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| Furl has a new UI |
| Furl has a new look and feel! We would love to hear what you think of our new UI. To take our survey, please click Here. Huge thanks to our Beta Testers for providing crucial feedback to us. Additional changes... |
Furl has a new look and feel! We would love to hear what you think of our new UI. To take our survey, please click Here. Huge thanks to our Beta Testers for providing crucial feedback to us. Additional changes will go live over the next few weeks as we incorporate your feedback into the new UI. Finally, we have resolved a few bugs with this latest release. Most notably, email functionality across the site is back up and running. Thanks to all of your for your patience!
Regards, |
| Live Radio to Podcasting Comes Full Circle |
| I think it is very interesting that podcasting is going towards live radio at new sites like BlogTalkRadio.com. I watched a Scoble show episode with Alan Levy, CEO of BlogTalkRadio.com recently and it was like this concept was totally new online. While I like to see this coming to life again, it is just not new and is a new as old idea. I think that seeing people getting all excited about this development is funny as it is only new to people who are new to the online radio space and don't have an understanding of the history of online radio. The thing that is new about BlogTalkRadio.com is that it is free to have a show on the network. The earlier companies charged a fee to host a show on the network. I am sure that BlogTalkRadio.com will put these earlier companies out of business with a no fee business model. Just visit WorldTalkRadio.com that I consulted with 4 years ago and you will see what I mean. You can also see WSRadio.com. |
| Sitting Ducks - 7:25am |
| In an alligator-eat-duck world, an unlikely friendship develops between Bill the duck and Aldo the alligator - two creatures on opposite ends of the food chain. This second series offers more interesting adventures, and lots of fun. |
| Jeanette Symons, Founder Imbee and Zhone, Dies in Plane Crash |
Symons co-founded the big ticket telcom firm Zhone Technologies, then the family-centered social network Imbee/Industrious Kid. I wrote about Imbee's funding announcement in early 2006 and about Symons' vision for the company a few months later. Readers interested in this trailblazing woman in tech might also appreciate this interview with Symons at GirlGeeks.org. May she rest in peace. |
Tech entrepreneur Jeanette Symons | The Industry Standard Returns - Will It Stick? |
The Industry Standard will relaunch today in public beta as a strictly online publication coupled with a futures market. We got a chance to check it out early and speak with Derek Butcher, the magazine's General Manager. According to Butcher, the magazine's brand still had so much equity left in it, that publisher IDG (who was an investor in the original magazine and bought out the publication's assets) couldn't resist trying it again. Now that Silicon Valley is hot once more, and ad dollars are flowing on the web, it seemed like a good time to try relaunching the business mag. There's just one problem: blogs have this space covered to death. So rather than focus on breaking news, the Standard is opting to focus instead of analysis of the business and technology news. Content will be short editorials (300-400 words) that break down business news written by outside contributors (that is, bloggers, analysts, and industry pundits will submit content to the Standard for publication). It's an editorial approach that Butcher seemed to describe as one part ReadWriteWeb and one part Huffington Post -- though unlike HuffPo, the Standard will pay its contributors, and unlike RWW, the focus will be on business over tech analysis. "No single voice will dominate the discussion, which is why we decided to forgo the somewhat print-centric idea of an editor in chief, despite talking to some great people for the position," said managing editor Ian Lamont in a press release. "We want readers to get viewpoints from the widest range of contributors possible, with the common theme being that these contributors are all people who believe that the Web is a major paradigm shift in business."
However, the editorial isn't the most intriguing part of the relaunch. What really sticks out about the new Industry Standard is the prediction market. A prediction market is something like a stock exchange where the cash value of assets is tied to predictions. People invest in predictions they think will come true with the idea being that the more people who predict something, the more likely it should be to actually happen in real life. Most prediction markets in the US use play money because of gambling restrictions, and the Industry Standard's is no different. Users start out with $100,000 in play funds and invest in time sensitive predictions like, "Apple will ship 10 million iPhones in 2008," or "Yahoo! will accept Microsoft's takeover bid by February 8." Users can also suggest predictions, which are in turn voted up or down by other users. Prediction markets have shown a remarkable tendency to accurately predict the future, and the Industry Standard's market can theoretically be used to keep writers honest. Any writer who is constantly throwing out wild predictions can have his ideas tested on the open market. Butcher hopes that the prediction market will have a reciprocative effect on the editorial, with writers playing off the things people are betting on in the market, and the market reacting to the things people are writing about. The market is very well designed and rather easy to use, but will it, coupled with the out sourced editorial content, be enough to recapture the late-90s magic that made the Industry Standard a household name? The other quintessential Silicon Valley magazine of the dot-com boom was RedHerring, which relaunched in August as a web-based publication (including a video site and social network) to little fanfare. RedHerring's traffic has actually declined since then, according to Compete, and even articles on big stories like the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! only attract a handful of comments -- compared to, say over 800 on Digg -- and thousands if you count how many times the story made the main page. It's possible that the media market has shifted so much since the late-90s that magazines will never be able to reinvent themselves on the web in the face of competition from a now established and well-connected blogosphere and user-powered aggregation of sources (like Digg and Reddit). But the Standard is probably smart to eschew the traditional editorial structure and follow the example set by successful blogs communities like the Huffington Post and Seeking Alpha, by bringing together a group of outside contributors who may already have a readership elsewhere. Try out the Standard web site and prediction market and tell us what you think. Can the Industry Standard return to glory or will they flame out again? Let us know in the comments below. |
In 2000, the Industry Standard was one of the hottest magazines on the planet. It was flush with VC dollars and sold 
| Weekly Wrapup, 28 Jan - 1 Feb 2008 |
Here is a summary of the week in Web technology on ReadWriteWeb. Reminder to PR people and startups: If you would like ReadWriteWeb to consider covering your product, you should email us at tips@readwriteweb.com. This address is monitored daily by all our main bloggers. Pitch emails sent to my personal email address almost always get forwarded to the tips address, so skip the middleman by emailing tips! Due to volume, we cannot respond to every email - but be assured that they are being read and considered by our writing team. Web NewsThe top story this week came right at the end: Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo!. It's a huge story and Marshall Kirkpatrick had RWW's analysis:
DEMO CoverageThis week the venerable DEMO conference was held and Marshall Kirkpatrick was at the show for ReadWriteWeb. Here is his coverage during the week:
Web TrendsWhy the Music Industry is Lying to You
MTV Election Coverage is a Coup for Citizen Journalism
How YOU Can Make the Web More Structured
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY Web ProductsThe Rise of Twitter as a Platform for Serious Discourse
Have Facebook Apps Peaked in Popularity?
The New Browser War: Mobile Firefox vs. Opera Mini
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. |
In other news, this week Google 
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) last week released their latest report, summing up the digital music landscape at the start of 2008. The IFPI claims in the report that for every legal music download, there are 20 illegal downloads taking place. Or in other words, illegal downloading is happening at a rate that is 20 times that of legal downloading. This, says the IFPI, lead to US$3.7 billion in industry losses. But there are some big holes in that claim.
As part of MTV's coverage of the 2008 presidential elections in the US, the media network assembled a "street team" of 51 amateur journalists -- one in each state and the District of Columbia -- to file blog reports, photos, videos, and audio podcasts about election issues during the course of the campaign season. The videos are being syndicated to MTV's mobile web site, social network, and to the Associate Press Online Video Network. Members of the street team have been outfitted with laptops, video phones, and other popular tools of the citizen journalist via funding from a $700,000 grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge.
