The big thing these days is the “cloud.” The online cluster of applications and services that enable users to use and store information on hosted servers accessible 24/7. Well in theory anyway. yes, at least 23.87/6.92 but not all the time. Case in point was logging on today and checking G-Mail only to be shown an error message. Not a comfortable feeling. This isn’t Twitter or FriendFeed fun and somewhat useful services-this in fact was my e-mail lifeline with the outside.

Fortunately my anxiety was limited to only about 15 minutes. It sure makes you think though. I’m going to give some thought to putting back-up system in place. Thanks for the wake-up call Google.

China Vortex put together a few links for those interested in news about and/or are interested in donating to help the victims of the Sichuan Wenchang earthquake of May 12 tragedy.

* Danwei earthquake updates
* Shanghaiist earthquake coverage
* MSNBC earthquake coverage
* BBC earthquake coverage
* Guardian earthquake coverage
* Youtube video earthquake coverage
* Tianya public forum
* Tudou video earthquake coverage
* QQ news center
* Sohu news center
* Sina news center
* CNReviews 24+ ways to give
* China Esquire earthquake update news and donation information

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Jerry Yang and Yahoo have been in the tech news a lot lately due having his “Texas Hold ‘Em” style bluff called by Miscrosoft’s Steve Ballmer. Sure it’s easy to second guess Jerry, and understand why shareholders would be really pissed at him in this world of , “Hey you made me lots of money 7 minutes ago but what have you done for me lately?” thinking and ethics. Yang’s biggest sin is being faithful to his cultural DNA. He is of Chinese descent. The Chinese are almost exclusively family businesses and are run like a family not like a company. Hence, there is a ton of emotion and passion tied-up in them. It’s very hard to distance one’s self from one’s company under the Chinese model way since they are so intertwined.

I am a small business owner myself and can empathize with Yang completely on this point. Sadly, I don’t have the comfort factor of hundreds of millions of dollars at my disposal to walk away gracefully and do something else. That’s the point though-Jerry is probably more focused on the intertwined identity of Yahoo/yang more than the financials. He has a lot to be proud of and his bruised ego will heal. Yahoo once a disruptor and trend setter has become a poorly managed behemoth. Time once again for Wall Street to devour what it has created.

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