October 29, 2005
Russ on Web 2.0
Here, let me categorize them:Scrape Engines - These are the little search sites focusing on one niche or another. They’re not full-on Search Engines that crawl the entire web and add value by allowing us all to make order from the massive chaos that is the web, they rob value from other sites by crawling them to death and stealing most of the vital information, returning very little. I’m sure there’s some sort of justifiable symbioses here for some, but most are just leaches, IMHO.
Mashed Ups - Yes, it’s so neat you can add a free map to your database of geo-data. Good for you. Thank Google for giving god-knows-how-much money to Navteq for you every time you query their data and render a map. Even the GOOG can only throw so much money out the window for so long, so I wouldn’t plan on that lasting very long. If you’re doing the Mash-up for fun, that’s cool. But be honest, you’re not really creating much value are you? Yes, sometimes the sum of parts can be greater than the whole, but that’s really not the case here.
Web Trapps - AJAXy, Tagged and Shared: Calendaring, To Do Lists, Email, Notes, Word Processors, Project Management, Databases, and anything to do with Getting Things Done. Have fun with all that, but 99.9% of the people out there will still be using Microsoft Office and Yahoo! (Yes, my employer, but I’d say that anyways.) Really. Look, I don’t *trust* your site to keep my personal (and definitely not my professional) data safe, okay, and I’m not going to change my daily habits to include a site that may disappear from the face of the Earth tomorrow. And I could participate in the whole collective intelligence part, but then I’ll just abandon you if you “go commercial” then as well.
Social Anything - Look, you’re not going to be another del.icio.us alright? And News Corp is the last company to ever pay that much money for a Social Networking site. Ever. (Yes, that includes you too, FaceBook). And you know how I’ll find that podcast, song, movie or other digital content I’m looking for? I’ll probably just ask a friend, search for a reviews, browse iTunes, or buy whatever is marketed at me like everyone else.
Phile Sharing - Oh my god! Stop with the photo sharing sites already! An honestly, if you describe your site like, “It’s like Flickr, but with [insert file type here]” then you’ve got serious problems. No, really. No, no, really.
Content Management Saturation - There shall only be one Wikipedia, and it’s free. There’s about as many blog and wiki software platforms as there needs to be. Generally, I think at this point, the world does not need another CMS solution. Maybe in a few years, but right now we really have what we need.
RSS Holes - RSS is a pretty great technology, but really, how many more startups munging RSS feeds do we need? Google and Yahoo! are already doing RSS Search, so there’s probably better ways to spend your efforts on that front. And if your service is described like, “We take the RSS feeds and do [insert cool sounding agent/filtering/analysis technology here]” you’re in trouble. Yet, though Bloglines has barely touched their feature set in over a year, no one seems to be able to come up with a decent competitor in terms of functionality and usefulness (and ability to read via mobile) - that I don’t get.
Firefoxing - Umm, I like FireFox as much as the next geek. But if you’re creating enhancements to a browser with a 7% marketshare, god knows what you or your investors are thinking.
Am I missing anything? Any general category or buzzword I left out?
Quite a different persepctive from the masses...
Bruce Lee screen test
Peer production
Over at USV, they're posting Top Ten Insights from their recent confab:
“I've actually started to use the term social production to cover the two distinct phenomena. [For] individual action…. that gets coordinated [later] by some platform, [I use] "commons based production” (people created web sites and linked to other web sites for their own reasons, Google recognized an opportunity to exploit that effort to improve search with page rank)… “and [I use] peer production [for] the more self-conscious cooperative platforms” (Wikipedia).“I create my iTunes list, I'm consuming music, but I'm [also] creating a radio station. When I'm consuming peer to peer, I'm helping create the network”
But it is not clear that there are only two forms of social production. Some of the users of Craigslist, for example, are there for their own selfish purposes (to sell something) but their content is contributed to a community that is not exactly a commons. Likewise, users of Skype use the service to communicate less expensively, and do so knowing that they are contributing resources to all of the other Skype users, but Skype is also not a commons. Are these examples of yet another form of social production that we need to define?These are not idle questions. If you plan to build a business that depends on the output of a peer network (or to invest in one) it is critical to understand how and why they are different.
Which is all interesting stuff. At some point, the level of abstraction begins to outweigh the value of the insight -- in particular, the Craigslist reference, if relevant in this context, would push the concept of 'peer production' as far as the economy as a whole:
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Which seems to me to be about the same as Craigslist.
