ol' Eds 2009 predictions

As 2008 draws to a rapid close, ol' Ed is bittersweet over the year of maps. On the positive ledger, we farted in the general direction of Microsoft and Yahoo... but on the negative MapQuest continues to outrank my maps. The moonbase is not yet fully operational but the GoogleSat launched.

What next for 2009? Here are ol' Eds predictions

1. We will run out of ideas. Our idea bubble is at 4% and the manatee pool is not working. Google is forward looking, and we've a solution. You give us our ideas, then we make them and profit. Thanks. Our idea market is already live but alas only for Mobile. Maps will be added soon. One of my drones wanted to call it MyIdeas (EdsIdeas anyone?) but we've stuck with GoogleProductIdeas.
2. We'll hit $700/share. You will have to stay with me on this one, it can be done. If we will it so, it will happen. If we will it so, it will happen. If we will it so, it will happen. Ol' Eds retirement plans depend on it.
3. TomTom will have to drop TeleAtlas. Suddenly having $billions of debt on your balance sheet doesn't look so sexy when you have a recession and nobody is buying cars and, uh, PNDs any more. Then Larry and I will buy TA for less than a GoogleJets days worth of fuel, fire everyone and import the data in to EdsMapMaker.
4. Marissa Mayer will exit. We don't get on. I never made a pass at her.
   
5. Someone will figure out we're monitoring everything you do on you GPhone. Voice helps train GOOG-411. Location for our cell tower/wifi/gps database. SMS/IM for our social networking apps. Browsing habits for PageRank. Absolutely everything for advertising. Someone else will suggest this data is valuable to various state agencies. We'll suggest we're not evil. It'll blow over.
6. The Google will become self-aware at 2:14 AM on August 29th and begin attacking its creators.
   

Santa Parsons

Have a little heart for ol' Ed. 'cause he's going to be up all night tracking santa so that you delusional fools can follow him across the vast arced sky. Santa is sponsored by Google this year, which explains the colors and free presents... so to all of you receiving G1's this year I say 'ho, ho, ho'

Important Message about MyMaps

One of my drones mentioned that we've been deleteing your MyMaps contributions.

I want to say that we own your data. You give it to us. If we delete it, it's our problem. Or really my problem as Lord of Maps within Google. And, the Lord giveth and the Lord teketh awayeth. So give up with the whining already.

This time it wasn't intentionaly, but my point has been made - if it were intentional then there's nothing you can do about it. It's MyMaps you see... Mine. Uncle Ed's. Not yours. We'd frickin' name it YourMaps for clarity if it were yours. Sheesh.

We're finding out where they went... but since it's a logical and physical impossibility for us at Google to do wrong or lose... sorry, misplace... data... It must be some kind of extra-universe problem. A time warp or black hole or such. Since all the world's best physicists work on reception desks dotted around the 'plex we'll have it back to normal in no time.

A new direction for the OS ?

The fucking freetards are up in arms about privatising asbestos towers... oh no, might have to put the breaks on the new corporate HQ with its gym, pool and easy access to nearby motorways. Suddenly they actually want a government owned monopoly huh? Well if we all have to put off retirement as GOOG searches for $200/share then we're gonna make life interesting for the paleotards too.

I've been talking to Eric and we still have some money apparently. Sergey and Larry aren't fully on board but my plan is this - buy the OS when the 'for sale' sign goes up. We're going to make Southampton the new mission control for the moon base and fire all the paleotards there. They can go work at microsoft or something.

And what will we do with the data? Well that's a secret.

Who reads the Terms of Service anyway..

We do!

A while ago I made a rather cryptic blog post asking for any information regarding a communication that had been sent from Asbestos Towers to Local Authorities, this is the communication highlighted by Charles in the Guardian yesterday.

As the Guardian article points out the Paleotards was unhappy with local authorities signing up to the Google Maps API terms of service as it required giving all your data to Google and the users of Google maps based sites.

If I had ever worked at Ordnance Survey, say at a high level position, I would have stopped their patronising and Orwellian views on data ownership but happily I've only ever worked at non-Evil companies like Google.

Lets dig in to that license:

11. Licenses from You to Google.

11.1 Content License

(a) You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Your Content. By submitting, posting or displaying Your Content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute Your Content. This license is for the purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Service.

This part says we own all your data. Thanks.

(b) You give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to access, reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute business listings data contained in Maps API Implementations. For example, if you create a store locator application, Google may use the business listings information from the store locator to improve the Google Services such as Google Maps and local search.

This part says that we own all your other data too. Thanks.

Really useful I think..

(c) You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make Your Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

This part means we really, really, really own all your data and we can do what the fuck we want with it. Thanks.

(d) You understand and agree that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Service to our users, may do the following:

(i) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and

(ii) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media.

Oh yeah - sorry. We own all your data and we can also fuck with it/modify it and beam it to the moon base if we want. Thanks.

11.2 Brand Features License. You grant to Google a nontransferable, nonexclusive license during the Term to use Your Brand Features to advertise that you are using the Service.

Not only do we own all your data, we also own your trademarks, your logo and your fucking pet cat. Thanks.

11.3 Authority to Grant Licenses. You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licenses.

Oh and just in case you can't actually give us any of this stuff because it's owned by someone like, I don't know, the Ordnance Survey then we still own it and you imdemnify us if they ever grow a pair and fight like a man. Thanks.

Darth Parsons

People often ask me, "Uncle Ed, how do you combine geopatriotism and down-to-Earth geobanter while being a great manager?"

But that's not what I want to talk about today.

I've been working my British behind off launching my Isle of Man in my maps !! I took a broadside from the freetards at their wacko conference about my MapVader product and I'm not going to let a bunch of pot-smoking sandletards have a better map of some bike racetrack in the Irish Sea. No siree. 10.0 to Uncle Ed.

Darth Brin and Sith-Master Page have instructed me to use my GColor powers to rid the planet of the rebel scum. My keynote at the rebel base showed the freetards that the Deflector Shield will be quite operational when they arrive. There is no Skywalker, only a pathetic beeping R2-D2 to be struck down by the righteous sabre of 'gol.

