post

Twitter May Have Found Cure to Outages

Posted on July 23, 2008 ·

It’s really simple: with less users Twitter won’t go down that often, and that’s exactly what’s happening: users complain left and right about losing followers:

Creative solution… 🙁

Update: OK, there’s an explanation for all this… but hey, if they get all followers back, there goes the stability gain… LOL:

We’re still in the process of recovering from the missing follower/following problem that occurred earlier today. Over the next several hours, you may see inaccurate counts or timeline inconsistencies as the correct data is propagated to all parts of the system.

Related articles by Zemanta
Zemanta Pixie
Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: ,
post

Math Problem Solved

Posted on July 11, 2008 ·

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , ,
post

Atlassian Hiring Chief Heineken-taster

Posted on June 28, 2008 ·

Last time I thought VP Marketing @ Atlassian was the Dream Job, but this one is better.  Your job will be to compare beer quality in Amsterdam vs. what they sell at Atlassian’s (almost) in-house pub in Sydney.   According to a commenter you may do some additional market research, too. smile_embaressed

 

Oh, well, here’s what they really want (cool company anyway).

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , , ,
post

Miss Australia for MindTouch

Posted on June 24, 2008 ·

Which one would you pick?

I thought so…

I fully expected to see Miss Australia (my bad!) when Aaron sent me this ink:

http://www.misaustralia.com/viewer.aspx?EDP://20080624000020821190&magsection=spotlight-home&portal=_kb&section=management&title=Wiki+model+virtually+as+easy+as+it+gets&source=/_xmlfeeds/mis/spotlight/feed.xml

And guess what I got: the MIS logo. smile_sad

Oh, well, no babe today, but a good story on MindTouch DekiWiki, nevertheless.

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , ,
post

Microsoft Legal Wants Me to Take Down THEIR OWN CONTENT

Posted on June 11, 2008 ·

I received a surprising voicemail from Microsoft Legal – they demand that I take down the content at www.theultimatebug.com since it points to a promotion that’s no longer running. Click below to hear the voicemail, courtesy of GrandCentral:

There’s only one problem (actually more): this is not my content, it was set up and is controlled by Microsoft, or an entity that created the promo for Microsoft. The promotion it refers to, The Ultimate Steal was actually quite generous, giving MS Office away to students for $60. My post on the subject was partly promotional, partly poking fun at MightySoft since they could not even get the promo site up working properly:

The countdown reached zero, and started again. And again… several times, even after the advertised opening of the promotion, users were not able to get in, they were just staring at the recycled counter. A commenter @ CrunchGear called it The Ultimate Publicity Scam. I thought it was just a bug, so I created www.theultimatebug.com and pointed to to the MS promo site.

Now they want me to take it down. I can’t, since it’s not my site. The Ultimate Bug domain points to 209.162.191.152, which appears to belong to Peek Consulting LLC, in Louisville, KY. Perhaps MS or Digital River worked with them to create the promotion … I have no clue. Ultimatesteal.com is owned by Microsoft, and while they rerouted the main page to an end-of-life notice, the original content, the one Microsoft Legal wants me to take down is still available here: http://www.theultimatesteal.com/store/msshus/ContentTheme/pbPage.microsoft_office_ultimate

Dear Microsoft, feel free to take your content down any time. And perhaps next time use a smarter agency.

Of course this makes me wonder: what if I really had duplicated the content on my site? Could MS legally force me to remove it, even though it clearly identifies the end-date as May 16 2208? I know some attorneys who read this blog, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to jump in with your comments. Thanks in advance.

Update (6/13) : Someone at Microsoft is reading this blog, after all.  209.162.191.152 which theultimatebug.com was pointing to now shows ‘under construction’.  The “bug” lost its meaning after MS fixed the error anyway, and now the promotion itself is over… I need to figure out what to do with this cool domain.  In the meantime I am redirecting it to the original post that started it all.

