Category: Technology

Reality Check

Thanks to Phil at BadAstronomy for the reality check…


In the new Hubble image of the galaxy M74 we can also see a smattering of bright pink regions decorating the spiral arms. These are huge, relatively short-lived, clouds of hydrogen gas which glow due to the strong radiation from hot, young stars embedded within them; glowing pink regions of ionized hydrogen (hydrogen that has lost its electrons). These regions of star formation show an excess of light at ultraviolet wavelengths and astronomers call them HII regions.

Go out and look at the stars tonight. It’ll make you a better human.

GDrive Could Change the Way We Do Computing

Even though I love my data and am vigilant in keeping backups and offline storage of emails, pics, docs, etc I do use and enjoy the wide range of Google products. This morning, the Wall Street Journal had a piece on new details of the supposedly eventual release of Google’s “GDrive” or “Platypus” or “MyStuff” which would allow you to sync up your data in the cloud and access it from anywhere (including mobile) in a safe and cheap environment.

Marshall Kirkpatrick says this could be a game changer and gives three very good reasons why in a solid post that you should consider when thinking about the future of the web and the data we produce and construct in our individual molecular social graphs:

It’s easy to be cynical about the details coming from the Wall St. Journal this morning. It’s easy wonder whether Google will ever bring its storage product to market, whether it can be trusted given the number of times its own company blogs have been hacked and whether it’s even a good idea given the near omniscience the company will soon possess. I believe, though, that important new information is coming out about the GDrive and the product will play a fundamentally different roll in our lives than existing online storage products purport to.

ReadWriteWeb – GDrive: Three Ways It Could Be a Game Changer

Social Media Marketing Strategies

The always informative and wise Jeremiah Owyang has a top 10 list of posts regarding social media strategies. This is a must-bookmark post:

I’m answering a lot of questions and see myself referring to the same blog posts and concepts over and over. There’s a few posts that I recommend that you read, some of them were published a few months ago, but are starting to become very relevant. In fact, I’ll send this post to a few clients that need to get up to speed…

Ten Web Strategy Blog Posts I wish you’d read

Zoho Writer Allows Offline Editing

A few backs the continual innovative team at Zoho announed the integration of Google Gears into the Zoho Writer web app. Zoho Writer is analogous to Google Docs and similar online word processing applications. The first cut had offline viewing facility alone. However, this release pushes the online word processing space ahead as it allows for offline editing.

Here’s a video from Zoho explaining more details:
http://zoho.com/zohowriter-zoho/zohowriter-zoho.html

Scoble and Amazon’s Kindle Monetization Mistake

Robert Scoble recorded a 13 minute video laying out his main beefs with Amazon’s new ebook Kindle reader. Most of his points pertained to the Kindle’s poor design (which I agree with). However, one of his points include:

4. No ability to send electronic goods to anyone else. I know Mike Arrington has one. I wanted to send him a gift through this of Alan Greenspan’s new book. I couldn’t. That’s lame.

While the Kindle (and ebook readers in general) is still a very niche product, it is interesting to see that social network sharing via gifts and commodity purchases is becoming seen as a required standard feature for new devices or platforms in this increasingly “socially networked” world. There’s a reason Facebook applications that encourage sending gifts, etc become popular quickly even though they require cash… people like sending gifts.

Look for this trend to continue.

Mark Cuban and Ted Stevens in ’08

If Mark Cuban were to hypothetically run for president in 2008, he might want to consider Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens for his running mate based on these types of sentiments…

In an open letter to Internet service providers published earlier this week, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban calls for telecoms to put an end to peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing. Cuban expresses concerns that P2P “freeloaders” are clogging the tubes with commercial content. His letter doesn’t focus on piracy, however, and instead primarily attacks companies that use P2P for legitimate commercial applications. We’re always interested to read the musings of Mr. Cuban, but this time we’re pretty sure he’s missed the point…

This argument comes from the man who funded Grokster’s legal defense back in the day and invested approximately $1.7 million in P2P company Red Swoosh. Cuban has been focused on the problems of bandwidth to the home for some time, however, telling Ars in 2006 that he is in favor of a tiered Internet.

Seriously, how out of touch is Mark Cuban?

Mark Cuban to ISP’s: block all P2P traffic; Ars to Cuban: um, no

The Question of Reading and National Consequences

Great study on the alarming declines in reading by young adults and college educated adults from the National Endowment for the Arts:

The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming. Although there has been
measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level,
all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general
decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading
ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates.
These negative trends have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear,
the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications.

To Read or Not to Read: NEA Study (pdf)

Link Optimization – The Next SEO?

Dave Winer writes today regarding TinyURL’s recent downtime and what it means for the web:

Now that URL length has become an issue for users, it might be even better for designers to view URLs as part of site design. Look at the address for the page for the Wii at Amazon. Wouldn’t it be easier to find if the address were:

http://www.amazon.com/wii

Try clicking on it — it actually works!

