Thank you to Rick Klau for writing a follow-up post about Bill Tancer’s analyis of “homes for sale” searches and their correlation with actual home sales. A month ago, Tancer publised a post on his Hitwise blog describing a correlation between those two variables. I wrote about it here, calling the conclusion into question (yes, I’m quoting myself):
Do Searches for “Homes for Sale” Correlate with Sold Homes?
“Intuitively, does that make any sense? People can’t make a decision about which iPod they want to buy in two weeks to a month, much less a home. And this doesn’t account for the time between an accepted offer and the actual closing. While there likely is a correlation between the two sets of data presented above, the time line must be considerably longer than Tancer suggests.”
So, a month has passed, a new month’s data on home purchases is available, and what does it say? That Tancer’s prediction was correct.
Thank you to Rick Klau for writing a follow-up post about Bill Tancer’s analyis of “homes for sale” searches and their correlation with actual home sales. A month ago, Tancer publised a post on his Hitwise blog describing a correlation between those two variables. I wrote about it here, calling the conclusion into question (yes, I’m quoting myself):
Do Searches for “Homes for Sale” Correlate with Sold Homes?
“Intuitively, does that make any sense? People can’t make a decision about which iPod they want to buy in two weeks to a month, much less a home. And this doesn’t account for the time between an accepted offer and the actual closing. While there likely is a correlation between the two sets of data presented above, the time line must be considerably longer than Tancer suggests.”
So, a month has passed, a new month’s data on home purchases is available, and what does it say? That Tancer’s prediction was correct.
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Rocketboom covers the Rock, Paper, Scissors world championships in Toronto.
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“An employee laptop containing the names and social security numbers of 50,000 current and former General Electric workers was stolen from a hotel room this month, the company said.”
Netlash offers some insight into the challenges faced by search engines, including Google, when it comes to providing country-specific search results. The graphic below demonstrates a substantial drop-off in traffic to a Dutch web site when it was moved to a server in a different country:
Google’s dirty little secret - Netlash
Due to circumstances, the server was moved from Amsterdam (The Netherlands) to Brussels (Belgium). All other parameters were unchanged.
Result of the move: all Dutch traffic disappeared, while the small Belgian traffic remained.
Based on what I’ve read about Google’s geo-location parameters in the past, this shouldn’t happen. The site’s TLD remained .nl, so the location of the server shouldn’t override that issue. In fact, it’s quite common for webmaster to host their sites in countries other than their own. Many web site owners may not even realize that the server space they’re paying for is overseas or across the border.
If the problem experienced by Netlash is not unique to their move, perhaps Google should add a country designation to their Sitemaps interface so webmasters can proactively communicate their home country to Google. That would benefit webmasters who are attempting to be properly indexed, searchers looking for relevant country specific results, and Google user retention by providing a better experience for searchers.
Gmail stopped responding after I sent a message to a colleague. Maybe I killed it?
This isn’t really newsworthy or interesting. I just thought I’d post this as an experiment to see how many other people are experiencing the same thing.
[Update: things are back to normal. Based on the comments below and the spike in Gmail related search traffic we received from Google news (which was not down), it looks like I wasn't the only person having problems earlier today. Thanks to the Google representative who followed up with me on this.]
I have had a couple of people ask me which phone they should buy, the Treo 700p (Palm OS version) or Treo 700wx (Windows Mobile 5 version.) This is a tough question as both have their pros and cons. I have just finished my testing of the Treo 700wx so here’s how I compare them:
Treo 700wx
Slow but powerful. This is a PDA first and communications device second. If you want to be able to access your SlingBox, LogMeIn remote computers or Skype from your PDA then them 700wx is the clear winner. However, if you need a phone, e-mail and SMS device primarily then this is not the unit for you. The phone has done very strange things such as lock up while attempting to accept an incoming call, then repeating my ringtone until it plays all the way through, or attempting to make a call and having the phone hang up completely. Keep in mind that the phone problems are the exception and not the rule, but nevertheless I have not seen this type of issue on any other operating system (although I have seen it on other WM5 devices such as the PPC6700.) The biggest problem I have is random freezes. Once in a while for no apparent reason I’ll get a spinning wheel of death in which I can’t do a darn thing. Sometimes this will happen when opening apps, sometimes this will happen when opening SMS messages, and sometimes this will happen when I want to answer the phone.
