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Google Businesses The Internet

Evan Williams Posts Official Google Blog 196

Luis F. Escalante writes "Evan, creator of Blogger, owned by Google, finally convinced Larry, Sergey and Co. to start up a blog. According to Evan's first post, we'll soon be able to know "What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson's Creek character reminds us most of Eric.""
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Evan Williams Posts Official Google Blog

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  • by `Sean ( 15328 ) * <sean@ubuntu.com> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:27PM (#9119620) Homepage Journal

    So, what did Larry have for breakfast?

    Yes, the Idea Man! What're his hopes and dreams, his desires and aspirations? Does he think all the time or does he set aside a certain portion of the day? How tall is he and what's his shoe size? Where does he sleep and what does he eat for breakfast? Does he put jam on his toast or doesn't he put jam on his toast, and if not why not and since when?
  • STOP IT (Score:1, Flamebait)

    Google - stick to your core business. Please. I would hate to see you suck.
  • by baudilus ( 665036 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:29PM (#9119636)
    ..why people think blogs are so cool, when they obviously aren't?
    • Perhaps more specifically asked is...Why do people choose to read so much about and into other people's lives and so little into their own?
    • by lpangelrob2 ( 721920 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:40PM (#9119747) Journal
      A blog is a one-person message board, where people reply with comments. Usually. Slashdot is kind of like a blog. A bunch of one-person posts biased (often heavily) one way or another.

      People read blogs because it either a.) Validates their thinking (my guess: 95%), or b.) Offers an opportunity to challenge their current ways of thinking, and an avenue to respond to the opportunity (again my guess: less than 5%). Remember, blogs are usually heavily biased, so the people that read the blogs often enough to see every post probably agree with the author. Are not both stories and comments on /. heavily biased?

      So I've rambled enough, but to paraphrase Pirates of the Caribbean... You'd better start believing in blogs, because you're living in one. :-)

      • The major difference is stories on /. can be posted by anyone, and bias aside, usually have content that is generally interesting to the /. demographic.

        The majority of personal blogs are about whatever mundane thing happened to the person on the way to the grocery store. Outside of posting one for family and friends, I don't see the point.
        • by dustmote ( 572761 ) <fleck55&hotmail,com> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:05PM (#9119980) Homepage Journal
          Outside of posting one for family and friends, I don't see the point.

          I think that is the point. I have a blog, and it's a no-holds-barred crapfest to anyone who doesn't know me. (In fact, it's a no-holds-barred crapfest to most people who do...) I have a few friends who read it just to see what I'm up to, and I just use it as a semi-public journal/collection of links I'm afraid I'll never find again. I don't ask anyone to read it, I don't think anyone does. (I've had 3800 hits since 2001, most of them myself.) Still, more than one friend has re-found me through it, so I keep it up. That, and I'd miss the links to stuff that I've thrown up haphazardly. Yeah, it sucks, go to some other page.
          • hear hear!

            I don't keep a blog for just blog's sake, I keep it as a random scrap book as what I've been doing: what programming projects I was working on, how much progress I made, or what-ever the heck interests me at the moment. It is mostly stuff I know I will forget sooner or later but would like to remember. Now, friends and family come and check it out (which is extremely useful when you have both scattered all around the world, makes a good way to keep in contact with everyone who cares without spam
            • Slashdot doesn't allow all kinds of html formatting in the journals. You can't integrate pictures in posts for example.
              If all you need are text and comments then I agree slashdot journals are just like blogs.
      • by HD Webdev ( 247266 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:06PM (#9119990) Homepage Journal
        People read blogs because it either a.) Validates their thinking (my guess: 95%), or b.) Offers an opportunity to challenge their current ways of thinking, and an avenue to respond to the opportunity (again my guess: less than 5%). Remember, blogs are usually heavily biased, so the people that read the blogs often enough to see every post probably agree with the author. Are not both stories and comments on /. heavily biased?

        Actually, there's also the silent majority to be taken into account also.

        There's always a bunch of people who just like to watch out of curiosity. Or, the site keeps up on things that they are interested in. Most people aren't bold, so they don't post.

        It would be interesting to see the # of people who read replies vs the # of people who read AND reply.

        If the ratio is anything like USENET, I would be surprised if 1 out of 100 readers post something on any given day.

