www.GutCheckIt.com ?

Anyone used http://gutcheckit.com/ for application feedback?
http://www.fastcompany.com/1713068/gutcheck-diy-market-research
Sounds interesting. Not sure how they find the panels though…

 
Cheers,
Dean

Shortened Facebook Feeds?

Has anyone else noticed that their Facebook newsfeed is being shortened over time, basically you aren't being sent all of the activities for all of your friends - particularly if you follow a lot of fan sites like me :(

This is becoming a real issue, i'm sure facebook are doing it to cut down on the amount of traffic but i feel i'm missing out on events and dont know how to fix this as no amount of top news/most recent news seems to increase the amount i can see.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Dean


P.S. Trying to draw some attention to this issue, if you are a Digg or Reddit user appreciate the clicks.
http://digg.com/news/technology/dean_collins_shortened_facebook_feeds
or
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/euzbo/shortened_facebook_feeds_have_you_noticed/c1b5pfk

Sean Walker

I have no idea who Sean Walker is but watch this video.

http://www.centernetworks.com/startup-and-entrepreneurial-updates?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Centernetworks-+%28CenterNetworks+-%29&utm_content=Twitter

GroupOn capital raising

hmmmm i'm all for tech IPO's but this is crazy, i'm heading for the bomb shelter - this is now officially a bubble.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/groupon_may_be_raising_almost_1b_in_financing_5x_a.php

Is GroupOn the Pets.com of their time?

Can we get official printed GroupOn stock certificates? (i hear the pets.com certificates are worth a fair amount on ebay).



Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Someone just asked me what the "pets.com" reference was about - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com


P.P.S this just announced - http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/30/groupon-insiders-345-million/
The founders / early investors took $345m of this capital raising in cash - WOW - I thought Dennis Crowley got street cred for doing something similar for Foursquare but that was only a couple of million between him and Naveen (which they deserved) but this is just robbery on a whole new level.

Snowcalypse press

I've been watching all the local press running around with glee about we finally have something to report "on this day what a tragedy it's the snowcalypse blah blah blah".

Get over it, it's snow not that big a deal.

Go do some investigative journalism there are real stories to be found every day instead of reading out press releases and being lead by the nose.

People wonder why press/news readership is down - its because you guys are freaking amateurs.

 
Cheers,
Dean

Ziggy Stardust lyrics

Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
Came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan

lol dont know why but just 'listened' to some of the lyrics coming out of my headphones. Lol David Bowie must have had access to some amazing drugs in the 70's.



Feeling like a memory trip? check out the Nina Hagen rendition, absolutely jaw dropping brilliant.

Cheers,
Dean

Winter snow Dec 2010

The snow is late this year, this is the first of the real winter snow 2010.

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. LOL- for once the news was right about 'a blizzard', here is the snow the next day.

because of our deck furniture we ended up with a snow drift of about 3 feet worth of snow on our back deck.....4 stories up.

Check out the 18" of snow on top of the cars. Their not going anywhere today.

YouTube re-re-re-re-Rip

Crazy to see how much it degraded in 10 generations:

Gen 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEIzS_27Vt0
Gen 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVkUm9TGCo


Check out the 100th rip as well (though turn your speakers down first).

Cheers,
Dean

Google slam

Neat marketing campaign.

Whigfield

Listening to Whigfield "Aint it Blue" at 7am on a Sunday morning and boppping my head away like a spastic 12 year old.....lol there has to be something wrong with me.

www.BridgeURL.com

Just saw a neat app I thought a few people might find useful - BridgeURL.
Check out test example here http://bridgeurl.com/deancollins-1

Basically creates a “landing page” that then allows you to navigate through a series of urls.

Doesn’t look like there is anyway to add or remove URLs though (though probably being held back for freemium accounts).


Cheers,
Dean

A merry startup christmas?

Just received the First Round Capital christmas holiday card video - http://bit.ly/gb2fcc


Ha Ha crackup, well worth the watch.

On the other hand scary just how many startups were here that i had never heard of.

What does this mean?



Cheers,
Dean

Why QR codes are better than image recognition for 'most' purposes

I was trying to explain to someone today why QR codes are a much better way to hyperlink objects over image recognition.

Image recognition is NOT a good solution as there are no indications if an item IS scannable or IS NOT in the database.

The way i explain it is no one needs instruction when you walk up to a door, you instinctively know, reach over-turn the handle-pull or push the door-walk through.

When was the last time someone had to explain to you how to open a door?


Cheers,
Dean

Are you ready to pay Samsung a weekly fee to watch their TVs?

Great article from Shelly Palmer below about what your tv manafacturer has in plan for you. Did anyone ask you your thoughts?


Fighting For the Digital Living Room – Wrong!!!
Shelly Palmer
We’re not fighting for the living room, we’re fighting for the account.”
Fasten your seatbelts; this is going to get rough.
According to Mr. Anderson, Samsung, makers of exceptional consumer electronics, will sell over 8.5 million Internet connectible flat screen television sets this year. And, approximately 5.5 million of them will be broadband connected and registered online within a week or so of being purchased.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/notes/shelly-palmer/fighting-for-the-digital-living-room-wrong/174135142608455 



Hi Shelly,

I watched online in real time the Guardian TV conference a few weeks ago (unfortunately only looks like highlights are available http://www.guardian.co.uk/future-tv/video/red-bee-future-of-tv-video rather than the full 16 hours).
I was very surprised by the CE vendors about how much of an influence in the future they thought they were going be (Samsung in particular).
I didn't hear any discussion from these vendors about billing arrangements so i wonder how many people are prepared to pay a weekly/monthly/per event fee on top of the TV costs to Samsung to watch "the samsung channel".
I always assumed it would be a YahooTV or other "community" owner who built this content out - does Samsung really have the experience necessary to turn silicon chips into virtual credit chips?

Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.LiveChatConcepts.com

WikiLeaks broken the law - nope, go suck it Gillard

Excellent to see many Australian news editors telling the Oz Gov that #Wikileaks not acted illegally http://j.mp/hwnHMB

Health and Wealth of countries for the last 200 years - amazing graphics.

