Attention expecting parents! First thing: Congratulations to you. Best of luck through the final weeks or days. Now, if it’s not too much of a bother, could you please avoid sending us gigantic emails with attached photos once your beautiful child is born? It’s not that we don’t want to see your newborn. We just ask that you take your least techie relative’s bandwidth into consideration before sending dozens of high resolution photos of your new family member.
Why do we ask this of you? It’s not you. Really. And it’s not us. We ask this on behalf of our less techie relatives who still don’t have broadband Internet connections. Do you realize that your celebratory emails could take more than an hour to download on their wimpy dial-up connections? That’s no way to treat your favorite aunts and uncles.
We realize you’ll be exhausted when you get around to emailing your baby announcement, so in the time you have left before delivery, follow the instructions below so you’ll be prepared to send a bandwidth sensitive baby announcement. Cut this out, dad, and put it in your wallet so you’ll have it on the big day:
Things to do now:
2. Download the Flickr Uploadr so you’ll be able to easily upload a lot of photos of your newborn.
3. If you don’t feel comfortable publishing your newborn photos publicly, invite your friends and relatives to your Flickr account so they’ll be able to access the photos.
On and after the big day:
2. Upload them to your Flickr account.
3. Tag the photos with your newborn’s name.
4. Email a link to your newborn’s photos. It should look something like this:
http://flickr.com/photos/yourflickrusername/tags/yournewbornsname/
Now everyone can receive your announcement in an instant, and view the photos without grinding their system to a halt.
Why Flickr? Because Flickr doesn’t require your relatives to register to view photos if you simply make them public, unlike some other photo sharing services associated with film companies.
Who inspired this post? It wasn’t you, I swear! But I am related to someone who still uses a dial-up connection and calls the ISP to “fix their email” whenever it takes too long to download. The ISP “fixes” things by purging the email with large attachments. Would you want your newborn’s photos purged by an anonymous employee at an ISP? Of course not. So load and link your way to successful communications with less broadband endowed relatives.
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“script.aculo.us provides you with easy-to-use, compatible and, ultimately, totally cool JavaScript libraries to make your web sites and web applications fly, Web 2.0 style.”
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Om Malik gives a different take on network neutrality: “While the campaign tries to reach out to Joe & Jane Citizen, the leading web companies are not taking the issue seriously. In reality they should be reaching out to Silicon Valley. Everytime I have a
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In many ways it seems as though Google and Amazon are the best of buddies, but they also compete in many markets. Alexa search recently switched to being powered by Windows Live.
Google’s recently launched Calendar application was pretty impressive at launch, but seems to keep getting better every day. One of the recent additions I’ve taken a liking to is the SMS add feature that allows users to add new events to their calendar by texting them to GVENT from a mobile device. It uses the calendar’s natural language calendaring feature to appropriately place events in the correct time slot. For example, a user could text any of the following:
lunch with bob tomorrow at 1pm
Wedding on May 19th in Stillwater at 6pm
to add events into the appropriate time slots.
The latest addition I’ve seen is an integration between Gmail and Google calendar that automatically detects events listed within your emails and turns them into quick adds for your Google Calendar. For example, here is a portion of a recent email I received about some Earth Day events:
It’s not a perfect system yet. For example, I don’t think there is a way to adjust the alarm time before individual events via SMS today. This is important since the default 10 minute warning isn’t particularly useful for events more than 10 minutes away from where I may be. At launch, the calendar allowed for recurring events, but didn’t have a way to delete recurring events. That bug was quickly resolved.
The integration between Gmail and Google Calendar goes both ways by pulling the Gmail address book into the Google Calendar’s Guests feature. Adding or inviting guests to events is a snap since Google Calendar will autocomplete the addresses of anyone in your Gmail contacts.
Personally, I’d like to sync my Treo with Google Calendar rather than relying on SMS for all of my event reminders. For example, there may be times where I’ve turned my phone off, but would still want to be reminded of events I’d scheduled for myself. Creating a week long view where full days can be viewed without scrolling would be a big improvement as well. Google’s created one heck of a powerful web based calendaring system already. Where do you think they’ll take it next?
Google’s recently launched Calendar application was pretty impressive at launch, but seems to keep getting better every day. One of the recent additions I’ve taken a liking to is the SMS add feature that allows users to add new events to their calendar by texting them to GVENT from a mobile device. It uses the calendar’s natural language calendaring feature to appropriately place events in the correct time slot. For example, a user could text any of the following:
lunch with bob tomorrow at 1pm
Wedding on May 19th in Stillwater at 6pm
to add events into the appropriate time slots.
