Posted on Tuesday, February 20, 2007 1:44:05 AM
It's official:
Badged.net, our little pet project launched in late December, has served
1 million unique badge sets since January 1 as of today!
In case you missed it, here is what
Badged.net looks like:
So, head on over to
Badged.net and get your badges today for your blog or web site. It's 100% free, compliments of
MyMediaRoom.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:35:21 AM
Let's begin with a moment of silence to recognize the end of society as we once knew it.
[End of Moment of Silence]
Apparently some parents in a school district in the Washington area were quite upset recently about a "gum game." Basically, it works like this: a guest speaker gives a student a piece of gum and asks them to chew it. They then ask that student to challenge their friends and others in the room to "take a chew" after them. It's all designed to demonstrate the effect of peer pressure when it comes to much more serious issues like teen sex, drugs, and alcohol. Obviously, the point of the excersise is to show how easy it is to fall prey to peer pressure. A harmless piece of gum is a great prop to test this.
Well, some parents think the speaker went too far. Why? Because of the risk that their kids
might have
actually shared that piece of gum! Can you believe it? After how far we have come as a society, this is what we have come to. It's more an oxymoron considering we live today in such an over-sexed pent-up on-demand society. Which leads me to the question: why this generation? Why have parents decided to be so over-protective? Were they neglected themselves as children? Where did all of these insecurities manifest themselves throughout society?
Look,
kids need to be kids. Have some hard boundaries, of course, but let kids be kids. They need to experiment. Living in a bubble will do them no good. It will only do more harm in the long-run. How long do you think those perfect little angels who haven't even shared a piece of gum will last in the "real world"? Put them on the streets of New York City and see how fast they cry "mommy" instead of fending for themselves. It's just a sad situation.
In the meantime, no more "gum games" at that school. They were banned from the school system.
[Begin second moment of silence]
Source:
Area Schools Bitten by 'Gum Game' ControversyExcerpt: In the 'Game,' the guest speaker offers students a piece of gum. The first student to get the gum is allowed to chew it, and then, other students are asked if they would go ahead and chew that same piece of gum.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:05:16 AM
There are no words to describe the idiocy of this, especially in this post-Enron era of better financial controls and accountability.
Source:
BofA aims new credit card at illegal immigrants: report | US News | Reuters.comExcerpt: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp. has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, typically illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 06, 2007 7:23:47 PM
The President was just in town this morning to discuss the new federal budget and tour
Micron Technology's multi-billion-dollar campus here. (They make RAM chips you'll find in every electronic device on the planet.) In the usual polite banter about the weather and the people in the room, the President couldn't help but poke fun at the
Manassas Mayor and chide him on the city's pothole problem.
That's saying a lot, considering the President came in on
Marine One.
Source:
President Bush Discusses Fiscal ResponsibilityExcerpt: Oh, Mayor, good to see you. Thank you for serving. Appreciate it -- just fill the potholes, that's all I can tell you. (Laughter.) And I'm sure you are. (Laughter.)
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Posted on Sunday, January 07, 2007 9:37:45 PM
Today is truly a sad day for the high-end luxury goods market as Burberry, one of the world's hottest high-end fashion brands, tried to pull a fast one and move its manufacturing operations to China. Now, I won't claim to be an expert on Burberry's products, but I do know they are a very well-regarded brand and they--along with their upper-class clientele--place great value in their "Made in the UK" heritage.
I couldn't agree more with Emma Thompson's statement that moving to China would result in the "bastardization" of a great brand. Sadly, we see this every day as overzealous corporate bureaucrats, who are hell-bent on adding that extra percentage point to their bottom line, outsource and offshore every last piece of their business to China, India, and many others. It is this single mission that has resulted in the United States'
largest ever trade deficit with China, reaching
$190.6 billion as of October 2006. (In case you don't know, a trade deficit in this case means the US imports $235.8 billion from China while only exporting $45.2 billion. That means China has the upper hand when it comes to trade negotiations with the United States.)
What I don't understand is why the American public and Congress tolerates this. Have we all overlooked one minor but damning detail?
China is a communist state!
Update: By no means is this post slamming the Chinese people. I've heard nothing but good things about them. My problem is with the Chinese government. I just can't give China the respect it deserves while under a communist regime. The Chinese people need to pull an
American Revolution and install a government that is more friendly to International trade.
Source:
Oscar winner Emma Thompson slams Burberry's China moveExcerpt: Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson has blasted British luxury goods retailer Burberry for their decision to close a factory in south Wales and switch production to China.
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Posted on Saturday, December 30, 2006 2:00:58 PM
The past couple of weeks have been quite exciting. With the holidays adding to the fun, it has surely been some busy times! Since my last post I'm pleased to announce several exciting improvements over at
MyMediaRoom.
MyMediaRoom.TV: That's right, we quietly launched MyMediaRoom TV over the holidays with our premiere episode! I host the show along with
Chris LeCompte, another MyMediaRoom Co-Founder. Check out the premiere episode
here. We cover a lot, including the
MyMediaRoom Wizard, the
Blog This feature,
Legal Media Rooms, and our first
Featured Media Room! The show is really designed as a way for you to get to know us and to give us a way to show off various aspects of MyMediaRoom--there's a lot to it! Stay tuned for our next episode in early January along with some
really exciting announcements!
Badged.net: Huh? A new startup? Well, not quite. We were sitting around earlier this week brainstorming ways to make our lives -- and yours -- easier at MyMediaRoom. We've struggled with the concept of these social networking badges out there -- there are a ton if you've lived in a cave the last few years -- and most importantly finding a way to use them. In our surfing we've found sporadic usage of these badges, but no real continuity. So began our 6 hour experiment. Chris and I agreed to make things interesting by seeing how quickly we could go from idea to launch. A timeline was set and Badged.net was born. We registered the domain at 2pm. The race was on. I raced to my computer to start writing the mini-mass of code it would take to power Badged as Chris raced to design the web page that would greet our users. After a couple of hurdles along the way, we put the finishing touches on and completed our "beta" testing by 8pm. So, we flicked the switch and put Badged.net live only 6 hours after hatching the idea! I'm not sure anyone keeps track, but we're going for a record: zero to something big as quickly as possible. We're not sure how big, but we're also not loosing sleep over it.
Badged.net is our gift to the "web 2.0" "new media" or whatever world. We only ask for donations if you like the the service (keep in mind we have to pay for those fancy servers that so diligently serve up those badges for you every time someone visits your web page!). Oh, and take a quick hop over to
MyMediaRoom and put a media room on your web site while you're at it! Ah, a perfect world.
So, here is:
Badged.net - Add your favorite social networking badges to your blog or web site.I've included the badges for my own personal media room below to show it in action. My favorite part? It's only
one line of code for me to make those badges appear! That's the beauty of Badged.net and why it has already become a mini-sensation. So, help us spread the word and make
Badged.net rock the world! Check out the site and start using it for your web pages and blog (if you don't have a blog, by the way, you get one free with
MyMediaRoom. So get moving!). You'll notice we put a little "Powered by Badged.net" on every set of badges. This helps us spread the word. Don't be a douche and try to circumvent that or copy our code. If you ask us nicely -- and a few bucks might help -- we might just serve up a special page with the "Powered by..." removed, just for you.
Stay tuned! There is so much more literally just around the corner. We have a huge announcement with MyMediaRoom coming up right after New Years. And I mean
huge.
Have a Happy and Safe New Years!
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Posted on Thursday, December 07, 2006 10:53:07 PM
This is a disgrace. As noted in the article, "...the $14.5 million is less than 0.09% of the approximately $16.4 billion
HP has in cash and short-term investments." This is less than even a slap on the wrist for HP and does nothing but establish the California attorney general's office as a huge pushover. If the State of California was trying to make an example out of HP and send a strong message to other companies employing similar tactics (
pretexting, or fraudulently obtaining someone's records through false pretenses), this is a huge failure in that effort.
Of course, the criminal proceedings are still pending, and rightfully so, those involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Since the CAAG office has failed thus far, hopefully those whose rights were infringed upon by HP's devious acts will step forward and demand stronger recourse or do it themselves.
Source:
HP to pay $14.5M to settle spying lawsuit - USATODAY.comExcerpt: SAN FRANCISCO — Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) said Thursday it would pay $14.5 million and bolster its corporate governance to settle a civil case brought by California's attorney general over a boardroom spying scandal that rocked HP this year...The $14.5 million is less than 0.09% of the approximately $16.4 billion
HP has in cash and short-term investments. HP shares closed Thursday at
$39.86, down 28 cents.
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Posted on Tuesday, December 05, 2006 5:01:25 PM
When will governments learn? Banning certain foods or items does nothing but create black markets and underworlds. Just look at the enormous drug trade in the world. Or, at the United States' huge underage drinking problem (Europe is just fine with their legal drinking ages in the mid to late teens vs. 21 in the US). My feeling is that creating these bans versus consumer education only makes the problem worse.
Here's my prediction: people will start looking elsewhere for great foods that will now be banned in NYC. So, NYC will loose that business and the outlying communities will benefit from increased traffic. You'll hear about numerous arrests or sanctions for people and restaurants defying the "trans fat" ban.
People won't be getting slimmer. They'll be going out of their way now to get the foods they enjoy. Why? Because the Board of Health thinks it can regulate the things people enjoy and take for granted everyday--rather than focusing on the real problem, which is educating people and youths, most importantly, on eating healthy and following a proper diet.
People don't respond to bans. They respond to proper education and the ability to experiment, legally, to learn what's good for them and what's not. Government has no authority to do that.
Source:
The Wall Street Journal OnlineExcerpt: BREAKING NEWS:
The Board of Health has voted to make New York the first city in the nation to ban artificial trans fats in restaurant food.
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Posted on Saturday, December 02, 2006 7:40:29 PM
Here is a great resource for those thinking of starting a "Web 2.0" company. I particularly liked the Seventh Rule: Don't let your four-year-old name it.
At least I'm not the only one who finds all of these site names rather annoying? If you really want to see the magnitude of this epidemic, take a visit to
Go2web20.net.
Just a sampling:
moblr;
viewr;
wishlistr;
queeky;
mixd;
zingku. It's like these guys find a normal name and drop all of the vowels!
That's why we decided to keep it simple--and sane--with
MyMediaRoom: simple, descriptive, and you can spell it! If we were to follow "Web 2.0" convention I suppose we should have named it MyMdiaRm or MMRM. I can't even think of something that would make sense!
Source:
Seven rules for Web 2.0 startups - Download SquadExcerpt: #7. Don't let your four-year-old name it: Flickr got away with ditching the vowel--you won't. We were through with double-Os long before Squidoo, Calgoo, or Zooomr (triple-O!) came along, and the same goes for your EEs. Domain name scarcity is not an excuse for stupid product names any more than improved traction is a justification for clown shoes.
Comments (1) - Permanent Link
Posted on Friday, December 01, 2006 7:15:25 PM
This has to be one of the highest-profile cases of an acquisition gone
horribly bad, for all the wrong reasons. Sure, it may have made sense
from a marketing standpoint, GM broke into the über-SUV market by
acquiring the Hummer brand, but they have really destroyed the original
intent of the Hummer. It was designed to be the humvee for the rest of
us. A replica of the military-grade device commonplace on the
battlefield. This is evidenced by the first iteration of the Hummer
brand, the H1.
The decline began with the introduction of the H2 (here is a ricer-ized version of the H2 commonly found on American streets):
And the brand was officially dilluted with the introduction of the H3, the soccer mom variant of the Hummer:
And this is perhaps the next generation of the Hummer?
For the life of me, I just can't put anything except the Hummer H1 in the class of a true humvee. It saddens me to see GM destroy what started out as a hot brand. I could see myself driving a Hummer H1, a respectable humvee replica for recreational use, but now I find myself shaking my head upon sight of a H2 or god-forbid an H3, on the roads.
In this age of excess and materialistic over-indulgence, the Hummer brand is at the center of it all. So GM, please, stop dilluting an authentic brand in the name of shareholder value and fueling America's excess. Focus on true innovation and improvements in safety and fuel economy. Is this next generation Hummer concept a step in this direction? Maybe.
Source:
Algae-filled Hummer wins 'green car' contest - CNN.comExcerpt: In the corporate imagination of General Motors, Hummer could be transformed from the SUV that environmentalists love to hate to an algae-infused, oxygen-exuding buggy that would open up like a flower.
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 10:07:41 PM
Did I do good?
Source:
Guy Kawasaki's Venture Capital Aptitude Test (VCAT) - A Service of Electric PulpExcerpt: Your VCAT Results: The Hard Truth
Your score: 37
Call Sequoia and Kleiner, Perkins and tell them that you're available.
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 8:56:23 PM
Source:
Main - AOL VideoOn first sight, AOL Video has some promise. I like the layout. There is a lot going on, but it's easy to find what you're looking for. I happen to be a huge Law & Order fan, so I quickly found the NBC link and clicked hoping to find some episodes I could watch for $1.95. Nope. None found. What was there instead? "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip." Sheer disappointment.
Then I browsed other stations and noticed a trend: AOL Video seems to be nothing but second-rate shows. The real hits are nowhere to be found!
The networks are either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid. I suspect they're holding out on their hit shows for one reason: they have something in the works. It's either an exclusive distribution deal, or perhaps their own AOL Video clone. Seriously, the number of Law & Order fans trumps the number of "Studio 60" fans by an ungodly amount. Why would NBC prevent me from paying them $1.95 so I can watch a missed episode or my favorites online?
If they can get "Studio 60" online they can certainly get Law & Order online!
Only time will tell. Until then, AOL Video is great for finding the second-rate tier of shows on TV. The real hits are nowhere to be found...yet.
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 8:47:49 PM
Source:
What should Google trim next? - ValleywagExcerpt: What should Google trim next?
The product Google should cull next
Google Base?
Dodgeball?
Google Trends?
Send to Phone?
Sketch Up?
Joga Bonito
Easy:
All of the above! (I've never even heard of 5 of those 6.)
Google needs to focus on getting its search right.
Live.com and others are catching up, and I would say based on my experience Live.com is
better in terms of quality and relevance than Google.
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:27:33 PM
It seems that the "Beta" moniker for software these days is more a status symbol than a legitimate flag to users. Long lost are the days of closed betas, post-alpha and pre-launch. I take "Web 2.0" to mean you've adopted the philosophy of Perpetual Beta. Why test your product the right way and make sure it's ready to go (hence, a true "beta"), when you can slap "Beta" on your logo and have everyone in the world test your product for you?
Of course, this all makes sense: in today's zero-to-$1.65B in 18 months-world, you don't have any time to waste. As long as you have "Beta" in your logo, you're covered!
What makes this all quite comical is the sheer proliferation of the "Beta" moniker. Even
Google Video sports a BETA tag (this could be Google's acknowledgement of their brainchild's inferiority given they dropped $1.65B for YouTube).
So, the question is: what does "beta" really mean today, and most importantly when does a product exit beta today? Is it post liquidation? Critical mass (who's counting)?
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 4:00:51 AM
Source:
Venture Capital Resource Directory - VC Firms, Angel Investors, Raising Capital, Business Plans, Entrepreneurs, Investment BanksExcerpt:
Menlo Park, CA based technology company, Landec Corp., announced today they raised $6 Million in funding.
Domain Associates, LLC and New Leaf Venture Partners Ventures was involved in this funding effort.
To read the full press release entitled “Landec Receives Additional Shares in Medical Device Company as Part of Their Series A $6 Million Funding", please visit the BusinessWire website at: http://businesswire.com and search under today's news.
You've
got to be kidding me. This is not just an excerpt -- it's the
entire post
-- on the vFinance.com web site. "To read the full press
release...visit the BusinessWire website...and search under today's
news."
Excuse me, but aren't you supposed to do that for me? What the hell
good is your web site if you just tell me what to do? And vFinance
claims to be a venture financing news portal? If they're telling me to
go to BusinessWire, why do I even need vFinance?
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:22:54 AM
I admire the simplicity of this little tool by Lev Walkin, but I see a bigger issue. This is something we're trying to solve with
MyMediaRoom (hence Personal Media Rooms!). Quite simply:
information sprawl. Just how people spread, so to does information.
Case in point. You visit TechCrunch, maybe the same article below, and make a comment. Great! You've contributed to that conversation. But what does it do for you? What about your own blog? How do I, a random person, find out about your comment over at TechCrunch? I believe in commenting on someone's blog, especially if it's insightful, but you should have that centralized. That's why we're creating the uber-blog at MyMediaRoom: you monitor your blogroll (no, not a lame list, but the actual posts and content themselves!) and post back your comments directly to your personal blog right away. That's how I'm doing this.
Not that this is supposed to be a self-promo. The point is that we are faced with information sprawl. Not just overload, but sprawl. How do you create and find your own content and put it in one place? Just like with urbran sprawl -- people in the 'burbs have easy routes back to the city -- the Internet needs something similar (hint: MyMediaRoom).
I'm a major proponent of new tools and ideas, but let's keep them in check. I see the "cool factor" in what Lev did with JS-Kit (see below), but it does nothing to help me control my information either as a blog publisher or a commenter.
Create tools that help me
manage my information. That'll get me excited.
Source:
Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Quick Embed Code to Add Comments To Any SiteExcerpt:It may not be a multi-million dollar venture-backed startup, but Lev Walkin has an elegant solution to a common feature of the social web, commenting. JS-Kit is an entirely free little javascript embed that allows you to add threaded comments to any web page in one line...
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 2:59:26 AM
Facebook has resisted the temptation to be bought out unlike MySpace and countless other sites in this Bubble 2.0 era. Perhaps they're waiting for the most opportune time to bail out? If you recall, MySpace was sold for only $580 million two years ago, and it's rumored to be worth over $2 billion to News Corp right now (makes sense with a $1 billion ad deal with Google plus a little appreciation).
By opening up to allow anyone to register, this could be a power play for Facebook to jockey themselves for more users. Since whoever does possibly acquire Facebook will more than likely use MySpace as a benchmark, Facebook has a long way to catch up to MySpace's estimated 100 million+ members.
Let's not forget that Google has its own little MySpace clone that's quickly gaining share. It's called
Orkut. (Where the hell do you get a name like that? It sounds like a vacuum cleaner.) Notice how they play it safe with their little "in affiliation with Google" disclaimer. No, it's really "owned by Google, we just don't want it to be
that obvious!" Not sure what Orkut/Google's plan is (do they even have one?), but it's an invitation-only system, more restrictive than Facebook was. Give me a break.
Back on topic: Follow the trend... MySpace ('04) at $580M...YouTube ('06) at $1.65B...
Facebook ('07) at $3B? Could it be? Only time will tell.
Source:
Wired 14.12: STARTExcerpt:With more than 10 million members, Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. Membership was once restricted to college students, but amid rumors of a buyout last summer (after Rupert Murdoch paid $580 million for MySpace), Facebook started tinkering. It added a feature called News Feed, which keeps members informed about the activities of other people in their networks. Then it opened its doors to the world. Although CEO Mark Zuckerberg refused to comment on acquisition rumors, he did talk about all the changes.
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 2:44:22 AM
Aren't blogs and the Internet great?
Source:
Sex Drive DailyExcerpt:One of Jessica Cutler's ex-lovers is suing her for blogging in explicit detail about their affair. Jessica, you might remember, is the young lady who set Washington atwitter two years ago when the blog in which she detailed every aspect of her sex life suddenly hit the front page. Naturally, the idea that a 20-something woman was sleeping with five or six men in rotation, some of whom were married, shocked our virgin society
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Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:55:07 AM
Source:
I Will Teach You To Be Rich: I Hate Indian Network Marketers So MuchExcerpt:Network marketing (aka multi-level marketing, or MLM), Ponzi schemes, or pyramid schemes--yes, there are differences, but I'm disgusted by them all.
Ramit Sethi, one of the founders of
PBwiki, has a great piece on multi-level marketing over on his blog,
I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Check it out.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:33:15 AM
I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous and
the definition of "frivolous
lawsuit" to a T. If you read the full story here, you'll see that this
guy was only detained for a few days due to a glitch in the FBI's
fingerprinting system. And he's an attorney, so go figure.
What's another $2M in our taxpayer's dollars down the drain?
Source:
U.S. to pay $2M, apologize for false terror arrest - CNN.comExcerpt:An Oregon lawyer wrongly arrested and accused of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings has settled a lawsuit against the U.S. government for $2 million, attorneys told CNN on Wednesday.
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Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:32:19 PM
Yahoo! has also entered this rapidly expanding market of mobile group SMS service providers according to a TechCrunch post today. Maybe I'm too old to understand the market (seems to me to be the 13-18 crowd, maybe up to 25 or so), but SMS seems like the wrong technology to me. Perhaps I'm also just too used to having real-time email on my Treo 650 and having the benefit of a full QWERTY keyboard.
I recall my short-lived days with a flip-phone and having to figure out a whole new language and new reflexes with my thumbs to type with a regular phone keypad. With that in mind, I can see where SMS is useful. Nevermind the fact that SMS isn't exactly helping teach the world's youth proper grammar. I can only read phrases like "Will u go 2 the store w me?" so many times before I get a headache. Whatever happened to good form and learning to write professionally? Well, one look at a phone keypad/keyboard tells all. Having to press the '2' key twice to get a letter 'B' is cumbersome and aggravating if you're trying to write something like this article.
I digress. Back on point with my limited SMS experience in mind, I'm hard pressed to see the business case for any of these services. How do they make money? Charging per message or group distribution to the sender's phone bill? (This is a whole other can of worms that warrants its own article, by the way.) Why not just send an email, or make a couple of quick calls? I think someone has missed the boat on SMS. People should just have one single point of contact -- one email address -- they access from everywhere: their office (or school, in this case); their cell phone; at home; on the web, etc.
Here is my current setup for my email: I have one main address that everyone I know has and uses. It's hosted by
Everyone.net, who has incredible spam filtering (I get hundreds of spam emails a day that Everyone.net blocks for me!). And it's an IMAP account. That means my mail stays on the server and I can access it at any time from anywhere -- and I see exactly the same messages everywhere. No downloading, no waiting, no fuss. The best part? With
Chatteremail on my Treo 650, I have full SSL access to my mail over IMAP. So, it's real-time and the exact same view as my desktop at the office, on my laptop, and on web mail.
With this setup, as soon as I get an important email that makes it past all of the filters, I get an alert on my phone and can view the message, write a response, or forward it right away. (And since I have a Treo 650, replying is quite easy with the real keyboard!)
So, the best way of reaching me, besides just picking up the phone, is by email! I don't mess with SMS because it's too confusing and cumbersome. Besides, most carriers have limitations and charge the recipients for incoming messages in the United States! Why would I want my friend to incur a fee to receive a cryptic message from me that they may or may not understand?
The bottom line: I don't understand SMS. I can't see it becoming a viable way of communicating in the United States (Europe and Asia are the exception here). Email is a much more reliable and free way of communicating. Phone manufacturers should be focusing on bringing those features down to cell phones designed for the masses. Email providers should focus on better spam prevention and filtering. Let's focus on consolidation and efficiency, not adding yet another number to our rolodexes and line item on our cell phone bills.
Source:
Techcrunch » Blog Archive » A look at eight multi-person SMS servicesExcerpt:There are undoubtedly more companies that offer multi-person SMS, or at least there will be by the time I click publish on this post - but I hope that comparing these seven company’s by feature set will help flesh out a vision of the landscape and where we stand today.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 7:24:30 PM
Source:
Cavendo Live - Media RoomExcerpt:That's right: we don't run or operate an advertisement network or run ads on any of our sites. Have we gone mad, you might ask? Well, not exactly. Our feeling is that you get annoyed with enough ads on the sites you bring into MyMediaRoom, such as your CNN news feed, or the many blogs you subscribe to, that MyMediaRoom should be more like a sanctuary. That is, no advertisements.
Cross-post from the Cavendo Live Media Room about MyMediaRoom. This is a big issue we feel strongly about. We're just as tired of the ads as you, so we decided to tackle the issue head-on. We have witnessed problems with click-fraud and spent countless dollars on suspected fraudulent clicks ourselves.
So, on the hunt for the best solution, we felt MyMediaRoom would be a great platform to test our ideas. Check our original post above for the details, but we are getting ready to test out some new ways of what we call
social advertising.
We welcome your thoughts and suggestions! Stay tuned.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 6:36:20 PM
Source:
Web Page Analyzer - free website optimization tool website speed test check website performance report from web site optimizationExcerpt:Free Website Performance Tool and Web Page Speed Analysis
Try our free web site speed test to improve website performance. Enter a URL below to calculate page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component. Based on these page characteristics the script then offers advice on how to improve page load time. The script incorporates best practices from HCI research and web site optimization techniques into its recommendations.
This is a great tool for making sure your web site complies with a lot of the web development standards out there.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Monday, November 27, 2006 4:47:30 PM
It has been an interesting night for my story on Digg about underage drinking. My suspicions about Digg's demographic were right and as of 11:40am today the number of "Diggs" the story has received skyrocketed to
685!
Here's a chart from duggtrends.com showing the run-up:
I almost feel sorry for the poor folks who got the government contract to host this site for NIH. It was largely inaccessible overnight as thousands of people were trying to hit the site at the same time.
The power of Digg in effect.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Monday, November 27, 2006 4:22:33 AM
I recently came across an interesting story about the legal drinking age in the United States, and what it really means in many states, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I figured people on Digg, being typically younger, would find this interesting. So, I submitted the story around 8pm on a Sunday afternoon. By 11pm it was "promoted" after getting around 25 "diggs" from other users. Within minutes, all hell broke loose the NIH site was so overwhelmed it was inaccessible!
Link to the Digg storyAnd a mirror courtesy of "Duggmirror"As of 11:20pm as I write this, the story has exploded to
81 diggs!
Gotta love digg.
Comments (0) - Permanent Link
Posted on Sunday, November 26, 2006 4:50:51 PM
Really? Did you say that on January 1 of this year?
From a great series on
I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
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Posted on Saturday, November 25, 2006 9:37:07 PM
This has been a lot of fun developing, but it's here! My Personal Media Room is now live! You can get one, too, at MyMediaRoom.com.
Enjoy! Feel free to post feature requests, comments, etc right here!
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Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006 7:11:59 PM
Only true geeks can appreciate my frustration here, but it annoys the hell out of me when I go to download a code sample and it's packed up as a .tar.gz file. I'm a Microsoft fan and develop on their platform, and I use Windows XP on my computers. Microsoft was kind enough to build in native .ZIP support (side note: does anyone know what happened to WinZip??). All is fine and good until someone tries to be different and use .tar.gz. I don't run Linux, so now I have to go out of my way to find a decompression tool that can open this damn .tar.gz file.
To all of the geeks out there, please, just use .ZIP! It'll make everyone's life a little easier...
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Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006 7:05:05 PM
Seriously, I just happened to catch an ad on TV today for...
dialup Internet access! Does anyone even use dialup today besides in a worst-case scenario when you're 1000 miles from civilization?
During a recent trip, I had to resort to a dialup account (free with my DSL line) to give me a stable link when the Wi-Fi hotspots nearby weren't being friendly to me. (This was on a very laid-back island--no Starbucks until the more public island next door!)
That dialup connection was absolutely brutal and all I could do was grab my mail and be done with it. I already had a free account with my DSL business line, so it was no extra money out of my pocket. But, why would I go out of my way to signup and pay for dialup Internet access? The provider in this ad--the name will remain private as to avoid embarassing them--must be clueless. I can see maybe advertising in a very rural market where high-speed isn't available, but in the Washington suburbs? We have more capacity here than anywhere in the world. Most of AOL (what's left of them) runs through their fortress just down the street, and Yahoo and Google have huge datacenters out here.
We're not hurting for broadband access, so there is no way I can imagine anyone around here -- except maybe 0.00001% of the population who maybe can't afford broadband -- would ever want or
need dialup!
Am I crazy, or is this ISP stuck in 1996?
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Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006 6:49:17 AM
Happy Thanksgiving to all, especially our troops overseas defending this nation so we can all enjoy the freedoms we all too often take for granted.
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Posted on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 6:57:55 PM
This is the first post here--look out for more to come soon!
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