We have written a lot here about the the vision of building a 
For 2007, our 
There appears to be evidence that Facebook users are beginning to suffer from app fatigue, and there is growing discontent about how applications are being distributed and about the amount of noise that the application platform has introduced into the Facebook ecosystem. As 
Last October, Mozilla | Odelay's Secret History | ||
| Beck tells the stories behind his newly reissued classic I thought Odelay might be the last time I got a chance to make a record," Beck says of his 1996 album. "I was acutely aware that I was thought of as a one-hit wonder." But almost twelve years later, Odelay is the definitive Beck album, full of funk, noise and sliced-up jokes. It's now receiving the deluxe reissue treatment, with an edition that adds nineteen outtakes, remixes and B sides. Beck reminisces about his landmark disc at the Hollywood studio where he's quickly recording a new one... | ||
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| Rumer Willis Gets Tossed! |
| Hollywood clubs have been letting in underage kids for too long! However, Villa, recently booted Rumer Willis out for being 19. I thought they would have booted her out for being ugly. Sadly, Willis, was able to drive over to Hyde to get her party on. Of course if I was her bartender, [...] |
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Hollywood clubs have been letting in underage kids for too long! However, Villa, recently booted Rumer Willis out for being 19. I thought they would have booted her out for being ugly. Sadly, Willis, was able to drive over to Hyde to get her party on. Of course if I was her bartender, I would have asked if she wanted paper or plastic with her drink. Not for her drink but for her face! OH YEAH! That makes me both disturbed and funny! Source: Bam! |
| J Lo’s Baby Pics Worth $6 Million!? |
| “I’d be giving birth too if it was a $6 million dollar pay-off!” With Jennifer Lopez about to deliver twins, the star turned hack might just be able to cover her kids college fund with their baby photos. According to MSNBC via TMZ: People reportedly is paying $6 million for the snaps. And to add to that [...] |
“I’d be giving birth too if it was a $6 million dollar pay-off!” With Jennifer Lopez about to deliver twins, the star turned hack might just be able to cover her kids college fund with their baby photos. According to MSNBC via TMZ:
And to add to that OK! will have international rights giving it a stepping stone to launch OK! Spain. I don’t get how someone like Lopez, who hasn’t made a decent choice (music, movies, and mate), will be getting so much for her baby’s photos. With her doing nothing as of late, she should be lucky that Walgreens would have printed them for free. |
| Hot Gossip Blogs |
| Today is President’s day. I’m not quite sure what that means to me or you but I do know it’s a national holiday, which pretty much means I’m going to start drinking in the early afternoon. Have fun with these other awesome blogs: Drunken Stepfather Dlisted The Bastardly Celebrity Smack Celebitchy Celeb Slam I’m Not Obsessed The Skinny Website Horny Oyster Hollywood Backwash Popbytes The Feeding Tube [...] |
Today is President’s day. I’m not quite sure what that means to me or you but I do know it’s a national holiday, which pretty much means I’m going to start drinking in the early afternoon. Have fun with these other awesome blogs: |
| Andrey Golub :: Voice Mobility Introduces Google Apps: the same change that Salesforce.com once brought to the CRM market |
Voice Mobility Introduces Google Apps™UCN Vmerge is the first UC solution for Google Apps in the Workplace and Campus MarketsVancouver, BC, CANADA – February 14, 2008 – Voice Mobility International, Inc. (TSX: VMY, OTCBB: VMII and FWB: VMY), a Vancouver-based developer and provider of carrier and enterprise enhanced messaging solutions, today announced its new Google Apps™ functionality, a first in the enterprise market. Voice Mobility’s UCN Vmerge is now integrated with the Google Apps solution suite to provide workplace and campus customers full collaboration functionality. The Google Apps suite includes Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Contacts, Mobile apps and other collaboration tools all using the workplace or campus domain. UCN Vmerge adds unified communications to complete messaging, collaboration, calendaring and presence functionality. Enterprise clients want the ability to enable their enterprise voice and fax communications to work seamlessly with Gmail. UCN Vmerge allows full on-premise or hosted enterprise PBX integration with a hosted personalized Gmail service. Industry analysts have calculated that the average IT manager spends 75% of their budget on infrastructure maintenance, leaving a small amount for new technology. With Google Apps, free or premium service combined with the cost-effective UCN Vmerge solutions, IT managers can roll out new technology to keep pace with consumer technology. “By integrating UCN Vmerge with Google Apps, workplace and campus customers have price-effective options for collaboration functionality,” said Mike Seeley, Voice Mobility’s VP of Global Sales. “This is like deploying a full Microsoft® Exchange® server, Active Directory® and Office Communication Server® at a fraction of the cost. No longer are customers forced to utilize expensive on-premise solutions from providers like Microsoft for collaboration functionality." "The market has asked for this type of solution and Voice Mobility is proud to be the first to bring it to the market. This new functionality will bring the same change to the workplace and campus markets that Salesforce.com® brought to the CRM market. Combine this functionality with our mobile applications and we can deliver unified communications on all Symbian™, Windows Mobile® or Blackberry® devices.” UCN Vmerge enables users to access voice, fax and email messages directly from their Gmail account and synchronize all messages across all their devices — in essence, gluing the Google Apps to the enterprise telephony infrastructure. For example, if an email is heard via the user’s mobile device, it will be show as ‘read’ in their Gmail account. Other functionality enables users to:
As is standard with all Voice Mobility’s UCN solutions, included are message waiting indication and message notifications, mobile workforce integration and offline access to the user’s inbox. Our next UCN Vmerge release will offer PBX presence integration with Google Talk and other exciting features. The combined collaboration suite is easy to set up and manage: Google Apps is installed in six easy steps, and UCN Vmerge is compatible with the majority of PBX and Centrex solutions in the market. n most cases, one day is all it takes for a certified Voice Mobility technician to install the UCN Vmerge product with flexible training and support options available. Workplace or campus customers also have the choice between purchasing the UCN Vmerge solution outright or selecting managed or hosted solutions from Voice Mobility and its certified partners. For more information about Voice Mobility’s product line or how to purchase Voice Mobility solutions, please contact one of our sales representatives. For Immediate Release |
| Idol’s Chris Sligh Cuts a Record Deal |
| He came into Idol's season 6 Birmingham auditions with a fun, quirky style and a voice that could knock your socks off. So it's really no big surprise to see that American Idol 6 contestant Chris Sligh has scored a record deal and will be releasing an album later this summer. Sligh, ... |
| Bush Calls for Action on Darfur - Wall Street Journal | ||
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| I became a celebrity :) |
| Hello guys, Recently I have got, it’s really funny “Today I became a celebrity, it drives me mad! My new producer Michael said I would have to try my best and listen to those experienced guys who would make my movie. He also said that I must accommodate him to reach the success in that shooting. It [...] |
Hello guys, “Today I became a celebrity, it drives me mad! My new producer Michael said I would have to try my best and listen to those experienced guys who would make my movie. He also said that I must accommodate him to reach the success in that shooting. It was very important for me! That’s why I agreed and followed him to his penthouse apartment. He said: “You are a pretty chick, Carol, listen to me and I’ll make you a starâ€. I said that I would be an obedient girl. He smiled and commanded me to stay on my knees and unfasten his zipper. I did… My god, that was a huge strained cock, I saw it right ahead of my eyes! I passed my tongue over his dick-head and took all his gun in my mouth then. Uhh, I could hardly breath! Then he said: “Look at the camera, all the film unit will enjoy your celebrity sex tapeâ€. That was an earth-shattering piece of news for me, but he ordered me to get naked and go down on all fours, showing him my sensitive small holes. Brrr! I felt myself absolutely helpless! He stuck his huge stony cock right into my asshole, and I could think just about his hard immovable cock pulsatile inside me and the camera behind me… |
| Samsung M520 Slim Slider Unveiled | |||
| Sprint today announced the Samsung M520, a new slim slider that lets users access the web, find local restaurants, watch live television, download their favorite songs, send text messages or use GPS to find their way home. Offering multi-tasking capabilities, customers can play music in background mode while also using the phone for text messaging, playing games or surfing the Internet. Operating on Sprint's broadband network, the M520 provides access to Sprint multimedia content, including: - S... | |||
Sprint today announced the Samsung M520, a new slim slider that lets users access the web, find local restaurants, watch live television, download their favorite songs, send text messages or use GPS to find their way home. Offering multi-tasking capabilities, customers can play music in background mode while also using the phone for text messaging, playing games or surfing the Internet. Operating on Sprint's broadband network, the M520 provides access to Sprint multimedia content, including: - Sprint Navigation, powered by Telenav, with GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings
The M520 is integrated with basics including web access, SMS voice and text messaging, Phone as Modem, picture caller ID, Wireless Backup and a microSD slot supporting up to 4 GB of memory (64 MB card enclosed). Additional features include stereo Bluetooth with audio caller ID that lets users identify callers with their voice while they listen to music and a 1.3-megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom and camcorder functionality. The Samsung M520 is now available in all Sprint retail channels starting at $49.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract. Related News Articles
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| LG KF700 Touch Screen Phone Competes with iPhone | |
| LG Electronics today announced the launch of the KF700, a new multimedia phone that combines three input methods. As the world's first phone with three separate input methods, the KF700 integrates a 3-inch touch screen, alpha-numeric keypad and Shortcut Dial. With its user-optimized navigation, all of the phone's functions and features are instantly accessible. The KF700's 3-inch full touch screen provides access to features and its wide aspect ratio makes it ideal for watching movies or browsin... | |
LG Electronics today announced the launch of the KF700, a new multimedia phone that combines three input methods. As the world's first phone with three separate input methods, the KF700 integrates a 3-inch touch screen, alpha-numeric keypad and Shortcut Dial. With its user-optimized navigation, all of the phone's functions and features are instantly accessible. The KF700's 3-inch full touch screen provides access to features and its wide aspect ratio makes it ideal for watching movies or browsing the internet. From the main screen users can flip through several handy widgets, including a calendar, scheduler, and memo pad, with the swipe of a finger. The large touch screen also means that the phone can provide an adaptable on-screen interface, rather than tying users to a fixed, preset button layout. The Shortcut Dial on the back of the phone scrolls through six user-selected features by controlling a virtual dial on screen, rather than digging through menus. The Shortcut Dial can also be used to scroll through web pages or emails, adjust volume and perform other functions for which a wheel is naturally better. "Our consumers told us that they wanted a phone that had plenty of multimedia features, but doesn't take a long time fiddling with menus to figure out. We created the LG KF700 based their insight," said Dr. Skott Ahn, CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. "Internal research showed that a phone's multimedia features often lay dormant if they are hard to access. On many phones these features are hidden deep in menus, requiring too much time and effort to find them. The LG KF700 eliminates these endless menus with its intuitive interface and multiple input methods." Most of the new touch screen phones currently available eliminate some formerly universal features like the alpha-numeric keypad. LG incorporated a slide-down alpha-numeric keypad to simplify the process of making calls and typing text messages. When browsing the internet on the wide touch screen, the shortcut dial zooms in and out on websites. When sending text messages, the alpha-numeric keypad provides the letters, while frequently used symbols are readily available on the touch screen. These symbols change based on users text messaging habits. One of the KF700's multimedia features is a web browser that provides access to Google Search, Blogs, Gmail, Maps and Youtube. Support for HSDPA 3G networks makes web browsing fast and other features like video telephony possible. Other features include an MP3 player, MPEG4 video player, 3.0-megapixel camera, Bluetooth connectivity and more. The LG KF700 will be available in Europe in mid March and will become available in other markets in the months following. Related News Articles