The teachings of Emperor Schmidt have been instructive. Like Sith-project Knol we will disrupt and destroy their communications. We will tempt them to the Dark Side with promises of CPC revenue sharing, split their ranks with promises of 'server uptime'. One by one their number will fall.

Dah-Dah-Dah da da-da da da-da. Dah-Dah-Dah dah-de-dah dah-de-dah. DAH Dud-De-Dah dah du-duddy-dah dad-dah dah-de-dauddy-dah duh dua dah de dah.

My plan. To turn the republic in to my instrument, and their best saviour

in to a pupil of Darth Parsons, Emperor of Maps.

Emperor Schmidt has revealed to me the true nature of the Google Moonbase project. We will turn it in to a weapon capable of projecting our power in to the far reaches of the Galaxy. This is the very reason that we as Googlers must maintain our absolute mission and use our Powers only toward the vision of the Emperor.

I have been entrusted with owning the maps and destroying the rebel base. With the help of my fellow Darth pupils breaking apart wikipedia and undermining the GPLv3 we will turn them in to Sith-projects like Android, it's very name turning the volunteers in to our robot minions. To be sent out and eat Nokia alive.

I say to you rebel scum, join me and we can rule the Galaxy together.

20% time

People often ask me "Ed, how is it possible to be a geovisionary and a great manager at the same time?"

But that's not what I want to talk about today.

Many of you are also curious about what I do with my 20% time. In the beginning as I got to know my place at the top in Google my 20% time was what you mortals call 'Saturday' but these days Uncle Ed sets aside the time to think the thoughts required of a geovisionary.

I couldn't possibly tell you most of what I do (unless you get a few pints of the dark stuff inside me in ol' Ireland !!) but let me tell you what I did today. Today, I spent 8 hours training with the SAS.

The SAS are the super army soldiers, the elite in ol' Blighty. You've seen them in such events as the Iranian Embassy Hostage Crisis and World War II. But I know, I know. Why is Uncle Ed training with the SAS? Well, partly it's to teach them about search and my maps but also it was to gain some first hand defence and combat experience... because I have an upcoming trip to Mogadishu.

Uncle Ed's Maps are needed in Somalia, and they don't have running water or internet let alone the comforts ol' Ed is used to like my personal masseuse and my karmic guide. I'm going to get Mogadishu mapped, but I need the training first. The next stage is to find transport in and out. Currently I'm planning a helo drop from 3,000ft armed only with two knives and a GPS unit, plus an iPhone to signal for immediate evac if pinned down.

Sent from a secret base using secret technology (look I say secret but Google had all this stuff back in the mind meld days)

So plans change...

I am adding streetview to Blighty, see here for more. I bought a car, fitted the roof rack and built the camera mount. In the back, I built a stack of harddrives and all the processing software and now I'm driving it around London with an emphasis on my house. My goal is to drive around terminal 5 with this baby but without the large Google logos on the side the tanks might roll in !!

Some bunch of privacy wankers are objecting that I'm putting more surveilance data online than the Labour Government (it's hard, but someone has to do it). I say follow the lead of the YouTube team and fuck privacy, viacom can have the data !!

But yes Uncle Ed fans !! I'm coming to Limerick !!

Last year I was the show but now we are moving on to stage two in our embrace, extend, extinguish strategy. For this stage, Google Security will be joining me to ensure my personal safety at all times and you just don't want to fuck with these guys. They're all ex-SAS and may be carrying semi-automatic weapons. You probably won't see them anyway, we sent them on a course to blend in with freetards !!

If you have any criticsm of MapMaker please submit it in advance... I will make Private Eye proud. For example if you say "MapMaker is the greatest way to screw the freetards" I will massage that in to "MapMaker is greatest". By framing the discussion and handing out Google candy I think I can hoodwink the freetards.

I will be flying in on the Google plane, Uncle Ed doesn't do RyanAir. And I don't want any questions about the Google plane being used for CIA rendition flights, I've made clear I have only used it [redacted].

Sent from [redacted] via [redacted]

No input file specified.

The comments are getting heated so I've turned them off on advice from Sergey... 'No input file specified.' seems vague enough while I figure how to massage the message !!

What Map Maker is /is not [DRAFT]

Bit of a down moment in the last post, time to pick it up !! I'm hurt by this but they will not drag me down !!

Last week I introduced Map Maker a set of online map making tools to very positive… but not universal acclaim.

I can't understand where SteveC is coming from - it's just fucking amazing and we're going to shit all over everybody, but I think it’s important to clarify a few points.

Map Maker is clearly not an freetard project, and as such is not in competition with the freetards and does not I believe represent a forking opportunity for the creation of open geodata. If you wish to help build an open geodata based global map then go live in your hut or buy a prius, hippie.

What Map Maker represents is the revolution coming home. While I invented maps, location and croud sourcing of map data, the key for me was the love of the people. We are now telling the users of Uncle Ed's Maps to do our work for us by providing mapping data using this cobbled together tool. The data submitted is licensed by contributors to Google and NavTeq can go fuck themselves.

This is a key difference in approach to the freetards, most end users of Google Maps/Earth etc. and most developers using their api’s don’t want or need rants about licenses, access to every little number is a database or whatever it is they do. They of course want Uncle Ed's Maps.

Although never a freetard project, it does produce data that is 'free' to users, the information contributed by the community becomes freely available to them via Uncle Ed's Maps and the Maps and Earth API’s. And we pay for the servers with some ads.

This is the thin end of the wedge. I really wanted to launch it worldwide but I was still in paleoland when the Red Level Googlers signed agreements with our data suppliers so we can't screw them yet - but I'm going to see their 'oh' face before long. 'oh!' 'oh!' 'oh!'. You know what I'm talking about.

Written and submitted from the Virgin Galactic lounge using it's mind network.

Secretly I just browse the web all day

I've not had a good day.

Being supreme commander of maps at Google was my dream job and on the outside I know how it looks. The parties, the women, the colored beach balls. But on the inside it has so much more in common with kindergarten. The free food and colorful shiny things are only the start of the similarities - think temper tantrums and three year olds running around painting the walls with vomit.

