Friday Mood Music of the Day - Kate Ceberano

Lol saw a few of her cd's on Ebay last month that i snapped up, been bopping away to them on the computer for the last few weeks.

Enjoy.

Cheers,
Dean

MyTwitterButler 4 day sale

I'm running a 50% off sale for the next 4 days for http://www.mytwitterbutler.com/ licenses.

Until Monday you'll be able to buy 2 licenses for $10.

If you are looking for a Twitter tool to autofollow based on keywords or to direct message your twitter followers then this is quick and easy tool worth checking out.

Feel free to tweet it out.


Cheers,
Dean

Skype to shut down?

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/shock-threat-to-shut-skype-20090731-e3qe.html

Hang on ebay paid $2.6b for this company….. BUT it didn’t include the actual core software? Are you freaking kidding me?

How much have they been paying each year since 2005 for the P2P software license?


Cheers,
Dean

Hyper Evolution

Came across this interesting article;

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/is-hyper-evolution-possible-a-galaxy-classic.html
Think it takes thousands or even millions of years for animals to evolve significantly new traits? Think again.

I've often wondered about this myself. Is something going to happen to us, around us either massive in physical nature (EOTWAWKI) or in society (bionic/cyborg implants) that will cause a massive jump in what it means to be human.

I think i'm probably a generation or two too early but you never know, i might catch the tail end.

(BTW has anyone been watching The Colony on tv the last few weeks?)


Cheers,
Dean

Is this click fraud for Cubics.com traffic?

So i recently came across a new social network advertising company called http://www.cubics.com/

Buy Targeted Ads on Social NetworksCubics is the first and only advertising network that allows advertisers to target users of social networks such as FacebookTM, MySpaceTM, Friendster & Bebo.
So I bought a 'test' amount of pre-paid credits to run some banner ads for one of the Live Fan Chat website http://www.LiveBaseballChat.com


Basically they look like this;

http://www.livebaseballchat.com/
Chat live now with other baseball
fans this weekend during the games



Pretty straight forward and uses the same text we use for our google text ads. We've tried a few different variations and generally get a few clicks each and every day at a very dependable rate (it's a pretty niche target market + we have a very small limit set for our daily budget).
So for the first few days with Cubics it looked like we were getting the same reliable click through numbers each day and looked like our $20 test investment would last about a week, until today.

I just got an email a few hours ago saying my account had been depleted and i needed to add more credits or the campaign will be cancelled.

So i logged into the account to find;

Date 2009-07-26
Views 223,848
Clicks 198
Conv 0.088%
Total Cost $34.47
CPC Bid $0.20

At first i was like way cool - 198 clicks in one day.

Then when I realised every single visitor only visited 1 page and then logged off in less than 10 seconds.

Then when i checked google analytics I found out all of the visits occurred within a 1 hour period...... (9pm est).



hmmmm -

Does http://www.cubics.com/ have a problem with click fraud or were they just very lucky displaying my advertisement to 198 people who clicked on then left without clicking any links onto other pages all in a 1 hour period.

So what do you think? click fraud or not?


Cheers,
Dean

Art is War

Saw this T-Shirt when out and about today.Love this tshirt.

Cheers,

Dean

Australian mobile data charges

http://www.crn.com.au/News/150920,survey-shows-iphone-churn-a-major-issue.aspx
Vodafone is a great choice for customers who tether, as they aren't charged a monthly 'tethering access fee' and can use the data allowance included in their plan. Vodafone customers have the option to purchase additional data for tethering; 1GB for $24.95 or 2GB for $29.95

HA HA HA are you freaking kidding me $24.95 for 1gb of mobile data - what a freaking joke.

Stuff like this is why i live in the USA.


Cheers,
Dean

Spinvox

ha ha Spinvox 'advance speech recognition' exposed - http://bit.ly/36W4dq

I keep telling people making this stuff 100% accurate cant be done at a price point to make it viable for free ad supported services.


