jobs.Feedster.com - death blow for CareerBuilder, Monster.com et al?
Feedster is currently beta testing a new offering that allows you to do a job search against RSS feeds of job listings syndicated directly from employers. Wow! $500MM deep in CareerBuilder, the newspaper industry now has yet another form of competition for one of its core revenue streams; employment classifieds. Sure, Feedster's beta implementation is a shell of what you get at the big job sites (due mostly, I suspect, to the unstructured data it's working with), but that's fairly easily corrected... anyone who can generate an RSS feed can either add internal (i.e., text) formatting hints to help Feedster... or better yet, develop a schema/DTD that structures key search parameters (location, salary range, industry, etc). This is one to watch.
Scoble on info overload and the failings of literal clipping
Robert Scoble writes about his upcoming session at BloggerCon III (BC3) on Information Overload. (I'm deeeep on the wait list for BC3, which is regretable, as it looks excellent.) At one point, Scoble states: ::Someone asked me the other day "why don't you just build a few search queries and delete the rest of your feeds?" I thought about it, but I enjoy the random weird stuff that people blog about. Search queries will only bring back the equivilent of purified sugar. Sweet, yes, but not that nutritious. It's why I keep the link blog. It helps me think about everyone of the approximately 3000 items that cross my Tablet PC's screen every evening. "Is this something my readers need to know or would like to know?" I ask myself.:: Much like the clipping services born in the '80s, the current state of services like PubSub (which I use and value) are inherently flawed if what you desire is to "find things you're interested in", vs "find specific things I direct you to notify me about". That's an important difference, and one that should be solvable. Look at the notion (if not the current implementation) of SonicBreakdown, which I blogged earlier tonight. Basically, it scans your music collection, and compiles related personalized news and information feeds for you from 80 sources. Now take that up a notch. What if, in addition to telling PubSub his specific keywords, Robert could point it to his Link Blog (which is essentially a collection of his broader interests), and have it return conceptual clusters of posts/feeds, ala Clutsy? Then, turn it up yet another notch by giving Robert an interface to score the results, providing the engine with yet more context on what Robert is really after. The holy grail sits between fixed result myopia and irrelevant deluge. The tools & tech are out there, someone just needs to string them together.
Briefly: SonicBreakdown, personalized music RSS feed
Also very cool. Seems like a natural extension for iTunes et al.
Briefly: AllConsuming.net
"All Consuming is a website that visits recently updated weblogs every hour, checking them for links to books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Sense, and other book sites. Every book on this site has a list of all the weblogs that have mentioned it, and every weblog that has mentioned books in the past also has a page here listing which books it has mentioned. If you have a weblog, search for it here to see if we've picked anything up from it yet." Very cool. Can't imagine why they're not doing the same for Songs/CDs and other uniquely identifiable products.
Google News: subscription vs. registration labels
Sure, it's a beta service, but Google, how about getting something basic straight: Most of the sites that you label as "subscription required" do not in fact require a paid subscription. Rather, they simply require registration. That's a significant difference, especially when you're an aggregator putting 4000 sources in front of a user. Stop doing free news sites that require registration an injustice; get the labels right.
ACTUALLY, Google News does make money for Google
I've written recently on some of the internal debate going on inside the news(paper) industry around Google and other news aggregators (good for context): Japanese Newspaper Publisher Says No To Google NewsAggregated News Search Surpasses Branded News in 2004But that's not my argument here. What is? The real secret behind how Google makes money on Google News. It's called AdSense; I'm sure you've heard of it. But isn't that completely to the contrary of what Mr. Penenberg wrote? Yes, and that's the point. Penenberg wrote that Google probably can't run advertising on its site without risking lawsuits from news publishers, and that may or may not be true. But Google cleverly gets around this by signing up publishers (of all shapes and sizes) to run AdSense. So guess what? You, the user, go to Google News. You click on a headline and end up at a newspaper, broadcast or blog site that, gasp, runs AdSense. You click an ad: Google gets its piece, and the publisher gets his. What's more, Google gets branding on the publisher's site (many of whom also feature Google search), which if clicked, generally recycles traffic back to Google. Pretty clever those Google guys.
FindWhat's (Wrong) Answer to AdSense
ClickZ's Kevin Newcomb covers FindWhat's launch of its version of Google's AdSense and Overture's Content Match offerings, pointing out the key difference: - FindWhat takes a category approach vs. a contextual approach An interesting approach on FindWhat's part... While this may be great from a publisher's perspective, allowing them to pick categories that yield high CPC's, but are inconsistent with what their web visitors are looking at, is not so great from an advertiser's perspective. The whole point behind contextual advertising, like search advertising, is to closely match the intent/interest of the user with that of the advertiser. Would a publisher choose a category that doesn't match his content in order to get better CPCs? Sure, provided they were of sufficiently general interest to generate clicks. But more importantly, he doesn't have a choice; while his content is dynamic, the API call he uses to invoke FindWhat's advertising on his page template will most likely be static... not a great receipe for advertisers. Net-net? FindWhat is filling a gaping product hole with the wrong tool for the job. While contextual offerings are still fairly immature, they represent the right approach for content publishers. I expect FindWhat will reveal its own contextual offering when it builds or acquires the technology it lacks to make a serious run at the first tier players.
