USATODAY.com - Google sets up e-mail make that, Gmail --- Google just declared war... free email, with 1GB of storage, all contextual (adsense) supported... attacks a primary revenue stream of Yahoo's in a major way.
Storage is a huge pain point for users... if you have 1GB of my data, you own me (i.e., it helps solve Google's transient search behavior issue).
Would you PLEASE quiet your "expression of happiness"
Sorry for this note, but I wanted to make you aware that your expression of happiness (sex groaning) has been really loud. It actually woke me up this morning, and nothing ever wakes me up besides an alarm clock or someone screaming in my ear.
Please take into consideration that there is a courtyard and noise echo’s greatly. I have been hearing you for several weeks/months now and can take it no more. Guests from out of town, family members, and yes even children have heard your obnoxious yelping. A friend of mine even confused you with a dog.
We all enjoy a good lay, but for the love of god…put a sock in it!!!!!!!
Your consideration is most appreciated. --- The girlfriend of a friend of mine just left this on the door of a neighbor-girl after several months of listening to her rather (in her words) obnoxious love-making noise. (I'm half-mortified, half laughing my ass off.) I think this type of nonsense, along with the fear of a being in the midst of a continually expanding housing bubble, is what is keeping me from seriously considering investing $500K in a 2 bedroom common-wall box in SFBay.
Data Storage Today - Next-Gen Storage - Toshiba Builds World's Smallest Hard Drive: "The 0.85-inch measurement refers to the diameter of the magnetic disk to which data is recorded. Its initial capacity will be 2-4 gigabytes. Toshiba expects to start sampling the drive in summer 2004 and start mass production in autumn 2004. " --- Things are starting to get interesting in a big way for little hard drives. I've been commenting on this and its implications for 2 years now. Clearly the tipping point is almost at hand.
Deeje will like this one... John Battelle reports on FeedBurner, one of what will be a long string of enhancements (either directly, or via service businesses) that a) provide RSS feed usage metrics, and b) turn it into a truly viable marketing channel.
There are still all sorts of inherent issues with RSS syndication for major publishers given how they currently monetize their sites, but operating metrics are a critical first step.
IMO, all consumable items, whether sold at a store or restaurant, ought to have what I will now start calling complete "nutritional transparency". The FDA needs to put some teeth beyond this.
While I haven't done the analysis, I'm willing to bet that the direct cost to businesses is less than the indirect cost of treating obesity related conditions.
If you haven't already heard, there's a more aggresive means of identity theft & credit card number snatching going on... thieves are now using devices called Skimmers (aka Wedges) that are basically the mag reader component of a credit card scanner device married to memory and made highly portable. (They range in size and shape, but are basically small enough to fit in your hand -- like a pager.) Thieves scan one or more cards & download the full track data to a PC/laptop... obviously wifi, pda's, etc will only make it more expedient to move the data from the Skimmer to the safe store, eventually making it more difficult for law enforcement to prosecute (as the seized device won't have data on it).
Tip-o-the-hat to my brother Scott for the heads-up
John Battelle's Searchblog: Just 1 in 9 Small Business Know About Paid Search: "Just 1 in 9 Small Business Know About Paid Search According to this Kelsey/ConStat report. Those that do quickly put 23% of their marketing chips in the PPC basket. I can't do the math this early in the morning (what would happen if, say, 3 in 9 small businesses put 23% of their chips into PPC), but ...there's a lot of upside left in this particular market. Not to mention what happens to average CPC as more and more competitors get into the market....." --- The Contextual Advertising buzz has quieted substantially as Local Search comes into the limelight. It's no wonder, given the low CTRs, poor reporting and general lack of availability of offering a separate title/desc from web search (FindWhat as an exception...
Publishers must find ways of improving CTR for this advertising inventory. I submit that, near term, this may well come through a marriage with behavioral targeting.
Yahoo! News - Study: We're Eating Ourselves to Death: "Inactive Americans are eating themselves to death at an alarming rate, their unhealthy habits fast approaching tobacco as the top underlying preventable cause of death, a government study found.
In 2000, poor diet including obesity and physical inactivity caused 400,000 U.S. deaths — more than 16 percent of all deaths and the No. 2 killer. That compares with 435,000 for tobacco, or 18 percent, as the top underlying killer. " ---- I was amazed as a child when I learned that dogs could eat themselves to death. (As it turns out, humans can too, though the number of stomach ruptures is actually quite rare.)
In this case, it's not about a single gorge exceeding the stomach's 4 quart capacity... it's about too many calories (mostly carbs) and too little exercise... to the point of developing chronic diseases (heart failure, diabetes, etc) that eventually does the victim in.
I've frequently found myself in a range from 0 to 20 pounds overweight. At some point, I remember that I do have a choice in what I put in my mouth and can find time for exercise if it's important to me. Eating myself to 300, 400 or more pounds seems unbelievable to me, and yet I see it every time I go outside.
Unfortunately, being who we are as American's, rather than doing the right thing (IMO, diet & exercise), we'll jack up health costs with more gastric bypasses and more $100/bottle "professional grade" diet pill solutions, further lining the pockets of the giant pharmas.
It seems that "learning" (i.e., changing behavior) is a very hard thing to do with any level of consistancy.
--- I wrote the following several weeks ago when the RSS/Atom story first broke:
"I've followed Winer's writings for some time. Five years from now he'll have an introspective moment and realize he should have found a path to work with Google (who is simply supporting a /true/ open standard) instead of raising the battle cry for RSS."
I credit Winer for figuring it out now rather than regreting it later. Unfortunately, it seems like he's more interested in taking the "co-opetition" approach (that he often critizes MSFT for doing) to "merging" the standards. Fortunately for him, RSS has been around long enough and has enough mindshare that those "testing" feed syndication will likely support it first, and Atom if their test is successful.