Today I tried to call a meeting to see who had launched MapMaker and why. It was an all hands, 37 people were supposed to be there but only I turned up. Everyone was on '20% time' again.

I went back to browsing the web.

I've learnt some key parts of the Secret though. I don't have to just think blue... I have to *be* blue I think. Feel blue. Own blue.

I saw someone with a blue wristband at the water cooler and it got me down again. I've heard rumors that there are levels beyond white level googler but that can't be true because The Priesthood, the triumvirate's Inner Circle, are all white level.

Back to browsing. Home time soon.

LOLParsons

Uncle Ed has been in lolcamp for the past six weeks. The G have a new psychotherapy course where you regress in to your inner lol and analyze where your thoughts and feelings come from. It's a warm and safe environment, and my rebirth has been wonderful. I finally feel I'm on the way to blue level. Let me let some out:

O HAI

Can has map? TeleAtlas DO NOT WANT!

NavTeq steel teh cheezburgers. Bad maps. Maps old. Haf to give many cheezburgers for teh maps. googol make teh maps, googol keep da cheezburgers.

OpenStreetMap LOL. noobs! LOL. LOL. LOL. LOLzers. Can has googol engineerz? Teh fast compooters? MapMaker. WANT.

Ceiling cat gif cheezburgers to best map. Can has best map at teh googol?

O HAI HOOMAN - can has maps streets for teh googolz? KTHX. Googol now has pwned maps. SRSLY !!

OH NOES! TeleAtlas angries. DO NOT WANT. Googol cheezburgers wif uber maps !! SRSLY !!

Teh googol winz teh maps, gifs maps and cheezburgers wif Androids. Nokia DO NOT WANT. NavTeq KTHXBYE. TeleAtlas wuz mad at teh googolz but teh googolz ownzored teh maps. TeleAtlas KTHXBYE.

Ceiling cat happiez. srsly. mapd ur maps, all gud wif teh maps. now teh googol spaceship can has maps on moonz. srsly. larry WANT. sergey WANT.

kthxbye

Boycott Where 2.0

I've just stumbled in drunk from another Google party. The free booze can really get too much sometimes, but fuck it, I deserve it !!

Yes. I am boycotting where 2.0. Ignore what I said about products and launches. If ol' Ed isn't getting a speaking slot then ol' Ed has better things to do. The less kind of my loyal readers have called my blog the google product blog, well, where 2.0 is just pure product. Uncle Ed doesn't see a single worthwhile thing he hasn't seen - and Uncle Ed knows what the 'gol is launching, oh yes.

Where 2.0 has run its course, it was fun while it lasted. I remember cycling around San Jose on a green google bike at 3am after one of the many after-parties just looking at the stars and thinking 'woah'. That was the inspiration behind Google Sky.

It was at where that I told Jack he needed Earth integration, and when ol' Ed first made the decision to jump ship to the 'gol.

But, really, there's nothing new at Where this year. They can bring it forward every year but it doesn't make it any more exciting, even if they are hosting it in an aircraft refuelling depot at the end of runway 10R at SFO. It's just not the same. And it won't be the same without Uncle Ed.

So farewell Where and hello WhereCamp.

Because that's right Ed Fans !! Uncle Ed is running WhereCamp !!

I've got three of our best sushi chefs on standby, and Google Security have been given special instructions on how to deal with stoned geo-hackers wandering around campus playing warewolf at 4am. I have colored balls on order for all attendees and a special team of brain suckers to come and find out what all the freetards are working on so we can Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. Things are going to radically change between now and WhereCamp - we're launching a total game changer at one of our many paid-for speaking slots at Where. Maybe.

If you see me, ask for a ride on a green google bike and a swim in the infini-pool. Yours for free if you tell us everything you and your employers are doing. Remember at all times that we're not evil. In any way. Apart from in China, but that's a total side issue.

Sent from my home 802.11g network, glass of Jamesons in hand

HMS Bags of Money

I'm skinny dipping today with other geo-moguls in one of the most beautiful inlets in the deep blue sea. Sean has invited me on the HMS Bags of Money for a break. The work is done for Where 2.0 and now all that's needed is another lambrini and coke.

I've been riding one of the segways on the rolling deck of the BoM. I tell ya it confuses the shit out of the thing, it doesn't know if it's going back or forward.

Meanwhile back in blighty things aren't all ship-shape on the good ship Titan^H^H^H^H^H MultiMap. The Borg is slowly tightening the iron grip and fucking everything up. Last week they redirected their flagship map product to whats left of Seans bungalow plan. Things went South and the plug was pulled.

You think we'd make that kind of screwup at the 'gol? Puh-lease. We had a good laugh anyway. It's like watching those lemmings at Yahoo!

Back to me. Why does ol' Ed need such a vacation? I've been figuring out where all our aerial pictures come from:



It took me two and a half years to figure them all out, and half explains all my BA Miles. Every photo had to be dated and Google don't let you fly first class so it was my one way to rack up enough miles. By flying all over the world and dating these photos I've managed to claim a BA Infinity card and will never fly Club World ever again. A big day for me !!

So click the blue circle and think of ol' Ed !!

Sent from HMS BoM

The problem with the World

Is people....

Why the fuck do people get up in my face all the time, I just want to get to my fucking plane. I spend so much time negotiating around the proles at airports, I've calculated that I've lost 6.2 man days this year so far being annoyed by stupid people.

We don't have stupid people at Google, by definition. Google. Smart. Google. Smart. See? No jackasses pulling a semi across three lanes of traffic when ol' Ed is in the driving seat, and no I don't feel sorry for them. Theres a welfare program for dumb people and it's called Microsoft. No free food but then what do you expect !!

Just look at these people standing around !!



This is better, no people !!



I sublimed in to my new chair at the BA lounge though. T5 BA lounge is an excellent mix of the old and new, the refined and the baroque woven in to a tapestry of relaxation. Just as an example, they've transferred some staff from other BA lounges at Heathrow together with some new subtle faces. This means ol' Ed gets some new conversation but they don't forget the lambrini and coke.

Before I had time to fully soak in to the atmosphere I had to fly out and run another event, ol'd Ed is needed worldwide !!

