Sometimes I feel like I am in a technological bubble in Europe when it comes to social media, since latest and greatest is most often coming from the U.S. Why am I only now becoming acquainted with Foursquare?!  I have observed my brother using it as his Foursquare updates appear on Facebook and only had mild interest as he became mayor of various restaurants and other business venues. Now that I am using it myself, I recognize I have been missing out on the fun of the game and my chance to contribute to the growing Foursquare community in Germany. I am now trying to check in wherever I can, not only because I want to become mayor of as many places as possible but more importantly because I can contribute to the Foursquare experience of others by providing information about the places I visit.

I found an interesting observation in an article by Ari Adler about the difference between Twitter and Facebook on Ragan.com. In the article, article referred to communications consultant, Ike Piggot, who believes “Twitter is about the here and now, whereas Foursquare is more about the here when you need it.” Foursquare obviously has much potential to deliver content to its users that is contextually relevant. There are amazing possibilities here!

I’m a regular reader of  TechCrunch. In fact I visit the site several times a day at work and when I’m away from the office, it is one of the blogs I regularly check in with via Twitter. Today, Mike Arrington (TechCrunch founder) wrote a post that brought to my attention what Google announced today regarding their operations in China.

The post, written by David Drummond tells about how in December 2009, Google detected a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [Google's] corporate infrastructure originating in China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.” Drummond goes on to say that this was just not a one-time security incident but that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”

Now, keep in mind that in 2006 while launching Google.cn, Google agreed to play along with the Chinese government’s censorship policies. At the time, Google said they did this “in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed [their] discomfort in agreeing to censor some [search] results.” Google went on to say they would monitor the situation on the ground in China and that if they would “not hesitate to reconsider [their] approach to China” if needed.

Then Drummond makes his point and says what Google plans to do.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

When I first read all this, my gut reaction was a swell of admiration for Google to take such a courageous stance. I mean, they are #2 behind the current Chinese search king, Baidu. China is a huge market and will get much, much bigger as hundreds of millions of Chinese  go online over the next few years. That Google would be willing to shut down operations in China, cede market share and revenue to a competitor all in the name of human rights and protecting their customers should be a rallying call…but probably not for China.

I don’t know why Google really took this stand. The optimist (like Robert Scoble) in me wants to believe their motives were pure and that this will eventually lead to Chinese consumers standing up and demanding freedom of information on the interwebs. However, Google has a responsibility to their shareholders. They are a public company, after all. This is a very, VERY clever PR move for Google everywhere else in the world and probably also in China (if consumers there ever get the whole truth). There just might be less altruistic business motivations afoot here (read this post from TechCrunch blogger, Sarah Lacy.

My enthusiasm has been curbed and even though I hoped we might have a busy night watching a revolution unfold as everyday Chinese stood up against a tyrannical and evil government, China is not like we think they should be. In fact, as of this posting nothing to do with this incident is a top trending topic on Twitter.

We’ll see what happens but for now–nice try, Google.

Hamburg is a wonderful city buzzing with life – even on a cold, frosty morning. Living in Europe gives you perspective on how the past interacts with the future. I work across the street from the beautiful structure. The company I work for is a high-tech, enterprise software provider. Although I live thousands of kilometers away from Silicon Valley, I am finding that Hamburg, Germany is also a center for technological know-how and innovation. I am looking forward to blogging more about current trends on a variety of topics that relate to U.S. and Europe.

Almost a month ago, I read a post on TechCrunch about MOG All Access. Up until that point, I don’t think I had heard about MOG (music blogging service) but hearing that MOG was going to offer a service similar to MySpace Music and Pandora–I was looking forward to giving it a spin. I was even considering paying the $5 per month fee to subscribe to the service. However, I was able to snag a VIP access code today after I responded to a post by Michael Arrington this morning.

After spending a day with MOG All Access, I’m pretty darn impressed.

Here are more details on MOG’s announcement (from the press release):

• MOG All Access is now available–an all-you-can-eat premium music service
• Access more than six million songs licensed from thousands of indie labels and all four major labels
• Subscription price is $5 per month for unlimited music listening and playlist creation, with no restrictions on what subscribers can hear and when.
• Mobile applications are planned for early next year
• Available in North America but will launch in Europe next year

Posted via web from Justin’s posterous