Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth
Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth: "this monstrous conversation". Indeed. When a conversation this large is at your fingertips, what do you do?
Skype Places Bet on FON Revolution - Gizmodo. I'm sorry, but this FON stuff all the A-bloggers are hyping up just sounds stupid.
I have an open wifi spot. How is FON different, except that you can have an open wifi spot if you sign up with them? Oh, yeah, if you do, you get free wifi anywhere in the world. If you can find the hotspots. Sorry, but that's just useless.
"Michelob - Touch Football" I found a feed of superbowl commercials showing up in Mefeedia.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 0.5 min, 3.1 MB)
Original post, from 2006 Superbowl Commercials
(Via Mefeedia)
A girl in Jay's elevator told me her cellphone was stolen ("right out of my hands!"), and that the cops told her the kids who steal them get 40$ per cellphone.
That's a lot! I have some old cellphones lying around. Could I get 40$ for them?
ranked aggregation
robhyndman.com: "but also because ranked aggregation is kind of a holy grail in Web 2.0 right now - everyone is trying to figure out how to replace the human editor and make aggregation of quality content scalable."
Social aggregation is another obvious candidate (let your friends help you find the good stuff). What you find interesting is different from what I find interesting, so ranking things by amount of comments, incoming links and such can only be part of the picture.
Apple - QuickTime - Download - Standalone QuickTime Player Apple try to make you download iTunes with Quicktime - this is the place to go if you want to download ONLY the QT player.
"Mobile Cooking": can you really cook an egg with nothing but 2 cell phones.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 4.1 min, 23.3 MB)
Original post, from life with kellybelly:
filed under: cooking videos, videosThe other day I found a website that explains how to cook an egg using two mobile phones [link]. Of course I had to try it. (23.3MB) This movie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 2.5 License.
(Via Mefeedia)
After I learnt basic PHP (I coded for a living for a while), I became an information architect, and never really had to code again. All my little projects didn't need more than my basic PHP.
Since I'm working on Mefeedia.com though, I finally feel I'm becoming a better coder again. In the sense that I'm learning to really set up an object model, a db model and a set of actions on those, and keep that pretty separate from the service or website itself. I might play with Rails a bit in the future. If there is time for playing.
IA Summit - Architettura dell'Informazione
IA Summit - Architettura dell'Informazione The Italian IA summit looks like it'll be a great success. Emanuele told me they're almost full, but since it's FREE, he's still accepting registrations because he's not expecting everyone who registered to show up. So register soon if you want to go!
Mike Davidson: Lessons From The Roundabout SEO Test
Mike Davidson: Lessons From The Roundabout SEO Test: Mike made up a word (lodefizzle), tested it on Google, and got these conclusions:
- yes, you should use h1 tags and such
- using tables for layouts is not a problem
- you should have more or less valid html code
- and the final conclusion: "Although good semantics are somewhat valuable in optimization, simple things like proper titles, descriptive filenames, and incoming links are dramatically more important."
Life With Alacrity: On Being an Angel
Life With Alacrity: On Being an Angel: "Thus when entrepreneurs complain that VCs will not invest in their company, it is often because the VCs can't figure out how to invest a minimum of $25M and turn out at the end with $250M."
Good thing that, for many internet projects, you don't need VC's. Pfew.
Boxes and Arrows
Boxes and Arrows. Great articles, but I really dislike their new design. Star ratings everywhere? Apart from the fact that they are fairly meaningless (so 3 people rated this article 4 stars on average. What the hell does that mean? Nothing at all is the correct answer.), they really throw the visual design of the page out of balance. And then the cropping of text. Why is the sidebar full of text like "Wireframes f..." or "How to: ment..."? Come on!
Enough bitching - I'm lazy too. But these are all things IA's would care about, so I'm surprised B&A would get them so wrong.
I *do* really like the fact that they don't only indicate who wrote an article, but also who edited it. That's good.
A social analysis of tagging
A social analysis of tagging: "After being on many mailing lists for many years, let me say, conversation is often overrated. Often, I like to be in the company of others, without needing to follow threads and participate. It is the same reason that I like working in a cafe - enjoying the presence of others without the burden of active interaction. Similarly, tags provide a companionable social hum that I enjoy."
In the continuing rise of information architects coming up with online tools and services, Rashmi and Uzanto present MindCanvas. Rashmi is one of the most thorough researchers I know, so if she stands behind these methods I'd believe her. Fascinating.
I just registered for this years' Information Architecture Summit - it looks like it's gonna rock. A LOT of people will talk about folksonomies (including me), so let's see if the IA profession has come up with an answer to bottom-up classification after having taken some time to think about the whole thing. IA's tend to be balanced, careful people. Some of us at least. Not me. Anyway, last year there was a lot of confusion about folksonomies, perhaps this year we'll have actually something interesting to say. Something like: "Sure, they're cool, but here are a few ideas of taking them to the next level." Perhaps.
