Who Says There's No Free Lunch, or Free Books?

Friedbeef's Tech offers up the best places to get free books.

The Art of Article Tools

A great trend we've seen on online newspaper and magazine sites, as well as many other sites that feature article content is the increased use of "Article Tools." Article tools include links or buttons like "Print This, " "Email This," "Increase/Decrease Font Size," etc. Some sites only include one or two (usually "Print" or "Send") while some like the excellent news site The International Herald Tribune go crazy with the concept, including things like "Clip This" for saving articles to your own private area.

I've put together a bunch of examples, which you can see by clicking on the image on the right there. As I mentioned recently regarding Younanimous.com, I have no problem with "clutter" and the more article tools I see the more I think the publisher wants to empower me to read the content the way I want.

Yahoo! Widgets: More of the Best

In a previous post that has easily been the most popular I've written, I mentioned some of the Yahoo! Widgets I've been using regularly. With the advent of Yahoo! Widgets 4.0 (which I'll look at more closely later) I've decided to mention a few more of the widgets I use regularly:

TachClock: A slickly designed and deceptively simple clock that pops up unobtrusively on the hour and/or half hour. No numbers, just tick-marks for the hours, minute and second.

PowerX: Another simple but elegant widget that allows easy one-click access to log off, shutdown, and restart. I use it every time I reboot.

ClipDrop: A handy clipboard tool that saves and displays as many clipboard items as you want. Click a copied snippet from the list and it's ready to paste.

Yahoo! Maps: I prefer Yahoo! Maps over Google Maps these days and this widget makes looking up locations and directions a snap. I just wish it connected directly to the "Broadband" version of Yahoo! Maps by default.

AfterVote (a.k.a. Younanimous), The Hardest Working Engine in the Search Business

I've been holding off on mentioning Younanimous.com because it was early, but now they've changed their name to "AfterVote" (which I just can't seem to like) and have been adding features every few seconds, so I guess now's as good a time as any.

AfterVote is a social search engine, which I've already voiced my concerns about, but after talking to the guys at AfterVote, I think it just might work. I guess I was thinking a bit simplistically about the concept of voting search results up and down. With AfterVote, rankings will be based on more than the simple + or - voting system and they plan to adapt the alorithms as needed.


For instance, if you click on a result and don't like it, you will probably return to the results and click on another. The system logs that behavior and uses it to "passively" tally votes for or against the results. If you really like or hate the result, you can also vote with the + or - buttons. While they didn't elaborate further on how else they'll police the system, I'm sure they'll look for the same things sites like Digg look for.


In addition to the social ranking aspect, AfterVote includes a plethora of social Web widgets (this link is already out of date, but shows many of them) for sharing results via Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. and seeing where the result ranks on Alexa, Compete, Google PageRank, etc. These widgets can all be turned on and off as preferences dictate. Personally I like to leave all of it on because I have no issue with clutter.


Did I mention it's actually a metasearch engine pulling from Google, Yahoo!, and MSN and that it has links to cached sites for all three? There's also a widget for the Trust level of the site. I haven't figured out where that comes from yet, but then, at the rate they're adding features I may never have a complete grasp of what's going on.

The question becomes "How much is too much for the average user?" I think AfterVote, in its current form is extremely appealing to people like me who can't get enough "stuff" when it comes to search and the social Web. However, if this stuff is all turned on by default when they get out of beta, I'm a little worried more casual Web users might feel a bit overwhelmed and confused. And I would think that to take best advantage of the voting system mass appeal will be key. Perhaps there are enough people like me to make this a success. I'm hoping so, because I think this is a terrific tool.

Switching Startpages Part One

I'm considering a switch from Protopage to Netvibes as my start page mostly because of the dearth of snappy widgets available for Protopage. While Protopage has been adding them since the latest version went live, I generally don't find them very polished or useful. However, I've always preferred Protopage's highly configurable layout and, even more importantly, the ability to create custom mini HTML pages. I primarily use this feature to create link pages and I have them scattered all over my start page. Some examples are over there on the right.

Netvibes doesn't have a widget for creating mini HTML pages, which is part of the reason I haven't considered it. However, their Bookmarks widget is very cool and uses a tag system. So I figured out how to import my HTML link pages into the Netvibes Bookmarks widget (which was a pain in the ass!) and then tagged them all. The result means I have to click a tag and then the link, but it's not too bad and will just take some getting used to.

However, I've come to realize a major flaw in using Netvibes: page load time. Admittedly, I have a lot of stuff on my Netvibes start page, but it's no more than I have on Protopage. Individual RSS panels, for instance take twice as long to load on Netvibes. This means that every time I launch my browser I'll have to sit and wait before I can do anything. I'm going to try to slim down what I have on the page and see if that helps, but it could be a dealbreaker. Netvibes, I'm sure gets loads more traffic than Protopage, so the problem may not go away anytime soon.

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.