Ben Hammersley recently claimed that Yahoo had become the new Google.
He wrote, “Google, it seems, has . . . been overtaken, . . . not by some new startup of ultra smart MIT alumni or by the gazillions in the Microsoft development budget, but by the deeply unhip and previously discounted Yahoo.”
I, along with Kevin Fox (who happens to be an employee of Google) disagree.
While Yahoo has improved their offerings, his claims that they beat out Google are silly.
His first claim is that Yahoo’s research labs site is better than Google Labs. Take a look at both of them and tell me which one has innovative, useful projects and then tell me which one just talks about themselves. Also, he says you can be in direct contact with the developers, but out of the two, Google Labs has direct e-mail links to the teams working on the projects.
His second anecdotal data point is the respective APIs offered by the two search engines, and for all I know, Yahoo is a winner. I haven’t used either.
His third point is that while Google Maps was cool, adding traffic conditions on Yahoo Maps was way cooler. Poppycock! I can get traffic conditions on the radio or on commuter links, but Yahoo has nothing to match color satellite images of the US.
Regarding web e-mail, he claims Yahoo just increased their quota to 1GB, no problem, to match Gmail’s offering. Hogwash. I just logged in to my account tonight and it’s still at 250MB and has been for months. I also have a blog entry that has over 200 comments and continues to get more, with complaints from people who can’t get to their e-mail because of problems with Yahoo Mail. Meanwhile my Gmail account is at 2135MB and counting.
I’m not trying to bash Yahoo. I have a lot of respect for them and I think they’re getting back in the game with innovations and improvements to existing technology, but to say that they’re now top dog compared to Google is just not true.
Have you ever heard the saying, “Laughter is the best medicine?”
It reminds me of Jack Handy’s observation; “Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.” The saying is slightly off according to a new study, which found that happiness is the best medicine. Some might argue that if you’re laughing you’re obviously happy, but I would point out the many villains we see who laugh uproariously but are soon dispensed with by the end of the movie. Being dead does not qualify as being healthy.
Anyway, the Wired article says that while laughter is good for you, being genuinely happy is best.