SMS messages are not threaded and e-mail is a mess. Sorting through who sent what message is a pain and SMS is grouped in with the rest of my e-mail accounts for no apparent reason. The push e-mail solutions for the WM5 devices are pretty crippled or limited to things like Exchange 2003 SP2 based servers. The gold standard for e-mail continues to be ChatterEmail which can push e-mail to a Palm based Treo without any middleware using any IMAP Idle compliant mail server. I tried a couple of push e-mail solutions available for the WM5 platform and frankly they all sucked.
Unlike the Palm devices, the Windows Mobile devices do a really good job of multitasking. It’s very easy to have e-mail running in the background while writing a Word document and listening to music. I also love the fact that I can run real-world applications. If I’m in the field and a server gets an alert from LogMeIn indicating that the CPU has been hung at 80% for the last 10 minutes I can simply open Pocket IE and log directly in to my server. If I’m on the road and want to watch the Vikings beat the Packers again I can log into my home HDTV system via SlingBox mobile. VPN access is great as well which makes it very easy to VPN into work, term-serv into a server and do whatever I need right from my Treo all over EVDO. It’s items like this that make the Treo 700wx a great PDA but lousy communications device.
Treo 700p
Great at communicating, lousy at business tasks. The Treo 700p is a phone first and PDA as a distant second. The phone on the Treo 700p is very easy to use with large on-screen answer/deny buttons as well as the ability to merge unknown contacts into an existing record (a very cool feature I have not seen on any other smartphone.) The built in e-mail client, Versamail, is mediocre at best; however, with the addition of ChatterEmail the Treo 700p becomes the most powerful mobile e-mail solution I have ever seen. SMS messages are threaded and run as their own application so it’s easy to tell who wrote what and when. The Treo 700p looks at SMS much like a AIM chat which is very intuitive. From phone to e-mail to SMS the Treo 700p does a world class job of keeping me connected.
Looking for a great PDA in the 700p? Yeah, uh keep looking. The operating system that comes with the 700p is Palm OS 5.4.9 which is a slightly newer version of Palm OS 5 which came out over 4 years ago. In those 4 years we have seen improvements such as NVFS… and… well, that’s about the only big thing I can think of. Think of Palm OS 5 a lot like Windows XP… It’s good enough simply because there’s no upgrade option in sight. I think we’ll see Palm OS 6 around the same time Windows Vista actually ships in January, 2021. Palm OS 5 feels old, it looks old, it acts old and it’s just plain old. While it’s possible to get some items to do some semblance of multitasking, it’s nowhere near the level of Windows Mobile 5 devices. Want to run LogMeIn or SlingBox? No way. Skype can be done, but it’s a hack job.
The Treo 700p is very fast and has a much longer battery life than the 700wx even with ChatterEmail installed (which drains your battery like you wouldn’t believe.) I’ve never had an issue with the phone and most SMS issues I have had can be attributed to the Sprint network (have had the same issues on the wx.) I have a very powerful e-mail solution, I can read and write Word and Excel documents and I personally think the PDF viewer on the Palm is much better than the one in Windows Mobile 5.
Which smartphone would I use?
