December 2007
31 posts
“There’s nothing special necessarily about being the biggest. It’s more important to be nimble.” Fund manager Chris Marangi, speculating on the likelihood of giant AOL Time Warner selling off AOL and Time Magazine and refocusing on being a television media conglomerate. [via Bloomberg]
On its busiest day this year, Amazon fielded orders for 5.4 million items, which is a little over 62 items per second. [via Amazon press release]
New research shows that viewers are “47% more engaged in ads that run with television programs that they view online than those watched on a TV set.” Here some possible explanations for that trend (though it’s not clear how the research was performed):
1. Online TV is on-demand rather than broadcast. Online, viewers specifically elect to view the programs whereas with TV, the set is more likely...
“I was going to call it SF Events, since it was still mostly events, but friends told me that they already called it Craigslist, that I had created a brand unintentionally and that I should keep calling it that because it was personal and quirky.” — Craig Newmark on discovering his accidental brand treasure [via Computerworld].
“What if the passenger in front of you wants to recline, making it difficult to surf comfortably on your laptop? What if you’re finishing a crucial e-mail on deadline and an adjacent passenger needs to leave for the bathroom? What if the person next to you keeps peering over while you’re trying to review a confidential Web site?”
Silly yet admittedly relevant questions that in-flight wifi access...
The Most Controversial Advertisements in Fashion History [via Kottke].
In scavenging both the local mall and the typical retail sites this weekend, I’m noticing a decidedly new trend this year: accelerated markdowns aimed at pulling in as many consumer dollars before Q4 closes. Usually stores hold somewhat steady before Christmas and give in to consumers with generous sales starting the 26th…
Spent the day reunionizing with friends I’ve had since (mostly) elementary school. Pictured here: Amy, Megan, Sarah, and me.
I was recently remarking to myself that the NY Times seems to have impeccable uptime — I couldn’t recall ever having seen a layout issue, ad issue, etc. But this evening I ran across two oddities! One story with shifted article copy and another story with broken CSS. Pointing this out since I can’t find a good bug report contact and because it makes them aware of the problem.
Also who knew NY...
Not surprisingly, in the same year that Google’s shopping engine dropped the clever, memorable Froogle name for the generic label Product Search and then dropped that name for Shopping (three names in one year!), unique visitors to the service dropped 73%.
It’s hard to pin down causation and timing of this decline, but likely the first rebrand to Product Search was so unsuccessful that it...
According to TechCrunch’s roundup of ComScore’s data on annual uniques, Google’s top 3 properties are Web Search, Image Search, and Gmail. I’m a little surprised that Image Search garnered more than twice as many uniques as Gmail in the past year since I find Image Search to be kind of an afterthought. Perhaps the majority of traffic actually comes from the Image Search results that are pulled...
A panorama I assembled from black and whites taken at the Kentucky Derby last May. It’s such a huge feeling being at the Downs for “the fastest two minutes in sports!”
The Daily Mail on Sex and the City’s unparalleled promotional power in the fashion industry:
“While certain brands such as Marni or YSL are de rigueur for fashionista Carrie Bradshaw, there is a grey area in which a variety of brands could work - what type of T-shirt does Carrie sleep in, or what kind of shampoo is in her shower?”
“Brand strategist agencies work as corporate matchmakers and are...
Overheard at the airport: “Ladies and gentlemen waiting for an upgrade: We do have seats in our Economy Plus, which is five extra inches. That is $39.”
I’m jumping into Facebook’s new relationship organization feature — Friend Lists — and creating a taxonomy system for my friends. It’s weird and wonderful to be able to apply this labeling!
The one thing I want immediately though in terms of getting set up that isn’t there? The ability to add all of my friends in a Network to a list that I’ve created (just my friends in that network, not all...
Free wifi at SAN and PHX! I’m checking in from Terminal 2. This is how traveling should be! Next up: ORD. A disappointing pdf on their site is telling me no free wifi, just lots of $7.99 and $9.99 / 24 hour providers. Then LEX, but as it’s my last stop, I won’t be needing wifi. (Yes, I am visiting 4 US airports in order to go home for the holidays. Direct flights to Kentucky don’t really exist.)
My MetaFilter-versary
Or: “What MetaFilter Means To Me”
I forgot to commemorate it at the proper moment, but October 2007 was my 5-year MetaFilter-versary. I started reading the site from my dad’s work computer in 1999, and have since spent 8 years lurking heavily and gleaning much. I officially became a member in 2002 (membership was harder to come by back then: it required tenacity, which I had, or a credit card,...
“Jason, I would have responded to this post in the comments, but I recontwittered it instead.”
It’s not often that Kottke turns on comments these days, so this was a fun exercise.
Also, “prelete” works nicely to describe this pre-delete.
Upcoming travel: I’m going to my childhood home, Lexington, Kentucky, for the holidays.
If you zoom out on this map, you can see how Kentucky is (graphically) the middle of the country. All of the other state lines kind of point to its outline. And Lexington, right in the middle of KY, is the centerpoint from which everything radiates.
When I look at a map with state borders, Kentucky is the...
I love BlueFly, but the tasteless self-promotion on their blog — it’s full of spammish, affiliate style links and ad units — makes me wince. They would increase their legitimacy and readership if they cut out the gratuitous self-links and stuck to reporting style, regardless of its purveyor. As it is, the blog reads too much like a corporate mouthpiece (afraid to hold up or even reference...
Photographic time capsule: Reuters Pictures of the Year 2007.
I can’t find any proper mentions of Dictionary Derby in Google. Did anyone else play this game in school? It works like this — each student sits with a dictionary closed on his desk, the teacher says a word aloud, and then the kids open the dictionary, scrambling to be the first to find the word. As soon as a student finds it, he shoots his hand into the air, and the teacher arrives to verify that...
I’m quickly growing tired of all of the skepticism toward new media’s perceived shortcomings and the defense of old media “integrity.” Let’s get some things straight, primarily the difference between old and new.
First up? Old media. That’s easy. Old media refers to the antiquated practices of print publishing and analog broadcasting. That’s it, done, go home. What’s harder to understand is that...
NY Times points out the increasing importance of shopping bags to retail stores and the brands’ fans. Looks like I’m not alone in being a sucker for these elegant souvenirs! Funny thing is that article doesn’t once mention the word ‘recycling,’ which is exactly what all of these bag re-carriers and bag resellers are doing.
Ahoy! Google has noticed the web’s quickly descending disarray and wants to change that — we’re swimming in so much potential value when it comes to information, but we’re lost as to how to find it. Google’s solution? A knowledge base written by experts and peer-reviewed by the crowds. Google’s Knol blends Wikipedia’s user-generated encyclopedia pages with Mahalo’s directory curation and Squidoo’s...
“If we’re going to have an Individual Revolution — ie, if we accept that we can be successful without the help of powerful companies — how are we going to find out about each other? The answer is self-promotion. Who can explain what makes me great with more enthusiasm and authenticity than myself? … Many of us are afraid to talk about our achivements, even when neglecting to do so is dishonest. If...