Statistics come to life when Swedish academic superstar Hans Rosling graphically illustrates global development over the last 200 years.



Some of the best UI graphic information i've seen in a while. Great video. Makes me think what else can i do to better represent information.

Cheers,
Dean

Logitech G11 macro ALT+TAB problem

I thought i would write this for SEO reasons and hopefully other people wont waste 30 mins trying to solve the problem - and if someone does solve it please let me know (the logitech forums have no answers to this problem either).

Although I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Logitech G11 keyboard there is a small problem with macros. It seems you cant program in an ALT + Tab event into a macro to enable screen switching from one application to another.

You can pretty much do anything else you can think of though which is why i would never give this keyboard up, but basically when the macro recorder does the ALT+Tab macro event the profiler app loses focus and collapses back onto the screen the last keyboard event occured in :(

Spent 30 mins trying to solve this so if you work out how to do it please let me know (you can script with the Logitech G11 so i might try again over the weekend but as far as i can tell this is a big negative for macros here).


Cheers,
Dean

10,000th chat milestone

Was just looking at our analytics dashboard and realized we just passed our 10,000th live chat session.


#10063 Colts at Titans starts at Thu Dec 09 20:20:00 EST 2010 hashtags: #Titans #Colts
http://www.livefootballchat.com/CHurl/12-09-2010/10063/4224

:( kind of feel bad I didn’t notice (now up to 10,063).

Facebook is small....when compared to TV

Wow, really interesting article - i'm totally not sure how to take this article that we watch a truckload of TV? or that Facebook is small and we really do get carried away with the latest and greatest.

Either way this is a great article with some sobering numbers.


CBS Audience Five Times Bigger Than Facebook
There is no question that Facebook is the hottest destination on the Web today.

However, as I learned from David Poltrack, chief research officer of CBS, during his presentation at the UBS Media & Communication Conference, CBS attracted almost 240 million viewers in October, who spent 210 billion minutes watching CBS programming. Yes, CBS is five times bigger than Facebook. As I learned last week from Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer at Turner Networks

If Facebook was measured as a TV network, it would be comparable in size to PBS.
PBS? Yes.


Is PBS worth $50b? If not why not?


Cheers,
Dean

YouPorn lawsuit

Any thoughts?


http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2010/11/30/history-sniffing-how-youporn-checks-what-other-porn-sites-youve-visited-and-ad-networks-test-the-quality-of-their-data/?

I’ve often wondered if something like this could be done with cookies etc. and wondering why it wasn’t done more often.

Anyone onreading this doing something similar (possibly in a different format). As long as it is in the T&C’s of the site signup it shouldn’t be illegal etc – or do the other companies maintain they “own” their cookies and therefore cant be touched etc.
Very interesting court case about privacy legal rights, T&C’s legal rights, cutting edge technology and data matching etc. Will be interesting to see how this one turns out.



Cheers,
Dean

Christmas eCard

Jodie got a write up in ABA law Journal for the Chrismas eCard concept that she developed for her company this year.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/after_lengthy_confab_manatt_offers_warm_wishes_with_disclaimer_on_holiday_e/
or click through to the card here
http://www.manatt.com/holidaycards/2010/

The card got another write up today - this time in the WSJ - http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/12/09/the-law-blog-best-law-firm-holiday-card-of-2010/

This is setting the bar high... i told her time to start thinking about 2011's Christmas card now.

Calorie Counts

One of the coolest things i think Bloomberg initiated was the requirement that all NY based food outlets with more than 20 stores MUST post calorie content for each meal item.

Just heard on cnbc they are doing calorie counts across all of the usa from 2011.

Very cool.

Cheers,

Dean

The Future of TV - video of Guardians conference

You can see why i get all hot and heavy around 9.30 :)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/future-tv/video/red-bee-future-of-tv-video


Cheers,
Dean

Biggest change at YouTube since live broadcast

YouTube introduced the biggest change since live broadcast events in march 2010 (eg the IPL live tournament coverage).

TrueView video ads allow you to "skip forward" past the add (eg think fast forwarding on your dvr).


In an attempt to benefit both consumers and advertisers, the new TrueView video ads will give viewers the option of skipping an ad after the first five seconds and will only charge advertisers if their ads play for their entirety or 30 seconds, whichever is shorter.
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/12/trueview-video-ads-give-viewers-choice.html

Now what is really really interesting and not covered here is whats happening with the backend buying model. Like what happens with google ads - ads that get clicked on a lot will rise to the top and appear more often "and the theory is" that the CPM charges for them will go down (lol yeh right, since when have you known Google to leave money on the table).

The idea is that if you have a crappy ad that people dont pay to view and the skip past after 5 seconds you wont be seen as much. lol imagine spending 20k to shoot a high quality video add for YouTube only to find the end users telling you that your ad sucks and that you cant get it shown without shelling 5 times more.

The idea of project Canoe is to deliver targeted cable tv ads....wonder if they want to tempt fate by doing similar. What a Damocles Sword that concept would be.


Cheers,
Dean

Amazon Sales tax

I wonder if all the "receipts" are being held in a trust account and Amazon will get them back should they win - And if they do then do they have to return them back to end customers, lol I'll be due a fortune.

Amazon v. New York Tax Challenge to Continue

A New York appeals court ruled that a trial court incorrectly dismissed a lawsuit brought by Amazon and Overstock challenging on constitutional grounds a state law that requires online retailers to pay sales tax on purchases by New York state residents.
The trial court had dismissed the suit, which was brought by the online retailers in 2008 after New York amended its tax law.
The new tax law required companies like Overstock and Amazon to collect sales tax on items shipped to New York addresses even when the retailer has no offices or employees in the state. Read more

 
Cheers,
Dean

Julia Gillard is an idiot (part 2)

Julia Gillard is an idiot - there is that other small issue that "he's not living in Australia so your laws dont apply"


- http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/wikileaks-acting-illegally-says-gillard-20101202-18hb9.html
Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the leaking of classified documents via the WikiLeaks website is "illegal". The Australian Federal Police are investigating whether WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange's publication of secret US cables breaches any local laws.


