DDL:08 was a good experience for us - it was the first time we ever had a booth (though we have sponsored other events), and it was a good experience (more on that later).

Right now though I want to point out to a bonafide ass.

Part of our sponsorship was us sponsoring a Cyber Cafe. At the conference they have two sets of three computers connected to the internet. Two companies sponsor the cyber cafe, setting the homepage on the computer to a site specified by the sponsor. As such, three of the computers were set to www.ibegin.com and the other three were set to www.homes.com.

We noticed this earlier on, and it happened non-stop - some ass kept going over to the six computers and kept setting www.bizclip.com/portfolio/ as his homepage. And by non-stop I mean he would come by every 30 minutes to do this.

I never actually saw the bugger doing this as I was too busy to wait to catch him, but quite a few people let me know what was going on, including one of our employees.

I can only imagine the kind of service and product you would receive from someone who would stoop to such a level. Consider yourself warned.

Update: I should note that quite a few people did this. This one particular individual did it multiple times. At the same time - other than human decency I cannot imagine a way to ’solve’ this kind of behavior. Timers, perma-frames, etc - they all have drawbacks. So really nothing Kelsey nor we can do about it.

I constantly run into an obviously stupid design element - the lanyard.

Too often you see someone and you have no clue what their name is or who they work for because their damn name tag has flipped around. The two solutions are: 1) Ensure the name tag doesn’t flip around [impossible] or 2) Have the name on both sides of the damn lanyard [the stupidly obvious solution].

It absolutely stuns me how an obvious $5 solution (double sided plastic, or just tape the damn name on the other side) eludes the otherwise-brilliant people who run some of these conferences.

Come on organizers …

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.

So I had two packages to be delivered today, and one tomorrow - all three by UPS.

The one by ground got here just fine. It was ETAed to arrive on Monday, but got Thursday.

The one that was sent by one day shipping - the idiot driver claimed my address didn’t exist. Of course when I called them up it turned out that the full address was there. In the last 10 times UPS has had to deliver something to me, twice they have claimed the address doesn’t exist, and one time they delivered the package to an apartment 2 blocks off.

I really don’t get what in the hell UPS is doing (and who they are hiring).

But today I got a first - a recycled tracking code!

So when I called to yell about my screwed up delivery, I had to yell about this too. It took like 40 minutes to resolve it … which consists of me having to drive to a place 40 minutes away to pick up both packages.

Sigh!

Update the Next Day: Evidently once they get into a groove of screwing you, they continue.

I was told I would get a call at around 10 am to confirm that the package (with the recycled tracking number) would be held for me. 10 am came and went whoosh. So I called, and the rep claimed they called me. Except of course I have caller ID - and there was no call. When I caught him with that, he claimed it said they called, but that no one of that name lived there, so they must have dialed it wrong. When I asked him why didn’t they bother to RE-DIAL then … he was left speechless.

And checking online it says ‘Out for Delivery’ … timed at 6:47 am.

If you ever hear about me sending something via UPS - be sure to kick me in the balls. Both result in the same level of physical and psychological pain.

1. Things will tighten. While the USD seems to have stopped its freefall (3 months ago it was 1 USD = 0.98 CAD, now its upto 1.02), year over year it got brutally hurt. With high oil prices finally start to affect consumer behaviour, and the housing market meltdown creating a huge gap in people’s spending power, the US will see a legitimate correction/ouch/get your breath moment. I think this will cause some of the more no-revenue sites (even with sizable traffic) to feel some pain. This will finally cause …
2. The Great Offline to Online Local Migration. Local businesses are alrady starting to get unhappy with yellowpage publishers. There is enough evidence in front of everyone that less and less people are bothering with the yellow pages book anymore. Combined with the general tightening of things, enough small businesses will finally try to understand the internet and move their spending online. Which means …
3. The rise of the online local ad networks. Part of local’s difficulty (and accompanying beauty) is the granularity. Companies like ReachLocal, which are helping companies move money from offline to online are focusing on the major search engines. But there is a ton of local content online - from event sites to blogs to everything in between. I believe we will finally see the rise of online local ad networks that distribute ads across a swath of websites. A very sizable amount of traffic that is ignored by most are …
4. Domains (which will finally start to cool down). As things tighten, branding becomes more important. Which means generics like Food.com (great for traffic and SEO but harder to brand) won’t go skyrocketing like they were before. Or they may stay around the same … just like …
5. Google, Yahoo, MSN - nothing will change. Maybe AOL. But the Big Three will remain the Big Three (really people need to give Yahoo some credit for stealing Flickr when it did).