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| LG KF600 Mind-Reading Phone Introduced | |
| LG Electronics introduced the LG KF600, a stylish slider offering InteractPad, replacing physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys. The LG KF600's InteractPad and virtual menu keys show the exact keys users need to complete the task at hand eliminating distractions. More flexible than standard hardware keys, the KF600 eliminates the need to memorize which key performs what function. The virtual keys are also larger and better spaced than physical keys, improving accuracy. The I... | |
LG Electronics introduced the LG KF600, a stylish slider offering InteractPad, replacing physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys. The LG KF600's InteractPad and virtual menu keys show the exact keys users need to complete the task at hand eliminating distractions. More flexible than standard hardware keys, the KF600 eliminates the need to memorize which key performs what function. The virtual keys are also larger and better spaced than physical keys, improving accuracy. The InteractPad is an ideal interface for controlling multimedia features like the KF600's digital audio player, camera and video camera. Since its controls are not tied to physical buttons, each of these functions has a custom interface that makes it intuitive to use. The InteractPad is also equipped with multi-sensorial feedback that provides users with audio, visual and tactile cues. When a virtual button is pressed it becomes larger and the phone vibrates just slightly and makes a clicking sound. The feedback is not only designed to seem more like real buttons, it also improves comfort and accuracy. The KF600 includes eight dynamic graphic interface themes. Each gives the phone a different character that can act as an extension of its owner's personality. The themes affect all aspects of the KF600's interface including the InteractPad. When users choose a theme, all the layouts of each application will be reflected in menu, icons as well as wallpaper under the integrated theme. Dr. Skott Ahn, CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company said, "The LG KF600 and the InteractPad reflect LG's commitment to making its handsets easier to use through improved user interface technology. Usability is truly at the centre of this handset's design and it represents LG's latest achievement in making phones that connect with their users. This handset offers a mere glimpse into a newly emerging trend in the mobile market. LG is researching and developing new ways to improve usability and will continue focus on features that add practical benefits for users." The LG KF600's multimedia features include a 3.0-megapixel camera, MP3 player, video recording, FM radio, Bluetooth and more. Related News Articles
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| LG KF510 Ultra-Slim Touch Slider Unveiled | |
| LG Electronics today unveiled the KF510, a stylish phone catering to consumer demands for slimmer phones with design accents. At just 10.9 mm thick, the KF510 is the extremely slim slider phone. Combining a slim style with strength created by its metal frame and tempered glass, the center of its design are metal gradation paint schemes available in Stardust Dark Gray or Sunset Red. A visually interactive user interface includes captivating animation developed based on the LG's touch technology. ... | |
LG Electronics today unveiled the KF510, a stylish phone catering to consumer demands for slimmer phones with design accents. At just 10.9 mm thick, the KF510 is the extremely slim slider phone. Combining a slim style with strength created by its metal frame and tempered glass, the center of its design are metal gradation paint schemes available in Stardust Dark Gray or Sunset Red. A visually interactive user interface includes captivating animation developed based on the LG's touch technology. The KF510 integrates a multi-function camera and MP3 player. The LG KF510 will be available in major markets worldwide from March. Related News Articles
©2002-2008 Mobiledia Corp. A Cell Phone Resource Site. All Rights Reserved. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. |
| Sprint and Clearwire edge closer to deal, world waits with bated breath |
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless 
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments |
| Yut: Korean Traditional Game - Game |
| Yut is one of the most popular family board games in Korea, played by children and adults for centuries. It is a must especially during the New Year's. This fun and exciting game combines luck, quick thinking and team strategy. Toss the four yut sticks, rounded on one side and flat on the other, the way you would a dice. The final resting positions determine the number of moves you can make. Short-cuts, opportunities to bump the opponent back to the starting point, and ability to move two markers together adds excitement. Yut game comes with four decorated 6.5" sticks, 8 markers, paper game board, and instructions. For all ages. Requires 2 players or more in two teams. Product type: Game, $9.95 |
| Bloglines Beta Debuts Photo Widget |
We have another treat for you Blogliners who have been patiently awaiting our redesign. Today's special surprise is the Photo Widget View available within Bloglines Beta.We've been experimenting with different views in the Bloglines Start Page. In this case, we display photos from Flickr inside a Photo Widget. Sure beats a text description. We currently only do this for Flickr, but in future releases you will be able to apply the photo view for other photo-oriented feeds. Here's a little before and after. Before
After
As a reminder, you can go to Flickr or other photos sites and create a feed tracking a specific topic or tag. In the example above our topic we tracked was "Europe." Or you can track a specific user on the site. So in other words, anytime a friend posts a picture on Flickr, you would see that picture on your Bloglines. Have Fun! - Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team |
| Blog View - More Goodness for Bloglines Beta |
One of the problems with a feed reader is that you can't see the blog in its full glory. We've solved that problem in Bloglines Beta. We've created a setting in 3-Pane View which allows you to get all of that bloggy goodness in your feed reader. Plus, you can get easy access to the comments, other features or, heck, even click on an ad to help you favorite blogger. This is great for highly designed blogs that cover knitting, design, art or funny pictures of cats.Here's how you get access to the feature. Go to 3-Pane View. Click on a headline. Look for the Preview or RSS buttons to toggle between Feed View and Blog View (see below). 
You can see the differences below with a feed from one of our favorite blogs, icanhascheezeburger. Feed View
Blog View
Enjoy! - Eric Engleman and The Bloglines Team |
| Bloglines for the iPhone and Mobile Phones - Reminder | ||||||||||||
Last week, I met a big name blogger who is also a dedicated user of Bloglines. I couldn't help but notice his iPhone typing skills. He was clearly pounding out at 40 words per minute which is super-fast on the iPhone. I was really excited to hear his impressions on iBloglines, our iPhone optimized version of Bloglines. Unfortunately, he hadn't heard of iBloglines. I was crestfallen. I realized I needed to do a better job telling Blogliners about our great products. No better time than the present to remind everyone of the great Bloglines mobile products. We have 2 major product sets: iBloglines for iPhones and Bloglines for mobile phones. iBloglines for iPhones - located at i.bloglines.com
Bloglines for Mobile - located at m.bloglines.com and m.beta.bloglines.comWhy two different versions of Bloglines for mobile phones? One is Bloglines Classic (m.bloglines.com) which has been around for years. The other is our new beta product (m.beta.bloglines.com) which has the latest set of enhancements. 
Bloglines has had a leading mobile feed reader for the last couple of years. It's always been one of our key product strengths. So we were really excited to make our mobile product even better. We were busy over the summer re-writing the mobile code from the ground up. A new version of mobile is available as part of the Bloglines Beta Releases. Go to m.beta.bloglines.com on your cell phone. When we feel it's ready, we'll make it available on Bloglines Classic. Key Features
Enjoy Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team |
| Bernanke: Fed acted to assure firms of liquidity |
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve officials said on Sunday the U.S. central bank was taking additional extraordinary measures to ensure the broad spectrum of financial firms have access to liquid funds as a credit crisis roils markets.
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| Talking about Gadget devs, come out and play! |
I know it has been awhile since I posted. Tonight we have big news! MSN Spaces is now Windows Live Spaces. The Windows Live vision is taking shape! In addition to tons of cool improvements (themes, social networking, and more), now Gadgets can be built for Spaces as well as Live.com. Stay on top of developing for Spaces at the Spaces Platform blog. One of the best aspects of Gadgets on Spaces is their viral nature. See a cool gadget on someones space - just click on the + sign and you can quickly add it to your Space. Let the fun begin! Quote Gadget devs, come out and play!   |
| Gadgets and Cross-Browser Development |
We are working hard to improve the Gadget framework documentation. In the meantime (and as we improve documentation), I am working on a series of short tutorials, tips, and highlights introducing how to use the Gadget framework and the underlying APIs. I am going to start with our compatibility layer. After exploring various third-party gadgets being developed for Live.com, I discovered that many developers are still struggling with the API differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Most common, I see various tricks to handle the event model differences where IE uses a global event object and Firefox passes the event object as an argument to your handler. This is not necessary when you build Gadgets. Instead, you should be leveraging the underlying compatibility layer that is part of the overall Gadget framework. As I posted last September, as we develop our properties, almost none of our application logic contains browser specific code. Instead, we develop once to the Internet Explorer API and our code runs without modification in Firefox. This occurs because we download a special script that emulates the most useful IE’isms inside of Firefox and in a few cases, Firefox/W3C’isms in Internet Explorer. In this article I highlight the most useful methods and properties of this layer (I promise we will develop a full reference in the near future). Event Model This is easy – always attach events using attachEvent and detachEvent. Do not assign event handlers using function references (e.g., myElement.onclick = doThis) nor use the addEventListener approach. In your event handlers, don’t worry – you will always get the global event object. For example: function doClick()
{
alert("You clicked on a " + event.srcElement.tagName +
Also, as a general practice (I will cover this more in later articles but this is extremely important), when writing Gadgets, be sure to detach any event handlers in your dispose handler. Otherwise, your Gadget will leak memory due to known browser issues. What can you do with this event object? You can check out the MSDN reference as most properties are exposed. In addition to the standard properties, below are the list of properties we added to Firefox:
We have also gone further and extended Firefox with the very useful mouseenter and mouseleave events. As long as you attach these events using the attachEvent and detachEvent methods, these events fire just as they do in Internet Explorer. These events are very useful for quickly and easily detecting when a mouse enters or leaves a specific element. Again, check out the MSDN reference for more details. We even have a reasonable emulation of mouse capturing. However, this is most useful in the context of an entire web-page not within a simple gadget. This is because mouse capturing in Firefox only fires within the context of the browser client area. Regardless, when using mouse capturing (setCapture and releaseCapture methods), the mouse events fire properly on the correct elements. We also fixed the Firefox onclick event to only fire for the left mouse button (Firefox fired for all mouse buttons). This little difference could cause you grief in your application. (For those of you who noticed that we also accidentally prevented the ability to open pages in new tabs via the middle button, that will be fixed real soon). Useful Element Methods Internet Explorer also supports a number of very helpful methods and properties on every element. These APIs simplify day-to-day programming and are very useful for building your application. Below are the list of element functions we added to Firefox. Again, check out MSDN for the details (linked for each item below) on how they work.
