August 2007
The Archives
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08.29.07The Internet works againTake a look at how Chris Rose's fortune changes (again) regarding his interesting experience with Oprah's show in As not read by Oprah. It's a classic let-my-horrible-personal-experience-scream-about-my-new-book marketing play. It was pure linkbait (hell, I took it). Now all the search engines will see his name and title near Oprah's name on top of thousands of incoming links -- in other words, he'll still sell millions. That's all it takes these days.
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08.22.07Briefly: GooTube’s ad-model is more of the sameIf you haven't noticed yet, YouTube has finally gotten around to a scalable business model with ads now appearing during some videos. The unobtrusive overlays reserve ten seconds of time 15 seconds into a clip. My favorite part of my source article was the findings of Google's market research: YouTube has spent months testing different ad formats ... It found that viewers abandon videos that include pre-roll ads at a rate of more that 70%, so it ditched pre-roll commercials. Pre-rolls are those nasty ads that you are forced to watch -- in full -- before accessing any content. ...
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08.15.07Development: The First Development Difficulty - Effort SizingI am starting my next personal software project now, parsse, and I want to share some of the difficulties with software development along the way. I recently read Dreaming In Code which cronicles the many short-comings on an effort to code a single project (fantastic book; appropriate for non-programmer types) and expounds on development problems in general. I also started professional development work. This has all got my brain churning so allow me to think aloud. One of my personal struggles with any software project is how much engineering should be done. It is often easy to bang out ...
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08.11.07There is room for more social networksThe takeaway from Reid Hoffman's recent interview about LinkedIn: there is room for niche players in the social networking space despite the headline grabbing businesses. The nauseating comparisons to Facebook continued, but he defends social networks -- such as his professionally-targeted site -- as tools each with their strengthens and markets. Om's fourth Hitline is that there are too many social networks and they are all looking the same, BUT they need to break out and do one thing well in agreement with Reid's message. The money quote: ... at the end of the day, the only social network that ...
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08.07.07Let the Wall fall downMost content companies these days make their money online with advertisements and parnterships, not subscriptions. That's why I have always been surprised by the TimesSelect subscription model on nytimes.com. Clearly this was a way to try and milk a little revenue from non-print readers. The frugal among us long been free to browse the Times' main articles but were forced to either pass on this paid content or source it from a search engine. Not any more. The New York Post is reporting that the Times will move to provide the TimesSelect content for free to all users. I am certainly ...
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08.06.07It would be a good idea if it were welcomeInteresting... Educators in some conflict-ridden societies are using a textbook from Israel that forces students to synthesize two conflicting interpretations of history, reports Newsweek. The Peace Research Institute in the Middle East has published three booklets that divide pages into one column for the Israeli version of history, the second for the Palestinian version, and the third left blank for the student to fill in. One book describes Zionism as “the continual connection of the people of Israel to the land of Israel” while an adjacent column calls it the “imperialist political movement that bestowed a nationalist characteristic to the ...
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08.06.07A RSS feed for every webpageI just found a convenient little tool called Page2RSS. The service will monitor any host you submit and update a RSS feed covering the submitted site when changes to the destination appear. I've always wanted a service like this to update me on sites I care about like the oh so HTML4.0 Backwoods Orienteering Klub website and namely the schedule.
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08.06.07The promise that never happenedI'd have to disagree that this is what Web 2.0 (I know, it's jumped the shark) was supposed to become. What ever happened to the Internet as a service. Where data was mixed and matched in new and innovative ways. Sure it's great that users can create new and interesting feedback in services but honestly, what's so great about that if I can't remix those data into new views?
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08.05.07Factoid: Less than half of America’s TV buffs own…Less than half of America's TV buffs own HDTV programming for their crystal clear screens. From this weeks GigaOm Show: In June 2007, IGN reported that HDTV saturation in the US reached 30%. In other words, three oout of every ten American households now own at least one HDTV. Problem is, only 44% of those HDTV owners are receiving HD programming! Maybe they are waiting alongside me for something sexy like HDTV over IP to finally make TV viewing a more interactive experience. That's when I'll consider abandoning my current stretch as a TV-less Luddite. Wonder what ...
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08.05.07Will the real Steve Jobs please stand up?Looks like someone let the cat out of the bag. Fake Steve Jobs is a senior editor at Forbes by the name of Daniel Lyons. It's been a good ride lasting 14 months but the bittersweet moment when FSJ was no longer anonymous had to be expected. Even though I don't expect the blog to be as enjoyable as it has been, I will still get the book book due out this October.
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