Hmmm, wonder why Google’s brand in my brain is going up and not down?

You have to look no further than the new “AskCity” which is all the rage this morning over on TechMeme.

First, a little aside. Why can Google do maps with one input box while Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask need two? That’s lame. Major kudos to Google. It simply is easier to use. And, yes, this is a major reason why I use Google instead of the others. Why? Cause I’ve done hundreds of map searches and invariably I put the wrong thing in the wrong box. Hey, I’m a “stupid Americun.” But Google makes me feel smart ALWAYS.

But, then, I ask Live.com, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and AskCity to find me Amsterdam on a map. Just type “Amsterdam” into any of these and see what it does.

Google, Yahoo, and Live do just fine, but AskCity takes me someplace in the United States. Lame. Strike two.

The bar has gotten higher for local services. If you aren’t international you won’t beat Google. Even for a “stupid Americun.”

Oh, and Google was faster than the rest of them too.

I hear that CES this year is going to sign up bloggers as press for the first time. I’ll try to learn more about that and get back to you on the blog here. The official press registration page doesn’t yet have information about the blogger credentials at CES.

Meanwhile, the Pueblo Grande Museum is offering credentials for the 30th Anniversary Indian Market next weekend in Phoenix, Arizona.

I should have a corporate blog of the week. I don’t. But if I did, this post by Matt Cutts (he heads the webspam team for Google) would win it. He explains why Google kicked a site out of their index and gives Google’s side of the story clearly, simply, and engagingly.

In other news, Rex Sorgatz (thanks to Anil) has a list of great blogs that you probably aren’t reading. Hey, where’s the OPML file?

We’re meeting at hotel Wiechmann at 7 p.m. and then heading to Dauphine for dinner at about 7:30. Peter van Teeseling is arranging the dinner. Tom Koch, who keeps the wonderful Outlook Express tips and tricks website and is one of my favorite Microsoft MVPs, might meet me later this afternoon will meet me at 4:30 p.m. at Anne Frank’s house. Hopefully we fit a tour of Anne Frank’s house in there too (I should be over there at about 3:30 p.m.).

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is a travel day, we’re heading back to the states, will be back in the evening, so will be offline.

I just was reading all my feeds (hello from Amsterdam!) for my link blog when I saw Zoli’s blog about the Ernst and Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year awards where he noted the Australian wonderkinds Atlassian won the whole shebang. Dang, I’ve had pretty good luck in my first two months of interviewing (got Atlassian’s CEO on video).

Maryam and I are having a great weekend in Amsterdam. Just finished going through the Rijks and Van Gogh museums. I won’t be on the computer much until Wednesday.

But, having fun with the geeks in Amsterdam (Francine Hardaway’s daughter, Samantha, and her husband, showed us around, and invited Harry and his wife, who reads my blog, and we had a great time).

Anyway, anyone want to have dinner together tomorrow in Amsterdam? Say at 7 p.m.? Where should we meet? We’re staying at the Wiechmann hotel, which is a real thrill, right at the intersection of two canals.

Whew, what a day. I spent the whole day with Sam Sethi, who heads up TechCrunch UK. He showed me around the London software industry today and there’s a lot happening here.

Anyway, all that is for another day. I’m totally beat. Visited something like six pubs, walked and walked, visited two tech-heavy parties (ended up at the Firefox 2.0 launch party, where I gathered dozens of business cards that I’ll have to sort through after some sleep).

But, check out the interesting conversation I had with Jeff Ubois over on ScobleShow — the chat took place on Dave Winer’s new “RSS couch.” This is a much different kind of interview than I’ve had before — Maryam was just listening in and said it was one of my best. All about the impact of tech companies on libraries and book scanning and archiving of the world’s information. If you care about the storage and preservation of information, this is an 44-minute interview you’ll probably find valuable.

Jeff is a former co-chair of the Association of Moving Image Archivists’ Television Interest Group and is an expert about issues in digital file preservation and archiving.

Anyway, thanks to Hugh and Sam and everyone else who showed up (about 20 people met us at the statue).

In the Wall Street Journal online: Is Microsoft Innovative?

And while you’re telling me I’m full of it, I’ll be touring London with the “pissed as newts” tour. Meet at 1 p.m. at the Eros statue. Have a good Friday, I won’t be reachable.

NetGear is looking for a blogger to take to CES. The details are linked to from Jeremy Toeman’s blog. Hey, that’s a cool way to get to the PodTech CES BlogHaus for free.

Engadget’s Ryan Block (his girlfriend works at CNET) reports that James Kim, the senior editor of digital audio at CNET, and his entire family, have gone missing on a drive to Seattle from San Francisco. Engadget is asking for your help.