The currentStyle property returns the value actually being applied to the element. We currently support a subset of CSS attributes that we have found useful: border, margin, padding for Top, Left, Right, and Bottom; position; height; width; zIndex; color; and direction. We will most likely extend this list over time. Useful style properties We also extended the properties available on the style object with the extremely useful pixel* properties. These allow you to easily manipulate the dimensions of the element (assuming you are working with pixels). We also added the cssText property which gives you a serialized representation inline style. XPath Expressions When dealing with XML documents the ability to query for specific nodes is especially useful. Trying to decipher the difference between IE and Firefox for querying XML can be extremely painful. So, we provided support for two very straighforward IE methods, selectSingleNode and selectNodes. Creating xmlHttp Objects When you need to create a new XML Http Object, you can now simply use the standard approach, Parsing XML Last, but not least, you have a string that you want to load into an XML DOM - just use the standard DOM Parser object: var dp = new DOMParser(); var xmlDom = dp.parseFromString(yourXMLString); This concludes my very brief and fast introduction to our compatibility layer. We are continually expanding the functionality. For example, we have basic IE filter support (alpha filters assigned via script will also apply in Firefox). I will cover these in later posts. For now, resist the urge in your Gadgets to author code differently for each browser. Instead, take the easy road and let our compatibility layer do all your heavy lifting. Last, since it will inevitably come up, see the following post on why we support or don't support other browsers (while the post talks about start.com it is relevant to all properties on our framework).  |
| What we learned building Live.com (or why are we slow)? |
Over the last 18 months, we have explored how to build a highly-interactive, customizable, and extensible portal. The first iteration was a simple portal on Start.com. We created various iterations (start.com/1, start.com/2, start.com/3) which have evolved into the first fully extensible portal on Live.com. Today, from Live.com to the Kahuna (Hotmail) beta to MSN Spaces, and so-on, we are investing heavily in building very rich, interactive experiences. With these investments, we are learning a great deal on the right and wrong ways to engineer rich, interactive web-sites.
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Underneath all our Windows Live properties, we share a common framework for how we engineer our client experiences. The framework is very client-centric where we composite most of the page client-side. For example, if you were to view Live.com’s HTML, you will notice that it serves a web-page “shell†and meta-data that describes the content. This meta-data is interpreted by the Live.com application and then rendered. This approach is extraordinarily flexible as we can quickly enhance and extend the application without any heavy server lifting. However, as we have learned and is being evidenced by our customers, without care, performance degradation can quickly outweigh all other benefits.
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As you examine Live.com, and for the technically savvy, explore the underlying browser technology, it is easy to question whether we as Microsoft and the industry as a whole are pushing the browser too far. The current crop of rich applications while cool and interactive are starting to fare poorly performance-wise against their traditional brethren. So much so that an often posed question is, where do we go from here? And is it time to reexamine building rich applications?
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First, let’s step back and very briefly look at the web versus traditional software. With traditional software, you would go through various design phases starting from specifications, to architecture documentation, to development, to usability testing, to testing, and eventually to ship. The entire approach had a fairly long lead time (up to years). Once released, updating the software was difficult and many times very cost prohibitive. This created a very high-bar. The web has removed almost all those barriers. On the web, we can now experiment and develop software with near real-time feedback and very fast release cycles.
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I view the Web 2.0 phenomena as being very early in the development lifecycle. I am not prepared to dismiss any approach, pattern, or methodology as we are still in the learning phases. In the case of Windows Live, as we push the browser, we are also learning a great deal. Examining performance specifically - when I look at Live.com today, I see incredible innovation. We are pushing the limits of extensibility (gadgets), reuse (shared frameworks across all our properties), and are taking chances to drive new user-experience standards (look at how we present search results). On the contrary, I also see an application whose performance is starting to become painful to use. The page currently takes a long time to load, especially on the first visit. Beyond our user’s feedback (we do read all messages), broader industry pundits are quick to throw in the towel on the entire technology.
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We are taking a different approach to this problem. We are challenging ourselves to prove that we can architect a performance driven, rich extensible experience. We are leveraging our gained knowledge shipping the many iterations of Start.com and all the beta products we are developing to improve our shared architecture and drive best patterns. Using the current Live.com as a simple case study, below I illustrate a few of the performance-oriented technical issues that we are working on quickly addressing:
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Manage your Connections Carefully
If you were to examine Live.com at the network level, a reasonable person would quickly conclude that we are making too many connections. We decomposed this issue as follows: First, we are hitting an IE 6 issue that causes un-cached images applied dynamically via script to download on each reference. This issue typically manifests itself on slower connections – the time when bandwidth is most at a premium. We are baking a solution to this problem directly into our frameworks so that we pre-cache dynamically applied images before reuse. Next, every RSS feed and Gadget manifest is a unique request. This creates a web-page that is very “chatty†– an AJAX characteristic that you should work to avoid. We will solve this by intelligently batching multiple requests into a single request (and are exploring even more efficient means for the longer-term)
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Parsing XML is Slow
We have also learned that merely parsing the RSS XML can be expensive in the browser. When we parse RSS, we are merely translating it into Javascript structures to be further manipulated. Since our server’s are already normalizing feeds to a standard format, instead of serving the RSS feed directly, we are going to translate the feed directly to JSON (Javascript structures). As a simple benchmark, on my fast developer machine we went from 400ms to parse 150K of RSS to 15ms to “execute†the JSON response.Â
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Caching and Connection Management is Essential
Network bandwidth and connections are a scarce resource. Managing them is essential to providing fast experiences (especially for subsequent loads). We are evaluating the optimal approaches for splitting resources across multiple servers to leverage as many simultaneous connections at once (the browser is limited to 2 active connections per domain). We are also reviewing all resources to make sure they are set with appropriate expirations. In general, almost all content should have expiration, even a very short one (e.g., if the user leaves the page and hits the back button, the page should be re-rendered entirely from the cache).
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Staging the Application
One of the biggest challenges with a very rich web-application is deploying the code. The richer the site, the more code that is needed. In the case of Live.com today, the entire application deploys before anything renders. However, our underlying framework supports dynamic and prioritized deployment – we just were not properly leveraging it. We are now focusing leveraging this pattern so that we can “stage†the application. We will be able to deploy the minimal code necessary to retrieve content and render the page and subsequently download features in priority order (e.g., render, then get drag-drop code, then get the RSS image rotator code, etc). For features not yet in use or visible, we can deploy those last or even on demand. Staging an application is fundamental to maintaining high-degrees of perceived performance.
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Server versus Client Rendering
Traditional web-pages are generated via the server. Live.com and many of our properties are very client-centric where the client constructs the web-page from the user’s meta-data. In general, the first time a web-page loads, a server-generated page will almost always be faster. However, with a properly architected web application, we are discovering that our subsequent loads on a client-side generated page (especially when we stage the application) can be much faster than a server-oriented page. This occurs because our client-oriented approach is highly cacheable and loads asynchronously, even off the cache. The only content we need to download is the user’s meta-data. The rest of the page, scripts, and behaviors are cached indefinitely.
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This summarizes a few of the performance-driven challenges we are addressing. Internally, we have developed a complete prototype that validates we can build a high-performance, scalable version of Live.com that load and run near-instantly to within seconds (on broadband). We are working on integrating these improvements into the shipping site as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks and months, expect to see continuous noticeable improvements.
