This is pretty cool I guess.

http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/12/blogger-integrates-with-amazon.html

Basically, you can embed pictures of (or links to) Amazon products in your blog, and if people click them and buy the products by that means, you can potentially earn a little money. I say "potentially" because I didn't read all the fine print. People have been doing this for years, but now it's easy and official on both sides. In fact, I suppose you could rearrange your site for maximum product pushiness and essentially become a shill for Amazon. But I think the wise (?) people of the Net would catch on and probably stop frequenting your blog.

But I guess if you're an author or someone else with a product to sell and which happens to carry - which means pretty much anything - you'd might as well make a little extra money while you're at it. It's smart for Amazon because it reduces the number of authors who like to sell directly from their site (as well as through Amazon and other outlets), as that allows them to make more money by eliminating a middleman. This will cause them to rethink the hassles of having their own online store and handling monetary transaction and customer complaints and just give all the business to Amazon. It's smart for Blogger as well because it's another feature they can tout that they're competitors don't offer and paired with "AdSense" gives them another way to attract bloggers who are looking to make a buck.

As my blog is not designed to make a buck, I could care less, but I still thought it was interesting. Boy, Google (owner of Blogger) has gotten their little fingers into just about every facet of our lives, haven't they? Who'd have thought a free search engine would, in ten years, turn into the world's most powerful Internet company and a major force in our lives? They're even venturing into phones and other physical products now. How long till we see a gCar competing with an Apple iCar?

The real butt of that joke is that despite probably outspending both companies and trying for decades, Microsoft still has no clue about how to move beyond a desktop OS, corporate email, and desktop productivity applications. It was instructive how rapidly and thoroughly Gmail kicked Hotmail's ass, surpassing it in users in less than a year, after Hotmail had been around at least a decade. Yahoo hung on a bit longer, but it too has 'jumped the shark' as they say. Google just seems to own everyone they come across.

Except Apple - so far. The erstwhile friends/competitors are beginning to overlap on ideas, the first major one being phones, and so far the iPhone has held off the NexusOne by a pretty decisive margin, but Google is relentless in the way Japanese businesses are. I'm sure there will be a NexusTwo, Three, and so on to keep the pressure on Apple to stay ahead. All of which is a good thing. I do like Apple, but even more, I like a great product. My brand loyalties don't extend to sucky, out-of-date products. Except Windows, I guess :-S  But that's more a monopoly situation than a choice. For my budget, unless I was to live in the Linux microsphere, there's really no alternative.

Once I have the money though, I'll get a spiffy new Mac and that will be that. Or will Google have an even better and sleeker computer by then? The future is a dark glass, indeed.