October 28, 2005
Bad Management at Google
Google priced its secondary offering on September 14th at $295.
One month later, the company announces Third Quarter 2005 results that blow any sane expectations out of the water and the stock pops to the $350 range.
Why, presuming that management knew by mid-September that the Q3 numbers were going to be historically mind-boggling, did they agree to go ahead with the secondary at a time when the market was not yet aware of this continued impressive performance?
It might seem like small potatoes given everything else going right for Google to give up 16% upside, but that's sloppy, ill-considered management. And this type of sloppiness, in the long run, will catch up with you.
Now fortunately for the Google guys it looks like the astounding performance of the business will cover up all sorts of management gaffes -- from the goofy April Fool's Day announcement of GMail to the mind-boggling ham-handedness of the IPO. But catch up with them eventually, somewhere, somehow, someplace, it will.
October 27, 2005
There Has Been A Bank Error in Your Favor
Like the Community Chest card from Monopoly...
...I'm the happy recipient of a bank error. But this wasn't a little piddly $200. No, that's a tiny piker of a Bank Error.
My friends at Chase have made a much, MUCH bigger bank error in my favor.
How big?
$3,372,320.77
Click here to see the pop-up image of my statement. I have never put money into an investment account at Chase, so that whole total is my new found wealth to squander!
Some guys have all the luck, huh? Wow, this is going to be a really, really big weekend!
:)
No, not really. I've already e-mailed the Chase folks about it, while, of course, subtly hinting that if it made THEM feel better, they could leave, you know, a little bit left over in the account. :)
Or better yet, maybe we can turn this little goof to a good cause. Perhaps we can persuade the good folks at Chase to donate, say, just 1% of that amount to the victims of Katrina and Wilma? I'll need your help, blogosphere!
October 20, 2005
Web 2.0 or not?
October 19, 2005
Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You're not being the ball Danny.
Memorable Quotes from Caddyshack:
Al Czervik:
Last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it.
Judge Smails:
You know, you should play with Dr. Beeper and myself. I mean, he's been club champion for three years running and I'm no slouch myself.
Ty Webb:
Don't sell yourself short Judge, you're a tremendous slouch.
Al Czervik:
Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid.
[Caddy Danny arrives among the rich in his yachting outfit]
Spalding Smails:
Ahoy polloi.
Ty Webb:
I like you Betty.
Danny Noonan:
It's Danny sir.
Ty Webb:
Danny.
Spalding Smails:
This is good stuff. I got it from a Negro. You're probably high already and you don't even know it.
Sandy:
Carl I want you to kill all the gophers on the golf course
Carl Spackler:
Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they'll lock me up and throw away the key.
Sandy:
Not golfers, you great fool. Gophers. The *little* *brown*, *furry* *rodents*.
Carl Spackler:
We can do that. We don't even need a reason.
Al Czervik:
Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh? Oh, it looks good on you though.
Al Czervik:
Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity.
Al Czervik:
You're a lot of woman, you know that? Yeah, wanna make 14 dollars the hard way?
Carl Spackler:
He's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2 iron I think.
Carl Spackler:
IT'S IN THE HOLE.
Al Czervik:
[to his Asian companion] I hear this place is restricted, Wang, so don't tell 'em you're Jewish, okay?
Danny Noonan:
I haven't even told my father I'm not gonna get that scholarship. I'm gonna end up working in a lumberyard the rest of my life.
Ty Webb:
What's wrong with lumber? I own two lumberyards.
Danny Noonan:
I notice you don't spend too much time there.
Ty Webb:
I'm not quite sure where they are.
Al Czervik:
Hey, doll. Could you scare up another round for our table over here? And tell the cook this is low grade dogfood. I've had better food at the ballgame, you know? This steak still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it.
Judge Smails:
It's easy to grin / When your ship comes in / And you've got the stock market beat. / But the man worthwhile, / Is the man who can smile, / When his shorts are too tight in the seat.
Judge Smails:
Oh Porterhouse, look at the wax build up on these shoes I want that wax stripped off there, then I want them creamed and buffed wih a fine chamois, and I want them now. Chop chop.
Porterhouse:
Yes judge, right away judge.
Carl Spackler:
License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote.
Carl Spackler:
This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.
Carl Spackler:
So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Judge Smails:
How about a Fresca?
Carl Spackler:
Oh Mrs. Crane, you're a little monkey woman. Yeah, you're lean, mean, and I bet you're not too far in between are ya. How'd you like to wrap your spikes around my...
