Late last week Google announced Google Knol - a shot across the bow for every single publisher out there. For years Google has been claiming that they are in the game only to “organize the world’s information”, yet Knol is a play to actually create Google’s own authoritative content. This sounds a lot like Google is throwing Wikipedia, Mahalo, and its own index into one giant pot (and labeling it with an assenine moniker).

It’s kind of interesting that Knol is supposed to stand for “unit of knowledge”. It doesn’t get any more clear that Google is trying to make everything under the sun into a commodity – all to be exploited via contextual (and soon behaviorally-targeted) ads.

As Aaron points out, Google will probably start ranking Knol in the SERPS. With this move, they’ve just overstepped an important boundary. As an independent web publisher, I can say that this move gives me all the more reason to distrust the Google borg. Google has been gobbling up all the players as it moves along the value chain, and here they’ve just overstepped a very significant boundary.

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The whole (tech) world seems to be astir today about the announcement of Google-led Android Open Source cell phone platform.

For years people have been clamoring for better cell phones and easier ways to access the web. The iPhone moved the bar up and showed us what a phone can be – and for that I have to give it credit, it was an important step to advancing UI for mobile devices. But Apple looks like it might get left in the dust, come second quarter of 2008.

Android looks like a giant leap for mankind towards an inevitable future – a world where we enjoy the web in a handset the same way we enjoy it on our desktops; a phone that runs apps created by users themselves – the totally personalized phone / web browser. 3 billion users worldwide have been largely underserved – this is the new frontier.

Overnight, the iPhone pales in comparison to what Android promises – a world of possibilities, unrestricted to any single company or carrier.

Whether it will actually make you cookies – that remains to be seen.

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Today we launched a new project: Art of Blog. This new site will feature one blogger per day with a verse of wisdom on how to start a blog, written in a style reminiscent of the teachings found in Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

Throughout the years the Art of War has been successfully applied to business, management, and other competitive disciplines. With an ever-growing army of new bloggers joining the ranks, it is becoming more and more important to refine your blogging skills and differentiate yourself from the masses.

The Art of Blog will seek to enlighten, (maybe even entertain), and encourage discussion about the fine art of blogging. It will cover blog strategy, design, promotion, writing, and any other important aspects of creating a masterful blog.

Please feel free to link to the project, join the discussion, or subscribe to the feed for your daily dose of wisdom. If you have been blogging for longer than 6 months and have learned something valuable that you would like to contribute (a Sun Tzu-ism), feel free to contact us.

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Last year I tried out a number of different start pages – Pageflakes, Google IG, Protopage, Fold (now defunct), etc. and found some issues that irked me with most of them – Google IG’s modules were too big, pageflakes had organizational problems, and I don’t even remember my beef with protopage (I think it was loading time). After all the testing, I settled with Netvibes and have been using it as my start page/feed-reader ever since.

I haven’t tried Google Reader (nor do I plan to) just because I’m making a conscious effort to stop feeding the Google borg. The big G has way too much info already. Let’s just hope Netvibes doesn’t get acquired by Google.

Today Netvibes rolled out an update codenamed Coriander, which added a few new features and fixed several bugs.

To boot, last week Netvibes announced plans to create a universal widget API, which will let developers create a single widget to work across all major browsers and operating systems. If they do this successfully, it will be a huge deal for developers. It will let you create one widget that will work across different systems enabling you to achieve much greater distribution.

It looks like the Netvibes team is really out to win the start page wars. It looks like they might be one of a handful of companies that will be left standing when the web 2.0 dust settles.

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A few days ago Techcrunch mentioned a new service that just came out called Linked in a Box, which lets you embed a compact widget on your site or blog with a summary of your LinkedIn profile.

When I first read the title, I thought it was intended to be a pun. But reading their blog, it seems like it could be entirely unintentional.

So to all the fellas out there with ladies to impress [with your resume], it’s easy to do just follow these steps:

1: Cut a hole in a box
2: Put your linked in that box
3: Make her open the box

And that’s the way you do it.

(NSFW)

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In a recent lecture Google’s Larry Page was recently disclosed Google’s [super secret] plans for building a massive AI system:

“We have some people at Google (who) are really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale,” Page said to a packed Hilton ballroom of scientists. “It’s not as far off as people think.”

It’s never too early to start preparing for the inevitable robot rebellion. I suggest getting yourself a copy of How to Survive A Robot Uprising, invest in some Old Glory robot insurance (aff), and start showing your Roomba a bit more love – maybe even hug it once in a while, just to let the robots know you come in peace.

Just as a precaution though, you might want to add the following to your robots.txt file once “Google Mini: Personalized Brain Edition” launches (you won’t be able to opt out):

User-agent: Skynet, Gooynet
Disallow: /thoughts/*
Disallow: /childhood-memories/*
Disallow: /my-growing-suspicion-of-google/*
Disallow: /shameful-penchant-for-lindsey-lohan-movies/*
Disallow: /contacts/john-connor/
Disallow: /contacts/graywolf/

Seriously, people, it’s only $4 per month:

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A few years ago there was quite a bit of chatter about Local Search being the next big thing. But for a long time it just never materialized. If I had done a “predictions for 2007″ post, one of my points would have been: Local search finally comes of age.

