Hunting Cows

A couple of things passed by me before 11am today that I thought were worth mentioning. The first is a WordPress plugin which, sadly, I can’t install until I transfer this blog to its own server. The second is a major difference between Bing and Google.

1. Gigya Socialize
   This fantastic little plugin sounds like it still needs a bit of work to be ready for prime time but I love the premise. Most people who read a blog would love to make a comment but don’t want to sign up for YET ANOTHER website just to say their piece. Wouldn’t it be nice if my blog could authenticate readers by way of Facebook Connect? Even better, throw in MySpace, Twitter, and OpenID. Well, bloggers, that is exactly what Gigya is attempting to do. I haven’t played around with it at any great length but the idea is that any reader with a login on any of those four systems can now comment your posts using that identity. Better yet, when you make a new post, you can (if you choose) comment the new link back to all of their walls.

   Shiny.

2. And the difference between Google and Bing is?
   Well okay that’s a trick question, there are dozens. I have come up with reasons to like Bing maps (the 3D stuff is really cool even if it doesn’t like Chrome) but hadn’t really started using search yet until today. My friend Andy Braun had asked me if there was any way to get his comments on this blog over to his friendfeed. Hmm… “Let me Google that” I said.

   As it turns out, Bing knows the difference between “add wordpress comments to friendfeed” and “add friendfeed comments to wordpress” . Google, in its infinate wisdom, gives up the same results for both. I’m sorry, Google, I’m not interested in getting friendfeed likes and favorites or comments into my WordPress blog, I already knew about that plugin. I’m interested in getting my reader’s comments into their own Friendfeed setups.

   As it turns out, that’s not yet possible. Thaks to Bing, however, I was able to determine this. Google was completely unhelpful in this regard today and even if Bing’s results still feel a bit thin compared to the Googleplex, score 1 for Redmond. It’s still a long shot but MS is working on making me a fan.

In a complete digression, if you haven’t checked out the daily Bing home page, it’s fun. Scroll your mouse around the image of the day for hidden search result hotspots related to the theme. Today’s is about Phnom Penh, Cambodia and shadow puppetry.