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Update: Beyond performance, the Live.com team just posted the goals for the Live.com page. %3f&referrer=) |
| ShowClicks.com Tracking script |
| ShowClicks is a system for monitoring and analyzing the performance of Google AdSense in publisher websites. ShowClicks uses a combination of JavaScript and PHP to track both AdSense ad clicks and searches by your website's visitors. Besides this core information, ShowClicks also provides value added functionality to track extra information - for example, the IP Addresses of visitors and where the visitors are redirected to. All this data is stored in a MySQL database to allow subsequent analysis and reporting. ShowClicks allows you to monitor and analyze (in real-time) the performance of Regular Ad Units, Link Ads and Searches based on the following attributes: Visitor IP Address Hit Date/Time Ad Dimensions Source & Destination Page Link Ad Topic Search Keyword(s) http://www.showclicks.com |
| Update after Obama's race speech |
| I had so many thoughts after Obama's speech yesterday, but none of them were organized enough to write. Today maybe a few are. 1. I don't think it's going to change anyone's mind. If you supported Obama before, you probably still do, if you didn't you still don't. 2. It should now be clear to everyone with a reasonably open mind who listened to the speech, what he means by change. There were so many shortcuts he could have taken. If he were Bush or Clinton, he would have taken them. After having Presidents who openly lie for so long, the change is this: Obama doesn't. He told the truth, maybe not all of it, but orders of magnitude more than politicians of our age do. 2a. Yes, Virginia, Obama is a politician. And that's not a dirty word. We have politics to make decisions as groups of people, at a local, state, country, even a global level. If we ever elect someone to the Presidency who says he or she is not a politician, they are lying, bigtime. 3. Sometimes things get so bad that only the truth will do. We usually like bedtime stories from our politicians, tales that give us a good night's sleep. Obama certainly has a good bedside manner. And while race isn't the top item on our national to-do list, it is on the list and has been there, as he said, since before the founding of the country. The Wright videos have brought race to the front, have started a discourse here and elsewhere, that has enormous potential for improving communication. And while the problems may be unsolvable (none of us are going to change how we feel or what we believe) we must not let them stand in the way of working together and getting stuff done. You don't have the time to change me, and I don't have the time to change you. Our first order of business is to get Obama elected, and after that, we have a lot more work to do. I think this is how historic problems are properly dealt with. You side-step the personal issues, and just start assuming the problem has been solved, and then one day you look up and things are a lot better. Not perfect, they never are, but better. (This is why the "fierce urgency of now" is something to seize and embrace, to not pass up. We can use it to get past the attitudes and beliefs that are in our way.) 4. Obama is not Howard Dean, and the Wright videos are not the Dean Scream, because Obama has the delegate and popular vote lead, and we're deep into the primary season. He makes the decision whether his candidacy is viable, not Hardballs, 350, The Saturation Room, Space The Nation not even Cowntown and certainly not Tim Russert. (Sorry, the first was a typo, then I had fun with the others.) 5. Maybe the delay in choosing a candidate is not such a bad thing for the Democratic Party. Maybe the time can be used to figure out wtf the Democratic Party is in 2008. Maybe we can participate in that decision this time, maybe it isn't just the insiders and fatcats (love that word!) who get to call the shots. Maybe we should organize a BloggerCon for May to discuss the future of the Democratic Party. I bet some interesting ideas would come from such a meetup. Update: Huffington cross-post. |
| Change Congress - Using Tech To Give People Power |
| clipped by: BartendingBear clipper's remarks: Taking the power from the PACs and putting it in the hands of the concerned citizen. Change Congress is a movement to build support for basic reform in how our government functions. Using our tools, both candidates and citizens can pledge their support for basic changes to reduce the distorting influence of money in Washington. Our community will link candidates committed to a reform with volunteers and contributors who support it. Change Congress is a national movement to end corruption in America's congress. We're organizing citizens to push candidates to make three simple commitments: 1. No money from lobbyists or PACs2. Vote to end earmarks3. Support publicly-financed campaigns4. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency |
| The Bartender |
| clipped by: murieleileen A man walked into a bar and ordered a glass of white wine. He took a sip of the wine, then tossed the remainder in the bartender's face. Before the bartender could recover from the surprise, the man began weeping. "I'm really sorry. I keep doing that to bartenders. I can't tell you how embarrassing it is to have a compulsion like this." Far from being angry, the bartender was sympathetic. Before long, he was suggesting that the man see a psychoanalyst about his problem. "I happen to have the name of a psychoanalyst," the bartender said. "My brother and my wife have both been treated by him, and they say he's as good as they come." The man wrote down the name of the doctor, thanked the bartender, and left. The bartender smiled, knowing he'd done a good deed for a fellow human being. Six months later, the man was back. "Did you do what I suggested?" the bartender asked, serving the glass of white wine. |
| Tags: funny, story, bartender, |
| Common handshake mistakes |
| clipped by: Aribeth Handshakes are, probably, one of the most repeated gestures a human can perform in his life.  Yet, it is one out of 5 that someone gives me a *good* handshake. Why is it so damn important to give a good handshake? Because it is the first impressions that last. Whatever you do, from that point on, it will always be processed from the First-Contact-Filter. Now the common lame handshake mistakes:    You can tell many things by the handshake of someone. If someone sandwiches your hand, either he *really* likes you, or he is a freakin' lying politician. |
| Tags: tips, handshakes, funny, |
| S'pore, Abu Dhabi and US release principles for sovereign wealth funds |
| WASHINGTON: The governments of Singapore, the United States and Abu Dhabi have released a set of designed to address concerns in some quarters about the growing financial muscle of sovereign wealth funds (SWF). |
| Staring at vs Participating in the Nervous system of the Web |
| The FriendFeed vs Twitter debate has got me thinking about the nervous system of the mesh. The activity streams that show all the events, tasks, pings that originate from your friends. I pitched this feature to Mark Pincus and Tribe.net but he wouldn’t do it. Now that Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed have each taken the idea [...] |
The FriendFeed vs Twitter debate has got me thinking about the nervous system of the mesh. The activity streams that show all the events, tasks, pings that originate from your friends. I pitched this feature to Mark Pincus and Tribe.net but he wouldn’t do it. Now that Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed have each taken the idea and ran with it - in slightly different directions - I thought it would be fun to see how people are using these features. 1. Yes - it’s just a feature, not a product unto itself so I sure as hell hope FriendFeed is planning on providing something more than just voyeuristically gaping at what your friends are doing. Commenting is nice, but that does not make up a product or service. CoCommnet found out about that. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform and we know Facebook has all SORTS of activities and things to do. But what do you DO with FrendFeed? 2.  Presence and IM communication is key - and I think that’s how a lot of people use Twitter as some sort of multi-user chat room kind of way. I certainly do. Its really like a IRC channel to me. I remember the early days of teh #Joiito IRC channel. It was quite a scene. 3.  So if just looking at activities is only a feature and communication is key - where does that leave subcribing to people? Isn’t the action of ‘following someone’ the same as ’subscribing to their feed’? And how is this different from ‘friending’ someone? I’m sure danah boyd will do an entire dissertation on these subtle differences but to us simple practioners, I submit that in fact there is NO difference between these features/terms. Not that it really matters. 4. One things for sure - we know humans sure as hell want access privileges and control over whether they’re automitically included into anything. I wonder if Facebook has learned this lesson by now - or not? THAT’s what Sarah Lacy SHOULD have asked Zuckerberg at SXSW. So this whole subscribing to - process - needs to have access and control filters added into the mix:
If open is the new black, then Opt In and Access controls are the new Orange accessory. |
| Mid-March ‘08 blogging |
| When is a social network NOT a social network? When its part of Ning’s 200,000 social networks! Give me a break Gina and Marc! STOP bragging about how many people have clicked and created a network. How come you have NEVER posted anything on: how many networks have 5 or more people in them? How [...] |
When is a social network NOT a social network? When its part of Ning’s 200,000 social networks! Give me a break Gina and Marc! STOP bragging about how many people have clicked and created a network. How come you have NEVER posted anything on: how many networks have 5 or more people in them? How ’bout 50 people in them? Or 500 people? Bragging about200,000 networks with one person in it - is absurd. And I don’t even care if they’re porno networks or not! But they’re NOT networks if they’re less than what? 5? 10? 25 in them? You’re obviously pimping yourself up for a sale. Give us all a break - please! Steve Gillmor has a new blog. He’s rapping about Twitter. Structure 08 seems like a coolio conference This Spyhunter homage takes me back to when I created the soundtrack for the FIRST licensed music for videogame - ever. Henry Mancini had to personally approve of my bits. 6800 assembly language programmed. Speaking of my past - Bob Ostertag and I went to Oberlin together and built Serge Synthesizers together. Along with Frank Eaton. Even more past comes back - Mark Stephen Pierce - co-founder of MacroMind and now CEO of SuperHappyFunFun - announced ‘The Return of Dark Castle’ So where’s the 250 list - Paul? Don’t be talking shit without backing it up! Its kind of funny for me to watch investment bankers, VCs and so-called money guys - watch their entire system crumble in front of their face. But don’t worry ’bout none of those guys - they all got nest eggs stashed away. What! You mean the Jimmy Wales furor won’t go away and that he’s not all that he’s cracked up to be? My own experience in wikipedia tells me - that there’s more than meets the eye - there. Are MySpace photos fair game that anyone can copy and use? I guess the Second Life hype bandwagon got outted. How many of those publicized marketing promotions inside Second Life were successful? How many re-upped for a second year? Offering lots of CASH always helps a viral campaign. Four technologies for portability between social networks - apparently there was a good panel on this at SXSW Transclusions and Xanadu are back Roo, Y! Buzz, RetailMeNot, Helium, |
| Now I GOTTA blog - dammit - there are too many stupid things going on! |
| Look - I’m trying to get work done. Could all the idiotic, stupid deals - just stop for a while so I can stay head down? Why don’t these people get on the Clueship! Well - in addition to AOL creating one of its greatest blunders ever (I can see Ted Leonsis rolling his eyes [...] |
Look - I’m trying to get work done. Could all the idiotic, stupid deals - just stop for a while so I can stay head down? Why don’t these people get on the Clueship! Well - in addition to AOL creating one of its greatest blunders ever (I can see Ted Leonsis rolling his eyes now) lets see what else is going on in the blundersphere today. Young whippersnappers are being given more money - after not making any money before. This time its the MyBlogLog guy. What was/is MyBlogLog’s business model? Ads? Then there’s FriendFeed - the current darling du jour. Now what’s it’s business model? Duncan Riley gets it right - the functionality is sexy, but REAL aggregation is yet to come. Susan Mernit has a great name for FriendFeed pill poppers - Stalkerati. I don’t agree with Loic that International startups have to MOVE to Silicon Valley or take money from worldclass VCs (or insiders like Loic did.) But many of his other advice is correct. What everyone needs to do is NOT spend money on overpriced execs who are lazy and don’t work hard (which there seems to be plenty of in Silicon Valley) or listen to these stupid Angel Investors (who Loic seems to have collected a bunch of.) Common sense rules. But oh yah - having a business model - helps. danah boyd has to study and come up with a name for this. It seems that once Spitzer’s ‘girl’ dumped her MySpace page - there’s been all this fighting over who can pick it up! Doesn’t she know how to monetize page hits? Its the new form of prostitution! iPhone apps only run “one app at a time”. Its as if the Finder went back to 1985! I can just see Steve Jobs saying “fuck them - who cares about running more than one app at a time! They should be HAPPY we even let them run anything!” When in doubt - go rdf and semantic web - NOT There’s a battle brewing around open source ad servers. Coolio! Congrats to MySpace on going live with their Apps gallery. Now lets see how well their ‘open social graph’ stuff works out. We haven’t had the time to kick those tires - but we’ll get there - soon. One day I will bring my sons to SXSW - as well. Then I’ll bring my daughters - 10 years later. SXSW is where Mimi learned the term SWAG. Is Mozilla the platform? Is Flock the web? I was wondering when someone would mention Zimbra Speaking of platforms - need another one? Try Xcerion and their iCloud. Oh yah - and the Adobe exec who engineered the Macromedia ‘merging of the dying dinosaurs‘ is leaving Adobe. Wow - that’s a surprise. Once you’ve kicked out Ed Anuff - where else do you go - but to the VCs. Final note - if Jim Bankoff’s AIMpages had been done right - maybe AOL wouldn’t have needed to buy Bebo? Just think about - that. |
