VivaBusiness 2.0

I spent the morning looking at a number of laptops that will launch this summer. Lots of whizzy things! But this one right here was my favorite:

One of the manufacturers actually offers a "Downgrade to Windows XP" feature. I am not making this up. "You can easily uninstall Windows Vista, and install XP," the spokesman assured me. (This stuff was embargoed, otherwise, I'd tell you who.) He pointed out that this was a big problem for business users: They get a new lappy, take it to their IT guy for the corporate build, and the first thing he does is rips out Vista and replaces it with XP. The user has to then go and figure out how to get all the drivers to work with his new, fab, laptop. But now, with the new Uninstall Vista feature? You can automatically replace all your drivers. That new laptop will be as good as old!

It's a terrific point of competitive differentiation between this laptop maker and others. As I said yesterday, these are hard times for Mister Softie.

One thing I hate: Buying music. I haven't bought a CD or MP3 for years. Instead, I subscribe to music — I pay a small monthly fee to Rhapsody and can access most of the world's music (more than 5 million songs) by streaming it via the Net to my home audio system. I can listen to just about any song I want, any time, anywhere. That's known, in the geekosphere, as "music dial tone."

So where's video dial tone?

[Read the rest of my TIME Magazine column here.]

Thanks to a new Google project, soon any Website can be its own Facebook.

Upping the stakes in its ongoing battle with the popular social network, Google announced today that it was getting into the "social plumbing" business — giving every website a way to add a limitless number of applications and a means for those sites' users to communicate among themselves.

The initiative is called Friend Connect and it begins tonight when any site can apply to be in the Google pilot program (they call it a "preview release") here. Note: that site won't be live until Monday night. During the next few days, Google will choose one or two dozen sites to participate. Over the course of the next several months, the company will collect site, user and developer feedback on how the program is working. Then, if all goes well, in a few months Google will open up Friend Connect to any website or blog that wants to participate.

Here's how it'll work. (And forgive me for using my blog as an example; we need the traffic.)

(The rest of my time.com story is here.)

Facebook Wants to Friend You

[Image: LA Times.com]

Last night, I was in New York for the Time 100 dinner, and arrived at the same time as Craig Newmark. There was a long, red carpet out front and people lined up at the curb to see the celebs. (Robert Downey Jr., Rupert Murdoch, John McCain, Mariah Carey & etc.) Mike Arrington, Jay Adelson, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg were among the geeks honored this year.

One of the things about the 100 is, once you're inducted, you can return to future Time 100 dinners—which is why Craig was there. As we walked in, he told me he'd been to three so far. I trotted along behind him but stopped when we had to go through a kind of chute that was lined with with photographers. "Who are you?" one of them yelled. "Craig Newmark," said his publicist. I hung back with her as Craig sauntered onto the firing line.

You would have thought Paris Hilton had just arrived. The paparazzi went nuts, blasting away at old Craig. I figured he'd be mortified, but no, he was clearly enjoying himself and even pulled out a Coolpix and snapped some shots of the shooters shooting him. "For my blog!" he explained. I wish everyone were sa sweet as that guy.

Immortalized in Episode Two of Sn4tchbuckl3r's's Second Chance. Thanks, guys!

I don't know anything about art, but I know a little about Google. And I Googled this: Jeff Koons.

He's the artist whose "Chrome Tulips" decorated Google's minimalist search box yesterday morning. Lovely stuff. Beneath the empty box was a link to something called iGoogle Artist Themes ("What happens when great art mixes with your homepage?") Users who clicked on the link got to choose from among 70 artists' "themes." From the likes of such commercial artists as Marc Ecko, Diane von Furstenberg, NIGO, Michael Graves and Dolce Gabbana, users could select a theme and personalize their iGoogle page, a place that Google dearly hopes will quickly become your start page.

It seems pretty sweet. More free stuff from Google! And, by the way, raise your hand if you never used iGoogle or even knew it existed.

Read more on Time.com