duncanriley.com

Category: Web 2.0

  • Lost Message

    Alex Scoble today proved my point in raising the issue of civility on FriendFeed.

    For the record, I didn’t say Alex was stupid, I said his hate the rich meme was (and scary, weird and far to the left…which it is), other than that he’s been a great member of FriendFeed and I’ve enjoyed following him. That he can’t separate a disagreement on one topic says far more about him than it does about me. Honestly though, it does make me sad: to this point, I actually thought pretty highly of him, even if we do disagree on taxation policy.

  • Blog commenting: I guess I’m wired differently

    Darren Rowse at Problogger has a great post up today where he asked “10 Prolific Bloggers” to share advice on how they make their blogs more conversational, although the question sent via email read “How do you foster conversation on your blog?”

    9 out 10 bloggers talked about tricks in posts, such as being controversial, asking questions at the end of posts, and engaging with readers in the comments.

    1 blogger wrote about Disqus and FriendFeed, and the need to make commenting as easy as possible, and facilitating conversations where people want to have them.

    If you guessed I was the odd one out, you’d be right 🙂

    I don’t disagree with the other 9, and there’s some really good advice there for new and even experience bloggers, but I presumed most of what they say is a given. To my way of thinking, if you write good content, the comments will follow. But if you make commenting easier, and you facilitate it on sites such as FriendFeed (and you can import those comments in + allow users to post directly to FriendFeed from your site so it’s a WIN/ WIN), you increase the odds that people will comment and participate, and with both, you increase the chances that comments turn into long and interesting conversations.

    Or maybe I’m just wired differently 🙂

  • A digital divide of usability

    So I told my mother on the weekend to try Google Chrome after life long Internet Explorer die-hards and Firefox haters like Steve Hodson tell me that they’re sold and have switched for life. My mother still uses IE and refuses to use Firefox, no matter how many times I’ve tried to convince her otherwise, because it’s “not the same.”

    Next day she tells me she tried but, but she didn’t like it and switched back to IE. I ask why, and she says that Chrome doesn’t have the “favorites” (bookmarks for the rest of us) in the sidebar. I had to get her to explain the concept to me. Basically, she has a left hand sidebar open in IE with all her favorite sites, and she doesn’t like using a drop down menu to access them. In my mothers defence, sight isn’t her strong point and she has a large monitor set to the wrong size (at one stage it was 800×600) so she can see things. For her, the sidebar was easier to read than the drop down menu + she’d become use to it.

    That’s a digital divide… of usability. Of all the things to consider, I’d have never thought of that.

    PS: happy birthday mum.

  • Startup Camp coming to Melbourne

    Sign up here.

    This was run in Sydney recently, and looks like a great event. Dates are 3-5 October.

  • The Inquisitr at 4 months

    September 5 marked the 4 month mark for The Inquisitr, and although I’m a little late with this post, some updated figures and observations.

    We closed August with 420,000 page views, and this is before I noticed that Google Analytics was under-counting, likely due to page load times. Based on the top leaderboard spot, the figure was around the 460,000 mark.

    It was a very good month, and I doubt very much if we’ll repeat it, but certainly I’m hopeful of a result above the 200,000 mark for September, hopefully more again. 1 week in and we’re just shy of 70,000 page views, so we’re off to a solid start, even if it’s not spectacular.

    RSS subscriptions remain an issue, an under performing aspect of the site. Around the 3000 mark across the four feeds (I didn’t total them for the post), but off from a peak in early August, but slowly climbing again.

    Technorati rank has been tough. The indexing went down for our two biggest days in August, so we missed what should have been a huge boost, and we malingered just shy of the top 2000 mark for nearly a week. Since then its started to move again, but as I suspected, the closer we got to the top 1000, the slower the rank improves as you need more and more links to climb the ladder. 1692nd as I write this, with just short of 2 months to get to the top 1000 based on knowing that the stats Technorati use are 6mths worth of links…basically, as we add incoming links, we can only go up until 6 months, when it will level out somewhat.

    On the advertising front, we’ve signed a 6 month agreement with an ad supplier with the ad units to start in the next day or two. More details once the ads are up. Unfortunately it’s US inventory only, but if they deliver the rates they’re talking about, The Inquisitr should break even, and maybe even turn a small profit for the first time, not allowing for me to get paid out of that 🙂

    Overall: at the 3 month mark I was starting to stress a bit, not because the site wasn’t performing well, but because it wasn’t performing well enough to cover costs. Ask me in a month and I’ll tell you if those fears were unfounded, but JR + Meieli have rallied around the site, and collectively we’re getting more things right now than before. It’s getting close…..

