December 2007
56 posts
How To Recover Deleted Files in Windows →
Online Video Auteurs: Keep Your Day Jobs, Part 2 →
Perez Hilton tells TVWeek his videos on Google’s YouTube generated 25 million views over the past three months and netted him a whopping $5,000 in revenue. That’s a 20-cent CPM. (It’s an even lower net CPM for Google, by the way, assuming a payout ratio of more than 50%. So those counting on a near-term YouTube blast-off to drive Google’s growth should put that into their...
For the first time ever since I’ve been using GMail (which is just a few months after its launch), I actually found a real, important message in my spambox. This is so uncool, because if I also have to check my spambox, that means watching over 1200 emails a month.
“[T]he [Post] [F]oundation put Mar-a-Logo up for sale at an asking price of $25...”
– Donald Trump in Art of the Deal
Great moments in predicting the future, television... →
From the New Yorker, July 14, 1951: The most encouraging word we have so far had about television came from a grade-school principal we encountered the other afternoon. “They say it’s going to bring back vaudeville,” he said, “but I think it’s going to bring back the book.” Before television, he told us, his pupils never read; that is, they knew how to read and...
Google in 2008 →
There’s no all-knowing glass bowl in reach for our predictions for Google in 2008, but in the meantime, we have some official announcements from Google Inc, outstanding rumored products, and a couple of visible trends. To recap, there’s… … Google Health Google Health was announced by Google’s Marissa Mayer for early 2008 (at least for the US, I suppose). Leaked screenshots of the...
Reset →
Are dead-tree magazines good or bad for the... →
Companies are increasingly being asked to calculate their carbon footprint, and if they’re public, publish it. Good idea? Perhaps. But it’s harder than you might think, and the results can sometimes be counterintuitive. Take my own industry, magazine publishing. Surely dead-tree media is bad for the climate, and web media is good, right? Well, not necessarily. Let’s look at...
Apple Tries To Patent A Way to Avoid Long Lines →
Already, people who own an iPhone belong to a certain club. But what if that club came with fringe benefits, like being able to avoid long lines at Starbucks and other stores? A recent patent application by Apple hints at a killer future feature that would let iPhone owners bypass long lines by placing orders at coffee shops and other retail outlets right from their phone. They would then be...
Only two years left →
This is my last post until next week. I want to thank you for reading this year… I’m sure I get more out of this than you do, and I appreciate your attention. Just published yesterday, and shipping right now: Meatball Sundae. You can find copies at Amazon and BN and for bulk sales … (actually, I’m pretty sure you know where to buy books). In the meantime, here’s a...
Paris Hilton's grandfather pledges 97% of his... →
What's the point of this interaction? →
Every time you interact with a customer, you’re engaging in marketing. Doesn’t matter if you’re instituting a policy, gaining some data, delivering an invoice… it’s a marketing interaction. So… When you bother 100 customers to get useful data from 2, you just paid a marketing cost. When you yell at a classroom full of kids because one kid misbehaved,...
2007: The Year in RSS →
This past year was a big one for RSS. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, was the backbone of all early developments in the new era of the internet. It made blogs readable, podcasts subscribable, wikis trackable and search persistent. While explicit, knowing adoption of RSS is often said to be dismal (“it’s too complicated, it’s just more info overload” etc.) - I think we...
Top 50 Most Bookmarked Domains
I wrote a perl script to analyze my del.icio.us bookmarks, making a list of the most bookmarked domains. I was surprised to learn that the top 5 only has such a small number of bookmarks each. Here’s the top 50: sethgodin.typepad.com (7) money.cnn.com (7) smashingmagazine.com (6) news.bbc.co.uk (6) alistapart.com (6) useit.com (6) techcrunch.com (6) 37signals.com (6) ...
Thoughts on Google Reader and sharing →
Thoughts on Google Reader and sharing →
Do you use Google Reader? I need your help! →
Calling all Google Reader users… Are you reading this in Google Reader? If so, I need your help on a science experiment. Click the SHARE button and share this blog post out to your friends, like this: Why do this? This may be your first time reading my blog, and you might be asking “Why would I want to do that?” I’m guessing that when Google built this feature, they...
Fake Steve Jobs hoaxes TechMeme/bloggers →
It’s all over TechMeme that Fake Steve Jobs has lawyers after him. This is so obviously a hoax it’s laughable. I bet that not a single blogger bothered calling Apple PR to check this story out. We are such suckers sometimes.
I don’t even need to call. First of all, anyone who knows lawyers knows that they’d never send out such communications the weekend before Christmas. Lawyers don’t work...
Good news, bad news →
Via the New York Times, a newly declassified 1950 proposal — 12 days after the start of the Korean War — from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to Sidney Souers, then special national security assistant to President Truman: For some months representatives of the FBI and of the Department of Justice have been formulating a plan of action for an emergency situation wherein it would be...
Where can I buy one of THESE? →
Link: Live first-person video from remote-controlled toy airplane.
Aptera's concept (?) car needs only 1 liter for... →
Frequency, Frequency, Frequency and the paradox of... →
The #1 contributor to success in advertising, without any question whatsoever, is frequency. “Repeat yourself until everyone is annoyed but your accountant,” says my friend Jay Levinson. Most of the time, creative entrepreneurs lose interest long before their marketing message loses its power. The challenge online is this: smart people are bored by frequency. The people you’re...
Mike Gravel (D) announces he will run as an... →
Maybe You Haven't →
Girlfriend: I was so sick yesterday until I finally went to the doctor. Boyfriend: Oh, no! What was wrong? Girlfriend: Well, um, you’ll find out anyway… I had a UTI. I mean, it’s not an STD, but you can get it from sex… Boyfriend: But we haven’t been doing it that much! —1 train Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down | Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us ·...
Spokeo lets you stalk your friends secretly. →
Actually, That's Just the Way His Hair Grows, You... →
Woman to man in Yankees hat: Do you know if the Yankees won today? Man: Sorry, you’re talking to the wrong guy. I don’t follow sports. Woman to man in Yankees hat: … So you just wear the hat, then? —2 train Overheard by: Caty Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down | Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2007-12-21
Security/Website Valuation Explained
Bond yields are a little fucked up right now (thanks, credit crunch), but they provide a way to figure out an investment’s valuation. Let’s assume the 1-year government bond yield is at 5% (it’s not, but it simplifies the math, so bear with me). As a gross oversimplification, that means that a $20 investment today will produce a risk-free return of 5% ($1) at the end of a year....
Oh My God! Apple Killed Think Secret! Those... →
Apple and Apple blog Think Secret have settled their long running legal dispute over leaked Apple secrets, and under the deal Think Secret will cease operation.
According to a statement from ThinkSecret (via CrunchGear)
Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources...
Rumor: Bloomberg LP Hiring Freeze in 2008 →
A Bloomberg LP insider reports persistent rumors within the company about a coming hiring freeze in 2008. The cause? The credit crunch, which is wiping out thousands of Wall Street employees who work in departments that subscribe to The Bloomberg (the company’s core business and cash cow data terminal). As those employees go, the story goes, so do their Bloombergs.
Google Talk Gets One Step Closer To The Ultimate... →
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
Google now offers instant machine translation in Google Talk, a step on the road to the ultimate Babel Fish.
The new service is used by...
Oh my eyes! The horror! →
To the many members of the Apple faithful who’ve sent me this advertisement and alerted me to this new outrage, let me say this: Thank you, thank you, thank you. We must keep up the pressure and stop this shameful sexploitation. Namaste, dear readers. Remain vigilant!
From the I Clearly Did Not Have Enough Fun In... →
Meet the Princeton University Anscombe Society: The Anscombe Society is a student organization dedicated to affirming the importance of the family, marriage, and a proper understanding for the role of sex and sexuality. We aim to promote an environment that values the crucial role the intact, stable family plays in sustaining society; the definition of marriage as the exclusive, monogamous...
Clippy - Day 1 →
In the interest of science, I have decided that another experiment should befall our favorite unwitting subject, P. In traditional M manner, I have chosen to find the thresholds of annoyance. Of course, I would never do such a thing solely for my own amusement, this is for the betterment of mankind ( I don’t know how yet, but I’m sure it has to be ). Enter Clippy. Clippy is a Desktop...
Nokia World - Keynote - Chris Anderson on... →
Seth's Blog: The Billion-Dollar T-Shirt →
Pure CSS Tooltips →
New Google Reader “friends” feature sucks… →
Beware of adding tons of friends in the new Google Reader/Google Talk combo.
I’ve added dozens of friends tonight (thanks everyone, keep them coming) and the problem?
Google Reader now is bringing me TONS of duplicates from people. This clutters my all items feed and keeps me from finding new, original items.
So, I’m hiding everyone until further notice so that their feeds don’t clutter my...
Apple's next problem →
Walked into Starbucks two days ago and saw five people with laptops. Every single one a white Mac. Five unrelated people out of five, same machine. When your entire culture is organized about being the other, the outsider, the insurgent, the one that’s better than the masses… (like Starbucks, btw), what do you do when you are the masses? It’s a good problem to have, but...
Real people invade Amazon →
First, this note via Richard. And then, this review via Micah. I wonder what it would take for humans to invade your company?
Twentysomething: Why I regret getting straight A’s... →
“In the Keystone Initiative’s first eighteen months, the hospitals saved an...”
– Annals of Medicine: The Checklist
Annals of Medicine: The Checklist: Reporting &... →
YouTube - Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter... →