Thursday, February 6, 2003

BlogAds - If you can read this One of the funny things about reading some print journalists try to "get" blogs is just how bad their information is. You wonder whether an article was written three months ago and just stuck in the can or whether the journalists just don't bother to read the blogs they write about. Take, for example, the Washington Post's latest report on blogging. Opines the... [Blogads.org -- where money meets the blog] Actually, I didn't think this article was so bad. So your one critizism is they didn't discover that CityBlogs is dead? Heck, I'm heavily subscribed into the blogosphere, and this is the first I've heard of it. But now that you mention it, John Hiler hasn't posted anything to his own site in a while either... I wonder where he went? 2:01:45 PM

Radio vs Syndirella Seems as though Syndirella has a ways to go Reasons I like Radio's News Aggregator better than Syndirella: I can access my subscriptions from outside of the program. This lets me lazily manage my blogroll. The ability to script Syndirella, or introduce a plugin would be sufficient for my needs (C# is not an issue). With Mozilla, I can control-click on links and visit the tabs later. This minimizes context switches for me. The author of a given blog entry is more visually apparent in the way Radio presents the information (immediately above the blog entry). My subscriptions are displayed in alphabetical order. I can go back later and review today's items. Syndirella requires me to remember who the author was and then find the weblog. If I ever saw it in the first place, if can remember, and then if I can find it. Initial impressions on both sucks: you get every news item. But Syndirella requires an additional step of marking every blog entry read in each weblog. Or for one to lean on the space bar for a while. I'm looking forward to crossing items off of this list. ;-) [Sam Ruby ] 1:02:50 PM

Stranger than Fiction I remember a Star Trek episode that dealt with this. Basically, they discovered data encoded in our DNA, and when they figured out how to decode it, they ran it as a program and it turned out to be a holographic message from our biological ancestors. I remember this from years ago (when I was single {gasp!}) For a little while, there have been stories about scientists being able to encode information into the genome. While reading Dave's blog about it, I wasn't so much worried about the RIAA, the DCMA supporters, or even the Homeland Security office getting ahold of it and embedding UUIDs into our DNA. Instead, I started to think about a what-if scenario where we encoded enough human knowledge into the genome so that if we should survive a cataclysmic event, our genetic succesors could later retrieve knowledge about our history and technology. And then I started to ponder the question of what if that had already happened? What if we are already carrying around more information than is needed to reproduce and it's just laying there waiting to be decoded. It would make a really good story. Even if it wasn't a true story. Who knows, it might even be the basis for a new religion. Posted: 2003/02/06 12:07 [James Duncan Davidson] 12:59:36 PM

Matrix Blurs Lines Between Video Game, Movies This is fascinating... the Wachowski brothers are integrally involved in the video games associated with the Matrix movies, as it should be. I like the term "entertainment concepts" to refer to overall properties that are delivered across various mediums: big screen, TV, game box, etc. I often thought that musicians would become multimedia artists as the Mtv audience grew up, but I can't think of (M)any musicians known as much for their video as for their audio. 'Tis a shame, really... We've had a few stories recently about how companies like Electronic Arts are viewing themselves as an entertainment company instead of a video game company, and how they were making a big assault on Hollywood to make sure they were a part of the movie industry's plans when it came to gaming. Here's an article talking about how closely intertwined the development was of the new Matrix movies with the video game that goes along with them (put out by Infogrames, not EA). During the shooting of the movies, the Wachowski brothers shot plenty of extra footage for the game, and they worked on designing the game themselves. Clearly, it helps to have a single person at the top viewing all the entertainment possibilities to make sure that the two things are developed in parallel. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues. Instead of just creating movies with tie-in products, will we reach a point where "entertainment concepts" are created, with all the resulting necessary parts developed together with equal care? [Techdirt] 10:28:21 AM

Permission Email Failing to Reach Inboxes Another data point that shows that email is NOT the best marketing delivery vehicle for the Internet. Weblogs and news aggregators ARE, because users will retain full control over the information that flows into their newsbox. Optin News: Assurance Issues E-Mail Blocking and Filtering Report Assurance Systems, a provider of e-mail delivery monitoring and assurance services, recently released its Fourth Quarter E-Mail Blocking and Filtering Report indicating approximately 15 percent of permission-based e-mail marketing messages fail to make it to the end-users inbox at the 10 largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs). According to Assurance Systems, they monitored more than 800 e-mail campaigns to determine delivery rates across the top 10 ISPs. A smaller study conducted by Assurance Systems for the third quarter of 2002 indicated an e-mail failure rate of 12 percent. Assurance claimed results showed Netzero experiencing the highest non-delivery rate at 27 percent, followed by Yahoo (22 percent) and AOL (18 percent). [marketingfix] 10:23:19 AM

Buzz Flow - Jackson Interview Going Viral Our favorite morning radio program, Sara & No Name on Alice, have been talking about The Michael Jackson 20/20 interview all week (almost too much IMHO). Unsurprisingly, given this buzz, the interview is now to be reshown tonight in the US. God only knows what viewing figures it will get, the UK got 17 million out of a population of 60 million, and that was before the media interest went into hyper drive. Anyhow, yet again the net has jumped in to play its part, with preshow buzz being fuel by video extracts of the interview firing their way around the net. I bring this up to illustrate something has been true for a long time. The overlap between the net, media, radio, TV etc. is substantial, with the internet playing a very key role. An understanding of the true nature of this relationship is absolutely key to mastering buzz marketing, but very few get it, or if they do they do they don't know how to exploit it. To my mind this represents the biggest missed opportunity in marketing today. [marketingfix] Yes, viral marketing and creating buzz will obviously need to leverage every available media: print, radio, TV, and the Internet. I don't think viral marketing is something that can be controlled; viral and control are antithetical. All one can hope for is that a meme resonates with the world collective, and spreads on that resonance. 10:21:23 AM

Levitated's open source generative art -- don't miss! This one is for Steve... Levitated's collection of spectacular generative/interactive Flash art has me totally enraptured. These wee Flash apps combine user-input with code to make algorithmic art that is simultaneously enchanting and thought-provoking. What's more, the GPLed source code for the apps is included, so you can interact with the binary or the code to make art with your browser. Link Discuss (Thanks, Bruce!) [Boing Boing] 10:13:58 AM

Jury Takes Pot Shot At Judge Over Medicinal Marijuana Trial Plastic::Work::Drugs:War on drugs: Ed Rosenthal was convicted in a federal court of growing marijuana. And the jury's unhappy about it. [Plastic] Judge Charles R. Breyer had ruled that the defense could not make any mention that there has a California law, Proposition 215, on the books since 1996 allowing the growing of marijuana for medicinal uses. The judge's reasoning was that the law was a state statute and Rosenthal was facing federal charges. And so the trial of Rosenthal went forth, and a jury of his peers, unaware that what he was doing was legal by state law, found him guilty as charged. Well, duh! I can't believe that a judge can tell a jury to follow only one jurisdiction, when there are clearly two, overlapping jurisdictions. What would make for stronger precident and case law, for the judge to reverse himself, or for the case to be overturned on appeal? 10:12:10 AM

Breakfast Club Archetypes Predict Future Lifestyles Plastic::SciTech::Movies: A followup to a 1985 study shows that a sizable percentage of those who identified with one of the 5 Breakfast Club archetypes (Brain, Jock, Criminal, Princess, Basketcase) went on to live lives that conformed quite closely to their archetype. [Plastic] Man, I *loved* that movie. I remember wanting my parents to see it, like it would explain something profound and we could break thru. Funny! I think I was a mix between Brain and Basketcase, but really wanted to be Criminal :-) 10:05:14 AM