Zemanta Pixie
Filed Under: Marketing / PR, Personal Productivity · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,
post

Facebook Runs a Sweatshop – Literally

Posted on May 29, 2008 ·

Facebook runs a sweatshop – literally. The evidence is in the yellow circle on this Valleywag-supplied photo of their Palo Alto office space.

While employees are struggling with the heat, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is clearly wearing shoes instead of his trademark Adidas flip-flops at the D6 conference in Carlsbad (photo by Dan Farber):

Therein lies the solution: bring the flip-flops back. But don’t stop there: mandate beach-wear in the office. An amazingly simple solution to many of Facebooks problems:

  • – No more heat problem
  • – Increased employee morale, probably enough for them to forget about revoked housing subsidy
  • – Additional incentive to stay in the office longer
  • – Reduced energy bill
  • – Going Green is trendy, there’s another $5B added to their valuation.

I’m a genius. Sending Zuck a $10K consulting invoice. island

Update: Why can’t WordPress 2.5 dislay bulletpoints properly?

Related articles
Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , ,
post

MicroScoble: Scoble to Become Microsoft CEO

Posted on May 19, 2008 ·

While outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is being egged in Budapest Fake Steve Jobs is already running a poll to find his replacement. Ex-Microsoftie, current Uber-Blogger Robert Scoble seems to have a solid lead:

Congrat’s, MicroScoble! smile_teeth

Update: Robert did not hesitate to declare his first move as CEO: Why Microsoft will buy Facebook and keep it closed.

Filed Under: Humor · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
post

YahoOL

Posted on April 10, 2008 ·

This is a shameless reprint of my post exactly two months ago:

Yahoo running to AOL to avoid assimilation by the (Micro-)Borg?  Hm… I don’t know which one is worse. (Actually, I do.)   The funny (actually, sad) thing is, most of my Best MicroHoo quotes apply to a Yahoo/AOL situation, you just have to replace Microsoft with AOLsmile_sad

Stowe Boyd:

Personally, I think the Microsoft and Yahoo matchup is like two tired swimmers who bump into each other and then wind up drowning each other in their scramble to survive. But Yahoo will be the first to go under in this embrace.

Fake Steve Jobs:

It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster.

Imagine a circus act in which two enormous, clumsy, awkward elephants that don’t really like each other are supposed to mate while riding on skateboards.

Oh, well… a sad soap opera.  smile_omg

 

Related posts (a few of the many): Silicon Alley Insider, TechCrunch,  BoomTown, BloggingStocks, Technology news, Tech Beat, HipMojo.com, Deal Journal, Mark Evans, TECH.BLORGE.com, BuzzMachine ,  MarketingVOX

Filed Under: Business, Software · Tagged: , , , , , , ,
post

TechCrunch in the Toilet

Posted on March 7, 2008 ·

No, I am not implying that TechCrunch is bankrupt, or heading into their own Deadpool.  TC has all the signs of doing just fine, with 700K subscribers and loads of advertisers.  But they are in the toilet, nevertheless – at least in a certain toilet.

Online file-sharing and collaboration startup Box.net is changing the ancient habit of reading your newspaper in the toilet.  (Frankly I never understood this habit, personally I prefer getting out of there as soon as possible, but for many people it’s a true ritual.)   The company, which just a year ago was 4 guys cramped together in a two-bedroom live-and-work apartment has grown to 20 employees and picked up two rounds of funding.   Flush with VC money, they equipped their restroom with a flat screen that shows an auto-refreshing display of technology news from TechCrunch.  No more newspaper in the bathroom!

I can’t help but wonder about the screen position though.  For all I know, this is only for the guys’ entertainment, gals usually face the other way – is Box.net still an all-male team?  And, without getting into the very material details, even we boys only perform one “operation” facing that way.., and that’s normally the quicker one. (?)

Aaron, care to clarify? smile_eyeroll

Filed Under: Humor, Startups · Tagged: , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »