Linked List: February 16, 2014

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Mozilla Plans to Sell Ads in Firefox Browser ★

Reuters:

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox Internet browser, will start selling ads as it tries to grab a larger slice of the fast-expanding online advertising market.

Nice, simple, clear English. Mozilla is going to sell ads in Firefox. OK.

Now go to Mozilla’s own weblog, where they announced this with the headline “Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center”. What a pile of obtuse horseshit. If you want to sell ads, sell ads. Own it. Don’t try to coat it with a layer of frosting and tell me it’s a fucking cupcake.

The Plus in Google Plus ★

Claire Cain Miller, writing for the NYT (ran on the front page of yesterday’s print edition):

The value of Plus has only increased in the last year, as search advertising, Google’s main source of profits, has slowed. At the same time, advertising based on the kind of information gleaned from what people talk about, do and share online, rather than simply what they search for, has become more important.

The conventional wisdom about Google is that they’re selling our privacy to advertisers. That’s no longer a fringe opinion — it’s the consensus. They’re breeding resentment.

Mary Jo Foley: ‘Microsoft Office on iPad: It’s Alive and Coming Sooner Than Most Think’ ★

From what I’ve heard, Office for iPad is impressive. It’s been held up chiefly by internal politics.