Posts Tagged ‘feeds’
You might remember the products. You might remember the hype. Then, you are tooling down highway 41 years later and all of a sudden you think to yourself – “Hey, whatever happened to…”
Failed ideas. Maybe it was a great idea, but wasn’t made right, or design errors brought it down. Maybe it was just a bad product. Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see if we cannot repeat these errors again.
Oh yeah, why 16? Well because we could.
The Computer Watch: Whether it was the Ruputer, the MSN Direct ‘Smart’ Watches, the Timex Data Link Watch or another gadget watch – BTW – I remember having a “Transformers watch”. It was awesome!
Still, the Dick Tracey style communication watches, the “Computer on a wrist”, never really hit it off. I even remember a watch that gave you directions. You would put in the paper tape and turn a little dial to indicate where you are and where you are going.
2 Comments »…For 2008 that is…
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1 Comment »It’s been a year and a few months since the first iPhone was sold. Since the release of the 3G model, I’ve been seeing people with iPhones I would have never expected have one. The iPhone has brought up a new way to use the internet, the phone and a computer.
Apple is under a lot of scrutiny: AT&T being the sole carrier, the Apps store program take downs and the 3G services being poor. Yet the iPhone still is the 2nd best selling phone behind the Motorola RAZR. Apple itself is set to continue through these tough times.
There has been a lot of good and bad said about the iPhone. I have seen a lot of Forum posts, even more twitters and more. I decided to go ahead and ask a small group of people over at Help A Reporter what their thoughts were. I asked to send me 1-2 paragraphs as to why you like, don’t like or are neutral about the iPhone. Here are the responses:
I love my iPhone (even though the first one went “bad” on me within the first month)! I am a book author and speaker. I use my iPhone to do “cold calls” and the 60 second presentation. My phone is set to my home page and I have book marked my YOUTUBE page. When I run into a “prospect” I can quickly show them my “media presentation” which often results in a greater interest in my project and sometimes a new client. Without the iPhone I am not sure how I would be able to make the most of chance encounters and networking with influential people. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment »Yesterday on the Podcast, I talked about an email I received from iTunes. The story is an old podcast I ran up until last year was still up on their site. I took everything down to make it go away and the listing stayed up on the site. I continued to get 404 errors (page missing) from my site error page, so I put the XML back up.
Finally on Monday I recieved the take down notice. It was really surprising since iTunes never really cleaned up the mess before. I had a few people ask me to post the letter, so here it is:
Read the rest of this entry »
No Comments »Digg grew to a powerhouse site in a very short time. The Popular News Aggregator service continues to be a great place for people to not only read news, but also contribute to what they think is news. Alexa reports that Digg has been fluctuating around the top 100 to 150 sites being viewed. 52.5% of those viewers are in the US.
The rumor mill is stirring up again that Google has put interest in buying Digg. TechCrunch reports that the “Rumor” is Digg will be selling for $200 million although CEO Jay Adelson denies it. Will this be a good deal for Digg, or can they grow and survive on their own?
Digg started in 2004 by Kevin Rose, Own Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky and Jay Adelson. The idea was to aggregate news items and put popularity to it. People would place a “Digg it” icon on their site in which you could easily send the article to Diggs news feed. If another person liked the site, they would Digg it. Others could just as easily Bury it. Some sites get Dugg so much so quickly, the flooding of viewers takes down the web page. It’s a very powerful medium, and definitely something that Google could use.
There are other sites like this. Fark is one of the oldest in which we talked about in a previous article on Geekazine. Yahoo has their “Buzz”, which is awfully similar to Digg. Reddit, Technorati, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon all have similar popularity systems. However, Digg seems to be more popular in the US. According to Alexa Del.icio.us, for example, actually has a decent popularity in Germany.
Why would Google want Digg?
Two things here. First is the voting system. It’s not only very sound but also comes with a ton of analytical widgets that can spot trends and keywords. Even more, a large number of people actually have the “Digg” widget located on their sites, some of them have multiple widgets just on one page.
Second, it’s the community. Digg has a lot of members that contribute countless numbers of articles. When a new article is submitted, it must first be verified so it’s not a duplicate. After agreeing it’s not and a quick CAPTCHA verification, it gets put into the Queue. Of course that is where the members really shine. They can rise that article up to the top, or drop it like a mobster in Cement shoes off the East River.
Loading ...What does Google gain in this?
Like I said, Digg has some cool systems in place to view trends and keywords. Their “Digg Labs” shows statistics as they happen in cool little flash pages. Trends and Keywords are big for marketing. Specializing ads, pitching companies with almost picture perfect statistics – All can give Google a better advantage in the market today.
It also can be great to see in search results. Maybe an “Article Trends” chart could be called up to find out when that information was most popular. It could definitely be put to use in their Webmaster Tools, Adsense and DoubleClick ventures.
What would that mean to Digg?
One of two things. The Digg Staff would either be incorporated into operations at Google – basically be called Google Digg or DigGoogle: or Google would let Digg look like a separate being and cross platform with them. I would guess the latter is going to happen. Sometime full incorporation means job exodus and loss of creativity. Not to mention members jumping ship to other competitors.
On another front of this, Microsoft put in 11.3 Million in a 3 year advertising deal to Digg. If this acquisition happens, this contract could be axed overnight. If that happens, hey Microsoft – we at Geekazine have some ad spots you can purchase for considerably less. Give me a call.
Of course it won’t be the end of the world for Microsoft. Like I said before, there are other sites that are very similar. Digg will always have competition via Yahoo, Reddit, Technorati, Del.icio.us or on any of the other sites.
Bottom line, this merge would be great for both. Kevin Rose and the gang would get a boost for all the work put into Digg and maybe a shiny new title. Google would get a ranking system and analytical tools which in turn would also be bestowed upon the community of webmasters for their sites. It looks like a good Win Win situation for everyone.
That is, if it’s true…
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3 Comments »Drum work – New 5 min segment – Thanks to Slashdot Review for the Plug – Email
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1 Comment »Just wanted to let people know that I was working on the site trying to get a plugin to work. It failed miserably and so I removed it.
I am looking for a good plugin to push my friendfeed data without a Javascript widget. If you know of one, let me know.
I also noticed that the WP-supercache was not working right. I tried to disable and it still wouldn’t update the site. I ended up disabling and deleting the cache files. Great program, but it really needs to understand when an update happens. I would post something, then go to the homepage and it wouldn’t be there. I tried to post a page, then delete and the page stayed. Not cool.
Speaking of Pages, I added a Feeds Page. Let me know if it’s helpful or not.
Today in the Gym I was watching a report that Apple iPhone was challenging Blackberry for market share in the corporate world. I agreed with the report – Apple has a better user interface than the Blackberry, Blackberry is too expensive in their messaging systems and an iPhone looks a lot better than a Blackberry device.
But then I got to thinking about it. Is this really news? I mean, yeah – we’ve got one company trying for a niche that another company has. However what company hasn’t tried to emulate or compete with another company’s corner-hold before?
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No Comments »My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-511b01904537b65efbeedeb80bde4a5d}
My Podcast Alley feed {pca-453bf562f5bf60239d9d96c1520ff79f}
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