So I’m back - spent 2 weeks in Colombia (the country). I went there for a wedding - my friend’s mother owns a beach-house there, and 15 of us crammed into that place. Not that I’m complaining - all the hotels there were $300+ per night, and the house was literally 10 seconds away from the beach.

The internet there was a bit of a chore - mostly because of damn forced localization. I can’t underline how difficult it was to go through a site like Hotmail or travel sites. At least Google had the sense to (after forwarding me to Google.com.co) to say (in plain english) ‘Go to Google.com’. The rest? Nothing. Even Sofitel.com forced me to the spanish version, refusing to let me access the english site.

Being smart and using IP targeting to redirect is a good idea. But you need to allow your visitors to access the other versions/areas if they so desire.

And another reason Google ‘wins’

I’ve never understood why Microsoft decided to brand its next-generation online tools under Live.com, and not Start.com

I mean - ‘Start’ is already what so many users do when using Windows - it is the gateway to all the applications on their computer. It also has a very nice sense of it - Start.com = where you start on the web. Live.com = where you live on the web? The thing is that the beauty of Google always was that once they helped you find the information you wanted, they pushed you right off. Ala what Start signifies - not Live.

Just something that has always boggled my mind. With the recent news that iGoogle is Google’s rising star it ties even more into the idea of using ‘Start.com’ as the brand - your personalized page where you start when you load the computer (and even possibly making it IE8’s home page).

I just find Start.com far superior intuitive-wise - your thoughts?

I like my Wii. I got it on the day it came out - I lucked out and arrived at Kmart roughly an hour early. Two kids (+mom) had camped the night, and with three Wiis for sale - I got quite lucky.

So I’ve been following with certain interest as the hypemeter on the Wii goes through the roof. Reading the Techcrunch post on internet searches for the ‘Wii’ I couldn’t help and marvel at the spam accumulating in the comments trying to hawk Wiis.

While they were the typical bundle, one caught me eye - $400 for Wii + 15 games + 2 controllers. That sounded quite sweet.

Until you actually see what they are offering:

The SOBs are considering Wii Sports (already bundled) as 5 games and Wii Play as 9 different games (and it comes with the controller already).

Sometimes I wonder about karma and if people like this get their just desserts.

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the amount of influence corporations have in dictating government policy. I think people like us (on the technological forefront) are more aware than most due to issues that affect technology.

Regardless of ideology, I’ve always seen the internet as the great equalizer. A floating body of knowledge, where things not pushed by the mainstream media can be inspected, dissected, and discussed.

So yesterday’s Ron Paul moneybomb was amazingly fascinating.

The previous one-day record had been $5.7 million - set by John Kerry at the election cycle. And here they brought in over $6 million using nothing but the internet. Even more amazing (to put it in context) is that the amount Ron Paul (who started off pretty much purely as an internet sensation) has raised this quarter is more than any of his Republican peers. And these are the guys who are professionals at raising money.

Again - this is not about ideology. This is about someone raising a crapload of money, and beating out all of his peers (who are part of a group well known for their money-raising abilities). Rather astounding.

I am so sick of people either deluding themselves, or trying to pull in big words in hoping to get you to look at their [for sale] listing.

Classic example: ‘MV-M.COM a premium name for sale’

In what reality is ‘mv-m’ a premium domain? Hell the domain was registered just over 10 days ago - are you telling me premium domains are for sale like that?

I’ve been a long believer that the easiest way to differentiate between serious and dumbass is price. SitePoint has sort of gone that way - adding a ‘Premium Sites for Sale’ category. The problem is that it still only costs $40 to list there. You still end up with stupid sales like Torrentaholic.com. If the site BIN is $500, that isn’t premium. Quite the opposite - certifiable crap.

Same rule applies to any other marketplace - from DNF to NamePros to WebHostingTalk.

I wish one of the forum operators would be willing to take the flak and create a premium listing that requires $500 listing fee. These are established sites. They push a lot of traffic. They have generated millions in transactions. Why not?

Oh an addendum too - provide an Escrow service.

So - SitePoint, DNF, NP, WHT, etc - please provide us with a real premium listing service, and also a built-in escrow service. You have the traffic and brand - it seems to be an obvious extension.

[I’m good friends with the new DNF operator - I will try to get his response here.]