Welcome to Web 3.0 LETTER TO THE EDITOR As is so often the case, Joshua Errett has no idea what he's talking about. Apple's App Store isn't the anti-Internet: it's just another online store. It isn't elitist and it isn't policed, at least not in the totalitarian way Errett alludes to. All stores, whether online or bricks-and-mortar, decide what they will and will not sell, and can and do change their minds. Is that a problem?
Do I have a right to walk into a store and demand that they sell my product? Should I be able to install a Toyota part in my Honda?
It's clear that Errett hates Apple, like so many of the fanboys who litter tech blogs.
Brawl at Public Aid Office Turns Into Voguing Match COMMENTS The entire country has become one rolling liquid tribute to belligerence, vanity, and an absence of soul waiting to be captured and then gone viral.
It gives my heart the functional equivalent of brain freeze when I eat too much ice cream too quickly.
missdelite: "..has become?" We humans have been rubbernecking since the dawn of..er..necks.
I am not so much referring to "rubbernecking," MD. It is the desire to be the object of rubbernecking and then to have that spectacle put on the web for all to see as the apotheosis of modern-day accomplishment.
missdelite: Humans seeking attention isn't anything new. One could argue that most of the shit we do in our daily life is for the purpose of validation. Think of how much stuff wouldn't get done if no one noticed us doing it.
I'm with you that there are some things that shouldn't garner attention (like violence), but for me the voguing was a charming footnote to a depressingly lame incident and I'd rather watch it on a loop than C-SPAN, any day of the week.
Also this: How many of us are afforded a wide audience to our daily accomplishments, be they great or modest? Few of us will ever see our name in a headline, win medals or be the subject of tributes, so a medium like YouTube allows Joe/Jane Nobody a platform to shine for a minute or two. Of course, it also invites the darker side because that's what we're made up of as well and there's no use denying it. I don't gravitate to those sorts of vids, but I'd rather know these impulses exist than sweep it under the rug. We can talk about "the good ol' days" as much as we want, but FYI: Norman Rockwell's world never actually existed and was just a figment of previous generations' collective imagination.
Girl Talk: How Men Dominate Twitter COMMENT You're right, I went for snark and it came out condescending. And its probably vague because I've become used to compressing my thoughts into 140 character. But I digress.
My comment was just meant to say that your sentiment had been echoed when Twitter first started to gain traction, and that time has proven the skeptics wrong. Otherwise, why would there be 10,637,661,536+ Tweets in just three years? Why has Twitter overtaken blogging for providing real time information?
Twitter is a platform for communication that has more "real world" applications than could fit in a blog comment. But I can try: Finding jobs and boyfriends, keeping up to date with friends, finding out about breaking news, keeping tabs on organizations you're interested in, finding people with common interests, engaging public figures and journalists, controlling other electronics (there are a plethora of applications that allow you to control your computer from a distance with a tweet), communicating at/during/about events using hashtags and keywords....
The list goes on and on. It's a medium, not a product. It's a means for things to happen quickly on a unified, searchable platform.
And if you think that texting is the same as using a Twitter app, then I imagine you haven't used Tweetie 2 on the iPhone (or if you have, that you're extremely hard to impress.)
If anyone has any doubt about Twitter being the next powerhouse communication tool, consider this: Conan O'Brien posted a single, solitary tweet 5 hours ago and now he has 174,006 followers. Talk about an ego boost. How long, do you think, before he breaks a million? It's no secret we're all waiting for the next Conan project - be it on TV or the Internet - but in the meantime we've got his tweets to keep us going. I hope he keeps it up, cause you know he'll make even walking the dog sound funny. Yes, he's back! And I just want to say, Thank you, NBC, for firing Conan and saving comedy.
Ok, make that 180,567...
UPDATE 1 [02.25.10] Has my point about Twitter sunken in yet? No? Well then, look at it this way: If Conan had posted a message on his Facebook "wall", there's no fucking way it would've reached over a quarter of a million people in less than 24 hours. None. When it comes to outreach, Facebook's exclusivity bites it in the ass. It's great for organizing parties, but not for organizing events - especially major ones. Let's face it, on the Information Superhighway, Twitter's a bullet train to Facebook's rusty shopping cart with the squeaky wheel that's always veering left.