Cheers,
Dean

Palm OS update 'fixes' Apples

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/23/palm-updates-palm-pre-webos-software-fixes-itunes-bork/HA HA, so basically Palm Mobile OS 1.1 is now available..... and yes it includes an update that fixes what Apple did to lock out the Palm Pre handsets from iTunes

Will be interesting to see how long before Apple release another version which yet again kicks out Palm users.

This is exactly like Hulu and Boxee - lol how is that battle going these days anyway?


Cheers,
Dean

Streeteasy.com

I think i've posted about http://www.streeteasy.com/ before but if i haven't go check it out.

Sebastian just posted this question

Sebastian Delmont I wonder how many of the 35+ million dollars lost by the NY times in the last 6 months were because of StreetEasy


Here is my reply,

In Australia real estate is a major powerhouse for www.SMH.com.au (they run it under their Domain.com.au website).I haven't lived there for 5 years but... pretty much every house/apt for sale in Sydney would run an advertisement in the Saturday Herald.Plus for rental listings it used to be the only effective place to run it. Every apartment i've ever lived in has been located in the SMH.So to answer your question should the New York Times buy Streeteasy.com ,definitely, but if they did you would have to change your business model.


Relevant to a number of businesses both from the 'leading edge upstarts' and the legacy 'category kings'.

What would you do?


Cheers,
Dean

iPhones are a USA only phenomena

When i try and explain to people in the USA that iPhones are a USA only phenomena they look at me kind of strange.

Here is an example of the SA data from the latest AdMob report

Cheers,
Dean

Out of Copyright Text Books

Read this article today;
http://www.techflash.com/Amazon_University_of_Michigan_to_print_out-of-copyright_books_51318047.html

Hang on a minute...."Out of copyright text books", wasn't this the whole issue with the 1984 ebooks that were 'stolen' last week in that they were out of copyright prints but only out of copyright in Australia and Canada and not the USA?

Do you really want to play with fire and be doing this again Amazon?


Cheers,
Dean

No I dont want to be part of your Spymaster goup

No I dont want to be part of your Spymaster goup!!!!

Can someone please email me with who the founder of Spymaster application is so i can punch him in the nose, hard.


Cheers,
Dean

www.StarWarsUncut.com Post 2

ROFL this is going to be the funniest thing ever, and well deserving of a special oscar for creative concepts.

As you know from my first post http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/wwwstarwarsuncutcom.html

Someone has set up a project to allocate out 461 different 15 second slots of the Star Wars movie. All of those 15 second slots have now been taken and already 12 of these are finished being shot ready for end assembly editing.

http://www.starwarsuncut.com/#/

I just saw this and was cracking up, this is going to be so funny.

Cheers,
Dean

LOL - www.Hottweeters.com

ROFL laughing, nothing is new it's just recycled.


I saw this email exchange in the twitter dev list this morning.

>Kevin Mesiab wrote:
>Alright... which one of you made HotTweeters.com?
>;) Clever adaptation. Time to change my avatar to some tits and win the internets!

>Christian Heilmann wrote:
> How?


>Kevin Mesiab wrote:
>That for starters....
>http://siteanalytics.compete.com/hottweeters.com/



Check out that stat chart for growth - i only wish MyTwitterButler.com was growing at that rate.

Great to see that old ideas are sometimes the best ideas.


Cheers,
Dean

A Woman in Berlin

Just got back from seeing "A Woman In Berlin" tonight.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1035730

Wow - what a phenomenal movie.

So complex, so confronting, so applicable to the current state of wars and nationalistic biases and turf battles that we have happening in our world right now, this very week....yet somehow so sanitised in the 6pm evening news.

There's lots i want to say but i also dont want to give it away, this is not a movie review - if you need details go read the imdb site, this is a recommendation you take my word and just see it.

This is a movie you will be thinking about for weeks to come.

Basically there are layers to this movie that change how you react many times over, is she shameful, is she a survivor, are they animals or are they disturbed with what happened in their own pasts.

Juxtaposed with what we know happened 40 years later with the collapse of the soviet union and the globilisation of Germany makes it even stranger.

