New From Google or "Is This Anything?"

Last.fm just served me the Matt Pond, PA cover of Champagne Supernova. Last.fm knows me. I like that Last.fm knows me.  I like when my web-based applications know me and recommend great stuff for me. However, for some reason, people freak out when it comes to Google knowing about them. I think it has something to do with Skynet. I don't know, ask this guy. 

Google knows that we don't like it that they know so much about us - because they're inside our heads. So, in the name of transparency and to give individual users more control over their privacy settings, Google launched it's Google Dashboard. 

I opened up my own Google Dashboard expecting to find that the Mothership has stored my social security number, my credit rating, dress size, innermost fears and late-night snacking habits. In reality, I found a bunch of boring stuff like my number of RSS feed subscriptions, number of conversations in my Gmail Inbox, number of widgets I installed on iGoogle, and my age, gender and zip code. I'm pretty sure the staff of the Ketchum Mail Room knows more about me than Google does.  The only thing that looks potentially interesting is my web search history, which also happens to be particularly boring at this moment.  So, Google Dashboard - is this anything? Personally, I'm more excited about the new Google Music Search Feature.

This would have come in handy yesterday when a colleague and I were trying to remember who sings "Right Here, Right Now" (Ans: Jesus Jones).  Of course, when I just ran a search for "Right Here, Right Now" in Google it pulled up the Fatboy Slim version. Nice start Google, if your aim is to collect enough embarrassing data to blackmail me into joining the robot uprising in 2040 you're going to have to try harder.

Interwebz Convergences

A potentially recurring theme with apologies to McSweeney's brilliant Convergences Contest, curated by Lawrence Wechsler. Today's post is submitted without comment.

About the Book: The Ugly Woman's Guide to Internet Dating

AND

Real Time Tweets from Fort Hood

As news of the fatal shooting at the Fort Hood Army Base comes in, Brian Stelter has provided a link for how to use Twitter Search to filter for tweets local to Fort Hood, aka Kileen, TX. Watching the stream of tweets is fascinating and frightening.

Stelter credits @KGeee, @AJRizKhan, @kenjiokumura with setting up the Twitter Search query, so I'll credit them here as well.

William Shatner Reads Levi Johnston's Twitter Feed

Well, this is the most inspired thing I've seen come out of broadcast television this week. The title here should be pretty self-explanatory, but allow me to break it down for you. William Shatner reads real, unedited tweets from Levi Johnston's Twitter feed. I'm not sure if the credit for this piece of genius belongs to Conan, Shatner or Levi himself.

Other fun facts from Levi's Twitter feed:

He "hearts black people."

He will be coming out with his own line of boxer/briefs (please hold all comments until the end).

He has no sense of self-awareness.

But he may have a sense of humor.

Levi, you don't deserve anything that has happened to you, neither the good nor the bad. But you are a beautiful enigma.  Here is the video Levi links to in his Twitter bio. Q.E.D.

The Day the eReader Jumped the Shark

When I first saw the Wikireader, I assumed that it was a hox. Then I checked was Wikipedia. This is real.  And highly unnecessary.