Googlements

Google launches Picasa Web Albums, which is guaranteed to invite comparisons with Flickr.

In Google Fatigue Sets In, Wade Roush at Technology Review writes: "Users are reacting to Google's new online spreadsheet with a big yawn. Is it a company searching for a strategy?"

But I think Nicholas Carr has it right in considering Google's spreadsheet an Office add-on, saying, "So why would Google put out a product that makes its arch-rival's product more valuable? Because Google doesn't want to compete with Office. It sees Office as part of the existing landscape, and it wants to build a new layer of functionality on top of that landscape."

Also via Carr, the NYT piece "...Google seeks more power" details Google's building of a massive computing center in Oregon on the banks of the Columbia River. "...it is hard to keep a secret when it is a computing center as big as two football fields, with twin cooling plants protruding four stories into the sky."

In other news, I think I read something about Scoble leaving Microsoft. Fafblog's satirist extraordinaire Giblets strikes gold again. And, an old educational film: Powers of Ten.