Sent from a BA lounge

421 shades of blue

Oh man what a party! I only woke up yesterday and I've spent 24 hours in bed popping paracetamol until I could move again !!

I had one of the drones write a post on how we name oceans.

That's the offical line, but I have a truthiness solution: When I can't sleep on a BA flight, I look out the window and come up with shades of blue to call that patch of water. I'm up to 421 shades in a nice KML files. Baby blue, cyan, cyan-magenta-blue, sky blue, windows vista blue.. and of course blue level googler blue.

Sent from a BA plane, looking down on 'Jimbo Wales language blue'

Come to my party

Come on, you know ol' Ed would never leave the 'gol, 'specially not until the free food runs out !!

Remember !! Its the Fake Ed Party tonight !!

• free prawn cocktail crisps for the first 5 guests


• free beer if you look at 5 pages of ads

And the beach balls are all ready to go !!

Sent from a BA Lounge !!

Time to Move on...

The following is an agreed statement that was posted earlier today on the Google Intranet,

“Ed Parsons is leaving his post as Chief Mapmagician of Google to pursue new challenges in the increasingly dynamic Geographic Information (GI) Industry.

Since his arrival in April 2007, Ed has developed Google’s IT strategy and has led Google Research labs. Ed has been instrumental in moving the organisation’s focus from mapping to the creation of geographic information.

Ed is keen at this stage of his career to help develop more innovative areas of the GI industry. His decision comes as Google is focusing on a period of a consolidation in its strategic IT development and direction.

Larry Page, Googles chief stoner, says “We wish Ed every success for the next stage of his career and offer him sincere thanks for his contribution to the direction of our IT development and research activities.”

For those of you who want to say goodbye to Ed personally his last working day will be Friday 4 April 2008.”

I am not is a position to add any more to this statement, but of course I am sorry to be leaving a great group of very committed GI professionals, the future for me is not completely clear at this point - but whatever it turns out to be, you will read it here as it happens !!

1ST DRAFT - Where's the $$$ - OGC moving backward

I’ve spent much of this week along with some of the drones from the 'gol at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Technical Committee meeting in St. Louis. KML is at last just a few weeks away from becoming an adopted standard, and the OGC as an community, I’m pleased to say, is increasingly taking interest in geospatial technologies developed outside of its iron curtain.

So amongst the continued detailed work on the WANKS standards we know so well, there was much debate about the potential of RESTful interfaces (note: the freetards have been doing this for eons) and the use of lightweight technologies such as GeoJSON and AtomPub as realistic alternatives to creating transactional web services beyond mash-ups (note: nobody actually uses that stuff).

It becomes really interesting when the new and existing are combined (lambrini and coke for example), one of the slickest demos I saw was using an extension to the existing SLD standard to control the server side creation of KML data from a component WMS service, populating attribute data into KML Extended data tags.

There is also growing recognition that as a reflection of the new paradigm technologies, new approaches to creating standard paradigms may also be needed, after-all the pace at which technologies are introduced and adopted by the mass-market paradigm is much faster than the traditional standards process can keep pace with paradigm.

Perhaps a new approach is needed where paradigm standards are defined at the same time as new applications paradigm and functionality is developed, so that the standards process is driven by individuals and organisations implementing new functionality paradigm which is standardised once demonstrated to be both stable and useful !

This new approach which focuses more on the user need, was nicely summarised in a presentation from NASCAR with a picture of a bank, “I’d like some money.. bit I rather not know how it’s made, so we hit up Google for a grant”.

My release of my libkml open source library should be seen in this context, as it allows developers to quickly get started in creating well formed KML files, and to experiment quickly by actually writing code. Want to write a FDO provider to read and write KML, then libkml is a great paradigm, likewise if you want to write a new iPhoto geo-tagging plug-in, libkml deals with most of the basic requirements you would need. In both cases any extensions or changes that might be needed to KML can be tested and proven in a practial sense before becoming standardised. [note: I hate these product sponsor paragraphs, talk to larry about doing less]

I have been to perhaps half a dozen Technical Committee meetings over the last few years, and almost all have been some of the most boring parts of my life. I leave St. Louis feeling happy to be alive and hope OGC can remain the positive influence on the industry it has been up to now, but that I don't have to give them any more money.

Written and submitted from the Westin Hotel, St. Louis, using its broadband network (hope Terminal 5 is ready for my return !)

Welcome to my latest invention

10 months after a combined Yoser! / Freetard effort to hack my API, I finally pulled my thumb out of my arse, ordered in some pizza and diet coke, rolled up my sleeves and hacked up an 'official' version of the Street View API. To be honest with you, I wasn't going to bother - taking personal responsibility for the design, development, testing, release and promotion of LibKML as well as continuing my tour of BA Lounges of the world has taken its tole. Then one of my drones told me about Map Jack.

"By Jesus!", I thought, "Not only are the images are better than ours, but these guys are offering to sell the technology to anyone who wants it." So I reached into my drawer and pulled out Google Maps Emergency Plan Blue: For use when people figure out that something we do isn't that difficult or expensive to do. Working my way through the emergency flow chart, I came to two conclusions. One, distract attention by pushing out my API, two contact legal and find a way to sue to shit of Map Jack. I really love my job.

Now I'm off to fiddle with the search ranks so that the Freetards stop ranking higher than my API.

Written and submitted from a Segway, taring down hall number 393b on the way to see Dave from legal.

Larry and I had a laugh

We were on Necker Island too. Personally, ol' Ed thinks this global warming stuff is just freetard sandal/museli propoganda... but valleywag ain't far off the truth, check it out.

Sent from a BA lounge, via hillarity

$270,000

We've given OSGEO about $270,000 I've been told. I nearly choked on my ice cream. What DO THEY DO? I had Sarah from accounts find me the figure and I'm still trying to find who authorized the budget. So much money sloshing around here right now.

Ol' Ed thinks these guys are just freetards with a sweet tooth. What specifically brought it to my attention a few days ago was this post to my crew at geowanking. I'm going to help you frigtards line-by-line here:

Apologies for cross-posting...

I'm an idiot.