The pot has been brewing for a while now and all the elements are seemingly coming together. I know this has been repeated often for the past few years, but I think the tipping point is finally here.

Danny Sullivan (The Godfather of search) has been telling everyone for a long time now that Google will flip a switch to become a lot more local-centric whenever somebody looks for something that Google determines is local-based. That has been slowly creeping into search results, and has accelerated as of late with the Onebox, Plusblox, and (very recent)  integration of Google Maps into SERPS for local-centric queries.

The search engines have been making moves recently and it looks like the competition for local dominance will be heating up. Google is well positioned because of its insane search market dominance, however I think Yahoo has a better local search product (that just came out of beta), plus they have a lot more reviews and human-powered qualitative data, which are crucial elements for successful local search. Telecoms are gearing up by joining forces, Yahoo is making deals to bring local search into cars, Google is making deals with mobile phone manufacturers directly. The Local space race is definately heating up.

One significant hurdle is the atrocious hardware/software lag in mobile phones. As soon as more phones come with easier internet access, this market will really take off (especially with the 14-24 year old demographic). The iPhone should be a pretty big market facilitator – it looks like it will definitely raise the bar for mobile phone manufacturers.

Last month I added a “local” tab to my Netvibes start page to monitor some blogs that explore this (finally) emerging market. You might want to do the same – I recommend you subscribe to Understanding Google Maps and Local, Locally Type, Small Business SEM, and OneBoxer if you are interested in following developments in this space.

Also, Graywolf has just started a great interview series on local. And if you haven’t yet done so, check out Sugarrae’s Optimizing for Local post – it’s one of the best posts on the topic I’ve ever seen.

I’ll probably feature more local-centric posts in the future as this market matures – with tips for optimization -  so if you haven’t done so, subscribe to this blog.

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Over the past few months I found myself wanting to search for “web 2.0″ versions of many different websites just because most of the time I find that 2.0 sites are more intuitive, simpler, have useful features, and are a lot more fun to use. However there is not a “Web 2.0 search” that I’m aware of, so I decided to roll one myself using Google Co-op.

Introducing … (drum roll please) … Hype 2.0

Now you can search for websites and online applications just by typing in a service, product, or function that you are searching for: for example “medical advice”, “conference calling”, “bookmark recipes”, “remote data backup”, or any other web service. Since Google has such an old-website bias in its normal search, this search only returns pages from the most popular blogs that review “web 2.0″ websites and startups.

Feel free to add this search to your own website AND/OR to your browser’s custom search engines list.

I’ve tested a number of keyword combinations and it does a pretty good job of finding what I need. It’s a work in progress and I’m sure I’ll be refining it as I go so please give me some feedback and let me know what you think – your opinion is really appreciated. The search is somewhere between an alpha and a beta. Help me take it Gamma or a Rho ;)

The starting list of websites searched:

• Techcrunch
• Read Write Web
• Somewhat Frank
• Mashable
• Solution Watch
• Rev2
• Center Networks
• GigaOm Startups

I also added some filters to make sure only the relevant stuff comes up. Thanks to Todd (Stuntdubl) for the inspiration and Neil Patel for suggesting more sites.

Go test drive Hype 2.0 and let me know what you think!

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My favorite CMS / best blogging platform on the planet just got an upgrade (35 minutes ago) with the release of WordPress 2.1 – codenamed Ella. Can’t wait to take Ella for a test drive. This is a pretty significant upgrade with lots of new features.

Here are some of the more exciting new WordPress features:

• Autosave while writing a post
• Switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post
• New visual editor includes spell checking
• Allows setting any “page” to be the front page of the site
• Code is much more efficient, faster
• Redesigned login screen / admin
• More AJAX all around for speed

Much like the Million Dollar Man, everything is faster, better, and cooler. Go download it.

Soon I will be posting some tutorials on how to install, configure, and SEO your WordPress blog (maybe even with video) so subscribe to the feed.

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This is a bit surprising but this blog made it into Allen’s Bloggermania I at CenterNetworks. It’s a fun little exercise in bracketology and linkbaiting. I’m just really honored to be included in that mix of heavy-hitters.

It also looks like I just moved into Round II, beating out JoelonSoftware, which is a killer site. Although my reign as the unlikely underdog will surely end now that I’m facing Liz Gabe / GigaOhm, it was still fun to be mentioned in the same list as Neil Patel and Pete Cashmore, (as undeserving as that might seem).

If you haven’t checked out CenterNetworks before, it’s a pretty new site that looks like it’s gunning to be the next Mashable or TechCrunch. With quality posts and a money back guarantee it’s definitely worth adding to your feed reader.

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