Microsoft's Dare Obasanjo has a little whinge about bloggers going bananas over new Google features while ignoring the fact that Microsoft had them first. Which is fine, but hardly surprising, since Google started more than 20 years later, and practically its whole business is doing stuff people have done before, from Alta Vista on. However, in the words of the old song, it aint what you do it's the way that you do it. Just compare Gmail with Hotmail....
It might be nice if more bloggers had at least some awareness of life outside the Google ecosphere, but they're not journalists, and they're not obliged to have anything except an opinion. And in general, it doesn't seem to me that bloggers give Google an easy ride, as Dare's colleague Robert Scoble seems to suggest. They praise the good (Gmail, Google Maps etc) and criticise the not so good (RSS reader, Base, Video etc) -- and the best bloggers know the difference better than a lot of journalists.
Of course double standards are being applied: Microsoft almost never gets any credit, whatever it does. It's function is to be demonised as the Evil Empire -- a job IBM used to have. (Demonising the opposition is a terrific way to manipulate people who don't have much clue, as politicians have always appreciated, and Microsoft certainly gave them plenty to work with.)
Joining in the conversation -- as Obasanjo, Scoble and hundreds of other Microsoft bloggers do -- may well be the best way of getting at least partly undemonised, so you've made a start, guys. But give it another decade.