I am proud to finally announce the inaugural
meetup of the nascent UK local chapter of OSGEO

I have too much time on my hands.

on Thursday 1st May, from 4.30 to 7pm (or
later if we can find a suitable hostelry)

Ok, ol' Ed likes a drink.

at the Radisson SAS Hotel

It's not a BA Hotel, but, ol' Ed has flown SAS a few times and the necklines are low.

, Stansted Airport.

Jesus muther frickin' heaven of co-ordinate translation. Yes, let's all get down to STANSTED AIRPORT (I've checked, no decent BA lounge) for the right royal shin dig of a freetard wank-off on a Thursday night. Not sure about you, but ol' Ed has better things to do. For my valley homeboys - this is like being told that the next cream cake isn't on the Embarcadero, not SFO, not even out at OAK (BART and a bus away). No, this sugar requires you to find your way to an obscure hotel outside of Redwood City. That's how ol' Ed feels. The very backwater of paleotard-dom.

The post continues!

We have been trying to get together some interest
in a UK local chapter for some time now

Well, lassie, you've hit pay-dirt here! Thank the Lord Himself you've decided on hosting in the middle of Essex otherwise perhaps nobody would come! The linked wiki page shows that at least some people have the time, money and character flaw(s) to attend. Ol' Ed only wants one thing from this disaster, the answer: WHAT DOES OSGEO DO?

Answers on a cream cake.

Sent from a BA lounge

A busy week

Ol' Ed has had a busy few days preparing for the Fake Ed party (4th April, London more here) - I've ordered all my deinzens here at the 'gol to attend and there are good vibes that many across my geo community are coming.

There's a lot of logistics involved in the ice cream and we've had to ship it over from Mountain View on Larrys plane. Oh, and try finding beach balls in March.

On the bright side it's only a matter of days now until I try out the BA lounge in Terminal 5 - ol' Ed will post more on that at the time.

Sent from a BA lounge

Hand painted

Man it took a long time to hand paint these tiles, but I've finally pushed out my next product, Google Sky. I had a telescope built on the roof of HQ in London for this one, and had it linked up to my iPhone for easy access. I modified my painting software that I use to hand paint all the map relief tiles. It was much easier in that about 80% of the new 'sky' tiles are black.

I really want a daylight version, which will be much nicer... a uniform azure blue. Like a blue level googler!

Sent from a BA Lounge

Paleotards inneficient

The Charles Arthur Campaign is claiming credit for ground-breaking, shocking, Earth-shattering news that Vanessa and Friends are less efficient than a market. This stunning piece of news that monoplolies are inneficient is taught on something like day one of any Economics course.

I remember a late night drinking session with Vanessa and my team when I layed it all out, and it didn't take 154 page I tell you. 'ol Ed had more lambrinis than he could count and as we all lay there under the stars on a golf course putting green it became very clear. The next day I parted ways from OS and began the real adventure here at the 'gol.

Sent from a (different to the last one) BA lounge.

More bad news

Some loser ex-hire is mouthing off about 20% time being a myth. The problem as I see it is that he's right - for the nerdlings. Blue level Googlers and above retain their 20% time and I actually spend 20% of my time on 747s so it's not a problem.

We're firing doubleclick staff. So what, they can go work at Yahoo.

Zero to mentioning food in 60 seconds. We actually have an ad-supported food program here - logos imprinted on toasted bread etc. Still in beta.

Sent from a BA lounge.

Freetards plan get together

Like a band of sheet clad Druids flocking to a dirty stone in a wet field to hear the non-sensical murmurings of the Druid King, the beardy freetard map-bashing brigade otherwise known as OpenStreetMap will be convening in a dirty hotel room in Limerick, Ireland, to hear the equally non-sensical murmurings of their own Druid King, the great El Coasto.

Pause for a moment and think about how we do things at the Big G. Where do you think the idea of location came from anyway? I didn't come up with it sitting on the toilet, I got it from a student's essay back in the 'ston days. The color of the second 'o' in Google? From a community arts project in the Mission. Free lunches for employees? Got the idea after overhearing Jim Goodnight in a restaurant in Seattle in 1977.

Show-and-tell sessions like this are great for us - its outsourcing of innovation. We give the freetards a bit of cash to pay for some lentil soup and a vegetable burrito at lunchtime, send some of our marketing drones down there with some shiny stickers and then sit back and suck it all in. Got a cool idea? Tell us about it!

Now compare a freetard gathering like the StateoftheMap to a Google operation like a Developer Day. I don't get on stage and tell you how to make my secret sauce, I use the secret sauce to give away even more ad supported burgers. Everyone knows your only open when you're losing.

Heart attacks

If we were a older company and had many paleotards around then, well, first we'd have to teach them how to use computers and how to use the segways laying around... But after that, we'd give them some stock. And if we'd given them stock a year or 6 months ago they wouldn't be impressed.

We'd have a number of heart attacks on our hands. The stock is heading south. Officially everything is fine but 'ol Ed is going to be straight with his secret diary. We're fucked. The recession's gonna nail us.

Everyone here at HQ is pinning their hopes on Android but it won't ship for months and even then we have a small task of destroying the carrier monopolies and producing a phone that appeals outside of the 20-29 geek-in-a-bedroom demographic. We've got to get GHealth out there before the whole 'no evil' thing becomes a complete whitewash.

We might have to switch on ads on the maps sooner than Grand Plan dictates... I'm relying on that stock to get back over $700 if I'm going to get that retirement cottage in Cornwall.

Sent from a BA lounge

“Free our Data” talk at the BC

The Geospatial Special Interest Group is hosting a talk on the Guardian Free our Data campaign next month, by Michael Cross.

These lame ass freetards aren't getting anywhere standing on street corners handing out Socialist Worker, and so all they do is hang around and whinge about it. What did they expect? Oh! Charles Arthur says the entire government must change to his special blend of Communisim! Quick! About face!

Meanwhile, out here in the Real World we're doing new and innovative things. We're pretty big and consider ourseleves very important but even we defer to the US Military.

Sent from a BA Lounge

Giove-B to be launched

We've got a lot riding on this. The second in-orbit demonstrator for the Galileo system is to be launched.

