Twistori is a very interesting way to waste time and yet feel like you’re doing something significant.
It follows the twitters of thousands of people whose messages start include the words
- I love
- I hate
- I think
- I believe
- I feel
- I wish
Pure genius … and hard to keep your eyes off.
What do you love, hate, think, believe, feel, or wish? Tell the world!
I just spent 20 minutes prepping a no-longer-needed-textbook for sale. One of the places I thought I might sell it was Amazon Marketplace, only to be presented with this:
Obviously, Amazon Marketplace is not looking for your average Craigslister, and probably not your media eBayer as well. Rather, they’re looking for bookstore owners, high-volume eBay retailers, and so on.
It’s an interesting strategy – definitely designed to capture the fat front end of the long tail and not the thin whippy extremity. It probably results in a lot less hassle for Amazon.
But it also does leave a significant portion of the resale market for eBay and, increasingly, Craigslist. And it leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth of loyal Amazon clients, such as me, who have bought thousands of dollars of books and other products from Amazon, but can’t use the same service to recycle redundant items.
In the extremely unlikely event that you or anyone you know might be looking for an educational technology textbook, I’m selling one.
Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Applications is yours, all yours, for a steal: $10.
Of course, I have almost zero eBay history, so you’d kinda have to trust me …
Saw this today and kind of like it:
In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally.
From Paul Graham’s You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss.
Scott Adams has a new Dilbert mashup on his main site, Dilbert.com. Very cool.
The question posed is: are you funnier than Scott? You then get to change the punchline on the final pane of a Dilbert cartoon to something else … and people can vote on your version.
Only problem: it didn’t work as advertised. Not cool.
Here’s my cartoon, and the ostensible problem: “invalid panel count.” I’m not quite sure what it’s referring to …
Here’s a response I posted this morning on a Seeking Alpha story on Apple’s brand that seemed to imply it was all about marketing:
“All Day Breakfast” hit the nail on the head.
What people who don’t really understand branding don’t understand is that the best branding, the longest-lived branding, and the most financially remunerative branding is branding that is a result, not a cause.
The brand is authentic because it first arises from actual value and actual experience.
Brands that are invented via marketing alone are typically short-lived, expensive, and doomed to crash and burn. The product and the client experience need to be what the branding says in order to generate long-term value.
(The comment’s not showing up yet on Seeking Alpha … I had to sign up … they have an email authorization … I haven’t got the email yet … )
Check out
http://scoblerizer.wordpress.com/ versus
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/.
That’s Just another little reminder from the universe that URIs were never designed for humans. And that identify theft is all-too-easy online.
It’s somewhat amusing … whoever started the scoble-like blog started blogging on April 13, 2006 with a classic “I’m blogging at last” post, and apparently ended that all-too-brief flirtation just two days later, on April 17.
Someone probably warned him/her that identify theft, even in the blogging world, is a bad idea.
Michael Port sent me a manuscript of his latest book, Beyond Booked Solid a couple of months ago. It’s the follow-up book to Book Yourself Solid.
In spite of all good intentions, it sat on at table in my office for two months. I’ve just now started to crack it open and check it out. I have to say, I like it.
More as I get farther into the book …
If you’re writing an article about the aesthetics and usability of web typography, can I please suggest that you don’t have a page looking like this?
(The suggestions in the post are pretty good, I have to say. But I’d prefer that the medium and the message aligned better.)
OK, so I’m fully aware this is ridiculous and shameless self-promotion, but I’m doing it anyways.
It’s been years and years since I’ve been on a hockey team. And years since I played hockey competitively. The years and years is due to a crazy schedule mixing together 3 kids, a spouse, a very demanding job, and a house that always needs just one more thing done. The years is due to the fact that I’ve had major issues with my neck following a number of rear-enders and other accidents.
But this spring hockey season I’m unaccountably playing on not one but two teams, and I was pretty pumped to see I’m among the league leaders in Centre Ice’s Division B scoring. (Please ignore the fact that it’s only 3 games into the season and keep any snide remarks that even a trained monkey could lead scoring that early in a season.)
As previously hinted, I am inordinately proud of this, but fully aware it’s likely to be a momentary flash-in-the-pan. I’ll enjoy it while I can!
In a trick of fate, I’m also fourth in league scoring on my other team, which plays in Abbotsford Training Rink’s 3-on-3 league. I better also take a screenshot of that … it’ll never happen again:
My team in that league, by the way, is the Lightning, and we do actually live up to our name. Mostly because Sam Maerz is on our team and we’ve got a great goalie, Ralph Vos.