| SixApart finally gets some balls |
| If any of you have ever met Benn or aMena Trott you’ll know them to be very nice people. And I bet none of you ever met Barak Berkowitz the former CEO of 6A. Despite their leadership, cutting edge tech and contributions to the open web (which I tried like hell to get them to brag [...] |
If any of you have ever met Benn or aMena Trott you’ll know them to be very nice people. And I bet none of you ever met Barak Berkowitz the former CEO of 6A. Despite their leadership, cutting edge tech and contributions to the open web (which I tried like hell to get them to brag about and particpate more in) the 6A of old was a quiet company. They just focused on selling blogging systems to enterprise - and showing up at a few Loic events in Paris. And when Microsoft announced support for OpenID -6A was not even mentiond in the press release and THEY (Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal purchased by 6A) invented it! So imagine my surprise and glee when I read this recent post by Anil Dash - of SixApart - attacking Wordpress 25 head on - claiming that Moveable Type was better. This was all timed to happen during SXSW - BTW. The best part is that Anil is using his companies support for OpenID, oAuth, Atom, activity streams and other cutting edge technologies as the differentiating factor. Its as if Chris Alden - the new CEO of SixApart - finally said “enough is enough, let come out swinging and BRAG abut who we are and what we do!” SixAprt is ahihgly respected old guard Web 2.0 company - but so is Automattic - Matt Mullenweg’s company - which supports the open source Wordpress platform. Davis Recordon (of SixApart) has been out - traveling the world - helping with the OpenID movement and Mena has been off on pregnancy leave. So now we’re seeing two old friends - duke it out! Now I’m not here to say that Wordpress 2.5 is any worse or better than Moveable Type - but I sure wish Wordpress had a better media gallery in it - and better management of plugins, themes and widgets. I use Wordpress for this blog. And its sure fun to watch mild old-ass SixApart wake up. |
| King may give more help to banks |
| The Bank of England considers a request by Britain's big banks to reform the way it provides emergency funding. |
| Private funeral for police chief |
| A private family funeral for chief constable Michael Todd takes place later in Nottinghamshire. |
| StumbleUpon - Demographics and Returning Traffic Spikes |
Posted by Jane Copland Like most SEOs I know, I have a couple of sites that act as my side projects. They aren't monetised and I plan to keep them that way: I like to keep an eye on them for the purpose of experiments. By this, I mean that I like to mess around with them and if one of them drops completely from every search engine, loses all of its PageRank and its server catches fire, it doesn't matter all that much.Given the experimental nature of the sites in question, I was intrigued this morning when I was doing my regular rounds of the Internet and came across this:  What happened? Did the little blog, whose mantra is thus, suddenly become twice as interesting overnight? Since its content is updated infrequently - once weekly at best - I doubted it. I had a fairly good idea as to the source of this extra traffic, and I was right. StumbleUpon, my fair weather friend, had returned.
This is not a huge increase in traffic by any means - when a really big StumbleUpon day happens, the chart looks a lot different. However, the interesting thing is not the fact that StumbleUpon happened, it's that it keeps coming back to the same page and yet that page's reviews never change. While Google Images has a long-term love affair going with the site in question, StumbleUpon visits about once every few months, and always to the same URL. Funnily enough, Google Images prefers the pictures on this particular page as well. The really strange thing about the on-again-off-again relationship that StumbleUpon has with this piece of content is that the reviews don't change and, as far as I can tell, few people are particularly impressed with the page. According to its reviews, only three people like the site and it has only been written about twice. And yet, every once in a while, StumbleUpon is back outside, throwing stones at the window and asking us out. I know that the StumbleUpon reviews pages are supposedly far from accurate: the service has always been a bit cute with its numbers and I've never seen a review page that has accurately portrayed how much traffic the site in question will receive. However, it amuses and surprises me that StumbleUpon does not work like most other social media sites, which will not "re-promote" content after it has been popular. So far, StumbleUpon has revisited this page four times. It's great for us - writers, publishers, linkbaiters, and SEOs. The do-or-die aspect of Digg is negated by the notion that not only is StumbleUpon popularity and traffic not a ticking clock, but that even once the first wave of SU traffic dies away, it may return again. I am not entirely sure what sets off the subsequent influxes of stumbles (I assume it is a tag or a thumbs-up from a prominent account), but there is one theme in common with each wave of Stumble traffic: every time it comes back, it brings with it more visitors. However, my analysis of StumbleUpon traffic has been really interesting for more than just the fact that it can't leave my one page alone. A common idea I've heard from the Internet marketing community - and one that I used to spread - is that StumbleUpon is the everyman's social media site. "Regular" people - people who don't get FAIL or Rick Rolls and who squint at me when I go out in this tee-shirt - were thought to use StumbleUpon, at least in higher volumes than they do any other social media mainstay. I can tell you from my little blog's stat counter that this really isn't as true we we'd like to believe. This morning, I went through the stats and analysed my StumbleUpon audience in comparison to my regular visitors. Firstly, the graph of browsers is telling. I check this graph relatively often and rarely does Firefox 2.0.0 come out on top. In fact, the last time Firefox eclipsed Internet Explorer 7 was the last time StumbleUpon showered us with affection. Needless to say, the MSIE 5.5 users (yes, omg wtf, etc) were not Stumblers.  That search traffic, visitors referred from non-StumbleUpon sites and people accessing the site directly or via bookmark aren't using Firefox is plainly obvious. Normally, Internet Explorers 6 and 7 battle it out for supremacy. I broke the last two days' worth of visitors down by browser further, showing Stumblers next to their "regular" peers.
 StumbleUpon makes a toolbar for Internet Explorer browsers. Either no one uses it, or StumbleUpon serves different content to people based upon their browser. I highly doubt the likeliness of the latter scenario.
 People who didn't arrive via StumbleUpon show the regular distribution of browsers for the site. In my opinion, my Firefox visitor count is higher than normal as well, since I've linked to the site from SEOmoz and most of my SEOmoz traffic comes in using this browser.
Without making too many sweeping generalisations, I'd say that the Firefox dominance from StumbleUpon suggests that StumbleUpon is still catering to a very web-savvy audience - a far more savvy audience than I'd previously thought. This isn't such good news, because the content on StumbleUpon always suggested that more and more regular people were using the tool. Since it's "regular people" we're often trying to reach, it's a bit disconcerting to realise that StumbleUpon isn't as diverse as we'd like to think. The blog I'm citing in this post isn't in the least bit "geeky" and I'm now thinking that the Stumblers who've found it interesting are simply typical social media users who happen to also have an interest in my non-geeky content. I don't want you to think this is a new lesson to me, as anyone who's seen social media traffic has seen this type of thing before. What strikes me as interesting during the latest couple of rounds of StumbleUpon traffic is the complete lack of diversity in users' browsers. Even previous Digg and Reddit outings didn't result in this complete Firefox domination. Do forgive the dual topics of this post: it can be said that I've investigated two entirely different StumbleUpon phenomena in the recent past. The things I've learned in playing with Google Images recently are a different post entirely. |
| Results of Google Experimentation - Only the First Anchor Text Counts |
Posted by randfish Before I was inundated with the responsibilities of running a company and managing a few hundred emails a day, I used to spend a lot of time testing theories about how the search engines handled certain elements on a site or page. I'd test the engines to find answers to questions like:
NOTE: My tests on these are more than a year old, so things may have changed. Obviously, to test the answers to questions like these, you need a very tightly controlled environment, and even then, your tests might reveal answers, but not the relative levels of impact. Sure, having a keyword on a page in strong tags is better than not, but by how much? If one link from the crappiest PR1 page gives more of a boost, is it really worthwhile? I've talked about this testing phenomenon in the past in a Sphinn thread, about whether nofollow sculpting has any impact (I've copied the relevant bit below):
And I used another test we've performed internally at last week's SEMpdx conference, which created a bit of confusion, and is, ultimately, the reason for this blog post. Directly following my keynote, a question was asked in which link placement on a page became relevant. I commented that it was important to note that only the first anchor text to a given target page would be counted by Google (we haven't yet tested Yahoo!/MSN), but there were a great number of audience members who came up to me during the day asking for clarification -- even Rebecca! And thus, even though we usually keep this kind of information internal (Jane's planning to release a PRO guide with lots of these tests later this year), I figured the beans had already been spilled, so it's my responsibility to clean up the mess. Here's what I mean -- let's say that on your website's homepage, you have two links to your blog. The first link is in the top level navigation, and the anchor text is "blog." The second link is in the body of the homepage and reads "celebrity news blog." That second link's anchor text is NOT going to help the blog page rank for "celebrity news" because Google doesn't appear to count the anchor text from multiple links to a target from a single URL. Here's a visual example:
Hopefully this clears up the misconception I created at the conference and helps get everyone thinking about the value of testing. It can be complex and time consuming (we run our tests on three nonsense domains, verifying that we get the same results every time), but rewarding. Obviously, even armed with just the knowledge from the test described above, there's a lot of extra thought to put into how your website's internal link structure should function (and yes, you can use nofollow on the first link if you want the second link's anchor text to count - let's test this - orgzhetwarhyu... tyynhaurslfhgn). p.s. Two good questions were asked in the comments that deserve addressing in the post. First, this would appear to apply to the position in the code, not on the actual visual representation of the page, as Google isn't currently running 30+ billion documents through visual page analysis. Second, as far as PR "leaks" go, ideally you'd only want one link from any page to any other, but the original PR formula appears to do this for you, as they don't consider multiple votes for a URL by a single page to provide benefit (each page can only vote for another once). p.p.s. On stuff like this, it's never a good idea to just take my word for it (or anyone else's) - run the tests yourself and see the results you get. Since the engines are evolving all the time, the results might be different in six months or six days. |
| An Incredible Milestone - 2000 PRO Members - and a Request for Feedback on SEOmoz V4 |
Posted by randfish On Thursday morning (yesterday), SEOmoz reached 2000 PRO members and we had a mini celebration at the office to commemorate.
