Connecting the dots ...
No matter how much ad-placement algorithms improve the inevitable mistake happens from time to time. The article on Yahoo News discusses how Eastern European countries who agree to host the US missile defense system risk being targeted by Russian missiles. Now, what better ad to display, than a cute little Yahoo Rocket? 
Of course this is not as extreme as this ad right after Katrina hit New Orleans:
See also:
Snap preview is spreading like wildfire, they are up to 700,000 users all in a few months. It also drove people nuts, including yours truly, for being intrusive, too much “in the face“, often popping up unwanted. The conclusion was loud and clear: remove it.
But Snap persisted…and in the meantime reworked it’s system. The new solution has been tested by TechCrunch and Emily Chang’s blog, and today it’ s released to the public. As you can see on this blog, too, hovering over the URL-s no longer triggers the preview bubble; you have to hover over the little icon next to the URLs. I think this is a very good compromise, we can have snap functionality yet it’s no longer agressive – so I am giving it a try. I need to fine-tune it, for now there are icons on all links, including those in the sidebars – that’s not the way it should behave.
I’m looking for your feedback; is the newly “civilized” snap preview useful, or is it still annoying? (please click through to the article if the poll is not visible in your feed)
Update (2/20) Not that it’s a very decisive vote, but I’m removing it anyway…
Announced by Mike “TechCrunch” Arrington himself, here’s the latest anti-TechCrunch site: arringtonsucks.com, also available as michaelarringtonsucks.com.
Criticism is good. Raising your profile by being the counter-point to the uber-geek-web2.0-startup blog is acceptable. But frankly, “Bob and Joe” are off to a bad start. Picking this name for the blog tells volumes about themselves. Seriously, wasn’t ShitCrunch or TechCrush better? At least those guys made the intellectual effort of coming up with a good name, which although clearly indicated a counter-point, did not sound like a personal attack. (Actually, TechCrush wasn’t so much the anti TechCrunch, but an attempt to follow up on the (success) / failure of companies profiled on TechCrunch – something that later Mike started himself in his Deadpool posts.)
But Arringtonsucks is just low. And here’s the best: of course the authors are anonymous. Here’s what their “About” posts says:
“Bob and Joe are not our real names…
…We are 2 software engineers working for a large corporation during the day and on our own ventures evenings and weekends”
Needless to say, comments are closed on this post.
C’mon guys, Valleywag doesn’t like Mike Arrington either, there’s clearly a spat going on, but we all know who’s behind the Wag. There really should be no room for anonymity in the Blogosphere (except for Mini).
Tags: techcrunch, anti-techcrunch, arringtonsucks, michaelarringtonsucks, arringtonsucks.com, shitcrunch, techcrush, vallywag, rag, blogs, blogging, anonymity, attack-blog, bobandjoesuck.com
There’s a crazy meme going on which has the potential of turning Technorati ranks upside-down. Now, that may sometimes be good, giving fresh views more visibility, like Seth Godin or Steve Rubel’s recent initiatives. The new 2000 Bloggers craze is nothing comparable though: it’s random, viral, and has to potential to turn links, the glue of the blogosphere completely meaningless.
If you blog, there’s a good chance you’re one of the 2000: when Tino Buntic launched his project he seeded the initial collage with photos/links of 300 or so bloggers. The initial roster included A-listers like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, Ross Mayfield, Matt Cutts, Doc Searls, celebrities like Donald Trump, Rosie O’Donnell and “regular” bloggers like yours truly. The rest of the slots got filled on a sign-up basis.
It may all have started innocently: “let’s discover our blogging neighbors”. Several bloggers I respect embraced the idea, pointing out the “social networking” effect. Most of the A-list remained silent, but France’s top Blogger, Loic Le Meur welcomed it as a “cool initiative“. I’m amazed that no one seems to recognize what this project really is: blind, unselective, dumb link-exchange.
Links are good, but they are supposed to refer to content. Not here. No-one can seriously claim that we’re really “discovering” 2000 bloggers this way …. the whole game is not about checking out new blogs, it’s just an efficient copy/paste link-generation machine. I can somewhat understand the enthusiastic response the 2000 Bloggers scheme received: who would not be happy with hundreds of new inbound links, a major improvement in their Technorati rank? But if you think *that* will make you an A-lister, think again…and again.
First, what’s the point of getting a few hundred or even 2000 new inbound links when everyone else has it? Your link-wealth will be worth less and less as the 2000 Bloggers do a good job of devaluing their currency. Word will get out and unless Technorati finds a way of ignoring these inflated link-counts, the whole value system based on links and Technorati ranks becomes a joke, and will collapse. Now, that’s my doomsday scenario, my bet is that Dave Sifry and team will find a way to disarm the monster soon. Update (2/5): They did. Even so, any service that lists inbound links has just become useless: I now have to sift through pages of crap to find the links that I care about – which is when people actually red my posts and found them interesting.