Take tissues, Jodie bawled her eyes out pretty much from the first scene, strangely i didn't cry until the last scene when they start to 'clean up the apartment' hoping they were going to get it together...... (yes i'm the eternalistic romantic).

It's strangely funny in scenes and also touching about what it means to be intelligent and appreciated by another intelligent person.

We saw it at The Anjelika, so if you are in New York go see it there
http://www.fandango.com/10014_movietheatershowtimes?featureId=v468790

It's probably going to have fairly limited release so make the effort, you'll appreciate it if you do.


Cheers,
Dean

Twitter documentation on techcrunch

This has nothing to do with the cloud.

If the documents were stored on a internal server that had the same shitty password then the data would have leaked as well.

This is not a cloud problem but a security problem.

Dont use passwords like...."Password".


Cheers,
Dean
BTW really worth reading all the way through found some really interesting comments in the notes.

Downbound Train

Listening to Downbound Train by Bruce Springsteen, there are very few songs more perfect than this at capturing gritty resolve and lost love.

Echo Chambers?

"What percentile of the population is your echo chamber"?

You know I sit here in my office working on all types of cutting edge technologies - mobile analytics, 2d bar codes, voip, open source software etc. My internal project that I've sunk a ton of money into http://www.livechatconcepts.com/ requires you to have a netbook/wifi etc while watching baseball and chatting real time using xmpp on http://www.livebaseballchat.com/

I know only a few 'certain personalities' want to chat real time while watching baseball on tv and I accept that.

People i talk to day in day out are most likely also working on their own startups, music communities, mobile apps, gaming networks, cloud based web apps etc.

But when were you last in the real world?

I dont mean, when were you last at the local cafe with your startup support group buddies I mean the real real world?

Jodie and I are going for a New York state drivers licenses (lol been here 5 years and never had to drive since). After spending 2 hours lining up to do a 5 minute / 20 multiple choice question test - it was driving me crazy to see the ineptitude of the people working behind the counters and their poor business practices.

Are these my prospective customers?

(LOL for the guys on Newtech-1 working on NY Senate open source apps....how about going to the DMV and spending a week sorting out that place, being low hanging fruit and all, you would have a direct and immediate impact and all new yorkers would love you).

Here in New York you have to go for a 5 hour 'drivers ed' class as part of the license process (realistically it's 30 minutes of worthwhile information and the rest is a waste of time, oh and about 45 minutes of watching "Speed Kills" videos warning about the dangers of drag racing and speeding......).

So i'm sitting in the 'drivers ed' class - which is a converted shop front, crappy chairs a white board, filing cabinet, tire calendar pinned to the wall, 2 ancient pc's and a phone system from the 70's.

This company has an answering machine for voicemail and the website looks like it was designed by a teenager in the 90's using MS Paint (I picked them because they were close).

Are these my customers?

I've been thinking - why concentrate on the bleeding edge? Is there a business model bring the other 80% of the population into the current state of technology?

Who cares that 12 month old Twitter might be dead because of Wave? That social network 'X' is the new Facebook that was the new MySpace.

How can we make money out of providing 'a single entry accounting service' for Joes Driving School that prints his receipts out on laser printer, while keeping his financial records....rather than him manually writing them out.

Providing him a Raid 6 file server with off site storage so when his jerry rigged air conditioner burns the building he wont lose all his data.

Provide him a voip service that delivers his voicemails as emails and allows him to answer inbound calls in 'the shop front', from his mobile, or from his home SIP handset.

Implementing a website that is current in look and feel and browsing technology, allows online booking which uses customer provided data...to update his financial books so he doesn't even need to re-enter the details manually into his books.

Does your technology help out Joes Driving School?

Is there money to be made here? or will it just be an evolutionary process that weeds out the technology neophytes, replacing them with computerised Acme driving school.

What percentage of the population are you targeting with your startup?


Cheers,
Dean

Augmented Reality business card

I am so jealous and so want this. It's obviously a first draft and needs work but this is too cool.