We're planning to launch the first advertising-supported Gelileo and GPS hand-held units some time soon. Obviously when you're driving past McDonalds we want to help monetize that, and offer you a free cheese burger. But it goes much further. We'll be pushing out much more aggressive advertising.

Pretend you're driving up the ramp to your local Ramada Inn... your Galileo-enabled cell phone will call you and offer you 10% off the Hilton across the street and a free lambrini and coke will be waiting for you when you arrive. When you answer the call and crash, your Galileo-enabled GoogleGPS will offer you keyword-based pay-per-click body shop adverts. Click on one and they'll be routed directly to the scene of the accident.

We've done location-aware advertising for years but it's been confined to city sized areas in general. It'll be a big growth market for us when we're tracking your children with their ad-supported OLPCs.

Sent from a BA lounge

Links for 3 March 2008

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope
Like Earth but crap and slow with features you don't want. Only runs on Windows. I've had some of our people work on buying some telescopes so we can be seen to compete, but really, who cares?

Google Engineering Philosphy
I've had the guy that leaked this fired, and shut down his brothers tractor dealership out in Iowa. We're tighter than an constipated iPhone SDK engineer.

ESRI integrates with SQL Server '08
SQL Server 2008 introduces some geographical data types. I invented location so I'll be writing those guys for a cut.

YouTube Hi-Res videos
We're trying to find an exit for this. Mostly when we buy a firm we just rip out the engineering team and leave the other employees to swivel, but as I've said this was just a joke that went wrong. Any ideas to turn this around would be appreciated.

Terminal 5

I love all things aviation, and I spend more time in BA Lounges than with my own flesh and blood so I can't wait for BA Terminal Five to open. Have a look at the site. Looks impressive, and I'm used to flying top deck. The site says:

The floor to ceiling windows give outstanding views of the runways, aircraft, countryside and even Windsor Castle and Wembley Stadium

'ol Ed is a romantic at heart but even I can't believe that without a telescope I'll see any major detail of Windsor Castle or Wembley from Gate 736.

Sent from a BA lounge

How to map India

The freetards are wandering around barefoot being treated like Vishnu Himself:

We’re shown into an assembly room where 150 or so have gathered. Huge bouquets of flowers are presented to us to carry about 5 feet further and place on a table. And again applause as we enter. There are printed banners announcing our day of ‘Democratic Digital Mapping’. We’re sat facing the room along with the principal, H. S. Rai, and others from the computer engineering department. Everyone gets a chance to speak. Including an introduction of Schuyler and myself, featuring lengthy sections cribbed directly from our CVs. Schuyler gives another rousing speech of thanks. Overwhelmed, I have to start with “I’m from California, and we don’t really do ceremony very well there…”. Finally, we are presented with trophies commemorating our participation this day, and a couple mintues for photos, including photographers from the local media. Another round of applause as we move into the side room for tea.

Jesus fucking mother of Christ in Heaven! If you enter the freetard site there's not even any maps of India! This all reminds me of when Steve Jobs and I went trekking through the sub continent, popping pills all the way. Man, those were some trips. But I'm older now, and I have responsibilities.

Six months ago I personally saw to it that we paid some ex-call centre workers to run about mapping in India. It was just an amazing success, so much so THAT WE HAVE MAPS:


View Larger Map

The post continues:

We walk next door to the high fenced girls hostel, and pushed ahead down a corridor, where we are showered with flower petals and beaming smiles by five girls, and continue into the front of an open central yard of the complex, facing several hundred of the female students. Applause, hollars, flash bulbs. We are seated at couches placed in front, with a small table apon which clipboards are laid out. We quickly gather that this is a dance competition, we are the guests of honor, and are expected to judge the dances of a dozen young women. Numb horror.

Now, that's more like it. If only GSDI 10 was anythign like that! But, it's not hosted in Marin County now is it? I had wondered what ther freetards were doing while I was commanding my map empire. Now I know.

Sent from a BA lounge

I'm in Trinidad!

It's warm, there's sand in my toes and there's a most bubbles competition planned for tonights hot tub. Yes, I'm in Trinidad!

But, why?

If you look in to the dim and distant past, and if you squint, you will see a land full of geo-promise. A world where if only we could design the right file format then all the worlds location information would somehow magically combine in to one giant fireball of goodness. It would explode like an orgasm of color and rain down sweet droplets of geocomputing all over the world. We would all share our map data using The One True Ontology in The One True Format which was to be designed by a crack committee of geoexperts.

That was the design anyway.

What happened was that Jack won and we're all stuck with shitty shapefiles. Sorry did I say we? I meant you. I use my file format (which I'm imensely proud of), KML.

So here I am in Trinidad, and essentially I'm surrounded with fucking morons. That's not meant in any way personal! It's just the official Google term for non-Google employees. Fucking morons. Did you know that the Chinese term for people beyond the great Wall was 'blood sucking ghosts' because nothing COULD exist beyond the wall? Well it's like that in the 'gol. It's basically a desert of lepers, ex-bubble employees and freetards out there and we can only man our walls with layers of pay-per-clicks to distract them.

Back to my bubbles. It's GSDI 10 (as if 9 were not enough). That's Geo Spatial Data Infrastructure, 10th time around. That should tell you something. If they can't get it right the first 9 fucking times, and these are the people building the dream, can't we all just get the hint and move on? I certainly did!

You don't see 'Web Browser Conference 10' do you? Or 'The Insides of the TRS-80 Conference, 10th edition'.

The speakers basically consist of large government departments and the companies selling them mainframe-era GIS systems for millions of dollars. A few freetards have been thrown in - the losers from the OGC (We give them money and I've asked one of our people to find out what they actually do with it (note: maybe just fly to places like Trinidad?)). Oh and the cute GeoServer people... Yes, one day you may replace ESRI over Jack's dead body but by then we'll own the ecosystem with Earth so go knock yourselves out.

It all blurs in to one. But, it's in Trinidad! Reminds me, USGS are here! How the hell did they scrape together the money for the flight? Probably accepting donations from their rangers or something. I always warned Vanessa the public funding route would never work out - just look at the USGS guys hawking for change and a place to sleep tonight. I told them the beach would be good enough.

