BlogSat

Its somewhat heartening that even in this economy, I'm getting soliciting emails from recruiters for jobs (never mind that most weren't a good fit for me, one of em spelt my name wrong, and pitched me the wrong position...twice. :)) The surprising thing was that almost half the jobs were in the financial sector (Tech roles in Hedge-fund like entities.) Wow! For the record, I'm pretty happy with, and hoping to stay, where I am ........unless my dream job title opens up somewhere. :)

It's old news now , and here's the official blogpost . This was the second round of layoffs at Google, but this one cut much closer to home. So far, at least 3 people that I worked with on a regular basis were given 2 months to find another job within Google or outside the company. As far as I could tell, it came as a shock to everyone concerned. I'm conflicted about how I feel... Do I think Google could've handled it better? No. No one is perfect, but Google's executive team comes close. Its hard for me to imagine a more perfect (i.e. real, insightful but heartfelt) response than the one that Eric Schmidt gave when questioned (internally) about this. Do I think it'll change things at Google? Yes, but hopefully not too much. 200 employees is approximately 1% of the company; that's really nothing in this environment. I mean, there are companies that try to weed out the bottom 5% of their employees every year. The very first time I was looking for a full-ti...

I'm reading Mary Meeker's Economy / Internet Trends right now, when this stat just blew me away. Top 10 Emerging Markets to Surpass Top 10 Developed Markets in Internet Users in 2008, where Top 10 emerging markets: China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, Poland, and Saudi Arabia; Top 10 developed markets: U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Canada, South Korea, and Australia; and Top 10 Emerging Markets = 2x Top 10 Developed Markets in Mobile Subscribers in 2008 And 2 more interesting nuggets as well, on how much media consumption and ad spend are out of whack the top 15 internet companies.

Ok. I've been shown Google ads for Chrome a bunch of times, even though I use the browser. I think that's a wasted ad, but I understand... However, I feel like being shown an AFV ad for YouTube while watching a video on YouTube (also, I didn't know we were doing ads for YouTube on the GCN . :) ), seems like a waste; Google lost the opportunity to show a better ad there. (Picture below)

It's been a while since I finished a book, so I was glad to get through Nick Hornby 's Slam! Its a lot like Hornby's other stuff that I've enjoyed. There's an exploration of human confusion, death, mistakes, emotion, etc. that happens in all of his novels, with just the right dose of British humor, great characters, and great dialogue thrown in. Its not his best, but still Hornby is miles ahead of most others. Next on my list, something I've wanted to try to read for a while: GEB

Oh well , More here. Now Oscar has no choice but to live in the garbage can. :( I grew up watching Sesame Street, and was surprised to see many of the same faces (people, not puppets! :)) when I caught a few clips on the Sesame Street YouTube channel recently. Here's my favorite kiddie song adaptation . :)

I knew it would finally take something incredibly dumb to get me blogging again....and so here's something incredibly dumb. :) An Israeli defense firm apparently commissioned the video below as part of a marketing strategy. Yikes...