The latest addition I’ve seen is an integration between Gmail and Google calendar that automatically detects events listed within your emails and turns them into quick adds for your Google Calendar. For example, here is a portion of a recent email I received about some Earth Day events:
It’s not a perfect system yet. For example, I don’t think there is a way to adjust the alarm time before individual events via SMS today. This is important since the default 10 minute warning isn’t particularly useful for events more than 10 minutes away from where I may be. At launch, the calendar allowed for recurring events, but didn’t have a way to delete recurring events. That bug was quickly resolved.
The integration between Gmail and Google Calendar goes both ways by pulling the Gmail address book into the Google Calendar’s Guests feature. Adding or inviting guests to events is a snap since Google Calendar will autocomplete the addresses of anyone in your Gmail contacts.
Personally, I’d like to sync my Treo with Google Calendar rather than relying on SMS for all of my event reminders. For example, there may be times where I’ve turned my phone off, but would still want to be reminded of events I’d scheduled for myself. Creating a week long view where full days can be viewed without scrolling would be a big improvement as well. Google’s created one heck of a powerful web based calendaring system already. Where do you think they’ll take it next?
Google’s recently launched Calendar application was pretty impressive at launch, but seems to keep getting better every day. One of the recent additions I’ve taken a liking to is the SMS add feature that allows users to add new events to their calendar by texting them to GVENT from a mobile device. It uses the calendar’s natural language calendaring feature to appropriately place events in the correct time slot. For example, a user could text any of the following:
lunch with bob tomorrow at 1pm
Wedding on May 19th in Stillwater at 6pm
to add events into the appropriate time slots.
The latest addition I’ve seen is an integration between Gmail and Google calendar that automatically detects events listed within your emails and turns them into quick adds for your Google Calendar. For example, here is a portion of a recent email I received about some Earth Day events:
It’s not a perfect system yet. For example, I don’t think there is a way to adjust the alarm time before individual events via SMS today. This is important since the default 10 minute warning isn’t particularly useful for events more than 10 minutes away from where I may be. At launch, the calendar allowed for recurring events, but didn’t have a way to delete recurring events. That bug was quickly resolved.
The integration between Gmail and Google Calendar goes both ways by pulling the Gmail address book into the Google Calendar’s Guests feature. Adding or inviting guests to events is a snap since Google Calendar will autocomplete the addresses of anyone in your Gmail contacts.
Personally, I’d like to sync my Treo with Google Calendar rather than relying on SMS for all of my event reminders. For example, there may be times where I’ve turned my phone off, but would still want to be reminded of events I’d scheduled for myself. Creating a week long view where full days can be viewed without scrolling would be a big improvement as well. Google’s created one heck of a powerful web based calendaring system already. Where do you think they’ll take it next?
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A recent Technology Evangelist post inspired a sketch by cartoonist and blog consultant, Hugh Macleod.
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“The benefit is that you’d have a single API that could be used to query, update, and index structured data on the web–anywhere on the web. It’s a pretty powerful vision and something I didn’t expect to see for a couple more years.”
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“Google SketchUp is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - even space ships.”
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“Powerlight, of Berkeley, CA, a large venture-backed solar installer, is the latest to show how it is done. It has just won a contract to help build the world’s largest solar photovoltaic power project: a 11-megawatt solar power plant in Serpa, Portugal.”
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“There are two design requirements for technology meant for the masses. First, you need to automate all the techie parts so people can just press Play. To watch television online, I shouldn’t have to install extra video software, figure out my bandwidth s
Michael Arrington reported on Techcrunch today the launch of Yahoo’s new Local Featured Listing platform that allows businesses to purchase advertising on relevant yellow pages-like category pages for a flat monthly fee varying by category.
Given the effectiveness of pay per click advertising models, including Yahoo’s own Y! Search Marketing service, it’s surprising to see Yahoo go with a flat-fee advertising model for this new service.
Flat fees, even if variable by category are inefficient compared to PPC. They overcharge for some categories, and severely undercharge for others. Both lead to less revenue for Yahoo since they’re better off getting something than nothing on the low-side and should maximize their revenues on the high-side.
Apparently, this was modeled off of print yellow pages where ads are sold on a flat fee basis rather than pay per click. While it makes some sense to use similar advertising models from a sales perspective, it’s very limiting from a revenue perspective if there is any competition for the ad space.
