Google Wave invites

The other day I signed up for Google Wave, and I've now been sent a load of invites. I've tried to give them away on Twitter but no-one seems to be interested right now!

I've still got 13 left as at right now, so if you'd like one, please leave your email address in the comments below and I'll send you one, subject to availability. Naturally, for your own sake I'd urge you to obscure it in some way, such as bob(AT)example(DOT)com instead of bob@example.com, to help stop it being harvested by spammers.

Unix commands work in Google!

Holy crap! Did you know you can use some Unix commands in Google? I just Googled the following:

ubuntu | grep icewm

and got a load of responses about Ubuntu, all mentioning IceWM! Now that is a SERIOUSLY useful tool, which I will be making very heavy use of indeed! Wonder what other Unix commands work in Google?

Google Friend Connect

Having had a few weeks to ponder Google's Friend Connect, I'm starting to really think about what it could mean. It's clearly part of Google's social networking strategy, along with OpenSocial, and it shows just how big Google really think - instead of creating a social network to compete with Facebook (which would be pointless as they already have Orkut), they're giving people the chance to make the rest of the Internet into social networks.

This could be very cool if, as I expect, they roll it out to their own services. For instance, if they made it easy to use it with a Blogger blog (which I suspect they will), then any blog will be able to become a social network. While any blog already has a community around it (unless no-one reads it), this could make it easy for people to get to know others in the community, and encourage participation and debate. For me, I think it would be especially handy for Easierbuntu, as it would mean people could connect to each other to share tips and advice on how to use Ubuntu more easily.

It's a shame that Facebook have decided to stop letting people sign in using their Facebook profile as it's one of the biggest social networks, but I do feel strongly that it isn't their decision to make and they shouldn't have done so. If I want to give Google that information, it should be up to me as it's my data. Facebook should not be able to stop me from doing so. In my case, I have other profiles I can use, but not everyone does. I appreciate that they have their own competing product that they want to push, but at the end of the day it's my data and I should be able to do with it what I wish.