QuickTime, Now Utilities, You Don't Know Jack developer does it again
Full disclosure: another tip of the hat to a friend chasing his dream. I caught up with another close friend recently, Ando Sonenblick. Ando is a 2D animation guru (and stellar Mac engineer in general), best known as one of the key figures behind Apple's QuickTime, After Hours Datebook PIM product (bought by Aldus, Consumer Division), Now Utilities, and Berkeley Systems You Don't Know Jack. I got to play with his latest creation, Sprite Studio, last night. Sprite Studio is a multimedia authoring tool that allows you to (fairly easily) create extremely complex 2D animations, in the form of (cross platform) applications, QuickTime movies and web graphics. I say fairly easily because it's an early beta; the things you'd probably want to really understand and maximize your experience (documentation, quick start guide, etc) aren't done yet. But it does indeed look promising. While playback is cross platform, authoring is currently Mac only. If you're one of the multitude of Mac-developer-thought-leader-types that permeate the blogosphere, I encourage you to give his new toy a try and comment with your replies. Worst case, you'll help a great guy get it right; best case, you'll get a free, early look at a great new tool. Not a bad deal at all!
Michianapoker.com - Props to a friend
Shameless plugs are okay if they're billed as such, right? Right. Well, with that in mind, I'm happy to report that one of my dearest friends (of ~14 yrs) has just launched his first business: selling custom poker tables and accessories. Does he have a retail store? Of course not. He's gone all web. The site needs work (just went live yesterday after a few hours work), with some obvious changes needed: all the text is actually graphics, which means it's not search engine friendly; typos abound; the trust factor isn't addressed. But guess what? He has an effective sales channel with an integrated shopping cart courtesy of Paypal. Total cost so far? Less than $100.00. Not necessarily news to people reading this... but a nice reminder of the power that online represents, and just how readily available it is to make your dreams come true.
San Francisco micro-content dinner Oct. 13th
Deeje Cooley notes that Marc Canter is hosting a blogger's dinner on Oct 13th (and like any good blogger, I'm spreading the word). Like Deeje, I'm hoping to attend.
.Mac addresses storage; iLife vs. Google
Yesterday, I wrote a quick piece entitled .Mac glitches and futures where I pointed out a few key things about Apple's .Mac service: 1. Very little PR/Marketing 2. Great margins (esp compared to the rest of Apple's business) 3. Far behind competitive offerings in terms of storage 4. Far ahead of competitive offerings in terms of integration with media management and production tools Today, #3 changed in an important way. Instead of your $99/yr buying you a host of nicely integrated services and 115MB of storage, it now buys you those same great services and 250MB. Still not the 1GB you get for free with Gmail, but a step in the right direction. But speaking of Gmail... let's not forget that Google recently bought Picassa, giving Google the equivalent of iPhoto. There are plenty of rumors about Google building a browser, but as I pointed out, I believe their ambition lies closer to an information mgmt & communication "works" program... which could be (when fully realized) Apple's iLife suite crossed w/ browser/email/rss reader.
.Mac glitches and futures
You don't often hear about .Mac (aside from the rare outage or upgrade), Apple's online services offering/division. And yet, the services offer an interesting value proposition, especially for Mac owners. .Mac is a bundle of online services, nicely (neatly?) integrated with Apple's various iNAME_HERE applications (iCal, iTunes, iMovie, etc), a significant differentiator from similar portal offerings from the usual suspects (Yahoo, MSN et al). And yet, there are other important differentiators: a) Apple charges (and handsomely at that, with retail at $99/yr generally discounted to $69), and b) the service now trails significantly behind the 1GB+ offerings for Gmail et al. While a services business like .Mac clearly has potential for Apple (great margins, user locking/turnkey experience), it also requires a commitment to low cost leadership, in order to offer storage and functionality with a "compelling value proposition" for users. Apple also seems to lack the typical portal anchor of Search. What is Apple doing for web search? Is it an area they should play in, perhaps through partnership (hello A9)? More about .Mac here.
Briefly: Somacon offers Yahoo! Store to Froogle feed submission service
Susan Mernit points to this press release from Somacon, announcing their new service, which allows Yahoo! Store participants to automatically flow their product feed into Google's Froogle service.
