(Photo: Google)

This morning, I logged on to my computer and looked for my Reader tab in my Google drop-down, and it was gone. All those years of devotion and suddenly the GOOG burying our history together. (Now you actually have to go to google.com/reader.) So you'll have to excuse me if I don't rush to embrace Google's latest, greatest app: "Keep," a new note-taking service.

Announced today in a blog post, Keep offers a replacement for your current, disorganized system of crumpled Post Its and emails to yourself:

"With Keep you can quickly jot ideas down when you think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what’s important to you. Your notes are safely stored in Google Drive and synced to all your devices so you can always have them at hand."

You can color code notes and once you're done with them, hit delete. Also, it'll automatically transcribe voice notes. For scribbles on the go, it seems a little better than Evernote, which should be worried considering how seamlessly this'll work with all those Android phones.

Download the app here if you want to take it for a spin; just remember that yours wouldn't be the first heart Google has broken.

Sick clock, bro. (flickr.com/doortoriver)

Looks like The GOOG will soon be expanding its New York City footprint. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the company plans to lease an additional 94,000-plus square feet at the Chelsea Market.

The great irony is that, thanks to that swank employee cafeteria, Googlers are the techies least likely to be longing for proximity to the delicious smorgasbord that is the Chelsea Market. Why bother paying for a lobster roll when there's suckling pig in the employee cafeteria?

Google's had 100,000 square feet of Chelsea Market space to its name for the last five years or so, but right now it's mostly home to sales employees. A source told the Journal that, with the space practically doubling, it's likely that other types of workers will be taking up residence. While the company does own 111 8th Avenue, it's apparently discovering it isn't easy to oust tenants (even with a buyout) and therefore having trouble expanding in the space.

Reports the Journal:

"Any time we can get big space [at Chelsea Market], it opens it up for the technology and media companies that are having trouble locating creative space that reeks of their image," said David Falk, of real-estate brokerage Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who represented the owner of Chelsea Market, Jamestown Properties.

Conveniently for creative-space-strapped tech companies, Jamestown Properties is currently in the process of attempting to expand Chelsea Market, to the tune of 290,000 square feet of new office space. The local community is none too pleased with the notion; the City Council will vote yea or nay by the end of the month.

Googlers, look for Betabeat on your next trip downstairs to Jacques Torres. How do you think we get those Rumor Roundup items, anyway?

What would Mr. Twain say? (Photo: Penguin)

This cannot go unremarked upon: This week brings not one but two lengthy newspaper stories about the Gilded Age goings on among those in the bosom of Google. This week they're not building enormous mansions or buying islands. Rather, they're taking in a hand in the development of their local communities. And that hand is full of money.

The first is Sergey Brin. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal dished on Passerelle Investment Co, a Los Altos real estate firm largely backed by Mr. Brin. But this is no mere cash grab. The firm often helps keep independent businesses in business, sometimes settling for below-market rate. The company's website boasts "a socioeconomic perspective" and claims that it "weighs financial returns as well as social and environmental benefit."

The mayor, on the other hand, somewhat ambivalently calls it "the 500-pound gorilla downtown."

Here's what that giant primate looks like, according to the Journal:

Passerelle, which is a French word for "footbridge," has paid tens of millions of dollars to snap up at least a half-dozen commercial buildings in the past three years, according to public records and local real-estate agents. So far, the firm has brought in businesses that cater to families, such as a children's bookstore, a children's "playspace" and a cafe called Bumble that has a supervised children's play area and sandbox.

Translation: Sergey Brin is pulling a Carnegie and dumping money into his own, very personal philanthropic vision. Kids' stores for Los Altos are the new libraries for Middle America. Wonder what the Larry-Ellison-in-Lanai equivalent is. A sailboat-themed nightclub, perhaps?

The second example is clear on the other side of the country--an arrangement that's been the source of much chatter. The New York Times has a lengthy profile of Wendy Schmidt, wife of Eric Schmidt, who lives in Nantucket and apparently devotes a substantial portion of her time to helping "preserve the island’s culture." Sometimes that involves bankrolling local businesses, for example. A friend of Ms. Schmidt who "summers" locally told the Times: "On Nantucket, if something is broken it is Wendy to the rescue."

But, once again, it sounds like Ms. Schmidt is working off a somewhat idiosyncratic vision:

Ms. Schmidt was also altering the town to reflect her tastes. Marianne Stanton, editor and publisher of The Inquirer and Mirror, an island newspaper, recalled Ms. Schmidt telling her after the opening of Petticoat Row, “If I want to walk to town and get a baguette, I can go.”

