Category Archives: companies

TechMeme, paid blogging, and Zunes

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Lots of interesting tech news today from TechMeme which is starting to distinguish itself as “the place” for tech insiders as Digg and Technorati increasingly seek to cater to a huge audience and Slashdot remains problematic because it’s not as robust with community input.

The New York Times reports that Huffington is adding “original” reporting to her extremely popular political blog. I wonder if this is as much for advertising credibility than quality, which clear thinking people know is not a function of whether you get paid to blog or not. Hey, wait a minute. A lot of bloggers (including me) are skeptical that paying people for blog posts, reviews and other online content serves the best interests of the blog community.

Yet nobody seems to frown on a journalist when they get paid to blog. Or, for that matter, run copious amounts of expensive advertising beside quality content as Mike does over at TechCrunch. For the time being I’m refiling my pay per post concerns under the folder “maybe right, but maybe just hypocritical pseudo-elitist nonsense”.

Also at NYT is this piece on the Third World Laptop project bringing cheap computing to the poor all over the world. It’s a very exciting concept that will certainly bring about big changes and also many unintended, unpredictable consequences. I remain confused as to why Bill Gates has opposed the laptop project because even though clean water and health and food are more immediate needs, the Laptops will connect the first and third worlds in ways that will *demand* more proactive participation in third world development by us rich folks. Also this project brings some of the best thinkers – people who often dwell in abstract and expensive first world problem solving realms – into the of “global poverty and development” department of innovation. Gates’ outstanding contributions in this realm are of global and historical significance so I hope he will eventually see how the laptop project is part of this excellent trend that is connecting the rich and the poor.

Aleks Krotoski has a great piece about digital violence over at Second Life where that blossoming virtual community is now under attack by opportunistic and malicious … programs. It’s not only art that imitates life, it’s virtually impossible to escape our human inadequacies even when humans are not physically present in the environment.

And those nifty Zunes can’t seem to crack the IPOD dominance in digital MP3 players. I often wonder how much of the tech trends are habit and how much innovation. Zunes seemed to offer better features yet they appear to be losing the battle. Ironically the neat song sharing feature using DRM restrictions seems to be backfiring on the Zune.

Bravo Branson

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Richard Branson, in this Forbes article, does a fine job of articulating how and why entrepreneurial capitalism and social responsibility can work together in vibrant ways.   Branson recently pledged to give *all profits* from his tranportation companies to projects that are working to alleviate global warming.     Although I’d rather see the money go to global health initiatives it’s admirable and exciting to see how socially proactive the “super rich” like Branson, Gates, and Buffett have become.     In fact it almost seems to be “infectious” which bodes well for a world desparately in need of innovative thinking combined with big money to fund clever projects.

I’d like to see a study of what may be a natural tension when Governments do a “really good job” at eliminating significant problems because it puts bureaucrats out of work and shrinks budgets.   Could this help explain why governments often seem to spend so much and accomplish so little when it comes to solving significant problems?

It’s all about the O

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Thanks Overstock.com !    I wanted to get my parents a memory foam mattress topper and Overstock continues to have great prices  –  $79 for  2″ foam.   This is about half the (otherwise good) Costco price for similar stuff.   Surfing around for more items I bumped into a 1G mem card for my Treo 650 at $26, also about half the going “good” price.    Free shipping made it a no brainer but then I realized “hey, there might be promo discounts” and a quick google search got me a link to an extra 15% off, which was very nicely tagged onto my existing shopping cart after visiting the (Overstock created?) coupon site.

John Battelle at Pubcon

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John Battelle, author of “The Search” is talking about “The New Age of Advertising” and making the case that search is the new computer navigation tool.

Search: Allows adverts to focus on “intent over content”. Shifting from pre-search to post-search world is frustrating, but essential, for advertisers. Google is that nexus.

Marketing as dialog. Attention is increasingly controlled by users, not distributors. Content is once again king and landing page is the queen. John says marketing is now an opportunity to engage the customer in a dialog.

Case studies: Microsoft dinosaur heads vs Wifi awareness. Changing the pitch to acknowledge the reader’s interest (wifi aware vs dinos) increased response 60%.

Cisco – Wikipedia happiness from respect by not posting company propaganda, rather waiting for a natural listing to appear.

Dice: Invited surly IT peeps=most IT peeps, to rant. Tech news “hummingbirds” became sticky stickarounds.

Demo of Federated media campaign manager. Hmmmm- keynote as a pitch?
I guess this is OK because John …. has a PhD.
Federated = bundling of quality sites with advertisers who want targeting.
750 million ad impressions from 100 sites booking a million per month in ads, 60% of which goes to publishers [ummm – why is this lower than adsense rev share of about 70%?].
Here’s the answer – they devote lots of staff time to take care of authors needs?

Questions:
How to separate editorial from advertising?: Blogging allows transparency and trust in a way print does not. Disclose and don’t sell words, but OK to blog about things you like/know/use etc. Ultimate test is whether audience stays with you.