And don’t think it’s only Technorati – this is gaming Google and any other search / indexing service, too. It can backfire, too: I wouldn’t be surprised if Google’s almighty algorithm decided the entire 2000 bloggers neighborhood was a linkfarm and penalized the sites accordingly.
Earlier I said this whole project may have started “innocently”. Well, on second thought, perhaps not: Tino Buntic’s blog is all about linking, SEO, blog-advertising, he certainly knows what he is doing. But I do believe most of the 2000 community is just going along for the ride, without realizing the consequences. If you’re one of the 2000, all I ask you is think. Think and draw your own conclusion.
Update : I wrote this post late Friday and planned to release it on Monday. In the meantime I’m glad to report to have discovered the first signs of sanity: Jeremiah Owyang rejects the scheme, and I suppose so does this French-language blog, too – if I guessed the title right. Anybody else? Hello, World!!! Update (1/6): Apparently I missed crediting Amy Gahran for being first to raise the linkfarm issue.
Tags: 2000 bloggers, 2000 bloggers meme, 2000 bloggers project, seo, links, linking, blogs, blogging, technorati, technorati rank, google, link-exchange, linkbait, linkfarm, spam, blog spam, a-list
Ross Mayfield points to another interesting wiki-experiment: the authors of Wikinomics, a fast-selling new business book opened up Chapter 11 (no, this is not *that* Chapter 11) to collective editing, leaving it to the public to “finish” the book.
The Wikinomics Playbook is a Socialtext-based wiki with minimum initial content that anyone can contribute to. It will likely never be “finished” as such. Unlike the recent Wired Wiki experiment, this project is open-ended, without a firm deadline. It will be interesting to observe how the absence of any incentive to wait for last minute edits (a’la eBay auction sniping) leads to different behaviors.
For now, I sense the experiment is going somewhat sideways: page content is not growing as much as comments are. I guess it’s easier to talk about it than actually doing it (hm… that’s what I am doing, too
), but that carries the risk of the Playbook becoming just another discussion forum. Perhaps we should all heed the advice under Be Bold:
“Being bold is necessary advice in wikis: most people aren’t accustomed to editing each other’s sentences. In a wiki participants must be bold because it is only by many iterative edits that mass intelligence can occur and wisdom can triumph over verbosity. If we are bold the content will evolve.”
Tags: wiki, wikinomics, wikinomics playbook, socialtext, wired wiki, collaboration, collaborative book editing, open-ended book, online book
Finally, the iPod Week is gone, Techmeme becomes Techmeme again. Unless… it’s becoming Yahoo week.
Wired’s How Yahoo Blew It piece is in the top spot for now, and I expect within hours blog reactions to it will take up half of Techmeme. Perhaps Gabe needs to develop some sort of overload safety valve to prevent one subject from overtaking the entire site…
Anyway, mine may be perhaps the shortest summary of the article – actually, it’s not even mine, Wired’s Fred Vogelstein sums it up for us:
“At Yahoo, the marketers rule, and at Google the engineers rule. And for that, Yahoo is finally paying the price.”
OK, that’s the conclusion, but read the story for the juicy bits.
Finally, a “contrarian” take from Brad Feld, who reminds us Yahoo isn’t dead yet and may just have a real shot with Panama.
It certainly feels like every single blog is talking about MyBlogBlog’s acquisition by Yahoo. I think TechCrunch gets the “Best Title” award: Yahoo Buys MyBlogLog. No, They Didn’t. Wait, Yes.
Well, I am the exception, I am NOT writing about the deal
When I first installed it on my blog, I thought this was all about providing useful outbound stats (who clicked what..etc). Then the faceroll showed up, and before we noticed, MyBlogLog transformed itself into a social networking tool for bloggers. That’s all fine, I like it and use it.
But recently I am starting to get spammed. Probably not “bad” spam, just a network’s growing pains – contact notifications from people I’ve never before heard about. I went through this with LinkedIn, until I established my own “less is more” ground rules. Now, let’s recognize that LinkedIn is primarily for business, and by definition is more restrictive – online contacts there should really reflect one’s real-live network. I feel MyBlogLog is more open, there is room for creating new “friendships” online – yet I think it would be helpful to establish some protocol before contact-hunting escalates to far.
Making someone a contact is not the only way to network, and if we don’t already know each other, it’s certainly not the right initial step. That’s what joining each other’s blog communities and sending messages are for. But frankly, “interesting read!” is not a message – if this was a blog-comment, it would be borderline spam. Which brings up the other point – if you join someone’s blog community, supposedly you’re interested in actually reading the blog itself, will likely engage in a conversation through comments or trackbacks, and soon you will really know each other – that’s the right time to add them as a contact.
By following this simple protocol, we can keep MyBlogLog spam-free. What to you think?
