This video spotted at YouTube, seeing Michael Arrington represented by a sock puppet is certainly different, although the over all proposition of the song better suits Vallegwag than both TechCrunch and Valleywag together 🙂

Tags: TechCrunch, Valleywag

I read with amazement today that “bidding” on Aaron Brazell’s Technosailor is up to $23,750, with Aaron setting the BIN price @ $30,000. I don’t want to rain on Aaron’s parade, I’ve worked with Aaron previously and I’ve got (previously and into the future) a lot of time for Aaron, but something is rotten in the state of Technosailor.

I put “bidding” in adverted commas, because the notion that bidding has reached this point is spurious at best, lets look at the bids for the site:

One bid at $7500, one at $23,750. Nothing, nudda, zilch bids in between. If it doesn’t look right it probably isn’t. NO ONE bids an additional $16,250 in one bid, particularly for a site with a revenue history of $250/ month. $23,750 is 95 times monthly revenue, which is literally insane. Sure there is plenty of room to improve returns from the site, but to this extent? Why not bid at $8000 or even call it an even $10k, after all site acquisition is about getting the best price you can for a site, even if it does result in a small bidding war. Unfortunately Aaron is now asking $30k for the site BIN, which is even more insane, 100+ times monthly revenue. If it is worth this, all my talk about there not being a bubble is wrong, there is a bubble, a bloody great big one centered on blogs.

Having said all that though, I could be wrong. If it goes for $30k though, I reserve the right to label the buyer as insane for the rest of my life 🙂

TechCrunch covers Change.org, a not for profit social networking site that links donors and charities. Line 4 of the TechCrunch shot of the Tag Cloud is of particular interest for me:

“Universal Health Care”. ROFL. If you need Universal Health Care, may I humbly suggest you contact DIC, the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship and ask about moving permanently to Australia. Permanent Resident = Medicare Card, and all the universal (mostly) free health care you could ever ask for. Sure, I’ve personally got private cover (about $92 AUD ($75 USD) per fortnight currently for my entire family, full cover, top of the range etc…) but that’s because I’m adverse to waiting for elective surgery should the need rise, that and I prefer the food at my local Private Hospital over the Public Hospital, which is literally next door…even connected via a passage way 🙂

New gig, and I’m joining the team with Matt Craven, who took over at The Blog Herald after I sold it (the site being onsold since). Matt Craven is the sort of guy I wish I had writing for me when I did own the Herald (but could never afford to put anyone on), so I’m in good company, along with David Krug, the reformed Cowboy and by far and away the webs best blog salesman, Muhammad Saleem, Chris Pearson and Thord Hedengren, the up and coming designer with a really, really good feel for template design. Should be fun. My first post is on PayPerPost, why start quietly, with followups of Technorati’s questionable numbers, and a new service called Wretch…if anyone has heard of Wretch leave a comment there, I’m always fascinated by big things that I haven’t previously known about. Enjoy 🙂

Tags: 901am

Robert Scoble announces that he’s become a paid shill for PayPerPost. Credit where it’s due, Scoble has balls…and a whole pile of guts in between. His reasoning is that they’re paying, it’s capitalism at work and he does this sort of thing, which is fair enough, but talk about putting the cat amongst the pigeons, a baby into a tank of sharks or Steve Irwin into a school of stingrays. Even some of his best mates have come out against him, notable so far his co-author Shel Israel, who writes this in the comments:

“I am personally dosappointed [sic] that you have chosen to do this. To me Pay for Post represents everything that the book you and I wrote opposes. I wish you would change your mind. This will not help your reputation…One more thought, Robert. You taught me the standards for blogging that I adhere to. It is what you taught me that makes me so passionately oppose Pay per Post, who have shown themselves to be the sidewalk hookers of the blogosphere. Robert, I really hope you cancel. In the long run, you will be doing PodTech a service”.

No doubt that others will have more to say about this in the coming days, particularly given the recent Pogrom against the service by the likes of Jason Calacanis, Jeff Jarvis and others.

For Australians, to the tune of the famous XXXX commercial:

“I can feel a lynching, coming on….I can feel a lynching, coming on. They’ve got the taste for it, love to hate for it, I can feel a lynching, coming on.”

Good luck Scoble, you’re going to need it.

Update: looks like I’m on the banned list on Scoble’s blog, because despite other people linking to the story via this post, I’m not in his trackback list, and yet they are (and WP confirms the trackback was automatically sent) (magically just appeared). Some interesting comments though, Scoble, if you thought the last two weeks were bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Mujibur:
“this just further confirms what many of us have been saying for a long time. Robert is simply a paid mouthpiece. This isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t about conversation, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s about the almighty buck”

I’d say to Mujibur, Scoble is entitled to whore his presence, and let no other whores cast the first stone. I have a price as well…indeed I’m far, far more cheap and hence I’ve got no intention of throwing stones, however this is an interesting move by Scoble as noted above, in light of the pogrom against PayPerPost…and I’d note to others the use of this word, progrom…look it up 🙂

Disclaimer: I have an account with PayPerPost which I’ve never used, signed up when the service first started so I could take a look. I’m not against PayPerPost as a model, it’s not my cup of tea but I’m not everyone. My previous thoughts on PayPerPost can be found here.

Tags: Robert Scoble, Payperpost

Word on the street during the week was that Google Reader now supports inline video. I don’t use Google Reader, although with the amount of buzz around for the service I might have to take a second look, but the good thing for all you Bloglines fans out there: it would appear that Google Video atleast is now supported from within Bloglines…no idea if this was Google’s doing or Bloglines doing, nor whether it extends to other video includes (such as YouTube), but it’s a nice step. Screenshot is of working Google Video from Blogebrity.

Tags: Bloglines

I was literally going to try and book for frequent flyer flgihts today, then got this from Peter Black:

Unfortunately due to a last minute and unexpected problem with sponsorship, QUT has decided to postpone the Australian Blogging Conference until later in the year. We were faced with the option of running the conference with a registration fee or postponing it, and we have chosen to stick with our original vision and ethos and hold the conference without a registration fee later in 2007.

At this stage we are now planning to hold the conference in August this year. I will advise of the exact date as soon as it has been finalised.

August in Brisbane is plesant…certainly a lot warmer than Bunbury.

I’m not to blame, but it does seem that others are having fun with Yahoo’s new Wii splog portal (from the front page):

Just when I was forced to have a Yahoo! ID with Flickr, MyBlogLog, newly acquired by Yahoo! is following suite. GRRRRRRRRRRR x 999999999.

(via 901am)

Tags: Yahoo, MyBlogLog, 901am

Techcrunch 20. I should have posted about this 14 hours ago when I first got up, but I guess it didn’t sink in…that and having to buy a copy of Office 2007 because beta 2 expired today, but that’s another story.

Question though: that’s the motive. There has to be money in it. Do Arrington and Calacanis plan to charge VC’s or others wanting to attend for a gander?

Last question: when is the cut off date for submissions? I’ve got an idea that should be at alpha by May/ June, and certainly ready for viewing by the North American Autumn (sorry, “fall”). It’s an idea that baring someone else coming up with it will not only kick ass, it may be market disruptive…but it’s early days yet. Business plan is mapped, idea is on paper, but start tech hasn’t started. Here’s hoping 🙂