That would be like saying every Australian citizen who went to Germany and drove on the autobahn should get a speeding ticket when they arrived home to Australia.

What an idiot.


Cheers,
Dean

When are QR code readers going to get past "Beta" functionality?

I was just asked this question on Facebook Questions
 http://www.facebook.com/q/Do-you-think-google-goggles-will-become-the-universal-QR-code-scanner/162569547118128?answer_id=162784307096652&qa_ref=qd



Here is my response

No. Too many choices and no need to standardise.

 

When are we going to see a QR codes reader that does more than the basic "reading" functionality is what i want to know.

 

When will we see a QR code reader that;

1. Stores the last 50 codes your read for later access.
2. Uploads codes you've read to a web page that allows you to access them from a desktop browser, possibly allowing you to "tag" them at a later date or at least view the content from another browser on you pc.
3. Allow you to sms or email a qr code to a friend once you've read them.

Basically as i see it QR code readers (and therefor their developers) are in the dark ages (lol feel free to hire me for further product application design).

Cheers,
www.Cognation.net/QR

 

Why are there no real export configuration tools

i know i screw with my computers more than most people so this isn't really an issue for most people etc but why dont apps come with "export configuration" tools.

I mean i had to install Outlook on a new pc today, the thing that took the longest wasn't the installation but configuring all my little option choices (toolbar/signatures/prefence for 7 days a week in the view etc).

Is it something i'm missing or do you find the same? why is there no "export all configurations" tool in MS Outlook and Internet explorer etc?


Cheers,
Dean

Online DVR's / content re-streaming

@johnrmatthews In Online TV Re-Streaming, UK's TVCatchup Dealt A Legal Blow: A High Court judge has dismissed an application by UK... http://bit.ly/hLFY0x


Interesting to see how this is going to play out country by country - there is a court case in the USA as well - IVI vs MLB - http://blog.collins.net.pr/2010/10/ivi-not-gotta-licensewhatye-going-todo.html

Yet in Australia http://www.mytvr.com.au/ seems to be humming along with no legal issues at all.


Cheers,
Dean

5.8% Interest

I was listening to all the outrage this morning from Germans complaining they are "bailing out" the Irish and it's so unfair..... later in the news I found out Ireland is paying 5.8% interest on these loans.

Wow.

Thats going to be a huge windfall for the Germans, i'd love to earn 5.8% guaranteed by a state government. I'm not sure Germans understand each and every person in Ireland is now paying $2.25 to Germany every day, thats every man, woman and child across all of Ireland.

Thats only the "Interest" (or the "vig" as loan sharkers would call it)

85,000,000,000 loan amount

5.8% interest rate
$4,930,000,000 annual interest
365 days
$13,506,849 daily interest
6,000,000 irish population 2010

$2.25 daily interest per person per day each and every day

- personally i think the Germans are onto a good thing. Maybe like the Chinese they've worked out you dont need to attack a country to cripple them, just loan them a barrel of money.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Facebook analytics

Loving the new facebook interaction analytics, shows exactly how many people are viewing our http://www.livebasketballchat.com/ NBA posts etc


For every post we are seeing interaction details about 60 mins after the post. Fantastic.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

The death of RSS

I'm lamenting the death of RSS today. It's seems frustrating to me how twitter has killed rss feeds/readers and probably brought down the level of "self publishing" by several years.

It seems to me most people are just "re-editing" content from elsewhere and posting useless 140 character blurbs instead of putting thought and insight into their personal writings.

Got something to say? Hopefully it's longer more important and in content than 140 characters.

Any thoughts?


Cheers,
Dean

Ch-Ch-Changing

Watching I'm Not There , interesting I had no idea about how many fans hated the change to electric, made me wonder how come Madonna is able to change every 3 years and no one minds her evolutions?

Cheers,
Dean
(by the way Cate Blanchett is great- the rest i think is a little psuedo intellectual BS) #LiveTVchat

Groupon Patent

Groupon patent;


Any thoughts? http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/19/groupon-vs-mobgob

I think this comment sums it up nicely - http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/19/groupon-vs-mobgob/#comment-99578565  
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Charles Rangel belongs in jail

If i get caught cheating taxes i'm going to ask for a Censure instead of going to jail. http://bit.ly/axe9gR  #CharlieRangelBelongsInJail


BTW oh the irony - this guy is the reason why i'm giving up my green card soon.

When these foreign bankers, software engineers, chemists, and others leave the country—if only to retire or transfer to a new posting abroad—the Heart Taxation Act, which was sponsored by Representative Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat, will tax them on the unrealized capital gains of their total global assets.
Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/07/08/US-Tax-Law-Hits-Foreign-Workers#ixzz15kNLWHh2

Facebooka and Twitter are clunky

People you do realise that you will look back at the clunky tools Facebook provides us today and chortle that they were the myspace of their time right?

I mean everyone looks at MySpace and thinks how primitive, thats how i feel when using Facebook today to build our Live Chat Apps.
 
Seriously not being able to rename tab urls so that this http://www.facebook.com/LiveBaseballChat?v=app_132093016846407 is the only way i can provide a url to our LBBC Top 10 users list?
 
And Twitter not providing any analytics about who is looking at my content and how often it's being looked at - how "Geocities" like. 
 
I like the comment here about how Facebook is perceived as a juggernaught when even now with a critical eye it's obviously not.

Cheers,
Dean

Faithless - Insomnia

Probably an apt song to come on as i'm burning the midnight hours here tonight.



Need a release to get some sleep, bring it on bring the light bring the codes to get some sleeps.

Cheers,
Dean

Up with freedom down with tyranny

New Jersey kicking TSA's butt - http://bit.ly/ccndXe - up with freedom down with tyranny.


Cheers,
Dean

Sellaband launch another major artist investment fund

Yet another major well established artist starts up a sellaband fund.

https://rock.sellaband.com/en/projects/jonathan-davis

Raising $75,000 for a dvd production and distribution, various download, copies and 5% profits. I'm wondering how record companies are viewing these activities by established artists?

