In 1998 I gave up an extremely lucrative contract with MSFT to go and work -- for free -- as an intern for the Seattle Supersonics. My dream "job". That choice was a mistake. At least from a personal level.... Read More
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Norm Walsh Leaves Sun? And Just Like That, *POOF*,
Norm Walsh Leaves Sun? And Just Like That, *POOF*,
Update: As per my follow-up comment to Norm Walsh's comment below, NW: >> Obscure? Stole? Mystery? I thought I was fairly candid about why I left and why I joined Mark Logic. So here's what happened: I read just the...
Update: As per my follow-up comment to Norm Walsh's comment below, NW: >> Obscure? Stole? Mystery? I thought I was fairly candid about why I left and why I joined Mark Logic. So here's what happened: I read just the...
The Great Cornholio
Patrick Durusau has fun on his site with a posting satirizing the strategies of some opponents and proponents of OOXML at ISO as Beavis (for the the former) and Butt-head (for the latter.) Wikipedia has a good explanation of the... Read More
Jeff Hawkins - Why Can't a Computer Be More Like a Brain?
Jeff Hawkins - Why Can't a Computer Be More Like a Brain?
Despite amazing strides, computers are still relatively poor at performing high level activities that come naturally to the human brain. Co-founder of Palm, Inc., Jeff Hawkins, describes recent breakthroughs in the modeling of brain functions based on the theory of Hierarchical Temporal Memory. New insights into how the neocortex supports cognition, inference and prediction can be applied to a variety of problems using Hawkins' Numenta computing platform. 
Despite amazing strides, computers are still relatively poor at performing high level activities that come naturally to the human brain. Co-founder of Palm, Inc., Jeff Hawkins, describes recent breakthroughs in the modeling of brain functions based on the theory of Hierarchical Temporal Memory. New insights into how the neocortex supports cognition, inference and prediction can be applied to a variety of problems using Hawkins' Numenta computing platform.
Comments in Twitter?
I just posted a Tweet: "After seeing comments blossom in FriendFeed, it seems either Twitter should have comments, or extend the API so someone else can add them."
Why?
1. People still reply to tweets, expecting a response in a tweet. It's noise to most of my followers. They send responses (to me) asking what am I responding to. If I answer that, then other people ask what I'm responding to in explaining the other person's response. Twitter is not symmetric, that's a good feature, but it makes for a shitty conversation medium, imho.
2. Far more people use Twitter than use FriendFeed. Yes, I think it's great there are APIs and that makes it possible for FriendFeed to build on what Twitter does. But it is a competitive market and ideas should slosh around among all the products.
3. The length of this post should provide a clue why comments would be good in Twitter. I started writing #1 in Twitter itself, and went over 140 chars before I had expressed a single idea.
Read More
Why?
1. People still reply to tweets, expecting a response in a tweet. It's noise to most of my followers. They send responses (to me) asking what am I responding to. If I answer that, then other people ask what I'm responding to in explaining the other person's response. Twitter is not symmetric, that's a good feature, but it makes for a shitty conversation medium, imho.
2. Far more people use Twitter than use FriendFeed. Yes, I think it's great there are APIs and that makes it possible for FriendFeed to build on what Twitter does. But it is a competitive market and ideas should slosh around among all the products.
3. The length of this post should provide a clue why comments would be good in Twitter. I started writing #1 in Twitter itself, and went over 140 chars before I had expressed a single idea.
Read More
Matt Asay - The Ten Commandments of Open Source
Ubuntu users and developers are passionate about it, almost on a religious level. Matt Asay describes the ten commandments of open source and how they relate to Ubuntu. He presents his points with examples from both the open source community in general and Ubuntu in particular. Matt's overview of these principles illustrate how Ubuntu can thrive on its past to change the future of IT. 
Read More
Read MoreBill Janeway, Peter Bloom - Web 2.0 and Wall Street
Bill Janeway, Peter Bloom - Web 2.0 and Wall Street
Many of the current attributes of Web 2.0 were first exposed in work done on Wall Street. Bill Janeway and Peter Blook, two Wall Street veterans, discuss some of the changes that have taken place over the last three decades in the investment banking and trading industries, like the shift from sales to use of proprietary information, the reduction of latency, and collaboration of ideas. The ideas in this discussion should give insight to anyone looking to the future of Web 2.0. 
Many of the current attributes of Web 2.0 were first exposed in work done on Wall Street. Bill Janeway and Peter Blook, two Wall Street veterans, discuss some of the changes that have taken place over the last three decades in the investment banking and trading industries, like the shift from sales to use of proprietary information, the reduction of latency, and collaboration of ideas. The ideas in this discussion should give insight to anyone looking to the future of Web 2.0.
Testing Pownce public downloads
Testing Pownce public downloads
I just uploaded a song I recorded on Tuesday to Pownce.
After two tries, it worked. You have to be logged in to download the song but anyone can play it. Hmmm. That removes one potential application I had in mind, Pownce as a podcast-serving platform.
Here's a screen shot of the post.
Anyone should be able to listen to the song even if they're not a member of Pownce.
Screen shot of the prefs page for public/not public.
I just uploaded a song I recorded on Tuesday to Pownce.
After two tries, it worked. You have to be logged in to download the song but anyone can play it. Hmmm. That removes one potential application I had in mind, Pownce as a podcast-serving platform.
Here's a screen shot of the post.
Anyone should be able to listen to the song even if they're not a member of Pownce.
Screen shot of the prefs page for public/not public.
Ruby on Rails Startup Heroku Gets $3 Million
Heroku, the online Ruby on Rails (RoR) development and hosting environment, has raised $3 million from Redpoint Ventures and other angel investors. The Y Combinator startup aims to make software development more accessible for a wider range of people. It does so by providing a browser-based programming environment that cuts out steps traditionally needed to [...] 
Read More
Heroku, the online Ruby on Rails (RoR) development and hosting environment, has raised $3 million from Redpoint Ventures and other angel investors.
The Y Combinator startup aims to make software development more accessible for a wider range of people. It does so by providing a browser-based programming environment that cuts out steps traditionally needed to produce RoR applications.
The founders picked RoR because it was designed for developers who want to actualize their ideas quickly. Heroku not only makes the development process easier, but it helps deploy and scale web applications, thereby making the maintenance of online software more feasible as well.
The service remains in private beta but we’re told the curtain should lift pretty soon. Meanwhile, developers interested in using Heroku can put their names down on a waitlist.
Co-founder James Lindenbaum says that the platform already supports over 10,000 developers and more than 12,000 applications. Almost all of them are non-critical sites, however, since the service is still working to maintain stability.
Also see Engine Yard, a company with a more hands-on approach to RoR hosting.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Read MoreWeakness At MySpace
Weakness At MySpace
During yesterday’s News Corp. earnings call, Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin talked a little bit about the weakness at MySpace. They expect Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace, Photobucket, IGN, and other properties) to miss its $1 billion revenue goal by the end of News Corp.’s fiscal year next quarter. Instead, they [...] 
During yesterday’s News Corp. earnings call, Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin talked a little bit about the weakness at MySpace. They expect Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace, Photobucket, IGN, and other properties) to miss its $1 billion revenue goal by the end of News Corp.’s fiscal year next quarter. Instead, they [...]
During yesterday’s News Corp. earnings call, Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin talked a little bit about the weakness at MySpace. They expect Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace, Photobucket, IGN, and other properties) to miss its $1 billion revenue goal by the end of News Corp.’s fiscal year next quarter. Instead, they expect FIM to reach $900 million for the fiscal year. (No surprise there. We predicted the shortfall a month ago). And in the quarter they just reported, revenues for FIM were actually down 10 percent, from $233 million to $210 million.
The culprit: There is too much inventory, and not enough clickthroughs. As a result both brands (and, more importantly, 220;friends” on MySpace) remain skeptical. Dumping ads on MySpace without targeting them simply doesn’t work.
Google is also partly to blame, as its ad deal represents about a third of FIM’s revenues. Altough, Google is working on the problem. Google founder Larry Page said as much during Google’s last earnings call:
On social networking monetization, it is an area where we have tried a lot of new technologies. Demographic targeting has been successful. The challenge and the opportunity is that there is a lot of inventory. Part of it is just getting the advertising ecosystem built up and targeting in a way that makes sense. We have made some improvements but there are more improvements to be made. It takes time for advertisers to [get up to speed].
(That’s right, Larry. Blame the advertisers.)
It wasn’t all bad news coming from MySpace, though. It continues to make improvements in bringing in branded advertisers (up 21 percent), revenues per user (up 49 percent), and audience. Traffic and time spent continues to rise at a healthy clip at MySpace, MySpace TV, Foxsports.com, PhotoBucket, and IGN.
The bigger issue for MySpace is that the longer it keeps missing targets, the less incentive its top executive talent has to stick around. Compensation for top executives is tied to meeting profit targets at the business. If they don’t meet those targets, nobody gets paid any upside. And for these folks, it’s all about the upside.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)