Too bad Mark Twain didn't have the option of being cryogenically frozen, because we'd give a whole basketful of baguettes to hear what the man who coined the term "the Gilded Age" would have to say about this.

It's a new day, baby. (Photo: flickr.com/annszyp)

Could it be that Google hath the heart of a heretic and therefore doubts the power of that staple of Internet culture, the user-generated review? The Wall Street Journal reports that the company is buying travel guide maker Frommer's from John Wiley and Sons, with an eye toward further beefing up its local reviews.

This comes on the heels of the company's acquisition of restaurant review juggernaut Zagat.

No word on price yet, and it's not clear whether those doorstoppers will continue to exist in print form. The whole brand might simply be folded into Zagat, which we're sure employees of the storied Frommer's brand will be simply thrilled about. Bernardo Hernandez, Zagat's managing director of product management, told the Journal:

"Our commitment is to keep things as they are today and once we combine operations, we'll know better what the future looks like."

Wiley has been trying to offload Frommer's since March, because it "no longer aligned with its long-term strategies." Translation: People can look up everything on their smartphones, anyway. Why bother making something as overhead-intensive as a travel guide any more? Even brands that are still holding strong, like Fodor's and DK, are moving toward apps and other  digital offerings.

Mr. Hernandez explains what Google sees in these properties:

"Consumers need fresh accurate information," said Mr. Hernandez. "When you add information you can trust to phone numbers and addresses as part of the Google search experience, it enables users to convert their intentions into actions."

All this is particularly interesting considering the effort Google has invested in providing StreetView versions of the world's great museums. Clearly, Google has no plans to cede its position as the place you look first for any answer or information you might every possibly need, on the Internet or IRL.

Just imagine it: Once all this gets integrated into a consumer version of Google Glasses, the only way to spot the American tourists will be the white athletic shoes. The 2020s are going to be a great decade for travel, you guys.

So wry, that Eric Schmidt. (Photo: Twitter)

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt shed some light on Google's self-driving car experiment at the Sun Valley conference yesterday, reports TechCrunch. Mr. Schmidt thinks that it's possible that self-driving cars will be the dominant form of transportation within our lifetimes. I know a lot of commuters with high blood pressure who will be happy to hear that.

Unfortunately, according to Mr. Schmidt, the cars do have one big problem that tech can't solve: They’re programmed never to go over the speed limit.

"The current biggest problem is that it runs at the speed limit and nobody drives at the speed limit,” he said. Ugh, are self-driving cars going to become the new "old people" of the freeway?

Of course, there's also that pesky problem of getting non-tech geeks to adapt to what essentially amounts to a robot with the power to maim and kill you. So does Mr. Schmidt think the luddites among us will be down to put their lives in the hands of a metal robot?

"Depends on how drunk they are," he quipped.

Larry Page. (Photo: Flickr.com/crazybob)

We'd long labored under the impression that, barring extreme extenuating circumstances, employees are expected to follow their boss's directives. Hence our surprise to see this little tidbit tucked into today's Wall Street Journal piece on Google's in-house educational program:

"There's a lot more persuasion involved because Googlers are really smart," says Scott Lederer, a former Google user-experience designer who left the company in 2011. "They are not going to do something for you just because of your title. You really have to make your case."

At the risk of sounding like old fogies, isn't it smart to do what your boss tells you, lest the company show you the door?

But apparently things work a little differently on Planet GOOG, because instead of just cracking the whip, the higher-ups get schooled on subtle managerial tactics.

Thus Google offers a special class for new managers and executives where they are taught how to exert influence in more subtle ways, says Ms. May. "One of the practicalities of a less hierarchical company is that you aren't necessarily going to have the position power to decree something or dictate something," she says.

Now, that doesn't sound Machiavellian at all. 

Personally? We'd rather deal with screaming than emotional jujitsu.

The end. (Photo: flickr.com/caterina)

Google's decluttering continues unabated. The latest products carted off to the garbage dump: iGoogle, Google Video, and Google Mini, plus Google Talk Chatback and the company's Symbian Search App.

As the announcement explains, "we need to focus—or we end up doing too much and not having the impact we strive for." To that end, one of the company's most redundant offerings is finally reaching its logical conclusion: Whatever's left on Google Video (which hasn't even accepted uploads since 2009) will be relocated to YouTube later this summer.

Similarly, Chatback is being shut down in favor of the Meebo bar.