Arrington reports on Yahoo’s pricing model:
What’s confusing to me is figuring out how one determines whether the pricing is attractive or not. How many people are using Yahoo Local compared to yellow pages in any given market? My guess is the yellow pages likely has a larger market share today than this sub-section of Yahoo search, and the value of advertising will vary with how often people go to the web to find services related to that category. Is a Yahoo Local ad for a plumber worth the same in Boston as it is in Burlington? Shouldn’t the market determine that?
The strangest part about this offering to me is the first-come first-serve basis reportedly used by the service. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I simply don’t see what correlation exists between a company’s adoption of Yahoo Local advertising and their relevancy for a given service from a consumer’s perspective. Competition breeds relevancy, and pay per click ad rankings is a much better form of relevancy rankings than first-come first-serve.
Michael Arrington reported on Techcrunch today the launch of Yahoo’s new Local Featured Listing platform that allows businesses to purchase advertising on relevant yellow pages-like category pages for a flat monthly fee varying by category.
Given the effectiveness of pay per click advertising models, including Yahoo’s own Y! Search Marketing service, it’s surprising to see Yahoo go with a flat-fee advertising model for this new service.
Flat fees, even if variable by category are inefficient compared to PPC. They overcharge for some categories, and severely undercharge for others. Both lead to less revenue for Yahoo since they’re better off getting something than nothing on the low-side and should maximize their revenues on the high-side.
Apparently, this was modeled off of print yellow pages where ads are sold on a flat fee basis rather than pay per click. While it makes some sense to use similar advertising models from a sales perspective, it’s very limiting from a revenue perspective if there is any competition for the ad space.
Arrington reports on Yahoo’s pricing model:
What’s confusing to me is figuring out how one determines whether the pricing is attractive or not. How many people are using Yahoo Local compared to yellow pages in any given market? My guess is the yellow pages likely has a larger market share today than this sub-section of Yahoo search, and the value of advertising will vary with how often people go to the web to find services related to that category. Is a Yahoo Local ad for a plumber worth the same in Boston as it is in Burlington? Shouldn’t the market determine that?
The strangest part about this offering to me is the first-come first-serve basis reportedly used by the service. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I simply don’t see what correlation exists between a company’s adoption of Yahoo Local advertising and their relevancy for a given service from a consumer’s perspective. Competition breeds relevancy, and pay per click ad rankings is a much better form of relevancy rankings than first-come first-serve.
Michael Arrington reported on Techcrunch today the launch of Yahoo’s new Local Featured Listing platform that allows businesses to purchase advertising on relevant yellow pages-like category pages for a flat monthly fee varying by category.
Given the effectiveness of pay per click advertising models, including Yahoo’s own Y! Search Marketing service, it’s surprising to see Yahoo go with a flat-fee advertising model for this new service.
Flat fees, even if variable by category are inefficient compared to PPC. They overcharge for some categories, and severely undercharge for others. Both lead to less revenue for Yahoo since they’re better off getting something than nothing on the low-side and should maximize their revenues on the high-side.
Apparently, this was modeled off of print yellow pages where ads are sold on a flat fee basis rather than pay per click. While it makes some sense to use similar advertising models from a sales perspective, it’s very limiting from a revenue perspective if there is any competition for the ad space.
Arrington reports on Yahoo’s pricing model:
What’s confusing to me is figuring out how one determines whether the pricing is attractive or not. How many people are using Yahoo Local compared to yellow pages in any given market? My guess is the yellow pages likely has a larger market share today than this sub-section of Yahoo search, and the value of advertising will vary with how often people go to the web to find services related to that category. Is a Yahoo Local ad for a plumber worth the same in Boston as it is in Burlington? Shouldn’t the market determine that?
The strangest part about this offering to me is the first-come first-serve basis reportedly used by the service. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I simply don’t see what correlation exists between a company’s adoption of Yahoo Local advertising and their relevancy for a given service from a consumer’s perspective. Competition breeds relevancy, and pay per click ad rankings is a much better form of relevancy rankings than first-come first-serve.
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On MSN’s new PPC program: “The product is cool. It’s good. The demographic targeting options and dayparting capability have conference attendees paying rapt attention, more so than you usually see with new product rollouts. It’s too early to tell whether
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“Facebook is moving into the corporate world with a limited beta of 10 companies. MySpace has about 10X the traffic of Facebook. Rumors have MySpace revenues at $200M versus $50M for Facebook.”
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