Googlogger

Well, Google has now released a Blog search engine that supposedly goes beyond its own Blogger engine and Technorati. Between the scholar search for educational/professional papers, google earth, gmail, and now this, these guys are on fire. I recognized that when they first put stocks on the market, but I'm one of those who's not left with the money to buy into solid prospects.

The rich get richer... etc etc. blah blah. woof woof.

In the end it comes down to this: Google is offering some kickass free services, and driving Microsoft itself to rewrite search algorithms. Yes I bitch with no end about Microsoft, only because it has run seemingly unchecked for so long. But competition like this, and that from other alternatives for various services (web browsers, e-mail, word processing, etc.) only serves to increase the quality of the product we're getting, while keeping prices down.

The same goes for processing with battles between AMD and Intel over who can produce the most efficient, reliant, fast, and yet affordable PC computer chips (no disgrace to Apple, who've done some awesome things on their own in the past few years, and have me thinking about getting one simply to play around with laying tracks in ProTools). Or nVidia and ATI who have battled for the past several years over the video processing market.

Without competition, there is no motivation to do better, to better serve the customer, and give them the most effective, no frills version of a product possible. Political parties here in North America should have a read from the digital electronics notebook on this one....there has to be a significant challenger waiting in the wings, pounding down the door, waiting for you to slip to take over the reigns.

In Canada we have our two 'big boys' and then the NDP...the more the merrier, but even then, no one ever really causes enough of a fuss to get real shit done. In the U.S. it only seems worse, with only two parties, and the Democrats not very visible at all besides the occasional jabs here and there.

Unfortunately the 'customer' in politics case doesn't have a 1-800 line to dial and lay into and demand better, save for approximately every 4th year, and even then, specific demands are never truly heard, things need to be changed.