Dan Gillmor - Bush-Kerry: Some Economic Issues
Dan Gillmor sets the stage with the first of three planned Sunday articles on politics and the effects on technology and the tech economy. Dan takes a fairly neutral perspective, thus I'm forwarding it on (this blog isn't intended to be my pulpuit on politics, and I'm sure you all appreciate that). My (hopefully equally neutral) reply to his article: Dan, nice article, as usual. One sentence really jumped out at me: "Americans may be in for a generation of lowered expectations, and we need huge investments in education, research and 21st century infrastructure to give ourselves a chance."Agreed, 100%. The problem, of course, is that politicians are satisfied by only one thing: power (or more power). And so, most of them have a very short-term perspective, doing and saying those things that will get them re-elected or elected into a higher office (Kerry's "say anything" flip flopping is a perfect example of this). Second-term presidents (from either party) are a different beast. Something clicks; they realize this is the end of their show. They get anxious about their "legacy". They want to "do something" that will actually matter; that history will remember them for. I don't know what that would be for Bush (and perhaps that's a huge indictment in and of itself). But I'd love for him (heck, for any of these folks) to focus on doing the things that will matter for generations to come. And as you called out, education, R&D and infrastructure, while not sexy, are the very things that will allow this country to continue to lead for generations to come... or not. Let us hope that whoever wins in November has a "second term mentality" for his entire time in office.
AOL PassCode: Two Factor Authentication
There was a lot of back and forth this week on AOL's new RSA double authentication login announcement. Frankly, I was quite surprised to see some people criticizing AOL for offering this service, and claiming that it was unnecessary. While I hate to admit it (especially on my blog of all places), I don't use a separate password on every site I'm a member of (and I bet you don't either)... if I did, I'd have to keep a list somewhere, and that would defeat the purpose of a login. But having an RSA card to use in conjunction with my half dozen or so passwords... now that would be nice; a solid level of security without obnoxious inconvenience. And while it's great to see AOL offering it, I'd rather see Bank of America, Fidelity and other Financial Services Co's leading this charge.
Now they're doing a browser?!
Susan Mernit has a nice wrap-up (with 14 links) on all of the rumor mongering going on about Google fielding a browser, or as Scoble hints, perhaps something even bigger... Considering everything Google offers after 6 years (save Search) is still beta, you have to wonder what's going on over at Google. Is allowing their developers to spend 25% of their time on whatever they want producing results... or simply slipping ship dates? Are they in a vicious analysis paralysis cycle, continually redoing their strategy, instead of executing on a vision and refining it based on market and competitive response? I honestly can't tell. Surely they have the talent. And now they have the money. But beyond that, it's a bit mystifying what exactly those thousands of employees are up to, and if they have the necessary focus to ship software (beyond a toolbar) that could be used on 100MM's of PCs with varying configurations. Furthermore, while I (and you) understand the value of moving further upstream in the value chain (and claiming precious desktop real estate and user mindshare), is it that significant an advantage that it justifies the costs of developing and supporting software on all of the necessary platforms, OS versions, languages, etc? And if it is, is a browser the best bet? Does it really make sense to enter into a market share war for a free piece of software with commoditized functionality (even on the back of Mozilla)? I suspect that Scoble has the right perspective here; if in fact Google is going to go the software route, they are going to do it in a way that leapfrogs a "mere" browser... perhaps incorporating blog authoring, rss reading, picture sharing (Picasa), email reading/writing (gmail), and of course web/local/product/hard-drive search... an information/communication "Works" program, if you will. Let's see what happens... Update: More detailed thoughts on what they might be up to.
Yahoo! Search blog: Look at our marketing data!
Yahoo Search Blog runs a post titled May The Buzz Be With You, highlighting some interesting trends in movie searches. Taken at its face, it points to pop culture tendencies in consumers, which is certainly interesting in and of itself. At a more abstract level, it screams "Look at the great marketing data we have!" What do I mean by that? Back in 1999 I helped start a web based gift registry company (WishClick.com); we built it using a "network" model, where from a central registry, you could add products from all of your favorite online retailers (or at least the 30 we partnered with). The connection? In addition to collecting a bounty on every gift purchased for you, we also knew your interests across product categories, and tendencies of people buying on your behalf. For a partner like The Sharper Image, we could tell them (in aggregate), the types of books, clothing, cooking gear, etc that their customers were putting on their gift registries, providing them with a much richer perspective of their customer base. The same is true for Yahoo... and in some ways, in a more significant way than for Google; Yahoo, after all, knows much more about you (at this point) if you've registered with them...
Battelle: Your Own Private Island
Battelle notes that a search on a Google SVP's name turns up an Adwords ad for someone selling a private Caribbean island. (The ad has since disappeared, likely after someone's account was depleted or the exec in question caught wind...) Which begs the questions: If GEICO (and others) can sue Google for trademark infringement, can individuals do the same? So what exactly is Google's policy on accepting ads against a person's name? Can you imagine your ex-wife running an Adwords ad against your name claiming that you're a lazy, non-alimony paying loser? Your future employers would be grateful to know after all...
