A Big Reason Most TV Shows and Movies Suck

We went to see "The Last Mimzy" over the weekend and before you ask "Why?" I'll only say my fiancee and I were taken in by the trailers which hinted at an "E.T."-like classic story with novel special effects and neither of us felt like being intellectually challenged on a Sunday. Needless to say, we probably should have Tivo'ed the trailer and watched it over and over 120 times instead of seeing the actual movie. I think the most entertaining thing about it was playing "Count the Product Placements!" In fact "Mimzy" featured the most blatant non-joke product placement possibly in the history of cinema. Way to go Intel. I think ticket prices should be discounted based on the number of product placements. In the case of "Mimzy" the theater should just send us a check for $32.50.

Anyway, my point wasn't about product placement or how execrable "The Last Mimzy" was. Mimzy, like most movies and TV shows suffered from the "stereotype of running time." That is to say, "this is a movie and therefore it should run about this long." Or "this is a TV show and therefore it should run this long." Unfortunately, many stories need a lot more than 90 minutes to unravel their plots and characters. By the same token, many films need only a few minutes. I suspect "Norbit" might have been better as a five minute YouTube clip. We'll watch as long as we're entertained and engrossed.

While lately TV shows have become serialized in their approach to storytelling ("Heroes," "24," "Lost," etc.), they're still missing the point. TV shows like these run as long as the network can suck money from them. Most of today's serial shows have a central mystery and this lack of a known run length must drive writers crazy. Will it end this year, next year, or five years from now? How much filler do we need to add? How much can we flatten this story arc? Alias seemed to suffer from this. The first two seasons hinged on discovering a lost artifact. When they found the lost artifact there was really nowhere to go except off the air. "Lost" is a good show but it's heavily padded. Some scenes just lay there, bereft of plot or meaning, but they help stretch the series out.

The last example I'll share is local TV News. Some nights there is truly not enough news to fill the 30 minutes. This means we get fluff stories about colorful senior citizens and pets that can sing. How about we make a rule that local TV news is as long as it has to be. No more real news 15 minutes into the broadcast? Well, then sign off and let's move on to the next thing.

Zillow Real Estate Wiki: Why We Need Editors

The Zillow Real Estate Wiki is a good idea. But it's also an example of why a wiki might work best in a closed system. Zillow's intent is to create a comprehensive resource for home buyers by letting everyone contribute, but the result is more like a combination resource guide/marketing tool/crap sandbox. They need professional, dedicated editors.

Looking through the A-Z list there are many entries that are simply place names, for instance "Illinois." Click on it and at present you get nothing. I'm not sure what I'd expect to find by clicking on "Illinois" but I would expect to find something. Someone obviously created an entry and then got bored or wasn't sure what to do next.

Another entry is called "Az Realtor." As you might guess, some realtor in Arizona decided to get some free marketing. Very altruistic of them.

So while I am a fan of wikis in general, I am also a fan of good editing and content approval. Wikipedia has a strong editorial component, which I've encountered when attempting to change my company's listing. It was annoying, but I ultimately respected the fact that the editor wanted to make sure everything was kosher. Zillow needs that kind of editorial commitment and then the might have something.

http://www.zillow.com/wiki/RealEstateWiki.htm

Sad, Disgusting, and Intolerable

I have been reading Kathy Sierra's "Creating Passionate Users" blog for a while now and have always enjoyed their unique and insightful content. Recently Kathy was threatened by some people who I hope are simply harmless, immature, misogynistic losers who think they're being funny (they're not). Needless to say the anonymity of the Web allows them to remain unknown and to this point, unfound.

In the meantime Kathy has understandably cancelled speaking engagements and remained locked in her home since there's no way for her to know how real these threats against her are. You can read the whole story on her blog, which has (hopefully) temporarily been put on hold.

I hope these idiots are found and charged appropriately for threatening Kathy's life. This kind of behavior should never be tolerated.

Warren G. Harding Invented the Internet: The 20 Greatest Historical Myths

An interesting list of The 20 Greatest Historical Myths. My favorite:

Edison invented the electric light
Thomas Edison is known as the world's greatest inventor. His record output - 1,093 patents - still amazes us, over a century later. Astonishing, except for one thing: he didn't invent most of them. Most Edison inventions were the work of his unsung technicians - and his most famous invention, the electric light, didn't even belong to his laboratory. Four decades before Edison was born, English scientist Sir Humphry Davy invented arc lighting (using a carbon filament). For many years, numerous innovators would improve on Davy's model. The only problem: none could glow for more than twelve hours before the filament broke. The achievement of Edison's lab was to find the right filament that would burn for days on end. A major achievement, but not the first.

If you want to see Edison in an even worse light, see the excellent movie, "The Prestige" in which Edison acts as the film's heavy.

The 20 Greatest Historical Myths

What's Better than Cleaning up Dog Poop? Cleaning up Fake Dog Poop!

I admit I'm a bit out of touch in the world of dolls, but I just saw a commercial for a doll that has me at a bit of a loss. Apparently it's a Barbie product from Mattel that's been out for a while called "Barbie Doll with Tanner the Dog." Tanner is a a cheerful little pup who Barbie has to take care of.

Now, I will set aside the banality of playing with a toy that is responsible for another toy for a moment so I can address an even more ridiculous scenario. You feed Tanner pellets and then when you press down on Tanner's tail, he poops. That's right, he poops and then Barbie has to clean it up.

Admittedly I'm not a pet owner and probably never will be because I think it's silly. Part of the reason I think it's silly is that people claim to own pets and then walk around cleaning up their excrement. I don't see that as ownership so much as a really lousy part-time job. To design a toy based on this notion may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

See this brilliant feat of engineering in action below:

Tracking Buzz Around the World

Buzztracker has been around for a while, developed originally in 2002 by Craig Mod, but I just discovered it through the Yahoo! Buzztracker widget. The goal of the site is to show the interconnectedness of news from around the world. It's a pretty simple concept that's very nicely executed (abridged from the the About):

"Buzztracker consists of two types of pages. Daily Indexes and Individual Location Indexes. On the daily index page, you see a list of cities with percentages next to them. The number represents the percentage of news stories that city is associated with for that day.

