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I’m glad they still have this feature.

Popularity: 16% [?]

This is the kind of tough decisions you have to make when you acquire a technology that conflicts not complements your own. After acquiring Flickr, Yahoo photos can only stand less of a chance, and it makes no sense to push for two different competing channels. Despite the co-founder of Flickr statement that Yahoo photo and Flickr will be two separate applications, with different access credentials and needs, the still leading Yahoo photos has been declining while Flickr keeps rising. The thing that led Yahoo to make the hard decision of killing it’s own app. To read more about the story details, click here.

What’s happening here is quite similar to Google and YouTube case, except that YouTube is already much largr than Google Video. Google are still trying to convince them selves and others that the two are separate and non-colliding. However you can only run but you can’t hide. Sooner or later, Google will have to deal with this conflict of interest. Both are video streaming communities, one is much larger than the other. Right now, Google video searches both YouTube and Google videos, and the majority of the results are from YouTube. In addition, even if you want to search Google Videos only, you have to manuall write site:video.google.com, as Google does not have an option to search within it’s site only. The acquisition has cost Google $1.65 billion, so why not use it and cut down the cost of your own I wonder. It’s bad and demotivating for the people behind it I know, but I think it’s hurts more when I keep adding to something that I think will fall any minute.

Another similar case now is the Yahoo acquisition by Microsoft. A deal that if made could be one of the biggest in history, and definitely the biggest in the web. For Microsoft this deal is a step back into the monopoly, and a quick jump ahead into the WWW which they have been lacking in for quite long time. This would also put them ahead of their worst enemy, Google. From Yahoo’s perspective however, let’s stop for a second and see what will happen. Not only for Yahoo it self, but for the whole Yahoo community who has been putting faith in the #1 site in the world.

• Yahoo Search: Which one will be pushed for? Live or Yahoo?
• Ads: Will Yahoo still deliver their own ads, or will Microsoft enforce their AdCenter on Yahoo network. What will happen to the advertisers as well?
• Yahoo Mail: This is a tough one. Will they be supporting two different competing services, or push only for the winner (Yahoo I mean)?
• Messenger: We know MSN and Yahoo are already collaborating for cross-messaging between the two, but not killing one of them over the other.

These are only quick points I can think of that will get affected. I really doubt this deal will make it through, but if it does, a hell lot of changes are going to happen out there.

Popularity: 15% [?]

One of the challenges we face in Kuwait is fast and stable internet access. It’s not easy to get, which is why I pay $55/month for 256 DSL connection. I heard the prices went a bit down now though. Now that I have moved to a new area, I still don’t have phone lines (Fiber optics is still future in Kuwait), I had no other option but to use one of the internet services provided telecom companies. For EDGE service with Excellent reported connection status and claimed 220 kbps, this is the PING reply I got last night:

Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=2152ms TTL=236
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=3176ms TTL=236
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2152ms, Maximum = 3176ms, Average = 2664ms

When was the last time you saw such ping reply time of 4 digits, and from whom? from Google! with 50% packet loss. All I hardly could do is open light text based pages, after long wait! The cost of this service is 14 KD (~=$48) and they intend to be DSL replacements. In a new area at the middle of the night, I don’t expect there should be that much high traffic affecting the network. I also tried the same connection in different areas at various times. My brother changes his mind when he saw it. He was about to grab one him self. So sad really. I can’t wait to get a phone line and enjoy my life again. For now, I have spare time for some quite book reading at late nights, but that still doesn’t bring full satisfaction.

Popularity: 48% [?]