        Something to back that up without statistics: Notice that sites often get slashdotted and stay that way before 10 replies have been posted.
        • Been reading since 2000 here and posted maybe 10-15 times ever. I don't bother usually because 1) it takes time and effort 2) whatever point I was going to make is eventually said by someone else anyway. 3) most stories are just rehashes in some way or another so most of the important points have been covered again and again (anything that has to do with RIAA, DMCA, PATRIOT act, linux vs windows, macs vs pc, to name a few) unless i were to have a real stroke of brilliance, why bother?
      • by pavon ( 30274 )
        I disagree. Both of your reasons for reading blogs assume that people go there for the merit of the information and opinions itself (either to be affirmed or challenged by it). But only a few sites (usually written by highly egotistical people)are like that (aka drudge report), and they are really a completely seperate catagory. (although if they want to claim the title 'blog' they are welcome to it - damn I hate that word).

        What is much more often the case is that people read webjournals to learn about the
    • I've personally found blogs to be an invaluable tool for keeping in contact with my friends, and let them know about interesting events and organize get-togethers. This will be even more useful after our impending graduation, allowing us to keep up with each others' lives while being scattered across the country.

      I personally find that to be useful, but YMMV.
  • Nah, not really. But would have been be pretty funny.

  • I'd much rather see how he and those other smart folks designed & "thought of" all those cool services in the first place. I could care less what kind of breakfast he eats, unless he brews his coffee with a Mr. Fusion.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:34PM (#9119692)

      unless he brews his coffee with a Mr. Fusion.

      Broogle?

    • by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:49PM (#9119843) Journal

      Hear hear!

      "Blogs"* have potential. Currently they are utterly disgusting because the whole thing regarding blogs and journals is ruined by boring people forcing their dull lives down our throats [livejournal.com]. Fortunately, the technology regarding journals is good and there have been some very good journals around. Now tell me, what's more interesting? A boring rand( 12, 50 ) year old (emo|goth|depressed) tosser from randomCity() ranting on about randomSubject() or having the creators of Google shed some light on the technical insides of Google? What about a journal where some people keep track of major (OS) projects? Gives one a view into what was considered during design, what was dropped, why it was dropped, what problems were encountered and so on. Even if you don't make your journals public, they'd make GREAT referrence material to improve oneself upon. After all, you learn the most from your own mistakes and if you can review the entire process instead of just the mistake itself, it ought to be more helpful.

      * ... Change of name please. Blogs will forever be stained by the stupidity that is currently infecting them. That, and whoever made that word up should be hung, shot, burned, quartered and then REALLY hurt.

      • You do realise that you don't have to read a particular LiveJournal don't you? Nothing is forced down your throat. How on earth does this ruin things?

        If you are using LiveJournal to read entries of random people from randomCity() ranting about randomSubject(), then you are completely missing the point. I read LiveJournals of my friends (or possibly, some random person if I've found them to be particularly interesting, but certainly not people I find to be boring) - if you have friends, you should read thei
      • whole thing regarding blogs and journals is ruined by boring people forcing their dull lives down our throats

        LOL... I love you people. Forcing it down your throat? You're telling me somebody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read other people's blogs?

        You know what: I've never read a blog. I don't care, so I don't read. You do have that choice, you know...
      • You're a java programmer, aren't you?
      • It sounds like you're describing the type of blog that would appeal to you and that's great. But how exactly is that teenage girl you linked "forcing her life down your throat"? It seems more that you picked her blog out at random to illustrate your rant that some people have blogs that are of no interest to you. Just to turn it around, do you think that teenage girl would be interested in reading developers' blogs?

        IMHO, 97% (or whatever high percentage) of anything that is popular is going to be crap,

      • the reason that "seth" is posting my lj as an example is because when we recently decided that we were tired of trying to be friends and putting up with each other's crap (after a misguided, and immature "internet relationship" over a year ago), he decided to be a spiteful little prick. the point is that he, though older than me, is even more immature in this stupid "post" of his, than all of my teenage crap that i rant about in the journal that i mistakenly gave him the link to. "seth"-no one's forcing yo
      • How are they "forcing their dull lives down our throats" exactly? I don't see anyone holding a gun to your head, making you visit and read LiveJournal every day. Just because a blog is not chok full of technical details about project-x-gnu-1.16b.tar.gz doesn't mean that it's worthless to everyone, even if it is worthless to you.

        I have several friends who post on LiveJournal and I enjoy their blogs very much. In fact, some of the randomSubject() posts have been so insightful that I feel as though I've learn
    • by VividU ( 175339 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:55PM (#9119887)
      You should check out blogs.msdn.com [msdn.com] if your interested in stuff like this.