The Google Mini enterprise offering gets the ax "because its functionality can be better provided by products like Google Search Appliance, Google Site Search and Google Commerce Search." And Symbian has to go because, well, it's a Symbian offering. Come on.

Of all the products being retired, though, iGoogle gets the most wistful treatment:

We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today's web and mobile apps would put personalized, real-time information at your fingertips. With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so we’ll be winding it down.

Strike the colors and play "Taps," boys, iGoogle is no more.

(Photo: Google)

At its I/O developer conference today, Google introduced a new hardware device that streams music and video to a variety of Wifi-connected devices. A black orb with a glowing blue stripe, the Nexus Q is not just pretty, it's Apple-quality pretty. In fact, as AllThingsD reports, its two main developers boast Apple design pedigrees.

But design isn't everything. Functionality and already-established technology habits could derail the Nexus Q's goal of catching up to the success of Apple's iTunes store.

The thorn in Nexus Q's side is the fact that its functionality, as a device running on the Android operating system, hinges entirely on Google Play. Play is an app store that recently pivoted from Android Market to encompass apps, music, games and books. Users can stream music and build collaborative social playlists on the Nexus Q using Google Play, but the problem is this: How many people actually pay to Play? Company stats don't reveal anything about Play's revenue breakdown.

Apple still has a death grip on the mobile music market; AllThingsD reports that iTunes accounted for "$1.9 billion in Apple’s overall revenue" last quarter. That's no pittance, and if Google seriously wants to compete with companies like Apple and Amazon in the streaming space, they're going to have to market the crap out of Google Play. Otherwise, we see the Nexus Q going the way of Google's other streaming device--the Google TV, which we owned for less than a year before it went totally kaput on us.

Google+ Local (via screencap)

And so Google's acquisition of Zagat finally bears fruit: Your parents' favorite dining guide is now the backbone of Google+ Local, which is replacing Google Places. So SoMoLo.

Here's the deal: Users can still write reviews. The integration with Zagat means those reviews will now be factored into the familiar score ranging from 1 to 30. Plus, expect some actual professionally written material thrown into the mix. (Imagine that.) The integration with Google+ means you'll also see reviews written by anyone in your Circles. (The bad news is you'll get the phantom ding from any unclosed Gchat conversations, which drives us batty.) 

Presumably they'll soon integrate with Google Maps, since Google Places is destined for the dustbin of Internet history, but it doesn't look like they're made the transition just yet.

Marissa Mayer explained to the New York Times that Google ultimately hopes to offer “pages for all known places" and that "Getting local search right is important, and to do that you need great reviews." What, and providing a sounding board for all your neighborhood's crankiest cranks doesn't achieve that aim?

The company's motives are also pretty obvious: According to Ms. Meyer, 20 percent of Google searches are for local information. The number on mobile: 40 percent. Losing those folks to competitors would not be a great outcome for the Goliath of search.

But a little playing around suggests Google has a ways to go before achieving first-stop restaurant reviewer status. Zagat might make for a good backbone, but there are still plenty of results that're just user generated (and not as extensive as, let's say, Yelp.) For example, this reporter looked up a random burek restaurant in her neighborhood and found underwhelming user-generated reviews and no overall Zagat rating. Another new hotspot (the branch campus to LIC's Dominie's Hoek) appeared not to have a page at all.

Back to Yelp for us for now.

Ms. Falque-Pierrotin (cnil.fr)

Mere weeks after being slapped with a $25,000 fine from America's own F.C.C., Google is antagonizing yet another government body with its tight-lipped, unhelpful responses.

All Things D reports that France's C.N.I.L., the data protection organization investigating the company's privacy policies on behalf of the EU, is none too pleased with the company right now. Whatever answers Google does provide are often "incomplete or approximate," and that simply won't do.

The C.N.I.L. sent Google a questionaire back in March; the company returned the questionaire in April. Representatives from the two organizations have also met in person. And yet, the French still don't have the information they want. And so now C.N.I.L. head Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin has taken to the Internet with a chiding public letter for CEO Larry Page. She writes: 

"For a large number of questions, the elements provided do not give a precise, clear and comprehensive response to our questions. While in some cases the questions themselves may have been misunderstood or not clearly expressed, many answers merely provide illustrative examples without describing the exact [processes], procedures or systems Google actually operates.”

Oh, and she's not done yet:

"The fact that Google's position on personal data processings is still unclear on many points after an in-depth exchange with the CNIL raises additional concerns about Google's adequate information of its users."

Translation: The fact we still don't get how you handle user data leads us to suspect shadiness.