|
|
Add one part satire to two parts sincerity. Sprinkle on a couple of rants. Stir liberally.
RSS feed coming soon!
Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
If it's called Daily Blah, how come you don't ... hey, wait, you're writing every day!
See? Told you I'd try harder.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
Arik
Bill
Dan
Cole
Emily B
Emily G
Helena
Jee
Jewelz
Kaila
Kathryn
Mac
Robin
Slim
Souris
Mr. West
My TIME articles
All magazine articles (subscription required for older stories)
Online column index
|
|
|
|
|
Daily Blah for... Friday, February 13, 2004
What Did I Tell You?
Last November I wrote this blog about a story of mine in which an editor had made a subtle change to my use of the word "Google". I had it in the proper noun sense: The Google of Books. He changed it to the generic sense: Google your books. Google, I pointed out, has been known to send out lawyer's letters about this kind of thing. Some of my friends thought I was being paranoid. And now look what dropped into my inbox this morning:
Dear Mr. Taylor:
Your article in the November 10, 2003 issue of Time, entitled "'Google' Your Books" has come to our attention. In that article, you use "google" to mean search generally. Our brand is very important to us, and as I'm sure you'll understand, we want to make sure that when people use "Google," they are referring to the services our company provides and not to Internet searching in general. I attach a copy of a short, informative piece regarding the proper use of "Google" for your reference. We hope that this is helpful.
Sincerely,
Rose Hagan
Senior Trademark Counsel
Google Inc.
The attachment includes, among other things, this patronizingly helpful table:
Inappropriate
I googled that hottie.
We were googling MP3s.
He googles himself.
They google lemurs.
Appropriate
I used Google to check out that guy I met at the party.
We were looking for new MP3s with Google.
He ego-surfs on Google to see if he's listed in the results.
They use Google to research the latest on lemurs.
How the mighty have fallen. Or rather, how full of themselves the once-humble are. I remember sitting around with Larry and Sergey in 2000, when they were on the cusp of fame and Google was a company of less than 150 people (the magic company size, according to The Tipping Point). I remember thinking:This place is so cool. It'll never turn into a faceless, corporate mass like Yahoo. It'll never be run by MBAs and lawyers. But even as I was thinking it, I knew in my heart I was wrong. That's just the kind of dreck that tends to attend corporate growth. Yahoo itself was a small, cool company once. All I can do is await the day when Google sees the error of its ways, splits itself up into lots of 150-person sized divisions -- and fires the trademark lawyers.
Who, in the meantime, can go google themselves.
|
|
|
|
