phone capabilities. Its not a phone with a camera nor an mp3
player with basic pda features. The ultimate portable machine does not require mobile pc,
palm, symbian or embedded linux. Why? because all of these machines and OSs have limitations.
The ultimate portable machine is a full blown windows/linux/osx machine with all its capabilities
intact but in a small form factor. Probably would have to give away speed and physical connectivity
options, and have them replaced by wireless features, but still have the posibility to have
everything in there. Doesn't it bother you that you can receive plain text email but not html mail?
Or you can get html email in some cases, but not the attachments? A full blown windows xp/vista tablet
machine on a small form factor would be the answer to all "problems".
Thats what the flipstart is and that is why I am guessing origami is the next incarnation of the
vaporware project that the flipstart has been up to now.

msn messenger finally adds a decent contact manager....but

As I mentioned on a previous post I think the ideal PIM would come in the form of an IM. Part of this would include centralized contact information management.
In my ideal world my contact/presentation card would only have my name and my email address....the person would add me to his/her IM and automatically they would have all my contact information....address, phone, fax, etc....and if I change departments in the company, change cell phone number, etc....it would automatically be updated for everybody. This would be a great way to avoid bounces on my end of year holiday wishes...where I usually get 10-20 bounces from people that have changed main email.
Seems that the new MSN Messenger aka Live Messenger Beta has functionality like this....BUT...also seems that to actually get to the peoples information a browser window has to open....WHY? WHY? WHY? Why cant it be part of the actual IM? its faster, more efficient, and lets you use the information in other programs.....why did they finally do the right thing with the contact information yet they provide it through such a bad interface?