So, if Conan and his crew put out a casting call for their next project, which medium would get the word out faster and to more people? Facebook or Twitter? And if you - as a writer/comedian/agent - want to get the jumpstart over everyone else, then which medium are you going to monitor more closely? Facebook or Twitter? If you chose the former, then you just lost your place in line, and possibly your shot at the opportunity of a lifetime. These days, who can afford to wait?
Let's make that 340,394...
UPDATE 2 [02.26.10] Conan on Twitter: 377,647 followers and counting... (after 2 days and 2 tweets) Conan on Facebook: His largest fan group has 41,709 fans (search results)
From the numbers above, you can see that when it comes to crowdsourcing capabilities, Twitter blasts Facebook out of the water and into outer space. If Conan's smart (and we all know he is), he's working on a project right now with the intent of promoting it no later than the summer. By firing him, NBC gave him the best publicity money can't buy, and he'll want to capitalize on the momentum of public interest before it runs cold. After all, in the age of Twitter, popularity has a shelf life of days, if not hours. I'd say Conan's lucky the entertainment world - in particular comedy - is a stale environment right now. It takes Herculean efforts to launch something on TV and on the Internet there's what? Funny or Die videos? C'mon, he's in the perfect position to blow our minds, and if he's half the "genius" people say he is, he'll do just that (before fall 2010).
UPDATE 3 [03.02.10] Looks like Conan and his writers are getting ready to tickle our comedy tastebuds once again. From the comments: Are you really going to do a live show? When and where? Boston I hope!
UPDATE 4 [03.03.10] Conan's number of followers has surpassed the half million mark. He now has 503,497 followers after 7 days and 8 tweets. Jay Leno who?? __________________________________________________
Toronto’s a tweet capital and a start-up hot spot, but while the rest of the technoverse zooms ahead, our city’s in perpetual beta. Can our hardware handle an upgrade?
Standing at the podium at City Hall, Mayor David Miller whips out his BlackBerry, his fingers dance around the keypad, and he faces the crowd.
The most tech-positive politician in Toronto’s history, Miller is usually at ease talking to the normally adoring group gathered in front of him for last November’s Web 2.0 summit.
But this question vexes him: when will Toronto get its own Google Transit map?
After a quick smartphone consult, he’s got a reply.
Google Transit for the TTC, a Toronto version of the much-loved map that puts public transit routes, schedule and service info in an at-your-fingertips format, would be ready in the spring, he said to applause.
For transit enthusiasts and those just wanting to know the quickest route from Chinatown to the St. Lawrence Market, it was about time. The Google partnership is already in place in nearly every other Canadian city with public transportation, from Fredericton to Victoria and Vaughan, just north of Toronto.
Only now, almost a year later, there’s still no map, and it would take another map to retrace the failed promises, starting in 2006.
For its part, all the city would have to do is hand over TTC data to Google to produce the useful map – at no cost to taxpayers.
But when it comes to technological advancements like sharing data, Toronto is one tardy jurisdiction.
It’s in the world's top 10 in Twittering, in the top 20 in overall Internet use, and has loads of Web start-ups. Tons of small tech conferences like ChangeCamp are held here, with the online activists to go with them. Mozilla, maker of the popular browser Firefox, even has an office in Toronto.
But when it comes to ranking the most cutting-edge cities in the world, T.O. is a pretender – from the failure of city-wide wireless to the absence of big-name Web firms and the lack of work-friendly Internet cafés.
Most importantly, while cities like Vancouver, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh (of all places) zoom onward to the future, Toronto’s moves toward more participatory city government, using democratizing open-source technology, are snail-like.
Is it time for an upgrade?
***
To get a sense of how other jurisdictions manage to incorporate online activism, consider what happened with Vancouver’s garbage pickup earlier this summer.
Public policy expert and Internet activist David Eaves mused on his blog that trash service in his city was convoluted, involving zones and changing schedules. He wrote that email reminders or a map of pickup schedules would vastly improve matters.