This is a tough question. Frankly I think all smartphones suck. Why is it I can have an iPod nano with 8GB of memory, but my Treo which is 10x the physical size only has 128MB? Why in the world does Palm feel it’s necessary to have that f’ugly antennae sticking out of the top? Can’t anyone make a smartphone OS that won’t crash? Is it possible to add a lower quality camera or did all of the smartphone manufactures snatch them all up already? Whatever you do, don’t ever, ever, ever think of adding WiFi, that would simply make the device far too useful for any single person. Their head might explode. Complaining aside, I would personally go with the Treo 700wx. Why the wx you ask? I need less of a phone and more of an e-mail and LogMeIn device. I need to be able to log in to any server, run any app and have access to any box on my network in as many locations as possible. It’s a very close call and if ChatterEmail was available for the wx I would move in a heartbeat. Besides, being able to watch my SlingBox from anywhere is just plain cool. Your needs may be different, so decide if you need a PDA or a communications device first and then go from there.
Paul Scrivens beats down ten Web 2.0ish companies he feels have either failed to grow, failed to catch on at all, or have simply fallen on their face in his Top 10 Web 2.0 Losers list:
Now many of these sites might not be considered Web 2.0 with regards to the technology they use, but this list was made to show the losers (and winners) in this era of the web regardless of the technologies they are using.
Two on the list that I find interesting are Technorati and Bloglines. Personally, I’m a big fan of both applications. In the case of Technorati, it may be for the reasons Scrivens describes:
“The only ones who seem to care about this blogging search engine are the site owners who wish to keep track of who is linking to them and that?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s if the service is even up to allow them to do so.”
But I think Technorati’s real challenge is that blog readers only rarely need to access a blog search engine. Once they find a source of content they like, they’re more likely to go directly to that site or subscribe through their favorite RSS reader than continually go back to Technorati. While Google or someone else will certainly enter this space, nobody has been able to do what Technorati has done to date: provide relevant search results from blogs without an overwhelming amount of spam. Google Blogsearch has been a spam disaster to date. Perhaps if Technorati was able to integrate a great RSS reader into their application, they could keep people on their site for more than the occasional search or blog ranking check? Regardless, the site’s traffic continues to grow. But perhaps it’s not at a fast enough rate to turn into a sustainable business model.
Bloglines is another interesting one. This has been my favorite RSS reader for around a year now, and I haven’t found anything that excites me enough to move. And, unlike the lock-in some sites bring with them, I could easily move my feeds in less than five minutes to a new service if something caught my eye. I’m not sure what features Scrivens thinks Bloglines is sorely lacking, but it does what I’m looking for (at least to date) so no complaints here. However, it’s unclear to me how Bloglines actually makes money, which may be enough of a problem to warrant Web 2.0 loser status after three years.
Smackfoo breaks down an Ebay bidding strategy based on auto-refreshing an auction during the final countdown to decide how much to bid and when:
smackfoo ?¢Ç«®¨? chronology ?¢Ç«®¨? geek 101 - eBay sniping
“Here?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s my pet hate. eBay sniping by an automated process. Part of the eBay experience is the excitement that builds during the auction.. those final last minutes when the heart starts to pump just that little bit harder, the pupils of one?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s eyes dilate.. you know the feeling - you?¢Ç«®Ç—¢re about to score ?¢Ç«®?Ïstuff?¢Ç«®¨˘ and it?¢Ç«®Ç—¢s gonna be a fair trade. Your moments away from scoring kit at a great price and bam some automated java or perl scripted bot zips in 60 or so seconds before auction end and scores a bargain before you can react.
Well, not any more my friends, you see I?¢Ç«®Ç—¢ve found a solution and it doesn?¢Ç«®Ç—¢t involve a hit to the hip pocket for some over-hyped and hyperactive perl script to do your work for you.”
This is certainly an interesting use of that extension. The key to winning on Ebay, and not overpaying, is to:
1. Wait until the last minute to bid so you don’t start a bidding war, driving up the price.
2. Decide how much you are willing to pay for an item BEFORE you start bidding.
3. Remember that Ebay uses Bid Increments.
With that in mind, hitting refresh shouldn’t really make much of a difference since it has no effect on the above three factors.
Here’s an example:
Say you’re bidding on a Mac Mini. The one I’ve linked to is currently going for $255 with 22 bids.
Let’s assume you’re willing to pay $280 for this auction.
The auction ends at Sep-26-06 14:54:59 PDT, so the best time to bid is not now, but in the few seconds before the auction ends (Rule #1).
You’ve decided how much you’re willing to pay ($280) so when it’s time to bid, how much should you bid?
a. $260
b. $275
c. $280
The correct answer is “c” or $280. But what if you could get it for less than $280? Here’s the kicker: if the highest bidder’s highest bid is only $255, you’ll actually win with a $260 winning price! Why? Because Ebay auto-increments bids. Between $250 and $499.99, the auto-increment level is $5, so you’re $280 bid will simply auto-increment you to $5 beyond the current bidder’s highest bid.
However, it’s worth noting that the current $255 bidder could actually have a bid of $285 in place. If so, you’ll be immediately outbid by that when you slam in your $280. When that happens, you could rebid at a higher price, but that would be ignoring Rule #2. Don’t let you emotions get the best of you at the end of an auction unless you’re more interested in winning at any price than getting a good deal. Of course, if that’s your position, just slam in a ridiculously high bid to guarantee the win.
Jeneane Sessum raises a very interesting point about Second Life. Presumably, Second Life users are using the site for entertainment, so may choose to have a somewhat different personality than their first life (aka. real world) version. If that’s the case, how should businesses approach Second Life, and what kind of feedback can they expect to receive from the people they interact with? Here is the video spawning this discussion:
ALLIED by Jeneane Sessum: Text 100 Misses the Second Life Boat
“The REAL power is in human beings inhabiting worlds where they are not who they are, and who they are is not who they become, and what they do may — just may be — who they really are. Within those nuances of play and passion and aggression is where we connect.”
It seems quite possible that people may provide more brutally honest feedback about your company’s products or services while in character in a virtual world than they would face to face.
Sessum snarkily explains that simply recreating the real world in cyberspace is really missing the point. Why not interact with your customers in the real virtual world?
“What a waste of a high quality video effort. I’ve got it! Let’s say we’re going to demonstrate the power of virtual world interactions so that we can build islands for OUR clients right? And show them how they can invite their customers to do business with them the same way as before, except, it’s fake, right, so let’s replicate the meeting rooms, dress up in nice suits that only Kenny with the earrings can wear “that way” in our real office, and drag our clients into a virtual world meeting where they can stare at a virtual CEO at a virtual podium talking about the power of brand building and marketing in a virtual world with our virtual logo installed in the virtual background.”
There have been a lot of attempts to recreate a boardroom feel in online conferencing applications to date, but none have gained any traction as far as I can tell. Avatars contribute little to a conference call. I can’t imagine someone choosing to play business dress-up during non-work hours in a game they’re paying to play. Well, I suppose everyone has their fetishes . . .
Karl Long offers a different take on this experiment by looking at the opportunities for corporate video in Second Life:
Corporate Video 2.0 - Second Life Machinima + Youtube at ExperienceCurve
“Apart from the fact that this supports the message that Text100 can serve as a guide to companies around the communication opportunities in SecondLife, it demonstrates a wonderful way use SecondLife for corporate videos. Think about virtual tours of facilities, product launches, even testing product concepts. It seems to me that SecondLife is a great opportunity to help customers experience aspects of your company, your products, your ideas, in ways that are more visceral and tangible.”
While that’s certainly possible, why not simply use online video for corporate video? The quality is significantly higher and your audience reach goes WAY beyond what you’ll achieve through Second Life. This seems like a solution in need of a problem to me.
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San Jose State University has banned Skype on campus. Apparently, Skype can be a bandwidth hog, and potential security threat for universities.
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Every Simpson’s epidsode for your viewing pleasure . . . at least until it gets shut down.
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