Locations that appear more often are represented by red circles on the map. The more frequently the cities appear, the larger the circle. Connections between locations are determined by intercontextual referencing in news articles. These connections are represented by lines between locations. The stronger the connection, the darker the line."

Just go check it out. It's cool.

Buzztracker

Beer Launcher: Ugly and Accurate, Like Randy Johnson

While I think the beer launcher created by a Duke University engineering student is well-designed and pretty cool, I have to assume the final product will be a little more attractive. This thing wouldn't look appropriate anywhere but in a Duke University engineering student's dorm.

Also, I think he might want to add a laser site to it since though it may be accurate once it's aimed properly, the trial and error required for aiming it might get messy and, potentially kill a pet. Watch it in action here:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/445498/robotic_beer_launching_refrigerator/

Unrelated to the beer launcher, perhaps I just hadn't noticed, but Metacafe inserts two ad links after a video ends. I think that's a good strategy, but A) the links should be relevant to the video just played b) if they don't already, they should offer the video producer ad space there, and c) they should include space for the "Replay Video" link within the video space as well as "Related Videos."

I also think it's a great idea to show how much the video producer has earned by posting their video. What a great incentive to get others to post quality content instead of the stupid crap.

TechCrunch Compares Article Link Ranking Sites

Great comparison of the article link ranking sites. Such a seemingly simple concept has spawned so many sites. TechCrunch points out the key differences under the auspices of how Digg can improve itself. I think the real result will instead be these alternative sites getting a lot more traffic.

Toward a Better Digg

Sustainable is Good : Makers of Splenda buy Hundreds of Negative Domain Names

I knew I should have bought technogeekboysucks.com!

Sustainable is Good : Makers of Splenda buy Hundreds of Negative Domain Names

Inviting Metrics to Someone Else's Party

Have you ever brought along an uninvited guest to a party? Maybe he's a great guy who will be a real asset to the festivities and frankly the last few of these parties you've been to have needed the help. Or maybe you just didn't know it was invite-only. When the host admonishes you for being so thoughtless and rude, who tends to look bad, you or the petulant host?

This is sometimes how it feels to bring Web and email metrics to people in your company. They didn't ask for them, they don't want them, and, frankly you're a little rude for bringing them up. Things are going fine in their division and they only invited you to the meeting because they have some more "great ideas" for the Web. But you showed up with metrics and a few questions about their business goals and they don't appreciate it.

A common misconception among business people who have Web property is that Web Analysts are out to get them and take away their Web activities and, sometimes, some of their budget. What Web Analysts are out to get is the truth about Web activity. If the truth leads to initiatives being cut back or eliminated, it's not because the Web Analyst was out to get someone, it's because the initiative was a failure and no one had noticed yet.

However often the initiative simply needs some help and focus to get back on track. Perhaps the audience has shifted. In the case of content sites, perhaps the writing has gotten away from its sweet spot. Whatever the reason, analytics and testing can only help.

Why I Don't Wear a Watch

As I passed the Garmin store on Michigan Avenue this morning a window display for their new Forerunner 205 watch caught my eye. It's a sleek but bulky watch for runners that monitors heart rate and tracks your route with GPS among other exercise-related things. I had seen a positive review of it in Wired Magazine which praised the features but gave it a little ding on the bulk factor. Overall it seems like a pretty nifty watch which I have no intention of ever buying.

I started thinking about the fact that I haven't worn a watch in over a decade and when I did I didn't really like it. I didn't feel it was worth the annoyance of having something strapped to my wrist when there are already so many clocks around. I, like many people, use my mobile phone, currently a Cingular 8125, to tell time. Someone asks if I have the time and I reach into my coat or pants pocket, fish out my phone, turn on the screen, and tell them the time. Of course by then they've probably asked someone else who's wearing a watch.

Every now and then, like this morning, I check out the latest in watch technology and each time I invariably I come to the same conclusion: Watches never do enough. I realize this is insane. A watch is supposed to tell time. But whenever I look at a watch online or in a store I feel like simply telling the time is a waste of technology. Sure you can buy watches that give news headlines or scores, but that requires a monthly fee. And usually they look kind of hard to read and interact with. This Garmin Forerunner watch does all kinds of things but it's limited to fitness. What about when I'm not exercising? Then it's just a little clock again.

I like the idea of a Web-enabled watch but, like I said I don't want another monthly fee. A wi-fi watch would only be helpful when you were near a connection and there just aren't enough free wi-fi spots. Maybe a bluetooth watch that could use your mobile phone's signal. Hmmm. Of course the interface would have to be really good for a screen that size and they almost never are. Usually data watches have big low-resolution icons and fonts, horrible for reading anything more than a phone number, much less a news headline.

Anyway I've decided that in order to get all the functionality I want in a slick, stylish package I will have to do something I never do. I will have to beg Apple. Please release an iWatch. Sigh.

Earn Points from the Stupidity of Celebrities

I play in a few fantasy sports leagues and in the process of looking for even more resources to sate my unquenchable desire for bad advice, I stumbled across Fafarazzi.com. According to the site:

"Fafarazzi is a Fantasy Celebrity League. Fafarazzi.com works just like fantasy sports leagues - except instead of scores being tallied for homeruns and touchdowns, they're for catfights, divorces and baby bumps!"

I imagine Britney Spears is the Albert Pujols or LaDanian Tomlinson of the league.

You can start a league or join one with strangers. This might be kind of fun if I could find enough friends who would be interested. Of course, joining would mean I'd have to follow more of the celebri-crap that's already hard enough to avoid.

http://www.fafarazzi.com/index.php

Delexa: Guess What It Mashes Up?

Now I like this. Delexa.org combines, wait for it, Del.icio.us and Alexa to create a tool that finds the most trafficked Web sites by topic tags. Search for a topic and Delexa brings up a list of Web sites along with their Alexa Rank and the number of Del.icio.us tags the site has. These are combined to give each site a "Delexa Rank."

I like this combined method for determining rank and I like the clean URL you get. For instance my search for "emailmarketing" has the URL http://www.delexa.org/tag/emailmarketing. Maybe I'll tag that on Del.icio.us and create an infinite loop.

You can also search by Web site and Delexa will bring up an Alexa-like information page about it along with all it's Del.icio.us tags and related sites. This is less useful, but still pretty cool.