For that to happen, he said, the city would have to make available all the data – the digital information around its garbage service – to the community of Web developers. Vancouver had recently passed an openness initiative, so the trash schedules were handed right over.
Two young Web developers made the program Eaves described, calling it VanTrash, and gave it to the city.
Another participatory breakthrough is Pittsburgh’s iBurgh, a mobile application that lets residents instantly upload photos of potholes, unremoved snow and other problems to the city from their iPhone, minus the bureaucratic run-around of trying to phone some office. (This app was also donated free of charge.)
In the digital age, “openness” has a new definition. It not only means making information available, but also doing so in a technically accessible format – that is, opening the source data. Toronto makes lots of information available on its websites, but not in a usable format to build online services. The TTC data requested by Google is a prime example.
Web developers, essentially working for free in exchange for exposure, could build Internet-based solutions to civic problems with that data. Imagine the outcome: interactive maps of restaurants charged with sanitary violations, historic neighbourhood walks, searchable databases of swimming pool hours, Facebook widgets of city festivals.... The possibilities are endless.
Free data also makes social activism that much easier; think of having all committee or council minutes or city staff documents relating to a hazardous condo project, for example, arriving in your email in an easy-to-digest format. Stopping unwanted developments could be a matter of touching an iPhone screen.
By these standards, Toronto is closed.
But according to David Wallace, T.O.’s chief information officer and leader of the Toronto.ca redesign, the process of freeing up data has begun, and local developers will be invited into the fold.
“Toronto has a very good software development community, larger and more in-depth than any other city in Canada,” says Wallace. “That means we have a large advantage, as we get our data out there, to get very advanced products developed.”
Thus far, Wallace says, there has been some reluctance to “just throw stuff out there” for fear that no one will do anything with it. He complains that when developers were asked what data would be useful to free up, there wasn’t much of a response, much like when the city appealed to the public for input into its site redesign and got a paltry 90 replies. (Go to toronto.ca/comment to add to that number.)
Regardless, Wallace says the city will put some of its data on a labs page in the fall, where developers can submit different programs.
Good news. The downside, though, is that Toronto will pick and choose which data it releases. He mentions one idea that’s unfortunately dated: an events calendar that citizens and organizations can upload, something like the one that appeared on blogs like Torontoist and BlogTO in 2006.
Compared to the complexity of material in the city’s domain, the TTC’s mandate is straightforward: release its routes, schedule and service data so developers can make online and mobile transit tools.
Last year, a developer in his early 20s, Brian Gilham, created TTC Updates, a service to deliver updates about delayed trains, detoured streetcars and any other TTC disruptions. Riders could get reports delivered to their cellphones via Twitter.
On the site, a disclaimer reads: “TTCupdates is not affiliated with the TTC. I mean, well, please don’t sue me.” Gilham is referring to the TTC’s nasty reputation for suing those who use its name, logo or subway map to create transit guides, mashup maps or other tributes.
“It used to be a lot tougher for developers, but things are slowly improving,” says Gilham.
The TTC has never integrated Gilham’s service, which he provided free of charge.
As for the Google Transit map, the arrival time is apparently approaching. TTC chair Adam Giambrone says the data the search engine company would need to build the map – routes, times, schedules in technically accessible form – simply did not exist and therefore couldn’t be shared. Putting data in a shareable format and displaying it cost $2 million.
But there’s more. Giambrone says he’s reluctant to partner with a third-party company. This is, after all, publicly financed information – Toronto can’t just go making deals with multinational corporations. What if Google were to change its mind and charge for the map?
Giambrone bristles at the suggestion that the TTC isn’t open. “The TTC Website may not be as sexy as other sites, but it scores high in accessibility.”
Like the team rebuilding the Toronto city site, he agrees with open-sourcing solutions. He promises the TTC will release the data to everyone, including Google, in the fall.
“By January 2010, Toronto will have the most wired transit system in the world,” he says. Expect “a pretty impressive suite of applications” that will make an outing on the TTC easier to plan, like an SMS message service that will alert riders when to expect the next two vehicles at any given stop.
