What can you say? Steve is an explosive guy:
Hilarious.
Credit where credit is due: I saw it on TUAW and Daring Fireball.
[tags] steve jobs, apple, boom, stevenote, john koetsier [/tags]
Update: Technorati CEO Dave Sifry has responded in the comments. Thanks!
Technorati board member and venture capitalist Ryan McIntyre is the only upper echelon person associated with Technorati who has even commented on the quality of service that Technorati has NOT been providing lately.
Kudos. But why aren’t we hearing from Dave Sifry about it?
When I saw McIntyre’s post which mentions the issues, I posted the following comment on his blog:
If you’re on the board, are you able to affect the situation at all?
Technorati’s service has always had great PROMISE, but always been greatly “spotty,” as Liz Dunn quaintly referred to it.
First of all: some major effort to solve the problem with the million$ that Technorati has recently raised should be a number one priority. And secondly, some honesty and openness about the situation would be greatly appreciated.
I mean … the arbiter of the blogosphere has what, 2 posts on its blog all of last month – a horrible month, when it’s been up and down like a yo-yo? This is ridiculous: be upfront, be honest, be real.
(This is something that Dave Sifry should take to heart too … as I’ve tried and tried to bring a few issues to his attention via email, links to his blog, and comments on his blog … all without the least sign of success.)
The issue is not only being up or down, or the notorious, infamous “Technorati is experiencing a high volume of searches right now and could not complete your request,” which I’ve seen on the HOME PAGE.
It’s also data integrity as the service appears to wildly swing between mutually inconsistent datasets. Links appear and disappear with disconcerting frequency.
Some kind of information about what the company plans to do about it would be nice. How about telling bloggers the plans for ensuring that it won’t happen again? A little PR wouldn’t be out of place.
As a member of the blogosphere, I suggest that could start on the Technorati blog.
Why am I doing this? Why am I harping on this?
I care about Technorati’s service. I care about what they do. And I keep getting corroborating comments ever so often, weeks and weeks after writing various articles about Technorati’s woes.
Bloggers care about Technorati. Enough to want Technorati to be better.
[tags] technorati, Ryan McIntyre, sifry, john koetsier [/tags]
I’m currently reading through Jeremiah, a book in the old testament, in my (mostly) daily devotions.
Sometimes context is not enough. Sometimes smart machines are really dumb.
Want proof?
Take a look at the Google AdSense ads on this post. It’s a post about a book by an online acquaintance about project management. And it happens to have the word forest in the title.
Now, Google’s got some of the smartest machines in the world, performing millions of calculations each and every second, figuring out what billions of pages across the web contain, and matching ads to that content.
Clearly, however, some subtleties are beyond Google.
Two cheers for serendipity, however. Now I’ve got to find out why trees are better than stocks (see the screenshot at right, third ad).
Without, of course, clicking on my own ads.
[tags] google, adsense, funny, context, john koetsier [/tags]
I have a major apology to make to Timothy Johnson, author of Race Through the Forest: a Project Management Fable.
We’ve linked to each other’s blogs before – he’s got some great management and business insights – and he sent me a copy of his book about a month and a half ago. Unfortunately, I’ve been too embroiled in some major business process changes at work, and significant career choices in general to read it yet.
I will get to it, and I will review it, Timothy. Sorry! In the meantime, I note that it has some really good reviews at Amazon from some top-notch people. Impressive!
. . .
. . .
[ update ]
Checking Timothy’s blog, it looks like this was Very Good Timing. Wow. That’s cool.
[tags] timothy johnson, books, amazon, race through the forest, project management, john koetsier [/tags]
At risk of stating the obvious, bizhack has a whole new look today.
I wanted something simpler, something darker, and something a little more cutting-edge. Voila.
The highlights:
I’m using the fairly excellent Unsleepable theme built for Wordpress. It’s a little more complicated than most themes, but I think the final result is not too shabby.
[tags] blogs, theme, wordpress, blogging, john koetsier [/tags]
I was chatting with our director of sales today when he mentioned that he was playing Xbox with his son last night. Now, he’s on the west coast – Bellingham, WA – and his son is back in Chicago.
This is one of the key activities that brings them together.
They both have Xboxes. They join network games at preset times, playing the game, chatting, even video chatting. This is their new normal – fairly cool, I thought.
But it would be science fiction even a decade ago.
[tags] xbox, video, chat, family, games, john koetsier [/tags]
Saw this quote on Guy Kawasaki’s blog today. Too good to pass up.
Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary:
War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.
Ouch!
[tags] war, america, geograpy [/tags]
You’ve got a new product. How do you get bloggers to review it positively?
Whatever you do, if you’re tempted to give free stuff to bloggers, think twice. Is it good enough? If not, stop. You’re in for a nightmare. Unless you think no PR is bad PR.
If you ask me, I’d rather get positive spin.
[tags] product, reviews, bloggers, blogging, social media, marketing, pr, john koetsier [/tags]
All the everlasting Apple iPhone rumors have me in a constant state of unsatiated geek lust. What’s worse is that I need a new phone … and the iPhone isn’t rumored to be arriving until next year.
Maybe this is the next-best thing:
From the website:
Ummm … and it’s a phone too.
I am still wondering about the K800i, however … which is more oriented toward phone and camera features.
[tags] geek, lust, phone, helio, cell, mobile, john koetsier [/tags]
This past week has been crazy busy as I’m partnering with another senior manager at work to re-engineer a major department.
(Hence the lack of updates.)
Also, I’m getting closer to pulling the trigger on a personal start-up. More details when I have them.
[tags] sparkplug9, blogging, john koetsier [/tags]
Saw this link to the 10 occupations in the US with the top growth rates over the next decade on popurls.
Aside from health care, which is growing too fast to be sustainable, most of the growing occupations are service sector and low-paid.
[tags] career, occupation, jobs, pay, john koetsier [/tags]
My wife happened to notice this Foxtrot cartoon in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun:
I wonder if there’s a million people, worldwide, who know what the heck “web 2.0″ means.
(Incidentally, that’s the first time in about 3 years we’ve had a major daily paper in our home.)
[tags] web 2.0, foxtrot, vancouver sun, john koetsier [/tags]
I swear, Apple Legal does its level best every single day to do whatever it can in every way to do the maximum possible damage to Apple Computers Inc.
How can ostensibly smart people – I mean, they passed the bar, right – be so absolutely, abysmally, galactically stupid?
Now they want to take over “podcasting.” Find the details at Calacanis’ blog, the Wired blog, Scobleizer, ZDnet, and MacNewsWorld .
“Podcasting” as a term for personal audio publishing online is a term that does nothing but good for Apple, the iPod, and the whole iPod economy. Conversely, coming down with the legal fireworks ticks off potential clients, alienates Apple Computer Inc., and provides fodder for rivers of bad press.
Imagine the alternative: Zunecasting.
Perhaps Apple would prefer that?
[tags] podcasting, apple, legal, lawyers, IP, trademarks, zunecasting, john koetsier [/tags]
Blogged with Flock
Since Google lost the crazy newspaper lawsuit brought by Belgian papers that didn’t want free links and free traffic being sent their way by Google News, the Belgian courts have decreed that it has to put the text of the ruling on its Belgian site.
It’s a google desecration. As TechDirt says, so much for Google’s clean, barren look.
I wonder what the guy who used to email Google with the number of words on its home page every few weeks would do now. You almost wish Google would just axe its Belgian site in protest.
[tags] google, belgium, newspapers, lawsuit, john koetsier [/tags]
Welcome to Sparkplug 9, John Koetsier's blog on technology and social media.
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