It's not perfect, it claimed a few sites had no Del.icio.us tags when I know they do and, of course, it relies on the flawed nature of Alexa's user base to determine popularity. Plus it's not very pretty, but I'm sure it will get a face-lift if it stays around. But I'm still calling this worth checking out.

Banking on the Wisdom of Crowds For Search? Yikes

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wants to create an open, editable search engine. In other words, spammers and advertisers can more easily mess with the results? As much as I love the idea of "crowd wisdom," I don't have a lot of faith in people behaving themselves. People game Digg.com all the time despite their best efforts to prevent it. Imagine the possibilities with a full Web search engine. The constant battling with people out for their own best interests will likely render the results useless.

However Jimmy Wales is no fool and I have to assume they've got a plan to combat this. Project home here and more here.

More Random Name Generators

The Yahoo Directory has a collection of random name generators. Apparently my American Indian name is "Stephen Leatherbound Shorts." That would not have been my first guess.

Good and More Good on the Digital Music Front

Through Gigalaw.com, two articles about the way the music industry should handle digital music. Article one is about a crackdown on illegal music pirating at universities. The RIAA understandably wants to crack down on the epic amounts of music be stolen at colleges. As the article says, "According to the research firm NPD, students accounted for 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006." That's a lot of lost profits, for the labels, yes, but also for the artists. The RIAA seems to be content going after the universities themselves in their attempt to stem the tide, which I think is a good approach. Going after the file sharers directly has so far proven ineffective and evil.

Another good development is that Universal iFrance is testing restriction-free digital music. Albeit in a small way and with a caveat. "We are making some micro tests. This doesn't change our overall policy on DRM." This is according to Universal Music France, Middle East and Mediterranean-South America president Pascal Negre.

So there you go. Stop the thieves and give the honest people DRM free music. We can dream can't we?

20 must-have Firefox extensions

Some extensions I hadn't heard of here. Definitely worth a looks-see.

20 must-have Firefox extensions

FeedMiner: A Work In Progress I Hope

I was excited to see a new feed finder, hoping they were perhaps onto something the others have missed. At this point it seems FeedMiner has missed it too.

There's no ubiquitous "BETA" tag anywhere so either its creators are as sick of seeing them as we are or this is meant to be a finished product.

I tried two searches one specific and one general. I chose "fantasy baseball" ('tis the season) and "technology." Results for "fantasy baseball" were:

1. Fantasy Baseball : CBS SportsLine.com Fantasy Sports: Good!
2. Velocity Sports Blog: Sports, yes, but nothing about fantasy or baseball.
3. Fantasy sports podcast: It would be nice to keep podcasts and news feeds separate here, but at least this is somewhat relevant, if not specific to baseball.
4. McSweeney's: What? Not even close.
5. Baltimoresun.com: On Fantasy Sports: Not bad. Specific to the Baltimore Orioles mostly, but the columnist also discusses the rest of the league. Not Top Five-worthy though.
6. Will Carroll Presents: Will Carroll is a baseball writer, yes. However this feed appears to have expired two years ago.
7. SI.com - Fantasy sports: Good!
8. Amazon: baseball: This is an Amazon.com feed for books about baseball.
9. Wisch List: This is a non-sports Chicago Tribune Columnist.
10. Copyfight: A legal blog.

So I'd give those results a 3.5 out of 10 for accuracy. I would do a lot better if I did a regular Google search for "Fantasy baseball" and then checked if any of the sites had RSS feeds. Pretty poor.

For the general search "technology" the results were a bit better but I was alarmed to see the #1 result was a spam site. The rest of the results were largely the technology feeds for major news sites. Not bad, but hardly interesting.

Needless to say, I'm unimpressed with Feedminer's results. It also offers no bells an whistles like exporting results as OPML or saving good results to a personalized page. I have nothing against the stripped-down Google approach to search, but the results better be damn good.

Who's Your PollDaddy?

As a lifelong PollMonkey/SurveyMonkey fan, I figured I'd check out another alternative in case I've been missing out. A new Web 2.0ish site called PollDaddy offers slick looking, easy-to-create polls for free. The polls can be embedded using javascript or Flash and offer a few skins to choose from (presently 14).

They do look slick and create the polls is pretty simple using a three-step wizard. I encountered a little bug with adding the last question in a list, which was quickly resolved. You can cusomize the look and feel of the poll if you know a little CSS, which seems a bit techie for widespread use. I think they'd be better offering an intermediate solution between editing code and selecting a skin. Perhaps a checklist (Bevel: Yes or No, Chrome:Wood:Plastic, etc.) and a color/font picker.

Ultimately I created the poll below in about two minutes. I still prefer PollMonkey, but the next version of PollDaddy might become a contender.

Many Eyes are Better than Two

I just discovered a very intriguing site via dexly.com. The site is called Many Eyes and announces itself thusly:

"Welcome to the alpha version of Many Eyes! View your data, ask questions, and share your discoveries. Harness the collective intelligence of the net for insight and analysis."

Naturally, that does nothing to explain what it is. What it is is a community of data-philes who share and visualize information. For instance, someone uploads data about the unemployment rates in the U.S. by state. Now the data is available for everyone and anyone can go create a visualization of the data using Many Eye's intuitive interface. For instance I could easily create a bubble chart from the data where the states with the higher rates have larger bubbles.

Basically you choose your data set (by browsing what's there or searching), click a chart type, preview it, then publish it. You can tweak certain parts of the chart as well.

If you'd rather just browse though, there's plenty to see. The chart below shows companies by NAICS (industry classification) code in a very cool treemap. You can right-click on each section to blow it up and see the sub industries with in the main industry.



It would be nice to see this kind of community-based analysis show up in other places. I think some of the major news agencies might benefit from checking out some of the stuff people are coming up with on sites like Many Eyes.

Great E-Mail Marketing Resources

Thought I'd collect my favorite e-mail marketing sites and blogs into one neat package. Some of the sites below require registration, but most are free to the world. I subscribe to all of them through RSS or e-mail, which is infinitely helpful in keeping up with them and not getting overwhelmed.

In addition to what's below, I tag a lot of Email Marketing stuff on Del.icio.us, which is always available here: http://del.icio.us/napdynmite/emailmarketing

Clickz Email
http://blog.clickz.com/archives/topics/email.html
Frequently updated and widely-referenced, probably th best single source of email marketing information.

MarketingSherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com (sign up for the email marketing newsletter)
They offer a paid subscription and sell some nice studies, but the free content in the newsletter is fantastic. They also specialize in stats and benchmarking information found in few other places.

ReturnPath
http://www.returnpath.com
The deliverability kings offer up topics on a variety of "getting to the inbox" stuff and list management.

Campaign Monitor Blog
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/
An e-mail marketing system vendor with a lot of insight from the reseller's perspective.

ExactTarget Blogs
http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/blogs.aspx
A top notch e-mail service provider's blog on a wide variety of topics from a smart bunch of practitioners.

MarketingProfs
http://www.marketingprofs.com (paid subscription and well worth it)
I unabashedly love MarketingProfs.com, not just for email, but a variety of resources, including a terrific email vendor matrix. Great content on email and much more.

Email Marketing Best Practices
http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/
I just discovered this gem and already feel pretty comfortable recommending it. Tamara Geilen covers everything from design to spam legislation. You could spend a lot of time here.

Email Universe
http://emailuniverse.com/
Targeted at email newsletters primarily, but a lot of great advice about best practices in email.

Email Experience Council
http://www.emailexperience.org/They're new and they're building up their cache quickly. Join and get involved. The site has some good resources as well as a mission.

Never Look at a Dollar Bill the Same Way Again

This has nothing to do with technology but it's so weird, funny, and unique I had to mention it. It's a rap about the life of George Washington and it's utterly ridiculous in the best way possible. Also, the audio is not safe for work.

Video Ads Remain Stupid

As I mentioned in a previous post, I hate video ads and they desperately need some standards (in lieu of common sense I guess). Apparently Rebecca Lieb at Clickz agrees. She also points out the inherent issue with pre-roll video ads, which is that A) people in offices really don't want to have their PC speakers flooding the area with Viagra ads and B) people with audio turned off or their headphones plugged in and not on their heads aren't going to hear the audio anyway.

Video ads are a stupid practice and should probably just be stopped. I don't see the value to the advertiser or the host.

Six Things I'd Like to See in Second Life

I believe Second Life could become a huge thing in the next year but it has a ways to go. Some things I'd like to see are listed below. If these things exist I just haven't found them yet. Some of these are user issues and some are up to Linden Labs to fix:

1. A recommendation engine
   If this exists I haven't seen it. Let users rate places and let editors make recommendations. I can never seem to find any good places to visit. I think tagging might help as well.
2. Better in-world retail stores
   I've visited the Sears, Circuit City, Dell, IBM, and a car manufacturer's site (don't remember which). None of them offer much in the way of product selection or information. I understand it will take some time and proof of concept, but at this point it's just a few products with links to the company's Web site.
3. Better object interaction
   There are a lot of objects throughout Second Life but not much interacting with them. For instance I'd like to pick up a ball and throw it. Or could I climb a tree? Could I pick up a product at Circuit City and examine it more closely.
4. A better inventory system and interface
   The interface for SecondLife is quite daunting. Some things are intuitive, like walking around and even flying to an extent, but to do anything more than that takes patience and time. Finding and using objects you've picked up or purchased means navigating a giant tree structure that I really don't like. How about thumbnails?
5. A better map
   Look to Google Earth for ideas. The current maps look straight out of Intellivision.
6. An In-World Browser
   I'd rather stay within second life and browse Web content. I'd like to see Linden Labs create a pop-up in-world browser. I'm sure some good designers could figure out a way to make it usable, readable, and non-intrusive.

What's Up With Widgets?

More about widgets extending a company's brand from Clickz.

What's Up With Widgets?

TV Links

From the "too good to be true" Department comes TV Links, a site that aggregates TV shows available for viewing online. After clicking on a few links to shows an finding paydirt, I was feeling encouraged. I decided to click on a few more before declaring it "worth checking out." The final tally was 6 out of 10 links lead to viewable shows. Actually 5.5 since one show seemed to start partway through.

So I'd say it's probably worth checking out but don't get your expectations up too high. Selection is a bit scattershot, but not bad. Plenty of cartoons and a few popular shows like Battlestar Galactica and 24, but you may have to cross your fingers a lot.

It's a ridiculous shame that sites like this even need to exist.

TV Links

Web Worker Daily:Blog Archive Five ways to be nice to your eyes

Via Web Worker Daily. Protect them peepers.

Web Worker Daily: Blog Archive Five ways to be nice to your eyes

Can Two Sinking Media Ships Combine to Float?

Sirius and XM want to merge and I think it's a good idea. They're both floundering financially despite hype and happy customers the seem to be maxed out. So perhaps a combining of on-air talent will re-energize satellite radio and help it compete with regular radio, CDs, iPods, etc.

I personally haven't invested in either service for a few reasons:

• I have Rhapsody To Go and really get all the music I want
• I couldn't choose between the services since each had something I wanted
• I don't drive all that much and the car really is the only place I'd use it. In fact the only reason I was considering it is because my fiance does drive a bit now, however she's only been lukewarm on the idea
• I don't want yet another monthly fee

Perhaps combined the service can offer a compelling set of programming that would be hard to resist.

Free Time+math=A Helpful Photo Tip

I take a lot of group photos at work for our Intranet, which means I take a lot of photos of people with their eyes closed. I know they're not doing it on purpose, but it's really irritating when the best shot in the bunch is ruined by a blinker. The "Velocity" blog may be able to help, thanks to some math and some free time to test.

Velocity Web Site - Blink-free photos, guaranteed

Liquor Snob: Great Information if You Can Find It

A crapload of ads clutter up this otherwise unique and knowledge-packed site about all things liquor. The search wasn't working so I guess I'll have to plow through the posts to find some Gin advice.

