Two things today: first, I’m writing (for the first time in a while) in print today on Google, which is facing flack despite being a quite remarkable success story - or maybe because it’s such a remarkable success story.

Its telephony announcement is a bold move. It seems reports earlier this year, over which I expressed some doubts, were closer to the mark than first thought, although this has nothing to do with BT, and rather more to do with Microsoft, as our coverage notes.

This is a much bigger deal than mapping services, or free email, although it’s hard to see how Google can successfully apply its advertising model to telephone calls. Perhaps it doesn’t plan to, which should concern its rivals even more; a move to create a billing relationship with users would be one hell of an interesting move.

Whatever happens, Microsoft is not - by any means - under siege yet, but for the first time they can probably hear the gunfire in Seattle.

Today’s second thing: David Sifry has chipped in to an interesting series of comments on the Technorati post. David - top dog at Technorati - could be forgiven for roundly flaming me for my 500-word dismissal of his baby, but instead he admits to problems and promises better very soon.

While I’ve been disappointed for a while in Technorati, I’m very impressed the top brass is out among the blogs explaining what’s going on. It’s a wee case study in good, blog-aware PR.

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