Alert Blog Reviews

It’s been more than two years since Google’s last big big to enter a government-regulated offline business. They offered some $4.6B for wireless spectrum in an auction in 2008, but it seemed that the multi-billion bid was merely a ploy to get some of their demands for the spectrum met. But that’s not quite the case with Google’s recent application to buy and sell power “much like utility companies do,” according to the New York Times . Google told the Federal Energy Regulation Commission that they need this capability to support their power-hungry facilities with more renewable energy sources. Google created a subsidiary last month, Google Energy, to handle this. As the NYT points out, this isn’t Google’s first look at energy: This is hardly Google’s first foray into the energy world. Over the years, Google has invested in renewable energy projects through its philanthropic and venture capital units. It has also embarked on a number of engineering projects and partnerships to, for example, advance plug-in hybrids and offer tools to measure home electricity usage. And it has an ambitious goal to help develop renewable energy that is cheaper than coal. Bill Weihl, Google’s green energy czar, discussed many of those initiatives and goals in a lengthy interview with The New York Times published on Thursday. Google insists that they’re not getting into the market to trade energy, but if their application is approved, they could sell any surplus energy they own. What do you think? Is this just Google’s carbon-neutrality quest, or a back-door entry into another market?

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Google Applies to Enter Energy Market

Let’s face it: nobody has the attention span to read more than 140 characters anymore. So WordPress’s latest effort— mobile microblogging cross posting to a regular blog —totally makes sense. Actually, it’s really not a bad shot. Based on an API interface, you can now cross post Twitter updates (with geotagging) to your WordPress account. And really, if all you have to say fits in 140 characters, that’s pretty cool. Of course, this also shows that WordPress’s tech team isn’t too worried about Twitter. And honestly, why should they be? Yeah, Twitter is popular and gets a lot of hype, but really, it serves a different purpose than full-sized blogs. Twitter is great for one-on-one, fast conversations (like public IM, I guess), and for interacting. It’s less great for . . . well, anything that takes more than 140 characters, for one. Interestingly, this capability also lets you read WordPress blogs you’re following—through Twitter. Of course, this uses teasers with links, rather than trying to abbreviate 400-word essays, tutorials or rants into 140 characters. All you need to do this is a Twitter client with custom API support. The official announcement from Matt Mullenweg includes a walkthrough on setting it up on the mobile client Tweetie 2. What do you think? Should WordPress be more worried about competition from Twitter, or is it better to go the all-inclusive route?

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Microblogging, Meet “Megablogging”: Post to WordPress via Twitter

Data portability is just all the rage these days. Google, Facebook, MySpace, OpenID, et al. have spent years creating services where you can use a single login and password to access email, network or make comments. Now Google’s taking it one step further with something called “ hybrid onboarding .” When you receive an email invitation in a Gmail account to join another service, including Plaxo, Facebook and more, instead of being prompted to create yet another username and password, you’re given the option to sign in with your Google account: On the surface, this seems like it might be less secure—after all, isn’t Google sharing your Gmail username and password in this sign up? Not so, Google says: At the same time, the hybrid onboarding model improves authentication security because websites like Plaxo that use this technique never see a password from you at all. Since you don’t have to enter your password on additional sites, your password remains closer to you and is less likely to be misused. However, there is the problem that if your one account gets hacked, the hackers will have access to your other accounts (though this is often the case, since most people use the same password for a lot of their accounts). Google is also taking this capability to your doorstep: The Google Code Blog also gives details on how any site can add this authentication protocol. What do you think? Is this a step forward for password and online security? What sites do you want to see participating?

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Google Gives You Fewer Passwords