Watching this makes me realise we need a AR standardised service like QR codes, eg all 'applications' display data calls in the same format etc.

Obviously the data will be pulled down from a web services domain but the url and format for the information on that domain should be standardised - I'm suggesting we go for the following format

http://www.Cognation.net/AR/123456789

Once an application sees a suffix /AR/ it knows to make a web call to whatever augmented reality application is installed on the computer/phone.

The it knows to make a web call to the particular domain to pull down the information.

All thats missing is working out the 'standardised' way to convert whatever image/shape/design into the URL for the web call.

We can use the 2 dimensional shape displayed on this card (and others) or we can user a 2D codes style service, kind of like QR codes but with a z axis function. My suggestion is to implement MoseyCode for this functionality as the creator has open sourced the license but thats going to be a matter for common consensus.

Either way this is something we are going to need if we are going to start flipping business cards out to people and not expect them to download 50 different AR applications.

Cheers,
Dean

(hat tip to David Polichock at BEL for finding this first)

Has the ringer in your HTC Tytyn 2 (AT&T 8525) stopped working?

Has the ringer in your HTC Tytyn 2 (AT&T 8525) stopped working? The phone is fully operational but none of the ringer sounds can be activated.

Turns out there is a design fault in the AT&T 8525 where over time the 'ringer' connecter dislocates from the phones motherboard.

5 minutes and you can fix it as good as new.

Step 1: Remove the back cover, remove the battery, remove the 4 small screws circled in red below. Congratulations you are further along than any iPhone :P

Step 2: Partially seperate the rear cover with a credit card.

Step 3: You only need to open it as the 'OK' button, as long as you can see this small white connecter with Red & Black wires then this is far enough.

Step 4: use a small set of teezers or some other object to push down on the connector (in the direction of the button towards the motherboard).

Reboot your phone and it's as good as new.


Cheers,

Dean

Social Media Research - teenagers dont use twitter or watch tv..... not.

I read this article today about a Morgan Stanley report that says teenagers dont use twitter and dont watch tv.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199357/Morgan-Stanley-interns-comments-cause-media-markets-sensation-warns-internet-bosses-friends-dont-twitter.html

hmmmm - my comments below.



ha ha, if the Morgan Stanley guys follow this report they are headed in the wrong direction.

do a search on http://search.twitter.com/ or buy yourselves a dedicated search application like http://www.mytwitterbutler.com/

you'll find teenagers DO use twitter and they DO watch tv.

research boys.... it's not always worth what you pay for it but it often is.


Cheers,
Dean

www.StarWarsUncut.com

www.StarWarsUncut.com

Hello! You and 472 other people have the chance to recreate Star Wars: A New Hope. Below is the entire movie split up into 15 second clips. Click on one of the scenes to claim it, film it, and upload it. You can have up to three scenes! When we're all done, we'll stitch it all together and watch the magic happen.

This is fantastic, this is exactly what the internet is about - what a freaking amazing concept.

I hope this is the first of many such projects as i can think of a few other movies that lend itself to this concept - can anyone say "Pulp Fiction Uncut ".....

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. - Good to see this project finished http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2012/01/fan-made-star-wars-recut-is-the-greatest-viral-video-ever.html

Legal WTO pirates of Antigua

Oh snap - i told you this was coming back in April 2007 http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/wto-rules-usa-gambling-ban-illegal.html


The new (MP3) Pirates of the Caribbean
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/09/zookz_why/
Antigua, once rife with traditional high seas piracy, has given birth to a pirate download service. Only this is one you pay for.
Zookz claims to host 1,500 movies and 50,000 tracks for subscribers who trust it with $9.99 a month. Creators won't see a penny, however, because of an unusual exemption claimed by the island.
RegAd('mpu1', 'reg.music_media.4159/front', 'pos=top;sz=336x280', VCs);
Antigua is claiming the unusual opt-out from the international intellectual property treaty framework TRIPS, as a consequence of a dispute over its obligations under the GATS agreements, which are administered by the World Trade Organization.
In 2004, the WTO ruled that the United States had violated GATS by preventing Antigua's remote gambling services from access to the US market. The WTO later ordered the US to change its gambling laws and pay Antigua $21m compensation. The administration refused to do so. In a tit for tat, Antigua argued that GATS no longer applied. This is a unilateral declaration contested by the WTO, but Zookz claims it provides a legal umbrella.