(Updated)
Fred Wilson doesn’t like Mike Arrington’s deadpool:
“So I have to shake my head at the resurrection of the dead pool, which was made popular last time around by Fucked Company. Do we really need to celebrate when companies fail?”
No, we don’t, and I don’t think TechCrunch does. Let’s be realistic: TechCrunch did not build this boom. Yes, a well-timed review helps a startup gain initial traction, but Mike does not make those companies successful: whether they make it or not, they do so on their own. And when they fail, they fail own their own merits, too. Failures are part of business reality, and reporting on them only makes TechCrunch balanced. Without it Mike would be just a biased cheerleader (something he was accused of in the past).
In fact Arrington’s latest post, Bubble, Bubble, Bubble is optimistic, despite the title:
“But this doesn’t mean we’re in a bubble. In fact, I think the exact opposite. I think a few failures are direct evidence that we are not in a bubble and that the private venture markets are actually in the process of letting off a little steam to keep things rational…
…I also disagree that too much money is chasing too few good ideas … Remember that VC’s business models are designed to fail most of the time – the majority of their investments are expected to go belly up, and they hope that just one or two out of ten have a big return…
…So every time a startup dies, I don’t think it’s evidence of a bubble about to burst. I think it’s evidence of a market that is working exactly as it should. Most companies fail, but enough win to keep the whole ecosystem healthy.”
This does not sound like deadpool celebration to me. Au contraire, it sounds like realistic, but still positive market assessment.
Most companies in the “deadpool” are/were way overfunded for what they do. They, and their investors did not follow the model outlined in Fred Wilson’s excellent article, Web 2.0 Is A Gift, Not A Threat, To VCs. A must-read, IMHO.
Update (1/8): Our little discussion made it to The New York Times.
(Updated)
“The definition of “googol” is a number, and Google lives by numbers. So how else should we look back over the year but with numerical bits?”
That’s the opening line of A year in Google blogging, then it lists the number of posts, products unveiled, acquisitions ..etc. There is one number remarkably missing: the number of comments. I wanted to ask about this in a comment, but I couldn’t. The Google Blog does not allow commenting. .
They claim they love feedback: but the only way to leave feedback is by emailing them. Hm, not much of “love” here, if you ask me.
Whatever happened to “conversation”?
I’m sorry, Google, you have Blogger, but until you open up commenting, you don’t have a Google Blog.
Update #1: Scoble is right, Matt Cutts does a better job for Google PR than this…
Update #2: Mike at TechCrunch agrees, in fact he’s running a poll on the issue – worth checking a little later.
Update #3: The TechCrunch post drew a lot of attention to the subject, all of a sudden. Quite a few commenters don’t feel comments are necessary – and ironically they make that observation in … yes, that’s right, comments. In the meantime I re-read the Google post, and found this towards the end:
“And before long, perhaps you can begin leaving comments directly. We’re working on that.”
Hm.. that makes me feel a bit silly … am I pounding the table for something Google has already agreed to? I don’t remember having read this originally, but it could very well have been my mistake. A quick check on Google cache finds a more explicit statement:
“Meanwhile, we really appreciate your interest and feedback, now visible through “Links to this post.” We know some of you would like to offer comments directly, and we would like that too, when we can add resources to the blog crew.”
The cached version is time-stamped 5:18pm, while the current blog post has 4:23pm, so the earlier version appears to be live … go figure. In the end, it really does not matter, what’s important is that the Googlers agree to bring the conversation on.
[Update to the update: I was blind, sorry. The cached version is from the end of 2005. Thanks to Ionut for pointing this out. It’s pretty sad though… if commenting was already on the agenda in Dec 2005, and it still is, it tells us just how seriously Google takes this “promise”. ]
And as for the lack of resources, well, perhaps the solution isn’t formally hiring more “blogging crew”, but embracing Matt Cutts’s idea:
“- Each project at Google should monitor the blogosphere for issues. Reduce the disconnect to reduce the danger.
– Get more Googlers talking online. There will be some mistakes, but the conversations will be worth it.”
Blogging crew or not, let Googlers volunteer on the Google Blog. I’m sure we’ll have a lively conversation.
Update (01/02): Amazingly this is the third day in a row this discussion lives on TechMeme ….
Update (7/11/07): Fred Wilson brings the subject up again:
“You can’t turn off the comments and have a truly interactive blog with a community. Comments are where it’s at in blogging. If I turned off comments, I’d quit blogging.
… A blog without comments is a one way medium. And that’s not as good as a conversation.”
I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately we’re seeing examples of just the opposite, like Marc Andreessen whose otherwise excellent blog is now commentless, or Zooomr, who simply turned off comments to redirect the conversation to their internal groups.
Is anyone else getting this junk all over their feed reader? The WordPress test post is dated Oct 26th, but for the past two days it shows up randomly in just about any Attensa folder… I can’t keep up deleting it.
Update (2/5): Well, whatever it is, whoever they are, just got acquired. Congrat’s ( I guess?).
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