Ty Webb:
You take drugs, Danny?
Danny Noonan:
Every day.
Ty Webb:
Good. Then what's your problem?
Danny Noonan:
I don't know.
Ty Webb:
A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish.
Ty Webb:
I was born to love you / I was born to lick your face / I was born to rub you / but you were born to rub me first /... What do you say we take this out on the patio?
Danny Noonan:
I gotta go to college.
Ty Webb:
You don't have to go to college. This isn't Russia. Is this Russia? This isn't Russia.
Carl Spackler:
I got to get into this dude's pelt and crawl around for a few days. Who's the gopher's ally. His friends. The harmless squirrel and the friendly rabbit.
Carl Spackler:
This crowd has gone deadly silent, a Cinderella story outta nowhere. Former greenskeeper and now about to become the masters champion.
Ty Webb:
You're rather attractive for a beautiful girl with a great body.
Ty Webb:
Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You're not being the ball Danny.
Danny Noonan:
It's hard when you're talking like that.
Judge Smails:
Ty, what did you shoot today?
Ty Webb:
Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.
Judge Smails:
Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?
Ty Webb:
By height.
Judge Smails:
I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.
Dr. Beeper:
I thought you'd be the man to beat this year.
Ty Webb:
I guess you'll just have to keep beating yourself.
Ty Webb:
This your place, Carl?
Carl Spackler:
Yeah, whatta ya think?
Ty Webb:
It's really... awful.
Carl Spackler:
Well, I got a lot of stuff on order. You know... credit trouble.
Ty Webb:
Guys, don't include me in this.
Al Czervik:
Come on, Ty, you're an ace. Everybody knows it.
Ty Webb:
I don't play golf, for money, against people.
Al Czervik:
What are you, religious or something?
Ty Webb:
You might say that.
[Judge Smails is taking an inordinately long time to hit his drive on the first tee, while Al Czervik waits in the next foursome]
Al Czervik:
While we're young.
Al Czervik:
What're we, waiting for these guys? Hey Whitey, where's your hat?
Judge Smails:
Do you mind, sir. I'm trying to tee off.
Al Czervik:
I'll bet you a hundred bucks you slice it into the woods.
Judge Smails:
Gambling is illegal at Bushwood sir, and I never slice.
[Swings club, slices ball into woods]
Judge Smails:
*Damn*.
Al Czervik:
OK, you can owe me.
Judge Smails:
I owe you nothing.
Ty Webb:
Thank you very little.
Al Czervik:
Hey, did somebody step on a duck?
Al Czervik:
He called me a baboon, he thinks I'm his wife.
Lacey Underall:
I bet you've got a lot of nice ties.
Ty Webb:
How do you mean?
Lacey Underall:
Would you like to tie me up with some of your ties, Ty?
Lacey Underall:
Who's you decorator? Bennihana?
Ty Webb:
No, I brought most of that stuff back with me from Vietnam.
Lacey Underall:
You were in the war?
Ty Webb:
[limping and patting his butt] No... Homo.
Ty Webb:
Let me just clean this up here
[lift up bow and arrow]
Ty Webb:
... getting ready for the season.
Lacey Underall:
Duck?
Ty Webb:
No... dolphin.
Judge Smails:
Don't you people have homes?
Judge Smails:
I demand satisfaction.
Al Czervik:
Yeah, well I'll tell you what's satisfying: *cash*. I'll shoot you 18 holes for ten thousand bucks.
Judge Smails:
I could beat you with one good arm.
Al Czervik:
Well, how about teams, then. I'll take Ty here, and you can have Dr. Frankenputz.
Dr. Beeper:
I beg your pardon.
Ty Webb:
Judge, Al, I don't play golf... for money... against people.
Judge Smails:
Don't you people have jobs?
Mrs. Smails:
Elihu, will you come loofah my stretch marks?
Judge Smails:
[to Bishop Fred Pickering] Say, Fred, did you hear the one about the Jew, the Catholic, and the Colored Boy who went to heaven?
Bishop:
Yeah, Judge, that's a doozy.
Judge Smails:
Do you know what I just saw? A gopher. Do you know what gophers can do to a golf course?
Groundskeeper Sandy:
Aye, Sir. I think they're tunneling in from that construction site.
Judge Smails:
Czervik, huh. Well, I slap an injunction on them so fast it'll make their head spin.