To honor the occasion, Mystery Guest stayed up until midnight the night before, baking us fantastic, shortbread, chocolate-dipped cookies in the shape of 2s and 0s.
Susan Moskwa had stopped by to do a Whiteboard Friday (which should be posted any minute now) and joined us in the celebration. Obviously, I'm ecstatic. It may be an arbitrary number, but it's been symbolic to me and many of the other mozzers for months now as a potential tipping point for the service. I'm really proud of what the team at SEOmoz has achieved - buiding great tools and a terrific website, interacting and inspiring people throughout the SEO community and working together to build an atmosphere that makes me excited to go to work every morning. We're not done - not by any means. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the PRO toolset and value proposition today is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we'd like to offer in the future. Several of us got together for a nearly two-hour meeting (we got a bit sidetracked by some engineering challenges) today on features and functionality for a completely new tool that we think will be a remarkable boost for competitive analysis and brand tracking. In addition to congratulating my team and sharing a few photos, I'd also like to use this post to officially announce our intention to launch V4 of SEOmoz (the 4th iteration of the site since its birth in 2004). That launch is expected to arrive right around Halloween of this year (October 31st), and will feature a ton of new material, new functionality, a new look and feel and a considerably faster load time (as we're also planning to add load balancing and more robust, scalable code). However, we can't possibly predict every feature our members (that's you!) might enjoy, so please feel free to leave comments with your suggestions for the PRO section, the free stuff, the blog, YOUmoz, the Marketplace, Events or any other part of the site. In the past, we've gotten many of our best suggestions from our membership, and are hopeful that this time is no different. Obviously, I can't promise that we'll include every feature, but with a longer development cycle, we'll be able to accomplish quite a bit. No suggestion is too big or too small, so please do contribute. Finally, a huge thanks to all our members - both PRO and non. Early next week, we're on schedule to reach 70,000 total SEOmoz members, another milestone, and looking over the blog, the marketplace, Q+A - the areas where we get to interact as a community, I'm amazed at the quality of people, content and discussion. If we could send you all delicious shortbread cookies and champagne, we totally would :) p.s. Have you noticed how good the YOUmoz content has been lately? Seriously, there are some very good posts going up there of late - bravo, YOUmozzers! |
| every startup doesnt necessarily deserve their 15 minutes... |
| End of week, pre a long weekend in Melbourne, and body isnt working at 100%. Been exercising hard, commuting alot, working, and a full sleep last nite. Anyway, interesting tidbit I've got by watching a video of twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that they receive 20 times the traffic thru third party apps than twitter.com. Last Biz Stone interview on Read Write Talk the same API:Web ratio was 10x; So third party usage vs twitter.com has doubled in 9 months-ish. Also check out these videos from Wordpress, Qik and FriendFeed founders. Not surprising all of them have very strong pitches. Very simple. And compelling. Its why they have millions of users and the same fundingwise. Us aussies got alot to learn to get to this standard, in general. Altho its a bit like the Aussie film industry : We're not very good as an industry, Australia, in making and funding successful films. But our multi-talented actors/directors can kill it in overseas owned/originated productions : Maybe the web is the same set of issues/solutions. OK I have to go work on a universal toolkit, Mary Kate Olsen is calling : "I'm not going to comment on that. I won't give you a word about that in the nicest way possible. Let's move on" |
| who said cutting down some trees and printing newspapers serves no 2.0 purpose ? :D |
| Always fun to get a bit of AFR luv*, esp when u get up at 5am, leave at 6am in extremely thick fog and one of the coldest days on June record I think I heard, it was more the fog, shutdown Melbourne airport (see we are just like San Francisco!) : Getting home 14 hours later, I heard flights that had been diverted to Adelaide first thing this morning, had only just arrived at Melbourne post-dinner. Ick, so sometimes, it helps to get a bit of coverage, when u maybe asking yourself what the hell was i thinking, do i have a clue what i am doing. And not from an ego sense (ok maybe a bit) But more from a analytical you get more exposure to a business/investor audience; You get more calls/emails from cheque signers and decision makers. And it can help push some things (like funding or that bus dev deal) that extra 1-2%, which is sometimes all you need to get it over the line. The more industry pieces too the better, so great work Renai. Although the cautionary Omnidrive tale is a pity that it takes up half the article. But it's newsworthy so until we have more stories about overfunding and abused expenditure instead, we're going to get what happens when the kids bootstrapping goes bad : And see some insights into human nature when pushed to the edge. It's ugly often, there isnt a finance department ensuring clock like precision that your fortnightly pay goes in so you can pay your mortgage/creditcards/lifestyle expenses. Sometimes there isn't even a fortnightly pay. Or in this case, you might not get paid for 6 months. But being in this biz, thats what happens. Caveat emptor. See Richard Giles tweet below about how it all starts to add up; The gigs of internets, laptops and desktops, lattes so u can use wireless and do meetings, travel to airport, flights, accomodation. And we're not near the big ticket items. Teams of engineers each earning $100 per hour. For months. Which becomes years. Then you lose them, and have to retrain new teams. Product releases slip, clients are slow in paying and the I just had positive momentum becomes a counterforce slippery slope pushing you the other way. 2 steps forward, 3 steps sideway.  And fact is Omnidrive is another company that didnt get enough funding (even if it passed on potential terms sheet etc); Personalities, debt, communication, angel funding + ongoing techcrunch writing aside. When funding doesnt happen sometimes the children will eat themselves. And not be able to communicate as Dunc would like and Pollenizer rightly expect. Hopefully the followup industry piece in a year will talk about the fundings, the odd exit (News have bought getprice and bezurk now called Wego.com in the meta-search ecommerce/travel spaces recently which should get more positive mentions for example - nice work conrad!), and lets hope in 2009 for some profitable growing businesses. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie**. *The online link is here if u have a paid version : If you dont Fairfax will offer you this morsel : "Just 12 months ago, Australia's internet start-up community was on a rare high. It seemed the sky was the limit." - so nudge, nudge, the best I can do - until flickr delete this account too for IP infringement as they dont believe in mashing up nor postmodernism of collecting 3rd party media sources as a form of social expression - what I can offer u some readable happy snaps - High Res parts 1 + 2 here. Funny flickr banter until they delete this account too 'ere'n'ere. Update : Thx anonymous posted link from MISAustralia to article.  ** Caught up quickly with @cathye the West Aussie mining town gal to Melbourne export for a short NextG/Mtub pitstop before going all the 3Jam SMS 2.0 way. Aside from the cash intense $oma loft rents, the stereotype of the valley/SF being rich with fundings, acquisitions, and a startup team in every coffee shop in the Valley sounds as true as ever, and the polar opposite in Australia : Over funding and excess employment of web2 verticals while here anemic is a better description. Anyway, given we lack locally focused Paid Content/Techcrunch type magazines/websites/newspapers - the more the Renais, Foads, JoshGlids, at BRW, AFR, Smart Company cover this stuff and use the reach/resources of SMH, The Age, AFR too : The more the baby booming cash rich non facebook non twittering secretary still reads my email crew become aware thru the media they consume of disciplined, focused, roll the sleeves up types that low funding has the benefit of instilling in most us, maybe they'll realise, one by one, we could help their corporate, private equity and operational ventures. We're hungry and will code for food and promise of future glory.  Smile fellow entrepreneur or bemused bystander : We all need to get on the Aussie Silicon Harbour Melbourne Twitter Underground Brigade Hot Tamali Train. Build it and they will come is what they say isn't it.... |
| Bildschirmarbeiter flippt aus |
Extreme Aggressionen am Arbeitsplatz. |
| Third World Poverty: The Real Solution by Keith Wymer |
Third World Poverty: The Real Solution Aid to Africa We all welcomed the campaign to address poverty in Africa and Tony Blair's commitment to it. When it was launched, the emphasis was on reducing debt and increasing aid from the rich Western nations. The priorities stated were to tackle disease, especially aids, and to generate economic activity. At the time Blair retired, after 10 years as prime minister, progress in terms of contributions from the West had been extremely disappointing. The debt issue has been addressed in only 25% of the countries where relief is needed, and the aid contribution (separate from debt relief) from the rich Western nations to African countries has actually fallen. Today, much more is being done by China, while India is becoming increasingly involved. A key factor is that, unlike Western finance, the aid from China comes without strings. Because the Chinese are happy enough with the trade which flows from their involvement, they make little effort to impose their culture on the recipient countries. Self-Defeating Conditions Apart from its inadequate volume, aid from the Europe and the USA has limited impact because of the conditions imposed with grants; notable by the USA and the UK. An obvious absurdity is the 'no abortion' condition imposed by the Bush administration on grants to tackle aids. (Fortunately, this condition is not applied to some of the grants from the USA non government sector - for example, the Gates Foundation.) A second restriction, more generally applied - especially by the UK - is the insistence on privatisation. The failure, in terms of value for money for the public, of Thatcher, Major and Blair governments' private finance initiatives (PFIs) does not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm for applying them to other countries. In some African countries this has resulted in people becoming worse off than before the aid was granted. An obvious example is an increase in the cost of water as a result of privatisation. As with most privatisation, what appeared to be a short-term benefit has been more than wiped out by longer-term disadvantage. What Must Change? So the first change must be to remove the privatisation requirement. It is recognised, of course, that private firms which have succeeded in developing countries have valuable expertise. However, this should be used in the context of public control; control on behalf of indigenous people by leaders democratically elected to represent them. Although it has to be accepted that private firms exist to act in their own interests, as their obligations to shareholders require, they must recognise that their interests are not the priority with grant-aided projects. The most they should expect is a reasonable, commercially calculated, return. Second, steps