Posts from October 2005

Dave Garr, a Silicon Valley marketing geek, decided to create a special website to propose to his girlfriend Elizabeth last week. The site parodies eHarmony and uses Web 2.0 engagement synergy technologies such as embedded video and a guide to dating milestones using Google Maps. The couple created a TypePad blog to allow friends and family to follow their wedding and honeymoon planning. I like the use of Google Maps to illustrate date locations and points of personal interest. The engagement process was heavily documented for friends and family who can follow along step-by-step and see pictures and video of...

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A few months ago Sony closed down part of San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood to film a commercial with over 250,000 superballs bouncing down the hill. Sony wants to emphasize the richness of color in its televisions, and director Nicolai Fuglsig's use of bright bouncy balls definitely illustrated that point. The high resolution version of the 60 second commercial is about 18 MB and the crispness is worth the wait. You may also watch the smaller 5 MB video below. I have watched the video at least 5 times already. I recommend downloading the zipped archive of the high...

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Speaker of the House Denny Hastert is now blogging. Hastert is the #3 politician in Washington D.C., second only to Vice President Dick Cheney in the Presidential line of succession. He hopes to provide "some inside access to the Republican playbook." The internet is changing the way we share information. My office has been talking a lot about some of the conversations going on in blogosphere. So I thought, hey, I should start one and give you unfiltered updates on Capitol Hill. The journal has no comments, not even a list to a congressional e-mail address. The journal does not...

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A recent survey by Advertising Age found about 35 million workers in the United States visit blogs and spend an average of 40 minutes a day reading blogs. 25% of blog visits could be considered job-related. Work time spent reading and posting to blogs will consume 2.2% of all labor force hours this year according to Advertising Age. You need an Advertising Age account to view the article. Try BugMeNot for nag-free access. Tags: advertising, adage...

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Six Apart is hosting the San Francisco Perl Users Group tonight at 8 p.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at Movable Type. Byrne Reese will discuss the underpinning of Movable Type's architecture and design decisions. The meeting is free and open to all attendees. Topics Template tags Text fliters Callbacks Alternate templates MT::Plugin MT::Object MT:App Tags: movabletype, perl...

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Kevin Burton has been working on a new ranking system for webpages to help sort through the data overload faced by readers. TailRank is currently in an experimental stage and using the Wikipedia database to make sense of a known set of about 800,000 articles. Kevin is currently looking to expand TailRank to the world of weblogs and eventually to the people behind those weblogs. He would ideally like to link authors to their multiple blogs, podcasts, events, and jobs for a more complete view of online activity and content of interest. Kevin needs some servers. He is a huge...

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Del.icio.us now offers keyword search for its database of annotated bookmarks. Every search result page includes a list of related tags, providing an interesting snapshot of how the universe of del.icio.us users classifies you and your work. Top related tags for "Niall Kennedy": rss blogs technorati blog blogging Tags: delicious, folksonomy...

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Google provides a full suite of services for the entry-level blog spammer. There are plenty of legitimate uses for all of these Google services, but Google's market-leading position in search creates a spam ecosystem that inflates corporate revenues, index size, and user data. Google's blog hosting service, Blog*Spot, received a lot of attention this week as blogosphere neighbors threw up their arms in protest of the host, which is like the seedy motel at the edge of town that rents by the-hour. It's cheap and inviting to those who know no better, but those in the know don't want anything...

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The opening of Engadget Labs has been delayed as the new offices are still being constructed. I previously reported the new office space would open October 15 but Peter Rojas and Ryan Block told me this week the contractors are still working on the new space. Engadget continues to operate out of their own apartments. Tags: engadget...

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Verizon Wireless added a blogging category to its Get It Now wireless internet portal last night. The blogging category currently features links to moblogging sites Rabble and Upoc. Rabble was previously available under the Fun & Games>Entertainment category last spring. Want to check out the blogging links on your own Verizon phone? The links are currently available on the following handsets according to Verizon PR: LG VX6000 LG VX4600 LG VX4500 LG VX8000 LG VX7000 LG VX4700 LG VX6100 LG VX8100 LG VX4650 Samsung SCH-a650 Samsung SCH-a790 Samsung SCH-N330 Samsung SCH-a890 Samsung SCH-a670 Samsung SCH-a570 Motorola a840 Motorola V260 Motorola...

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