Was 2006 the year of the Treo? Looking back at the top blog posts from 2006 on Technology Evangelist, it looks like the latest versions of the popular SmartPhone drew plenty of buzz. With CES just around the corner, we can probably expect to see even more new Treos hitting the market, so expect to see future reviews of those phones and comparisons to current and competing models.
Top Blog Posts
- Ubuntu Linux, Dapper Drake Flight 7 - How Linux is getting very close to mass adoption
- The Treo 700p vs Treo700wx: which one to buy?
- Review: Panasonic HVX200 DVCPRO HD Camcorder
- Democracy Player Review: Today’s Best TV Torrent Downloader
- How Blogs Hurt Google News
- Treo 700w vs. PPC 6700
- Goodbye Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin
- How much abuse is an Apple user willing to take?
- Palm Treo 700p Review: The Must-Have E-mail Phone
- Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 scanner. How can a scanner be so cool?
Top Referring Sites
It’s amazing how large Google’s market share has become. MSN and Yahoo both delivered less than 2% of our referring traffic over the past year.
- Fark
- Digg
- Macsurfer
- Distrowatch
- MSN
- Yahoo
- Engadget
- Fujitsu
Top Countries
Our web statistics program detected visitors from 200 countries in 2006, which is eight more than the United Nations recognizes. Here are the top-10:
- USA
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- India
- Germany
- Netherlands
- France
- China
- Italy
We received 35 times more traffic from Iran than Iraq and 17 times more traffic from Croatia than Cuba.
Okay, enough trivia. Happy New Year’s and 2007 wherever you may be!
Does your school block MySpace?
Do you believe the best use of your time at school is accessing MySpace?
Are you caught up on your school work at getting straight A’s?
If you’ve answered “YES” to ALL of the above questions, click here.
DayTipper is a website where people share small nuggets of knowledge on a wide range of topics in exchange for cash. Topics range from cooking and gardening to technology and travel. Submitting tips is easy. Just sign up for an account, give your tip a headline and category, then explain the tip. DayTipper’s editors will review your tip to see if it’s appropriate for the site. If so, the tip goes live and you receive three dollars.
Published tips are voted on by the DayTipper community, causing the best tips to float to the top of each category. The site initially launched as VitaminT.
If you could use $3, now is a good time to check out DayTipper since the site is relatively new and could use some more great content.
I like the concept since the contribution threshold is relatively low. Just about has a tip they could contribute and doing so is easy.
But, is anyone actually looking for “tips” online? Yes. I ran a keyword look-up for search volumes on tips related terms and found a big market here. Beauty and sex tips (including specific sex acts) topped the list followed by things like dating, diet, golf, and poker.
They currently have an ad-supported monetization strategy, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see other revenue opportunities including licensing and book deals down the road, assuming the tips keep coming in.
Last January I posted my 2006 predictions. I thought it would be fun to take a peek and see how well I did this last year. Lets see here…
"1 - A new super-virus will be released on the Internet that will wreak havoc on Windows based systems. This virus will be bad enough to bring entire legs of the Internet to a crawl. We’re not talking about your average every-day virus, we’re talking about a massive virus the likes of which we have never seen and will cost corporate America billions."
Nope. Didn’t happen. While there were many viruses released in 2006, nothing along the lines of a Nimda or Code Red came out. There were a couple of scares here and there, but it was a fairly calm year on the sea of the Internet. I would have to say that this prediction was wrong.
"2 - BluRay and HD DVDs will finally hit the market with much fanfare, but at a very steep price. While the early adopters will all grab on to a format, most consumers will ignore this until there is more HD content available."
I think I got this one right. At $500 to $1,500 for a blue laser based HD player, the prices are still too steep for the general consumer and the war is too confusing. It will probably be a while before we see mass adoption of either of these formats.
"3 - Windows Vista will actually be released."
I was right and wrong on this one. Vista has reached RTM and it is possible to get a "final" copy of Vista on MSDN; however, general consumers can’t get their hands on it. Since it’s not actually available to the mass market, I’m going to have to say I was wrong on this one. I really thought that Microsoft was going to get Vista to market in 2006 and they didn’t.
"4 - Apple will release a HDTV living room solution. Maybe based on iTunes, maybe not, this system will allow users to download HDTV shows and movies legally and play them on their Macintosh via their Front Row application. Just plug your Intel based Mac Mini into a HDTV, and download away. While iTunes allows you to download videos today, they are only 320×240, we’re talking 1080i or 720p+ quality here."
