Category
-
03.04.08Hacking Google Reader no moreGoogle Reader quietly added another feature that further cements itself as my preferred feed reader. The GR team has implemented a drop-and-drag interface that allows me to reorder my tags. I've wanted this feature for a while. As you can see, I have hacked around this deficiency for a while, exploiting the alphabetical order algorithm and naming things with an underscore like "_must_see" or simply using tags that I know will hit the top of the list such as "a". Glad to see the team put some developmental bandwidth to this much needed feature.
-
02.14.08The Market’s opinion of Microsoft-YahooBelow is a market snapshot of the past two weeks with tech heavyweights GOOG, YHOO, and MSFT. February 1 marks the date the market learned of the Microsoft's unsolicited $44B bid for Yahoo. What's the market think? Long-term YHOO investors believe the deal will happen and seem ready for an exit. After all, MSFT's $31 per share bid is a %60 premium on the stock. Google is regaining a few points from it's recent slide on the news. Meanwhile, Microsoft's beleaguered stock continues to decline, down 11% since the offer. Ouch.
-
02.13.08Time Warner’s default-me-in opt-out redirect serviceTime Warner joins the ranks of big name ISPs that automatically redirect unresolved domain lookups to a company-owned landing page. I realized this today when Road Runner, Time Warner's broadband service, redirected me to a results page for a misspelled domain. The service was enabled by default. They do offer a means to opt-out. But, apparently it might not be that easy. Because of companies like Charter, I have to test if its is a true fix: Charter's way to "opt-out" is to put a cookie on your computer to redirect you to a fake ...
-
02.12.08Google’s contextual advantageI'm getting cozy with Google's Finance app. This is the dashboard that could. There are a couple of features that make this a must-open tab. For one, the page is constantly refreshed with up-to-date market data without a refresh or a [Ctrl]-[F5]. Second it aggregates my market outlook in a single dashboard view in only the way the Google keeps simple yet meaningful: my portfolios, index summaries, top movers, and news are all included. But more importantly, with it's finger constantly on the pulse of the Web, Google can match market changes with market changing data. I noticed ...
-
12.12.07Facebook’s wall slowly crumblesThe Internet provides one of our greatest opportunities to study the "invisible hand" of a (virtually) free market economy. The network owned by no one, yet everyone fosters a level of democracy previously unseen. Competition between online properties is therefore very interesting and transparent as seen in Facebook's counter to OpenSocial. This move should should spur yet more developer interest in the platform now that it will presumably grow beyond a single domain and will quell some of the comparisons made between AOL and FB. I say some because it still looks an awful lot like a ...
-
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. ...
-
07.12.07Facebook’s outrageous $6B price tagJohn Battelle asks what would justify a $6B acquisition price for Facebook, 200 times current estimated earnings of $30 million a year. It got me thinking. After all, in 2002, tons of folks were asking the same question. Why Google, why now, when there were dozens of other search engines out there? Last time, there was an easy answer: PageRank. Is there an easy answer this time? I don't see one. Do you? I think Facebook is clearly trying to get into the identity game. They are now farming out their R&D to developers via their platform while focusing on their core business of ...
-
06.22.07The Paris Hilton Litmus TestDoes the shift of keyword count at this year's Supernova Conference from relevant industry leaders to celebrities such as Paris Hilton indicate the Web is going mainstream. Paul Kedrosky thinks so. While it may be true that the frontiers of mainstream media on the Web are just now being explored, gossip and celebrity mishaps have long been a driver of traffic to seemingly irrelevant sites. BusinessWeek's August 14, 2006 cover story Valley Boy discusses the rise of the (then) new wave of development on the Internet. The accompanying podcast mentions that social news aggregator digg received it's first big break ...
recent posts
- The Wallstrip Edge [Book Terser]
- How to name your own price
- Keep your worthless predictions
- The Definitive Book of Body Language [Book Terser]
- Terse Reviews
- Flatten; because users are lazy.
- P(recession) = 1, P(American is shopper) = 1
twitter.com/dougwtwitter.com/dougw -
Contact Doug Williams