That would be like Dennis Crowley starting a new company and deciding to cut out VC’s/Angel funds and raise the entire investment via foursquares end users but keeping 95% of the company profits for himself.

Can this allow to be continued or do you think that a label will try to buy out Sellaband soon and then turn it into an investment vehicle for their development artists?


Cheers,
Dean

Voiceovers

Just found this neat website; http://voice123.com/christinelarkin
Very cool if you are looking to book voiceovers for web apps or video.


Cheers,
Dean

The next big thing......not!!

Remember when everyone though Facebook groups was going to be the next big thing...wasn't that like 8 weeks ago, when was the last time you got a facebook group invite? and how many do you belong to that are active?

I'm still amazed how things "catch fire" or just dont. I'm trying to distill what it is some times that make it happen and to be honest i'm not sure after all the research I'm not sure i'm any closer.

Any thoughts?

Why aren’t you using groups? What function is lacking? If a http://www.tokbox.com/ like live video conferencing application was implemented do you think this would help?



Cheers,
Dean

Suing the wrong people?

Interesting Jigsaw are trying to sue Apple instead of the developer.... i hope their lawyer got paid in advance and isn't working on contingency.

- http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/chopper-app-hits-highs-low-for-australian-student-20101114-17sq6.html
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Kinect camera watching you watching it

TG Daily running an article about the MS Kinect watching you watching it.

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-brief/52494-kinect-wants-to-track-your-movementsfor-advertisers
Did you know thanks to the Kinect motion camera, Microsoft can now see how you play your Xbox 360 games? And it wants to send this information to marketers.


But do you care is the question?


If someone gave me the direct benefit of having a camera in my living room and it made me $10 a month for watching me, watching tv, then i'd do it.

The problem is companies tend to hang on to the direct revenue or bury it in offset costs (cheaper harder etc).

That's the real story here.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Russian QR game

Very cool QR related game idea.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/2082/how-a-qr-code-driven-game-paid-off-in-russia#6377

You could have the same starting point each week and just by resolving the first URL to a different answer have preset codes located in hidden places so all you needed to do week after week is just change the first clue leading to week 2’s /3’s/4’s follow up series of clues etc.

Should be somewhere central to Manhattan like Grand Central Station etc. and then each week could fan out to different parts of Manhattan/Boroughs

Some smart marketing firm will replicate this here for a big label brand sooner than later.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S> Clueless about QR codes? check out my 60 second overview here http://www.Cognation.net/QR

Manual Line Break

Wow who knew.

When doing a search and replace in MS Word you can actually replace something with a "Manual Line Break" which looks like this  ^l

So if you have a full list of "objects" seperated by commas and instead you want a list of objects, instead of manually typing enter after every comma you can just do a find replace , with ^l   (or if you still want the commas at the end of every line just do find replace , with ,^l    )

Neat.


Cheers,
Dean

BeQRious = yet another URL redirection based QR management platform

Every man and his dog is suddenly talking about QR codes (like they just appeared overnight).

The problem is a lot of people are "doing it wrong".

I was sent the BeQRious announcement about their new QR management platform this week and just like all the other current generation of QR management platforms they are doing it all wrong.

As you can see from the screenshot above if you use one of their codes that the platform generates it doesn't actually lead to your website but leads to their website which they then redirect to your site. - Yeh ok but if they turn off the servers everything stops working.

For as long as you want to code to work out there in the field you HAVE to keep paying their invoices otherwise the codes will stop working immediately, regardless of how much they jack up the prices etc.

It's these BS shortcuts that people are being suckered into where they dont understand the ramifications that are going to give QR code management platforms a bad name.

I cant stress how much i think any URL Redirection based solution = Fail.

Instead you should ALWAYS have a web url QR code go to YOUR servers and then get redirected by your DNS eg http://www.cognation.net/QR that then redirects to the mobilised content you want to serve up for that particular campaign.

NEVER rely on someone else to be "in the middle", if you do and they go out of business or decided to jack up the rates all of your deployed codes will stop working (for the same reason i hate MsTags).

I'm sure eventually soemone will build the next generation of QR management platforms but this isnt it.

If you need a 60 second overview of QR code basics check out http://www.Cognation.net/QR


Cheers,
Dean



Followup:

I was contacted by the CEO of BeQRious this morning who was upset with my comments about his company.


His concern was that "I didn't highlight BeQRious offer users the ability to encode a url to resolve directly to a users url (without analytics) but don’t have the technical capabilities built into their product for offering analytics when clients encode the urls to go direct".

He didn't give any indication if this was something they were working on or had thought of implementing it before he read my post.

However according to another CEO in the QR analytics space, clients don’t care about the issue I'm raising and clients fully understand that their QR will stop working the moment they stop paying our invoices.......
http://www.facebook.com/#!/antonymcgregordey/posts/145837922130030




##
I'm seriously not trying to troll here, I'm just trying to make sure people that pay me to advise them with their QR campaigns understand the ramifications of their choices and best implement QR codes which is a fantastic technology, but needs to be implemented correctly.

Fight, Fight, Fight !!

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/10/google-gets-feisty-kicks-data-portability-fight-with-facebook-up-a-notch/

lol, gloves are really off now.

Personalised URLs

Just implemented some great new functionality on the http://www.livechatconcepts.com/ websites.

Type out any of our 13 website urls followed by your /username and it now leads to a users personal profile popup.
eg. - http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/dean.collins
or -- http://www.LiveFootballChat.com/bweschke

Getting there slowly but surely.

Cheers,
Dean

Liz Freaking Phair !!!!!!

I cant believe it i just found out Liz Phairis touring to NY !!!!!!

Just bought two tickets to Monday night the 13th of December at the Bowery Ballroom  If you've never heard of Liz Phair i just updated the Mood Music of the Day box (top right -->>).

