Idiots.

Google LatLong: Our city in 3D

The District of Columbia government has submitted more than 84,000 3D models to Google Earth via the Cities in 3D program. But why would a city, let alone one that is known as a horizontal city because of a strictly enforced height limit, be so eager to participate?

multiple profiles that become, over time, avatars.

my searches correspond to the many roles and specialized domain knowledge bases that I’ve accumulated over time — product manager, lawyer, publisher, analyst, project management professional, climate change researcher, Harry Potter fan … I want to be able to tell the system “who I am” at any given moment and have the results correspond. More than that, i want avatars that are constantly searching on all these topics and bringing me high quality documents in a serendipitous yet thorough way.

And, while you’re at it, I want them delivered onto my wireless PDF slate…

Official Google Blog: Technologies behind Google ranking

Personalization is another strong feature in our search system which tailors search results to individual users. Users who are logged-in while searching and have signed up for Web History get results that are more relevant for them than the general Google results. For example, someone who does a lot football-related searches might get more football related results for [giants], while other users might get results related to the baseball team. Similarly, if you tend to prefer results from a particular shopping site, you will be more likely to get results from that site when you search for products. Our evaluation shows that users who get personalized results find them to be more relevant than non-personalized results.

Borders Hopes for 8th Day Film Deal - 7/15/2008 12:48:00 PM - Publishers Weekly

[Borders pr] said CEO George Jones and executive v-p of merchandising and marketing Rob Gruen “are managing the film rights.” (Jones and Gruen both have backgrounds in retailing; Jones previously ran Warner Brothers studio stores, and Gruen worked at Target and at Warner Brothers.) The statement added that even with the potential film sale, Borders will continue to focus on its core book business and in executing its cash flow and expense reduction initiatives.

Launch Pad: Web 2.0 Summit 2008 - Co-produced by TechWeb & O’Reilly Conferences, November 05 - 07, 2008, San Francisco, CA

At this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, we are once again changing up the Launch Pad program.

Op-Ed Columnist - May We Mock, Barack? - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama’s convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson. She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to “measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed.”

The “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines, The Journal said, bar fried food and instruct that, “on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include ‘at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.’ (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation.”

This would be 1000% more interesting if they revealed the CTR and conversions that the winners were able to achieve, and if they shared the written reports by the teams.

Official Google Blog: Students surf their way to success

Together, Jamie and I recruited a panel of professors from all over the globe and came up with the Google Online Marketing Challenge. Student teams had to identify a local business with a website, but no experience of online marketing, and then were given free Google AdWords vouchers worth the equivalent of US$200.