As DEMO produced a few true winners this past week, the smaller trade mixers and conferences seem to be becoming more and more important each year.
One to watch (attend?) this year if you do any website updating or design may very well be MIX08.
Scheduled for the Venetian Resort Hotel in Las Vegas March 5th - 7th, MIX08 is billed as an opportunity to engage Microsoft about the future of the web. It's really about a lot more.
With Rich Media becoming more and more abundant on websites, and technologies such as Adobe's Flash, Flex, and Air, Microsoft's Silverlight, numerous video platforms, AJAX and and other technologies being implemented into websites (and web-based applications), it's a conference that companies such as H-P, Cynergy, Zumobi, Electric Rain and others have come together to sponsor. A few of the speakers should be familiar to many reading this post :).
We think this third year of MIX could be a stand-out and great networking experience. The web will look very different next year and this will pose new challenges for those at search engine companies, as well as SEO and SEM firms.
You can check out MIX08 on the web here.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Sprout springs a temporary leak !
In a brief follow-up to our previous post on the new online application called Sprout, it appears that the stories that appeared yesterday and last night across numerous websites (all positive) maxed out their servers!
So, take a deep breath ... wait a few days or keep an eye on this space , and give the guys a break until the new servers are online!
It'll be worth your wait.
Update Jan 31 PM : We received an e-mail from Carnet Williams earlier today, and they appear to be working their way through the backlog and green-lighting new invites.
So, take a deep breath ... wait a few days or keep an eye on this space , and give the guys a break until the new servers are online!
It'll be worth your wait.
Update Jan 31 PM : We received an e-mail from Carnet Williams earlier today, and they appear to be working their way through the backlog and green-lighting new invites.
Sprout - This is going to be HUGE
While I was catching up on some work a little while ago, in the background (I don't know how, or sometimes why, I do this ... ) I had the 'live' DIGG screensaver running on another box. I also had Twitter open . I get an e-mail.
What's the buzz that Techmeme is breaking on Twitter , people are 'hyper-Digging' and e-mailing?
I scanned a bit and found posts from DEMO08 by TechCrunch, Read/Write Web (and others).
The buzz was about a new online flash application that just about anyone could use, with a myriad of features.
SproutBuilder.
SPROUT launched a few hours ago. More than a drap and drop widget creator (which might have been enough), this is just way too easy and platform-friendly live content creator.
As someone said a short time ago ... "You just gotta check it out" ...
This is a winner out of the box. Period.
SPROUT is here.
What's the buzz that Techmeme is breaking on Twitter , people are 'hyper-Digging' and e-mailing?
I scanned a bit and found posts from DEMO08 by TechCrunch, Read/Write Web (and others).
The buzz was about a new online flash application that just about anyone could use, with a myriad of features.
SproutBuilder.
SPROUT launched a few hours ago. More than a drap and drop widget creator (which might have been enough), this is just way too easy and platform-friendly live content creator.
As someone said a short time ago ... "You just gotta check it out" ...
This is a winner out of the box. Period.
SPROUT is here.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Google main index grouping results for some keywords
There was some discussion over the weekend that 'new results' were being seen, particularly in the hotel, restaurant and events sectors, with Google now grouping ten results in the main index near the top of the page.
Apparently those results have now proliferated and we found it 'happening' this morning under a variety of direct keyword searches.
A few screenshots are below. Relevant? Positively.
Will the effect be positive or negative from PPC buyers in those sectors? We'll see.
Update Jan 30: A much more in-depth look at Google's new expanded search results has been posted to SearchEngineLand by Danny Sullivan here
Apparently those results have now proliferated and we found it 'happening' this morning under a variety of direct keyword searches.
A few screenshots are below. Relevant? Positively.
Will the effect be positive or negative from PPC buyers in those sectors? We'll see.
Update Jan 30: A much more in-depth look at Google's new expanded search results has been posted to SearchEngineLand by Danny Sullivan here
Can you patent AIR ?