RSS News: 21 Publish Launches Enterprise Blogging Software
Deeje Cooley points to a press release from 21 Publish announcing that they are releasing an OEM service that allows licensees to create private communities of interconnected blogs. While the details are a bit sparse (and I've yet had a chance to play with it -- having loads of fun quasi learning CSS and PHP this weekend...), this could be a very powerful concept for businesses, potentially letting companies like Intel, Cisco et al manifest their partner ecosystems in blogs, RSS feeds, etc. Certainly something to watch...
Battelle riffs on Comcast VOD (VOI) and Search
Battelle riffs on an article in the WSJ about Comcast's upcoming VOD offering: "I've long fantasized about having a web-like search interface to video (who wouldn't want to type "The Office" Season 2 into a Google video search, and get all the episodes listed, ready for download or drizzle?). But a Comcast version sounds, well, like a Comcast version. If they decide that those 7 million plus broadband users must play by Comcast's rules when it comes to video, well, implosion ho!"My reply for John: Why do you say "implosion, ho"? Sure, I'd love to have all the necessary gear to do VOD via the Internet... but all the typical consumer is going to ask for near term is the ability to go to Comcast.com, pick what they want to see, and have it play on their TV within ~5 minutes. Sure, ideally, they could do that from /anyone's/ video library, be it the big media houses or their cousin in Europe... but it's 2004, and most American consumers are still figuring out that they can get DVDs in the mail next day, and think that's aces compared to running out in the cold to BlockBuster... Like you, I'm frustrated by not having immediate access to a realistic and easily foreseeable future... but the masses move much more slowly...
Slow posting as a new service is birthed...
Just a quick heads up that posts will be a bit lighter, as I'm focusing most of my efforts on getting a new service up and running... something I hope all of you will value. I'm hoping to catch up a bit this weekend on all of the happenings from this week... so don't give up the ghost too soon!
RSS Digest, now with (beta) Atom support!
Peter Cooper, the developer behind RSS Digest, today's most popular addition to the 'blogosphere', was kind enough to reply to an email I fired off to him (all of an hour ago), and... GREAT NEWS... he's got Atom support working (with the obligatory 'beta' label). It's people like Peter that make this medium what it is. Thanks Peter, for making the web experience I can offer my visitors that much better.
Pamela Parker's blog: The River
I just found out that Pamela Parker, one of my favorite ClickZ writers (how does one choose between Pamela and Danny Sullivan?!) has her own blog named The River. Catching up on her previous posts, it seems that her blog posts are as polished and insightful as the articles she writes for pay at ClickZ, with a bit more personality (a good thing indeed). Subscribed!
RSS Digest, Insert Feeds On Your Page... WOW
Search Engine Watch Blog had a post on RSS Digest, service that allows you to insert nicely formatted headlines from a blog feed into ANY HTML page... without writing a line of code! (SEW Blog mentions that there are actually a handful of these solutions out there.) This is exactly what I was looking for the other day (and what Google/Blogger couldn't make happen natively). Unfortunately, RSS Digest doesn't support Atom yet (but they say it's on the way)... of course, that too is solvable; just pop my atom feed into FeedBurner, pass the FeedBurner RSS 2.0 feed to RSS Digest, and voila, problem solved. (It is a bit pokey, but I'm sure I can fix that with some settings.) I'm working on the third design of my site & blog and plan to incorporate my blog headlines on my new home page... I'll post when it's all up and running... Beyond my needs, the broader implications are pretty interesting... with a little effort, I can essentially create the equivalent of the My Yahoo Beta RSS Reader mentioned earlier this week by Hacking Netflix...
Netflix, Warner Bros. test VOD... Verizon to follow?
CNET's News.com reports that Warner Brothers has been gracious enough to allow Netflix to test VOD with would-be-partner Tivo. I've previously written about the Netflix/Tivo combo (Netflix can do better), including a likely end game scenario (VOD is a commodity, leaving Netflix without a clear competitive advantage). But hey, at least they're a step ahead of Blockbuster, right? In possibly related news (let's see if we can't lazyweb a rumor here...), TechDirt writes that Verizon is launching their "3G EV-DO" service (great naming job guys), a broadband wireless service. The connection? Only a week ago, The Digital Media Jobs Blog had a Verizon listing for a Manager - Video Content Strategy & Acquisition position with the following description: "As Manager of Video Content Strategy & Acquisition you will be responsible for the following responsibilities: Assist in the development, execution and implementation of the Video on Demand and pay-per-view content strategy. Identify and evaluate VOD and PPV content opportunities" Hmm... so can we add Wireless Companies to Netflix's list of competitors (which already includes Cable Cos, Satellite Cos, Software Cos, and video rental industry competitors)? Ugh!
