I was taking a really close look today at Google’s StreetView, and the fact that they APIed it is (especially technologically) quite marvelous. First maps, then UK geocoding, then driving directions, then static images, and now Street View?

But Yahoo may have beat them out (at least for now). The Yahoo Internet Location Platform is pretty damn amazing. Over 6 million locations, with proper parent/child nodes. Informal space just got a giant shot in the arm.

50,000 limit is pretty decent - I need to find out Yahoo’s stance on caching on your end.

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).

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.

So we’ve finally launched what I had touched on before - iBegin Gamma. Consider it our version of Google Labs. Let us know what you think.

What would be nice is a conference organizer/searcher. Yes there are sites like AllConferences.com but the data isn’t “rich”. I want to be able to say - hrmm … I want to do business with Company X - what conferences are they attending? Or even better, Person Y - what conferences are speaking at?

Anything like that out there?

A common attack method of gaining access to a login is to brute force attack. That means on a login page, you enter a username, and then put in a random password. If it fails, you repeat. And repeat. Ad nauseum. If the user uses a simple password (eg ‘food’ or ‘password’), after enough attempts you will eventually guess the right password.

So to stop such behavior, software like vBulletin gives you five tries to get it right. If you fail, you get locked out.

Facebook extended it intelligently - if you fail enough times (I think I failed six times), it doesn’t just lock you out - it also redirects you to the password reset feature. Fill that out, and voila! You are back into business.

A nice little touch since vBulletin (and similar) lock you out for 15 minutes, regardless of you trying to reset your password.

Just a nice UI touch to have.

So I got back today - I made a little bit of a blunder and we left the airport … when the flight was leaving in an hour. So we rushed through, cut the lines everywhere, and had time to grab a coffee before we got onto the plane.

I get home and Jacob from Bloggy Network is excited. Turns out Yahoo did some feature on ‘top us jobs’ (on the front page) and linked to search results for that phrase. What came up at #2? None other than one of our sites - Life Spy.

So the site ended up making an extra $1500 (give or take a bit) that it would have otherwise.

What really stunned me was the ‘quality’ of the traffic. The front page feature/search link sent us an extra ~45,000 pageviews. But the CTR on that page was around 15% - giving us a yummy CPM of roughly $35.00! To compare, the normal CTR/CPM are less than 1/4th for each.

So there you have it. One link made us over $1500 in just 12 hours. Looking forward to Yahoo doing it again (and I can only imagine what #1 would have done).

Is gonna be full of SSD drives in RAID (specifically look for the ‘IOMeter’ test).

Just thinking gets me all excited

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.