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Mark Evans

the blog - examines the world of telecom  and  technology  from  a distinctly Canadian perspective.

the person - lives in Toronto, CA with  his  wife  and  three children, and  works  as director of community with PlanetEye Inc.
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View Article  Google's Scattered Science Experiment/Strategy

There's plenty of comment out there about Google Pages (Mathew Ingram, Search Engine Watch) but what really fascinates me is the company's scattered approach to launching new services - something Peter Cashmore describes as "Spray and Pray". It's like Google has attention deficit disorder because they launch something new and, before you know it, they're onto the next big thing. Take Blogger, for example. Given the growing popularity of blogging, you would think Blogger would be a dominant, feature-rich service given Google's financial muscle and army of PhDs. But this is not the case. Instead, Blogger hasn't changed much since Google acquired it. Instead of being beefed up, it has fallen behind the competition as new players such as Wordpress have appeared on the scene. I mean, Blogger still hasn't introduced trackbacks. Picasa is another example of interesting technology that hasn't been leveraged properly - and could say the same thing about Froogle and GMail. As much as investors love Google, let's be clear here: it's a one trick-pony, although the trick is extremely lucrative. For all the talk about Larry Page and Sergey Brin becoming strategic visionaries, it's hard to see a vision unlesss it's about creating new real estate for AdSense - regardless of whether these new services are any good. Maybe there's a master plan happening that the rest of us can't grasp yet but it would be nice for Google to commit itself to doing something really well when it introduces a new service - rather than coming out with something that disappoints and doesn't move a market forward.
Update: Search Engine Journal is reporting that Google may be launching a finance site, while my friend Mathew Ingram is calling on Google to come out with a calendar so it can take GMail, Google Talk and a rumoured voice mail service to battle Microsoft's Outlook.

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View Article  RIM-NTP Media Circus
From all accounts, tomorrow's court hearing in Richmond, Va. in which Judge James Spencer (left) could grant an order to shut down Research in Motion's Blackberry service in the U.S. will be a media circus. With the court room expected to be packed, another room with a video feed has already been set up, and it is highly possible there will be a second room to make sure the hundreds of reporters are accomodated. It is far from certain what will actually happen tomorrow. Judge Spencer could make a ruling - a possibility given his demonstrated stubborness and lack of patience. Then again, he could take his time to make a decision, and keep everyone in suspense for a few more weeks. For more information, check out this CNet story, which provides a good overview of what's happening and what could happen, a  Wharton School of Business piece on the whether the U.S. patent system is "out of whack" and patent lawyer Stephanie Stoughton's excellent post on how this case has gone down and the mechanics of the patent/court system.
Update: CNet has a story on RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie telling an investment conference that he was advised it would be "crazy" to accept NTP's latest settlement offer.
My blog has moved. Check out the new Mark Evans. It's part of my mini-blog empire that also includes All About Nortel and Twitterrati. You can subscribe to Mark Evans Tech by clicking on the RSS symbol above.
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