[This is a direct c+p from an email I just sent to Google. This letter was written to the “profiles support team” who have decided that I cannot use their service if I want to go by the name Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins. FWIW, since many people ask, I entered it into the service FN: Mark “Rizzn” LN: Hopkins. –mrh] Dear Neil of the Google Profiles Support Team, First of all, I think you folks are retarded if you believe I want to use your...

Early adopters are having a hard time with the lives of their early favorite apps lately. Two deaths are hitting me where I live right now: The first one is Google Video. I got an email from Google, letting me know that I needed to download all my old videos and find a new home for them by April 29th: Later this month, hosted video content on Google Video will no longer be available for playback. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009...

I saw this post by Owen Thomas over at Venturebeat: “Open-standards advocate Monica Keller leaves Facebook, joins Socialcast.” Facebook’s efforts to raise its reputation for technological openness suffered a blow with the departure of Monica Keller, a well-regarded program manager for open Web standards whose career at the company proved short-lived. It’s just one of very many recent departures from Facebook in recent months, and one...

I was playing around on my XBox, trying out different plugins for PlayOn, a service which allows you to watch podcasts on your TV via your XBox. I was watching an interview Kevin Rose did with Marissa Mayer.  The first question Kevin asked was whether or not any of the search terms that comes through the system ever shocks her. Of course, her answer dodged the question, and she played up the fact that the most popular searches on Google...

I’ve talked briefly about my feelings on location based social networks (here, here and here). Louis Gray tackled this topic at length. This is a pithy post that will be a public demonstration of just how sedentary my lifestyle is. I’ve added a new feature to the front page of rizzn.com.  I’ve turned on Google Latitude (screenshotted to the right). How do I feel so secure constantly sharing my location? First of all, my home address...