Liquor Snob - News and tips on all things alcoholic, including beer and wine, breathalyzers, cocktails and spirits; plus drink recipes, booze reviews and more. All the news that's fit to drink.

iDig iStockphoto.com

I use a fair amount of stock photography in my work and while I've always liked and used the heck out of photos.com which is subscription based (about $500 per year) my fiancee has turned me on to a new stock photo site, that I think is even better. It's called iStockphoto.com and it's much more than a stock photography site, it's a community. Community sites are a dime a dozen, but what sets istockphoto.com apart is that this is a community that produces some amazing original stock photography, illustrations, Flash animations, and video that is not only high-quality but inexpensive. iStockphoto.com runs on a credit system. All the artwork is provided by an extremely active community of artists who get paid for their work directly. Anyone can contribute once they fill out an application and get accepted (your first samples are reviewed by a panel). This is a welcome quality control system, and is working well.

To use the service you buy however many credits you want and then you use them pay for whatever you download. Photos are 1 to 6 credits depending on the size you want. Illustrations (vectors thank you!) are mostly 5 credits. Video is 5 to 20 credits. Flash animations seem to vary a bit, but the ones I've seen are usually 1 credit.

The site itself is very Web 2.0 and to delve into all the cool features would take an awfully long post, but the short list would include:

• User ratings
• Tagging
• A great Lightbox utility
• Forums
• A creative network
• A blogging tool

Not only do I get a lot of use out of the site, but I have often started simply surfing around to check out all the cool stuff available. I can't say I've done that with many other commerce sites.

Pipe Down: Fun with Yahoo! Pipes

Well, I've finished my first Yahoo! Pipe. I decided to create a feed that pulls from several "life hacking" blogs and limits results to posts containing lists of tips (which I often find myself drawn to). I rounded up feeds from a list of popular life hacking blogs like Lifehacker, 37 Signals, and WebWorker Daily and told Yahoo! Pipes to Fetch them. Then I connected that to the Content Analysis operator, and then connected that to a filter. I had to set the filter up to permit only blog post titles that contain keywords common in "Tips" type posts. I chose: "tips, top, some, favorite, best, steps, and ways." This was based on reading through several of the blogs and noting what words commonly appeared in the titles of "tips" type posts.

Lastly, I told it to sort by Publication Date and filter out duplicates. Here's the result:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/xMKQRnW92xGrLKYelvXiAA/run?_render=rss

It worked pretty well. A few non-tip posts made it in, but for the most part it did what I'd hoped. I remain very excited about Yahoo! Pipes and will mess with it as much as time allows. It's still beyond non-techies, but I can see this becoming a powerful tool for Webmasters who want to display targeted content and power news junkies who want to create truly unique "newspapers." Yahoo! Pipes plus a newsfeed aggregator like Netvibes or Protopage equals the world's greatest online newspaper.

Autumn: For Anyone Who Has Been Obsessed with Finding an Answer

I think this is one of the best blog posts I've read. Partly because it's exceedingly well-written and partly because I identified strongly with the writer, Nick Tosches' unyielding passion for fulfilling what, on the surface, seems like a relatively simple quest. I've lost so much time over the years to finding answers to things like using Outlook to send formatted HTML e-mails, finding a freeware app to convert video, etc. sometimes only because I know it's out there and I refuse to give in to failing. Nick takes it to an extreme understandable only by those possessed with "The Quest."

Xbox Meets Toll Basket

The other day I was pulling up to a tollbooth on I-294 in Chicago and the car in front of me ceremoniously dumped an Xbox into the toll basket. I wish I had taken a picture. In any event, I have no idea if this was supposed to be some kind of statement against Xboxes or Tollways but it was one of the stranger things I've seen in a while. In case you're wondering, I just threw my change into the basket with the game console. Who knows, maybe they were hiding evidence in plain site.

Web Ad Attack

This morning I clicked on a digg.com link to a story in Forbes about the best and worst selling cars of 2007. I was first met with a splash ad for Symantec which could not be skipped. I waited for it to finish and went on to the story where I was immediately met with a loud video for an investment advice book from Fischer Investments along with the requisite banner ads. In addition there was one of those annoying pop-ups for a Forbes survey that moved with me as I scrolled down the page.

This is a lousy user experience. I understand that Forbes.com needs to make money, but this is overboard. I didn't even read the story because I was so annoyed and I'll likely think twice about the next link I see to Forbes. Here's what I think:

1. If you force people through a splash ad, let them skip it. Most of the time they won't find the "Skip Ad" link until they've seen most of the ad, so you don't lose much eye time. But at least give the option.
2. No self-starting video ads. Present the ad, with the embedded video and let me click on it if I'm interested.
3. Pop-up ads are bad enough, but one that follows you around like a hungry little yelping puppy is just amateurish. Just don't do pop-up ads.
   
   

Butts in Seats

As I trudged through several inches of snow and the bitter cold of a Chicago Winter this morning I started to think how ridiculous some companies are when it comes to working at home. I've worked for a lot of bosses who demanded "butts in seats" and a few who couldn't care less where the team was as long as they got the work done. Currently my job requires my butt in my seat in my cube at our headquarters.

The nature of my job is such that I can pretty much work from anywhere, whether it's my home, a Panera, an airport, wherever. If I can get an Internet connection I can be at work. So why am I taking two trains and walking two miles every day to get to work? Because someone above me is old school and doesn't trust people he can't see.

The good news is that these types will eventually retire.

Creating a Brandtastrophe

One of the divisions of the organization I work for decided to build their own prototype for their section of the Web site. They sent it to us (the Web team) and said this was what they wanted us to build them. We had already prototyped their section for them, staying of course, within our own Web site and branding standards. However they apparently felt that their level of "specialness" extended beyond our brand and therefore required a new, bastardization of our brand. What they sent us I can only refer to as, a "brandtastrophe."

Brandtastrophe: The bastardization of an organization's existing, established brand to suit the needs and preferences of a subgroup of an organization.

We've all seen this a thousand times, from the department that creates its own letterhead by smashing the organization's logo into a piece of Microsoft Word Wordart to the division that works with an outside contractor to develop a piece of collateral that has the organization's logo, but bears little resemblance to anything else from the organization. Perhaps it also has some myopic messages that were put together by the division's director during a brainstorming meeting but that no one else outside the division has ever even seen.

Brandtasrophes suck the life out of a brand and muddle the public's perceptions of it. At their worst, they effectively vandalize the organization.