      Especially interesting is Chris Pratley's web log [msdn.com]. He's got some great posts on the history of Word, the Open Source movement and other fun stuff.
  • how interesting.. ! just what i wanted as i have tons of time to read about others stupid blogs ... ..ohh and please dont forget to mention how many times he farted. That would make my day !
  • ...thftp! who cares!?
  • by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:34PM (#9119685)
    Interesting. No wait, the other thing - tedious.
  • I really hope this provides us (web developers) with some insights on how google works and evolves so we can make sure good sites end up in the top results

    I know GoogleGuy has been making some posts on webmasterworld and in the google newsgroups, but this is a more "official" source and I have allready added it to my feedreader since this afternoon (4 hours ago)
    • Re:Inside insights (Score:3, Insightful)

      by _anomaly_ ( 127254 )

      I really hope this provides us (web developers) with some insights on how google works and evolves so we can make sure good sites end up in the top results

      You really think that the engineers and other powers-that-be posting on this blog will give you the _Top_10_Ways_to_Get_to_the_TOP_?

      I thought Google's attraction was that it was as impartial as possible, and that the search results, aside from precisely placed ads, were directly related to matching ACTUAL content to the query.

      Not to mention that

    • If you really wanna be like all the top sites, you need to make shitty HTML that doesn't validate.

      http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://slashdo t. org/

      http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.goo gl e.com/googleblog/
  • New name? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Patik ( 584959 ) * <.cpatik. .at. .gmail.com.> on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:35PM (#9119699) Homepage Journal
    In light of "Froogle"...

    Bloogle
    Glog
    Gooble
    Gooblog

    Any others?

  • Bloggle? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Power Everywhere ( 778645 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:35PM (#9119701) Homepage
    What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson's Creek character reminds us most of Eric.

    I'd be much more interested to know where the last few tweaks for the latest algorithm update came from, or what kind of servers they'll be upgrading to in the next few weeks. Their personal lives are of little consequence to Google or anyone involved with them.
    • Unless their personal lives have somehow inspired advances in Google technology. Perhaps how the tumbling of linens in the clothes dryer has inspired the latest and greatest search algorithm. Or how a late night dream has inspired them to share their stock options with us...
  • Whoo! (Score:2, Funny)

    Finally! Insight into the making of Evan Williams. I can't tell you how many mornings I've woken up, hung-over, wondering: (besides, 'What happened last night?') "How do they make that whiskey so damn drinkable?" Now I'll finally get the answer!

    Oh.. wait...

  • Zuh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RinkRat ( 15800 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:36PM (#9119712)
    I thought that there was some sort of 'Quiet Period' before an IPO. Posting something like "I bought another Maserati today and I'll buy Caesar's Palace when I cash out my shares next week! Hahahahaha, see you in Hell, suckers!" cannot be considered a Good Thing.

    Of course, IANAMW - I am not a market weenie. My money's in CDs...

  • by pcp_ip ( 612017 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:36PM (#9119715) Homepage
    "What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson's Creek character reminds us most of Eric."

    So much for the IPO quiet period.
  • Wow! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    More shit I dont want to read to clog up my google results.

    Seriously, why cant we have a "blog" flag or something, so I can filter that stuff out of google searches? It's really annoying when I'm trying to research a problem and get nothing but other people ranting about the same problem..

    Blogs are very rarely female supermodels with nude pics and lurid descriptions of their sexual fantasies.

    Something in robots.txt that says "unlikely that anyone gives a rats ass"?
  • Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by psst ( 777711 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:37PM (#9119722) Homepage
    I wonder if this new blog has anything to do with the long anticipated new version of Blogger rolling out on May 5th? After all, Blogger is owned by Google.

    Nah, it's probably just a coincidence.
    • I don't really see why this is modded as "Insightful", being the first entry in the Google weblog (the entry quoted in the /. article) states:

      Oh well, it's not like we own a recently relaunched service where you can create a blog in two minutes or something. Okay, we do. (Sorry for the plug.) [...]
  • Fantastic! (Score:3, Funny)

    by underworld ( 135618 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:42PM (#9119772)
    This is great news!
    I mean - uhm..

