Some stuff that caught my eye today.
And finally, BA flights into Heathrow are grounded, at least until Friday. Hopefully I won’t be stuck on New York any longer than planned, but I can see this having knock-on effects.
Aug
12
Monthly Archives: August 2005
Aug
11
Ever changing face of English
The second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English is published this week, with a raft of new words. Of interest are some of the following definitions;
– chugger – a person who approaches passers-by in the street asking for donations or subscriptions to a particular charity.
– offshoring – the practice of basing some of a company’s processes or services overseas, so as to take advantage of lower costs.
– wiki – a website or database developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content.
– retail politics – US a style of political campaigning in which the candidate attends local events in order to target voters on a small-scale or individual basis.
There’s also a whole list of words that have not yet made the dictionary, such as soduku, micromoments,
Aug
10
Podcasting: Bubble or Mainstream
No-one is sure. At the same time as the term “Podcast” (digital recording of a radio broadcast made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player) enters the Oxford Dictionary of English, its demise is already being predicted. Forrester Research Analyst Ted Schadler is expecting a boom and then a long tail off, as only the most valuable ‘casts are left. This comes on the same day as Adam Curry’s Podshow Inc receives $8.85 Million in funding
Aug
10
While away a few moment
A couple of sites via Adverblog to waste a few moments at work. The first is from Snickers (and I still always say Marathon in my head), a site with a daily changing game or interesting flash peice. The second is from Virgin Atlantic Australia, a amusing little game to let you know how all your onboard problems are associated with not flying Virgin Upper Class for your business travel.
Via Adrants, Sony Ericsson are running a customer-submitted contest for mobile phone photo recreations of famous movie moments.
Aug
10
Spam Blogs
Dave Sifry has posted his report on spam and fake blogs. This has less numbers than the previous updates and is is more a decription piece, with details of the varuous types of spamming and a summary of the kinds of actions that have been done and what is planned. What is clear is that thos problem has not been cracked in any meaningful way – there are still plenty of discussions to be had.
Aug
10
State of the Blogosphere
I’ve read the Comcast report, I’ve also read Jason Colacanis’s challenge to the figures.
WIth a finding that 30% of the US internet population, close to 50 million people, have visited a blog (even if they do not realise it’s a blog) then it has to have interest to the monetizers if the internet, especially given the summarised findings of the type of vistors.
The challenge comes around the detail (in the pdf report), looking at the visits/visitors to the various blogs. Jason looks closely at his company’s blogs vs that of Nick Denton’s (who sponsored the report) and finds worrying discrepancies that he cannot reconcile with what he knows from other sources about traffic figures. The debate seems set to continue.
Aug
10
Overload
I take 2 days with limited time and minimal access to the web and there’s far too much to read. But it looks like AOL start an interesting sweepstake in the US tomorrow, giving away $20k in gold bars, $75k in cash and a 2003 Hummer, all of which were seized from spammers following court action. I can see the gold making an conversation piece for the lounge! There’s probably a link somewhere, but can’t find it yet (via USA Today)
Aug
08
TV Ads are dead?
Hugh again challenges traditional marketing for big brands, but instead of suggesting ‘new media’ as an alterntive thinks there is no hope for such brands. In the multi-billion dollar suicide pact between clients and television and the earlier post about letting big media stay focused on what they think works why others just get on with it.
But its not going to be that simple. The clever brands already recognise the changing face of advertising; there are more and more reports about brands switching spend from TV to online. They’ll never entirely abandon TV ads, but there’s more and more integration. The fun will be in watching how many of them get it right and how many crash and burn.
Aug
08
MSN Filter
Must say the MSN Filter leaves me a little underwhelmed. I’m not sure exactly what it is trying to do, the interface/portal just feels a little staid and the lack of personalisation (ie who writes) is annoying. If you look there are posts about who is doing what, but nothing jumps out at you.
Interstingly, despite a a ‘mission statement of: “MSN Filter is your one-stop shop for the inside scoop on what’s happening across the Web, according to the people who know the most”, most of the links currently go to mainstream media sites.
Aug
08
Link Bias
Danah Boyd has written about link bias using a random smaple. Although she says that her conclusions are not firm enough to be called findings, they provide good indicators into some online behaviours.
Looking at the Technorati 100, many of which are group blogs, often with some financial incentive she concludes that regardless of the algorithm, where there is an advantage to being in the ‘top’ lisitng, people will try and manipulate the algorthm.