--- Kodak has been working on these lawsuits for some time now. In fact, they were getting underway on this activity when I was working at Ofoto. Originally, Kodak envisioned this as a way of coercing other players in to CPXe (Common Picture Exchange) Web Services platform Ofoto built in conjunction with Kodak corp. Now, it appears, enough of their film business has been cannabilized that it's turning into a $$$ issue.
Yahoo puts local content on the map | CNET News.com: "The SmartView service lets surfers use the Yahoo Maps section of the company's Web site to view information on local points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, parks, automatic teller machines and post offices. Along with highlighted maps, Yahoo gives details about locations, including addresses and phone numbers, pricing, Web sites, and driving directions. Yahoo said it also plans to incorporate a user rating system for hotels listed on the maps. " --- This is a very slick implementation, and as humbly as I can say this, is directly in line with how I was thinking about the space. Even the business listings you see SCALE as you increase or decrease zoom level... a very classy touch that most would have missed.
The only thing missing (IMO) is the ability to get a full list of all businesses that match the business category selected. This is a negative only because it's a byproduct of the comprehensiveness of the listings Yahoo has already collected. (My map looks like a Christmas tree when I select Mexican restaurants near my home in downtown SJ.)
Susan Mernit's Blog: Navigating the Info Jungle: "IMedia: behavorial targeting and advertising effectiveness Bill Grossman, behaviorial marketing services CEO has a piece in iMedia Connection today about behavioral targeting anbd online advertising. Some quyotes: 'Behaviorial targeting is the mirror image of keyword search. Where search brings a single user to a variety of relevant advertisers, behavioral targeting brings a single advertiser to a sizable audience of relevant prospects. (snip) 'By coupling standard behavior with the behavior of the at-work online audience, advertisers can even target ad campaigns to specific job functions, industries or companies. That means an enterprise software company advertising on WSJ.com can be assured that their ads reach only CTOs, CIOs and others who have the greatest say in the decision to buy their products. And because this targeting is done at the campaign level, the company can build loyalty over time...'" --- behavioral targeting is a mirror image in another critical way; it, like most placed advertising, captures that audience at a point in time when they are busy doing something else... versus search, which is an explicit statement of intent.
search is hot. it's natural for folks to want to glom on to it... while behavioral, contextual, geo targeted advertising is a substantial step up from ROS, it isn't the equivalent of search
Trendsetters.com - CoolHunt Trend::Pioneer Dvj X1: "Pioneer DVJ-X1 At January's CES show, Pioneer launched a DVD turntable that lets DJs treat music videos like audio CDs. With the DVJ-X1 ($3,300) DJs can scratch and mix videos without losing video synch, opening up a myriad of creative opportunities as high-definition video enter the clubbing mainstream." -- Very cool indeed. Deeje and Steve, can QT TurnTable be rev'ed to compete? $3300 is a lot of margin for software...
Microsoft Gadget Keeps Record of Your Life: "Another project converts a regular webcam image into low-resolution animation -- stripped of everything but the eyes, lips, nose and eyebrows. It's easier to transmit than full video and can be used with instant messaging to convey emotion and nuance." -- An invite to TechFest would also be a treat. It's nice to see that R&D is still alive and while, if even at MSFT. I wonder if Jud is in on any of this stuff?
Broadband powerline service gains backers | CNET News.com: "Current and Cinergy plan to focus on price and convenience as they compete against current DSL and cable services. The companies plan to sell the service for about $30 to $40 a month, depending on the connection speed. Cable operators usually charge about $35 to $40 a month, while DSL lines are priced at roughly $30 to $35. But some experts said it will take more than reduced pricing to compete with entrenched services. DSL and cable offerings are already part of bundled services, and consumers tend to be reluctant to switch providers when buying such bundles." --- This is a wonderful thing from a consumer perspective; more options for broadband access should, hopefully, result in more competition and better pricing.
At this point, the only reason I have a home phone is for DSL access. Even with "DSL" priced at $26.95 a month (SBC/Yahoo!), it still works out to $43/mth once the phone line is added in. If I can get comparable service at a lower price, I'd definitely make the switch once my SBC contract is up.
Google Recruits For Expanding Southern California Offices ---- Google (www.google.com) is aggressively recruiting for spots in its Southern California offices, where 200 prospective recruits were wined and dined last week, in a throwback to the go-go years of the dot-com boom. According to Google's VP of Engineering, Wayne Rosing, the firm has virtually a limitless appetite for hiring, and is looking to seriously expand its research and engineering center in Santa Monica. http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2004/02/27/rtr1279282.html ---- Google bought ASI out from under Overture last year to slow their Contextual product development and establish a beachhead in the SoCal tech scene. No surprise that they're now competing with Yahoo (Santa Monica) and Overture (Pasadena) for the UCLA, USC and most importantly, CalTech engineering pools.
Diller Buys ZeroDegrees ---- InterActive Corp. has agreed to buy Santa Monica-based ZeroDegrees (www.zerodegrees.com), according to Reuters. InterActive, Barry Diller's conglomerate, did not disclose terms for the company. InterActive also owns TicketMaster, LendingTree.com, Match.com, and other sites. ZeroDegrees launched in January of 2003 and launched the service in August of last year. http://www.socaltech.com/intelligence/index.php?id=670 -------- Diller takes a step away from buying transactions and established aggregated consumer marketplaces to buy a pure audience aggregator. Another obvious horizontal platform for service integration (ala CitySearch).
Analysis of online business and technology trends, including: Search and Directory, Digital Media, Social Networking, RSS, and E-commerce. Written by buzzhit!'sTony Gentile.
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