Daily Archives: September 20, 2009

Update your FaceBook profile. Then go to gaol

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This is almost too good to be true.

According to The Journal in Martinsburg, W. Va., a local resident came home to find that a burglar had broken in through a bedroom window and rummaged around, making off with a pair of diamond rings worth more than $3,500. Apparently wanting to travel light, he did not take the victim’s computer, but he did use it. To check his Facebook page. And he forgot to log off. Jonathan G. Parker, 19, of Fort Loudoun, Pa., was arraigned Tuesday on one count of felony daytime burglary and remains in custody in lieu of $10,000 bail, probably wondering what kind of grief his Facebook friends are posting on his wall.

Simple pleasures

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It’s been one of those perfect September days — sunny and warm and incredibly peaceful. Late in the afternoon my daughter and I went out into the local hedgerows to pick blackberries for supper. It’s one of the loveliest pleasures of this time of year — getting one’s hands sticky with berry juice; deciding which ones to eat and which to bring home; wondering about the injustice of the law which determines that the best, juiciest blackberries are always out of reach.

The crop this year has been simply wonderful. In the end, we had to tear ourselves away — otherwise there would be no crumble for supper. But in the 20 minutes or so we were out we picked two punnets’-worth. Effortlessly.

The (apple & blackberry) crumble’s in the oven as I write. Mmmm…..

LATER: Lovely email from a reader:

Reminds me that today, September 21st is St Matthew’s day. My mother used to tell me that on the next day, Sept 22nd, the Devil casts his hoof over the blackberries, and from that date onwards the blackberries became more and more insipid.

Google displays its hand

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This morning’s Observer column.

The scariest question a venture capitalist can ask a company seeking funding is: what if Google enters your market? For years, this question has haunted folk in mainstream advertising. They had already seen Google collar an overwhelming share of the targeted-advertising market via its AdSense and AdWords technology, the system through which small, hopefully relevant, text ads appear alongside the results of internet searches.

On the back of this, Google become a money-printing machine and now has nearly 70% of the paid-search market. This is nice for it in the short term, of course, but raises a strategic issue. What would the company do when the paid-search market was saturated? Where would the next growth area be?