Now we will start to see the war of the 'lobbyists' here in the USA - who will win the Gambling Lobbyists or the Film and Music Lobbyists?

I guess we'll see how the USA reacts to playing to global rules now.


Cheers,
Dean

Google OS

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/07/google-drops-a-nuclear-bomb-on-microsoft-and-its-made-of-chrome/


Ha ha yeh right I’ll believe it when I see it.

Chrome has hardly been ‘astounding’ PLUS their wave announcement is total BS baloney PR vapourware (want to challenge me on this statement go right ahead I’ve been actively trying to research wave and it’s full of holes).

The only reason they are announcing Google OS now is to hopefully steal some of the windows 7 momentum – sorry google, you do great search but for the moment you re looking all full of hot air. Come back when you actually have something to demonstrate.


Cheers,
Dean

Facebook embedded fans box

Nice app http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=102246207301&ref=nf
(see the abcnews example that i just clicked on in my profile - works well).

Turning Website Visitors into Facebook Fans with the Fan Box
Over 8 million users become fans of Facebook Pages every day to connect with their favorite public figures and organizations and get updates directly in their streams. Now, users can connect with brands, musicians, celebrities, businesses, and more, whether they're on or off Facebook.


Cheers,
Dean

Doritos bag augmented reality - finally some decent marketing ideas!!

You already know if you read this blog even a little that i'm big into 2d bar codes and into augmented reality marketing opportunities, but because i'm not a brand manager i'm not in a position to do anything about it, and when i talk to FMCG and advertising agencies about why these technologies are so cool and the fantastic potential for consumer interaction, they are all like...no we want to wait until its more widely deployed (.....pussies!!).

And then when you do get crap like the Pappa Johns 'car tour augmented reality campaign' it makes me want to get all 'wolfenstein' on their asses and roam the halls of their marketing agency with a double barrel shotgun.

It kills me as a technology person that these great 'value add' enhancements aren't being deployed, if i hear one more brand manager say we dont want to implement QR code campaigns until the readers are deployed on the handsets..... it just makes me want to scream "well if you actually put some worthwhile content out there people will actually feel the desire to download a reader to their handset in order to access that specific content".

You know advertising..... it used to be an art about about creating desire, not just reach and ad spend.

Anyways.... It was with great 'desire' that I read this article today and wanted to run out an buy a bag of Late Night flavor Doritos


https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/109223/doritos-bags-enable-virtual-3-d-concert-experience.html
Bags of Doritos Late Night are functioning as "tickets" to enable consumers to access and interact with virtual, 3-D performances by the bands blink-182 and Big Boi.

Specially marked bags of the brand's Late Night varieties bear markers that are recognizable by augmented reality technology -- technology that enhances video imagery with computer-generated graphics in real-time. The concerts are being billed as the first-ever augmented reality experiences to showcase live-action video within a 3-D, interactive environment.

Users log onto Doritoslatenight.com and point the printed marker on the bag at a Web cam to launch virtual performances that seem to "pop directly out of the bag." In addition, the technology allows users to change the video performances experienced (two songs by blink-182, one song by Big Boi) each time simply by changing the way they hold or move the snack bag.


It's exactly the same technology that I've talked about here and here but just done well.

Well FMCG and Brand managers it's over to you now. If you need some help i'm happy to answer questions but this isn't about the technology, F the technology, this is just about creating customer interaction and brand awareness but most of all it's about creating desire.

Oh of course feel free to go back to your normal 'budget spreadsheets' as you know better because spend and reach is all that matters.