Also coming is an interactive trip planner, evidence of which can be seen on the TTC home page. It has read “Future home of the trip planner” for months.
This translates into a years-long delay for the handy Google Transit map, already in use in more than 400 cities. But it’s also an indication of Toronto’s unpreparedness. Sharing data was the future when cities like Washington did it in 2005. Now it’s the norm.
Also worrisome is the fact that key corporations are missing in action. In the last year, Google moved to town, but its location at Yonge and Dundas is, alas, strictly a sales office. Any creative or development work takes place elsewhere, like Waterloo.
Apple opted to take its offices outside Toronto as well. Not far outside, but it is Markham.
This scattered approach is the anti-Silicon Valley, according to Richard Florida, creativity guru and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute.
“Northern California, specifically the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, has benefited from clustering. Technology talent in those areas have the opportunity to share information and communicate face to face,” he says.
“This, in turn, is causing human capital and highly sought-after talent to concentrate in select communities, causing the clustering effect.”
Does the presence of companies like Google attract Internet types?
“Toronto isn’t as well known as a technology hub,” says Mark Surman, exec director of the Mozilla Foundation, a Web firm dedicated to open sourcing. “We don’t have a strong identity, but community and industry and movement are all here.”
Surman says that’s the reason Mozilla, which hails from Mountain View, the same California town Google calls home, runs a 15-person space over a Beer Store south of Bloor on Spadina. (It should be noted that ValleyWag, a popular Silicon Valley blog, rated it as one of the worst tech offices in the world.)
He says that convincing governments, business and the public that Toronto is a hub of innovation is the main hurdle. For example, do Web users know that the bulk of the work on the globally popular Firefox browser happens in Toronto? Surman thinks not.
But he disagrees large companies will serve any purpose. “People look for Google or recognizable companies. Those are not the story of the Web. The Web is a small patchwork of people. They tend to be independent developers,” he says. “That’s fabric of the industry in Toronto, and the fabric of the Web itself.”
He points to the dozens of small, informal conferences held all over Toronto, often called camps, as in TransitCamp for transit innovation, and ChangeCamp for social change technology. These are tech events where ideas are tossed around and keynote speakers interact with audiences. They’re more like storytelling sessions than lectures, like where the mayor promised Google Transit.
In both public and private space, the Internet is about the individual. Behemoth organizations are always outsmarted by a chorus of independent creative minds. But what happens when ideas have nowhere to go?
That’s Toronto at present. There’s no local outlet for innovators – at City Hall or at big Internet companies. There’s not even a popular local technology blog.
What’s needed is support, recognition and places to direct our online efforts. Once those are in place, just uncork the talent.
COMMENTS [NowToronto.com] Nice analysis. The most troubling is Wallace's reluctance to "just throw stuff out there for fear that no one will do anything with it." I certainly hope this quote was taken out of context. The whole concept behind open data is that you *don't* know what people are going to do with it. The city already knows what developers want - they demanded it in an extensive session at ChangeCamp last year. We crafted a list of at least 50 different types of data that would enable us to build cool stuff for the city.
Toronto - we're ready to start building this stuff for you. Now it's your turn. Open up.
If you look at the history of tech innovation over the last thirty years, a couple of things stand out. One is having a university that encourages innovation and that has a strong tech background. Stanford was the incubator for HP, Apple, Google. Also you need a good VC market. You need to have money to get the start ups going.
You may knock Pittsburgh but CMU is one of the top engineering schools in the nation and it has developed a good reputation in encouraging technological innovation.
Mozilla was originally developed at the U of I but Andreesen took it out west in part due to lack of VC money.
So does U of T have anything that can match that? Does it encourage its engineering department to be innovative and develop new products? Does it try to partner with the business community to develop new products?
You have RIM up there which is one of the most successful tech companies out there right now.
Is it involved or encouraged to partner with other startups or the university?
Chicago is a case in point we have some very good universities but none of them have done a good job of spurring innovation or partnering with the business community. The result is that Chicago is more of a user of other peoples products than a developer.