Six Apart - Movable Type News - The benefits of static web pages: "# Static pages are easier to index.
# Static pages show a better face to external search engines."
I can not believe that the Typepad guys would put such self-serving bullshit on their website. The above are patently NOT true, and pretty much everyone with an ounce of technical understanding knows this.
Of course they list these as "Byrne's" list. This tactic is known as willfully spreading lies or myths that benefit your product. I didn't believe Typepad would do that.
"GeekBrief.TV" Girl talking about gadgets. Tis gots to be popolaro!
Although. I would like people to try to be less TV-like, not more in their videoblogs. Thank you so much. And don't try so hard to be cute. Only americans like that.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.9 min, 18.9 MB)
Original post, from GeekBrief.TV:
1/15/06 - GeekBrief.TV | Download GBTV #0006 or Stream in Quicktime The Tunebuckle keeps a nano safely tucked inside the buckle of your belt. Company: TuneBuckle Source: The Register MicroMemo is a digital voice recorder for the iPod with Video Company: Xtreme Mac Source: Engadget The Mini Three is a paired down three button model of the The Optimus Company: Art. Lebedev Studio Source: Engadget Clocky is a fluffy, robotic alarm clock with wheels. Company: Clocky Source: Coolbuzz
(Via Mefeedia)
Yahoo ads vs. Google adsense: there are differences in the 10% range in what they pay.
I've been running Google adsense and Yahoo's Publisher network ads in an A-B test for over a month now. I had a script randomly serve either a Yahoo or a Google ad in the same place. The ads looked almost exactly identical (in color and layout) too.
The end result is that Yahoo (right now, for my site) is paying 10% more than Google ads.
Each ad network got 9000 page impressions per day, for over a month. That should be enough to be statistically relevant. But then the stats start to diverge in interesting ways.
Google's ads got an average of a 2.3% clickthrough rate per day. Yahoo only got an average of 1.3%. BUT: the average daily revenue per day from Yahoo is 10% higher than the average daily revenue from Google.
In other words: Yahoo seems to serve (for my site) higher paying ads than Google. So even though the Yahoo ads get less clickthrough, the end result is that Yahoo pays 10% more.
Of course, these numbers will probably differ for your website. The 10% difference is statistically valid for my website, but you can not extrapolate that to other websites. The content will be different, so the ad inventory that each service has will probably be different as well.
Your final conclusion should be that Yahoo and Google pay pretty much the same, although there may be small difference (5, 10, perhaps up to 20%) in what they pay for specific websites. The only way to know for your website, is to run them both, next to each other, for a month or so, and see which one pays more for your website. If you are making 100$/day or more, 10% can end up being quite a bit of money and doing these tests and optimizing may be worth it. If you make less, don't bother, just use one of the two for now.
And of course, you should repeat the test a few times a year. These things always change.
» Mashup ecosystem poised to explode
» Mashup ecosystem poised to explode: a good explanation how the new internet API will hopefully create a new ecosystem on which lots of software can be easily written - just like the PC!
Exploding the conference business
Keeping in touch
I live quite far away from many of my friends and family, and lately I feel like I'd like to be in touch with them more.
What tools have you find really, actually useful to keep emotionally in touch with your loved ones. I'm not looking for "cool" web stuff. I'm looking for things that you use to keep in touch.
Email and phone of course. I am starting to use Skype more.
braintag: vlog year+1.
braintag: vlog year+1.: "Although the cameras are getting smaller and the players more portable, the automatically captured metadata isn't getting any bigger or better. Yet."
Hardware for videoblogging (and generally, for consumer media creation that's web-savvy) is ok, but a lot is missing. Videocameras should focus less on image quality (it's fine for the web) and more on sound, for example. For vlogging, at least. But we're slowly getting there.
del.icio.us/url/94ddbb945ebaac34095a802d002dd1ab: bookmarks at delicious of the Mefeedia videoblog directory, which has the amount of videoblogs in its title, hence it's a strange view of the growth of videoblogging. Yey.
Podcasting
I am trying to find good podcasting tools. Here's what I need: record Skype conversations, mix some audio, then upload it somewhere (preferably the internet archive for longevity). Should be easy, and on Windows. Google is no help at all. I am willing to pay 50$ for a good tool that does it all. I don't want to pay for crappy tools that do 1 thing kinda ok. I want an easy solution.
Does anything like this exist yet?
testing performancing
I'm checking out performancing, a Firefox plugin that lets you write blogpost with a nice editing window from within your browser.
"Live from Las Vegas #029: the Google Keynote..."