I’m not sure what to make of this. Apple did increase the quality of the iTunes Store video downloads to about 480p. This is not HD resolution but it scales very nicely. I can plug a MacMini into an HDTV and download 720p or 1080p content from TE and play it on the screen, but not shows or movies. Apple also announced the codenamed iTV product but has yet to release it. I think the fundemental idea that Apple would enter the living room didn’t happen that much, but they are moving to HDesq video downloads. So while close, I would say I was about a year too early on this one.
"5 - Free WiFi hotspots will start cropping up everywhere as retail owners find this is an easy way to get repeat business."
It happened in Minneapolis and a couple areas in California. I think this is going slowly, but I am starting to see a lot more WiFi hotspots. This item didn’t make the news too much, but I do believe it came true.
"6 - To compete with Windows Mobile 5, Palm will release an all new Treo, above and beyond the Treo 700w, based on a Linux version of the Palm OS. This will be a completely new system that will give Windows Mobile a run for its money; however, the momentum behind Windows Mobile 5 will continue to climb."
HA! Silly me thinking that Access and Palm could get along enough to make this happen. We did see the Treo 680 which is based on an OLDER version of Palm OS with a new home screen, but that’s about it. Yawn. It’s unfortunate that I was wrong on this, it seems to me Palm is slowly loosing it grasp on innovation.
"7 - Intel will produce a 64 bit chip that actually beats the x86 AMD systems in price, performance and power (as in lower power consumption). I know, it’s a long shot, but you never know."
Holy cow I was right! AMD fanboys aside, the Core 2 Duo line kicks butt and isn’t nearly as powr hungry as older Intel products. I would say that not only did this come true, AMD is playing catchup for the first time in years.
"8 - A VoIP war will be raged between Microsoft, eBay/Skype, Google/AOL, and the traditional VoIP providers such as Vonage. We will see a lot of innovative features, the least of which is video. Expect to start getting WebEx type functionality in these applications."
Once again I was a year too early. It’s Apple’s iChat program in 10.5 that will be taking VoIP to the next level. I was banking on SightSpeed or Gizmo Project, but both of these projects let me down in the innovation category. I guess we’ll all just follow Apple’s lead as usual.
"9 - Applications will continue to move to the web, try Writely, Bloglines and Yahoo Mail and they will become more integrated - think OnlineOffice - so that users can access their data from their Handhelds, Tabnotes, and Media Center PC’s: The web will fundamentally disrupt every industry, while we have heard this before, it will truly happen in Web 2.0."
This is happening and ongoing. Google released Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Microsoft started to release their Live platform. I got this one right, but it will be a multi-year process, so it’s not complete yet.
"10 - After Technology Evangelist offers HDTV coverage of CES, the traffic to this site will become so large that we will be forced to upgrade to a new pimped out XServe from Apple. Maybe even two clustered together".
Yes and no. What we really ended up doing is moving first to 1and1.com, but after they had an extended outage recently with no good explanation (or apology) we moved to Media Temple’s Grid network which has been serving us well so far. So yes, we moved to a grid network, no it’s not on an Apple XServe cluster… yet…
How did this year shap up for you? Were your expectations and predictions on mark? What do you expect for 2007?
One of the things I really like about Flickr is the slick in blog integrating they’ve created. With only two clicks, I can go from seeing a photo I liked on Flickr to publishing it as a new blog post.
However, not every Flickr member wants their photos blogged by strangers, which is a perfectly acceptible feeling. Flickr offers a couple options for this crowd:
1. Set your pictures to private, friends, family, or contacts. Private photos are just that. People won’t blog what they can’t see. Friends, family, and contacts settings will limit blogging to people you know.
2. Adjust who can blog your photos. This is done here: http://flickr.com/account/prefs/blogging/
I believe the default setting is “Any Flickr member” so if you haven’t changed this setting, expect it to be wide open.
MarketWatch reported on the 18th that Google was running into some issues related to ad inventory with their new radio offering:
Google Inc.’s nascent radio advertisement business, known as Google Audio, has run into an unexpected snag: it seems Google doesn’t have access to enough radio airtime for would-be advertisers to thoroughly test out the initiative, an analyst said Monday.
Unexpected? Apparently, they didn’t they read my November 8th post regarding a potential investment by Google in Clear Channel where I wrote:
If Google launched a radio ad buying module for AdWords their biggest short-term problem would be a lack of Google sized ad inventory.
The predicted investment by Google in Clear Channel didn’t happen, so the inventory problem hasn’t been solved.
Google’s size does have some limitations. I don’t think Google will have any problem attractive advertisers to a radio advertising platform. In fact, it will likely open up radio advertising to a new audience of advertisers who have never use radio advertising in the past due to the high minimum ad buys (compared to online advertising). Google has two advertiser audiences to satisfy: established radio advertisers who won’t switch to Google’s platform if they can’t make large ad buys and the hundreds of thousands of AdWords advertisers who are looking or additional advertising opportunities beyond online ads.
