I read the latest post on TechCrunch re - Fitna, and could only shake my head.

I am the product of many countries. My grandparents/parents were all from Kashmir, the piece of land that India and Pakistan have gone to war over. Before I settled in Canada, I had the pleasure of living in half a dozen cities in four (very) different countries. In Japan I learned what respect meant. In Pakistan I learned what family meant (imagine having 30+ people all jammed in a house). In Saudi Arabia I learned what security meant (not being afraid). In the US I learned what spirit meant. And in Canada I learned what acceptance meant.

Each country gave a lot to me. It helped me appreciate things in subtle ways that I could not have understood when growing up. In each country I would hear things about the other country that I knew simply was not true. I would end up defending one country in another simply because I had been there while others would speak on hearsay.

In all countries I saw despair and I saw prosperity, often times next to each other. I read stories of awful cruelty and greed, and I read stories of amazing giving and strength. Good and evil are not exclusive to any one country - it simply happens wherever people are.

My own foray into blogging was a mismatch of random coincidences. I have found that many people who have organically built up their web presence often had a single topical hit that they worked on before they could expand further. Mine was top sites, and I entered the blogging space with Blog Top Sites. The first of its kind, it was a giant hit, gaining links and traffic up the wazoo. Seeing that success, I bought EatonWeb, and re-created it as Blog Flux. With more success in the blogging space, I ended up creating Bloggy Network with Jacob (who runs it day to day). I’ll be honest - I had been suspicious of how long blogging would last.

And then I truly appreciated what blogging could do. Back when I was still active over at Digg (I was a top 200 … or top 300 user for a while), I saw a story that screamed at me: Muslims offended by 5th Avenue Apple Store, “Because the building resembles the Ka’ba in Mecca, is called “Apple Mecca,” is open 24 hours a day like the Ka’ba, and “contains bars selling alcoholic beverages.” The title was as incendiary as possible - how dare the Muslims hate what the geeks loved!

The vitriol in the comments had already started, and when I actually read the article, I couldn’t believe it. If one was to actually read the article, it cited another website which said “some Islamic website doesn’t like the cube.” The problem of course was that there was no source. Some random website was claiming that another random website found the Apple store to be offensive. This somehow escalated into “Muslims offended by 5th Avenue Apple Store.”

To deviate for a second, part of Islam’s strength and weakness (to me), is that there is no central authority. Catholics have the Pope (for example). Muslims have no one. I could step up right now and say “Hey! I’m a Muslim leader and expert” and no one could really argue with me. So part of the problem of lumping a billion people as ‘Muslims’ is that there is no one recognized (other than self-appointed people) as the voice of Muslims.

Of course when the information did finally come to light, the ’source’ of this outrage was a message posted on some forum. I hope you can take the time to appreciate the lunacy that had occurred here. A random forum post saying “Hey that cube is insulting!” was somehow parlayed into “Muslims offended.” Even more twisted was that the forum post was over three months old!

And here we have uncovered ‘The Truth.’ Except it didn’t matter what the truth was. The story had spread. It was in print media. It was all over popular Apple blogs and Digg and so forth. Without bothering to actually check a single fact, this ’story’ (which we now know was a complete non-starter) must have appeared in front of a couple hundred thousand people.

So I decided to do what I do best - poke fun at the entire stupid premise. We wrote a tongue-in-cheek article called Muslim Community Responds: We love the Apple NYC Cube. We decided to quote one random un-sourced ‘muslim’ who said he loved the Apple store, and decided to extrapolate it to the entire Muslim community. So while 24 hours ago ‘The Muslims’ hated the cube, now ‘The Muslims’ loved it. What an interesting turn of events!

And thus I appreciated what blogs could do. While previously we could write an angry letter to The Editor (and hope it would get published), anyone had the chance to speak out and say what they felt. New Media had dawned!

Everywhere you go, you read about how ‘old media’ doesn’t get it. How ‘new media’ gets it. How ‘new media’ will crush ‘old media.’ TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm, Mashable, etc - they will lead us to the promise land.

People complain that CNN and Fox News only focus on entertainment and not real news. I fail to see why this is shocking. These compares are in the business of making money. At the end of the day, they have to go to their bosses and answer the question of “did you make us more money than last year?” It is unfortunate people fall for stupidity like Paris Hilton leaving jail or Eliot Spitzer’s 20 minute ride in his black SUV. But that is reality. Those stories get people tuned in. The more that tune in, the more money they make.