Ty Webb:
You're not, you're not good, Al. You stink.
Spalding Smails:
I want a hamburger... no, a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake...
Judge Smails:
You'll get nothing, and like it.
Carl Spackler:
Bark like a dog.
Bishop:
Why don't you come on down to our new Lutheran center?
Danny Noonan:
I've often thought about becoming a priest.
Bishop:
Oh, are you a Roman Catholic?
[Danny nods]
Bishop:
Oh, then I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you can't come.
Mrs. Smails:
Bless this ship, and all who sail on her. I christen thee The Flying WASP.
Groundskeeper Sandy:
Carl. Damn your eyes. I told you, today is the day we change the holes. Now, do it, and no more slacking off.
Carl Spackler:
I'll slack you off, you fuzzy little foreigner.
Danny Noonan:
I've always wanted to go to college.
Judge Smails:
Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.
Al Czervik:
[after accidentally hitting Judge Smails in the crotch with his golf ball] I should have yelled, "Two!"
Charlie the Cook:
[after hearing how Al described his cooking] *Dogfood*?
Judge Smails:
Do you stand for *goodness*, or - for *badness*?
Ty Webb:
What brings you to this nape of the woods, neck of the wape; How come you're here?
Lacey Underall:
My uncle says you've got a screw loose.
Ty Webb:
Your uncle molests collies.
[Tony gives his ticket to Danny who has taken over for Lou]
Danny Noonan:
I can't pay you. Lou has to.
Tony D'Annunzio:
Where is he?
Danny Noonan:
He's out.
Tony D'Annunzio:
I can see that he's out, numbnuts.
[Gives Danny a dollar]
Tony D'Annunzio:
Give me a coke.
Danny Noonan:
One coke.
[gives Tony a bottle of Coke and 50 cents]
Tony D'Annunzio:
Hey wait a minute. That's only 50 cents.
Danny Noonan:
Yeah well Lou raised the price of coke he's been losing at the track.
Tony D'Annunzio:
Well I ain't paying no 50 cents for no coke.
Danny Noonan:
Oh then you ain't getting no coke. Know what I'm talking about?
Lou Loomis:
What's the sign say?
Angie D'Annunzio:
No bare feet.
Lou Loomis:
What's that sign say?
Angie D'Annunzio:
No fighting.
Lou Loomis:
What's that mean?
Angie D'Annunzio:
No fighting.
Lou Loomis:
You owe me one gumball machine. What's that candy wrapper doing there? Well don't you see it? Well pick it up.
Lou Loomis:
I'm going to put it right on the line. There's been a lot of complaints already. Fooling around on the course, bad language, smoking grass, poor caddying. If you guys want to get fired. If you want to be replaced by golf carts, just keep it up.
Spalding Smails:
Turds.
Judge Smails:
Spaulding, how many times have I spoken to you about your language?
Spalding Smails:
Sorry grandpa I forgot.
Judge Smails:
Oh Dr. Beeper, Bishop Pickering this is my niece Lacey Underall. Lacey's mother sent her to us for the summer.
Dr. Beeper:
Must be a nice change from dreary old Manhattan.
Lacey Underall:
Yes I was really getting tired of having fun all the time.
Judge Smails:
Ah. Ho ho. Ha ha ha.
Spalding Smails:
Double turds.
Judge Smails:
*Spaulding*!
Judge Smails:
Spaulding, get dressed you're playing golf.
Spalding Smails:
No I'm not grandpa I'm playing tennis.
Judge Smails:
You're playing golf and you're going to like it.
Spalding Smails:
What about my asthma?
Judge Smails:
I'll give you asthma.
Ty Webb:
I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.
Lacey Underall:
You're crazy!
Ty Webb:
That's what they said about Son of Sam.
Carl Spackler:
I smell varmint poontang. And the only good varmint poontang is dead varmint poontang, I think.
Tony D'Annunzio:
Another Rob Roy, Bishop?
Bishop:
You never ask a navy man if he'll have another drink, because it's nobody's goddamned business how much he's had already.
Judge Smails:
Wrong, you're drinking too much your Excellency.
Bishop:
Excellency, fiddlesticks, my name's Fred and I'm a man, same as you.
Judge Smails:
You're not a man, you're a bishop, for God's sakes.
Bishop:
There is no God...
Judge Smails:
Danny, I'm having a party this weekend.
[pauses a beat]
Judge Smails:
How would you like to come over and mow my lawn?
