Work(ing Title)

The gauntlet has been thrown down. Sign-up for Google Spreadsheets is now open. The obvious advantages to hosting a productivity tool (auto-save, realtime collaboration and sharing) are appealing, and I have no doubt many people will jump at the chance to do more of their work for free rather than purchasing Office.

But be sure to see the forest for the trees though. Synchronize your watches people, and let’s see how long it takes for someone to apply this beta code to a business critical project, only to see their information stolen/hacked/mined/…

(via Slashdot)

eBay will now be purchasing Yahoo ads, both of the graphical and text variety, and displaying them on eBay pages. I was initially surprised, but after a bit of thought this really should’ve happen sooner. Yahoo’s ad business is massive, and eBay is in the commerce business and they can’t bury their heads in the sand about targeted advertising.

Most of the coverage I’ve read this afternoon points to this agreement as a defensive tactic against Google’s war machine. eBay and Yahoo are recognizing that search is the ultimate leveler and that there are very few shopping destinations on the net, even if Ms. Whitman doesn’t think so. From the New York Times:

“There is a lot more to running a marketplace than getting a lot of listings,” Ms. Whitman said. “There is trust and safety, and payments and reputation. That stands eBay in good stead.”

It’s disappointing to me how slow Microsoft seems to be in finding a ticket to the dance on this one. Yet another example of how being a large organization can hold you back I suppose.

(via John Battelle’s Searchblog)

Google isn’t really simple? Don Norman thinks so, and he might be insane, but I think he’s going to bring us into the light. Google’s different services tend to stand alone, with an extreme lack of connectivity between them:

Take another careful look at Google’s front page. Want a map? You have to click once to be offered the choice, then a second additional time to get to the map page. Want to use Google Scholar to check references? Um, well, is that “Advanced Search” or “more.” What about their newly announced blog search?

(via Signal vs. Noise)