And alas ‘new media’ has become the same. Linkbait (that word seems to have fallen out of disfavor) is a great way to get traffic. The more traffic you get, the more money you make! While decrying the old, nothing has changed. TUAW and ZDNet were more than happy to run that faux-story on the Apple NYC cube - it got them traffic! It got them links (yay for SEO). It made them money! And the the latest story on TechCrunch is just another example.

I have to take on more side step and say that I’ve been a fan of Duncan for a long time. I read Blog Herald, and read his blog after b5 split up. Two months before TechCrunch picked him up, I specifically told Jacob that we should talk to Duncan about having him join the team. He writes well, he writes interesting posts, and he writes his mind.

But the latest story on TechCrunch is a ploy from the old days - take a relatively non-story, sensationalize it (ala Muslims hating the Apple Cube), and watch the dough roll in! Hell nothing is easier to sensationalize than ‘The Muslims’ stomping on freedom of speech.

So lets analyze this latest story. Fitna, for those that don’t know, is an anti-Islam video created by a Dutch politician. It was heavily hyped, and before it was released, their web host (NSI) pulled it. The Muslims accusations started flying. The video was released very recently (one or two days ago), and the leaked version was on LiveLeak.com. Hit by a huge amount of traffic, they strained to stay up. Then they were hit with threats and some unspecified British media reporting, they took it down. In their video explaining this, they said it was an ugly thing to do, and that they didn’t want to do it, and that they thanked supporters from all religions.

After that, someone uploaded it to Google.

LiveLeak itself doesn’t blame ‘The Muslims’, nor have they claimed that there was any boycott or backlash. LiveLeak was responsible enough to know that acts by anonymous people (which I admit were likely to be Muslims - though there are definitely people who gain when others dislike Muslims, but to suggest that would be ‘a conspiracy’) and the British media meant they could no longer host it. They were responsible enough to not blame ‘The Muslims.’ But Duncan took it upon himself to say “uhoh, Google is hosting it, ‘The Muslims’ are going to go nuts” His proof? The LiveLeak video.

Just like the Apple NYC Cube story, the content does not match the headlines. There were threats. There was some media stupidity. LiveLeak couldn’t keep up, and had to take it down. Someone uploaded it to Google. And according to Duncan, that means Google is about to face a backlash from ‘The Muslims.’

To bring more credibility to my claim that this is all about traffic and money - while ‘Live Leak’ is mentioned three times, they can’t be bothered to actually link to the site. The site they are covering that was supposedly the victim of ‘Muslim backlash’ wasn’t even linked to!

People have been recently complaining that TechMeme has become an echo-chamber of uncritical thinking, and I can only ask where they have been for the last couple of years. The Apple story I cited was linked to over a hundred times before we wrote our article, and not a single person took the time to question how that headline matched the content. Same thing with the TechCrunch Fitna story - the comments are full of trolls saying how ‘The Muslims’ are either awful/great. Not a single person has asked how the hell that headline matches the story.

Where is the social responsibility that blogs were supposed to herald? There is such a mad rush to commercialize and make money from blogs that people are scrambling ways to get traffic. Stories are written and duplicated a hundred times over and no one bothers to actually critically think and say “Hey - this doesn’t make sense.” Take the LiveLeak Fitna story - what I want to know is what did the British media do that upset them so greatly? But everywhere you turn you read how ‘The Muslims’ shut down LiveLeak. LiveLeak themselves do not even claim that!

Just like in Animal Farm, things seem to always stay the same. In the chase of ad dollars critical thinking seems to have fallen to the wayside.

Just some anecdotal evidence.

We released a site some three years ago. It sat on our oldest server for the first 18 months, and it didn’t do so well in the search engines. Did around 8000 pageviews a day, with revenue at a partly $25-35 a day. Nothing impressive.

Then when we finally got our new server configuration up a while ago, we moved it. Instantly traffic went up a little bit - the site was faster, the search was faster, etc etc. Google also went crazy, crawling a *lot* heavier, and also sending more traffic.

Yesterday the site did 22,000+ pageviews, and over $170 in revenue (admittedly a little bit high, usually with that many pageviews it does roughly $125 on average).