Carl Spackler:
Wait up, girls; I got a salami I gotta hide still.
Carl Spackler:
This place got a pool?
Ty Webb:
Pool and a pond... Pond be good for you.
Ty Webb:
Let me tell you a little story? I once knew a guy who could have been a great golfer, could have gone pro, all he needed was a little time and practice. Decided to go to college instead. Went for four years, did pretty well. At the end of his four years, his last semester he was kicked out... You know what for? He was night putting, just putting at night with the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Dean... You know who that guy was Danny?
Danny Noonan:
No.
Ty Webb:
Take one good guess.
Danny Noonan:
Bob Hope?
Ty Webb:
Ha ha... No, that guy was Mitch Comstein, my roommate. He was a good guy.
Spalding Smails:
Doodie!
Carl Spackler:
I have to laugh, because I've outsmarted even myself. My enemy, my foe, is an animal. In order to conquer the animal, I have to learn to think like an animal. And, whenever possible, to look like one. I've gotta get inside this guy's pelt and crawl around for a few days.
The 100 Oldest Domains
Here are the100 Oldest .COM domain names.
Pretty interesting. Monster has always claimed to be the 494th, but it's tough to see how only another few hundred domains were registered between 11/30/1987 and the advent of MonsterBoard.
Diller dazzles
I saw Barry Diller speak at Web 2.0, and as this USATODAY.com article notes, the man beguiles the internet cognoscenti. He's not utopian, he's not pie-in-the-sky, he's not, in short, the typical internet visionary / revolutionary. But what he is is a shrewd deal-maker and thought leader who knows media far better than most of us mortals.
And he's certain to be an entertaining luminary for years to come.
Bad hair day
Jason has taken liberties with my photo over at Recruiting.com! Well, it's no worse than the shoulder-length hair I sported in college. :)
The reason for the hoopla? Hireability's webinar with Marc Cenedella and Craig Silverman, coming this Wednesday! Be there or be... someplace else.
October 17, 2005
Mis-spelled auction item generator
Pretty clever way to profit from others' poor orthography.
A search on laptop turns up dozens of, presumably under-viewed and thus under-priced, items with poorly educated, or careless, sellers.
Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia
From 4 years, and a lifetime ago, Cory Doctorow's Metacrap reminds us of the limits of Web 2.0:
2.1 People lie Metadata exists in a competitive world. Suppliers compete to sell their goods, cranks compete to convey their crackpot theories (mea culpa), artists compete for audience. Attention-spans and wallets may not be zero-sum, but they're damned close. That's why:A search for any commonly referenced term at a search-engine like Altavista will often turn up at least one porn link in the first ten results.
Your mailbox is full of spam with subject lines like "Re: The information you requested."
Publisher's Clearing House sends out advertisements that holler "You may already be a winner!"
Press-releases have gargantuan lists of empty buzzwords attached to them.
Meta-utopia is a world of reliable metadata. When poisoning the well confers benefits to the poisoners, the meta-waters get awfully toxic in short order.
Web 2.0, with its "radical trust", and "the community is the content" messages fails to understand what the media business has known since Gutenberg set type to paper: most people aren't great writers (photographers, artists, pundits, etc.)
That's why Barry Diller emphasizes the importance of editorship, the selection of the best writers (artists, photographers, etc.) by specialized people who arbite taste for the rest of us. Or, as he put it pithily: "I don't think most great creative talent is out there hiding in a closet hoping to self-publish."
Read the whole list for a sobering view of the limits of Web 2.0 for bringing Utopia on earth.
Dump the Monster to build your business
So says Jason Davis in this post on Vertical Search:
My opinion is that if the Monsters of the world say "no more free content" the vertical search engines would be reduced to what I have always thought they are, very cool and powerful applications that can be turned into real profitable businesses if relationships were fostered with the companies that need to hire.
It's actually a good, interesting point. These 3 aggregators don't have a heck of a lot to distinguish between them all today. What if one of them bit the bullet and voluntarily kicked Monster, HotJobs and CareerBuilder off their sites?
October 16, 2005
Leather pants for sale
A great item somebody has put up on eBay... DKNY Men's Leather Pants I Unfortunately Own (item 8335653541 end time Sep-23-05 12:50:38 PDT)
:)
October 14, 2005
Craigslist blocks Oodle; what will SimplyHired, Indeed, and Jobster do?
