Googlecloud 

I'm not wild about tag clouds. I prefer a normal list with the ability to sort it A-Z, by popularity, by date or put it in to some hierarchial order (especially if you can do it in the OPML Editor).

And then I find out about a service called Googlecloud.

It's fun, but pointless. Why would I search for something more than once?

If I forget where, I don't know, I can read the Bible online, I might Google for "bible". Then I find Bible Gateway, bookmark it (or blog it, del.icio.us it etc.) and that's it. New stuff comes to me via my RSS reader. Google is for putting URL's to thoughts (like "I want to find out whether Michael Jackson was found guilty or not" or "Where's the RSS 2.0 specification?").

The search is not the end, it's the process towards the ends - the end being the website you've found.

Searches, to do anything, need to be complex. That's why I use a lot of "site:" searches on Google. If I want to know something with a high degree of reliability, I just put "site:.ac.uk" or "site:.edu" on the end.

Complex searches don't aggregate well - nothing complex aggregates well ("postmodern jurisprudence feminism site:.ac.uk"), simple aggregates very well ("sex", "britney spears"). The whole reason why you can aggregate tags is because they are describing the complex in terms of the simple - but not the simplified.

What we really need is a way of aggregating the means. RSS/Atom provides the method to aggregate the ends (blog posts, del.icio.us links, photos etc), and OPML provides the method to aggregate more complex ends (directory structures, outlines, reading lists etc). What we need is a way to aggregate how people find stuff automatically. A "social search" so to speak, a way of customising Google to show things within your social network and within communities of interest (that 'c' word again...).

How does that work? Well, we need more ideas for that. Get your thinking caps on, and build something cool rather than just flashy.

Feel What I Feel When I'm Feeling 

It's all rather amusing when we use the phrase "there's no such thing as bad publicty" or "all publicity is good publicity".

It's silly because there are so many counter-examples.

If there's no such thing as bad publicity, why do people hire PR firms?

It rests on the idea that there can be such a thing as 'branding', that there's a choice between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and it doesn't matter that one does nasty things and the other does nice things, it's just a matter of how well you can remember their names.

First counterproof: the Motion Picture Association of America, and it's chum, the Recording Industry Association of America.

Everything they do is bad publicity. Can you name anybody who thought "well, I wasn't going to buy the new Kanye West record, but now that Sony Records and EMI have sued an old lady without a computer for 'piracy' (she doesn't have a cutlass or say "Yarr" either), so I'll now buy said record". No, it's ridiculous.

With every lawsuit that the RIAA and MPAA bring, they send out the message that their customers don't matter. And, people may continue to buy records, even in greater numbers, but the cause is not the possibility of getting sued by the record industry that excites them. It's the musicians.

The record companies are tolerated. People don't care about Hilary Rosen or the chief executive of Sony Records. People don't want DRM.

As Cory Doctorow said the other day, nobody wants to buy a television or DVD player with functions removed. It's not a unique selling point that your technology is worse than someone else's. And it's not good marketing to treat your customers like disposable money pits to be taken through the proverbial cleaners of the tort system.

Second counterproof: Ruth Kelly getting pelted with eggs. Her task is to reform the education system in line with the Labour manifesto, and Tony Blair's statements. How did getting egged help with that? It only gave political cynics like me fodder for a few minute's chuckling at Ms Kelly's expense.

"All publicity is good publicty" only works when your market are totally clueless, and are able to willingly blind themselves to counter-examples.

It may be the current zeitgeist. It's certainly not a law. And, as the Internet (and the free expression that is entailed with it) spreads, it'll become an anachronism as people spread smart, dangerous ideas instead of stupid, commercially-valuable ones.