Why Online Newspapers Require Registration: Spam
TechDirt reports on a piece by John C. Dvorak claiming that the reason why newspapers force registration is so that they can spam you... I can only speak from my experience at Knight Ridder Digital, so perhaps the practices are different at the other big two chains (Gannett and Tribune) or at 2nd and 3rd tier publishers... but John's clearly off a bit. Yes, certainly, the online divisions of the major newspaper chains have been charged with becoming profitable businesses. And yes, many of them require registration so that, like everyone else who requires registration, they can profile you (for better ad targeting) and email marketing. The latter generates significantly better CPMs (vs. what they can charge for IAB placed ads), but, at least at KRD, is only done: - In compliance with CAN-SPAM - Purely opt-in, and only to categories you specify - With the email coming from KRD; your address is never given to the actual advertiser Folks, the alternatives (for now) are online newspaper subscriptions, micropayments, or your willingness to pay them rediculous prices for classified ads (vs. free services like Craigslist). Personally, I'd rather delete the ads (or create an Outlook rule to do it for me) than pay for the content.
Media Center WebCast on Election 2004
A few weeks ago, Susan Mernit, a fellow entreprenuer and consultant whom I hold in high regard (and for full disclosure, who I'm building a personal friendship with), was named a Sr. Fellow at The Media Center, a non-profit "think tank". According to their PR boiler, The Media Center is... "The Media Center is a nonprofit think tank committed to building a better-informed society in a connected world. The Media Center helps individuals and organizations worldwide acquire intelligence and apply insight into the future role and use of media and enabling technology..." Given Susan's involvement (along with JD Lasica's, who my friend Deeje Cooley says good things about) and their stated mission, it seems like an organization worth supporting. With that in mind, here's a link to their upcoming webcast (it's free!) on The Impact of Participatory Media on Election 2004, scheduled for 2PM ET on October 5th, 2004. The lineup of participants looks strong, including Jason McCabe Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc. Tune in and check it out!
Ask Jeeves Taps Topix.net to Deliver Local News
Search Engine News :: Search Engine Lowdown: Ask Jeeves Taps Topix.net to Deliver Local NewsSearch Engine Lowdown reports that Ask Jeeves is now delivering Local News thanks to a relationship with Topix.net. Two thoughts here: 1. Topix has a substantially larger relationship to announce, most likely on the scale of MSN's relationship with Moreover to power MSNBot (which, while public, apparently isn't widely known). 2. At this point, pretty much anyone who's anyone has a destination news aggregation site... except for the newspapers themselves! Most of them are still trying to figure out what if anything they should do with RSS. Of course, with aggregated news surpassing big brand destination sites, one would expect that to change soon... syndicates, like Knight Ridder run RealCities already have the relationships; why not expose the content in a way that consumers clearly want? That's right. It doesn't fit with their business model....
President's Radio Address... by RSS?
Deeje Cooley and I had dinner tonight to catch up on life, shared interests, and of course all things technology. Amongst a variety of trends spotted, product futures foreseen and ideas generated, one question in particular stands out in my mind... In an election where funds have been raised via blogs (Dean), messages have been shared via blogs (Kerry, Bush and their daughters), and false allegations crushed due to blogs (CBSGate)... why isn't the President's Weekly Radio Address available via RSS and who will be the first President to change that? Perhaps more broadly, who will be the first President to use blogs to communicate views, visions and plans (vs. campaign rhetoric) with U.S. citizens?
AOL to use CrossMedia Services in new Shopping Search
Pamela Parker gets the scoop the other big outlets missed in announcing AOL's new Shopping Search offering. In addition to providing the online comparison shopping services that everyone has already reported, AOL will also return local offline "steals and deals" from local businesses (and local points of presence for regional and national chains) in its shopping search results. The offline deals come from digitized and parsed zoned editions of the circulars that appear in the newspaper I hinted at this before, but thought it wiser to let someone else break it given my involvement in the deal and relationships with both players. This is a significant development; it is the first comparison shopping engine that marries both online and offline channels, satisfying consumer needs for the great prices and instant gratification, and driving traffic for physical stores. Further, as I wrote when we did the CrossMedia (CMS) deal, while this isn't "the next Google", it is a major move for the papers... First, that they are involved in search at all (remember, we're talking about companies with a very different mindset), and second that they are licensing local shopping content to major players like AOL (and billing on a performance basis). Hats off to the teams at AOL, CMS, Knight Ridder, Gannett and Tribune for a smart deal. Now comes the real challenge; can you (the papers) drive traffic to your own ShopLocal.com site, and can you build off this strategy with other smart offerings and acquisitions? Time will tell...
Back on the air after Baltimore fires subside
We're back up and running after power was restored to our ISP following the conclusion of the fires that effected downtown Baltimore this morning. Email was cached, so no need to resend. Thanks!
Search and Active Listening Redux: Implementation and Privacy
"ID:Entity", a frequent commentor on John Battelle's Search Blog, replied to my post on Search Engines and Active Listening, originated by Jeremy Zawodny. Here's his reply: Tony, I agree, but what happens if you swtich search provider, how long till the intelligence is acquired again? or what if your online apps are provided by numerous providers. who is going to collate the inteligence? I could not envisage using the same company for the next 3yrs let alone 30.