This past week, there were a lot of stories about AIR. Really.
Without air, we'd all be in a lot of trouble (Green plug intact :)
We're not talking about that kind of AIR.
Two other kinds of AIR hit the tech news headlines this past week.
Adobe AIR was installed by hundreds (thousands) this week in the tech community as it is required for the desktop client for start-up Pownce. Public recognition of the platform grew.
At almost the same time, we saw Steve Jobs keynote announcement of Apple's new ultra-light notebook - MacBook Air .
Just to be 'journalistic correct ??', news also came from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley (home turf of hyper social networker Shana Albert ) from CNN Money on a company called Air Products.
When you pull into a service station to fill your tires, you usually pay for AIR. This is really getting scary.
So, this question is for our industry's resident Patent expert Bill Slawski.
"Is it possible, one of these guys can get a patent on AIR?"
We're going to e-mail Bill for his take. Knowing Bill casually, I'd say look for a response here, or at his website.
What's next ... Water?
Update Jan 31, 2008: Bill has responded and his take and analysis can be found here .
Without air, we'd all be in a lot of trouble (Green plug intact :)
We're not talking about that kind of AIR.
Two other kinds of AIR hit the tech news headlines this past week.
Adobe AIR was installed by hundreds (thousands) this week in the tech community as it is required for the desktop client for start-up Pownce. Public recognition of the platform grew.
At almost the same time, we saw Steve Jobs keynote announcement of Apple's new ultra-light notebook - MacBook Air .
Just to be 'journalistic correct ??', news also came from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley (home turf of hyper social networker Shana Albert ) from CNN Money on a company called Air Products.
When you pull into a service station to fill your tires, you usually pay for AIR. This is really getting scary.
So, this question is for our industry's resident Patent expert Bill Slawski.
"Is it possible, one of these guys can get a patent on AIR?"
We're going to e-mail Bill for his take. Knowing Bill casually, I'd say look for a response here, or at his website.
What's next ... Water?
Update Jan 31, 2008: Bill has responded and his take and analysis can be found here .
Battle for IAC (and ASK) is on - Bye, Bye Barry ?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Liberty Media Inc. has filed court papers to 'remove' Barry Diller from the helm of IAC / Interactive Corp.
A few observations and retrospective.
I have been an IAC (NASDAQ:IACI) watcher for a long time. Why? Over 80% of my personal income the last 5 years has come from travel SEM and SEO.
Now traded as separate companies, the IAC's travel group (which includes Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelnow, Hotwire and yes, TripAdvisor), has been feeling the heat of a general downturn in US leisure travel, changes in search engine algorithms that put 'some' hotels at the top, as well as sector PPC buy programs such as Yahoo Travel.
Regional independent hotel consolidators are challenging on a local level as well.
Proprietary deals are ongoing by competitors such as Travelocity (Can anyone say AARP?). Travelocity's latest move to win over regional travel bureaus (known as CVBs) and others is gaining ground.
It was a good move for IAC to separate this group should something happen.
It did.
Yesterday came news that IAC was taking a stake in the HealthCentralNetwork. Microsoft is well-along with it's 'Health' project and Google is too. The are numerous other established players in this space.
A few months ago, IAC announced it was spinning off the remainder of it's operating units as separately traded companies. Liberty was supportive at the time.
I'm not implying (at all) that Barry Diller isn't a respected CEO. We've featured lots of stories on IAC (including their very cool building in NYC) right here. Frankly, Diller, to many, is practically an icon.
Welcome back to Wall Street and who owns what. When a company doesn't perform, or, in this case a group of companies, someone's going to take a fall. This time, it looks like it might be 'the big guy'.
Sidebar: Liberty has positions in both QVC and HSN. HSN is part of IAC.
Is this getting confusing ?
I think 'Diller watchers' would agree. If Liberty succeeds, Diller will be back and that will be the interesting chapter.
A few observations and retrospective.