There are very few artists who know how to let you into their private moments in a way that you just cant help respect, Liz Phair shares in a way that is vulnerable while still being a sex goddess you want to head under the bleachers with.


Cheers,
Dean

Snow in November?? are you serious?

Hmmm it's not really snow more ice crystals but seriously.....it's the first week of November.

This cant be a good omen for the coming winter.



Julia Gillard - what a waste of space

http://media.smh.com.au/national/selections/clinton-touches-down-in-melbourne-2030340.html

Julia Gillard you idiot. I cant believe you just said that about Melbourne.

- That comment alone about Melbourne shopping probably just put back female roles in politics 10 years.

You are a waste of space.


Cheers,
Dean

George Lois cracks me up

His 2003 book George Lois - Sellebrity arrived from Amazon this week and i settled in with a coffee or three to have a read.

This guys sums up his poignant attitude in the first sentence;

"Enlisting a celebrity to sell cat food, an airline or a lube job would seem to be a delusional strategy, fraught with irrationality (and seeming suspiciously to be motivated by a starfucker mentality) But lets face it, it's a starstruck world. We're all suckers for a famous face".

George Lois calls it like he sees it but delivers campaigns that make you want to open your wallet and buy anyway. This guy is a genius (oh and he's got you by the balls).


Cheers,
Dean

Ringback advertising

Ringback advertising, would you allow this if your carrier gave you a call discount?
- http://www.thepudding.com/en/audio-interactive-reverse


Cheers,
Dean

Is "Checking In" wearing out it's welcome?

Is the act of Checking In over for good?
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=138970

Dennis Crowley spoke yesterday at Adtech about how Foursquare expected to move to a GPS solution that buzzed you to ask if you wanted to check in if you visited a place you had checked i previously eg turning a 4 step process into a 2 step process (though requiring a back end application to be running continuously....how you going to do that on a iPhone?)


I do agree though, checking in for the sake of checking in seems to be wearing out it's welcome.

There needs to be something else in the backend to "quid pro quo" the desire to interact.
At http://www.livechatconcepts.com/ we "check in" users when they interact with one of our sites eg http://www.livefootballchat.com/ or http://www.livebasketballchat.com/ etc but at the end of the day checking in and posting a note out to your twitter and facebook accounts saying you just logged in secondary;The primary purpose is being on the site to chat live while watching the game.

Yes badge information is interesting but you need to provide more to keep your users coming back.

Cheers,
Dean

CSIRO wifi over tv?

Love how CSIRO kicks butt when it comes to wifi patents (they developed a lot of what you already use).

- http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/11/03/164217/Aussie-Research-Company-Brings-Wi-Fi-To-TV-Antenna

 
Cheers,
Dean

Pssword hack iso cd

Just used my windows password change iso cd to boot up into and hack my own webserver that i forgot the admin password on - I wish i knew who wrote this code, if they lived near me they would never pay for another drink in their life again.


Cheers,
Dean

apathetic?

I'm watching the news and everyone is predicting a republican landslide because they suggest that the republican supporters are more fired up.

If you are a democrat voter why wouldn't this encourage you to make the effort to go and vote today?

I dont get it.

What was it about the vote 2 years ago that swept Obama to power only to have you so apathetic just 2 years later?

George Lois

Watching "Art & Copy" on #PBS - I want George Lois to create my kick ass ad campaign for my product, this guy rocks.

If you are involved in products, marketing, or have ever seen an advertisement sometime in the last 30 years then give yourself a kick in the nuts and go watch this tv show.


Cheers,
Dean

Bush - Obama video mashup

Watching Obama on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, i think both of them did very well, Stewart wasn't timid and Obama wasn't pulling punches about sticking to his guns.

Jodie made an interesting comment, "I think people have forgotten how inarticulate Bush actually was" - lol, cool idea - i think someone should do a mashup of Bush and Obama speeches before the election and ask do you really want to hand back the keys?

Cheers,
Dean

Canon S95 review

Canon S95 10 Mega Pixel camera  

• 10.0-megapixel sensor combined with the DIGIC 4 Image Processor creates Canon's HS System
• Capture 720p HD video in stereo sound; play back on an HDTV via the HDMI output
• f/2.0 lens for low light conditions or shallow depth-of-field; control ring for intuitive manual control
• 3.8x optical zoom; 28mm wide-angle lens   

I'm at best a point and shoot photographer, and i've only owned my new Canon S95 10 Mega Pixel camera for 1 month or so but here are my initial thoughts.

Minor peeve;

- the shoot button isn't where you think it would be, it should be located where the focus rocker switch is.

- the flash pops up right where your fingers are, should be moved.

Major peeves;
- the photos can only be sequentially named, there is no option to name the photos taken with date and time which is the way my old Fuji had as an option (and my preferred way of naming files)
- the photos can only be exported to a local drive, for whatever reason in their wisdom Canon have decided to not allow the software to write to network dives which is just silly.

Apart from that getting some really nice images, the colours and images seem to be super rich even in point and shoot mode and like i said i'm not expert but these seem pretty basic peeves that would have been found with the most basic of user testing.
 
Cheers,

Dean

Facebook legal order has been served

Anyone actually seen the video?

I wonder if it's in the wild as i figure the end recipient owns the rights... to distrubute it - i'd love to see a hitler remix of this video thumbing their nose at it.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Client identification wars

You may be able to watch The Office on your Google TV, but perhaps not on demand -- ABC, CBS and NBC are barring Sony and Logitech's web-infused TVs and set-top-boxes from accessing full episodes of streaming video content. The Wall Street Journal reports that all three networks have confirmed the ban, and that Fox hasn't yet reached a decision on whether it will ban Google TV as wellhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/television-networks-block-google-tv-from-accessing-web-based-con

Boxee went through this as well with Hulu a few months ago in an escalating war of changing client identification information so it would keep Boxee working for Hulu.

I'm not sure how the war ended out as i dont use Boxee.

Interestingly Google have replied saying they dont car and it's up to Hulu to change.... lol, i know which gorilla i'd back to come to the negotiating table first.