Cheers,
Dean

GigaOm Pro

So i have a question for you.... "When you comment on an article - should the online publisher be paying you for your insight and involvement".


Or


"Does the sum of more people involved in an online discussion ad more value than just the original reporter?"

eg I was going to add a comment to this GigaOm article http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/07/will-facebook-join-the-mobile-app-store-craze/ (and considering i own the domains www.MobileAppStore.com and have been watching this space for 2 years I think i could have added value) only to find that GigaOm want to charge me $79 a year to help 'them' out by commenting.

I know different financial models need to be trialed.... but in this instance they lost out on my comment.


Cheers,
Dean

www.MMarket.com

Now that China Mobile has opened up their app store to 500m users are any of you going to be submitting your apps for international consumption?


http://www.mmarket.com/

Interesting to see they are offering applications for multiple Mobile OS's and with the China Mobile O phone coming out in 2 months i expect that a lof of the apps will be heavily weighted towards Android (O phone is a HTC android with custom os).

China Mobile are keeping 50% of all app sales as commission but with 500,000,000 end customers....they get to call the shots (big enough that they still haven't given into Steve Jobs at Apple - people think China Mobile is crazy that they still haven't come to terms on the rev model splits with Apple so have kept the iphone out of China, lol crazy like a fox i think, with the Ophone now just months away China Mobile doesn't care if one of the smaller carriers pick it up now).

Cheers,
Dean

Considering i still own the domains www.MobileAppStore.com + .net + .org + .mobi it's an interesting space to keep watching.

Sony patent for controllers

Sony Patents A Motion Control System That Uses Ordinary Objects As Controllers
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/07/02/sony-patents-a-motion-control-system-that-uses-ordinary-objects-as-controllers/

As much as I hate most patents.... I do like this. Easy, innovative, something no one has done before....but should have.

Did you see the baseball bat image? take that Wii


Cheers,
Dean

www.LiveBaseballChat.com with 49 states in the USA and 71 countries

I was looking into the google analytics today for http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ and noticed that we have had visitors from 49 states of the USA

Which i think is cool but no one from Wyoming, Vermont or Hawaii?

Kind of curious why no one from Hawaii - if you know of anyone send them a link and ask them to sign up for an account :)

Was also interested to see that we have had visitors from 71 countries which i think is weird as although i emailed a few friends etc from Australia I've never really made any effort to market elsewhere in the world so curious why/how these people found out about such USA orientated MLB 2009 content.

Not sure there are too many baseball fans in Finland etc but yet there they are.

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Howard Greenstein commented on "49 states then i point out 3 missing", for the sake of brevity i said 49 states when i should have said 49 states, districts and territories....thank you Howard.

Though having said that i'm curious how Google Analytics treats American Samoa, Guam, Marianas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and what is missing in the GA list.

Will have to go do more research.

Twitter inc to copyright the term Twitter

Came across this article today
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/01/twitter-to-developers-tweet-your-heart-out-but-dont-twitter-it/


I use the word twitter in my product http://www.MyTwitterButler.com

So sue me.


Cheers,
Dean

UK Vodafone femtocells now available

For those of you who have been waiting for AT&T to announce the public availability of their femtocell appliance in order to fix the shitty AT&T network coverage this will interest you.



Vodafone Access Gateway (femtocell) launched in UK Its July 1st and Vodafone have officially launched their access gateway product in the UK. For those who are wondering what this is - its a femtocell with a curious title. Although Vodafone had made a press announcement at the Femto World Summit last week, its nice to see how they are packaging and presenting it to customers here in the UK. Some initial observations 1. Apart from buying it directly for £160, it is being bundled with var...Read More



I’m assuming it will be offered on similar commercial terms as I think if AT&T charge a monthly fee people will riot – was hoping for a cheaper price than $US220 though.

Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Sprint to offer theirs in the USA before AT&T.... http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/03/sprint-swaggers-promises-to-be-first-to-release-3g-femtocell-in/ ... maybe - no details on pricing or if included under plans so doesn't matter.