The key question however is are you comfortable with a organisation knowing that much information about you. I'll leave the definition of "organisation" to your own imagination. And here's my reply: ID:entity - As is typical of your comments here on John's blog, your reply is especially insightful, as it points out a couple of the bigger problems we're seeing in several aspects of "digital life". Let me use "social networking" as an example. I co-founded a company named WishClick "back in the day" and built a social networking component into it, based on sixdegrees.com; WishClick was a networked gift registry (acting as both a destination site and ASP for online retailers), and as a registry is viral and personal by nature, it seemed like a great fit. Well, things didn't exactly go our way, but as you well know, the last few years have seen all sorts of social apps (Friendster, LinkedIn, et al). One of the popular memes (and I think John's commented on this) is: Is this a feature or a company? Why? Well, at least in part, because IMHO, social networking should be a platform, with a variety of applications (dating, business networking, etc) built on top of it. So issue one: should the knowledge that allows for search refinement be siloed (which providers would love from a "stickiness" perspective), or should it be platform that disparate apps feed and pull from? (My vote is for the latter.) Issue two? You nailed that too. Privacy. Exactly how much should any one organization know about me, or, to the other side of issue one, how can I control which organizations have access to my central profile/repository? What I do know is that consumers are still too uncomfortable (and rightly so) to buy into this in mass; MSFT Passport/Hailstorm's utter failure is a great example of the disaster that can occur when you fail consumers on both issues 1 & 2 (and fail to secure the trust of partners for your platform play). Conceptually though... I do think that search algos must be fed with more context on the searcher if they are to approach John's "perfect search" world; more processing on the data (concept clustering, etc) is valuable, but ultimately insufficient.
E-commerce blogs... where art thou?
I've got a 'slew' of what I consider to be timely, accurate and insightful blogs and traditional media outlets for Search, RSS, consumer electronics and general technology blogs, but am still searching for e-commerce and social software/media sources. I came across Roland Tanglao's Payment Views this morning, which looks like a keeper. But without offending Roland, I'd love to have more than one source (isn't that what good journalism is all about)? So, if you're an ecommerce blogger or author, I invite you to please post a comment (and feel free to link/deep link to your blog and any posts/articles in the last 30 days that you think are particularly noteworthy). Thanks!
Search Engines and Active Listening
Search Engines that Talk Back (Jeremy Zawodny's blog)Jeremy's thoughts on search as a "skill" are interesting. His conclusion, based on his considerable knowledge, is that search shouldn't have to be a 'skill'; it should just work. This is an interesting observation, especially in light of a recent post on Yahoo!'s Search blog regarding the daughter of a Yahoo employee using search to find her first car. I commented on that here, essentially saying that search is a skill that all youngsters (heck, everyone) will need to have in the future. So where does that leave things? Without undo harshness to Jeremy, I think there are many skills which needn't be: typing should be replaced by voice entry (or a neural link); auto mechanics should be unnecessary (cars shouldn't need maintenance, save for catastrophic accidents, etc)... almost anything that we have to do today due to a lack of the 'ideal' or 'perfect' solution should be unnecessary. But I think Jeremy's meta point is more interesting; search should use the "active listening" skills that one is taught in an Org Behavior class... my search engine should be in tune with me, continually helping me get closer to my "intent" by looking at my search stream both in real time and historically, leveraging any other knowledge (my blog topics, email, et al) that I care to feed it with, and most importantly, asking me clarifying questions (just like "active listening"). That day is coming, with the following already live: - A9 is leveraging search history in a significant way - Teoma (Ask Jeeves) & AllTheWeb (Yahoo) present alternatives - Eurekster is using social networking filtering - Switchboard is making heavy use of synonym clarification (e.g., searching for "leaky faucet" gets you a list of plumbers) Having spent some time with Gary Flake & Daniel Fain (Yahoo/Overture R&D labs), I'm confident that Yahoo, Google and MSFT are thinking in this general direction. Most of this just seems inevitable as the next phase of search, moving us one step closer to Battelle's perfect search.
Scoble: How to get your blog discovered
Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek BloggerScoble has an excellent write-up on how to get your blog "discovered" by potential readers, fellow bloggers, et al. I've already been doing most everything that he recommends, save actually clicking through on my links to other people's blogs (to trigger their referrer log). Here I thought I was the only one curious enough to read through my referrer log to see where my traffic was coming from. The other clear takeaway is originality. Link blogs (where people simply post links to things they found interesting without adding significant commentary of their own) are valuable... but they're less likely to get you discovered. This is one to ponder; weighing the value of originality (and perhaps, being intentionally provocative vs. "purely objective").
