Joe Duck

Have Blog. Will Travel.

CES 2009 – Palm Pre bumps stock 34%

Here at CES 2009 Palm debuted the Pre, their new iPhone rival device with a snazzy slider keyboard and large touchscreen. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive and this sent Palm’s stock soaring yesterday 34% as the company’s sagging prospects were revived as fast as the tech blogs started raving. I’m anxious to look at the price movement intra day – eg how soon after the launch did the stock rise? Efficient market theory suggests that new information is incorporated almost immediately into stock pricing and this is an interesting test of that hypothesis.

More CES Coverage at Technology Report

January 9, 2009 Posted by JoeDuck | CES, CES 2009, conference, technology | , , , | 5 Comments

Live from CES Las Vegas CES09 CES 2009

I’m live from the very comfortable Press Lounge at CES Las Vegas where journalists from all over the world are streaming in to cover the world’s largest and most influential Technology Show as well as the largest event of the year here in Las Vegas.   At 4pm at “CES Unveiled” several companies will be exhibiting and discussing their technology plans for 2009.

Most of my tech coverage will be over at Technology-Report.com where John will also be writing about CES and new gadgets though he won’t be here until Friday.

January 6, 2009 Posted by JoeDuck | CES, CES 2009, companies, computers, conference | , , , | 1 Comment

Artificial Intuition

Convergence08 was a great conference with many interesting people and ideas. Thankfully the number of crackpots was very low, and even the “new age” mysticism stuff was at a minimum. Instead I found hundreds of authors, doctors, biologists, programmers, engineers, physicists, and more clear thinking folks all interested in how the new technologies will shape our world in ways more profound than we have ever experienced before.

My favorite insights came from Monica Anderson’s presentation on her approach to AI programming, which she called “Artificial Intuition“. Unlike all other approaches to AI I’m familiar with Anderson uses biological evolution as her main analogs for conceptualizing human intelligence. I see this approach as almost a *given* if you have a good understanding of human thought, but it’s actually not a popular conceptual framework at all.

It has always surprised me how poorly many computer programmers understand even rudimentary biological concepts such as the underlying simplicity of the human neocortex and the basic principles of evolution which I’d argue emphatically have defined *every single aspect* of our human intelligence over a slow and clumsy, hit and miss process operating over millions of years. I think programmers tend to focus on mathematics and rule systems which are great modelling systems but probably a very poor analog for intelligence. This focus has in many ways poisoned the well of understanding about what humans and other animals do when they … think… which I continue to maintain is “not all that special”.

….. more on this later over at Technology Report …..

November 19, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | Artificial Intelligence, computers, conference | , | 16 Comments

SES San Jose California: Search Secrets Session

This post moved to Technology Report

August 21, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SEO, SES, SES San Jose, conference, search | , , | No Comments Yet

Measuring Success in a 2.0 World

Avinash Kaushik from Google and Market Motive: Get on the train or get run over. Relevant metrics are changing dramatically and are an essential part of your online strategy. RSS as the key blog metric, because this is the ultimate permission marketing environment where you push content out to your readers.

Jim Sterne: Web and search metrics are changing the game from reporting to analysis to promotions to “hearts and minds” marketing.

Mathew Baily had the most entertaining yet relevant presentation I’ve seen in some time – probably not as helpful as case studies but brilliant! Analytics and Star Trek: 1.0 analytics endless cycle of mundane reporting. This runs you down. You want 2.0 analytics! Star trek death conversion rate? = 14% mortality, mostly among red shirted actors. Need more context which is where story-driven analytics comes in to answer the detailed questions. Ask questions – best human tool.

Marshall Sponder of Monster.com:

www.webmetricsguru.com
www.theanalyticsguru.com

Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
How do you know if you’ve been successful with search engines and your website in general? You can check your “rank” at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your website, or make the ultimate jump and “close the loop” by measuring sales conversions and ROI. This panel explores both classic and cutting-edge techniques to measure success, what statistics you should really care about, ways to be more strategically focused, and how to drive increased revenue for your business.

