Anil Dash, blogger and Six Apart employee, argues that Google has fundamental problems with creating good editing tools because they can’t really put themselves in the mind of the end user.

In my years of retail work, I’ve encountered tough guys, wicked old ladies, and thousands of screaming children.  Yet the scariest creatures are often the mothers of those children, and Steve Ballmer may have seen a hint of that when one woman confronted him over Windows Vista.

While you were working, an interesting exchange happened over the blogosphere. It seems TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget are having a war of words.

You might ask what this has to do with internet marketing, but I think you’ll find the exchange of interest.

First up, Blodget put up his thoughts on Google’s share price hitting $2000, giving it a market cap of $750+ billion.

Ex-Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon won’t have her contract renewed with ABC, after a year of working with the network.

The latest concerns come from the European Consumers’ Organization (BEUC), which found plenty of reason to worry about DoubleClick and Google merging their consumer databases and mining them.

After the uproar caused by his proposed code of conduct for bloggers, Tim O’Reilly could have let the subject drop into the deep waters of blogospheric controversy, only to be remembered as a cautionary tale, a footnote to the history of the Web.

The motto of next year’s Olympic games in China is “one world, one dream.” Online, the world is actually split up into several countries, each with their own limited view, made possible through national censorship of the web.

Here’s the thing about boldness: you’d better have the chops to back it up. While Ask.com’s anti-Google guerrilla marketing campaign in London’s Underground was outed in record time, indexing of its own campaign site was even close to a record.

Background

Ads appearing in the Tube encouraged bystanders to fight Google’s "information monopoly."

Last week I read an article that blasted Rand for an article he wrote pointing out the differences between expert and novice SEOs. While I agree with everything written in that article, I think the author could, and should, have taken a better approach.

Outspoken atheist Nick Gisburne claims that the staff of Google-owned YouTube deleted his account simply because he posted a selection of Quran quotations, among other religious criticism. In a video he released on February 8th, he states:

Calling 90 percent of the SEO industry “snake oil salesmen” riled up one famed search professional; Danny Sullivan has hit back hard at Jason Calacanis for his continued attacks on SEO.

In May 2005, a CNN article quoted Dana Todd, president of SEMPO as saying: “Google has always beenworse than bad [at customer service.]”

The agreement between Novell and Microsoft on marketing SuSE Linux to Microsoft customers seeking a heterogenous environment of Windows and Linux servers has been bolstered by a trio of deals with financial institutions.

Microsoft and Baidu have reached a “strategic alliance” in regards to Chinese paid search listings. According to an official statement, “Microsoft will display Baidu’s paid search listings on the search results pages of certain Microsoft websites, including MSN, Live, and other partner websites in China.”

The agreement between Novell and Microsoft that will have salespeople offering Windows and Linux to customers had triggered substantial criticism, to which Novell has responded.

10 Zen Monkeys is out with a post chroniciling the latest in the Nick Douglas / Valleywag “change in employment” situation and they do a pretty good job giving us the story so far.

AdWords clients will be able to view information on invalid clicks as detected by Google through an advanced option in an AdWords account; it is Google’s first significant effort to make this information more transparent to its AdWords customers.

I like companies and products that have the guts to say “we suck” or something close to it. It’s very un PR.

Google’s Book Search project got major kudos from University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman speaking from within “the lion’s den” also known as the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The AAP launched a lawsuit against Google in October 2005 alleging copyright infringement as a result of the search company’s massive book digitization project.

Fun thing. Today we were at Dunne and Crscenzi. Let’s see, we’re at an Italian restaurant in Ireland

Thanks to Robert for linking up to ProBlogger.net while I slept last night. It’s always nice to get a positive link from a larger blogger who sends an influx of new readers into your blog.

MCI has faced some criticism for its decision to reject an offer from Qwest communications.