Watch movie (Quicktime)
A pretty long video of the Google keynote. Enjoy. Rboin Williams is rippin' like crazy in this one, I think this must be the corporate presentation with the highest density of sex jokes eva.
Original post, from Rodrigo A. Sep
"Tony Kahn on Podcasting and Videoblogging". A pretty cool interview with NPRs Tony about podcasting..
Watch movie (Quicktime, 3.4 min, 13.3 MB)
Original post, from Steve Garfield's Video Blog:
Tony Kahn talks about how podcasting and videoblogging are revolutionizing the way people consume media. Click here for video. [ QuickTime ] Video in this interview: Jay Dedman Shaving: Momentshowing David Pogue Interview. Subscribe to Tony: Tony Kahn's Morning Stories...
(Via Mefeedia)
So Yahoo! has recently bought Flickr, Oddpost, Upcoming, Konfabulator, Webjay and Delicious. In other words, a lot of the 1 to 5 people small startups that have good "web DNA" (which means: whose creators understand the web) and do innovative stuff. Have I missed any?
Sounds like a plan to me.
"This Old Man". I love these collaborative movies Mica does.
Watch movie (Quicktime, , )
Original post, from Tap Diva Project 2005:
You know how your teachers always say to sing your rhythms? This little movie proves the point. click on the picture to watch/6.3 MB...
(Via Mefeedia)
I am working with a starting Indian development shop, and even though it is challenging sometimes, and we're still trying to make it work, answers like this about last months' bill really make my day :)
From my provider: "payment: I dont know what the best way to bill for the last month is. Since various people jumped on various tasks at various times. Why dont you decide on the value of delivered items. If its more than zero we are making progress!"
Conference schedule - ASIS&T 2006 Information Architecture Summit
Conference schedule - ASIS&T 2006 Information Architecture Summit.
Oh man! Day 3 looks fantastic. If only I could clone myself in 3 people and thus attend all 3 tracks. Damn!
Tracking sites
Is there a (preferably free) and easy way to track the responsiveness of a site? As in: how fast does it serve its pages. Something that checks a number of times a day would be perfect. Thanks!
(Yes, I'm back from my holiday. It was great.)
"T-Shirts!" Buy some Node101 T-shirts to help the cause!
Watch movie (Quicktime, 1.9 min, 6.5 MB)
Original post, from Michael Verdi:
Check out the NODE101 T-Shirt store! Help support NODE101 and FreeVlog buy buying some cool vlogger swag. Also, if you've got an idea for a T-Shirt that you'd like to donate, just email me and we'll get it figured out.
(Via Mefeedia)
"I will never fly United Airlines again" says Steve Garfield. It makes me think though: sound is THE most important thing with videoblogs. All beginning videobloggers obsess over picture quality. But it doesn't really matter, really. Sound quality does though. Good sound means the video looks better. Anyways, don't piss off videobloggers - their anti-company rants are even more home-hitting than those of text bloggers.
Watch movie (Quicktime, , )
Original post, from Steve Garfield's Video Blog:
(Via Mefeedia)
I'm signing off
I am going backpacking, so this is my last post for the next 5 weeks. Enjoy the internet! I won't be on it. I'm sensing the withdrawal symptoms already. I twitch.
In a kinda cool coincidence, Google introduced vacation responders yesterday, so that's what you get if you attempt to email me. Try it! If you dare!
What is revlogging?
Revlogging is blogging about other videobloggers.
I've always felt that videobloggers don't link enough to each other's blogs and videos. It's normal: with text blogs, you have a bookmarklet that makes it 1-step to quote someone and post your thoughts to your blog. For videoblogs, we don't have a mechanism like that.
My first attempt to make revlogging easier was the QuoteThis tool in Mefeedia. It would let you create a SMIL movie that contains a quote of another movie, and post that to your blog by copying and pasting the HTML to your blog. I still think it's a good idea, but the tool had 2 problems: the SMIL movies would often play very slowly (a limit of the technology), and there was no 1-click sending to your blog.
So my second attempt at encouraging revlogging is the new BlogThis tool in Mefeedia. This time it posts directly to your blog, and you can even drag and drop thumbnails of the video in your post (it's a wysiwyg editor). I think this time it works. It becomes very easy to browse through Mefeedia, and the nice thing about Mefeedia is that it has pretty much complete archives of all videobloggers, and pretty good tags. You can BlogThis from anywhere on Mefeedia. The experience is a memory trip: your browse through tags and feeds you know, re-dsicover old videos, and blog them to your site, like I've been doing on this site for the past days. The whole thing just works.
The BlogThis still needs improvements, but the basic experience I think is solid. Browse around. Blog movies you find. What revlogging does is creating a web of links between videoblogs and videos, making videoblogs much easier to discover. Videoblogging needs revlogs.