Moderator:
Speakers:

August 19, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SEO, SES, SES San Jose, San Jose, Web 2.0, conference, search | , , , , , | No Comments Yet

SES San Jose Exhibit Hall Opens

SES San Jose Exhibit Hall Opens

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

The SES San Jose search conference hosts dozens of providers of internet business services who exhibit on two of the conferences four days. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft are all here as are many search optimization firm, search analytics appications, and even some consumer focused websites.

August 19, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | Google, SEO, SES, SES San Jose, Web 2.0, california, conference | | No Comments Yet

SES San Jose Search Conference

SES San Jose Search Conference

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

With 6000 attendees, Search Engine Strategies in San Jose California remains the world’s largest search marketing conference, bringing search marketing experts and marketing teams from all over the globe.

I’m finding out the breakdown of attendance tomorrrow, as some of the 6000 are only here with exhibit hall passes which do admit to the keynotes but not the regular sessions.

This picture is from this morning’s session on the Asian and South American search markets.

August 18, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SEO, SES, SES San Jose, San Jose, conference, search | | No Comments Yet

SES San Jose – Lee Siegel Keynote

Lee Siegel is about to speak here at SES San Jose. He’s the author of “Against the Machine” and a senior editor at The New Republic, and a noted critic of the new media, primarily because he feels anonymity is a threat to intelligent, enlightened conversation.

Although I’m sympathetic to Lee’s points about how abusive the online world can be, and how foolish it is to consider as sacred the hate speech and the junk banter that passes as conversation, he’s missing two key features of the new conversational media that effectively sweep away much of the significance of his legitimate concerns.

First, the high tolerance for abusive and threatening language has become something of a new standard, especially for younger commenters. I don’t like it either, but for many writers this does not reflect the type of threat it would under other circumstances. It is not appropriate to apply old interpretations of this language to the modern usage.

Second is that focusing on the defects of blogging and new media distracts us from the profound and positive changes in communication – changes that represent the early stages of truly democratic and massively participatory conversations.

I don’t think Siegel is so much *wrong* as he is making fairly insignificant points about the new media. I’d certainly agree that there is a danger whenever people are stifled. For me the outrageous online treatment of Kathy Sierra, a noted blogger,is the exception that proves the rule. These cases are very few, and in a broad sense are eclipsed by the thousands of new voices coming online *every day*.

So, is there value in paying attention to these problems? Sure. Should this drive our understanding and appreciation of the most profound transformation in human communication history?

Nope.

August 18, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SES, SES San Jose, San Jose, Web 2.0, blogging, blogs, conference, search, technology | , , , , , | No Comments Yet

SES San Jose Blog Coverage

Although it’s fun to attend conferences like SES you can learn an enormous amount reading the many folks who are live blogging the sessions here in San Jose. If you read this and I haven’t added your blog please do so in the comment section.

Search Engine Watch (official blog for SES)

Top Rank Blog

Yahoo

SEO Roundtable

Shoemoney

Aim Clear – Charlene

SEM News

Tech Macro News

Applied SEO

David Dalka

Natural Search

August 18, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SEO, SES, San Jose, Web 2.0, conference, search | , , , , , | No Comments Yet

Google Dance at the GooglePlex. Search Engine Strategies Event

Google Dance at the GooglePlex

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Last year they had “Candy Bars” where you could fill a bag with all sorts of great candy. I brought one home for my daughter who now dreams of going to a Google party.

The Google Dance has been going on for several years as part of the SES Conference series. Held at the Googleplex the party features a huge buffet, food, wine, and beer stations all over the Google commons. For those who can’t separate work from leisure (which would be most tech folks), there are demonstrations of new technologies from Google and a “meet the engineers” face to face talk that is always very enjoyable.

August 16, 2008 Posted by JoeDuck | SEO, SES, San Jose, computers, conference | , , , , | No Comments Yet