On Mary Hodder’s thoughts,
While i’ve been looking into the linking patterns, Mary Hodder has been thinking through new metrics for measurement. These are very important but not because one is better than the other. In fact, if we all switched to any of her metrics, we’d have just as many biases as we have now. And many of the Top blogs would try to figure out how to get rank in that system. The significance lies in the ability to offer choice.
Choice is the key – different ways ot look at what is there.
Aug
08
Airports
I actually managed to get a massage at the Spa in the airport lounge; with that and the champagne I was all set up for the flight. Pity about the hours delay sitting on the tarmac at the other end when they couldn’t find somewhere to park.
Meanwhile, here’s Fruitstock, a free festival in Regent’s Park held over the weekend;
Aug
07
Blogging in the Times
India Knight has a piece in the Sunday Times today about the rise of blogs. As with many of the articles in the press this week, despite a mention of an Iraqi blogger Sallam Pax, it focuses in gossip and online diaries, not the multitude of other uses that can be found. I guess it’s the most obvious of the hooks into the media type.
Aug
07
Ranking algorithms
Mary Hodder has blogged her starting point for a new kind of ranking, an effort to measure the social relationships across blogs and posts. There’s a lot of information and suggestions in the post; some of the things suggested may not be possible, but at this is a start.
Aug
07
The rise of tagging
In part 3 of Sifry’s review of the blogosphere, he reviews tagging, which really started taking off at the beginning of the year. Key points:
I’m expecting the former number to increase and the latter to decrease slowly. There’s a nice animation video showign the growth of the tags.
The review of spam blogs was promised next; still waiting. Definitely interested in how those are being tackled.
Aug
07
News Snippets
A few thngs in the news caught my eye today.
Scientists can read minds. Or at least work out, after a lot of practice, which of two pictures the brain is looking at, or where about in a film the subject has reached. The BBC report on 2 papers that have been published, indicating that brain wave patterns/activities are different depending on what we are watching and more importantly, they now have the tools to measure it.
Sub gets rescued. This time, help was called in earlier enough and the Russians were able to rescue the crew of the lost sub; everyone appeared to be OK.
Robin Cook dies. At the young age of 59, Robin Cook dies after hiking in the mountains. This caught my attention as Cook is the one politician I have actually seen in person (although I could have seen a lot more and never recognised them). He was sitting on a Tube, politely dealing with tbe 2 or 3 people who came up to him thanking hime for his stance on the Iraq war. He always seemed one of the more sensible and principled politicians.
Aug
07
Stormhoek wine
I finally received my wine as part of Hugh’s offer and, more importantly, finally got time to drink it. First impressions are good- how often do you get drink with your name on. On pouring, the colour is pale and clear; the nose is crisp, lemony, smells fresh and perfect for summer. On tasting, there’s a tongue-tingling fizz, usually a sign of CO2 being present, a little bite of acid. Drinking some the next day, this had mellowed. The taste matches up to the nose, freshness, tastes expeceted from Savignon Blanc, leaving a smooth aftertaste.
Alltogether a very pleasnat wine, perfect for barbecues and matching with fish/meat to cut through the oil. I’ll be looking out for it when shopping.
Aug
05
Scrambling
Aug
04
Travel Tips
Via London Underground. a very cool set of maps from quickmap.com, a company that’s been providing online maps for about 6 years. Wonderful fun little dynamic maps, that are quite mind-numbing to watch. The Tube one is fun, but my favourites are the bus ones, with the hoardes of buses being let loose from the central hubs.
Aug
04
Always wanted to emigrate?
Here’s your chance – and you don’t even have to move out of London. Danny Wallace has taken his dream and declared himself King of a new country. No need to call in the movers, his territory consists of his flat in Bow, a decision made after a failed attempt to invade Eel Pie Island, a small patch of land in the middle of the Thames. He’s now calling for citizens to join him and over 3000 have signed up. However, finding somewhere to sit to watch Danny’s coronation may be difficult – the flat is the size of a squash court. Never mind, it has a map, an army and a budget; looks like it’ll go far. There’s a BBC2 programme that goes with this as well.
Aug
04
Police Overflow and Paper charges
The police will be everywhere today – has anyone else noticed they appear to be going round in threes?
Update: counted 45 police around Waterloo, up from last week.
The Independent is starting a new Bridget Jones Diary, from Helen Fielding. I was going to read it, but it’s behind a paywall…£1 to pay. £1. The paper only costs about 40p! So I don’t think I will be reading it.