Archive for the ‘Web & Tech’ Category
Randy Pausch
Monday, July 28th, 2008
Randy Pausch, who became famous online for his “last lecture”, died of pancreatic cancer over the weekend. He didn’t get much coverage in the mainstream media in the UK, but in the US over the last year he became a phenomenon, both online and on shows like Oprah.
The last lecture - clear-eyed, full of hope and humour - is here. It’s just over an hour, but really worth watching. Pay attention to the stories about ‘head-fakes’:
The recent video he made for pancreatic cancer research - one of the best ads for medical research in years - is here:
Finally getting Twitter
Friday, May 16th, 2008
I’ve been reluctantly persevering with Twitter for a while now. I’ve never been into blogs that say “having a cup of tea” or “waiting in the airport” but this seemed to be the bulk of the content on Twitter. It certainly wasn’t stuff I felt I needed texted to my phone.
But I was fairly sure I was missing something, as so many other people seem excited by it.
Today I discovered the updates from twitter.com/bbctms are just about the best way for someone to keep up with the latest in the cricket.
A few more score updates would be good, but it’s the first thing I’ve come across that’s a genuinely new and useful use for Twitter. It’s never going to be Test Match Special(listen to this clip to see what I mean), but it’s very close to its spirit.
Top Ten predictions for 2008
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Not mine. Mark Anderson’s. Really interesting.
2008 is the first year of Rapid Response to the Climate Crisis. Just playing along no longer cuts it; now revenues and profits will begin flowing directly to those who are implementing positive change on this issue. This is the largest-scale trend of the year.
Interesting corollaries: the Beijing Olympics will probably create a very unintended anti-Chinese–pollution backlash.
Oil will find a new floor at $70, the average will be higher, and we’ll see a second run at $100 at, or just after, next year end.
Popuri.us and open source copywriting
Saturday, October 6th, 2007
Great resource. Popuri.us does a quick roundup of all major indicators that show how popular your site is.
Here’s the popuri.us page for Firetail: http://popuri.us/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.firetail.co.uk
Tracking del.icio.us bookmarks is another useful trick. Not only does it tell you who is bookmarking and reading about your site(like Blockhunter, for example). But people who use del.icio.us often describe the service better than we do. There’s an idea around ‘open source copywriting’ in there somewhere.
RSS & Blogging. All over or just getting going?
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
I’ve been reading a few sites recently that say that blogging may have peaked and that people are “all blogging less”.
Looking at my Bloglines account would suggest that we’re at the beginning, not the end, of the growth curve.
For example, Free Exchange is the blog of the Economist. It covers trade, development and economics. It’s pithy and contrary, like the Economist. It should be a really popular blog. On Bloglines it has just 49 subscribers.
The Football Gossip and Transfers page of the BBC website is the sort of content that RSS was invented for, but people don’t use it. It has just 38 subscribers on Bloglines.
Comparing these numbers to other sites in my account puts these numbers in context. Signal v Noise has over 5,000 Bloglines readers. Kottke.org has over 13,000.
I like these blogs, but in terms of mainstream appeal they aren’t up comparable with premiership gossip. They’re specialist.
Bloglines isn’t the whole market, but it’s an indicator.
Another indicator is that Gawker Media (a blog network) is comparable in size to the online presence of a major US newspaper group.
Blogging isn’t shiny and new anymore, but it’s a long way from its peak. RSS is a long way from being a mainstream technology. Big media companies have yet to build RSS into their marketing. Using a feed reader is still not a the way most people think about accessing websites.
Some people still think it’s a good time to start an independent blog network. Of course they’re right.
Because as Ann, commenting on this blog said “most of my friends are only now understanding what a blog IS….”
BBC Web Principles
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
These are not only a brilliant set of principles for doing stuff online but they have been signed off by the BBC board. I’m copying them for my own reference. I’ll be coming back to them.
1. Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that set new standards. (nicked from Google)
2. The very best websites do one thing really, really well: do less, but execute perfectly. (again, nicked from Google, with a tip of the hat to Jason Fried)
3. Do not attempt to do everything yourselves: link to other high-quality sites instead. Your users will thank you. Use other people’s content and tools to enhance your site, and vice versa.
4. Fall forward, fast: make many small bets, iterate wildly, back successes, kill failures, fast.
5. Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don’t restrict your creativity to your own site.
6. The web is a conversation. Join in: Adopt a relaxed, conversational tone. Admit your mistakes.
7. Any website is only as good as its worst page: Ensure best practice editorial processes are adopted and adhered to.
8. Make sure all your content can be linked to, forever.
9. Remember your granny won’t ever use “Second Lifeâ€: She may come online soon, with very different needs from early-adopters.
10. Maximise routes to content: Develop as many aggregations of content about people, places, topics, channels, networks & time as possible. Optimise your site to rank high in Google.
11. Consistent design and navigation needn’t mean one-size-fits-all: Users should always know they’re on one of your websites, even if they all look very different. Most importantly of all, they know they won’t ever get lost.
12. Accessibility is not an optional extra: Sites designed that way from the ground up work better for all users
13. Let people paste your content on the walls of their virtual homes: Encourage users to take nuggets of content away with them, with links back to your site
14. Link to discussions on the web, don’t host them: Only host web-based discussions where there is a clear rationale
15. Personalisation should be unobtrusive, elegant and transparent: After all, it’s your users’ data. Best respect it.
Stupid ideas
Thursday, May 24th, 2007
This interview has a great quote:
“During the dot-com bubble, you needed $5 million to do stupid ideas. Now you can do stupid ideas for 12 grand.”
The right move by Google?
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Google have announced that there are going to start presenting house sale information on maps as search results.
With recent announcements on Google Base and Google mymaps, they are starting to put together an interesting portfolio to attack online property sales. This is what you get if you search for property in the US now (via Gesterling).
Remind you of anything?
It’s free and it’s Google. If you’ve got a startup based on aggregating search results this has got to be bad news. Especially if search delivers a big slug of your traffic. Whilst a Google search will obviously miss some of the subtleties of a dedicated vertical search engine, it looks like it does most of the job.
It’s a bit like what happened to Kiko. They built a web based calendar, only to find it blown out of the water by Google Calendar.
The worry for the nestorias, zillows and extates of the world is that before they have a chance to disintermediate estate agents, they find that Google disintermediates them. Compete differently is one suggested option. Run and hide might be another. For now, this service is only available in the US.
As for Blockhunter (which is based on the Google Maps API anyway) it’s another interesting indirect challenge. But this move proves that there’s lots of innovation in a space that has been static for a long time.
Project Agape
Friday, March 30th, 2007
Interesting news from Techcrunch about Project Agape.
The founder, Sean Parker, has a pretty formidable track record, having been involved in Plaxo, Napster and Facebook. It looks like he’s planning to apply these viral principles to fundraising, activism and political participation. The Project Agape website - which is just a placeholder at the moment, offers a teaser introduction:
We’ve worked in both technology and politics, building successful consumer Internet services and organizing major political campaigns.
We’re applying these diverse experiences to deploy a platform for large-scale political and social activism on the Internet, allowing anyone with passion and initiative to make a difference.
If you had to guess, you’d expect it to be somewhere between facebook, moveon.org and meetup, with a dash of justgiving. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
Blockhunter, Intention 2.0 and the Easter Bunny
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Blockhunter has had a good couple of weeks since the relaunch.
First, the new site has been getting some really nice feedback from friends and users.
Second, it was identified by trendwatching.com as an example of a new trend they call “Crowd Clout“:
The power of groups, the clout that crowds can exercise to get what they want, is nothing new. What is new, however, is the dizzying ease with which likeminded, action-ready citizens and consumers can now go online and connect, group and ultimately exert influence on a global scale. Call it group power, call it CROWD CLOUT:
Finally, we’ve launched a prize draw for all new registrations made until April 10th. Click on the bunnies to find out more.
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