Rock the Vote -- Online Voter Registration
Rock the Vote -- Online Voter RegistrationEvery time I've tried to use California's state government site to find information on registering to vote (primaries, nationals, etc), I've ended up frustrated. Missing files, broken links, you name it. And so, it falls to Rock the Vote to provide a simple way to fill out a voter registration form -- which it then sends you as a PDF -- that you can then drop in the mail. There are 45 days to election day, and at least in California, you need to register 15 days in advance... leaving you with a paltry 30 days to get it done. So get to it!
Can your blog platform do this (w/o custom code)? Mine can't...
I recently sent the following note to Blogger support: I have a blog that I currently publish to my domain (www.buzzhit.com) via Blogger. The main page is pushed as a child page of my domain (i.e., www.buzzhit.com/buzzblog.html).
What I'd like to do is have a short list of "recent posts" show up on my **home page** (www.buzzhit.com/index.html), so that new visitors to my site can see my most recent posts as they learn about me and my company, before clicking through to my blog.
Obviously, I'd like to do this in some automated fashion, vs. manually
updating my site home page (../index.html).
If this can be done (even if only via the Atom API), I'd appreciate any direction on making it happen. If not, please consider this a Wish/Suggestion.Contrary to the helpful reply I received yesterday, I got the following reply today: Thanks for writing in. Currently, Blogger Support does not support questions regarding customized template code or CSS/HTML in general. Sorry for any inconvenience.Huh?! Perhaps I got lucky and got an unusally helpful rep yesterday. Or perhaps I got unlucky and got a rep that was ready to head home after a long week today (this rep didn't insert his/her name). Either way, being able to show my recent blog posts without having to write server side code on my end seems like a reasonable customer request/use case. Perhaps I need to reconsider my reply to Roland Tanglao and crew on current industry product management practices... If you've got ideas on how to make this happen on Blogger; I'm all ears. Open to other platforms/tools as well. Thanks!
Attending the next Kelsey Local Search conference, on a press pass
I attended The Kelsey Group's DD:ILM (Drilling Down: Interactive Local Media) conference in Santa Clara, CA during my time with KRD, and was impressed with the caliber of the discussions (and therefore, the attendees). The show was sold out (and then some), and the buzz meter was high. Regardless of the buzz, there was substance to be had. I walked away with a couple of key insights into the minds of SME's with regards to local search (some confirmation of my own thinking and more importantly, some new learning). In particular: 1) PPC should stand for Pay Per Call, not Pay Per Click for the next few years in Local. For many local advertisers, web transactions aren't applicable (ask your tailor) and web leads aren't believable; they want the phone to ring. No surprise then, to see a company like FindWhat launching a Pay-Per-Call offering. (The real surprise, in my book, is that none of the majors have acquired Ingenio.) Pay Per Call will grow in 2005. Period. 2) Just like Pay Per Call provider Ingenio, online coupon companies, such as technology provider Coupons, Inc. and newspaper sweetheart CustomCoupon, stand to benefit by providing a bridge between online and offline, and driving people into local businesses. Evidence? Check out my blurb on IAC finding the religion, marrying CitySearch and Entertainment Publications. If online coupons are ever going to happen, it'll be in large thanks to Local Search / Directory. 3) What local businesses who are using SEM local about the medium is its ability to allow them to fully express their businesses, at a price that provides substantially more value than Yellow Pages. An example: a local photographer put up his portfolio, references, schedule, etc. Even if the Yellow Pages could accomodate that much information (they can't), he'd be looking at $10s to $100s of thousands of dollars! Online, he pays a few bucks a month to host. The needs of local businesses have changed, and the online medium (especially coupled with Pay Per Call, Online [Secure] Coupons and plentiful real estate) will, in time, serve them as aptly as it serves Amazon today. And so, I was thrilled (and honored) to get an email from The Kelsey Group, inviting me to attend this year's conference in Jersey City on a press pass. As with the last event, the speakers look great, and the agenda looks solid. This year, I'm hoping to meet a bunch of new folks, including: Marc Barach, CMO, Ingenio Inc. Dave Hamel, CMO, CrossMedia Services/ShopLocal.com Jas Dhillon, President & CEO, ZeroDegrees Inc. Taek Kwon, EVP, Product & Technology, Citysearch Andrew Shotland, VP, Business Development, InsiderPages And, I'm looking to catch up with a slew of friends, including: Bill Bradford, Executive Director, E-Commerce Product Marketing, AOL Mark Canon, VP, Business Development, Switchboard division of InfoSpace Phil Dubois, President & CEO,CityXpress Paul Levine, General Manager, Yahoo! Local Kirsten Mangers, Chief Strategic Officer, SME Global Solutions Terry Millard, President, Planet Discover Dariusz Paczuski, VP, Local Products, America Online Sukhinder Singh, General Manager, Local, Google Geoff Stevens, GM, Local, Overture Services Rick Szatkowski, SVP & General Manager, FindWhat.com Network/Private Label Drop me a note if you're attending, and would like to connect! tony _[at]_ buzzhit.com.
