Mike Elgan

Google+ has a lot of advantages over Facebook, including hangouts group video chat, better search, cleaner interface, superior commenting and more. But Facebook has at least one thing Google+ doesn’t have: everybody. Facebook was the flavor of the month at the historic moment a couple of years ago when social networking went mainstream. First it […]

Google announced yesterday a big change in privacy and user data across dozens of services. The new system is causing confusion, and has triggered some hyperbolic, knee-jerk reactions by the tech-pundit echo chamber. If you read the tech press, for example, you’ll be told that Google’s changes mean: 1. Google will follow you as you […]

Google did what everyone expected last week, and integrated Google+ social results into Search. And then the knives came out. Search engine guru Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land says Google’s new Search plus Your World feature unfairly favors Google+. Slate magazine’s Farhad Manjoo says Search plus Your World reduces the quality of Google Search […]

Google did something both inevitable and unexpected this week: They announced the integration of Google+ into Google Search. That’s the inevitable part. They call the new feature Search plus Your World. The unexpected part is that Google gives easy controls for turning off the social features. Two new buttons appear to the right of search […]

New media are always perceived as mere updates to old media. In its first decade or two, radio was viewed as a mere tech upgrade to the telegraph — they envisioned fewer wire poles, not Howard Stern. Film was seen as just a way to record stage performances, rather than an enabler of an entirely […]

As the dust settles on the holiday shopping season, three mobile trends have suddenly become clear: Mobile devices are becoming point-of-sale devices, Silicon Valley will control them and companies will use other products to drive adoption of mobile eCommerce. Trend #1: Phones and Tablets Are Cash Registers Why would an online catalog design, make and […]

Suddenly everybody’s talking about wearable computing. Two Silicon Valley giants are reportedly working on wearable computing devices, which appears to validate a fringe area of research that’s been around for decades. But is a new era of wearable computing about to dawn? The answer is yes — and no. Here’s where wearable ware is going. […]

First, they were the greatest things since the invention of bacon. Now they’re being declared disastrous failures. What are we to believe about Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, Google’s Plus social network and Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet? Are they hot? Or not? Apple’s Siri When the iPhone 4s shipped October 15, and reviewers and pundits got […]

We now live in what used to be called the “information age.” We carry in our pockets, brief cases and hold on our desks machines that can conjure up information from thousands of Libraries of Congresses in an instant. But this “information age” has become an age of ignorance. We can know every detail about […]

It’s time for Google to change its self-defeating, anything-goes policy on Android before Amazon makes a fool it. Google’s semi-official motto is: “Don’t be evil.” But I wonder: Is Google evil *enough?* Amazon is taking advantage of Google’s open Android policy in a way that could cost Google billions and destroy the Android ecosystem. Google […]