Dylan Hunter

What more can I say - Absolute Genius!

Six Apart, the creator of social networking site LiveJournal and maker of blogging applications like Moveable Type, just snagged $12 million in a private round of funding from three firms, sources said last week. The series C round, rumored to include Intel, catapults San Francisco-based Six Apart into the thick of an emerging area of Web-focused investments that go far beyond search-related companies. But so far, public market access to that new industry-comprising companies that house content media properties as well as content tool makers-has been nonexistent.

….In any event, these new blended companies are becoming the talk of the media investment world. "Blogging and social networking are coming together," says one source familiar with companies in the new industry. "We’re coming out of the tech bubble doldrums and the next generation of media is online [content-driven companies]."

In the recent past, online search has been the star of Web-focused investing, but that’s rapidly changing as investors consider what happens after users conduct a search on Google or Yahoo. Typically, they then click on the links retrieved and move on to other sites, which are chockablock with content–the new "it" zone for advertisers.

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Now _this_ is useful - 2 good solid things that could be done right now by SE’s to limit the ability of governments, (i.e. Beijing, The Bush Administration) to make you party to their immoral, and what should be illegal, acts:
1) Figure out a way of how to get by without cookies / user profiles / click-through redirects, (certainly more than a tad problematic re: relevance, and nukes the possibility of user-adaptive search, but certainly worth experimenting with and seeing how much actual effect it would have vs. the gain of actually _not having_ this kind of info, even if subpoenaed).

2) Set all activity to use SSL to make it more difficult to spy on info traffic, (’course, am sure each and every government will try to put up barriers to this use of SSL - Bush would say that being able to snoop this info is critical to finding someone who’s doing research on how to build a dirty bomb, Beijing to find someone who’s trying to figure out how best to promote self-determination for Taiwan and / or Hong Kong).

Hey Folks,

If you’re seeing this, you’re noticing that it looks a tad different than it has, (probably a good thing, not so sure about that funky brown anymore! ). Am in the process of finally upgrading to WP 2.x, (most notably, to see how it does against that comment spam! ) there’ll definitely be more changes to come, so please bear with me - thanks!

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BTW - if you’re doing this as well, and are concurrently changing the directory where your blog is located, there’s a good chance that the new “enable referers” thing will bork your blog. See the post I put up on the Wordpress website for the solution. .

Whoops, didn’t realize this was only behind a login, which I _really, really_ hate - if you want to require registration to post, fine, but requiring it to just view is bogus - also doesn’t get you the kind of organic search traffic you should be looking for, and doesn’t assist the recognition, etc. of the posters, who were good enough to contribute their time and energy, and deserve as broad credit as you can provide for their contributions, at least), so the full text is below:

If you’re trying to move the directory of your blog as part of your upgrade, (i.e. from http://www.mywebsite.com/blog to http://www.mywebsite.com) you’re going to find that you’re still in deep doo-doo after you follow the install directions, (i.e. you’ll notice there’s no theme at all on your blog now, just the raw text, and if you open up your error logs, you’ll see that it’s still trying to access mywebsite.com/blog/… rather than mywebsite.com/…).If you can get through to your admin logon, you’ll see that it also keeps popping /blog/ as part of the URL, and if you try to modify it directly in the address bar, you’ll get the “enable referers” thing again and again. You’ll read the docs, make sure all the settings are correct, (they will be). You’ll clear all your cookies, etc., still no joy.The cause is simple, in the database behind WP, it’s still reading that your blog should be at mywebsite.com/blog, and until it finds everything there, thanks to the referer thingus, it appears to not let you change it.

Simple solution, (presuming you have access to phpMyAdmin through your webhost). And warning - you’re inside your WP database, so if you’re not comfortable mucking around in your db, either get a friend to help, or only do the following, (it’s actually pretty safe, just don’t futz with anything else! ). Access phpMyAdmin for your database, click on the wp_options table in the left pane, and then click “browse.” The first item you’ll see is “siteurl,” which is still set to the old path. Click on the pencil, (”Edit”) remove the /blog from the option_value box, (can also remove from the option_description if you want - not necessary, but what the heck).

At the bottom of the page, you should see two option boxes separated by the words “and then.” They should be set to “Save” and “Go back to previous page,” respectively, (if not, set them to these values). Click on the Go button, and reload your blog, which you now should see in the default theme, (big blue box in the middle). Then close out the window you were in phpMyAdmin with, stop cursing, and enjoy your new WP 2.0 blog!