This does present a challenge to the aggregatin business. Let's see how they respond.
Dave? Paul? Jason? What's the plan if/when Monster / HotJobs / CareerBuilder block aggregation?
Should be interesting to hear!
October 13, 2005
Making money on your blog the Instapundit way
I think one of the subtlest ways to monetize your blog traffic is that perfected by Instapundit -- the Amazon affiliate link. In this post the third link -- "Chris Mooney position" -- links to this URL:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=wwwviolentkicom&creative=9325&camp=1789&link_code=ur2&path=tg%2Fdetail%2F-%2F0465046754%2Fqid%3D1128284906%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dpd_bbs_1%2F103-6185948-1843030%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Dbooks%26n%3D507846
With the tag=wwwviolentkicom indicating Glenn's Amazon affiliate URL. If somebody clicks through and buys the book, he'll earn 5 to 15% of the price. Even better, if somebody clicks through, buys the book, and then goes on to do their Christmas shopping early, he'll get 5 to 15% of that!
If you 'view source' and search for "Amazon", you'll find that Glenn's a pretty prolific affiliate linker, and there's neither fear nor favor towards products he liked or didn't like. Just lots of sales links.
Some might find this undisclosed salesmanship outside of the spirit of the blogger-audience relationship. Personally, I'm happy to support Instapundit in such an easy, unobtrusive way. If you agree or disagree, I've opened up comments for this post.
What I can't fathom is how much money the Amazon program actually earns Instapundit. I've run them on Stone and $100K+ job site TheLadders.com (with 550,000 subscribers) for years without seeing much lucre for the trouble.
UPDATE: Glenn writes back: "Hey, it's disclosed -- read my FAQs! The referrer ID is actually my wife's who takes a girlish pleasure in each resulting Amazon sale."
I say: "Good for you!" I think this is actually a very good way to support the time, effort, expense and attention that goes into InstaPundit each day (hour? minute?) So kudos to you Glenn!
The Pro-Active Push
Aure Hoffman feels that The Monster is a Mouse and cites the advent of pro-actve candidate sites like us here at TheLadders.com.
Now folks have been predicting the demise of Monster since the advent of Monster, so I'm not sure Andy & the Gang are going away anytime soon.
I think more likely is that the dollars that have been cannibalized by online recruitment sites will retun to recruiting in the form of new services and offerings.
Recruitment advertising, perhaps a $10 bn business in 2000, is a $6 bn business today due to the lower cost and higher efficency of online alternatives.
Presuming that the actual usefulness of the recruitment advertising industry as a whole has stayed the same, or actually, improved, what this says to me is that companies have lots of extra cash in their pockets that they're willing to spend once new and powerful products are developed.
Businesses found that spending $10 billion was useful and a smart business decision.
Now they're finding that $6 billion gets them the same, or better, utility. That's $4 billion extra lying around waiting for even more useful services to come into existence.
What that says to me is that the Monster and TheLadders.com have long successful runs ahead of us, as do all the other recruitment solutions that have sprouted up: Indeed, SimplyHired, and Jobster prominently among them.
Death of the Newspaper
Great Things takes notice of TheLadders.com:
Ok. I state the obvious. Newspapers as they exist now are a dying business. Why? Readership is declining and advertising is moving from the offline world (unmeasurable) to the online world (very measurable). Specifically, the classified ad, the cash cow of the local paper, has begun and will continue to migrate online. Why pay the Toronto Star some silly amount of money (really anything greater than zero) to advertise your yard sale, used car or home when you can put the same listing, with a picture and more text, on Craig's List Toronto for zero cost? The answer is - you won't. I even have a data point to prove it. A guy I know who works in the old media business described the fall in classified revenue in the recruitment/jobs category. At one paper, revenue dropped from $70MM to $15MM over a five year period. Where is all that money going? Duhh, Monster, HotJobs and TheLadders. Seems like this will happen in every category...
The speed and ease of information dissemination over the internet will continue to hurt those who publish locally dependent versions of information on dead trees. We're not crowing about it (like Great Things, I love the WSJ), but it is what the customer wants.
Goota Love MIT
October 12, 2005
The art of e-mail in the job hunt
This great piece on online dating and e-mail applies equally as well to the job hunt.