Google gets tough on credit card advertisers, holders
Hot on the heels of announcing that it was going to enforce tough new rules on credit card advertisers, a new report shows just how easy it is to use Google to find live credit card numbers. Surely I'm not the only one to see the irony in that?
Kudos to Blogger.com Support... really!
I recently wrote about my TypePad envy, relaying my latest Blogger tech challenge and TypePad feature envy. I'd simultaneously written to Blogger for a bit of assistance, and they delivered in spades today: "Looks like you're using relative links to your style sheet. We recommend changing the style sheet links in your template to absolute. This should resolve the display problems you're seeing on your post pages." In order to reply with this answer, someone had to spend the time to go to my blog, review my HTML, find my mistake and compose a personal reply. Not bad, especially for a free service. Blogger (Steve), thank you.
Scobleizer: What Woz learned from failure
Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek BloggerScoble waxes poetic, and rightly so, about his interactions with Wozniak, and the great Woz's perceptions of his own failures. My first computer experience was at the tender age of 9, back in '81... on an Apple computer. My first programming experiences were on Apple's. The first industry book I ever read was Woz: The Prodigal Son of Silicon Valley. A year after receiving Turbo C 1.0 for my 16th birthday, I launched my first product as Shareware (IAMS - Instant Access Menu System, heh), and named my company Prodigy Technologies, as a tongue-in-check tip of the hat to Woz's book title. My first formal industry job was as the first employee of WestCode Software, founded by BeagleBrothers (of ClarisWorks/AppleWorks) alums Alan Bird, Rob Renstrom and John Obberick. Woz, whatever imagined failures you have, you inspired a generation (or two, or three) of us. Don't ever change.
T-Mobile's Music Smartphone won't kill the iPod
Gizmodo : T-Mobile's SDA Music SmartphoneGizmodo reviews the new T-Mobile SDA Music Smartphone, praising its SD card slot and built-in music control buttons, and commenting: "Phones aren't going to kill the iPod quite yet, but with a couple gig SD card and a decent interface, there's no reason they shouldn't kill flash players. " I bought an iPod Mini a couple of weeks back (and intend to block on it this weekend), and have previously written about the death of the iPod (and frankly, all single function devices) at the hands of cell phones... I'll leave it there for tonight; I want Mini in my life a few more days before I cast my verdict...
Now consulting to Gap.com (aka Gap Direct Inc)
I'm thrilled to announce that I've taken a new consulting client; Gap.com (aka, Gap Direct, the online arm of the retailing giant). My focus will be on product strategy and product management. The project they've got underway is... rather substantial... and I'm excited about the possibilities that it represents for them. From first day impressions, they've got a smart, passionate and really friendly group of people working on the effort, and are building in a sensible and extensible way. Details will be scarce of course (at least until post launch); their privacy is of paramount importance to me. But, I'm sure it will serve to further broaden my perspective on retail and e-commerce, and hopefully buzzblog readers and future buzzhit clients will benefit because of it.
Techdirt:New Business Models For The Music Industry?
Techdirt:New Business Models For The Music Industry?TechDirt starts a discussion on business models for IP (specifically, music), based on an NPR story. Part of TechDirt's perspective is on micropayments: "The second idea is bringing back the always popular, but often discredited, idea of micropayments. Without rehashing all the old arguments, micropayments only work in some very specific circumstances, and do more to shrink a musicians potential market than to grow it." It may just be me, but if iTunes isn't "micropayments" ($0.99, $0.49 via Buy.com), I'm not sure what is. Perhaps we need to coin a new term, "nanopayments", for sub $0.10 content buys?
BuzzMachine: Ad Age: Don't advertise on blogs
BuzzMachine... by Jeff JarvisBuzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis reacts to Ad Age's advice w.r.t. to bloggers: "DON'T throw money at bloggers. These influencers will not respond to outright, traditional ad placements." I understand Jeff's points... but there have been plenty of big old media stories about the "grass roots" and "community" nature of blogs, and the resistance of bloggers to spread the word for "old media" businesses (music/MP3 distribution comes to mind immediately). Old media is trying to find its way with blogs and bloggers; it's not unexpected that there will be mistakes along the way. It could be worse; Ad Age could be recommending tips on how to decieve and exploit bloggers for your or your company's personal gain. ;)
Required education for today's youth: Search
Yahoo! Search blog: Quest For a CarYahoo! Search Blogger and employee Jerry Welch recounts a story of his 16 year old daughter's quest for her first car, and how broadband and Internet Search played a role. While it may sound silly, teaching your child (or at least opening the door for them) to search the Internet will one day (very soon) be as invaluable as teaching them how to handle money, relationships, etc... Don't think so? Remember, there was a time not so long ago when parents were proud to be able to afford to have a $400 set of encyclopedias at home. The Internet provides value several orders of magnitude behind static, dead trees.
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