Monthly Archives: September 2006

TechMeme’s sponsorship model makes sense

25 Monday Sep 2006

Posted by in Blogging, Technology

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TechMeme’s new ad model is all the buzz (and of course, is at the top of TechMeme itself) today. And almost all of the opinions are glowing.

Actually, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like it. That’s a rarity: an idea on the web that has a positive consensus.

And then there’s John Tokash. I really wouldn’t want to jump on the man (he’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever met), but he posted his disapproval of the new system, then sent me an email taunting me to take him down.

Bring it on!

First, yes, I agree with him that of course, sponsored posts on TechMeme will get more attention than non-sponsored posts (that’s why they’re paying for them). And yes, that means that more bloggers may write about them and so they’ll climb up TechMeme’s ladder.  Is it the death of TechMeme? Hardly.

John argues that Google’s sponsored listings are separated from their organic listings in a way that prevents them from being tainted. But the parallels between TechMeme’s and Google’s systems are everywhere. If a sponsored link on Google will get some people to click on it, look at the site, and then later link to the site from their own website.  Voila! Bump in Pagerank.  That’s exactly analogous to the “artificial bump” in TechMeme.

The reason that both systems aren’t artificial is that a human has to consider the site (or blog post) that they’re looking at and then decide if they’re going to link to it (or blog about it).  In both cases, Google and TechMeme are trying to approximate global interest in a site or post, and if sponsorship boosts that global interest, then both systems should reflect that.

The flaws in the systems are exposed when the global interest if faked (link farms, blog comment spam, etc.).  Those are real, troublesome issues, but are independent of whether or not Google & TechMeme offer sponsored space on their websites.

Ball’s in your court, John.

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Long Live the Homestead Talent Show

22 Friday Sep 2006

Posted by in Homestead, Technology

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If I say so myself, the Homestead Talent Show is one of the coolest things that we do. I’ve asked employees before, and they say that the two coolest things we do is the talent show and the retreat (where we all the employees somewhere for a few days of fun and “work”).

The talent show is something completely different.  Every year, I go around harrassing people to do something, anything on stage in front of their co-workers. And the things people do are fantastically creative, even if they’re completely untalented.  It really shows the spirit of Homestead and how much enthusiasm we have for each other and for the fun that we have. There are companies that are much larger than ours, with probably more talented people, and I’m sure they couldn’t gather enough spirit to pull together a talent show like ours.

Even Justin, our CEO, performs every year. He ain’t no stiff suit.

This year, Roger spliced the video and dumped them up on YouTube. Check it out!

The Revenge of Dark Helmet

21 Thursday Sep 2006

Posted by in TV/Movies

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I don’t write about TV much; I don’t really know why.  I love TV.

Anyone who knows me knows that the best show on TV is Mythbusters.  Geeky awesomeness is soooo awesome. Awesomely awesome.

And House is a great show, but if you’re going to have a token hot woman, can you make sure that she’s hot? There really aren’t a shortage of hot actresses in Hollywood.

And then this came along. Spaceballs is becoming a cartoon show. Did I say awesome already? Yeah, awesome.

Is it going to suck? Probably, but you gotta give it a shot.

Decline of YouTube?

18 Monday Sep 2006

Posted by in Technology, Web 2.0

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Mark Cuban is predicting the decline of YouTube over on his blog. He claims that if you take away all the copyrighted videos, “Youtube turns into a hosting company with a limited video portal”.

Yeah, I go to YouTube primarily for copyrighted stuff. I missed Conan O’Brien’s opening to the Emmy’s and I went to YouTube to see it. My wife jumped on the wagon when she discovered all the classic Sesame Street skits that people have uploaded. Actual user created content probably only accounts for less than 10% of what we watch there.

But we all know that you can’t take all of that material away. It’s just not practical. So these snippets, trailers, etc. are there to stay and YouTube will attract users with them.

Even if you could identify them and take them down, who can say that the copyright owners would actually take them down? Right now, I don’t see NBC bothering to take down last night’s Leno monologue. The owners are already trying to use YouTube as a channel. Also, they’re already losing dedicated ad time to the Tivo/DVR movement, so they have to move to product placement.  And once they move to product placement, the more people who see it, the better.

And even if the copyright owners decide to take down the videos, YouTube is stil the default place where you put personal videos that you want to share with others, just like Flickr is the default place to put your photos. That’s not a bad place to be. Ad revenue definitely drops, but then so does bandwidth and hardware costs. I have no idea if it would be profitable…

Anyway, things will get really interesting when the bandwidth and hardware infrastructure gets fast and cheap enough that users can put up and watch full feature length movies on YouTube. Napster is different from YouTube now because full songs/albums, things that people have generally paid directly for, were easily accessible. Most people don’t pay for video content except for movies and DVDs. When those are available on demand for free, the game changes…

Justin’s Controversy

09 Saturday Sep 2006

Posted by in Homestead, Technology

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Wow, it’s been over two months since my last post. Dood, what have I been doing?

Well, lots of work, playing with my son, and planning and running the Homestead Talent Show. Someday, I’ll get my act together and get up some good pics of the Homestead Talent Show, but until then, trust me.  It’s awesome.

Over on Justin’s blog, he’s got a little controversy brewing over how to rank the importance of customers versus other aspects of business like employees and products. Check it out.

Now, obviously, I’ve been with Homestead for almost 12 years now, so I can’t possibly disagree that much with the man. It might a bit bold (or silly, or stupid) to say that customers are third, but don’t worry, Homestead really does care about its customers and we work really damn hard to keep them happy. Running a business is all about finding the right balance between all the priorities that are ripping you apart.