    Update: I should have added, if only Awstats figures were actual page views, because we broke 1 million page views according to Awstats in August…I know, I wish 🙂

  • For love or money

    I’ve already been accused of drinking the kool aid this week at Gnomedex, and there might just be an ounce of truth in that, but I really don’t care. In the last year and a half I’ve attended what many would consider to be among the biggest tech events on the planet (having done both a Steve Jobs keynote and a Steve Ballmer monkey dance among others) but in terms of substance, Gnomedex is the best so far.

    It’s not as shiny as other events, nor does it have A-list speakers, but it’s the substance that counts. Where in the world could I get 30 minutes with the guy running Icanhascheezeburger, and finish the day with the Dancing Guy giving a dance with most of the crowd on stage. Speakers aside, it’s the mix of people that count. I shouldn’t say this, but unlike your typical Valley event where everyone wants to be your friend because they have something to sell, here people don’t have a hidden agenda (on the most part) so you see the real, non-shallow side.

    I’ve met up with some really great people. I started the week with Christian Anderson from Jobster. Relatively unknown, but proof positive that PR isn’t evil. I caught up with the Grooveshark team, including the extremely talented SB Spalding. I finally met Drew Olanoff, who is perhaps one of the most energetic, genuine and awesome guys I’ve ever had the privilege to spend time with. I’ve shared a drink or two with Brian Eisenberg, a guy I only knew from Twitter but has turned out to be great company. Brian Solis, the champion of PR 2.0 has a great taste in champagne, and deserves his status as one of the leading PR guys in the Valley. Eric Rice, who sometimes scares me, but is intensely intelligent, and always adds something unique to the mix. I even caught up with Jeremy Wright, my former business partner, who was last seen having a serious drink at tonights (Fridays) party, and adding to the record of strangest things that can happen, we may even renew a business relationship in the future. Of course I can’t forget the world famous Liz Strauss. I remember she came into b5media years ago (I presume she’s no longer there, but I have no idea, we were just hosting her blog) and I can remember saying that I just didn’t get anything she did, but I knew she was the best at it. Years and wisdom have improved my understand of her appeal, and she’s as good in person as she presents herself online.

    I’ve missed a pile of people on that list, so my apologies upfront, because there are way too many people to mention. A shout out to Chris Pirillo is due and just, because not only has he delivered the event, he somehow manages to be a nice guy despite the glare and attention he is constantly under. It could of course be a very good act, but even his employees sing his praises, and I’ve not once noted any insincerity yet, and I’d consider myself a reasonable judge on such matters.

    What I really love about this event is that most people I’ve met do what they do because they love it. Sure, some make a lot of money along the way, but there’s a genuine passion here that isn’t focused on a Google buyout or their next $10 million round. For me today, it supports the notion that doing what I do for the love of doing it, not just the money, or even for money alone, is not a lost cause. Indeed, it will help drive me to continue doing what I’m doing. An echo chamber of sorts perhaps, but sometimes you have to fly half way across the world to drink that koolaid to keep yourself going. I can only hope that in 12 months I’m in the financial situation to afford another trip back.

  • Google Street View blurs my letterbox

    Google Australia has launched Google Street View locally (via Simon Goudie). Privacy issues perhaps, but letter boxes have all been blurred out. Here’s our house in Google Street View:

    burke

    Here’s a close up of the letter box

    burke

    Interestingly, they’ve really gone all out in the coverage of Street View. My old house complete with sales sign (so it would have to have been in December/ January), notably in Australind, Western Australia. You can’t really get more regional than Australind

    6 ruby fairway australind - Google Maps

    note though that although they have the house, the satelitte images are still woefully old for that part of the world

    6 ruby fairway australind - Google Maps

  • Techmeme fails the tech community again

    I don’t know why I still care. I guess that some small part of me still believes that perhaps Gabe is interested in impartial news and tracking the big stories as opposed to just TechCrunch. However tonight (my time) proves once again how Techmeme is failing the tech community.

    As I write this, at 9pm AEST, or 4am PDT Saturday, the biggest story by far in the tech and blogging community is Site Meter enabled sites blocking Internet Explorer users. I don’t use Site Meter, but many do, including the Gawker Media blogs. The Inquisitr had it first and others followed. Here’s the state of play as I write this. Note that both Wired and Mashable have the story, and Mashable links to The Inquisitr.

    sitemeter - Google News

    Google Blog search has even more blogs

    sitemeter - Google Blog Search

    And yet Techmeme has nothing. If it isn’t on TechCrunch, it isn’t news. And you can include Mashable and Wired in the not counting list

    Techmeme

    a close up of the most recent stories

    Techmeme

    I know, false hope.

  • Seesmic and video

    I couple of months back I started duncanriley.tv, my experiment in video. I got some great advice from folks like Chris Pirillo, then ignored most of it and started doing stuff. It was great fun, and some of the videos received thousands of views on Youtube. Most didn’t, but using Tubemogul most hit low to mid 3 figures across a range of services.

    And then I sort of stopped.

    It’s not due to any dislike in creating videos. I love doing them. The issue was time. Not the time to do the video, the time to do the video, convert it, upload it to Tubemogul, wait for that to work (at it’s been getting slower and slower lately, free service so I shouldn’t complain, but still…) then post one of them to the site. It became a chore.

    But I haven’t really stopped doing video. I just switched to an easier tool. Despite some of my earlier skepticism, that tool is Seesmic. Although to be fair, I’m also doing the occasional video to Phreadz as well (and I’ll do a lot more once they open it up for anyone to register, Kosso is great value, and it’s a quality site).

    Why Seesmic? It’s easy. It’s easy to jump onto Seesmic and record a video straight to the site. Loic has taken the recording, encoding, uploading etc out of making video. With the new embeds that allow people to respond, Seesmic has become a one stop shop for interactive video.

    Once upon a time I would hate to say this, but I like it as well.

    I did some videos recently with my son. He loves doing Seesmic videos. We started at one. Two days later Loic emails me to tell me that the video was the second most watched video on Seesmic that day. WTF, ROFL, and LOL were some of my initial reactions. Then I went back and did some more. And like a junkie I keep going back. The key thing: easy, quick, not time consuming.

    There is something missing.

    I still need a tool that will give me Seesmic recording functionality with the distribution of Tubemogul. In this day and age you have to be on YouTube, and it helps if you’re on 8 other sites as well. It doesn’t help that YouTube’s quick capture facility completely and utterly sucks arse. I tried to record a video there tonight, it was an unwatchable, pixelated mess. This is an opportunity waiting to happen for a new startup, or existing service: do your video capture locally, but distribute it. Blip.tv is an obvious candidate, great service, but no local recording. But even Seesmic, or Phreadz. Cut you video, have it pumped out to other services.

    So for the few people who subscribed to duncanriley.tv, apologies. I should start putting my Seesmic videos up. It was fun while it lasted. I’ll do something with the site eventually. In the mean time, follow me on Seesmic, or you can watch the latest vids in the sidebar here at duncanriley.com

  • Identi.ca proves me wrong, and I’m happy about it

    The big buzz today is around Indenti.ca, a new open source, and open platform microblogging service. That the code is open source is great in itself, but the biggest breakthrough is support for the new OpenMicroBlogging standard, which means that in theory, anyone could host the script and each service would talk to each other, creating a distributed, decentralized Twitter.

    Dave Winer has been talking about something like this for months, and a while back I wrote on another site that while it was a great idea, it wouldn’t happen, because no one would build an open platform like this because the economics of doing so didn’t add up. After all, if you’re a startup, with funding, why would you build something that others could take and use, possibly (and likely) to bypass the startup in the medium to long term. Centralized services are popular for a reason: it keeps people coming back to the destination site.

    I was wrong. Someone has done it. The folks behind Identi.ca have done it, and I couldn’t be happier.

    There’s already a lot of discussion around Identi.ca v Twitter in relation to features and usability, and I get a lot of the negative sentiment. Identi.ca as a stand alone service is basic at best, and perhaps I’d even go as far as calling it fairly lame, as the current version isn’t exactly exciting for the end user. But that’s irrelevant in the bigger picture. Even if Identi.ca and Laconi.ca code that runs it turns out to be complete failures, it has achieved one thing: it proves that open source, decentralized microblogging is possible, and that it can be done.

    It’s way to early to make a call on the code and the OpenMicroBlogging standard at this time, and even then I’m no expert in code so I’m not remotely qualified to make a call on where it is at, although I will be playing with it shortly. But I can call it a start. As I described it in a FriendFeed thread, it’s a freedom seed, the start of something much bigger at a time the market is desperately seeking alternatives as the Twitter train wreck keeps on chugging. The only question now is how quickly will new sites pop up that run this code, providing improved consumer choice and driving the open source project forward so that it may one day fully compete with Twitter, and then eventually pass it.

    More on The Inquisitr here.