One thing that’s real interesting on my Google interviews is to listen to Mark Lucovsky talk about getting a customer Web developer’s request about Google’s new videobar, coding it during the evening, and having the change up on the guy’s site the next morning.

That brings me back to earlier this week when I complained about a splogger that was in Google and Technorati’s search engine. Both of those removed that guy within a few hours.

I’m hearing more and more about Google reacting quickly to feature requests on blogs like this.

That’s something I want to encourage more of. Can Microsoft keep up with this speed?

Why isn’t Ray Ozzie out in front of bloggers like Mark Lucovsky is? Is he going to “shock and awe” the world?

He just might have something cool up his sleeve, but I like the unexciting approach a lot better. I’m noticing a lot of the Google products I’m using are getting little updates every few days. Most you can’t even notice, but many you can.

Having a big company ship a fix that you request — and do it overnight — is very satisfying. It builds a brand loyalty that will be hard to beat.

What about you? Are you noticing this behavior at Microsoft? Yahoo? Google? Ask?

Weekend project: add bling to your blog.

Well, OK, add some gadgets, a custom search engine, that kind of thing.

Two fun video interviews just got posted to ScobleShow that show you how to do that.

First is with Mark Lucovsky (50 minute video). That guy is smart. He was the “impetus behind Microsoft’s Hailstorm (an idea ahead of its time — listen to my apology). He shows you how to use Google’s AJAX Search and other JavaScript code pieces from Google on your blog. We start out with one of my standard who-are-you-and-what-do-you-do interviews, but then Mark starts showing me some really cool sites.

Mark’s video bar rocks. I wish I could put that on my blog here (WordPress.com keeps me from including JavaScript, so I can’t put gadgets/code bits like Mark shows off on my blog).

Oh, and the map demo he showed off is really neat.

Second is with Shashi Seth (25 minute video), who works on Google Co-Op. After an interview where we learn more about that, he also shows us how to make a custom search engine and embed that on our blog. He has a custom search engine example on his own blog, which is all for wine freaks.

These are pretty long, but I think you’ll enjoy them and learn something about Google’s approach going forward.

For those of you who are Google Watchers, these will probably be the best looks into the minds of Google that we’ve had so far. Completely unedited.

Sorry that I don’t have a microphone on me, one of my microphones broke and a replacement is getting bought.

This post was made for these bloggers:

Ben Metcalfe (geek who did innovative stuff at BBC, but now is part of an interesting marketing/PR agency)
Dori Smith (who, got me to start blogging six years ago today and is one of the top JavaScript authors in the world)
Blake Ross (Firefox dev)
Dare Obasanjo (my favorite Microsoft dev who blogs)
Shelley Powers (who is one of the world’s JavaScript experts)
Google Maps Mania
The Unofficial Google Weblog
Google Blogoscoped
Mike Gunderloy, who has one of the best link blogs for developers around
Matt Cutts, my favorite Google blogger.
Molly Holtzschlag, XHTML guru.
Matt Mullenweg (give us the ability to use Gadgets on WordPress.com, please!)
Richard MacManus of Read/Write Web
Gina Trapani of LifeHacker (who would love these techniques)
Phil Torrone of Make Magazine (make your own Gadgets!)
Mary Jo Foley (who is interested in what ex-Microsofties are doing at Google)
Dave Winer, who’ll probably have something to say about all this.
Map Blog (Cool blog about maps)

Those WordPress developers been building a community and the new WordPress.com home page is really great.

I told Om Malik yesterday (I had lunch with him over on Pier 38 at TrueVentures’ offices — thanks to TrueVentures for the sushi, by the way!) that my reign at #1 is almost over. His “Web Worker Daily” was at the #2 spot yesterday, and I expect him to overtake my blog soon.

Speaking of Om, it’s his fifth blogging birthday today. Congrats Om, and can’t wait to see what else you’ll do. I notice the number of tabs along the top of Om’s page are increasing in number.

I also talked with Automattic’s CEO, Toni Schneider, yesterday (that’s the company that makes WordPress) and he told me they are looking at ways to turn on advertising without encouraging spammers to join their service (they want to keep WordPress.com as spam and splog-free as possible, which is one reason why they are keeping people from advertising).

It’s interesting that most people haven’t caught onto the community aspects of WordPress.com. The new home page surfaces popular tags where you can taste some of the community aspects there. More stuff coming soon, Toni says.

Oh, and Microsoft has a new home page too today. How come no one sent me the “it’s new home page day” memo? Heheh.