Cheers,
Dean

Piracy as a distribution model

Piracy trumps obscurity again
Here’s a short illustrated story for you:
Steve Lieber is a comic book artist. He drew Underground, a graphic novel (written by Jeff Parker, drawn by Steve, and colored by Ron Chan). The story follows Park Ranger Wesley Fischer as she tries to save Stillwater Cave – and then has to save herself.
On Sunday (3 days ago, as of time of writing) a fan posted scans of every single page onto 4chan (EDIT: archive of the 4chan thread on Steve Lieber’s site), a well-known discussion forum.
http://new-media.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/2010/10/piracy-trumps-obscurity-again/comment-page-1/#comment-880


I'm calling BS on this. Without a X axis to this graph and then an A/B test where only "a limited excerpt" is released on 4Chan can you claim this was good for the author.


If someone posted my entire content online i'd have a problem with it.

BTW how come no link to the Boing Boing article, was it buried or a minimal post etc?

Cheers,
Dean

Private held companies implementing share trade feeds

Facebook and Zynga etc are starting to charge fees of at least $2,500 for each sale of company shares, in a move to discourage employees from putting equity in the hands of large numbers of outside owners before an initial public offering.


I wonder how this is legal? Wouldn't this need to be put into the terms of the shares at the time they were issued? how can they just implement this after they have been earned etc?

BTW want to buy Facebook shares? check out this post here; http://blog.collins.net.pr/2009/04/facebook-shares-for-sale.html

Cheers,
Dean

online robotic remote control

Want to drive a car online via remote control? http://drive.outlandersport.com/

lol, i'm sure it's in the middle of a large concrete parking lot with controls about driving outside some virtual lines but cool PR concept.

I love that they are using totally current and pre-existing technology, there is nothing new or revolutionary here in this campaign that needed to be developed, it's just some creative guy or girl in an advertising board room came up with this cool idea and thought wow lets do this as a campaign idea. Well done.
Kicks off Nov 1st.


Cheers,
Dean

Starbucks Digital Network

Great idea,
Beginning Wednesday, Starbucks customers who use the free Wi-Fi at more than 6,800 U.S. company-operated stores will be greeted with the Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) — an exclusive content network curated by the company and designed to enhance the customer’s in-store experience.http://mashable.com/2010/10/19/first-look-starbucks-digital-network-is-here/

I'm surprised more of this "captive network" in return for "services" doesn't happen more often. There is a great business model for content like this and "in office" areas doctors/dentists. I did a business case around this a few years ago and still have the doc/spreadsheets if anyone wants a copy.


Cheers,
Dean

Brett Favre scandal

You know the Brett Favre scandal isn't big-time until it's been animated by Taiwanese TV:



ha ha this is a classic.

QR codes being used by UK tv.

http://www.itv.com/channels/itv2/itv2shows/theonlywayisessex/qrcode/instructions/

There's a new way to get your hands on the latest gossip from The Only Way Is Essex, and it involves the crazy barcode you can see above.

From time to time, you'll see the code appear on screen around the show.And here's the clever bit: if you're the owner of a smartphone, you can download a QR Code reader app and get instant access to some exciting Essex extras.

Simply open the app and scan the code directly from your TV, and the latest tasty titbit of Essex gossip and scandal is all yours…

Great to see QR codes getting use in this genre. Enabling quick access to "users in this age group"  and in a "two screen world" makes perfect sense.
 
If you've never head about QR codes and want to get up to speed check out http://www.Cognation.net/QR
 
Cheers,
Dean 

Condaleeza Rice

Watching Condaleeza Rice on #JohnStewart ,she's actually really funny and enticing. I might actually buy her book Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family based on this. #LiveTVchat

Cheers,
Dean

Liu Wei winning "China's Got Talent"

Watching CNN story about an armless man winning "Chinas got talent" This guy is amazing- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Qut0Nrsiw - #LiveTVchat


(performance video kicks off at about 2.20)

What an amazing talent. I feel blessed with my lazy untalented life when you see something like this.

Cheers,
Dean

Windows 7 mobile in perspective

Everyone is saying that if Windows 7 Mobile fails it's a big deal, lol - lets put it into perspective, if they sell 20m handsets this year at $25 a license - thats $500m in revenue.

Microsoft makes about $20b dollars a year in PROFIT so $500m a year in REVENUE will hardly even make a dent.


Cheers,
Dean

CMRL?

Anyone know anything about this?

http://dotgo.com/Support/Documentation/doc0001.1.0

I fear for their business model – what do you think?


Cheers,
Dean

iPhone apps to be ported over for PC's?

http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/51921-intel-eyes-iphone-apps-for-x86-based-mobile-devices
Intel is reportedly coding a utility that will allow devs to easily port iPhone applications to x86-based mobile devices. "We'll get [applications on] AppUp, then Meego and I imagine Windows. It's basically taking the existing applications, finding the ones that are most relevant to end users and ensuring they get ported over.

Wow would this even be possible? and if so why aren't they already available for Apple laptops etc?

This is going to explode the App Store for these kinds of "snack" apps. Reminds me of buying apps from magazines for my TRS-80 on cassette tape.


Cheers,
Dean

Mobile Barcode Scanning UP

What they fail to mention in the article I comment on below, as they haven't published my comments yet and probably never will so you should forward my post url

http://www.undertheradarblog.com/blog/mobile-barcode-scanning-up-700-in-2010/


My Comments below.

"* Wide spread adoption in Japan was a direct result of wireless carriers driving awareness in order to drive revenue from mobile data plans"


Yes and they also agreed on a standard system of QR codes! You know like they co-operated instead of suing each other or implemented ridiculous "gatekeeper" systems like what CTIA laughingly proposed.

It's only that the usa is screwed up by money(profits?) that mobile barcode systems have been screwed up for so long by scanbuy and neomedia.

Interestingly you dont comment that QR codes differ from the proprietary systems you mention in that they can resolve information like urls (85% of the scans according to your report) directly on the handset itself and DOESNT require a third party server.

This is just one of the many reasons people should NOT use proprietary codes and move exclusively to open and free QR codes.


Cheers,
Dean

Atlanta sign

I walked past this sign in a shop in Atlanta and couldn't work out which of the 3 retail product signs freaked me out more.

They were closed so i couldn't get any other photos but seriously any of these being sold over the counter is a serious case of WTF???

Cheers,
Dean

IVI ..not gotta license....whatye going todo about it?

(said in an italian accent  yeh i know bad joke).

There is a really interesting article in TechCrunch today.

Seattle-based ivi has arrived.  ivi lets you watch live television on the Internet.  ivi has not sought permission from or paid broadcasters.  ivi draws revenue from a flat monthly fee.  For a premium, ivi offers DVR “time sifting” features such as pause, rewind, and fast forward.  ivi currently streams programs from New York and Seattle affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and a few other networks.  So, next Thursday you could watch an episode of The Office as it airs on WNBC (an NBC station in New York)
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/01/after-ten-years-round-two-of-the-legal-battle-over-internet-tv-is-here/


There is a similar company in Australia doing the same thing with FTA, check out http://www.mytvr.com.au/

Will be interesting to see how this one plays out, especially in reference to the cablevision ruling last year - http://blog.collins.net.pr/2008/08/cloudification-of-your-content.html  
 
Personally i can totally see both sides of the fence on this one, but at the end of the day i dont believe that television channels just because they are broadcasting that they "give away" the rights to all and sundry. The bigger question though is what happens if someone invents a device which installs on a home network but then routes the traffic off to disks in the cloud? eg a slingbox that comes with cloud storage capabilities, oh and real time encoding into multiple formats eg. mobile, low bandwidth laptop streaming, PSP or iPad size all in real time......
 
May we live in interesting times.
 
 
Cheers,
Dean 

Rental car insurance

lol my rental car is parked in spot 666, i think i should have upgraded my insurance options :)

Water costs you never thought of

Watching CNBC documentary on water - really interesting factoid about the amount of water to "produce" a product (eg instead of carbon footprint - its a water footprint), some of the figures really caught me by surprise eg;
- it takes 713 gallons to make one shirt,
- it takes 630 gallons to make one hamburger patty
- it takes 53 gallons to make one egg.

Amazing figures when you consider the agricultural unsubsidized rate for usa water is about 1c per gallon.


Cheers,
Dean

This is why it costs so much to make movies

Wow even for a crappy low cost movie like "The Sitter" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1366344/fullcredits#cast

You should see the amount of stuff they have setup for this movie. The photo below is about 1/4 of it-the other stuff is star trailers, catering and power generation trucks.

Gerrymandering

I was watching NY1 news this morning and they were commenting on the redrawing of political boundaries in NY State - interesting "Factoid" the word gerrymandering is from America.

Basically it was coined in 1812 regarding "the look" of a Boston election redrawing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

...lol useless things you never needed to know.


Cheers,
Dean

PJ Harvey

Was working on my pc today when this came on, man i forgot how much PJ Harvey rocks. Something about her says "stranger danger" and yet you cant help but just want to be ensconced......deeper and darker, never to return again.



Little fISH BIG FiSH swimming in the water......

Cheers,
Dean

Wall Street 2

Wow - Oliver Stone is a genius.

(btw spoilers below dont read until you see the movie).

It's the same as Wall Street but different. You end up loving Gordon Gekko all over again but for different reasons.

Michael Douglas is a perfect actor, you dont ever see him as an actor, but as the actual "Gordon Gekko" ingrained in your reptilian greedy mind. (btw amazing how much he looks like Kirk Douglas in some scenes now).

The Federal Reserve scenes are perfection, you almost feel like taking a bat to the next Goldman Sachs executive you see on the street (shortly followed by taking the same bat to the next federal politician for being spineless and mortgaging your future - love the NINJA acronym).

The cameo role with Bud Fox was superfluous and felt cheesy, btw did anyone notice they brought back the real estate agent out of formaldehyde? that was a nice touch (especially if you have ever dealt with any NY brokers).

The Met scenes were perfectly shot and felt like they could have been shot during the fall of Rome.

Would i recommend someone see it, 100% Yes (even if they didn't see the first one - btw I was surprised how empty it was last night for only the 2nd night?)

At the end of the day this movie is an instant classic, they should have ended the movie differently without the cheesy happy feel good scene but apart from that this movie was practically flawless.


Cheers,
Dean

Repetitive TV ads

Does it bug anyone else that it seems the same crappy companies repeat the same crappy ads on TV all the time?

I mean does anyone really care about BDO or Swiffer Dusters enought to really need to see the same ads ever day?

And seriously if you are going to run your ads over and over and over....can you spend some of that money on "decent content production"?

Am i watching too much tv that this bugs me or is it everyone?


Cheers,
Dean

Content or Curatorial?

I heard the statement at a TV industry panel event "Television leads the market in delivering focused content and will continue to do so"

My thoughts are more....is it quality video content or is it the curatorial nature of television that makes it attractive to people to watch?

One of the missing elements i feel is missing from online video content is the plethora of choices it is almost paralysing, i think the sit and lay back 6ft experience will always need some form of curatorial input - is there a business model in this? yeh i think so but not sure what form it would take yet.


Cheers,
Dean

Banner Ad Exchange

Some of you already know I’m involved with the startup http://www.livechatconcepts.com/

We run a number of destination websites featuring live chat such as http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ , http://www.livefootballchat.com/ , http://www.livenascarchat.com/ etc (10 in total), and whilst we are just starting to get traction we still have a long way to go with the final product (about V0.7 so far).

The reason for this post is we serve our ads on our sites using our own dedicated http://www.openx.com/ ad server.

I'm interested in setting up some reciprocal banner impression contracts with people in similar sporting spaces. e.g. Basically we'll run 50,000 banner ad impressions for your website on one of our Live Chat website and you'll run 50,000 impressions for http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ (or one of our other sites) on your platform.

Live Chat Concepts inc places a single banner at the base of all our chat pages that is rotated every 60 seconds. This banner is 468 x 60 and is very cleanly and prominently displayed above the fold without any distracting clutter. If you need to arrange a swap with less than 50,000 impressions it can be done just get in touch to discuss.

You'll be emailed updates every 24 hours on delivery rate etc from our OpenX ad server with number of impressions and number of clicks etc (as we'd like to see something similar from you).

If this is of interest to anyone on the newtech list get in touch and I'll send you a formal proposal along with our sample banner ads we'd like to run.

I’ve offered these free banner exchange contracts to other people in the past who have taken me up on the offer so get in touch if you’d like some contact details about people who have participated previously.

Cheers,
Dean

Paula Cole

Went to see Paula Cole at City Winery last night , it's great to see someone who doesn't have her live act "totally polished" and you know is getting as much from the audience as they are from her.

She has a new album out today that is available on Amazon - Ithaca (though my favorite of hers is This Fire).

BTW if you get a chance to see her play, check out her guitarist Ben Butler, i was transfixed watching him play, he has a very understated way of playing and almost no guitar solo's but he was doing some freaky "electric accoustic" techniques i've never seen before, almost using it like a theremin (oh and he's an aussie - :).


Cheers,
Dean

Angels getting nervous? or just business as normal?

Two sides to the same dinner


http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-bar
and
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/09/fire-in-the-valley.html
 
 
What are your thoughts?
 
Cheers,
Dean

Intel threatens to sue anyone who uses the HDCP master key

Intel threatened legal action Friday against anybody who uses its proprietary crypto key — leaked on the internet — to produce hardware that defeats the so-called HDCP technology. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/intel-threatens-consumers/

Ha ha - this comment cracked me up, totally agree.

“Intel Threatens to Sue Anyone Who Uses HDCP Crack” …and a village in China building the new “universal set-top box/player/recorder/microwave” laughs.

Anyone seen a HDCP tshirt yet?

Cheers,
Dean

Locked up user/admin names-passwords

Ever forgotten the admin username or password for a windows server?

Check out - http://www.pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ 

It's a free bootable iso that allows you to log in and edit the local usernames passwords (or just blank them). Saved my butt tonight from something stupid that i did without thinking.


Cheers,
Dean

SBS 7

SBS 7 is due shortly.


Although this is a walk through of Aurora (the cloud/on premise version of sbs7) it’s worth a watch.
http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2010/07/windows-server-codename-aurora-video.html

Interesting about the “active directory federation” abilities for third party developers, anyone see that taking off?

My only question is what are people doing about firewalling? (i never moved off sbs2003 so still have isa 2004 running on the same server - dumbest move ever that MS dropped the on server firewall for sbs2008).


Cheers,
Dean

Amber Lyon - what a pompous ass

I'm watching Amber Lyon on CNN this morning acting all smug about how she feels she was directly responsible for the Craigslist changes.

Unfortunately she couldn't answer the question about how this action is like "Whack a Mole" in that you close it down here and it's just going to pop up somewhere else.

Something about her makes me want to smack her on the side of the head and say - stop grinning you jerk you haven't done anything that wasn't solved 24 hours later well before that goofy grin left your face.


Cheers,
Dean

The People Vs Larry Flynt

Just finished watching The People vs. Larry Flynt again tonight.

The message that struck home with a extremly poignant message considering the CraigsList decision last week. It almost brought a tear to my eye when they were reading the supreme court decision in the final scene and also made me think about why we dont make a bigger issue about our freedoms "to be" in Australia.

I guess at the end of the day the people get the politicians they deserve and the people are apothetic but it still made me appreciative of the need to continue to be outspoken.


Cheers,
Dean

Craigslist - GFYS

The most important thing I read today;
- http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/10/all-you-did-was-weaken-a-country-today

Very dissapointing, considering Craigslist are well within their legal rights.

Cheers,
Dean

Napster peaked at only 26m users

Chilling out on the deck this morning came across an interesting statement in the current issue of "CED-Broadband Technology" magazine (yeh i know i read some esoteric crap at times, all about cable headends and video technology).

The article wasn't significant but what was interesting that caught my eye was that Napster peaked with a user base of 26 million users (15m USA, 26m in total internationally).

Wow it is an amazing fact that the entire music industry was changed forever with only 26 million users. What other industries could be changed forever if 26 million people got together around a singular cause? (electric cars? public transport? political change with encouragement around sustainable policies?)

Now here is the kicker - what changes are going to come about from Facebooks 500 million user base?


Cheers,
Dean

Dual Core 1.5ghz phones coming in less than 12 months

Wow is that a phone in your pocket or did you just get a boner?

Way to take the wind out of our sails, ARM -- no sooner does your dual-core Cortex-A9 finally ship, do you reveal an even more powerful smartphone, smartbook and server-slaying beast. The Cortex-A15 MPCore picks up where the A9 left off, but with reportedly five times the power of existing CPUs, raising the bar for ARM-based single- and dual-core cell phone processors up to 1.5GHz
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/arm-reveals-eagle-core-as-cortex-a15-capable-of-quad-core-compu/


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Yes these days it's more important than ever only to sign up for 12 month carrier contracts (my 12 month Verizon Motorola Droid contract comes up for renewal at the end of October - well worth the $30 that Verizon charged me to shorten the contract period from 24 months to 12 months).

Fixed Menu?

I was watching the Anthony Bourdain - No Reservation Paris show this week. Lots of comments about up and coming superstar restaurants in Paris with single fixed menu, some with only a fixed single seating as well......

Personally i think this is a great idea, everyone in the restaurant going through a joint dining experience, just delivery at the same time is the issue depending on the number of people.
 
Thoughts?
 
 
Cheers,
Dean

Toyota Prius

Drove a Toyota Prius today for the first time, what a POS. Who designed this crap? Last time i'll be renting that model from Zip Car.


Apart from the great gas mileage everything else in it is sub par. (audio, controls, mirror placement etc).

BTW Toyota, what the heck is with the split rear window? cant see jack through it.
#Fail Toyota.


Cheers,
Dean