Digg Zealots Suck

I saw on Threadwatch how Digg zealots are attacking various Yahoo! properties who use a voting system similar to Digg. These people are true idiots. What I find amazing is that many of these Diggers also espouse how the Internet should be free and they should, for instance be allowed to post copyrighted content on YouTube or share MP3s and other intellectual property freely. But if anyone "shares" the idea of a voting-based content system they attack like a bunch of old biddies with their bloomers in a bunch. "You stole Digg's idea!" "You aren't cool enough to be like Digg!" Then they swarm the Comments sections of these "thieving sites" and prevent anyone else from enjoying them.

I've got news, Digg zealots: The Internet is about sharing—sharing ideas, sharing what works, sharing conversations. Who came up with the idea of a search engine? Should they have started attacking everyone else who put a little field on a page with a "Search" button? I know Digg wasn't the first site to come up with a "vote for this" model.

In the larger scheme, zealots of anything suck. Whether it's Digg zealots, Mac zealots, religious zealots, sports team zealots, or whatever, please, just stop. Can't you be a fan or follower without being a blinder-wearing, crazed lunatic? You like the Green Bay Packers. I get it. Do you have to start fistfights in bars because someone else in the bar isn't? You like the iPod. I get it. Do you have to openly mock anyone who has something else, repeatedly boast about how wonderful your iPod is, and canonize Steve Jobs? You're a Jehova's Witness. I get it. Can you worship with your congregation in peace and stay away from my front door?

Digg.com is a nice site, I'm a member. I think it's still got some serious issues, most of which are human/idiot-based. People successfully game the system for profit or glory instead of using Digg as it was intended. The technology itself is fantastic. So instead of attacking everyone else who uses a voting system for content, why don't you focus on making Digg.com better?

No Linking Allowed in Belgium

So apparently linking is now wrong. I can understand there being a concern about Google's cache containing archived stories that are normally charged for by the copyright holder, but what is all this other piffle about Google News using material without consent? So no one is allowed to link to free content without the linkee's consent? Is Belgium on the planet earth?

Court rules that Google breaches copyright with news service-News-Tech & Web-TimesOnline

Widgets Deliver New One-to-One Opportunities

An informative post from Chad Stoller at ClickZ about getting into the branded widget game. He makes some good points about how to ensure your widget is sticky (sticky widgets?) Namely, make them simple and uber-functional. I haven't seen a lot of articles like this and it's nice to see widgets being taken seriously and not just as toys.

As mentioned previously, I do use a few branded widgets, notably from Acura and Allrecipes.com. Not to mention the Yahoo! branded widgets. With Windows Vista, I think Widgets will explode in the next year. That's, of course, contingent on Microsoft getting people to buy it.

Widgets Deliver New One-to-One Opportunities

WIRED Blogs: Listening Post

Great discussion of DRM and the effect of switching to a no-DRM system on Wired.com. It's nice to hear all the arguments for and against. No one can really predict exacly what will happen, but with enough discussion like this I think we can come up with a close approximation. Will the artist lose money? Will the customers ever get what they really want? Will the record companies diminish? Hopefully those are all "Yes."

WIRED Blogs: Listening Post

Will Widgets Kill the Webpage? (Exclusive Netvibes video). (Erick Schonfeld/The Next Net)

I was discussing widgets with a friend recently and they thought widgets were to complicated for most casual computer users. I think if anything, they're easier. They focus on one thing and leave out all the other impediments to finding and using information.

Check out what NetVibe's founder thinks:

Will Widgets Kill the Webpage? (Exclusive Netvibes video). (Erick Schonfeld/The Next Net)
http://www.techmeme.com/070212/p107#a070212p107

Famous Princeton ESP Lab Closes

Amazing ths place was still around. Interesting history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/science/10princeton.html?ex=1328763600&en=2f8f7bdba3ac59f1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Web 2.0 Explained Through Video

This is a cool Web 2.0 video that's popping up everywhere from Lawrence Lessig's blog to Boing Boing. It's very cool and shows the evolution text and the Web. Very slick.

That Would Be a Great Band Name

If you're like me, and pray God you're not, you occasionally realize something that just came out of your mouth would make a great name for a band. I think this happens to me at least once a day. You'll be talking to a coworker about stepping on a rancid peach outside the produce stand by your house and suddenly you stop and say "Rancid Peach would be a great name for a band!"

Well you can now save time in this ridiculous pursuit by using the Band name generator.

Either enter a few words of your own to mix into the generator or just create utterly random band names like "Pungent Lager Wormlings" or "Crafty Hamburgers." I'm pretty sure I don't want to hear the next download from "Sphincter Bulbous Holidays," but who knows, maybe they're the next "Speedcake Protocol Cherries."

Jobs Votes to Give DRM the Heave-Ho

As sick I am of Steve Jobs and despite the fact that I consider him an arrogant, overrated shill, I am really heartened by his essay favoring the drop-kick of DRM. He makes some great points and I'm sure this essay will become the next big thing (probably it already is).

Especially well-written are the last few paragraphs where he points out that record companies have always sold DRM-free music in the form of easily-rippable CDs:

"In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves."

Great point, Mr. Jobs. I still won't buy an iPod though.

Apple - Thoughts on Music

The Morning is Your Friend

In Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine, Yahoo! Finance writer Jim Citrin collected responses from 20 business leaders about their morning routines. The main bullets:

1. Start early.
2. Get a jump on email.
3. Exercise every morning.
4. Be thoughtful about the source, form, and timing of your news.
5. Problem-solve.
6. Be creative with your morning routine.

These all sound fine except the exercise bit. I have a hard time exercising in the morning. Sure, I walk about two miles every morning during my commute, but to lift weights or run before 7am messes me up. Everything else sounds fine.

I've always said that any idiot can get to work early. However I've seen people who consider this the height of work ethic. Never mind they spend 7-10am reading CNN or shopping on Amazon, as long as they're at work before the boss, they're golden. However, if you can plan out your day, catch up on e-mail, and get a little research done before 9am, I'd say you've made the most of getting an early start. A tip If your boss is impressed by early risers: few days a week make sure to send your boss an e-mail early. Make sure it's relevant though, or you'll look like a brown nose. You might try holding off on response from the afternoon before and then sending it when you get in the next morning.

One thing the article doesn't mention directly is breakfast. I've started eating breakfast every morning and I can say from experience, it helps. For a good article on the subject check out "How to Feel Like Eating Breakfast First Thing in the Morning" on WikiHow.