What are users searching for on your site?
What are users searching for on your site?
"Richard Host Rocketboom (in his own mind)"
Is that a commodore 64? Oh my god That's a Commodore 64!
Watch movie (Quicktime, 6.2 min, 25.2 MB)
Original post, from blip.tv (beta):
On the yahoo video blog list a discussion came up about what RocketBoom would be like if an old fat guy hosted it. My name came up (for some reason) and my friend Bill Streeter of Lo-Fi St. Louis set up a set for me and we put together this video. I also added an really great video from my new friend Paul Knight of PJKPRODUCTIONS.
(Via Mefeedia)
"Videoblogging Week 2005: Day 1"
It's like going back in history. Videoblogging week (most videos of that week here) was a way to show to people that hey, everyone can make a video a day. That's interesting. If you just force yourself.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 1.8 min, 6.5 MB)
Original post, from MICHAEL VERDI:
This is my first video for Videoblogging Week. It's also available with captions here and you can now subscribe to my captioned video feed right here.
(Via Mefeedia)
"Remix Month". Videobloggers have been doing this crazy stuff since the beginning. They remix each other, they do video pingpong games. They are social. In a way that the podcasters, as far as I can tell, are not. Perhaps it's just the ability to see each other's faces?
Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.6 min, 11.6 MB)
Original post, from blip.tv (beta):
"Vlogger Homage Part 2"
When videobloggers start to imitate videobloggers. Oh man.
Bre Pettis' homage made me laugh out loud. Bre is great, gotta love him.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 2 min, 11.8 MB)
Original post, from blip.tv (beta):
(Via Mefeedia)
"Sky"
Michael loves sky=blue. And he makes a video about it. "Just pause this video. And enjoy this color."
You know what I really like about videoblogs? The various forms. Something like this could only be done in a videoblog. Or an art installation perhaps, but then nobody would see it. Unless it got bought by the Moma. But fuck that.
So videobloggers are experimenting with form. With different types of videoblogs. It's quite naturally; everyone tries stuff. You notice what seems to work. You build on that. The early years of a new medium are great, that's were a lot of the creativity lies. A lot of the exploration.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 1.1 min, 0.9 MB)
Original post, from Michael Verdi:
The sky has been incredible for the last two days! It's inspiring. I love it.
(Via Mefeedia)
"The Adventures of Thomas Brin"
If you like sci-fi, you might like this. It's weird. Bad. But not necessarily in a bad way. Check it out.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 3.1 min, 20.4 MB)
Original post, from Taylor Street Studio:
The Adventures of Thomas Brin is a sci-fi vlog serial in the tradition of Doctor Who. I love the flat space full of windows, doors and other frames. We've lost something with realistic CGI in movies. The deterritorialization that happens with blue screen puts us in a nether region - where sci-fi belongs. Note: Taylor Street Studio has split into other vlogs. This vlog/feed will be mostly me writing about and curating other peoples vlogs. My own vlogs/feeds are below: Deep Maps: How do new forms of networked and syndicated cinema change our experience of space and landscape? What should a travel vlog look like? Mostly a vlog to deposit my own video encounters with place, but also to...
(Via Mefeedia)
"VIDEO: Do not watch this video"
I filmed this in Jay's appartment, like last year (or was it this year?). Anyways, it was scary. I still can't watch this movie and be relaxed. I wouldn't try this at home either, I don't think it's very healthy.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 0.8 min, 3.9 MB)
Original post, from Momentshowing
(Via Mefeedia)
"VIDEO: A Videoblog circa 2006"
Jay talks about his fears for 2006. Is videoblogging going to be co-opted? Is it gonna sell out? This video has some video to video conversations, edited together about the future of videoblogging.
As a sidenote: videobloggers don't have noses this big, generally. It's an effect of the cheap cameras. Closeups. For real.
Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.6 min, 5.1 MB)
Original post, from Momentshowing
(Via Mefeedia)
"I need Tylenol badly, but I can't open it. So I'm asking steve to open it."
Real life. Man. Jay was right when he focused on momentshowing. Moments are great.
Watch movie(Quicktime 4.1 min 13.2 MB)
Original post, from Steve Garfield's Video Blog:
Everytime I go over to my mom's, she's got a list of things for me to help her with. This time she needed help with some Tylenol, Dental Floss and Shampoo. Click here for video. [ QuickTime ]
(Via Mefeedia)
The Carol and Steve show is a classic. I've always loved the conversations at the kitchen table most, but this one's good too. I don't know, real life. You gotta love it.
Watch movie(Quicktime 5.6 min 18.3 MB)
Original post, fromSteve Garfield's Video Blog:
This week Carol and Steve clean out the freezer and then cook some NEW Ore-Ida