Blech…. Here’s a perfect example of taking something that folks are inherently interested in and would love to talk about.. and taste…, (i.e. ice cream), picking a great venue for coverage - totally unrelated to food products, so the competitive noise isn’t there, but still ice cream, so everyone on the floor would be interested in and inherently be talking about, (i.e. “hey, where’d you get that ice cream?”) and dropping that interest and setup straight into the deep freeze with completely unintelligible CorpSpeak.

My apologies, I usually try to be more positive, but almost every single word out of this guy’s mouth for the first 2 minutes of the video was one _huge_ turnoff, (big kudos to Rafe for not just giving his video guy the “cut it” sign and walking away after the 45 seconds or so, when it was clear this guy was going to just blather on and on - “multi-patented,” “on-demand,” blah, blah, blah - talk about the ice cream, Man - we care about the _ice cream_ - and yes, maybe also about what’s cool about the tech _to the normal human being_ - though honestly, it just sounds like your run-of-the-mill standard Coke machine’s capacities, but that’s ok - you’re not there ’cause you’re cool as stuff on the tech side, you’re there because Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry’s aren’t - the story sounds good enough to get you in the tech press who probably don’t know that Coke machines do that already - note to Coke - use the word “Linux” somewhere, anywhere, and you got another 50-100 stories just waiting to run! ).

In any case, clear enough this isn’t my favorite, but is a very good example of how to kill that buzz you’ve been trying to get in no time flat. If the product class had been anything other than _ice cream_ look for that sound you hear when the echo finally dies down to be crickets…

Cute.. Not seeing tremendous need for me to text $20 to my buddy, (heck, if I don’t have the $20 to give to him in cash right there, chances are I need to hit the ATM for me, anyway! ) but could be a nice compliment to mobile text response search / info, (i.e. you’re at your local car dealership, looking at car X, you text a message to service Y to get you the Consumer Reports and / or Intellichoice report, and this tinks $10 off your credit card). Would have to be for very focused info, (since, of course, smacks of trying to monetize content again, and we know how well that works! ).

Suggested over @ Ajaxian as a good resource for Ajax tutorials, etc. Not going to dive into too much now, (concepts first, Man, concepts first! ) but good to keep in the “to check into later” pile, (anyone ever notice things go onto that pile and never seem to come out? ).

You’ve seen the logo page elsewhere, but liked this one with the list of who the companies are, (though still can’t believe Alexa is included… )

Hmmm… maybe worth a slight re-evaluation of MMORPG’s…*1* Still end up being utterly enormous timesinks, (i.e. actually beyond enormous - they compete head-to-head with RL, which is utterly unsustainable especially for those of us with families) so still not sure even this would make me re-engage, but certainly at least something to think about, (nah, still probably not… ).

Still, there’s definitely something nice about getting to know folks as a function of an intriguing shared activity, (similar to getting to know folks around sports in RL, as I did when I was younger - btw - who decided that adults have no desire to play sports anywmore?) rather than those “networking meetings,” which have always struck me as forced, at best.

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*1* I used to actually enjoy UO and Everquest many, many years ago, (back before I got married and had kids) but eventually decided that the gameplay was basically a waste, (camp-spawn-kill-camp) got sick and tired of the PK’ers, (who then forced you to spend another whole week online to recoup the equipment they stole from you, at which point they’d do it again - rinse, wash, repeat - thereby driving you insane, and increasing RL hostility levels, and that’s unacceptable). Anyway, didn’t care about the funds, but the experience so soured me to the product class that it’s hard for me to even think about re-entering, (even though I still am a serious gaming junkie! ).

And while I’m here, a quick word to game studios / publishers as that serious gaming junkie - _please_ start making your games capable of downgrading graphics to enable play on normal laptops, (not those 10 lb+ monsters! ). There’s so much blather about me still being in one of the prime demographics for computer gaming, (i.e. mid-30’s, male, etc., etc), and guess what, when I’m traveling around for business, (which is one of the few times when I have spare time and can’t spend it with my family) there are a lot of times I want to bring a good game with me for the plane, hotel, whatever, and the game studios and publishers don’t seem to be paying attention to the trends in their enabling tech, (a very good lesson in paying attention to things around you):

• I want a laptop that’s fairly small for travel, (certainly no more than the 5 lb range, preferably even smaller) which most likely means integrated graphics
• I have a wife that “reminds me” that I have no need to buy additional personal hardware, as I’ve got the work laptop.
• And even if I did set aside the funds for a personal rig, I have absolutely no desire to be pinned down to one specific location in my house anymore, (so don’t tell me to get an Xbox 360, even if I wasn’t offended by the concept of paying $400-500 for a gimped desktop)

So, if I have to do without super-mod-ultra shading and V-gamma-X textures, who the heck cares? I should be able to load new games on my laptop, with its integrated graphics card, (it does have 128MB VRAM) and be able to play. Let me play, and you’ll get your 5-8 games per year @ $50/unit sold.