How will Google get the inventory?
Powerpoint holds an interesting position as the most popular yet hated presentation software. Of course, the reasons for being hated have nothing to do with the software itself. They’re caused by PowerPoint abuse: using a great tool to create awful presentations. Just like a hammer, PowerPoint can can make something beautiful or ugly.
With this in mind, I noticed the following photo in Steve Rubel’s Flickr photostream from his recent visit to Microsoft’s HQ for Microsoft MixNMash 2006. I figured the people working for the company that sells PowerPoint would be PowerPoint masters:
The body language of Niall Kennedy (and I believe Jeremy Zawodny behind Niall) [Update: That’s not Jeremy - according to Jeremy.] shows illustrates how engaging the content is to audiences. If I was to guess, Kennedy and Zawodny probably read the slide at a much faster rate than the presenter presented it, then went back to work on their laptops while the presenter caught up.
How could this slide be improved?
Alan F. Shugart passed away on December 12th of complications following open heart surgery six weeks earlier. He was 76 years old.
While he has not been active in the disk drive business for several years his footprint will last for decades. His most visible legacy today is Seagate Technology which he co-founded with Finis Conner in 1979 as Shugart Technology, later to be named Seagate Technology. We know Seagate Technology today as the largest producer of disk drives in the world.
A few months ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the disk drive. Alan was an engineering member of that first development team in San Jose, California. We were colleagues in San Jose during the 50‚Äôs and 60‚Äôs, Alan was on the disk drive side and I was responsible for systems development. Over this period the disk drive moved from an interesting concept to a fundamental, integral part of every new computer system. We worked closely together to insure the proper trade-offs as we integrated this new medium into an on-line facility. When the IBM S/360 was announced in 1964, after only 5 years in the marketplace, the disk drive had transformed the concept of a modern computer system forever. The success of the early disk drives was due, in no small part, to Alan‚Äôs skill, stubbornness and determination. He was known for speaking his mind and not being afraid of whomever he expressed his opinion to. In the end, it was this characteristic that ended his IBM career in 1969. Before he left, however, one of his pet projects was the development of the 8‚Ä? floppy disk drive. It was designed for loading microcode into the S/360 mainframes. He knew that there was a much larger potential for this device so he took the idea with him and as the PC business started to emerge he re-incarnated it as the 5.25‚Ä? floppy that became the backbone of the early PC products.
Alan Shugart was a true pioneer. Unafraid of the unknown, full of self confidence and a tough task master. His name does not appear in the lights of Broadway but his legacy lies deep within every single disk drive that is produce today.
I shall miss him.
After a few days with the relatives, I’ve had a chance to reset my tech-centric self with a good dose of real-world tech use. There were no conversations about RSS, the intricacies of Google’s search algorithm, blog platforms, Web 2.0 business models, JavaScript, or PHP. However, there were plenty of tech-related conversations. Here are a ten that come to mind:
2. Explaining the value of upgrading beyond 512MB RAM for a college student’s computer. Well worth it, and the RAM is on the way.
3. Discussing the photo quality of small digital cameras. I’ve been impressed with my new Canon SD 600.
4. Explaining Net Neutrality after seeing the misinformation commercial I wrote about last week running on Comcast cable.
5. Explaining the benefits of PCs vs. Macs for a college student in a band. Sticking with the PC for now, but will probably buy a Mac next.
6. Showing someone how iMovie works after showing her a video I made for Christmas. It’s on her Mac but she hasn’t tried it yet.
7. Showing someone my Flickr photos. Realizing that Flickr’s interface is painfully hard to use by people with less than 10,000 hours of touch pad or mouse experience.
8. Explaining the difference between RAM and a hard drive.
9. Receiving a dead iPod as a non-gift giveaway because the hard drive stopped spinning.
10. Showing someone how to navigate their very first iPod.
How about you? What sort of tech questions or conversations do you encounter while visiting friends and family that differ from your everyday life?
When the vast majority of emails I receive from MySpace are spammy friend requests, I’m not happy. For example, here is a group I received this morning:
At this point, I still see enough value in MySpace in the form of reconnecting with friends from college and high school that I’m willing to put up with the junk. However, it’s really a shame that a MySpace email in my inbox is no longer something to look forward to.
Why doesn’t MySpace hold friend requests for a few minutes to an hour to look for friend request spam pattern before sending? That would improve the user experience for most users without causing too much pain to heavy users.