must be taken to ensure that a much smaller proportion of aid is devoured by consultants in the donor countries. These consultants are often involved in negotiating the grants: some are paid more for a week's work than an African's annual income. And, too often, the focus is on the trade benefits to the donor nations, rather than on the needs of the recipients. Unless radical, and urgent, changes are made, the West will continue to lose influence in Africa. Europe and the USA will not be able to compete with China and India, or other emerging powers such as Venezuela, if they persists with trading agreements and arrangements which favour the rich nations. A New Strategy In terms of strategy, the most urgent change is to shift the emphasis to job creation; integrated with education and training. For the longer-term, literacy and social and political education is as necessary as training in the skills required by the jobs directly related to the projects. Too often the requirement (in the conditions imposed with the grants) to complete projects in a specified period ignores the issue of permanent benefit. The key to bringing about real improvement for the poor is to ensure that investment is used to release the resources that the countries already have. The most important resource is the expertise that people have acquired from their life experiences. Millions of Africans have to be entrepreneurs to make enough money merely to survive: many who fail in this respect are no longer of this world. Those who are still with us have gained valuable knowledge about the obstacles to success in their environments - and have devised strategies to overcome them. It is the habit of the West to seek to impose its own structures, rather than support the recipient countries' own organisations. A typical example was when Blair set up his African Commission, instead of supporting an African initiative: the recently formed New Partnership for Africa's Development. Another valuable resource is, of course, the fund of knowledge accumulated by businesses which have figured out how to succeed in difficult trading circumstances. In being able to turn a profit, such enterprises have acquired valuable insights into the varying operation of markets in different countries. Although private companies are entitled to a reasonable return for their contributions to projects, they must recognise that the projects are not run for their benefit. Thee needs of the recipients are paramount but, as the Chinese have recognised, benefits flow without the imposition of strict conditions. In other words the focus must be on the longer-term benefits which can occur only with the involvement, on an equal basis, of the people themselves. Providing the approach is to integrate education and training with economic development, this can lead to the evolution of processes for democratic participation. Ending Waste and Corruption These changes would make a major contribution to ending waste and corruption. Although these are usually highlighted as problems in developing countries, they apply at least as much to agents operating on behalf of the donors. In how many cases have individuals and businesses from the donor countries become more prosperous as a result of their involvement, but have left the recipient countries poorer? Paul Wolfowitz, the leader of the World Bank who is no longer with us, identified tackling corruption as his priority. His demise resulted from focusing on corruption in the developing world, while ignoring it closer, much closer, to home. From his words and actions, it could be concluded that he believed that the same standards should not be applied to the rich in the West as to the poor in developing countries. The assumption in the West that the main, or in some circles entire, problem is with the developing countries is not sustainable. This is not to argue that they do not have problems of corruption, but to quote John Christenson (The Guardian 30/5/07): 'For each dollar of aid that goes into Africa, at least Five dollars flows out under the table.' Keith Wymer June 2007
About the Author40 years experience in further education manager of international projects in many countries, including USA, Russia,Denmark, South Africa. campaigner for equality and democracy and against racism |
| Simplify Media now Available in App Store |
| One of the more frequently used apps I had on my iPod Touch prior to upgrading to 2.0 was the Simply Media application. It allowed me to access my entire music library on my computer without having to transfer the songs and eat up the remaining free space on my measly 16GB iPod Touch. That [...] |
One of the more frequently used apps I had on my iPod Touch prior to upgrading to 2.0 was the Simply Media application. It allowed me to access my entire music library on my computer without having to transfer the songs and eat up the remaining free space on my measly 16GB iPod Touch. That was back in the day when it was only available through Installer.app.
It’s a good thing, though, that Simplify Media is finally available through the App Store, and it’s free. I’m not too sure if they’re serious about it being free of charge only to the first 100K iPhone users, but nonetheless, I didn’t take any chances and downloaded it immediately. Now, I enjoy the same benefits as I did before and have totally forgotten those jailbreaking days of the past.
They’ve added some new a features such as artist info (by Last.fm) and song lyrics (by LyricWiki). The album art, unfortunately, is now also updated by connecting to an online database which is erroneous at times probably due to the wrong search criteria. In the past, it would just display whatever album art I had in my iTunes collection, but I guess they decided to change it in this latest version.
Remote access is still limited to audio files so you won’t be able to watch your favorites TV shows and movies through it. However, you can connect to the libraries of your other Simplify Media contacts which, in turn, will give you access to more-than-your-average fill of music. A desktop version needs to be installed first for you to gain to access your library, but that’s probably the most tedious part of the whole process. Once you’ve got everything set up and you’re friends are hooked on it as well, get ready to enjoy countless hours of music fun just as long as you’re connected to a network (Wi-Fi, 3G, or even EDGE). It isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good for the most part, and best of all, its free! |
| Blackberry Losing Business Customers to iPhone? |
| During the design process of the new iPhone, Steven Jobs approached business smart phone users directly and asked them what they would need in an iPhone for them to switch. There were several responses, but more than any other it was the desire for immediate and simple syncing with Microsoft Outlook. Push email was and is [...] |
During the design process of the new iPhone, Steven Jobs approached business smart phone users directly and asked them what they would need in an iPhone for them to switch.
There were several responses, but more than any other it was the desire for immediate and simple syncing with Microsoft Outlook. Push email was and is a critical make it or break it issue with business customers who need to be able to retrieve their email on their phone and on the fly, without hassle. Apple answered with just such a push email program that works with Outlook and that, combined with Apple’s new App store, has even die hard RIM customers considering switching to the more modern, flashier iPhone.
Consider that HSBC is considering ending their relationship with RIM and opting instead to transition their workers to iPhones. This deal, if it happens, will result in a bulk order of up to 200,000 iPhones, perhaps the largest single purchase of the revolutionary handset to date. In addition to getting a great sale, HSBC’s decision to move to the iPhone would go far in shifting the public’s perception of the iPhone as a business smart phone. One of RIM’s challenges is that its application programming interface (API’s), are not only outdated but are not fully disclosed to would-be third party developers, making it difficult to create exciting applications. This stands in stark contrast to the Apple model, in which developers are provided all the tools they need to produce fully functional applications that get attention. Bottom line: Apple currently is able to allow for applications to come to market faster than RIM. RIM’s Blackberry line has long dominated both business and government sectors, but if they wish to retain, indeed grow, such market share, they will have to become far more nimble in the release of new products. Come on RIM. Get the Bold and Thunder out there and see if you have what it takes to stand toe to toe with the new and improved iPhone. |
| 08/06/08, 11:10:43 "playfulness" |
| Funny how Dell is so heavily tied into the GAMING industry, yet as a company it could use a much greater sense of "PLAY". "Playfulness" etc. Just had this thought over on Twitter. Thought I'd share it over here... |
Funny how Dell is so heavily tied into the GAMING industry, yet as a company it could use a much greater sense of "PLAY". "Playfulness" etc.Just had this thought over on Twitter. Thought I'd share it over here as well...
If Iron Man had used an Apple, I bet you'd have known, it would have been all over the blogosphere... but the fact that IronMan used Dell servers just seemed to produce a minor level of outrage that he'd use something so uncool - and as for the fact he seemed to be using an XPS M2010? Nobody even noticed.I dunno, Frank. What's the ROI on coolness? ;-) |
| 08/05/08, 10:15:10 cloud bottlenecks & humanification |
| [Cartoon originally appeared in "The Hughtrain".] 1. Sarah Blow left a nice note in the comments of yesterday's "Cloud" post:A cloud computing system is only as reliable as the hardware and software that it is built upon. I have... |
1. Sarah Blow left a nice note in the comments of yesterday's "Cloud" post: A cloud computing system is only as reliable as the hardware and software that it is built upon. I have a feeling people are going to get their fingers burnt a few times before the cloud becomes a permanent place of work.Ummmm.... Bottlenecks. Anybody? Please leave a comment below, Thanks. 2. And a quasi-related story. This morning I received a kind letter from a PR guy who follows me on Twitter: Hugh,And so forth. An hour later I notice on Techmeme that the same story has already hit the mainstream press. It's always interesting watching the PR machine in action in action. Like I told my old PR buddy, Dave Parmet, I don't mind PR flacks sending me stories, at least from the ones who aren't clueless. PR people are like advertising people: Everybody hates them, until they have a business that actually needs one [Note To Self: "People hate AT&T, until they need an iPhone." Or something like that...]. 3. I'm enjoying my new adventure with Dell. Like my schtick with Microsoft, I'm doing it for a reason, which I hinted at in a blog post I wrote last year: 4. You've already done "efficient". We're living in a post-efficiency world now. We already know how to make things better, cheaper and faster than the previous generation. We already know how to squeeze our suppliers till the pips squeak. We already know how to build systems that maximize profits at every stage of the production and selling process. We're already outsourcing our stuff to China, and so is everyone else. Been there. Done that. So where does the growth need to come from? What needs to happen, in order to save your job?It's all about the "Humanification", Folks. How does a big company [like Dell, like Microsoft etc etc] "humanify" themselves? How do they "de-commodify" themselves? It's a subject that never fails to fascinate me. That's why I do what I do. Rock on. [UPDATE:} The uber-intelligent Lee Byant from Headshift left a great comment below: Hi Hugh, |