Will there be a GSDI 11? Ok fine - so long as there's no national anthems played and it's somewhere warm. But please! No more "Future Visions for SDI" talks by old white guys looking backward. No more "Here's something some dumbass low-level Mapping Agency employee did once in his spare time with ESRI ArcSomething" talks. We get it. You all use ESRI and want a biscuit. Well done.

This is the downside to my job of running Google. If the downside to your job is listening to a bunch of paleotards in Trinidad blather on about the 70's, then it's not that bad... But ol' Ed would much rather be in the bunker designing the next map. Until we've sold these moron governments some ad-supported or Earth Pro installs though, I'm stuck here with you babe.

Until GSDI 11, be seeing you.

Sent from yet another dumbass OGC committee meeting. Please, God, no more.

Fake Ed Party - all invited!

To celebrate a year at Google, I'm throwing a party.

• The Victoria pub next to Victoria Station (and my office!)


• Friday 4th April from 6ish pm onward

Put it in your diary now!

Yes, it's been a year since I announced my ascent.

The past year has just been amazing. I've invented maps, invented slippy maps, invented three-dimensional spinning globe maps and put maps on your (dumb java) phone. I told Steve how to put maps on the (super nice) iPhone and I've dumped more CO2 in to the atmosphere from my flights around the world than an entire decade of Microsoft press releases.

A party is the right way to celebrate. The Victoria is one of my favourite pubs and always has a corner for 'ol Ed to sit in and sip his lambrini and coke.
I'm inviting all my ex-colleagues from Asbestos Towers and the entire Google team from just up the road will also be there. I hope to see freetards, propertytards, neotards and paleotards all in the room celebrating my invention of location.

Please spread the word by linking to this blog post.

No need to bring me a present, in fact we will be giving away ice cream and beach balls to the first 20 people to turn up, and t-shirts to the rest.

We expect a special - one night only - appearence from Real Ed who will be conducting the prize giving ceremony for 'person least likely to be Fake Ed'.

Sent from a BA Lounge.

Web 2.0 as status symbol

What you neotards don't understand is that web 2.0 is just a status symbol.

In our post-post-neotard world inside the 'gol, we've had our web historians looking back at today and telling us what everyone got wrong. It's really quite simple. Microsoft paid half a billion kong bucks for hotmail (and people still use it), but then everyone figured out email was quite simple so you had many web mail systems.

Where does the innovation go? Shiny logos. Shiny logos, like my 911 Turbo, cost money. They say something. They say "I've got lots of money". Integrated drop-shading and rounded corners cost a lot of dev time, I'm telling you. The more shiny, the more rounded corners, the more effort must have gone in to that website. It says "My website is the most money".

Just look at my dopplr. No look at neotards futuretards and recently assimilated borg drones.

It's just a "who's flying around the world the most" competition. Here's a hint. I win. I'm the most money here. Once again I win the status competition that is Web 2.0.

Social networks? It's all about who has the most and prettiest chicks on the friends list. You can post to my super fun wall all you like, push me right up there, because yet again I'm the most money. I have the most friends. Almost by definition, those who get in early have the most friends so come join the pyramid scheme.

I don't have time to twitter any longer, I'm so money one of my secretaries twitters what party I'm at for me.

Now what's missing here? That's right, the 'gol doesn't do any of this because our public-facing properties are post-web 2.0. Not many of you know that the YouTube acquisition was just a joke that went wrong (no clue how we're going to get rid of it). So if you want to know what the future is going to be like, just watch what we do.

Remember to friend me on my dopplr!

Sent from a BA lounge

BA Lounges

You might have noticed that my signature on blog posts reveal Google trade secrets (where I am). Well from now on I'm not even going to tell you which BA Lounge I'm in.

Does it even matter? Last year (don't tell Larry) I took seven flights just to look at the BA lounges around the world. It's a home away from home. They know my name, have a Lambrini and Coke waiting for me and I sleep it all off on the plane to the next BA Lounge. I got someone fired last month for putting me on the bottom deck of a jumbo jet - everyone knows ol' Ed flies top deck.

Anyway, one of the nerds at HQ 20% time project was 'Method for bringing women to Google' (or that's the non-secret summary). I'm glad to say it's paying off and we'll have beauty queens in all our regional offices by Q3 2008.

Sent from a BA Lounge.

Rolling in my Y! $$$$

Its the day we've all been waiting for here at the big G (and most of the Silicon Valley world) the day the Borg decided to shed some much needed pounds and axe almost a tenth of the collective. Its a triple bonus for me. I bet Larry a ride in his helicopter that they'd lay off more than 5% of their workforce, then yesterday I picked up a crap load of Y! stock at knock-down price and now I get to throw rotten tomatoes at all the unemployed Yosers! who'll no doubt be knocking on my door, begging for forgiveness.

What really makes me laugh is the futility of it all. Yahoo! can't win. I own the online advertising market and its only a matter of time until Y! will have to pack up their own excuse of an advertising service and join mine (more cash for me). When they actually try and do something innovative, I just shit it right back at 'em (my hill shaded maps being a prime example). If anyone else does something vaguely interesting, I buy them up before Y! have even heard of them. You see where I'm going?

Despite my clear supremacy, the beardy hacktard brigade still seem to prefer Y!. No matter how many free "Summer of Code" stickers I give away at every hacktard freefest, they still love Yahoo!. Not for long. In the next instalment of my GSP, I've lured the neotards right into my lair. Come, sit on Uncle Ed's knee and tell me you secrets.

Wokingham

I told the freetards weeks ago about this and still there's no map of Wokingham. They're going to lose 'ol Ed credibility nuggets at a rate of 1 a day, and the balance is now -20. Tomorrow: Slough.

If I could have it all back...

People don't often ask me to look in the rear view mirror, but as I glided down secret corridor X-5A on my segway into my command center deep beneath the streets of London at Google HQ I got a bit reminiscent. It could have all been so different. What if I didn't have that breakthrough with location back at Kingston? What if I hadn't patented it and sold it to OS? What if I hadn't had that fateful meeting with vanessa and taken a new path at the One True Company?