Google radio vs Federated CPM advertising. Quotes Beth Comstock from Web 2.0 about needed humans in the equation. FM is in the “cream” biz where Google’s in the milk biz.
Federated will work to make sure every impression on the site is monetized in the best way.

What’s most unique thing you’ve seen a blogger do to increase traffic?
Lists are good. Blogoscoped asked for posts with most comments. But need the core essense of passion. High integrity voices always win.

Jason Calcanis suggests you should do in-house ad sales after 1 million page views (per month?).    John says he does not agree and thinks the Federated model is very viable as an intermediary.

Yahoo Publisher Network

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It’s lunch but they seem to have run out of … lunches. Hoping more are on the way?  [NOPE!   Though this is probably not Yahoo’s fault]

The Yahoo team is running a demo of YPN but the typing is barely visible here in the middle of the big room. They need a large font PowerPoint demo with just a handful of slides that clearly show the product, which I think is probably really good.

As a Yahoo shareholder I hope they refine this presentation. Hire Guy Kawasaki to evangelize! This conference room is now home to about 1000 key people who are *exactly* the type of first adopter folks Yahoo should be working their asses off to steal away from Adwords and Adsense. Don’t explain PPC to this group, tell them why Panama will be different/better than Google offerings!

If it’s NOT going to be better, than just work to get bought by Microsoft so shareholders like me, who think Yahoo should be the next big thing in PPC.

Holy crap – here’s the “Early Reservation Page URL!”. You are Yahoo for god’s sake – couldn’t you have used something like “Yahoo.com/earlyres/”!

http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/newsponsoredsearch/invite/

Election Math 101

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CNN’s election coverage was, in my opinion, a technological masterpiece combining superb graphics and charts with excellent TV journalism. As I flipped channels last night it was clear that those in charge of the CNN information environment had done an exceptional job of providing lots of information in a good format. Nonetheless it was the quick insights of Democratic strategist Carville who alerted us to importance of the six close senate races and certain congressional districts as key metrics.

One disappointing aspect of CNN TV coverage was the CNN “blog party”. To me it seemed like a good idea gone stupid. The blogger comments were, for the most part, uninspired. TV and blogging don’t really mix which is one reason why blogs are taking over the news space. An active reader can scan many opinions very quickly rather than “waiting” for the TV camera or venue to switch to their items of interest.

I’m not much of a partisan, believing that those in high office are generally sincere and hard working people who differ in ideology rather than virtue. One can only hope that the new composition of American government will bring more innovation to the table while seeking solutions to the pressing problems in Iraq, Sudan, and the world at large.

Compete.com: Use Caution in providing any personal information or downloading software!?

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One of the most frustrating things “Verification” sites do is make bogus and ridiculous assumptions about websites and offer pathways to remove them if you pony up cash.

When I read about Compete over at Battelle’s I tried it and noted that one of my 10 year old travel sites with a long history and good contact information had a Compete.com “warning”.   Naturally this pissed me off but I assumed a server change last year may have been the problem. 

I felt better when Matt Cutts , whose name appears on no less than the Google Patent documents, pointed out that Compete is questioning his blog’s veracity (see snapshot below).

Adding opportunistic insult to injury, the Compete explanations imply (indirectly) that a legitimate site can get rid of the warning by subscribing to a website service called GeoTrust.     Prices seem to vary depending on the site, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a relationship here, making compete look somewhat more like an extortion racket than a good new online resource.

SnapShot
Use caution in providing any personal information or downloading software on mattcutts.com.

The Golden Rule for Grilled Cheese Sandwiches … and Companies?

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As anybody who has ever cooked more than a few grilled cheese sandwiches knows very well, it’s VERY easy to burn them. Yet there is a way to make virtually perfect grilled cheeses every time, and it’s a simple “Golden Rule”. Don’t leave the pan unattended. If you simply stand by your pan and keep tabs on the process for the 4-5 total minutes it will take to complete the process it is very hard to burn the thing – just keep checking every 10 seconds or so until you have a golden brown, gently melted, cheddar or american, taste sensation of a grilled cheese sandwich.

Companies too?   I’ve noted that restaurants often go downhill at the point where the owner stops keeping tabs on the day to day activities, and I noted the comments of Venture Capitalist Rick Segal at Startup Camp suggesting that one of the worst things that can happen to a new company is when the founders start to view themselves as “employees” which can happen as venture money, and the resulting obligations, start to change the company culture.  He also talked about the importance of keeping those founders involved *as founders* so that the intellectual and emotional investment in the success of the venture is not tarnished by the new venture relationship.

Grilled Cheese Virgin Mary

Of course if you follow the Golden Rule of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Companies AND get a bit lucky you might even create a Mother Mary Grilled Cheese and sell it to GoldenPalace Casino via Ebay for $28,000 as happened with the one pictured above.

Zooomr wins Startup Camp

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Kris Taylor’s Zooomr won the Startup Camp honors and a great high end Sun Microsystems Computer setup.    I learned that commuting in the Bay Area is simply insane, but had a fine time enjoying the great hospitality of my good pals Linda and John.    John’s going to start a blog about health insurance very soon which is great because he’s one of the most knowlegeable and experienced health insurance people in California.