Just as interesting is that (now) three of the top five (and the top two) are searches for the brand itself. That was not the case when it was on the older server.

Its taken me roughly four months to get here, but three days ago my notebook finally arrived.

I looked for a long time for a notebook with the following:
1. SSD
2. 13.3″ max screen / < 4 lb (basically not too bulky).
3. Docking station
4. A powerful enough gfx card that wouldn't choke on powering dual 20"+ (1600 res) monitors.

Lots of notebooks came close, but unfortunately none sealed the deal. Turns out to make the notebook under 4 pounds requires removing the circuitry that allows you to dock - oh dear. And USB docks are horrible - never get them.

So the specs (click):

So now its all nicely tied in. I can undock my notebook, and all my work is with me. I come home, pop it in, close the screen, and I have a 21″ + 22″ widescreen, with my speakers, printer, mouse, keyboard, keyboard (yes I have two connected, don’t ask why heh) all connected and ready for use. Pop the phone into the cradle and voila contacts notes all synched (I do have bluetooth I just haven’t tried using it yet). I’m not even using a wired connection into the dock - Wireless N powers me here - so bringing it with me into the living room is absolutely cake.

Oh and if you travel, definitely get the ’slim-adapter’ (if they over it). So much less bulky and (with Dell at least) a lot more connection options (airplane, car, etc).

I’m also trying to get used to Office 2007, odd little creature it is.

I am not a fan of technology. I appreciate what it can do (and does!), but I am far from an unbridled fan. Things like social networks and instant messaging, while I can appreciate, also make me angry. People talk about being ’so connected’ and about ‘becoming a source’ but I see it as ‘disconnecting the vital face to face connection.’ Multiple studies have shown that in a conversation, less than 10% of your meaning is conveyed in the actual words spoken. The rest are conveyed in tone and in body language. You can try to replicate tone via emoticons ( *giggles* /sarcasm etc ) but body language is nigh impossible. To make a true connection (one of the top over-abused words in social networking) you must meet face to face. Instant messaging can also be great - but also a curse. Chatting with multiple people, distracted by the ‘next’ conversation - if you want filler talk, sure it works. If you want to direct employees - sure it works. If you want a real conversation - an absolute failure.

Recently, I was talking to a friend, and he gave me a book. He told me to read it - that it was a “fun little book” that waxed between imaginative and philosophical at the same time. I read it pretty quickly (two days, it was indeed a light book), and I felt inspired.

I love books. I am sure print is going down, and newspapers and book publishers are ’struggling’ as their margins decrease. But money is still there. Profit is still there. Nothing beats a nice solid book - the smell of the pages, the texture of the cover, the excitement of turning over a page.

So I read that book, I felt inspired, and then I sat down and thought. I wanted my wife to read this book (she is currently in Argentina for six more weeks). But I didn’t want her to bring back the book. Instead I wanted the book to continue on its own journey. Just like I have my journey, and my wife has hers, so should the book! So I scribbled a little note in the book. The gist was simple:

By chance, this book fell into my lap. I read it, I learned from it, and I loved it. But a book just sitting idly on a bookstand is a sad book indeed. So - I will mark that I’ve read this book, and I will pass it on. And I ask that you, whoever is reading it, do the same. Mark your name, read it, and pass it on. Do not include personal information - reading the book and having passed it on will be our link.

And so tomorrow the book will be on her way. There she will give it to one of her new friends, who will then travel around the world with it. And they will continue this cycle. And the book will continue its journey, connecting people in ways they could not imagine.

I try to read two books a month - one fiction, one non-fiction. But I will only pass on books that deserve to be read again and again. And I hope others can follow this. I have no grand illusions of everyone doing this - in fact, if everyone did do it, it would ruin the magic.

My ultimate goal of course would be one day, 10 years from hence, when meeting someone new, we would share that we once had a book and due to the force of a little inscription, had passed it on. That would be a grand ‘connection’ indeed.

#1 - it is now called iBegin Labs. Unfortunately too many people mis-understood the play on ‘beta’ and going for ‘gamma.’ Lesson learned - don’t be too clever for your own good, go with the simple.

We have the updates here, but the most interesting is the launch of iBegin Places.

I think it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Ideally geo-aware people will add their neighborhoods, and use polygons mapped out by others. The actual creation process is quite simple. But will people do it? I have no clue. But it should be interesting to see in what directions it goes. And to show the system in action, you can see the Zillow neighborhood data mapped out (get the original neighborhood data here).

That you cannot do a JS popup ‘add to bookmark’ for FireFox that you can for IE.

When we launched iBegin Share, this was one of the most requested features - “Do a ‘add to bookmark’ that works in IE, FF, Opera, Safari” Except the problem is that it can only work in IE. FF has something - it pops up and says ‘Add to Bookmark’ - except it really opens it in the sidebar!

So when I saw this page had ‘Favorites’ using the AddThis tool, I had to try it out. And just as I thought - actually click in the bookmark resulted it being opened in a sidebar.

I wonder if the guys running Topix realized this?

I needed to locate a person. I didn’t know exactly who. But I knew what company, and in what area.

I was asking my friend Frank (of Domain Name News) if he knew anybody in that organization, and he pointed out something very obvious - did I search LinkedIn.

It was such a moment of ‘duh’ that the simplicity of obviousness of it missed me. So I search for the company name, and lo and behold, the #2 result is the exact person I’m looking for. The estimated size of the company: 5,001 - 10,000. Even more brilliant? We are three levels separate (a contact of mine knows a contact who knows this person).

So now instead of having a clue about who I need to talk to, I have a specific name. And a location. Now I can call the correct office and get the person I want. Fantastic!

I’ve always been very “ugh” about the entire social network thing, as friendships (to me) are something on a very personal level. To that end I keep two separate Facebook accounts. But this utilization of LinkedIn and the value of my inherent contacts has really opened my eyes.

Anyway, this ranks as one of those “so obvious you might miss it” points. I asked about a dozen people (almost all on LinkedIn), and Frank as the only one to nail it.

A while ago the Flicker.com for sale story made the rounds. It was a simple site - stating what had been offered, and their status (all rejected). If you read the comments, I mention Sahar owns the domain - and he commented denying any ownership.

It now redirects to a site called Assista. A kind of meld between a search engine and Yahoo Answers. A site owned by Sahar. I wonder how Yahoo feels about this?

Mike Boland got to chat with Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman and posted his thoughts.

Some very interesting information, and excellent points about the qualitative factors of a review (which seems to be missing in most UGC conversations).

But I did laugh at this:

Stoppleman is excited about the directions the mobile world is moving …

Is there anyone in local not excited about where the mobile space is going?

So a while ago, I bought a Vudu. It is like an Apple TV - connect it to the internet, hook it up to your TV, and buy/rent movies through the system.

Yesterday, while attempting to watch I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, the thing died. Or it didn’t die per se - it would play the movie for about 30 seconds, before dying and rebooting. A tad bit annoying.

So I posted on the forum, and helpful people swooped in. I called the customer support number, and even though it was 9:30 am PST, the automated system said that customer service opened up at 9:00 am.

Uhoh … this could be bad.

I called back half an hour later, and had customer support on the phone in about 30 seconds. The conversation went like so:

Ahmed: My Vudu isn’t working, *story goes here*
Operator: Sir can I have your name
Ahmed: Ahmed Farooq
Operator: Okay, found it. There must be a glitch with your hardware. You will be sent a new Vudu, and a fedex shipping slip to send back your current Vudu
Ahmed: That was easy
Operator: Have a good day.

The entire conversation lasted maybe 90 seconds. From dial to hang up was < 3 minutes. Color me happy!

In terms of the actual product, some quick thoughts:

• It is damn easy to use. The remote is absolutely wonderful.
• It really needs to remember preferences. Eg I only use it to rent movies. Why it can’t do that boggles my mind
• I can’t see my viewing history through the Vudu. Boo!
• I hate the 24 hour rental period. 48 hours would be more than enough. Too many times something comes up while I’m watching a movie and I have to pause.
• I know this is a licensing issue/headache, but the delay in getting some movies to rental (and the price for some older movies) is annoying. Really annoying.
• I like the HD offerings. I watched 3:10 to Yuma HD and it was absolutely crisp on my 42″
• Some of the categorization is mind boggling. Eg I believe The Hills have Eyes (or similar) was categorized as ‘romantic’. Speaking of categorization, need more (eg animated!)

Overall I’m very happy. Extremely convenient, fast, and easy to use. Right now it’s like a 90% - if they could get release dates fixed and the prices for older movies more balanced, it would be high up in the upper 90s.