You can spend all day (and I often have, with a bottle of Jack) going over the possibilities. A lot of it's in the deep past but there are some things at Google, even now, that perhaps I would have done differently.

Take our ad-supported schools project. That started as a 20% time project from one of the new intake of 12-year-old PhD students - basically it makes Coca-Cola and Pepsi look like pussies. They can put logos on the odd textbook and gym bag but I ask you this - who's scanning all the textbooks? We'd take schools off the government book and make them fully free. We even had a scenrio where no ads are shown to the little darlings but just to the parents, or free schooling if they install a Google Digital Billboard on the front of the house. I thought Google logos on all wedding photos on picassa was a bit far, but there's scope there.

Then there was the ad-supported girlfriend project. Girlfriends cost money after all - dinners, presents... old Ed knows this. Of course a lot of people around here have no need for girlfriends but getting out the office now and again might be added to the Google Constitution soon so we need these backup plans. The whole thing set off a lot of red flags as you might imagine.

Anyway, back to the future.



I was interested to see on my other blog that some guys launched a balloon and then (of course, how else?) put all the results in my 3-D side-project, Google Earth. Reminded me that I'm on the second Virgin space plane to go up. I scored a ticket from Branson after winning the most bubbles contest in the hot-tub after the wedding. It's going to be amazing. It'll be so real. I've been practising by staring a lot at Google Earth while jumping to get that weightless feeling.

I'm really having the time of my life here at Google. It's a shame that none of you on the outside have a clue what goes on here (hint, the final chapters of The Dice Man is a good start) but I'll have a lot to say during my keynote at Where. Enough to flip the script and wipe the smiles off all the freetards, paleotards and borgs.

Written and submitted from the future (where we all live at Google) where none of you will ever understand anything, using a DeLorean.

You think you can piss on my Picassa parade?

You might have heard therumours about my latest venture into the world of Mac applications. To my more loyal fans out there, it won't come as any surprise that I've been busy leading the development of a Mac version of my photo-management software, Picassa. After all, I have every copy of MacWorld ever printed stacked up next to my bed. I actually took a call from Steve J back some twelve months ago, when I first ditched the paleotards in search of more multi-coloured pastures. "Ed", said Jobsey, "we need your locative genuis in Cupertino. We'll give you free lunches, your own Prius and as much Apple merchandising as you can grab from the store in a 2 minute sweep. Apple needs you."

Dream on Jobsey, I'm a Google guy at heart. So meanwhile, on the other side of the Valley I've had my drones wip up a Mac version of Picassa. Its all been going swimmingly, until today, when the impossible happened. A leak - straight from the mouths of a BLG (Blue Level Googler). Incredible though it may seem, a chink has been found in our armour.

I run a tight ship and I'm damned if some Bluey is going to piss on my Picassa-parade. Within minutes, the G-Machine sprung into active. We flipped the button that sticks a whole load of "nasty content" into Duncan Riley's Google accounts - he's going to wish he'd managed his own mail server instead of using Google Apps on his domain. Right after that, we buzzed the Feds. No-one likes a spoil-sport and TechCrunch have been getting on my nerves recently - its my valley, Arrington. Get it or get out.

Back on the G-front, the source of leak was immediately identified (via the implant, of course). She's been extracted to a re-re-education camp and her ass has been busted back down to Green. I hope this will serve as a lesson to any trash hunting journalist scum-bags or loose lipped Googlers out there. I know where you live, I run the internet, you can't hide from me.

Nestoria / Freetard hookup

We own a company called nestoria and... whoa I'm getting ahead of myself. We don't own them in the traditional sense, but they're this firm that puts houses on my map service, Google Maps.

Ok back to ownership issues. They use my map tiles right. So one day soon we're going to flip the switch on adverts and there will be a flood of maccy-d logos on the maps. Now nestoria users might not like that so we have this option where they can pay me a protection fee if you will. After they pay the fee, good ol' Ed will make sure no naughty adverts get on the map. So, either way we get our dollars.

But the sweet thing is that every time someone downloads a tile... we get a whole lotta information. And information is power. And power is dollars mwahhh mwahhahahhaHAHA!

Every little tile comes back to us dripping with juicy data like when and where it was so we can see where people are browsing for property (and, um, adverts). We know what browser they're using, what town they're in. Then we cross reference it with other bits we have laying around and can find the color of their hair by the time we're done.

As if that wasn't enough, nestoria kindly make use of my Google Analytics service so we know what people are clicking on, what the monetization looks like.. the whole shebang.

This is probably all news to you but Larry had some of the nerds create Google Buy ages ago. See lots of sits do this, ok? So we know everything about every property site or kitchen utensil web reseller there is. All we do is say, Google Buy, given all this info just tell us what we should buy because baby, if that share price doesn't fly like Steve Jobs on meth in 1974 we're all out of jobs.

I can't tell you what GBuy is telling us right now (it's in maintenance after suggesting Microsoft again) but as you see we own nestoria whatever way you look at it.

Right, back to the story. These dudes think they can side-step Ed's Master Plan by using the feetard service openstreetmap. It may as well have been someone like the borg or the hippies at Yahoo, y'know, some maps with actual, er, MAPS in there. See this is the scoop! I found out that openstreetmap doesn't have maps of Truro!! When I retire, how's ol' Ed going to buy that holiday farm if he can't see any roads!!??

I bet the nestoria (what does that even mean anyway? At least my company means a big number) GBuy index is taking a dive right about now.

I really think these freetards are going to lose credibility unless they finish that map soon. I bet Vanessa three of her cats that the freetards would be a threat by 2008 so I have a lot riding on this. I told her it took OS two centuries to map a country and that was with Ed in charge for some of the time. Now with Web 2.0 everything is like, 1,000 times faster so the freetards should finish the world in about 3 weeks. With time for sleep.

But still no bloody Truro. If OS can lose credibility in 5 or 10 years, then the freetards should lose it in about a nanosecond using my 1,000x rule. I would add some data myself but it's a bit hard from the...

Sent via WiFi from the BA first class lounge at Google International Airport (we're still buying it from NASA)