Archives for March 2007

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Technorati Still Needs a White Knight

Posted on March 5, 2007 ·

“I’ve complained so much about Technorati‘s non-performance, it’s getting boring.”  – This is a quote from a post I wrote 9 month ago.  Nothing changed since then.   They keep on changing the humorous (?) error messages:

Doh! The Technorati Monster escaped again.

No, sorry guys, it’s not a Monster. Perhaps a Snail.  A Turtle at max.   

I recognize Technorati for being innovators in the Blogosphere,  and I prefer using it for the features.  But there is one “feature” where Google Blog Search wins: it works.  All the time.   Technorati is dead more often than not, and even when it’s “alive”, it’s barely crawling.

Technorati is clearly an IP company ( a damned good at that) that cannot cope with the infrastructure requirements of the growing Blogosphere.  Isn’t there a White Knight out there that would acquire them and save us all from this slow suffocation?

Update: Wow, quite a coincidence:  Read/WriteWeb is discussing Technorati’s exit options today. 

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Business, SaaS, Software, Startups, Technology ·
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Conservapedia: an Exclusionist Wikipedia-Clone

Posted on March 5, 2007 ·

And I thought Wikipedia’s deletionists were exclusionist. Oh, boy, was I wrong… the real exclusionists created their own Wikipedia-clone:

“Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American… Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.”

How can it possibly be an objective source of  “historical, scientific, legal, and economic topics” by excluding the views of the majority of the World?

As for Christianity and America, I hate to bring this to the Conservafolks, but Christianity really, really did not originate in America.  Not that Conservapedia’s entry on Christianity explains anything – you’ll have to check out Wikipedia for that. 

Conservapedia doesn’t fare any better on the *minor* [sic] contribution to history, science, culture, architecture ..etc by pre-Christian civilizations like Egypt, China, Greece ..etc.  For example here’s the entire entry on Egypt:

“The oldest non-nomadic civilization in the world which still exists today. Egypt is located in north-east Africa.  ”

Greece does not do any better:

“The collective term for the civilizations of the Greek subcontinent.”

Nice. Concise?  Pathetic.

 

Conservapedia started as a school project.  (Again, we have to visit Wikipedia, not Conservapedia to learn this).  I’m sure eliminating diversity, filtering out most of the World’s knowledge is the best way to improve our kids’ education.  As if America were not already falling behind in education. My advice to the Conservafolks: get Senator Ted Stevens on board.

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Collaboration, Misc, Politics, Software, Technology ·
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The Web’s Top 50 by PC World

Posted on March 5, 2007 ·

Despite what Time Magazine says, *WE* are not the most important people on the Web. PC World has just published the list of The 50 Most important people on the Web.

Topping the list is the Google Triumvirate – no surprises there.  Steve Jobs in the #2 slot?  Hm, I don’t know… and BitTorent #3?

I’m certainly happy to see Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales in the 5th position and Craig(slist) Newmark in no 7.  To be fair, I am biased, happy for them, not sure whether those are the right slots …

Youtube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are #10 – but wait, they are now a Yahoo property, and their “owners” (Oops, my bad, pre-coffee mistake, of course Gootube is part of Google… thanks to Christopher for correcting me) , Jerry Yang, David Filo, and Terry Semel only come in slot #19!

On a personal note, I’m glad to see several blogging personalities recognized, including Robert Scoble (Scobleizer),  Mike Arrington (TechCrunch),  Dave Winer (Scripting News) as well as those who significantly contributed to the blogging infrastrucure: Matt Mullenweg (WordPress), Kevin Rose (Digg), Gabe Rivera (Techmeme), Rob Malda (Slashdot).

Now, of course if PC World really wanted to live up to the Open Web, they would have concluded the article with an open poll, letting *us* come up with our own ranking….

Related posts: HipMojo.com, Guardian Unlimited, Blogtronix , Now I Have a Blog Too ,

Good Morning Silicon Valley, WOW Insider, Rex Hammock’s weblog, Scobleizer, Mark Evans, 901am, and The Other Here

Update (3/05): A funny quirk on Techmeme: The Yahoo News version of  the PC World article gets all the exposure while PC World’s own blog entry that points to the article sits separated in an obscure corner. Update to the update: they are now merged.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Business, Software, Technology ·
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Hate Speech in the Presidential Campaign

Posted on March 3, 2007 ·

This campaign hasn’t really started, but it has reached a shamefully low point when Ann Coulter publicly called Senator John Edwards a faggot. 

 

This may not be such a surprise, considering that in the past she made similar remarks about Al Gore and Bill Clinton.  What’s really, really bad though is that she made the speech from the podium of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) attended by several GOP Presidential candidates and VP Cheney –  and the audience was cheering.  C’mon, anyone with a sense of decency should have left the room.

Notably absent was Senator John McCain and so far he is the only Republican candidate publicly denouncing Coulter’s remarks.

This campaign is off to an ugly start.

 

Filed Under: Politics ·
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In God We Don’t Trust

Posted on March 2, 2007 ·

Indiana bank refuses to cash man’s $50,000 check from the Almighty.  

“Kevin Russell found out it’s not easy trying to cash a check from God. The 21-year-old man was arrested Monday after he tried to cash a check for $50,000 at the Chase Bank in Hobart that was signed “King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant,” Hobart police Detective Jeff White said.”

Unbelievable. What was he thinking?  Full story at the SF Chronicle.

Filed Under: Misc ·
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