China has responded to international criticism of its Internet regulations by saying its rules are ‘fully in line’ with the rest of the world.

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You know, it’s this kind of crud that really makes folks hate MS, (and others who engage in such similar tying practices*1*). You’ve got one thing that folks want, which you then use to force them to buy something they don’t want - it’s tying, pure and simple - another anti-trust violation, (where oh where has the lawsuit vs. MS gone?).

Yes, it does goose the per-user numbers in the spreadsheet, (so long as you’re not also modeling adoption rates and/or "probability of switch to competitor" which you just dropped and boosted, respectively, by at least 8-10 full percentage pts each).

Appealing to Bill & Co is a waste of time and effort, but for the rest of us, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - focus on building products that people want and need and they will _happily_ buy from you / be advertised to on your site. Stop wasting time, effort and money on restrictive pricing schemes, endless pointless litigation, etc.

The most disappointing part of this, of course, is that, though I personally hate the idea of one company having the level of power that MS does, and am not exactly what you’d call the greatest Windows supporter, to be fair, it’s a solid product, and there are, indeed, people who are fully happy using - there should be no need for these kind of heavy-handed tactics.

If MS is worried about adoption rates on Vista, then they’ve got to do something real like not requiring _major_ reinvestment in higher-grade hardware to accomplish - geez, there’s an idea! How many of us remember all the additional money that we had to spend, and how many perfectly good PC’s all got shelved when Win95 came out? And if the adoption rates, especially on the corp side were too slow for Bill, et al’s taste, by God, they should have planned it better and built Vista to _work on what we all have now_! Forget this crud about tying Halo 2 - make the balance between cost, (Total Cost - which, for Vista, also does include all the new hardware that we need to buy to get it) and value fit your customers, and things will work out fine. Push down too hard on the cost side to your benefit vs your customers, and the number of people who will consider the balance struck will be all that fewer, and you deserve the results you get.

Anyway, breathe…. relax…. enough about Vista - this was about pathetic pricing tactics, and am sure you’ve more than got the idea by now!

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*1* Though MS bears the brunt tenfold-plus, of course, because they’re controlling your OS - Apple, where’s that version of OSX that’ll run with BIOS?! And/or Go Novell - finally make that new Linux Desktop 10 a viable alternative!

Hear, Hear! Good for our kids to help remind us of how to conduct ourselves, (they do that a lot! )!

Kids at a Florida elementary school refused to sell candy to raise money for a field trip, having just completed an educational unit on health and well-being. The widow of Dr Atkins was so moved by their commonsense that she donated $16,000 to their school so they could afford the trip without selling junk-food.

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BTW - for anyone else wondering about the etymology of "Hear, Hear!" it’s here, here, (ok, so I’m a linguistics geek, too - not terribly surprising, is it? ).

Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the first since King Tutankhamun’s was found in 1922.

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This is cool as…. stuff.. (remember, I’m a Dad now, have to watch the language! ). Going to have hop over to Bunchball and see how to insert my own trip down arcade memory lane into my blog, (actually just bought the 20th anniversary version of Dragon’s Lair / Space Ace / Dragon’s Lair 2, so, as you can tell, engaging in one seriously long walk down memory lane - don’t even want to venture how many not just quarters, but whole $10 rolls of them that I blew figuring out Space Ace as a cool dude early teenager back in the mid-80’s - at least until I had to get good at pinball to be one of the true hep cats of the arcade! )

A nice primer from Tim O’Reilly on what Web 2.0 is, (at least in concept). Honestly, my favorite part is their "meme map":

Oi… it’s iWon all over again… I like the suggestion from Bubble Generation:

Don’t pay people to use search–pay people to help improve Yahoo search. Give anyone a tiny micropayment for a tiny contribution to Y search. Leverage the massively distributed specialization of the edge to improve/filter/rank results.

Don’t know that micropayments is the right vehicle for motivation, nor necessarily that social tagging is the right answer here on the algorithms side, (though it definitely does have merit), but they’re definitely onto something solid about using the Yahoo userbase much more actively, (as I used to use mine at ATW many years ago, all made even more disappointing since Yahoo Search is an ATW derivative).

The short answer really is that Yahoo doesn’t need to offer any more incentive than actually really working with and then delivering ideas from their customers on how to make their individual search occasions more relevant to them. Think about how much it’s worth, (in prestige, and, for many, actually in cash) to be listed on a “Top 500 Contributors to Yahoo Search” for the Month / Year. Forget about giving them $1 per 100 searches or a bonus 5000 frequent flyer miles, (whoo-hoo!) or, even better yet, taking the whole iWon playbook and providing entries to a weekly drawing for $1M.

Give folks the ability to contribute, (ideas, code snippets, heck, whole add-on search-based products that Yahoo could then endorse and promote to the benefit of both that person and Yahoo) and then the ability to point to a Yahoo URL that says “Joe helped us blah, which resulted in one of the most used Yahoo apps in the last year” and if you don’t think that’ll be a huge catalyst for increasing interest / loyalty / positive press, etc., you’re smoking something!

And as to how to work through the tremendous number of thoughts / random brainstorms / add-on products, etc., guess what - Yahoo has a couple of social tagging assets it’s picked up recently. Since they’re trying to raise interest / engagement, etc. amongst the masses, the masses seem a good place to start!

Use Yahoo search, get a reward?

I’ve largely tried to resist posting things about politics, etc., here for quite some time, (at great angst to my younger, much more politico self) but after reading this in my newsreader this AM, this is just too much. I had to post it to assist to raise the profile of these kind of disgusting abuses of power, or, in being silent, only assent to its existence.

I find myself truly and deeply disgusted at how much the Bush administration has taken the country that I was so proud to live in, (and still have great hope again for once 2008 comes) the original, and still largest and most difficult Grand Experiment on populist rule, and whether indeed that could over the long term remain a country worthy of the high ideals upon which we were founded, or whether it would descend into despotism.

And no, I’m not just another left-wing wacko, I was a strong Reaganite in college, and a very proud member of the Republican Party, as it then stood - fiscally conservative, socially progressive. With Bush’s ascension, I formally deleted my association with the Republican Party…..

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be about me, it’s about further helping to publicize the continued unacceptably dark road that we tread when we abandon what we stand for, falling prey to the Great Purveyors of FUD, (”Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt”).

“Time of War” my tail - you could have used the same logic with the same level of argument to support this kind of behavior in the Cold War, (especially the McCarthy Era) as well - that went on for 50 yrs….

So, without further ado, an appeal from what we once were to what we have become…

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“U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, strapped hunger-striking prisoners into restraint chairs for hours to feed them through tubes and isolated them in cold cells, The New York Times said on Thursday. More

A long time coming, glad to hear it’s finally here, (ok, almost here - the site was down when I went on). Also does definitely open up another whole series of potential apps for other companies to build up from, (is one of the things that really is so foolish about proprietary apps without API’s / docs for folks to build and extend - the more folks build _on_ your product, the more they _use_ your product).

For those family-friendly folks in the audience, please ignore the last, entirely unnecessary question… More.

A very cute tongue-in-cheek look at interface design for all of us who are hopefully building out sites to make us all ludicrously wealthy, (or, in my case, still digesting the stupid Ruby books - nice language, Rails looks to be an excellent framework, but still would prefer that magic code wand! ).

Yep, that’s the way for a legitimate site to generate traffic - look for permission vulnerabilities in folks’ blog software, (i.e. Wordpress suggests setting template permissions to 766) and then hack in and insert Javascript re-directs to your site using some domainstat crud.

Another fine thanks and reminder to use Firefox with NoScript, (and to switch permissions back to 755! ). Reloaded my blog, and for the first time got the javascript blog intercept on my own site. Took a look, found the crap, edited it out, switched the permissions back, and up again.

For anyone using Wordpress for your blog software, (and the only reason I’m specifically mentioning Wordpress is that there’s a suggestion on the template page to change permissions to 766) please check your templates for javascript that you didn’t insert, (again, referencing domainstat) delete from all affected templates, save and then switch permissions on those files to 755, and you should again be ok.

Yep, even if we presume that Coolrip is a legitimate site, (don’t know either way) is a good reminder to be _very_ careful of who you engage to get you traffic, and if the acquisition numbers are very low, know that whether you were informed or not, you’re funding tactics like these, including folks hacking into other computers, writing computer viruses on your behalf, etc., and, unfortunately, deserve any and all bad press you might get as a result, if you either didn’t ask, or turned a blind eye to.