Act one of Google’s spat with the Chinese authorities over censorship and government-backed hacking closed last year with Google partially retreating from the world’s most populous nation.
There was, however, still the unresolved issue of Google Maps, and act two of Google versus China may now be beginning with Google having submitted an application to Beijing to allow the service to remain in China. Read more
Nokia and Google slug it out on the GeoWeb
It is going to take hundreds of millions of euros (or dollars) to build and maintain a Web platform to support the wide range of internet services that will come to rely on a user’s location, or the location of other objects. Ultimately, probably only Google and Nokia are going to have the staying power to make that investment.
That was the contention of Michael Halbherr, who runs Nokia’s maps platform, when I caught up with him in California for the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference this week.
Yahoo! and Microsoft, among others, might have something to say about that, and in a key area like geo-data its hard to see the Web ending up with only two platform providers. But to judge by the scale of Nokia’s own investment, Halbherr might at least be directionally right. Read more
Bartz maps out Yahoo’s wall of shame
Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s new chief executive, says she has instituted a “wall of shame” for products that are not making the grade.
Ms Bartz was displaying her usual frankness, in an interview at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco. She said she was looking at whether to fix or sell those parts of Yahoo with which the company was not happy and had been placed on her wall. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