The article didin't mention RSS either, which may be because many business leaders may not be geeky enough to use Feed Readers or other RSS tools (granted, some may be using it without realizing it on their My Yahoo pages and such). RSS can be a powerful way to catch up on industry and business news in your morning hours. Build a page of RSS feeds with Protopage, PageFlakes, Netvibes, etc. and make browsing headlines faster and more thorough.

The Bears Have Made Me Sad

The Bears looked awful last night in the Super Bowl and had it not been for copious amounts of Guinness I may have cried when the game ended. So this frigid Monday, which I wisely took off well in advance, will consist of moping, whining, and likely some punching of inanimate objects. Tuesday will be better. After all, it looks like the Bulls will be in the playoffs and Spring training (Go Sox!) is right around the corner.

MetaWeather: A Good Idea with Mixed Results

MetaWeather is a weather aggregation site that describes itself as "An automated weather data aggregator that takes the weather predictions from various forecasters and calculates the most likely outcome." Oddly enough I was just chatting with someone about how a "Metacritic for weather information" would be a good idea and it could be called "MetaWeather." So I checked the URL and sure enough, there are no new ideas under the sun.

Disappointed that I hadn't come up with the idea first, but excited that it existed, I checked it out. It's got a definite "side-project" look to it and has some rendering issues in the three browsers I tried it in (IE7, FF2, and Opera). For instance, it shows temperature ranges on a bar graph and if the range is small (for instance between -12 and -9 the two numbers are smashed on top of each other.)

The sources for Chicago listed are Weather.com Homepage, Weather.com weather for Chicago, BBC Homepage, BBC Weather for Chicago, Weather Underground Homepage, and Weather Underground weather for Chicago. I'm not sure why it lists all those weather site home pages, which don't list anything about specific cities. Also, I'd rather see Accuweather and The National Weather Service incorporated. However this may be an API issue.

Again, this looks like a side project and maybe that's all it is. Or an experiment. But I'd like to see a full-scale version of a meta-weather site at some point tricked out with more features and a little more polish. After a quick check of all the weather sites metaweather.com uses and the ones I mentioned, I'm amazed at the disparity. Averaging all this data in a slick way could be very helpful.

So while I really like the idea and initiative the Metaweather folks have shown, I look forward to its maturity even more.

Top Ten-A-Palooza

This Seth Godin post gives me some good ideas. How about a search for the phrase "Some of my favorites..." or "Some good ideas for getting started..."

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/02/the_top_10_ways.html

The Best Yahoo! Widgets

I, like many, have grown to love widgets. I was just starting to use Konfabulator when Yahoo! bought them and I was glad to see Yahoo! did nothing to ruin them. I tend to visit the Yahoo! Widget Gallery a few times a week to see if there's anything new and useful, but I find the interface for finding Widgets a little annoying. Like I wish they had an advanced search that let you filter based on user ratings. That would save me a lot of time sifting through a lot of sub-par widgets. However, I recently found a site called "The Most Downloaded Konfabulator Widgets" by Jon Aquino, which lists all the widgets by popularity and helps hunt down the cream of the crop. Why won't Yahoo! do this?

Anyway, I will likely spend some time hunting down more to add to my cadre. For now, here's what I use now:

• Yahoo! Weather A beautiful looking widget that shows everything you need at a glance.
• NY Times Reader Another attractive interface with a lot of customization.
• MultiRSSFeed A little on the ugly side but crams a lot of feeds into a small space.
• AllRecipes.com Recipe Finder VERY slick design from a terrific recipe site.
• Acura RDK Traffic A very polished interface with great traffic information.
• Yahoo! Notepad Access to quick notes from all your PCs. Very handy.

Most of Yahoo!'s own widgets are very well done and really take advantage of having a Yahoo! Account. It's also nice to see companies like Acura and AllRecipes.com creating more than just ads for themselves, but actual useful tools. That's good branding.

100 Ways to Finds Stuff

Charles Knight breaks down the search engine landscape and you're sure to find some great new search tools. I'm already digging Music Map and The Find and they're just in the introduction. I'll plow through the list and see if I can come up with a Top Ten from his Top 100.

MMMmmmmmm, search.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alternative_search_engines.php

Is Flickr Editing Your Photos?

An interesting discovery by Kara at the Colors...Pretty blog. Apparently, she alleges, Flickr sharpens and improves images when you upload them to their service. Nice for amateurs, but possibly annoying for professionals. What if you intended a photo to look blurry in parts or altogether? Some Photoshop mavens might also prefer to do their own sharpening as well. Does Flickr use an unsharp, a sharpen, a smart blur, contrast enhancement? As Kara points out, this should probably be up to the user.

Colors...Pretty

Seth's Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint

While I can't completely agree with all of Seth Godin's points in his "Really Bad PowerPoint" post, I think he definitely makes some great points. You need to pass out detailed handouts after you present, which means you don't have to cram everything you want to say into every slide. Tell a story and use visuals to back it up. However I don't think bullets are evil and I've seen "minimalist" slides that simply don't work.

I like the concept of giving folks a visual and then letting them wonder what the heck it has to do with what your talking about, but you can't do that on every slide. Bullets help people who may have zoned out momentarily and unless you're the most compelling speaker in the world, zoning will happen.

However, I know a lot of consultants that could learn from Seth's guidelines.

Seth's Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint

A Real Desktop?

Courtesy of the Human Productivity Lab, this is one of the coolest and most breakthrough tools for handling digital files that I can recall. It's called "Bumptop" and uses the analogy of your own physical desktop and how you might lay down paper-based documents and objects and takes it to an amazing new level. Microsoft, or more likely, Apple will grab this technology I'm sure. Check out the video below and be sure to check out their channel on YouTube.

U.S. Flight Pattern Visualizations...Wow!

Saw these on Digg. Very cool. It's a series of visualizations showing airline flight patterns on the U.S. It's a bit mesmerizing to watch. Flight Pattern Visualizations.

Presenting the "iBle"

I was bummed to find out I missed the deadline for entry in the Worth1000.com’s recent contest wherein people are asked to come up with a design for Apple's next big product. Above would have been my submission. I felt given the Mac's cult status they probably needed a "Good Book" of their own.