Are TransitCamp and MyTTC so under the radar that they don't even warrant a mention here? Surely if you're discussing ChangeCamp there was an effort to reach out to the organizers to ask if any transit related Camps had happened. In any case, http://myttc.ca was a product of the first TransitCamp and is under ongoing development, including discussions and efforts with the TTC to gather the best data available. In other words, there's no need to wait on Google but if David Miller isn't aware of MyTTC, it's time to send a Tweet and get him behind it.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR I am a small business owner in the Toronto Business Development Centre's self-employment training program. I've developed a platform for streaming video and Internet radio to smartphones and mobile devices.
Your article "Stuck in Version 1.0" hit me hard because of my experiences in Toronto. WTF is going on?
We are stuck in Version 1.0 for two main reasons: 1) advertising agencies have a stranglehold on media; 2) Toronto is about making money and stamping out the little guy.
It's become next to impossible to carve out an existence as a small digital media company. Getting through the front doors of Toronto companies is next to impossible.
Thank you for your amazing article and insightful analysis. I feel less alone and more sure of why Toronto is a place where I cannot continue to work. --Kevin Grant _______________________________________________
There's a world of ideas to steal from cutting-edge digital capitals
Portland Home to the first-ever interactive transit map, Portland leads in developer-made transit applications. The firm TriMet even assisted Google in preparing data for maps. Creative apps tell you when the next vehicle arrives, find the nearest stop to your location and alert you when you’re nearing your destination.
San Francisco What about copying the Bay Area’s most cherished invention, the Internet café? Sitting down to a high-speed connection on a brand new iMac with a chipotle fish taco in your hand is one of life’s great pleasures. Anyone looking to copy one of SF’s better Interweb spots should research Quetzal, Golden Gate Perk or Chat Café.
Austin As well as hosting SXSWi, North America’s definitive Web conference, Austin has a reputation as a smart place to launch a tech start-up. That’s because the city’s attracted successful tech venture capitalist firms like YCombinator and TechStars, but also because the city itself acts like a VC: Austin’s Capital Factory initiative funds five new tech start-ups a year.
...They give their time and energy to help you with nothing expected in return.
Washington, DC A historic DC walking tour on your iPhone. A Facebook widget that checks where city money is spent. These are the types of Internet applications submitted to Apps for Democracy, a program under DC mayor Adrian Fenty inviting local developers to identify city problems and solve them online. The project yielded 47 apps in 30 days – a $2,300,000 value.
"Park it DC" actually makes parking in DC a lot easier: if you put in an address you can see whether or not cars have been stolen in that area...
Vancouver Vancouver is leading the way in Canada in the open government movement. A motion passed at City Hall in May for open data, open standards and open source means programs that map out all public washrooms in an area and email alerts for water quality on city beaches are in the works.
Munich The capital of Bavaria is also a capital of open-source. In 2006, the city switched all of its 15,000 computers from proprietary Microsoft Windows to the open Linux system. A bold move, considering that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a desperation visit to Munich to convince the city not to leave his company.
Bangalore A cluster of software, electronics and Web companies make this India’s version of Silicon Valley, though it’s not a valley at all, but a plateau. Three micro-neighbourhoods dedicated to tech work and the presence of multinationals like AOL and Qwest attract talent from all over the country.
Singapore Apart from the heavily armed guards randomly demanding to see passports, Singapore’s Changi Airport is an easy place to work online. Internet kiosks are plentiful, with a fair five-minute usage limit. Or for those carrying laptops or netbooks, there’s free wireless. The airport’s site also has a an interactive map of the place to help you avoid last-second scurrying for a flight.
Seoul WiBro sounds like a nickname for the beer-drinking, backwards-hat-wearing neighbour but is actually proof that our telecoms aren’t competing. WiBro, wireless broadband, is Seoul’s new high-speed wireless-everywhere coverage. It’d be like sitting on the 511 Bathurst dialing up Gmail and downloading The Hangover at the same time.