Web 2.0 Summary: Scott says it best
Scott Rosenberg has the best summary posts on Web 2.0:
A great recounting of Jonathan Miller's anecdote:
AOL's Jonathan Miller told an amusing story of how, when he took over the company in the depths of the dot-com doldrums, he handled the resentment he found at various divisions of Time Warner, where employees and execs were disgruntled about how the AOL/Time merger had gone -- they felt they'd been snookered by AOL. He told them about having his car towed in Manhattan, and visiting the godforsaken place you go to get your car, and waiting in line forever, and getting angrier and angrier, and finally getting to the front of the line and seeing a sign that read: "The person here did not tow your car. They are here to help you get your car back. If you cooperate, you will get your car back faster."That's what he told the unhappy Time campers: "I did not tow your car."
...and then check out his article, also covering Diller's tech-skepticism, from ten years ago:
The Great Circle Mapper
A very cool little feature that shows you the Great Circle between two places on the globe.
Agreed with Infectious Greed
Infectious Greed quotes a smart entrepreneur:
Yeah, I went to Web 2.0 and I saw the companies presenting. Basically, I just looked at it as gratis feature demos for ideas on stuff that I might want to incorporate into future products. Anyone who thought they were looking at businesses is high.
That's exactly right.
Clapton is god. Search engines? Maybe Not.
SearchViews noted months ago that Search Engines Aren't Always the Answer:
Search engines are not always the best way to find the information you're looking for.For those who've come to hold a near religious belief in the power of Google, such a statement can be hard to swallow. But Bates goes on to give a convincing argument that calls for users to open their consciousness to other, high-quality online resources that can deliver the desired results for less time and effort.
I was reminded of this at Web 2.0 when Omid Kordestani of Google described Sergey's assessment of Google's quality: "He thinks it's a bad search engine."
Which brings to mind Winston Churchill's saying: "Democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the others."
Google IS a bad search engine, at least compared to the Platonic ideal, or even Google eighty years hence. But it's the best search engine today.
Not quite for the same reason, but similarly, search engines are not the answer to every challenge facing you in your daily life. Just because Google has become an indispensible tool for you in MANY of your needs, does not mean that it is the rigt tool for ALL of your needs. And people seem to forget that a bit, what with the buzz and the IPO and billionaire founders.
Why are there no clocks in airports?
The just-bowed TEDBlog asks why airports imitate casinos and not train stations.
Despite being the one most important piece of information anybody needs in relation to their flight -- what time is it relative to my departure time? -- no clocks!
Even the amazing JetBlue's terminal at JFK has NO CLOCKS! Does anybody know why?
I'm going to e-mail the CEO of JetBlue and keep you posted...
Flickr Memory
I absolutely love love loveFlickr Memory!
My demo tag with Flickr mashups is always "dumplings".
Try it.
4 Google Tricks
I knew two out of the 4 Google Tricks listed here. They're good ones:
- Fuzzy Search - Search for ~music player, and google searches for
music player,mp3 player,audio player, and other words that have similar meanings to music.,- Number Ranges - Searches for a range of numbers, for example mp3 player 20..60 GB will match 20, 40, and 60GB mp3 players (and any other number inbetween).
- Wildcard - When you place a
*in your query, google will match any word in between. For example: apple * player matchesapple ipod player,apple mp3 player, etc.- Search Page Title only - Use the
allintitle:operator to search only page titles. For example: allintitle:ipod Searches for any page with ipod in the title. You can also useintitle:to match just one word.
Neat!
Zimbra, Zimbra, Zimbra!
Like the jealous middle Brady, companies at Web 2.0 may have found themselves whining about the attention lavished on e-mail uber-achiever Zimbra. And for good reason.
Zimbra's 10-minute demo at Web 2.0 was jaw-dropping. Go here
for the demo.
Got a Fedex waybill # in your inbox? Mouse over it in Zimbra and up pops the delivery information.
Got a proposed meeting date? Mouse over for your calendar availability.
Got a flight number for your mom's flight? Mouse for flight plan.
Over and over again, Zimbra provides intuitive, useful features that should've been in Outlook five years ago.
And, oh yeah, did I mention the entire thing is web-based in AJAX and you never realize it!
Looks like attention-starved middle child syndrome will be here a while.....
The Biggest Benefit to Humanity Ever
Cheesman's Online Recruitment Blog leads the cheer for us:
Few would debate that in a 10-year span, the Internet has done more to benefit humanity than anything before it.
Yay Internet!
:)
I love our industry too, but to put it into perspective I'd heard (third hand, so maybe snopes.com or somebody can refute) that indoor plumbing has contributed more to human longevity than any other invention.