I have been an IAC (NASDAQ:IACI) watcher for a long time. Why? Over 80% of my personal income the last 5 years has come from travel SEM and SEO.
Now traded as separate companies, the IAC's travel group (which includes Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelnow, Hotwire and yes, TripAdvisor), has been feeling the heat of a general downturn in US leisure travel, changes in search engine algorithms that put 'some' hotels at the top, as well as sector PPC buy programs such as Yahoo Travel.
Regional independent hotel consolidators are challenging on a local level as well.
Proprietary deals are ongoing by competitors such as Travelocity (Can anyone say AARP?). Travelocity's latest move to win over regional travel bureaus (known as CVBs) and others is gaining ground.
It was a good move for IAC to separate this group should something happen.
It did.
Yesterday came news that IAC was taking a stake in the HealthCentralNetwork. Microsoft is well-along with it's 'Health' project and Google is too. The are numerous other established players in this space.
A few months ago, IAC announced it was spinning off the remainder of it's operating units as separately traded companies. Liberty was supportive at the time.
I'm not implying (at all) that Barry Diller isn't a respected CEO. We've featured lots of stories on IAC (including their very cool building in NYC) right here. Frankly, Diller, to many, is practically an icon.
Welcome back to Wall Street and who owns what. When a company doesn't perform, or, in this case a group of companies, someone's going to take a fall. This time, it looks like it might be 'the big guy'.
Sidebar: Liberty has positions in both QVC and HSN. HSN is part of IAC.
Is this getting confusing ?
I think 'Diller watchers' would agree. If Liberty succeeds, Diller will be back and that will be the interesting chapter.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Changes at Google Blog Search
Indexing blogs has to be a significantly more difficult task than indexing websites.
With a myriad of self-serving automatically generated blogs, blogs that scrape content, and other so-called 'bad guys', it's hard for me to even imagine an algorithm that can get through it all.
I've been watching a number of blog search engines to see how relevant they actually are.
Enter 'comments'.
Some make comments on blogs for their own self-benefit. I do it (1) when I mean it, or (2) when I just want to bust somebody's chops :) My guess is about 2 or 3 times a week.
I've said it before. The dialog is what it's all about. I believe it, and usually, that's why I'll post a comment.
Over the weekend, Google's Blog Search, which has been taking on blog spam, made yet another change.
If you comment on another blog, it now says 'Comment by'. In a way, this outs 'comment spammers'. It also gives full credit to the website you're commenting on.
In the example below, the first post is an actually post from here, hyper-indexed by Google in less than 5 minutes yesterday both on the blog search and main index.
The second guy is either a scraper or something else, but it's not me. (Those who know me, know I'm probably the furthest guy from Black Hat on the planet and I seriously doubt this hurts my Internet-based reputation management). The motive here, I suppose was exposure translating to unique hits.
I guess there's still some work to be done. Go to the page, I'm not even there :)
The next three listings ARE legitimate comments I made on blogs this past month.
My guess is between the recent changes at Digg and this change, there are a few people wondering where their hits went this past week.
With a myriad of self-serving automatically generated blogs, blogs that scrape content, and other so-called 'bad guys', it's hard for me to even imagine an algorithm that can get through it all.
I've been watching a number of blog search engines to see how relevant they actually are.
Enter 'comments'.
Some make comments on blogs for their own self-benefit. I do it (1) when I mean it, or (2) when I just want to bust somebody's chops :) My guess is about 2 or 3 times a week.
I've said it before. The dialog is what it's all about. I believe it, and usually, that's why I'll post a comment.
Over the weekend, Google's Blog Search, which has been taking on blog spam, made yet another change.
If you comment on another blog, it now says 'Comment by'. In a way, this outs 'comment spammers'. It also gives full credit to the website you're commenting on.
In the example below, the first post is an actually post from here, hyper-indexed by Google in less than 5 minutes yesterday both on the blog search and main index.
The second guy is either a scraper or something else, but it's not me. (Those who know me, know I'm probably the furthest guy from Black Hat on the planet and I seriously doubt this hurts my Internet-based reputation management). The motive here, I suppose was exposure translating to unique hits.
I guess there's still some work to be done. Go to the page, I'm not even there :)
The next three listings ARE legitimate comments I made on blogs this past month.
My guess is between the recent changes at Digg and this change, there are a few people wondering where their hits went this past week.
Microsoft Popfly embraces Facebook
Microsoft's continues to show it's support for Facebook. Facebook integration is being seen in a number of Microsoft Beta products, the latest being their online Mash-up editor Popfly.
Popfly, which premiered in beta at popfly.ms has moved over to popfly.com (So much for speculation that Microsoft was going to begin 'moving' products to the domain extension for Montserrat ?)
The Popfly mash-up editor, in addition to supporting import from Yahoo's Flickr now supports 'Save to Facebook'.
Microsoft also has a Facebook application development page here .
In October, Microsoft made a 240 million dollar investment in Facebook. Advertising and other deals between the two companies date back to 2006.
Both companies made headlines this past week. Microsoft reported record earnings for almost all operating units dramatically exceeding 'street' estimates. Facebook announced an open API for developers to allow the creation of applications outside of Facebook.
Popfly, which premiered in beta at popfly.ms has moved over to popfly.com (So much for speculation that Microsoft was going to begin 'moving' products to the domain extension for Montserrat ?)
The Popfly mash-up editor, in addition to supporting import from Yahoo's Flickr now supports 'Save to Facebook'.
Microsoft also has a Facebook application development page here .
In October, Microsoft made a 240 million dollar investment in Facebook. Advertising and other deals between the two companies date back to 2006.
Both companies made headlines this past week. Microsoft reported record earnings for almost all operating units dramatically exceeding 'street' estimates. Facebook announced an open API for developers to allow the creation of applications outside of Facebook.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
NY Times to deliver more for cellphones
First, it was a Facebook application. Last week, word came that the NY Times Company was part of consortium investing 29 million dollars in Automattic, parent of WordPress, the predominant blog publishing platform.
There's simply no doubt, as noted in our last post, that the NY Times is one of the mainsteam media companies that 'gets it'.
If you want to grow and prosper, you need to target a larger and lasting audience.
Here in the U.S., that audience is the children of the Baby Boom generation, many still in college. Others, beginning new careers and networking like never before.
It is these young adults that are, and will be, the largest consuming audience for the foreseeable future.
It is also this group that uses cell phones, more than any other demographic, for their music, information, video, texting, and more.
This past Friday, the NY Times Company issued a press release that they will be delivering news and opinion to cellphones.
While many other media companies have also embraced the various mobile platform(s), the spectrum of information that the Times intends to deliver is much broader and includes real estate, numerous op-ed columns, stock quotes, movie reviews, business news, health, environment and a variety of other sections of the newspaper.
The mobile version of the NY Times can be found at http://mobile.nytimes.com . Keywords for specific interests can be found in the press release here, as well as next to each article in the print version of the newspaper.
There's simply no doubt, as noted in our last post, that the NY Times is one of the mainsteam media companies that 'gets it'.
If you want to grow and prosper, you need to target a larger and lasting audience.
Here in the U.S., that audience is the children of the Baby Boom generation, many still in college. Others, beginning new careers and networking like never before.
It is these young adults that are, and will be, the largest consuming audience for the foreseeable future.
It is also this group that uses cell phones, more than any other demographic, for their music, information, video, texting, and more.
This past Friday, the NY Times Company issued a press release that they will be delivering news and opinion to cellphones.
While many other media companies have also embraced the various mobile platform(s), the spectrum of information that the Times intends to deliver is much broader and includes real estate, numerous op-ed columns, stock quotes, movie reviews, business news, health, environment and a variety of other sections of the newspaper.
The mobile version of the NY Times can be found at http://mobile.nytimes.com . Keywords for specific interests can be found in the press release here, as well as next to each article in the print version of the newspaper.
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