Tokyo Any place that sells smartphones in vending machines deserves mention in a high-tech list, even if not many other ideas can be stolen (well, besides scramble crosswalks) from a crazy-busy city like this one. Tokyo also rivals London for top wages paid to developers and high-end Internet ITers, though that’s a bit of a red herring considering the cost of living.
Hong Kong Cyberport is a city-made, brick-and-mortar space dedicated to IT and Web innovation. It’s as exciting to visit as it sounds. The world’s first Internet ’hood boasts local start-ups and houses a tech-savvy five-star hotel and close to 3,000 permanent residents in a futuristic city. Should T.O. create a designated online neighbourhood? (HK is also a great place for electronics, both buying and developing.) ______________________________________________
RELATED The 10 Most Connected Cities in the World 1. Seoul, South Korea Boasting a metropolitan area population of more than 22 million people, Seoul is the second most populated metro area in the world and second to none in terms of modern technology. Seoul is home to some of the biggest telecommunications and technology companies in the world, including SK Telecom, KT Corporation, Samsung and LG. If you're looking for the latest and greatest cell phone or miniature wifi gadget, Seoul should be your first stop.
When it comes to broadband penetration, South Korea is the world leader with an 83 percent penetration rate. This is in part due to the full blown broadband revolution that has been taking place in Seoul for the past 8 years.
Seoul is full of Internet cafés, wireless hotspots and gaming areas (called "pc baangs") making it the ideal city to use the Internet on the go. In most areas, a pc baang can be found on every corner. How's that for service?
Koreans have a fascination with PC gaming unlike any other country in the world. In South Korea, there are multiple television channels dedicated solely to broadcasting the day's video game events. Talented video game players are treated like celebrities similar to famous basketball players in the United States. At the center of all of the gaming is Seoul, which has played an important part in expanding Internet usage throughout all of South Korea.
Internet access in Seoul is extremely cheap, averaging around $20 per month for a 10Mpbs connection -- that's more than 4 times as fast and half the price of the average broadband connection in the United States. Some areas of Seoul boast commercial Internet speeds of more than 100Mbps for merely $30 per month. With speeds that fast it would only take you 5 minutes to download a two-hour high definition movie.
Seoul's current expansion plans include a $439 million project to add wireless Internet access to the subway trains. "The plan would be to create a wifi network, and then charge roughly $20 per month for access."
With such a huge broadband presence and a dedication to offering cheap, fast Internet solutions, Seoul is the definition of wired.
What is a 3G Network? Japan and South Korea were the first countries to successfully launch this (3G) network. The Japanese company FOMA launched in May 2001 and South Korea's SK Telecom launched in January 2002. British Telecom in the United Kingdom and Monet Mobile Networks in the United States followed suit. By 2007, most countries had implemented the technology. ______________________________________________
This morning I was checking my email when up comes this McDonalds ad. Great, another pop up I don't give a shit about. I circle around looking for the "x" to close it and it's nowhere to be found. Sometimes these crafty fuckers locate it in the nether regions of the page. Not this time. The aberration covers the timestamps but I'll be damned if I'm going to click on it, so I go through to the next page...
And it's back! I'm being followed! Aggressive little bugger, isn't it? Again, no close button so now I'm pissed. They're going to make me do it, aren't they? They're going to make me follow the link! Arrggghh!
Never have I wanted to punch a clown so bad.
Is that fucker winking at me???
OMG he is!!!
This is bad, isn't it? Internet advertising has reached a whole new level of obnoxious imposition. They're not even pretending to care about my free will and ability to choose whether I want to participate in their marketing campaigns. The gloves are off, it's in my face and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. Yes, I clicked around their site, if only to check out the fat and sodium content of their "nutritious" meals. They still sell the same old shit that I no longer eat because I really don't hate my body that much. So they got my page views. Does that mean they won?
Rest assured, it's downhill from here. I envision the day, in the not-so-distant future, when I'll be inundated with ten pop up ads on the same page, none of which will have a close button. I'll waste precious Internet minutes - which translates into days in real life - clicking through them in an effort to clear the clutter. There'll be video (more than there is now) and ten different spokespersons will clamour for my attention. The babble will drive me insane and I'll become a resentful consumer: one who's forced to digest irrelevant material pushed by increasingly aggressive marketers.
