"The future ain't what it used to be" Yogi Berra

While I am certain to get major pushback from my geek pals let me say Microsoft deserves praise for their Office Live beta products. I'm in the beta and used Live Basics to set up a simple four-page web site with email accounts for one of our small business operations. The process is good, no technical skills required, we had the site up in minutes. The folks at the store love it. The only major issue I have...one is not able to draft the pages...when you click ok or apply you're playing with live ammo. They should provide a preview function so you can do any clean up before you publish. Overall - high marks for the beta, excellent value proposition too, kudos to the MS Office Live team. Run a small business and need FREE domain name and hosting, and a professional looking site? Morning show? VO talent? Indy producer? Free lancer shooter? Check out the Basics package (upgrades available too) details here

While we're on betas. Invited to the Edgeio beta and I'm impressed. Having worked for some years in the online classifieds space I appreciate the good work that is going into the Edgeio design. For some it may be difficult to appreciate how slick their app really is...the current light population might be deceptive to the casual observer. Bravo, kudos and cheers to Michael Arrington and gang - you guys are on to something - have fun! Edgeio here - might wanna bookmark it for launch.

Hard to agree with everything he says but Daniel Gross' writing Twilight of the Blogs is getting more attention than last weeks New Yorker. Elizabeth Spiers serves up her view here. Dave Winer's take is here. Meanwhile, on blog technology, Jeff says it's time to blow up the blog here. Hey Safire even devoted his language column to blog parlance yesterday. Of the lot out there re Gross the best line, and pov imo, belongs to Elizabeth...

"But blog companies like Gawker and Weblogs Inc are fundamentally *media* companies. They're editorially driven, not technology driven. And if voice-y online editorial content supported by advertising doesn't work as a business, Gross might want to quit his job at Slate right now."

Bravo ES - can't wait for Dealbreaker (this gal knows greed is entertaining)