Ryan, do you know what kind of car they were driving? License plate number?

I sure hope they are found. Last time blogs were used in a search for someone missing it didn’t end so well. (A friend of a friend died after he fell down a mountain, but was missing for several days and blogs were used in the search). My thoughts are with the family and friends of James Kim and family. I can’t even imagine not knowing what happened to a family member of mine.

I love a good photo blog. One like Joanna Rees has. Any others we should be aware of?

How many feeds are you subscribed to? I’m increasing my feed load rapidly again. Why? Reading feeds is a joy again, thanks to Google Reader. I’m not alone, either. Two people came up to me after our talk today and said “thank you for talking about Google Reader.”

“U, J, J, J, J, J, K, J, Shift-S, J, J.”

If you don’t get that, then you haven’t used Google Reader yet and you haven’t started a link blog of your own.

Three questions:

1) Am I putting too many items on my link blog? Often I’ll throw more than 50 a day up there.
2) How are you reading my link blog? Did you subscribe to it?
3) Have you started a link blog of your own? What’s your URL if you have?

It’s funny, a friend told me Microsoft couldn’t innovate anymore and that Google was going to eat its lunch.

Oh, yeah?

Gizmodo held a Microsoft vs. Google mobile map shootout.

Love this quote: “So which is better? Without a doubt, Microsoft’s was the winner.”

I like Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate. Not just cause he sponsored my show for the first three months. But because he says outrageous things. To Fortune magazine.

Heheh, that brings to mind this video: The Internet is for porn. It’s actually not porn at all. And it’s on Google video.

You can watch an interview I did with Bill too a few weeks back. Yes, he is an interesting interviewee.

Oh, and I hear that if you’re a blogger, you’ll get to meet Bill at CES in our BlogHaus, which is sponsored by Seagate, Microsoft, and AMD. More on that soon.

Koral has a knowledge management system that is the coolest thing I saw at the SAP show recently and I have a demo and an interview on ScobleShow today.

Look at how it keeps Excel spreadsheets and other files in sync.

Demo (9:20). Interview (22:39).

Oh, there’s lots of stuff on Vista around today. I put the best on my link blog. Including this list of ways Microsoft could make Vista better by Jeremy Toeman. Heheh, John Dvorak is tired of baiting Mac users, so now he’s going to bait Windows users to be equal opportunity. Got it John! Damn, I fell for it again!

Getting attacked? Can’t figure out what to say? Sad that your audience has gone to read Digg or Mike Arrington? Read this post on Global Voices online about an Egyptian blogger who was jailed. That should make you feel better about your bad day and give you something to get angry about, all at once.

Heheh, Sarah Blow was at a little dinner we threw tonight and she was giving me some virtual heck for not linking to her. Oh, Sarah, I Google’d you this morning, looked at all three of your blogs, and didn’t see an update for 10 days, so didn’t link.

I guess she doesn’t listen to Steve Gillmor, who said that not getting a link is a sign of respect.

Gotta give Valleywag something salacious from London. I love Hugh, what can I say? Anyway, it was really great meeting Steve Clayton, Microsoft blogger, I’ve enjoyed his blog a lot.

You can join us on our “pissed as newts” tour tomorrow. Meet at the Eros Statue at 1 p.m. sharp. After that, Hugh will lead us on a tour of fun things and pubs in London.

Whew, yesterday was a busy day. Three interviews. Two speeches. One London Girl Geek dinner. Two videos posted (thanks to Kevin Edwards and Michael Klinger for posting those while I’m gone).

Anyway, I saw Don Dodge talking about blogging and wikis as platforms. He’s absolutely right. Anyone who’s seen a list of Wordpress extensions sees that developers are building cool things on top of that blogging platform.

One of the blogging vendors, Blogtronix, I had on the ScobleShow yesterday (demo and interview). I like their stuff a lot, it lets companies build their own “Channel 9″ without having three great developers of their own.

I love this quote from Steve Sloan: “opacity is evil.” I totally agree with that when it comes to public institutions. The way our tax money is being spent should be done transparently. I doubt we’ll ever get there.

I look at yesterday’s events regarding PodCamp. Would I have done anything differently if we had been totally transparent? No. I told an audience yesterday that I live my life expecting that whatever I do or say will get on the front page of the New York Times. That makes people uncomfortable.

It is an uncomfortable life sometimes. Particularly when people don’t do their homework before jumping to conclusions.

I wish bloggers called and tried to get my side of the story before making attacks and tried to present both sides of the story, even if their side of the story is right and mine is wrong. I thought blogging was about being fair, and open, and different than what existed before. I guess not.

Hey, I live in a dream world. I know.