To this I say damn youYahoo Mail. Damn you for not imposing limits, damn you for not protecting my interests and damn you for opening the floodgates and letting the vultures in.
Spezify Sets New Boundaries for Visual Search? Spezify, another newcomer to the search space, is also attempting to re-draw the medium. Its innovative interface incorporates a scrollable mosaic of text snippets, videos and images to provide a well-rounded set of search results, with content pulled through APIs from Yahoo!, eBay, MSN, Amazon and Twitter. Admittedly, not all the results will be relevant - but as a graphical representation of search results, it is arresting. [...]
News articles, Wikipedia pages and information from Answers.com are also incorporated, as are items from Amazon and eBay. Perhaps most significantly, Spezify also incorporates Twitter posts, facilitating real-time search results that Google has, so far, stopped short of providing until it can figure out a way to filter irrelevant results. And while some of the tweets returned by Spezify aren't particularly informative, many are...
Speaking about the launch of the search site, which is based in Sweden, co-founder Per Persson said: "Web search has looked more or less the same since 1994. We were missing a place generating an instant and appealing overview of a certain subject, regardless of media. In addition to finding the expected, Spezify gives you new associations and lets you discover things you didn't know was out there." [...]
...there's a distinct novelty value that's sure to appeal to anyone who appreciates the colourful cheeriness of graphical illustration. In particular, its bias towards images, videos and tweets makes it useful for people heavily involved in or influenced by social media.
Ultimately, while Spezify may not be the most relevant search engine out there, it's certainly showing the industry that's it's time to think and do things differently. After all, the type of information people are searching for is changing by the week - it makes sense that the way they search for it may be changing just as fast. _____________________________________________
Conficker Eye Chart: How it Works The Conficker Eye Chart is in reality a very clever way to determine if your computer is compromised, and it doesn't require you to do anything but click one link.
Here's how it works, in brief: Visit the web page linked above and you'll see six images: The three on top are for security software websites, and the three on the bottom are the logos of various open source operating system distributions. The clever part of all this is that the logos aren't actually being served from the web page linked above, but are rather drawn directly from the six different websites to which each logo belongs.
Conficker (as many other pieces of malware) blocks your web browser from reaching many security websites, so if you don't see some of the security logos on the page, you probably have a problem. Why include the open source logos below it? Because if they don't show up, you are probably simply experiencing an internet connectivity problem instead of being the victim of a malware attack.
Domain Field (2003) by Antony Gormley - fr: puffin11uk [flickr.com]
Full-On Retard with Domains by Peter Boyd 03/09/09
100+ Domains for a web site? Are you serious?
"Yes, I am serious."
Sorry, this does not help and just drives your web designer crazy.
“But why can’t I use 5, 10 or even 100 domains for my web site?”
Simple. Google (and the other search engines) only wants to index your site once. It does not care if you have 100 domains pointing into your site for optimization reasons.
Our advice: pick one, perhaps two at the most. Use one for your main site that Google will index. Use another domain if it has sexy marketing appeal that your main domain does not have. For instance, the second domain could be shorter, or appeal to a certain demographic. If you want to purchase multiple to prevent other firms from encroaching, then go ahead and purchase multiple domains, but do not expect it to help your web site or optimization efforts. However, you want to always have only one domain for SEO reasons.
Our advice on domains remains the same as it did in 2008:
• Oldest Domain • Shortest Domain • Domains without hyphens or odd spelling • Domain that is a .COM (sorry .ORG and others) • Domain with keyword phrases • Domain with the best and most inbound links (usually this is your oldest site) • Domain that is easy to spell via the phone • Domain that does not have any bad connotation
As stated by our previous article, you will want to do a 301 redirect for all previous domains to the primary domain. You definitely want to 301 redirect any secondary domain that you use for marketing purposes into the primary domain. If you do not, you could end up with Google indexing multiple web sites and that would lead to duplicate content penalties.
As stated in that previous article, if you want to use multiple domains, then create multiple UNIQUE web sites. Otherwise, choose your best domain and move forward with your marketing.
