Scoble Shnoble: who’s who
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.
Slightly less negative on Facebook
What with the insane euphoria of the web 2.0 crowd having found something slightly less web 1.0ish than MySpace in the social networking space and the insane euphoria of the VC crowd having found a new poster child for massively inflated valuations, I’ve been trying to maintain sort of a cool distance from Facebook.
(While, naturally, having a profile that I hardly touch.)
But this morning an old buddy from school sent me a message. By old buddy from school, I don’t mean university or even high school. I’m talking elementary school.
Wow. I hadn’t even remembered his last name, but I had remembered Jaimie.
Reconnecting with someone you haven’t seen in maybe 20 years is pretty cool.
Second life just like first life
Well, I’m unhappy to report that Second Life is just as big a pain in the you-know-what as my first life.I’ve had an account for years, but haven’t used it much. However, now I’m doing a paper for my master’s program in educational technology, and thought I’d get back in for some hands-on research.Only problem? Bugs, bugs, bugs.After downloading and installing a fresh client right from the Second Life servers, I’m told during start up that I need the latest version. Clicking the download update button crashes with an unknown error (twice) … so now I’m re-downloading Second Life … all 90 MBs of it.Fun, fun, fun. If this wasn’t for a good cause …
Trying Google Reader
OK, I’ve moved my OPML to Google Reader from Bloglines and I’m going to give it a shot.Based on the last 15 minutes use, it’s probably going to stick.We’ll see …
This is the best simple explanation of a wiki I’ve ever seen
iPhone in Canada, Please
MacSurfer update: grand old dame gets a facelift
Count me shocked.MacSurfer, the grand-daddy and still king of Mac news sites, has unveiled a new look, now in beta.Times have changed, mullets have gone out of fashion, Michael is no longer the king of pop, and tie-dye is out … but MacSurfer, the essense of web 1.0, has stubbornly remained completely and utterly static.So any update is a bonus.Major changes:
- 1-column to 3-column
- Font size for article titles is smaller
- Tabbed navigation (as opposed to no navigation at all)
- More add space (in the afore-mentioned 2 extra columns)
- Integrated search (not just a link)
- Archives
- Archives!
- Let’s say it one more time: finally, finally, archives! Now that great article you saw on MacSurfer but forgot where it was is findable.
- Translations (don’t get too excited, they’re via Google … “El Maco updating system blue muy excellent sofa” is a likely translation)
- Times when articles added
That’s a lot of change for a grand old dame … but there could be more.Social features like commenting, submissions, and voting might make MacSurfer less of a jumping-off site and more of a social hub … which I think would translate into significant value for its owners.At any rate: wow - great to see the change.
Virtual worlds, real economy
The world’s first economist studying a virtual world (more accurately: virtual universe) has delivered his first report:
This is the first Econ Dev blog on the economics of EVE. We are heading into unknown territory since there exists no standardized measures on how to describe and analyze an online universe, or if indeed there is a need to have new tools to describe virtual reality. Trade and industrial activities are an important part of EVE and therefore descriptive analysis of trend in quantity traded, price fluctuations and regional differences are always of interest to those participating in that business. In order to fulfill the expectations of pilots we need your comments on this dev blog and which parts are most interesting. Selected sections of this dev blog could be updated on a regular basis if the demand is there.Minerals are the basis of everything in EVE. Most things built in EVE require one or more minerals; some easy to get, others not so much. Minerals provide income for professional miners and newbies alike and no war can be won without having a good supply with which to build and equip an armada. The constant demand for minerals makes the market one of the most effective in the EVE Universe with huge volumes and thousands of trades on a daily basis. That is why examining the mineral market in some depth has been chosen as the topic for the first Econ Dev Blog (EDB).
Good news? Bad news? I don’t know … but it sure is interesting news.
Updates, ETEC, CrowdTrust, Life
In case you’re wondering what’s going on with this blog, I’m currently taking 2 courses for my Master of Educational Technology program at the University of British Columbia.
Plus doing some home reno, plus I have 3 kids, plus my wife seems to feel that somehow I ought to spend some time with her (odd, that), plus I have a full-time job (money: it’s a love/hate relationship).
So some things suffer.In any case, for my ETEC 522 course “Ventures in Learning Technology” we’re reviewing educational technology ventures: start-up businesses. Since one of the profs for the course is behind a social knowledge storage/management start-up called CrowdTrust, we’re putting most of our thoughts and comments into that system. (Here are mine.)
One thing I wanted to share here is a memo I wrote concerning a company’s pitch for VC money.
Hopefully I haven’t been too savage.
Brand protection, marketing, and responsiveness in a new media world
Consumer-generated Media has a nice breakdown of Steve Jobs open letter to early iPhone adopters who hit the roof when Apple recently announced the $200 price break.Excerpt:
What an incredible year to watch and learn from CEO-level behavior in times of crisis and difficulty. First we had Jet Blue, faced with an impossibly difficult situation, take to the airwaves on YouTube, apologize profusely, and announce a new passenger bill of rights. While Menu Foods practically hid their CEO during the pet recall issue, Mattel put their CEO, Bob Eckert, on the website video airwaves to nurture trust and confidence in the wake of the toy recall (a still-in-progress case study). Now we have Steve Jobs, who just wrote and posted the most remarkable letter in response to concerns about iPhone’s recent price decrease. He coupled an apology with a $100 Apple credit for all early-buyers of the iPhone. This is classic Defensive Branding. I predict it will be one of the most discussed, debated, and linked-to letters of the year, and so far I’ve already counted over 800 unique blog postings referencing his letter since 6 PM last night.
A full breakdown of the letter follows …
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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