Humbling.
Show it, say it
Louise Fletcher, a good friend of TheLadders.com has two great posts this week that are of interest, not just to the job-seeker, but to professionals generally.
She answers the question Are You Showing or Telling?:
Which got me thinking about how all this applies to resumes and the job search process. One of the most common words you'll find in resume introductions is the word 'innovative.' And yet the people who describe themselves this way often do nothing innovative in their job search. They don't have a personal website. They don't market themselves in an exciting or unique way. They create a resume (sometimes using a template) and then they post it on Monster and apply for some jobs. Not all that innovative, is it?So, how can you stop telling and start showing?
And frames, in a pretty unique way, something I've aways felt about resumes, sure, but about how people position themselves in their careers with their colleagues, peers, and bossess:
I've written before about the importance of differentiating yourself in the job market and I think this is a very valuable exercise to help you do that. Try to develop an answer to the question "what do you do for a living?" that does not include your job title. Instead, begin with " I help companies to (do what?) by (doing what?)." For example, an IT executive might say: "I help companies to cut their costs and increase productivity by using the very latest technologies to streamline cumbersome business processes."You'll be amazed at how much this simple trick of focusing on your core differentiator can help in resume writing, interviewing and even salary negotiations.
I think this also ties into how much more powerful verbs are than nouns. Saying "I'm a Olympic runner" doesnt fire the imagination the way "I run the mile in under 4 minutes" does. You actually see the running in your head when you hear the verb "run" in a way that "runner" never engages.
Inflatable Pub
The Worlds First Inflatable Pub!
Plus: have as many Guinness as you want!
Minus: no darts!
Shrimp farming
Today's featured article at Wikipedia is Shrimp farm. I just love the random bits of knowledg Wikipedia throws in front of you on any particular day.
I was tangentially involved in shrimp farming in the 90s when I ran an import-export business. My prime line of work was exporting US made pet food to Japan. But one day a wholesaler needed feed for one of his customers -- a commercial shrimp farm.
So I ended up exporting a whole lot of shrimp feed to Japan as well?
And what do shrimp eat?
Artemia brine shrimp, which are found in abundance in the Great Salt Lake, and, more amusingly, are sold in the back of comic books as Sea Monkeys.
Web 2.0: Are these companies or features?
Bumped into Josh and Peter of Reprise / SearchViews at Web 2.0 -- and accidentally cut them in line on the JetBlue flight back (sorry guys!).
I love this take on the Web 2.0 phenomena:
Are these stand-alone companies?Joe Kraus, former Excite founder and current JotSpot head had a great sound bite during his session, when he said "a lot of these companies are features wrapped in company clothing." We suspect that some of these companies are intentionally not "whole" as they expect to get scooped by one of the big guys (read: Flickr, Picasa, etc), while others are really just overestimating the viability of their idea as a standalone service. The one fear we have for some of these entrepreneurs is...why can't Google, et al build some of these features on their own? Or, at the very least, just open up a web service a la Amazon and let the community take over?
Perhaps we're a bit hard-bitten here at TheLadders.com -- we are, after all, a direct marketing machine -- but we were struck over and over again by how "revenue model", "business model" or "monetization" were open questions for these companies cum feature sets. It's as if in the 80s drop-down menus and GUI became all the rage and companies sprouted up to develop these technologies, separte and apart from the applications in which they actually became popular.
By and of themselves, there is not a business, not even a Web 2.0 business, to be had in inventing cool features. Now, cool features combined together to solve a customer need, yeah, but cool features of themselves don't make for a sustainable business. Businesses are about meeting people's needs in exchange for cash from someone. Otherwise, it's a philanthropy, a university project, or a hobby. Perhaps a really well-organized or over-funded hobby, but a hobby.
Mashups, communities, and AJAX implementations are fantastic ways to occupy a distractingly large part of a lazy afternoon at the office; but to thrive beyond that, they'll need to put "monetization" first and "featurization" second.
Web 2.0
Finally out from the under the heap of work I get paid to do, so now I can blog about the Web 2.0 Conference 2005.
It was outstanding. From the variety and depth of the sessions and speakers, to the "Inside Baseball" list of internet industry attendees (where were Ballmer and Whitman?), to the buzz in the crowd, Web 2.0 was a big, gobbing, smashing success.
John Battelle and crew must be besides themselves with delirium (and lucre!)
October 10, 2005
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