Lose a Few Hours on Similicio.us

I think there is a "Right-click/Find similar pages" function in one of the browsers, which, as I recall, sorta sucked. However Similicio.us doesn't suck. In fact I just lost a few hours playing with it. Just enter a site you like or use and Similicio.us will find similar ones using Del.icio.us. Brilliant.

http://similicio.us/

Maybe a Change Will Come

All it takes is one big label to go DRM-free and the rest, including Apple, will fall in line and be equal. Then they can start dropping prices to compete and we can play our music anywhere.

Digital Music News reports from Midem:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/012307drm

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | BBC plans online children's world

Why do I get a horrible feeling this idea will be corrupted by pedophiles no matter what steps they take to prevent it? Sigh.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | BBC plans online children's world

Second Life is an OS

Someone asked if Second Life was some sort of game and I said it was more like an operating system. It's essentially useless until users add applications to it. As a blank slate like a freshly installed copy of Windows.

A Computer for Peg

We're trying to collect some money for a friend of mine who desperately needs a computer. We're using a cool site called ChipIn. Help if you can and follow our progress. Every little bit helps.

How Long Will DRM Last?

Great article at TechCrunch about the "inevitable" death of DRM. I wish a label would get the balls to release its catalog without DRM and see what happens. Will the label go broke? Will the bands go broke? Will more people buy music?

I don't think it's really that hard to imagine the scenario:

1. Napster announces that it's reached a deal with the record labels to provide high-quality downloadable non-DRM MP3s at .89 cents a pop.
2. People flock to Napster and start buying like crazy.
3. Some jerks hold off, figuring the P2P networks will soon be flooded with free music to steal.
4. Meanwhile, people continue flocking to Napster. iPod users especially appreciate the fact that their tunes will now play anywhere. iTunes, for the first time ever, sees begins to lose its marketshare, bit by bit.
5. In the meantime, seeing how gangbusters things are going at Napster, other formerly DRMed music sites start slowly signing deals and adding DRM-free MP3s. Their sales start to take off. Wal-Mart starts charging .79 cents a song, or maybe even less.
6. Soon everyone is offering MP3 songs for .79-.89 cents a song. Sales continue to chug along as people realize prices are going down. A whole album for $8? Wow! They're $16 in the store!
7. Good ideas start to pop up at the online digital music stores, adding value and getting even more CD buyers into downloading. Download the whole album and get concert tickets or band merchandise at half price. Get a video of the band playing their big hit live. Download album art and lyrics. Download a special "key" to get into a special area of the band's Web site. Get software to re-mix the band's music.
8. P2P networks continue to thrive along with the legitimate sales. Record labels and the FBI work together to continue fighting piracy, pirates continue to find new ways to get around them. Nothing new there.
9. Within five years, downloaded music sales equal CD sales. Within ten years, CDs are no longer sold. Cars come standard with MP3 players and Wi-Fi (or something like Wi-Max) for transferring. Of course why transfer MP3 files when you can simply stream them over a wireless broadband connection? If your city is equipped or you have broadband cellular, you're good to go.
10. Now that I think about it, who's to say that in ten years we won't be streaming everything no matter where we are? Who needs MP3s? Subscribe to the (someday) new RhapsodyEverywhere and listen to whatever you want whenever and wherever you want. Who the hell needs MP3s anyway?

As much as I hate DRM, since I have a RhapsodyToGo subscription, it doesn't really affect me that much. For the price of an in-store CD each month I can download to my Sansa player and stream music on my PC to my heart's content. And if I want to listen to music in the car I can either pay .79 per song to burn a CD, or, better, hook my MP3 player up to my car stereo. I want for nothing when it comes to music. That's the way it should be.

Short Burst of Text

I just read a recent article by the brilliant Gerry McGovern in which he praises the rise of content in the last 15 years. In short, the content creator revolution of blogs and social networking. However, in it he also acknowledges how mobile tools like Blackberries have changed the way our bosses communicate with us. "Short bursts of text is the new management style." he says.

This couldn't be more true. My boss (actually my boss's boss) communicates almost exclusively in short bursts of text from his Blackberry. This has led to a great deal of confusion. For instance, when presented with several possible options he may simply respond, "Yes, go with it." Now I need to respond back with "Go with which one?" To which he may respond, "Send again--short form." Meaning he doesn't want to have to read any extra "stuff", just the options.

E-mail and mobile communication can certainly make it possible for us to be "always on," but are we listening or just trying to keep up with all of it?

Are Googlers Smarter than Yahooers?

As a follow-up to my previous post, I checked to see what the Top Ten Searches were on Google this year. Surprisingly, the number one search wasn't "Britney Spears." In fact the list is downright respectable and a bit techy. In fact, I'm not even sure what #1 actually is. "Bebo?" I had to look it up and apparently it's a social networking site where you can share multimedia stuff. I'm not sure why you wouldn't just type bebo.com into a browser to find it, but I guess if you'd only heard the name you might not know how to spell it.

Anyway does the list below mean that people who use Google are older and/or smarter than the people using Yahoo? There's no Lindsey Lohan or Beyonce, there's mininova and radioblog. It's tools over people. Odd. Wonder what's going on there.

Anyway, here's the list:

Google.com-Top Searches in 2006

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

The Saddest Thing I've Ever Seen

Those of us who work in the Web field like to think we are working on the hippest thing going. The Web is cool, smart, evolutionary. Unfortunately the reality may be a little sadder than we'd prefer to admit. I base this on the 2006 Yahoo! Top Searches List that was recently published. Here's the list:

Yahoo! Top 10 Overall Searches

1 Britney Spears
2 WWE
3 Shakira
4 Jessica Simpson
5 Paris Hilton
6 American Idol
7 Beyonce Knowles
8 Chris Brown
9 Pamela Anderson
10 Lindsay Lohan

This would lead me to believe that the average Web user is under 14, is very horny, and has rotten taste in entertainment. I think I'm going to recommend my company changes the home page to include scantily clad teeny-bopper artists and a way for visitors to vote on which one is they like best. I guarantee 17,000,000 page views in our first week.

Web Workers and Email

Just discovered a new blog and a good article about e-mail. The blog is "Web Worker Daily" and the article is "How to screw up an email negotiation." Very cheeky, but very true.