Why should a user ever see the longer crappy url?

In other words, url-shortening isn’t just for Twitter users, it’s for everyone. Maybe most people don’t look at the urls, but some do, and maybe more would if they made more sense?

Imagine if web developers would start taking link optimization into account along with search engine optimization. As Winer points out, long link strands are increasingly becoming irrelevant as most people just go to Google if they need a link they can’t remember and click from there.

However, if you’re selling a product or a service, how valuable is it that the link to that product or service have an increasingly easy format and structure for users or customers to remember? Perhaps not valuable for all merchants or advertisers… but potentially very valuable for many.

Expect to hear more about link optimization as the web grows up and grows out to mobile.

The Kids Are Alright

We should be listening to what the kids are saying and watching what they are doing as we endeavor to create a better web. Otherwise, we’ll continue to fill the role of typical adults and muck the web up:

Rather than a teacher creating class blogs, and registering all the students one by one, and creating a single feed of their posts, it’s the students who are doing this around their friendship or collaborative work groups. Since the content and mechanism are in the hands of the students we see the same exponential growth in content and delivery that we have seen in the real world net, but have really struggled to harness for education. I’d argue that with increased flexibility in the means of delivery we’d also see increased content creation to mould around all these different media.

Imagine if Facebook took that to heart! There’s wisdom in youth.

Toys and Tools: Different Names for the Same Things

Having become a father just six weeks ago, I’m already recognizing the patterns of behavior that my daughter and I share.  While she’s not playing with Barbie’s yet, she’s becoming very tactile as she continues to try and figure out this strange new world that she’s joined.

I love my toys.  My toys these days are phones and laptops and all sorts of geeky gizmo’s.  This week, I got my first Macbook Pro and I’m using it for productivity reasons while also treating it like a toy.  I’m sure Mary Hudson will do the same as she grows and starts to put the toys she enjoys playing with to use as learning tools.

So, my question… is there a difference between toys and tools?  Can a hammer be both an instrument of creativity and enjoyment as well as a way to get things done?

Personally, I don’t see a difference between the two.  Hopefully my experience as a father will either confirm or prove wrong my theory.

Google v PayPerPost Act III

Google recently socked PayPerPosters with a decrease of PageRank to 0.  Harsh, but needed in my opinion.  If you’re going to dance to Google’s music, you’ve got to be willing to pay the band.

Robert Scoble makes the point that:

Bloggers beware. If you just write great content and put the ads around the content like everyone else does you won’t be messing with Google and Google won’t mess with you.

VCDan writes in the comments to that post:

GOOG’s latest move isn’t about disclosure or search relevance. IZEA’s launch of http://www.SocialSpark.com (prior to this GOOG move) with mandatory disclosure, transparent RealRank, no-follow links, and face-based analytics positions IZEA to lead on transparency and convert even more bloggers from AdSense to sponsored social media.

Which got me thinking… one of the people that I listen to the most when it comes to all things web, Jim Kukral, has similar things to say about SocialSpark. 

In fact, Jim says that Izea should dump PPP as a brand and focus on SocialSpark.

So, the big question is can a con-man reform himself and can Ted Murphy rebrand Izea and SocialSpark as separate from the PayPerPost stigma?  I’m not so sure, but it will be fun to see how bloggers (and Google) handles SocialSpark’s upcoming release.

Google makes moves to protect organic relevancy « Scobleizer

User Generated Content Can Solve Problems

For all of its noise, "user generated content" can sometime be a huge help.

Yahoo Answers, for example, is sometimes a great resource when you have a random question like when a new laptop will arrive…

Does FedEx Deliver on Saturdays, I mean regular ground delivery.?

Does FedEx Deliver on Saturdays, I mean regular ground delivery.? – Yahoo! Answers

Press and Speaking Engagements

I’ve updated the “Publications” page up in the menu bar to reflect some of the places I’ve spoken recently and how to get in touch with me if you’d like for me to speak at your meeting or show.

Sure it’s a little vain, but I’ve gotten more and more requests for this type of thing recently so I wanted to make it easier to find and see examples of my previous speaking engagements or publications:

I’m available to speak to groups interested in social media, affiliate marketing, performance marketing or web metrics. Contact me if you’d like to have me speak to your group.

Here are a few places where I’ve spoken and published:

Press and Speaking

Tomb of Ezekiel?

This one shows the building from the outside. Cool, eh? And this one shows part of a Hebrew inscription on the inside. The first part of the inscription is outside the frame, but the rest reads הנביא בן בוזי הכהן זכותו ינן עלינו ועל כל ישראל אמן, “… the prophet, son of Buzi, the priest. May his merit increase upon us and upon all Israel. Amen.” The prophet in question is, of course, Ezekiel, who was a priest and whose father’s name was indeed Buzi (Ezekiel 1:3).

PaleoJudaica.com