Gregg Hilferding

From the Google Blog:

Answer highlighting in search results

Consider the example, [empire state height]. With today's improvements, the answer —1250 ft, or 381 m — is highlighted right in the search result:

This might be cool for Wikipedia, but it totally screws every other website owner.

If you have a website that deals with anything Google's algorithm has decided is a "fact" then watch out, your traffic is about to drop. Google's destroyed a lot of niche online markets but this is a broad attack against all sites.

The future of this feature is that you never have to leave Google at all.

Via Daring Fireball, I found this particular answer from Twitter founder Biz Stone most intriguing:

ME: Don’t you get worried about being swallowed up by Google?

BIZ: They don’t swallow you up. They call you up.

To me, being called up was what happened when the Army sent my unit to Iraq. I suspect Biz has a different meaning.

Via Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local, the words of a Locksmith recently banned from Google Maps:

After that many of my claimed listings got hijacked by my competitors, I knew I’ll crack the method to do it myself & that I’ll send you my revelations in order to shut down this option.

So we have a locksmith who considers it acceptable to test and defeat a company's security. Does he also walk up and down the streets in his home town trying to break into buildings?

Is there no Locksmith Oath?

This is going to be a very influential piece.

Free speech is no longer just a right granted by law, but one imbued by technology.

Couldn't agree more.