My computer caught a virus yesterday morning and I'm 98% sure which site it came from.
What a fucking drag.
I was on the phone for 4 hours troubleshooting the problem which unfortunately caused me to lose allof my files - pics, music, bookmarks - everything.
The directory I've been working on over at Miss Delite is incomplete. All of the interesting fashion designers and photographers I had saved are gone, gone, fucking gone.
So, I have to start over. This little "hobby" of mine that's blossomed into a full-on preoccupation may be put on hold for a while until I can rebuild my cache of goodies - articles, pics, features and whatnot.
Or, it just might be business as usual. After all, it's the internet and I've already noted a couple of items I want to spotlight.
First however, I need to send a big shout out to Glenat HP for being such an ultra-cool and patient customer service rep. What a rare entity he is. Glen's somewhere in a small town in BC (pop. 70,000) and he repairs/builds computers on the side. I'd totally marry him if I could out of sheer gratitude (and for the free computer service).
If there's a lesson to be learned from all this, it's that I won't be clicking on any more suspect pop-ups ever again.
Evernote is the future of the note-to-self: a program that lets you clip and catalogue notes, recordings, snapshots, Web pages, ideas, to-do lists, wine labels, song titles, receipts, dreams, directions and basically anything else you need to remember on the spot. It's elegantly designed, incredibly useful and a trillion times easier than emailing yourself reminders. Download onto your desktop, smartphone or just from the Web. Free at Evernote.
My name is HucksterMcGallagher, I am a senior partner in the Technical Advisory Board of Allied Irish Bank Group(Senior Security Specialist). Hey Huckster! How ya doin'? We are conducting a standard process investigation on behalf of "AIB Group", the International Banking conglomerate. Ok.
This investigation involves a client who shares the same surname with you (Mr. Delite?) and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at "AIB Group", the Private Banking arm of Allied Irish Bank. The client died in testate (aww, shit) and nominated no successor in title over the investments made with the bank. would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail private and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. You can count on it.
I contact you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication (ooh sneaky!). I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.You share similar details to the late fellow (he liked cunnilingus?); I am prepared to place you in a position to instruct the firm to release the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation (why, thank you). Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share the money with you, that is, I will simply nominate you as the next of kin and have them release the deposit to you. We share the proceeds 50/50. How about a drink first, Huckster?
I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be released to me, but that would have drawn a straight line to me and my involvement in claiming the deposit (and your Cheeto-stained couch in mom's basement). But on the other hand, you with the same very name as the depositor's would easily pass as the beneficiary with right to claim (oh easily ). I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you within few working days. That long? Fuck.
I am aware of the consequences of this proposal. I ask that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I ask that you do not be vindictive and destructive (but it's what I do!). If my offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you (nevah!). Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal ( porn surfing is NOT a career). You may not know this but people like myself who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector. Say "Hi" to Bernie for me.
I am not a criminal (I believe you, Huckster) and what I do, I do not find against good conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move (that's ok, crooks are hot right now). Such opportunities only come ones in a lifetime (there's no proof of that). I cannot let this chance pass me by, for once, I have found myself in total control of my destiny (I blame Oprah). These chances won't pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not destroy me. Cause I HAVE the power! Bwahahahahaha! I am a family man and this is an opportunity to provide them with new opportunities. You breed? Jesus, we're screwed.
There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me (but I haven't decided!). I am the only one who knows of this situation, good fortune has blessed you with a name that has planted you into the center of relevance in my life. Stop! I'm gonna cry! Lets share the blessing (Preach it, Huckster). If you find yourself able to work with me, contact me through my email account below. If you give me positive signals, I will initiate this process towards a conclusion. How's this for a positive signal: ====D ( o )
I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. Ok, I'm bored - wrap it up, Huck .
This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence (cue ominous music). If we can be of one accord, we should plan a meeting soon (your country or mine?). Email me: oneborneveryminute.irishbank@yahoo.com
Welcome to Web 3.0
+by+Antony+Gormley-puffin11uk-flickr.jpg)
