Category: Technology

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“It was from that planet [Nibiru], the Sumerian texts repeatedly and persistently stated, that the Anunnaki came to Earth. The term literally means ‘Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came.’ They are spoken of in the Bible as the Anakim, and in Chapter 6 of Genesis are also call Nefilim, which in Hebrew means the same thing: Those Who Have Come Down, from the Heavens to Earth.”

– Zecharia Sitchin, Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited

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“Throughout Mesopotamia, from the earliest times of Sumer and Akkad, all lands were owned by gods and men were their slaves. Of this, the cuneiform texts leave no doubt whatever. Each city-state had its own principal god, and the king was described in the very earliest written documents that we have as ‘the tenant farmer of the god’.”

– Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Sons of God

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n the night of 2008-03-20 (UT) we observed the optical afterglow of GRB 080319B (GCN 7427, Racusin et al.) with Gemini-South + GMOS in g, r, i, and z filters (4x180s in each filter). The source is well-detected in all bands. Magnitudes, calibrated to SDSS DR6, are: UTstart UTend t(hr) filt mag err 06:52:17 07:10:19 24.808 g 20.95 0.09 07:11:19 07:26:11 25.099 r 20.55 0.03 07:27..

GRBlog: GRB080319B

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sometimes i hate blogging. scoble nailed it this morning (scobleizer.com).

thinking about rolling it all up into one crispy paper ball and throwing it into the fire.

whatever it is… i guess i’m referring to the blogging aesthetic. so completely fucked up and unncessary.

didn’t we invent this blog shit to counter the stogedy crap that was flowing from the pro’s?

what happened to punk blogging?

we sold out.

for shame.

fix it?

Affiliate Panel at Web2.0 Expo

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the upcoming Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Lisa Picarille (Revenue Magazine), Stephanie Agresta (Affiliate Karma), Marc Levin (formerly of Yahoo) and Cam Blazer of DoubleClick Performics and I will be discussing responsible affiliate marketing strategies in a web2.0 world…

The Changing Landscape of Affiliate Marketing: Bloggers, Social Media and Online Merchants : Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 — Co-produced by CMP Technology & O’Reilly Conferences, 04/22/2008 – 04/25/2008, San Francisco, CA: “Affiliate marketing is a proven way to monetize online content, and emerging publishers know it’s important to maximize relationships with merchants. Merchants also derive value from the growth of the blogosphere and social media. Experts in affiliate marketing (representing the publisher, merchant and affiliate network perspectives) will explore how these new publishing paradigms use existing affiliate models, and further enhance strategies for monetization of blog and social media content.”

Should be a blast and will be the first time I’ll have spoken at Web2.0 Expo. Let me know if you’ll be there.

BTW, where is everyone staying? I need to “get a room.”

CostPerNews FTW

If you’re here for affiliate or online marketing posts, you might also want to check out the revived CostPerNews site that I love so much and get to keep…

Cost Per News: “As part of my settlement after leaving ReveNews, I get to retain the ownership of CostPerNews.”

It’s going to be a blast dusting off the cobwebs and getting that place back in order. Join me?

Calacanis on GeekCast: Mahalo Affiliate Workshop

Shawn, Jim, Lisa and I did a special GeekCast (our weekly geek marketing podcast) today with weblebrity Jason Calacanis of Mahalo.

I think this is our best show yet and offered a ton of practical affiliate marketing advice along with the customary humor and irreverence.

GeekCast 9: Jason’s First Time : GeekCast.fm: “Lisa Picarille, Jim Kukral (Kurkal), Shawn Collins and Sam Harrelson were joined by Jason Calacanis for a 45 min long conversation about how Mahalo should incorporate affiliate and performance marketing monetization techniques. The conversation became a workshop applicable to any business looking to monetize content through the affiliate channel and has a high amount of practical value (as well as the normal ratholes and humor).”

Go have a listen on the GeekCast page or download the podcast mp3:

Yahoo Just Got Cool Again

Yahoo is embracing semantic web standards / microformats…

Yahoo Embraces The Semantic Web – Expect The Internet To Organize Itself In A Hurry: “What does all this mean? It means we can expect the web to get itself organized, in a hurry. At stake is a significant amount of traffic from Yahoo search, and anyone else that may choose to build applications on top of this data.”

In other words, all those random social networks and places of content creation that you have joined or participated in (MySpace, LinkedIn, blogger.com, etc) are going to be more easily incorporated into Yahoo search because the data will be properly structured on the backend.

This is huge and has been a coming avalanche one snowflake at a time.

Hats off to Yahoo and all the open standards evangelists like Chris Messina that have made this happen.

Updated: Marshall Kirkpatrick has a great piece about what this all means on RWW

Amazon, Affiliates and Facebook

TechCrunch is reporting on a new set of Facebook Apps from Amazon.com. First, let me say that I absolutely love Amazon.com and it has changed how I buy everything from toilet paper to music (the DRM-free mp3 store kicks iTunes’ butt) to toys to electronic gear.

In no small way, that game changing is due to the feedback and product reviews from actual purchasers and users. They still make a big difference if I’m torn between two competing products. Even if I’m at a physical store like Best Buy, I’ll often browse to Amazon on my mobile and do some quick research on the fly before a purchase.

So, it would be killer if Amazon could or would integrate its associate program with this new Facebook app…

Amazon’s Latest Product Launch is a Couple of Facebook Apps: “Amazon has now officially joined the Facebook craze. It has launched two of its own Facebook applications: Amazon Giver and Amazon Grapevine.

Amazon Giver shows your Amazon wishlist on your Facebook page. Of course, there are more than a dozen apps on Facebook that already let you do that, but only Amazon Giver lets your friends actually buy those gifts for you without leaving Facebook. Ah, distributed commerce. Your friends can also click on a recommendations tab that creates Amazon product recommendations based on interests reflected in your Facebook profile. So if you are ‘fan’ of The Killers, it might recommend one of the band’s CDs. If you are a ‘fan’ of a soccer page, it might recommend a soccer ball. It also provides recommendations for your friends, conveniently listed by closest birthday.”

Think it’ll happen? I’m not so sure, but this would be a very steady revenue stream for Amazon and influencers who use Amazon and Facebook.

I’m chalking this one up to a possible “affiliate marketing future” paradigm, even if it is the old skool Amazon program.

Hulu, Radioshift and the End of Scheduled Programming

I’ve been in the beta of Hulu for the last few months, and I have to say that I’m loving the service. New shows, old shows, rather new movies and old movies…. fantastic.

Between this, bittorrent, Joost (they are carrying March Madness live this year) and Apple’s iTunes movie rental service and ability to download Lost, I’m seriously considering canceling cable. Now if Nascar would only go online…

Here’s a clip from The Jerk, which I’m watching now:

http://www.hulu.com/embed/HsIOWOOx6OKr1bnfM0uNjg

The ability to share, create a profile and embed stuff from Hulu is really nice and will help with the adoption. I just wonder if they’ll keep that around since I could basically just embed entire movies here.

The age of having to watch or listen to a program at a certain time is over. I rarely listen to FM music anymore with my ever growing collection of music and iPod. I do have a thing for AM radio, but there’s a great app for the Mac called Radioshift which allows you to rip AM from the stream. Add to that the two dozen or so podcasts that I actively listen to and I just don’t have the time or need for scheduled programming.

Amazing times we live in, folks.

8 Random Things About Sam Harrelson

James Omdahl asked me to take part in the “8 Random Things About Me” meme. Although I hate these memes, I like James so I’ll play along.

1. I cut my finger off just before I entered 9th grade. I was on a boating trip with my parents the weekend before school started and got my hand caught between the edge of the boat and the dock when another boat sped by and knocked our boat against the dock. I got my left hand out in time, but my right hand wasn’t fast enough. I ended up slicing off the end of my ring finger (from the top knuckle up) and crushing my other fingers. We actually saved the finger and it got re-attached. However, I have no feeling in it, so typing “L’s” and “O’s” on a keyboard is a pain.

2. Speaking of fingers, I can bend my pinky fingers all the way back. I have a rare condition called Ehlor’s Danlos that results in “hypermobility.” Basically, I’m like Rubber Band Man.

3. I love scifi book and movies. I’m reading 5 or 6 scifi books at anytime. Edgar Rice Burroughs (Martian Tales and Tarzan) is my favorite author. I’m also a huge Robert Heinlein fan. Science fiction is the last bastion of theology and philosophy in this post-modern age.

4. I’m working towards a PhD in Assyriology. I should be finished by now, but I started the program at Yale in 2000 and moved back to SC with my wife in 2002 so that she could attend medical school. Looks like I’ll be finishing around 2050 or so at this rate. I did, however, get a book published by Yale Press on Assyriology in 2006 called Asia Has Claims Upon New England. I was proud.

5. I met Ravi Shankar at an Anoushka Shankar concert in Newberry, SC a few years ago. I’ve never shaken hands with someone so awe-inspiring.

6. I want to be a teacher. I’ve been an 8th grade Science teacher and a Religious Studies Prof at a small univ in NC. Both were great experiences but I realized that you can be a teacher in whatever capacity you serve… even in marketing.

7. Macaroni and cheese (Kraft out of the box with way too much pepper and skim milk) is my favorite food.

8. When I graduated college with a Religion degree, I had every intention of becoming a minister (did the Pre-Ministerial club and everything) because of my experience in the AmeriCorps. I went to seminary for two years and realized that I was a heretic and got out with a master’s degree in Religion and Ancient Art. Jesus still loves me (I think).

Thanks for the nod, James… that ended up being more fun than I thought it would be.

Say It Ain’t So, Twitter

I’ve said over and over that I hope Twitter doesn’t go down the route of being acquired by Micro/Hoo/Goo. Even an ad deal with one of them seems a little troublesome to me (but it’s a business, so they’ve got to pay the bills).

I think Twitter has the potential to become a platform to compliment pop3 or IMAP with open 2 way API’s.

Yahoo & Twitter Ad Partnership in the Works?: “I just signed up for a new Twitter account today and my first Twitter generated friend was Yahoo! or Yahoo Search Marketing’s YahooAdBuzz Twitter profile…”

This probably doesn’t hint at anything substantive, but it does make me nervous.