Blog News, Google Moons NASA

September 14, 2007

Google is apparently on the verge of releasing their “Powerpoint killer“. This is going to be a presentation package which is added to the mix of Google online office applications. So, we will have Docs, Spreadsheets and soon “Presently” (the name for the new app). I think this will be a cool addition to Google’s apps, but come on, this is not going to be a Powerpoint killer by any means. A recent story at InfoWorld says that sales of Office 2007 are almost double that of Office 2003. Face it, Google, Microsoft has the Office suite thing down.

The popularity of ad-blockers is getting some attention. A story on News.com says that there is the possibility of litigation in the future on this topic, especially if the ad-blockers begin to negatively impact revenue. It’s a similar situation as has come out of the popular use of DVRs and TIVO. Now that viewers can fast forward through the commercials, it begs the question at what point will companies start to raise a stink?

Google is aiming for the stars. Or the moon, to be more exact. Yes, Google is putting up $20 million to the first private team who is able to put a robot on the moon. They’ll throw in an extra $5 million if you can manage to take an extended trip on the surface or send back visuals of NASA’s prior landing sites. It’ll be quite interesting to see if anything comes from this. It would be done without government money. And, more importantly, it would need to find new technologies for doing it on the cheap. I mean, we all know NASA can burn up $20 million and send it out the back of a rocket on one launch.

John Reese’s new venture, Income.com, is set to launch today at 6PM. Now, I know he has really big plans for that domain, and what I read mostly focused on a new product called BlogRush. I don’t know the extent of the plans, but BlogRush is going to be a community based blog promotion service. It will be free and will operate through the use of widgets put into people’s blogs. Seems very similar to what Minekey is doing (who, BTW, is featuring me on their homepage).

And, lastly, from the blogosphere, here are some items of interest: