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BusinessWeek has recently released the results of its best of the web poll. The results are not exactly what I’d expect especially Become.com taking first in the buying and selling category. I’ve never really checked out become before, perhaps I should take a look at it.
- JDA
I’m big into data, a numberphile perhaps, that’s just part of the reason Screenwerk may just be my favorite blog. Why aren’t you reading it? Bloglines says that there are 41 bloglines readers - assuming that’s nearly half (though personally I have more Rojo subscribers than anything) that’s not enough.
– Speaking of Rojo - the new version is great and worth the downtime over the weekend. I recommend signing up for it if you need a better reader.
Motask day 1 was pretty successful. Certainly the most succesful launch that I’ve done.
The day started with Motask on eHub (thanks Emily!) and later it was picked up on Download Squad and Genbeta (which seems to be a very popular Spanish Tech Blog).
Overall a good first day, and hopefully it will only get better from here. The only bad note from Day 1, was that my decision to make the lowest possible investment in this site led one person on del.icio.us to comment that it was slow (and it was slow in the middle of the day yesterday). I may have to upgrade in the near future.
What seems to help motask more than anything is that it’s just simple. A lesson for all, and one that we should already know.
My initial though was to post on Ubuntu while using Ubuntu, but I can’t seem to get my wireless network set up properly. Ubuntu is pretty nice for a Linux Distribution, you can get by without using many commands which makes it very nice. Anyway, I’ll save ubuntu for some other time.
Instead, I present the greatest usage of an API of all time Hotcapcha. Finally a decent way to tell if users are really human. Source: Web2.0central.com
2 other cool sites I came across today - http://www.theweblogwire.com/ and http://www.kramkoob.com/
Web Blog wire seeks to distribute PR to Bloggers - I like this mainly because you can submit PR for free, I’ll try it out and blog if I see any sort of results.
Kramkoob is a 10 seconds of fame site, so it’s not that helpful, and certainly not sustainable long-term, but I managed a couple of visitors from it.
I know this blog has been very slow lately, but that’s because I’ve been working very hard on Lopico. The new version is going to go live tomorrow, but since you read my blog, you can take a peak at demo.lopico.com - not all of the data has been moved to the new version but it’s about 99% finished, all of it will be there by the end of the night. Let me know what you think either by using the feedback form on the site or email jda[at]jdamer[dot]com. Thanks.
I’ve been noticing a number of posts lately that seem to have a common theme, “it pays to suck.” The major premise is that if you have weak content you will make more money on ads, because no one will want to stay on your site very long, and the ads will give them an escape mechanism.
I’ve addressed this before with respect to Google, but didn’t really think of it with respect to publishers of Google Ads. So, now as I see it there are at least a few Google weaknesses that are very profitable:
Google is praised (340.74 per share) for being a great innovator, when really all it’s good at is being bad. That’s a hell of a business to be in, but how long can it really last? The more dumb moves Google makes (Google Pages, That weird 3d modeling thing, Google Mars) the more people will start to realize Google’s not that great.
There’s a new web 2.0 list out about once a week, and this week is no different. This week’s list, called everything 2.0, is a pretty substantial list. Unlike some of the other lists that I’ve seen I actually like the way that Lopico is described on this one, the list creator calls it a “social business directory.”
I just wish that they had linked to all of the sites.
I listened to a Gilmor Gang podcast the other day (even though I cannot stand anyone that uses the term podosphere) and was a little surprised by Mike Arrington’s hatred of Google. Not because I don’t agree with him, but because Google’s strategy seems to help Edgeio.
Edgeio’s future success is pretty much based on you wanting to keep all of your content in one place. If it wasn’t I would just go to Craigslist and Ebay and be done with it, there are really only two places you need to go. But Edgeio seems to be based on the theory that in the future you won’t need/want to go anywhere, you’ll have all of your content in one place and the world will just find in through the aggregation republication process. So why doesn’t Arrington want Google (who actually stood up to the DOJ) to lead the way in the content storage game, and instead prefers MSN (who said okay to the DOJ).
There has to be more going on than is directly apparent. Edgeio needs people to get used to the idea that all of their data can be in one place and that that’s a good thing. If not, they’re done.
I finished John Battelle’s The Search a couple of days ago and I must say that as good as it is I come out a little bit different on the future of the web:
If you’ve been paying attention to the web it seems that Web 2.0 is, like most sequels, just a way to push us onto the third chapter. The technologies emerging in Web 2.0 are all (almost all) geared towards two goals - getting users to publish content or finding user generated content and aggregating it. But that content is fragmented - you might have 1000 bookmarks on del.icio.us, a blog on blogger, 10 reviews on Lopico, 50 diggs, maybe a calendar, and some productivity tools. On the other side you’ll have email, and a news reader - and those are pretty much the only ways that we have information delivered to us without visiting websites. The next obvious step is to bring all of these into one place - and this is where Edgeio actually makes sense. As I see it the homepage of the future will actually be 5 or 6 pages combining both your private and public information. But the key is all of your data will remain in one place. A future homepage will likely consist of:
Instead of setting out to find content, the content will come to you - and instead of going out to other sites to spread your thoughts, you’ll publish to them through your blog - or other means. The data you push will be aggregated back to you, and to others searching for the subject of your data. But searching won’t be like it is today, you’ll search for something, and rather than get a list of pages to visit, you’ll get strictly the data presented in the format of your choosing - visiting the site will merely be an option.This is a big leap from where we are now, and it may never become a reality, but looking at the technologies that are becoming ever more prevalent it certainly seems possible. The question then becomes if this does happen what happens to the business of the web? What brands survive?
Most likely two types of brands will survive 1) those that can create the portals to harness all of your information - Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, etc. and 2) the nano brands. Nano brands - things such as yourself, or a local business. These will be the pushers of content, intermediaries will no longer be necessary; a small publisher and an aggregator is all that we’ll need. You’ll be able to generate revenue either from pushing ads in your RSS feeds, or selling things through your blog (ala Edgeio). You might not look at the web as a place to make money, maybe you look at as an advertising tool. A local business with a blog would likely look at it this way. Local business blogs can and will be used as promotional tools - the business publishes a promotion (and tags it appropriately), an aggregator finds it, and it’s presented to the right people.
Before this happens however, there are a number of intermediary steps that need to take place (Lopromo is one of those steps). Maybe we’ll never see this web - but I’m guessing that we will.
Anyway, Battelle’s book is great and I should have read it sooner. If you haven’t read it, buy it or let me know and you can borrow my copy.
I continually read people saying, “cool, but could my mom use it?” I may have even been guilty of this in the past - but the fact is someone else is going to say, “No, but I can, and I can leverage that knowledge and make people pay for it.” It’s all in how you look at it. When was the last time a tech trend started with middle-aged house wives?
I installed wordpress today, so that this blog could be 1. easier to maintain and 2. more interactive. I was previously hand coding xml which was just a pain, so now I will be able to once again enjoy blogging.
My old posts are still online here. That probably doesn’t matter to you but I was recently linked to on a pretty important blog, so anyone looking for my old posts, that’s where they are.
I recently received my invitation to have a look at Michael Arrington’s
Edgeio, and I really don’t like it. I’ve mentioned before that I think that the whole classifieds space is not the best utilization of the web, and not an exciting space, but their are other reasons:
1. The Name: Edgeio is the second worst named site on the net, the first is edge.io, which apparently was dropped before Arrington started hyping this thing.
2. The Real TechCrunch Motive: It’s pretty clear that all along TechCrunch was meant solely as a marketing tool for edgeio, Arrington has developed legions of fans who are now willing to praise anything that he touches, which has meant a lot of hype over
something that’s not that great.
3. It’s lack of usability for the mainstream: this is not something that anyone without a blog is even able to use. I don’t think that the Edgeio gang did their homework on this one. I would like to see data on the number of ebay sellers that are also bloggers, or at least rough data on the percentage of bloggers that are involved in ecommerce.
4. Tagging: Not only do you have to blog, you also have to know how to use tags. Not hard, but most don’t use them, and tagging makes this such an easy target for copying. As I understand it, Edgeio is going to aggregate all blogs that have the tag “listing” and then organize them and present them on the Edgeio site. Why couldn’t another scrape site do the same thing? Why couldn’t ebay do this? They can and if it catches on they will. Worst of al for Edgeio, they’ll do it right before the model hits the mainstream, so that their users don’t have to switch.
Those are my main problems with the site, and I haven’t even mentioned the potential to be bogged down with spam.
What I do like: The design, it is a great looking site. I also like that Edgeio is taking a chance, and is making blogs a little more useful. Of course, at the risk of sounding like Levar Burton, don’t take my word for it, try it out yourself.
I saw the Pontiac ad that ends with “Google Pontiac to find out more,” so I
thought I'd give it a shot. It reminds me a little of old ads that would say
“check out AOL
keyword: Pontiac,” but this is different on many levels.
Here's what I was expecting:
A Pontiac Advertisement at the top of the SERP
- A unique URL for the ad
- A slew of advertisers bidding for the keyword Pontiac
What I found: pretty much exactly what I was expecting. So why would
Pontiac do this? At first glance it seems as if they are paying for two
ads when all they need is one. Now they're paying for the TV ad and the
click, when they could have just flashed visit pontiac.com for more.
So what's the point of this; I have a couple of ideas:
1. Tracking: Pontiac is likely counting on people clicking on the ad not
the basic results listing. If you click on the ad you're taken to a URL
along the lines of poniac.com/index.jsp?seo=goo. When I advertise through
AdWords, I usually do the same thing, I take the clicker to a URL like
Lopico.com/G (it's not up so don't bother).
Very effective but wouldn't a URL in the TV ad such as poniac.com/newcars do the same thing, or
a different URL altogether such as thenewpontiac.com? Probably not.
If your shown an ad on TV and it has a URL, in the few instances when the viewer
does go
to the url they probably won't enter anything after the .com. It's also likely that for many by the time they switch from
watching TV to surfing the net (hurry up IP TV), they've forgotten the URL and
just resort to Googling, Yahooing, MSNing, or Asking their good pal Jeeves.
This was really a great understanding of Consumer Behavior by Pontiac, and if
you've got the budget for both ads (I'm sure laid off GM employees enjoy such
spending) then why not.
2: First Mover Advantage: It's likely that others will copy Pontiac, but
none will be as successful (speaking solely in terms of driving traffic),
because it will lack the newness of this campaign.
Along with the reasoning, I think this raises a couple of issues:
1. Is this within AdWords TOS? I know that you're not allowed to encourage
people to click on ads on your site, so why should be allowed to encourage
clicking on ads on Google? I guess the difference is that Google is the
company benefiting, and the advertiser is fully aware of the clicking because
they are the one encouraging it. But, somehow it doesn't seem right.
2. Google Bombing: I just hope this doesn't happen. To find out more
about Google Bombing, Google Google Bombing.
Much has been made lately of
the end of the internet
post. It's an interesting post, but seems to be a lot of speculation,
and no one really seems to know for sure what is going on. First off, the
quote from AT&T's Whiteacre is out of context, which is never very trustworthy,
so keep that in mind as you read on.
The Quote:
“Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in
that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and
for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes
[for] free is nuts!”
The way I understand it is this:
Telecoms and other ISPs have the users that Content Providers need, ISPs
therefore think that they should be able to charge the CPs for access to the
users. Essentially if you want our customers you're going to have to pay.
The rationale behind this is flawed however. The power is with the CPs not
the ISPs. If an ISP tries to create a walled garden in which only sites
that are paying the ISP get included, it will fail. If ISP1 is offering a
limited selection of sites, the value of that connection is diminished.
Especially, if ISP2 (say an ISP created by Google) allows access to all sites on
the internet. Thus unless the ISP can establish a monopoly (which it
can't) it will fail because it is offering an inferior product.
As the web stands currently ISPs (typically) are not paying content providers
and content providers (typically) are not paying ISPs. This is the way it
should be. Yes, ISPs do bring value to CPs in the form of users, but
without the CPs the users would not want the ISPs in the first place. AT&T
is having a chicken and egg problem.
This is really a failure of AT&T to understand what their consumers want, and an
example of how bad ideas can be if you think about profits first and customers
second - a situation that usually leads to less profits as customers move away
from your services.
A side note for AT&T: how about including a web address on your hundreds of
billboards, so that potential customers can find more information and you can
track the success of your campaign.
Not Long ago I subscribed to Okdork.com, it's a pretty
good blog written by a facebook product manager. Not long after that, I
learned about the yopos network, and
entrepreneur 27. Today (and yesterday) there has been a lot
circulating about the E27 Tech Symposium, which was put on in part by the
previously mentioned Entrepreneur 27. I really feel bad for the people
that presented at this event. I'm sure it was a great event and the people
running the new startups gave great presentations, but it really has not been
blogged well. The posts that I've read (which I won't mention) have really
failed at generating any excitement over the ideas that were presented. I
hope that you take the time to actually check these companies out, and don't
read too much about them first, because it might prevent you from looking into
them.
As an entrepreneur of 23, I hope all of these companies
have great success. To find the companies visit
Entrepreneur 27
Yahoo has now come out and said what we all thought: the rumor that it had given up on trying to best Google in search is not true. Okay great, but what if it was true, couldn’t that help Yahoo? Whether or not they are trying to beat Google in search (or are beating Google in quality of search), one thing that is clear is that Yahoo does not like the compassion. I’m not sure where the quote is so I won’t try to find it, but Terry Semel (Y! Ceo) recently talked about how he disliked the comparison of Google to other portals, because Google only wanted to talk search and claim it was number one when in reality it is now a portal making it number three (Brin’s comeback was to say that the Googleplex Cafe is not a top tier restaurant, and no one cares about that either - implying rankings are meaningless, if you’re familiar with Lopico you can understand why I might not like this comment). So, what if Yahoo no longer cared about presenting itself as a search company and instead focused on all of its other services? Then how would a comparison between Yahoo and Google go? Probably more along the lines of: Yahoo has a ton of killer services and Google competes with one or two of them, but really isn’t a major player yet. For now however, the world is hooked on minimalist search, even when we know it doesn’t work all that well for some things - such as a Video Store.
The point is this, take away search from Yahoo and you still have a great company, take away search from Google and you have a company that has a great email app, a pretty good rss reader, and a huge ad network with few places to place the ads. If Yahoo were to deemphasize its search you would see a company with a lot of great offerings and comparisons to Google would be almost meaningless - something that Yahoo would surely like.
Not terribly long ago I made a list
of my Web2.0 picks
here, then
some time later I decided to start revising it
here. Today I
thought that I should give the second half of my revision a go, but decided that
the sites on the list no longer reflect my feelings on the best web software and
services available (2.0 or otherwise). I now prefer my listings of
essential links and almost essential links because of the ability to change
these as often as needed (these are listed in the right column on the main
page).
In my
post yesterday on the end of web 2.0 I mentioned that nothing
new was all that great to me, I would have to say that there is one distinct
exception, and that is Wink, which I first blogged about
here. Wink is
partially a scrape service, and that aspect I still don't really like, but it also has a
lot of native content. Wink allows you to import
del.icio.us bookmarks
which I would consider scraping, but it has helped wink establish a large amount
of content right out of the gate, if from here out Wink can give its users a
better product that prevents them from using other bookmarking services and
importing bookmarks, then wink will be am essential link, and a very nice
service. Wink's interview was posted to eHub today
here, I especially like
their admission of using open source code, I think this is the first interview
that I've seen with this, but I do it and I imagine nearly everyone does.
Re-Pick - Michael Arrington (of essential link TechCrunch) points to a post by Fred Wilson comparing Last.fm and Pandora. When I made my web 2.0 picks initially I chose Last.fm, for what it’s worth I now use Pandora exclusively. Last.fm, has some great features and if your big into social networking then it is likely for you, but if you just want a simple way to find good music and listen to it without all of the extras, use Pandora.
technorati tags:
web 2.0,
I don’t know about that, but I certainly haven’t seen anything great lately. Perhaps we’re passed web 2.0 and have moved to web 2.1 - the build where everything is based on classified ads and scraping others hard work. That’s all I’ve really seen lately (and I mean lately in a very narrow sense), but this seems to be where web 2.0 is headed.
Hype as of late seems to be focused on aggregators (scrapers) and classifieds sites - but these aren’t thrilling. Scrapers are just a parasite on the net - they may be helpful temporarily, but they are parasites. If I create content, but someone else is going to steal it and put it along side other content so that users only have to go to one place and no longer need to go to my site, then what’s the point of me working hard to create content if users never have to come to my site? There is no point, and long term (oh yeah long term, how easily it’s forgotten when hype is in full force) quality content will be stifled.
What about classifieds? These are certainly useful, but what’s all the hype about? Is this what the web is about? Advertising? Is this why people want to pay more for high speed access, so that they can find new ways to look at ads? I doubt it. I’m all for business models, but lets see some creativity - and let’s see something sustainable. It’s no longer hard to see why terms like bubble 2.0 are thrown around so much, a lot of mistakes and undeserved hype is starting to circulate. So what’s a web 2.0 company to do? Wait. That’s right, wait. Why did Google outlast so many others? Because they waited and they worked on their technology first. Create great products and services NOT HYPE. Be sustainable and desirable, and most importantly think long term.
Perhaps I “jumped the shark” in my conclusion that the determining factor in when to use Folksonomy is based on audience. I’m sure that there are times when this is a factor, doubtless certain sites work better if you give your user some guide as to what the site is about and what can be done with the site, but this really ties more into the sub-point that I made, that scope is a factor. This is likely the more important factor. If you have a site with a limited scope or that should have a limited scope Taxonomy is for you. If it makes more sense to go unlimited, then by all means use folksonomy. What really brought me to this point was my own usage of technorati tags. Technorati is clearly a site built for public usage, but on an unlimited amount of subjects; for this type of site folksonomy is the correct choice. I should also mention that while I called del.icio.us a private usage site it also has a public/sharing element, so scope rather than audience is what makes it appropriate for del.icio.us to use folksonomy. I still believe that when a site is primarily for private usage folksonomy is a good idea, but I also think that if folksonomy is used incorrectly it is a threat to a sites relevance, usefulness, and sustainability. For those blindly accepting it as a better system, you’d better be prepared to have a site that covers everything. I see the web headed to a time of fragmentation based on niche interests, so to those wishing to conquer everything: good luck.
technorati tags:
folksonomy,
Web 2.0
User driven or predefined? This is not even a debate to most anymore, but something I continue to think about. The overwhelming preference has been folksonomy as of late, but I think there are some serious drawback to consider. True taxonomy is not perfect, I even (in a way) argued against it recently here, but the lack of control over content that is presenting itself on the web threatens the viability of some new web services. Lopico is to this point clearly a taxonomy site - I’ve defined the categories and the cities that are available, leaving the content placed within these parameters to my users. However, on Lopico Lovers there is an option to suggest tags for the business being reviewed - this is really my test, I want to see the types of results that get plugged into this field to see if tags are a good idea for Lopico. It’s likely that tagging / folskonomy will be a good idea for Lopico, I know that I haven’t thought of every possible (or really that many possible) business types. The trouble is the value of the tags suggested. Thus far new categories that get suggested to me tend to be business to business type services - this is not the focus of Lopico. So usually what I do when I get a request is tell the person requesting that I will consider adding the category if they help build the content for the city that they would like it added to, I wait a couple of days, then check to see if there is anything new in their city, if not I don’t add the category - so far I haven’t added any new categories this way. That’s really a second problem that occurs at times with Lopico - business owners that don’t see the big picture - I have no problem with business owners that want to use Lopico to promote their own businesses, but if there business is the only one in a category, and there is very little content elsewhere in the city, no one is going to take the swarm of voting for their business seriously - if it’s a developed and complete reflection of service in the area and they are on top, then it will work. That’s a little off topic but it’s also related to the primary issue: control.
So, Lopico is taxonomy and generally businesses listed are relevant to the category that they are listed in. Other sites such as theadcloud, use folksonomy and allow posts for anything from anywhere to be listed everywhere - for example the resume of an Argentinean C programmer in Cleveland advertisements tagged computer. Yet, the majority seem to believe that this is the better way. But I tend to think towards the mainstream, look at something like craigslist which has been adopted into the mainstream - what do you see taxonomy, not folksonomy. Folksonomy is a pretty good idea, but within reason. I think there needs to be a balance - there has to be a balance. It is very likely that before long Lopico will once again allow for user submitted categories (this was an option in the original version) - but this time new categories will be set off distinct from the predefined categories, until new categories reach a high level of quality and relevance. In the world of open data there needs to be some balance, some restriction, or we threaten the existence of our relevance.
So where is the line drawn? I suppose that depends on the audience. If it is a site like del.icio.us, predefined categories would not work, a site like Digg can apply a system of taxonomy effectively. If the site is primarily for personal use (such as del.icio.us) it makes sense to use folksonomy, in such a case you should let users decided where they want to categorize their items. If the site is primarily for public sharing and public use, or limited in scope (say only technology news, or only b to c businesses) it will often make sense to have a balance - perhaps taxonomy on main pages, but folksonomy within personal accounts. Of course, this is not a solution in every instance, but blindly accepting folksonomy as the better method is potentially dangerous to the integrity of your site.
technorati tags:
folksonomy,
lopico,
Web 2.0
I spent a minute thinking about how to best set up comments for this blog, and got to thinking about audio comments. This isn’t something that I can do (not exactly an audio wiz), but a company that already has a system of posting audio to the net, might be able to utilize this. It would be especially useful for podcasting, but really only if the podcasters answer commenter questions. This would get rid of the large amount of misspellings and other typos left in comments, and combined with a technology like podzinger that allows you to preview the text of the comment and I think it’s a very powerful tool. But really it’s a matter of time, most likely it is faster to talk than to type, but often faster to read than to load audio, and also easier to skip over comments if they’re written.
Part of the reason that I was thinking about this is because of one of my new favorite websites: Springdoo. Springdoo is a voice over email service that I think has a lot of potential (see my web 2.0 picks). It utilizes a technology that simply and quickly allows you to post audio to the web then send a link to the audio via email. Personally, I’d like to be able to use a technology like this to have a comment stream. The other thing that I’d like to be able to do with Springdoo is send an email directly from the recording application. It’s not that I necessarily want this feature, but I’d like to be able to have a link on this site that says “Springdoo me” that opens the recording client with my email address already filled in. Of course this is just my opinion and I haven’t set up commenting yet, so I can’t hear yours, sorry.
Now that Lopico Lovers is off the ground, it’s time to
look to my next projects.First up is my new site:
Lopromo.
You could probably guess what it’s about by the name, but I’m not ready
to reveal the details of this one just yet. This one is
potentially a big one, I’m about 5% into it, but progress should pick up
soon. The target launch date is one month from today. This
will be the first Lopico project that will really require work both
online and offline. It’s always been my intent that Lopico be more
than just an online company and Lopromo is the first step.
After Lopromo I will be working on either the mobile version of Lopico “LopiGO”
or Lopico Canada. I haven’t decided yet, but next will probably be
LopiGO. These three projects should fill up the next six months and
hopefully add to the helpfulness of Lopico.
Side Notes: Still working on getting this blog in order, hence all of the
background changes - and non ie friendliness. I installed the
Springdoo firefox extension
and really like it, this will probabbly get me to use springdoo more
often. Big G launched personalized homepages for mobile phones. it
seems that G is really trying to throw out a bunch of new stuff to try
to appear diversified, which is probably going to get people to realize
that with the exception of Search, AdSense, and Gmail, Google products
aren’t that great, but they’ve got to justify the stock price somehow.
technorati tags:
lopico,
reviews, local, mobile,
Google
It’s Up! Lopico Lovers. More info later.
Today was my target day for launching Lopico Lovers (the new Lopico review program), but I’m not going to make it. That’s alright, I could put it up, but it’s more important to get it right than to get it up. Everything is going according to plan I just have some more database set up to do, and I need to create a few samples, but then it should be set. I’m thinking Wednesday, if not tomorrow night.
