DISQUS

I am more into "Twitter" world, as I think that is great to exchange thoughts, read few suggested articles. I kind of feel Twitter type knowledge sharing is way forward, in one way to reduce the "noise" and pick "quality" as suggested by your chosen communities.

I will think this is Google's approach to enter into market. Google knows for sure that Amazon is ahead in Cloud computing, however to create new customer base and build solution for them based on their need is a better strategy than jumping into cloud computing overnight.

Google always creates a massive buzz when they do something and makes competitor wonder "is Google coming to my industry?"

I sense this is a one step a time approach; with Google's proven infrastructure, nano clustering capabilities, they will enter into Cloud computing one day.

Roger, your findings are quite detailed, I must appreciate the amount of information you have provided here are for the "best" interest of Wordpress community.

However I agree with Matt that if a bug is stopping a major release, then it makes sense to set aside the bug for next release. WP community has been waiting for 2.5 release for quite a while..

Ildeniz, Google has already embedded search in its YouTube and the technology is also getting used for contextual in AdSense for YouTue videos. so I dint understand wen you said "as good as Google with text" :)

Unless there is one technology/video search engine in stealth mode that you are pointing to ;) ?

I think Facebook and many other Top Social Network will see slow movement of members. During that final quarter of 2008/early 2009, we will see rise of niche social network and members of Facebook/MySpace will use OpenID to represent at multiple networks.
With this trend, the supremacy of one Social Network will see downward slope.

We can apply the classic pattern of society into social network, for instance when there is a new land discovery, there is mass immigration towards it, then we settle down ...slowly we discover we belong to small community or move to another green pasture. I think the same pattern is already seen behind the reason why Bebo gaining more member and Facebook loosing it.
I also think with OpenSocial initiative and many similar initiative, it will make easier for user to represent themselves by OpenID. I foresee OpenId enabling user to manage their own social contacts, privacy, messages, apps, etc.
That's my 2 cents.

Considering Google's positioning as a consumer software experience service company, it has competition with Apple, Yahoo, eBay, MS and many others.

However the core strength of Google is in producing easy-to-use software (be it GMail, GTalk, Google Apps, etc) which impresses the "common man/user". I believe the next generation market opportunity and share lies in acquiring common user.

Coming back to your analysis, whether Apple-Google or Apple-Yahoo is best bet, I don't think Apple is in sight for Google/ vice versa.

I analyze from Google's point of view. My analysis says that Google will go for Adobe! Adobe is the undisputed leader in innovating solutions which has mass user appeal (PDF, Photoshop, coming soon AIR, Flash and many other solutions). As web moves towards RIA (rich internet application), Adobe's capability and stack will allow Google to further extend its leadership as follows.

1.Common user can design web pages (Google's page creator and Adobe's Dream weaver)
2.Rich Internet Application (Google's pure Java based AJAX and Adobe's AIR, Flex)
3.Web based Apps (Google Apps + Adobe easy-to-use & publish PDF, Presentations)
4.Learning Tools
5.Next generation Mobile Apps and Software
&
Many such capabilities

Considering Google uses millions of open source software like Linux (Red Hat), and Red Hat/Linux increasing OS market share, why will not Google acquire Red Hat and hit Microsoft most in OS market?

In a longer term, the only missing bit for Google is OS; all other bits and pieces they are either acquiring or building on their own.

Apple-Yahoo? Unless Yahoo performs exceptionally well, it will be an definitive acquisition target of Apple or eBay or Microsoft. That's my guess.

striatic, you seems to be passionate about creativity and expression and cultural change.

I too believe those are essential ingredient for trying to become an entrepreneur. However none of the passionate startup entrepreneur will ever succeed unless they "monetize" their creativity and sign of deadpool.

Roger, I agree that Zooomr is far ahead in innovating compare to Flickr. As they say a photo speaks thousand words, so all their features to geo-tag, social community, etc will give life to static photos. Otherwise where is fun of Second or Virtual life 

However when it comes to adding more features, I am to believe that "customer is not always aware of what is possible" so one must be prepared to go through long gestation period to educate the customer and the feature must not be too advanced.

Rather than playing the game with Flickr, Zooomr should move on and create niche. I will be happy to brain dump if Kris is interested :) There are many ways to monetize Zooomr and build market-leading communities. I believe Mark III is aimed at such niche creation.

I wish Zooomr team all the best to lead the market and disrupt Flickr's First Mover Advantage.