OK. Enough shameless self-promotion (or documentation of momentary glancing acquaintance with actual talent). Back to our regularly-schedule programming.
Today I finished the last requirements for the current course in my master’s program: a 2-part, 4000-word paper.
Phew!
This semester has been a long, tough haul, with a lot of work for school, and a lot of work for work. I’m looking forward to breathing a bit this summer as I don’t have any courses planned.
Of course, there is a ton of work on the house that I’ve been planning to do …
Russell Beattie should stand up tall and proud. The Yahoo! alum gave up a secure job (well, sorta secure) and a steady paycheck to tread the uncertain waters of the startup life, and unfortunately was sucked down.
He developed Mowser, a mobile web browser for small-screen mobile devices (OK, that’s a fancy phrase for cell phones). Mowser made big fat web sites small and lean for tiny screens and narrow pipes. (Example: check out Sparkplug9 in all its Mowser glory.)
But then iPhone showed us that the future of the mobile web was … err … the web. Not some “baby internet,” in His Steveness’ words, but the real internet. In your pocket. On your phone. On your iPod. And those of us who had tried to scrunch the web down onto our 2″ screens jumped up and said Amen.
Here’s how Russell says it:
The argument up to now has been simply that there are roughly 3 billion phones out there, and that when these phones get on the Internet, their vast numbers will outweigh PCs and tilt the market towards mobile as the primary web device. The problem is that these billions of users *haven’t* gotten on the Internet, and they won’t until the experience is better and access to the web is barrier-free – and that means better devices and “full browsers”. Let’s face it, you really aren’t going to spend any real time or effort browsing the web on your mobile phone unless you’re using Opera Mini, or have a smart phone with a decent browser – as any other option is a waste of time, effort and money. Users recognize this, and have made it very clear they won’t be using the “Mobile Web” as a substitute for better browsers, rather they’ll just stay away completely.
I can’t agree more … as unfortunate as it is for someone who’s sunk his life savings into making the web work in miniature.
In any case, he’s now looking for a job.
Someone will benefit by having him on-board. Not only is he new media savvy, he’s just spent his life savings figuring out what doesn’t work. Some smart company is going to be the beneficiary of that hard-won wisdom as he starts building what does.
. . .
. . .
More analysis, insight, and general reportage:
ReadWriteWeb sort of agrees
Last 100 disagrees
Mobile Marketing Watch might want to buy Mowser
Another one hits the deadpool
Venture Chronicles thinks the mobile model is wrong
Larry Dignan at ZDNet mostly agrees
Please see the comment on this story from David Boone. This whole company appears to be a hoax – Gizmodo has the story.
PsyStar Corp’s new OpenMac is a game changer for Mac switchers. It’s not pretty, and it’s not small. But it is very, very cheap.
Here’s the basic box. It’s available without any extras for $399.
And here’s the price … loaded up with a big hard drive, faster processor, 4 GB of RAM, a fast graphics card, and 3 FireWire ports:
I’m tempted to pick up one, but a couple of things hold me back.
First of all, I love Apple fit and finish. Aesthetics are important to me, and I don’t want objects in my house that I don’t love. Secondly, I’m fairly certain Apple’s next OS update will include some code checking if it’s on an OpenMac, and potentially brick your computer. (I’m also fairly certain that enterprising hackers will find a way around that, but I’m not the type that likes to do open heart surgery on my operating system.)
But I bet a lot of potential switchers will pick one up – primarily technical types who have wanted to check Apple out, but have not wanted to drop the grand or more that is the current price of admission (Mac Mini aside).
And the end results will actually be good for Apple with an expanded market, OS sales to anyone who antes up, and a cheap entry point to Mac that does not compromise the Apple brand.
Tara Hunt is organizing a barcamp focused on education this August in Vancouver.
You should be there. I’m definitely going to try to be there. (It’ll be easier if they tell me ASAP when exactly when it’s going to be!)
BTW, nice new site design, Tara.
Seth Godin has a short post about how to sound smart (or not) when talking about techy stuff. A reader named Jackson chimed in with this:
A blog is the whole, and a post is just one article (like the one you’re reading). So you don’t say, “I wrote a blog about that,” you say, “I just blogged about that,” or “did you read my post on how to talk about the Internet?”
Thank you! I’m seeing that in well-respected publications lately, and it’s annoying.
Welcome to Sparkplug 9, John Koetsier's blog on technology and social media.