    What?

    er... wait. They don't mean Evan Williams as in Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey?

    ahem. nevermind.
  • nameless (Score:2, Interesting)

    It's kind of weird that there are no names on the posts unless people "sign" them (as Evan did, but as the second poster did not). Who knows if that's a marketing wonk or the real person.
  • by br0d ( 765028 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:49PM (#9119838) Homepage
    That's cool, as long as they don't start posting dark poetry.
  • Blogs.. BORING! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dustinbarbour ( 721795 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @03:54PM (#9119882) Homepage
    I hate blogs. Why must everyone in the world think their thoughts are a veritable goldmine of entertainment? I don't get it. :-\
    • Of course, the main reason I'd want to set up a blog is in the futile hope that I would get to try the Gmail beta :]

      What? It's not like I honestly think that anyone cares about what I ate for breakfast; 99% of blogs (if not more...) are simply not worth reading.
    • Then you might find this interesting:

      The Connection's AntiBlog episode [theconnection.org]

      The Mother Jones article [motherjones.com]
      Its mostly on political blogging. I listened to it earlier today, but did not have enough time to do a quality article submission.

    • Said by someone posting on a blog.
    • I hate blogs. Why must everyone in the world think their thoughts are a veritable goldmine of entertainment? I don't get it. :-\

      You do realize that slashdot is a blog, right? Journal entries, check. Comments, check. That's pretty much all we have here...except for the community, of course.

      And if you counter that slashdot is a news site, look at all the editorializing that goes on in the posts/articles. Plus if you just read slashdot for the comments, you're basically reading folks who think their thou

  • by hardaker ( 32597 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:00PM (#9119935) Homepage
    I've just never caught on to the idea. I don't read celeberty blogs, I don't write one (who the heck would even care what I think). I used to keep a journal at one point (because, well, emacs had the ability to do it so I had to play with it of course). But seriously, I'd never consider publishing it not because its private but rather "who the heck would care"?

    We're in the information overload age. People, get a clue. We need to refine our content and make it worth reading, not spew endlessly hoping it'll be useful to someone. I'm much more interested in the few words that someone wise has to say than the 1000s of words that the average masses has to say.

    Of course... By posting this message to slashdot, I may have just killed my own notion of it's pointless to post stupid rambling thoughts.

    • But not all blogs are journals. Some, like boingboing [boingboing.net] and memepool [memepool.com] post interesting links with brief commentary. And don't forget Roland P.'s Technology Trends [weblogs.com]. By reading these blogs, I can find out about cool new stuff hours before it reaches Slashdot, and weeks before it hits the regular media.

      Basically, blogs help me refine online content and figure out what's worth reading.
    • I've just never caught on to the idea. I don't read celeberty blogs, I don't write one (who the heck would even care what I think).

      I am in full agreement with you. I don't really care what you had for breakfast, sorry.

      But it's clear that there's a large subset of the population that cares what Britney Spears had for breakfast. Look at all the folks who watch celebrity gossip, obsess over the lives of their idols, etc. We've even seen new idols created in front of our eyes (Survivor, The Apprentice, Ame

    • You don't understand. When information is allowed to flow freely ideas abound. Sure, there are thousands and thousands of people who write about who they're dating and what color dress they're wearing to the movies tonight, but occasional you come across people that have ideas. Real ideas, good ideas. I don't think it's the information overload, as in the true meaning of it being excessive. Unrefined yes. Blogs are like slightly-refined brainstorming activities.

      The dissemination of information is fre
    • ...that's right, chumps! Time to welcome your new Editorial Overlords!!!
  • by Random BedHead Ed ( 602081 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:01PM (#9119940) Homepage Journal
    Hey, the second comment on that page (dated May 10th) has changed in the past few minutes. In the original item, he mentioned outsourcing. Now it says:
    When we announced the opening of our engineering office in Zurich, a lot of Europeans seemed pleased about the possibility of working for Google without a commute to California. Zurich draws Italians, French, Swiss, Germans, and other Europeans, and is easier to reach from most parts of the continent than the Amphitheatre Parkway exit off highway 101.

    Originally he said something like, "But when we opened an office in Balgalore, suddenly we were knee-deep in the debate about outsourcing." They must have asked him to change it. Does anyone have the original blog item in their cache? I'd be interested to read it again, and compare!

    • Original Post. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:23PM (#9120169)

      Insight into the news, technology, and culture of Google.
      Monday, May 10, 2004

      Going out of our way to find the right people.
      When we announced the opening of our engineering office in Zurich, a lot of Europeans seemed pleased about the possibility of working for Google without a commute to California. Zurich draws Italians, French, Swiss, Germans, and other Europeans, and is easier to reach from most parts of the continent than the Amphitheatre Parkway exit off highway 101.

      Interestingly, when we announced our engineering center in Bangalore, we found ourselves knee-deep in the debate about "outsourcing" -- the practice of cutting a company's American operations in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere. India in particular has been a subject of a lot of press coverage on this topic lately, which we find to be pretty unfair. It's not their fault they have a lot of brilliant computer scientists who don't care to relocate to the States.

      We recognize that talented engineers live in every time zone, not just Silicon Valley. That's fine with us, because when it comes to solving technical problems Google benefits from global perspectives, as well as a diversity of languages and working hours. We're not shipping jobs overseas, we're accommodating people we want to hire who don't feel like uprooting their lives, even for Charlie's cooking.

      So, if you're looking for a place to plug into Google, we're trying to make it easy for you. We're looking for talented software engineers, top programmers and visionary computer scientists to tackle everything from distributed systems and information retrieval to algorithms, UI, and scalability challenges. And of course to unplug the lava lamps occasionally so they don't overheat.

      So, whether you're in the market for a challenging engineering position in Mountain View or our new Tokyo office, or somewhere really out of this world, we hope you'll look us up.
      Posted @ 3:30 PM / Permanent Link
      • So really they only chopped out one paragraph. Not a particularly bad paragraph, and in fact it showed an interesting contrast between their opening an office in Bangalore and getting criticized, and opening an office in Zurich and getting a pleasant reaction in Europe.

        There's not much parallel between Bangalore and Zurich considering the difference in cost of living between those cities, but it's an interesting debate ... and one that someone at Google thought they shouldn't comment on. I wonder how op

      • Do you think that modification was censorship?

        If so, do you think that Google is violating the said "Don't be Evil" philosophy?
  • by mabu ( 178417 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:08PM (#9120011)
    May 11, 2004

    Opened up an office in Zurich, interviewing people.
    McDonald's new chicken mcnuggets are actually pretty good

    May 22, 2004

    Worked very late today; also helped admin move some machines to the new location; local sandwich shop brought some roast beef po-boys

    June 11, 2004

    Our IPO went off today; stock jumped to $67/share; That new blonde we hired in the front office has begun flirting with me shamelessly.

    July 27, 2004

    Wolfgang Puck showed up in the offices today and made my favorite: Lobster & Truffle bisque with caviar. Though the Lobsters were only four pounders, I'll let it go this time.

    Stupid contractors have missed another deadline for installing the penguin-shaped jacuzzi in the east wing. This is getting frustrating.

    August 3, 2004

    Got my new Lambourghini in and someone scuffed the ivory-trimmed dashboard! I'm having the dealership fire the salesguy and promise to deliver a new car within a week or I'll cancel the order for the Hummer as well.

    August 4, 2004

    Quit Google. Joined the World Poker Tour.
  • Goggle is finding out what Yahoo found out with Geocities - don't invest too much in last year's fad.
  • No RSS Feed? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JamesOfTheDesert ( 188356 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:21PM (#9120134) Journal

    Oh, right. Google/Blogger has picked sides in the feed format war.

    What a shame.

  • Who Cares? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by $criptah ( 467422 )

    Who the fuck cares? Look, I know that we have plenty of fifteen year-old girls who cannot live a day without being updated with the latest information about J. Lo and Britney Spears. Also, there are plenty of geeks who complain about people giving too much crap about celebrities; however, rants stop when it comes to influential people in the tech. field.

    Do you really care what somebody eats for breakfast? No, really? Are you that fucking bored out of your mind that you're willing to waste electrons and y

  • I could not find RSS feed for this blog. That sucks!
    I read all blogs via RSS reader - no time to check 200+ pages daily.
  • I can't wait for the Googleblog slashbox, that would be handy.
  • by kyoko21 ( 198413 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @04:46PM (#9120417)
    I wonder if they will write about their daily yummy free lunches [google.com] that are served at google?

    If anything, a free lunch is a good reason to work there!
  • At first glance I thought this had something to do with Evan Williams [evanwilliams.com] Kentucky Bourbon.

    Thanks for reminding me to hit the liquor store on the way home.
  • Just watch out for the new Google link redirector [google.com]. (It's demonstrated in the blog entry...)
  • Waiting out an overvalued IPO; goofy news stories about the valley; the cult of the CEO.

    I tell you, do the whole thing over again, Flooz and all. People are dumb enough to fall for the whole kit and kaboodle over again.
  • by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2004 @07:08PM (#9121885) Journal
    ... I expected this blog to have a better archive search feature.

  • According to Evan's first post, we'll soon be able to know "What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson's Creek character reminds us most of Eric."

    Slashdot, be prepared to hand over the tagline "News for nerds, stuff that matters"!!

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