Frothy Mix On His "Google Problem"

Savage & Miller At Google Headquarters

Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller visited Google headquarters for a lengthy discussion on the origins of the It Gets Better Project.

(Tipped by JMG reader Dave)

Concerned Women Are Concernstipated About The It Gets Better Project

"Thank you for cleaning up the Viagra commercials Fox, but PLEASE what’s with the new tolerance for homosexuals campaign disguised as anti-bullying? Bullying is wrong. It is wrong for any reason. Apparently, American Idol with the help of Woody from Disney’s Toy Story, thinks that my 4th grader needs to be fully aware of the plight of teens who view themselves as 'gay.' I am sorry, but he doesn’t even know about heterosexual sex yet. Can you give me some room here? I am ticked because I feel tricked. Fox blew it last night. The point is parents felt secure in allowing our entire families watch this show. They lured us into a false sense of security and broke trust with us last night." - Concerned Women president Penny Nance, angry about this week's airing of Google's It Gets Better ad during American Idol.

Daily Grumble

For those unaware, Google/Blogger experienced a global outage for the last (approximately) 24 hours, taking down tens of millions of sites and doubtlessly losing them zillions in ad revenue. For now, things appear to be working. You'll notice, however, that all of my 25 or so posts from yesterday have vanished. We'll see if they reappear. Thanks for hanging in there.

Did You Miss Me?

Hello, is this thing on?

HomoQuotable - Alan Chambers

"Children all over the world, including my two children are fans of Toy Story and to see a character like that [Woody] endorsing something that at this point children have no need to know about, it’s disappointing. For organizations like Exodus International, which has thousands of men and women like me who have lived a gay life, it obviously didn’t get better living a gay life for them." - Exodus International's head homo Alan Chambers, denouncing Google for airing an It Gets Better ad during Glee.

Google Airs Fantastic "It Gets Better Project" Ad During Glee

Major whopping props to Google for airing this amazing ad during tonight's episode of Glee. Somebody hand me a tissue.

EGYPT: Google Launches Speak-To-Tweet

Google has created a work-around for Egyptians cut off from the internet. Via the company's official blog:

Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection. We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet. We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

Nice work, Google.

Google Recaps The News Of 2010

Double rainbows, Jimmy McMillan, Antoine Dodson, Alexander McQueen, Haiti, BP, Pakistan, vuvuzelas, and more.

Smartphone Market Shares

Smartphone market shares stand at about a three-way tie, with third-place Android predicted by some to take first place in the next few months. Lots of wonky demographics at the link.

The United States of Auto-Complete

Here's what Google thinks the next words should be when you enter the name of a state. Hawaii, FTW.

(Via - Gothamist)

Google Buys 111 Eighth Avenue

Google has agreed to pay $1.8B for its massive Manhattan office building, which looms over Chelsea and covers an entire city block. Real estate watchers say the move signals a rebounding in New York's long-slumping office space market.

“This decision is further evidence that large-scale buildings are trading once again,” said Ross Moskowitz, a real estate lawyer at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and a former city economic development official, “and high-end users are looking to take advantage of these opportunities.” The brick building, which covers an entire block bound by 15th and 16th Streets, already houses Google’s East Coast headquarters and 1,800 employees, as well as Lifetime Entertainment, barnesandnoble.com, Nike USA and Deutsch advertising. But at 2.9 million square feet, it has more space than the Empire State Building and plenty of room for Google to grow.

Teabaggers Scream About Google Logo

Well, the teabaggers have found their latest false controversy as they are tearing up Twitter with claims that Google's Veteran's Day logo is a not-so-secret tribute to Islam taking over America. Cuz see that red crescent moon under the American flag which is obviously being nuked? DON'T YOU SEE IT?

NEW YORK CITY: Cops Bust Heroin Dealers Via Google Street View

Brooklyn detectives were able to identify some local heroin dealers thanks to images captured on Google Street View, where multiple photos showed the group working the corner. Also, do dealers really still use that hanging shoes bit?

Tweet Of The Day - Google

Nice promo, but it also gives me a chance to bitch that all three times I've tried to use in-flight WiFi have been a failure. Two of the times the signal died forever within thirty minutes of my payment going through. The third time I was able to stay online, but the connection was maddeningly slow and useless for blogging.

Buddhists Win Google Stereotypes

When you begin a Google search with the question "Why are [Christians, Jews, Muslims] so" - you get the above suggestions. The same query regarding Buddhists yields only "happy."

UPDATE: It's not listed in the above-linked story, but I've done the same query on atheists.

Google Staffers - It Gets Better

Google: Did You Mean "Battleship"?

Copyranter tips us to this "idiotic" Google campaign from Turkey. I don't know, it made me smile.

Fun With Google Instant

Google To Compete With iTunes

Google is set to launch a music service expected to compete with industry pioneer iTunes.

Google is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its mobile users to play songs wherever they are as it steps up its rivalry with Apple, according to people familiar with the matter. Google’s Andy Rubin, the brains behind Google’s Android mobile operating system, has been leading conversations with the labels about what a new Google music service would look like, according to these sources. Rubin, Google’s vice president of engineering, hopes to have the service up and running by Christmas, two of these people said.

Earlier this year Apple bough the popular cloud-based music company LaLa and promptly shut it down, leading many to speculate that the next version of iTunes would be cloud-based. That was not the case.