Australians would remember they used to turn up in magazines and so on, though they were never quite as ubiquitous as the America Online disks that seemed to show up everywhere in the North American magazines.

I haven’t tried to see if this one will still install on Windows 7… in fact for now it’s still sealed in its plastic.

The Ozemail web site www.ozemail.com.au forwards to iiNet, so I guess they got bought out by them somewhere along the line — in 2005 according to Wikipedia.

Tweet

Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. But that’s not why they are successful. Facebook is successful because they built an entire constellation of products by allowing other people to do the work. So Facebook is different for everyone. Some people spend all their time on Mafia Wars. Some spend all their time on Farmville. There are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there’s something there for everyone.

The full rant.

Analysis from Ed Bott:

And there’s the problem with Google+ in a nutshell. It’s a clone of Facebook, built by engineers for people who think like engineers. I now realize what it was I couldn’t put my finger on: this service started out as a list of features. But it didn’t start out with a vision. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone articulate, from a customer’s point of view, why Google+ came into existence in the first place.

I think they’re both probably right… and it’s why I suspect Google Plus won’t get the critical mass to become the replacement for Facebook or Twitter anytime soon.

I figured I’d upload the photo to BigW photos the night before, to give them a chance to print them out before I arrived the next day.  I noticed the disclaimer “Delivery Times: Please allow approximately 10 working days for your order to arrive in the mail or to be ready to be picked up in store” but figured this was just legalese arse-covering, applicable to weird things like coffee mugs etc.

I fully expected to get an email five minutes after submission.

I wondered to myself how it is that they can make any money from a single 10c photo, paid for via PayPal.  I figure my order must be costing a buck or two in direct and indirect costs; the PayPal fees alone would be the entirety of the payment.

I didn’t get an email.  It’s been four days now, and the order is still “In production” leading me to believe that the order is going to be printed somewhere that isn’t my local BigW, and is then being shipped there.  Needless to say, I shan’t be collecting it; the day after the photo upload I went to Bunnings for a hinge and some storage boxes, and popped into Officeworks beforehand anticipating some delay in printing – alas, there was a sixty second delay, so that prudence wasn’t required.  Of course, I could have gone to Harvey Norman for the photos but it was an extra 100m walk and another 5c, even if their printing seems to be of a higher quality, a classroom of Prep students isn’t going to appreciate the difference.

Riddle me this: if my photos aren’t printed out at my local BigW, why would I upload them to BigW photos when I could drag myself there in person and collect them within the hour?

Justin Bieber out-Googles the Wikipedia entry on Twitter, the iPod Twitter client, and Twitter Australia?!